Seishun Buta Yarou Series - Volume 12 - Chapter 2.1

Chapter 2 - Secrets and Promises

1

December 24.

As Christmas Eve dawned, Sakuta was woken by Nasuno stepping on his face—just past eight, a little later than usual.

If he’d had classes, he definitely wouldn’t have made it in time, but the last class on his schedule had been two days prior. He was free until the New Year and functionally already on winter vacation.

He could stay burrowed in his warm covers, sleeping in as much as he liked. It would’ve been fine to give in to the temptation. He didn’t have any work plans, either. But he did have good reason to force himself out of his comfy bed.

“Freezing!”

He left his room, shivering.

In the living room, he fed Nasuno first. Dry cat food rattled into the bowl.

Then he put a slice of bread in the toaster and fried some sausages in the same pan as the eggs. A standard breakfast.

He and Nasuno ate together.

He did the dishes and started the laundry.

While he waited, he turned on the TV. He rarely watched it at this hour, so he wasn’t really sure what was even on. He just flipped channels until Kaede stumbled blearily out of her room.

“Morning, Sakuta.”

“Breakfast?”

“Yes, please.”

Yawning, she sat down at the dining room table. He put a plate of precooked eggs and sausage before her.

“Can I get a cocoa?”

He put some in a panda mug, then topped it with the toast when it popped out before bringing both over to Kaede.

After she finished the eggs and sausage, she started tearing pieces off the toast and dunking them in the cocoa. She made it look delicious.

“What time you leaving?” he asked.

He’d heard she and her friend Kotomi Kano were going to see Sweet Bullet’s Christmas concert today. After that, she’d be heading to their parents’ place in Yokohama. They had a cake waiting for her.

“Just after ten. Gonna eat lunch with Komi. You?”

“Just past noon.”

As he spoke, the laundry machine beeped.

“Tell Mom and Dad I’ll pop by for New Year’s,” he said, heading for the laundry room.

“Will do,” Kaede said through a mouthful of toast.

He hung up the laundry, vacuumed, saw Kaede out the door, and then started getting ready himself. Like he’d said, he left around noon.

“Nasuno, mind the fort.”

Nasuno stopped washing her face and meowed back.

Sakuta headed to Fujisawa Station, a ten-minute walk from home. The heart of Kanagawa Prefecture’s Fujisawa City, the JR, Odakyu, and Enoden Lines all ran through here.

He knew this station like the back of his hand, but today, it looked different. There were even more people flowing through.

Lots of them were carrying little gifts around, in addition to their standard backpacks or briefcases. A good number of them were dressed up in outfits they clearly didn’t wear most of the time.

It was a very Christmas Eve crowd, and he watched it from the bridge leading to the station’s north exit.

He stopped at the edge of the square just outside the electronics store. He could see many men and women meeting up here, and he was just one of them.

One after another, their partners arrived, and they vanished through the station gates. Hand in hand, arm in arm, or maintaining an awkward distance—but all enjoying the day in their own way.

The big clock in the square hit 12:29.

One minute till the time they’d agreed to meet.

As he watched that minute hand like a hawk, a voice came from behind him.

“I’m here!”

He turned slowly.

And found a girl a few years younger.

Sara Himeji.

She wore a chocolate-colored coat over a white sweater and a gray-checked miniskirt below that. Her healthy bare legs gleamed in the cold air. On her feet, she had short black boots. The outfit’s colors were largely subdued, but the red scarf provided a Christmassy accent.

A man on his phone nearby did a very obvious double take. No doubt he thought she was cute.

“Opinions?” Sara asked, clearly looking for “Cute” or “Looks good.”

“You look cold,” Sakuta said, eyes on her legs. He felt significantly colder himself. A shiver ran down his spine.

“If you’re gonna be mean, Teach, you choose my clothes.”

Sara made a show of pouting, her eyes challenging him.

“Then I guess I’d better.”

“Huh?”

“It’s gonna get even colder later, so let’s make a pit stop.”

With that, he headed into the station building, searching for a clothing store.

“S-seriously?”

Sara had been joking, so she looked a bit rattled.

“If you’re dress like that, you’ll catch your death.”

He meant that literally.

“That’s not what I meant! You know that! You’re so not fair.”

He let her grumbling go in one ear and out the other as he hurried ahead.

They spent maybe half an hour shopping, and then Sakuta and Sara boarded the Enoden bound for Kamakura.

They found an empty seat and sat down together.

As the train pulled away, Sara stretched out her legs, scowling balefully at them. They were now covered in black skinny denim.

“Put those long legs away before someone trips,” Sakuta said.

Sara wordlessly bent her knees.

“I spent a week picking that outfit out!” she said, sounding like she was making an announcement at a school board meeting.

“Perhaps you should have consulted the weather.”

The train stopped at the next station, then slowly pulled out.

“I thought you were into bare legs and miniskirts, Teach.”

“I am, but not if they give my students colds.”

“I’d have been fine.”

“Provide proof,” he said, like an exam question.

“I am accustomed to wearing a school skirt that is even shorter,” she said, intentionally sounding formal to match.

Her eyes were on a high school girl by the door—bare legs beneath a miniskirt.

“Isn’t that cold?”

“Of course it is.”

“I thought so.”

Juri often had her tracksuit on underneath her skirt, but he’d never seen Sara do that. She was at the age when looking good mattered more than keeping warm.

The train stopped at Shichirigahama Station. The closest stop to Minegahara High—where Sara went and where Sakuta had gone. Several uniformed students disembarked. Judging from the oversize bags, they must have been on the volleyball team. Practice continued even on Christmas Eve.

The doors closed, and the train started moving.

It pulled slowly through the crossing and gradually rolled along to the next stop—Inamuragasaki Station. Here, it waited for a Fujisawa-bound train to pass before it started moving again.

From time to time, they caught glimpses of the sea between the buildings outside the windows.

That made it hard to tear his eyes away. But while he was waiting for the next peek, the train pulled into Gokurakuji Station. The temple of paradise—and the area was fittingly serene. Few people got off here.

“Teach, you remember our promise?”

Sara’s voice broke the silence, her tone a striking departure from earlier.

“Hmm?”

“You promised not to cure my Adolescence Syndrome.”

“I remember.”

“But you’re a liar,” Sara said, grinning.

She held up her pinkie in front of him. Going for the pinkie promise.

“……”

Sakuta wordlessly wrapped his finger around hers as the doors closed. “Pulling out,” the announcement said, and the train lurched into motion. It soon grew dark—they’d entered a tunnel. This, between Gokurakuji and Hase Stations, was the sole tunnel on the Enoden Line.

With the lights gone, sounds echoed off the tunnel walls.

“The pinkie promise is as follows.”

She chanted the words of the vow softly so only they could hear.

“Should I make these words a lie…”

The train moved on through the tunnel, headed for the light ahead.

“…a thousand needles will I swallow.”

Almost at the exit.

“So this vow I can’t deny.”

Light returned to the carriage as Sara spoke the final phrase.

Their pinkies parted. Free of the tunnel, the car was bathed in light so bright he closed his eyes—and his vision stayed white. That seemed strange—but white noise filled his mind as well.

Something was definitely fishy here…and then Sakuta woke up.

The first thing he saw was his own pinkie, raised to make a promise. Then Nasuno, licking that finger. He could see a familiar white ceiling behind Nasuno’s head. The same one he’d seen every morning since moving to Fujisawa.

“That was a dream…?”

He sat up, finding it hard to believe. His bed, the sheets, his desk, the curtains—all of them were telling him he was back in his own room.

The clock on his bedside table told him it was December 3.

“This is real, right?”

In lieu of an answer, Nasuno yawned.