Seishun Buta Yarou Series - Volume 12 - Chapter 3.6

6

The next day was Friday, December 16.

Sakuta had classes through third period. When the bell rang, he left, making a beeline back to Fujisawa Station. He hit the platform just past four thirty, checking the time against the board with the list of arrivals.

He followed the people ahead of him up the stairs and tapped his commuter pass on the gate. He emerged on the overpass outside the north exit and found the sky to the east still technically hanging on to blue. But the sky to the west was turning orange, and evening was rapidly taking hold.

Sakuta sat on a bench in the clearing by the electronics store, watching the encroaching night. Inside ten minutes, the sky had grown noticeably dark, and the lights around the station came on.

For that one moment, the crowds in the square looked up from their phones. With the holiday illumination, the station looked very festive.

The square’s clock showed four forty-five.

The man he was here for showed up before it hit 4:46. A man in black slacks and a charcoal coat. Short hair set with gel to keep it tidy. He looked to be around twenty-five.

He glanced around the square, looking for someone. His eyes met Sakuta’s, but the man didn’t recognize him. They hadn’t worked closely together, so that was understandable. Sakuta himself likely would have brushed right past him on the street without realizing who it was.

Not finding the person he was looking for, the man took a seat on the bench across from Sakuta. He took his phone out of his coat pocket, glanced down at it, and tapped the screen a few times. Likely texting “Here” to the person he was meeting.

But she wasn’t coming.

Sakuta was here instead.

He stood up and walked directly over. They’d been only ten yards apart to begin with. Sakuta stopped in front of him, and the man looked up with a frown.

“Sekimoto-sensei, right?” Sakuta asked.

“Er, uh…you’re…”

The man finally placed him.

“Azusagawa. I work part-time at the cram school.”

“Ah, right.”

He answered like that cleared things up, but there was still a question in his look. He didn’t know why Sakuta would be here, talking to him.

“I’m afraid Himeji’s not coming. I’m here in her stead.”

“Huh…?”

His eyes opened wide as he finally understood what was happening.

Picking up on the tension between them, a few people nearby glanced their way. No one was looking directly at them, but they were keeping an eye out and obviously listening in.

“I’ve got nothing to say to you,” Sekimoto said, standing up. There was a hint of panic in his voice, and he clearly wasn’t keeping his frustration in check, either. He tried to walk away.

“Wait a sec.”

“……”

He stopped, as if on reflex. The impulse to hear Sakuta out seemed like a sign that Sekimoto had been raised well. The world might see him as a bad teacher who’d tried to get with a student, but deep down, he had an earnest soul. That’s how Sara had snared him. Her playful teasing had gotten its hooks into his heart.

Sakuta kept talking to the man’s back.

“Don’t try to contact Himeji again.”

Sekimoto turned slowly around.

“Don’t try to see her again.”

Sekimoto took a few steps back his way.

“Don’t…”

Before he could finish…

“Don’t what?!” Sekimoto yelled, grabbing his shirtfront.

Every eye was on them, but nobody even slowed down.

Sekimoto took two or three heavy breaths, his chest rising and falling.

Sakuta waited for that to settle down a bit before speaking again.

“Don’t reply, even if Himeji contacts you.”

He looked Sekimoto right in the eye, saying what needed to be said.

“……”

The man’s eyes wavered. They were practically swimming. He understood what Sakuta was saying to him.

“I think that’s best for Himeji, so if you care about her…please.”

Still in the man’s grip, Sakuta bowed his head.

Sekimoto’s hand loosened and then drifted away, like it had lost its place.

“Has the school heard…?” he asked, addressing the back of Sakuta’s still bowed head.

He looked up and found Sekimoto clearly at a loss. He was trying to hide that but couldn’t figure out how, and that made him even more lost. There was no way out of this mess. Only Sakuta knew the way to freedom.

“I expect I’ll let the principal know the outcome.”

“Meaning…?”

“Nothing happened. I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”

“……I’d appreciate that.”

This was likely the closest to a thank-you he could manage here.

“Can I ask one thing?”

“Sure.”

“Uh…” Sekimoto opened his mouth, then thought better of it. “No, never mind.”

The unspoken question had probably been about Sara. Had she said anything about him? How was she doing? Were her grades holding up? Maybe all of those. But he shook his head and wound up saying nothing.

“Then can I ask something?”

“……”

Sekimoto didn’t agree to that, but neither did he refuse. He couldn’t do either.

“You can’t wait until she’s graduated high school? If you’re still interested then.”

Sekimoto managed a listless “We’ll see.” That sounded like he was throwing in the towel. He was simply going through the motions to put up a front and sound like he didn’t care. But those motions had meaning. Sometimes humans felt the need to keep up appearances no matter what. If nothing else, that was important to Sekimoto in this moment.

“I’d better go. Look after Himeji.”

“I will.”

“And watch yourself.”

Sekimoto forced a smile and offered parting words that could be taken as joking or spiteful before turning toward the station, soon disappearing into the crowd.

The eyes pricking Sakuta’s back vanished as soon as Sekimoto left. All but one pair…

He turned, looking for the source of that gaze. She wasn’t hard to find.

A slender figure, by the flower beds.

Sara, giving him a worried look.

When his eyes met hers, she flinched, as if she’d been caught red handed.

He slowly made his way over.

“You agreed to wait at the school.”

“…You lost a button.”

Sara’s eyes were on his collar. It must have snapped off in the fray.

“I’ve got a spare.”

It came stitched onto the tag.

“I’ve always wondered what you used those for, but I guess it’s times like this.”

He turned up the hem of his shirt and showed her the buttons, but that didn’t seem to improve her mood. Sara would normally have offered to sew it on for him with an impish grin, and he waited for her usual response, but she said nothing.

“Welp, that’s taken care of, so let’s finish up that chat from yesterday.”

“……Yeah.”

Even that was awfully quiet.

Sakuta and Sara were seated on opposite sides of a table topped with a cream soda, a coffee float, and a dish of pizza toast.

They’d stepped into a retro café a few minutes from the station, down a narrow alley.

The chairs, tables, and menus all had a Showa-era vibe. Sakuta hadn’t been alive back then, but somehow, it felt nostalgic. Somewhere along the way, the connection between Showa and nostalgia had been implanted in his mind.

The ice in the cream soda melted, and the ice cream sank a bit.

“Don’t need a picture?” Sakuta asked, watching it melt. Sara had picked the shop, saying she’d always wanted to go there, but the clientele was mostly grown-ups, so she and her friends had never dared.

Her wish had come true, but she was just sitting there, not even snapping a photo of her drink.

“Can I drink mine?” he asked, reaching for the coffee float.

“Oh, wait! I do want a pic!”

Sara yanked her phone out and took pictures of everything they’d ordered. Still, she looked nowhere near as into it as she’d been with the donuts last time. It was more like a professional obligation. No joy in it.

Half her mind was still on something else.

“……Um, Teach.”

She put the phone away.

“Mm?”

“I still…want you for a teacher.”

Her eyes were trained on him. She’d been thinking about it the whole time.

“Uh-huh,” he said noncommittally.

Sara’s gaze fled to the cream soda. She put the straw to her lips and took a sip.

“Is that a no?” she asked, looking up at him.

Now it was his turn to escape to his drink.

“Do you have your heart set on a particular college?” he asked.

“Not yet.”

She swirled her straw around. The ice cream sank into the green liquid.

“That makes sense. You’re still a first-year.”

Sakuta stuck his straw through the ice cream in the coffee float and mixed it in.

“Teach, why’d you pick your school?”

“I wanted to enjoy campus with my girlfriend.”

This was so blatant that Sara started laughing. The first smile he’d seen today. It wasn’t exactly sunny, yet. There were still clouds over it.

“You really do care about her.”

“It’s true love.”

He met her eyes as he said that, and she jerked away, turning red.

“I’m not talking to you, Himeji.”

“I—I know that! You just caught me off guard! And I’m a cram school student! At least pretend you had upstanding motives for picking a school.”

She was blurting out a lot at once here.

“I try not to lie to students.”

“Fine, let me change the question.”

He wasn’t sure what was fine.

“Teach, why’d you decide to go to college at all?”

“Well…”

“Don’t you dare say to spend more time with your girlfriend.”

Sara read his mind.

Now he had to give a real answer. It might just be a cram school, but she was still a student, and he owed her that much.

“Fine. I wasn’t sure when I was studying for exams, but now? I’m at college to get a teaching license.”

“Huh? Teach, you’re gonna actually be a teacher?”

Sara’s voice squeaked with surprise. Her eyes rarely opened that wide.

“Well, I’m gonna get the certificate at least. Not really sure it’s for me. Oh, keep this a secret—I ain’t told anyone yet.”

“Not even your girlfriend?”

“Nope.”

“Or Futaba-sensei?”

“Not her, either.”

This was true. He had nothing against telling them, but it hadn’t come up. It would be weird to just announce it, so he’d been leaving it to the right moment.

“Then this is a secret just between you and me, Sakuta-sensei.”

Sara seemed delighted. She seemed a bit more like herself again.

“But if you’re gonna actually teach, you definitely have to level up.”

“I think part of being a good teacher is considering your students’ futures and giving them appropriate advice.”

“Do you hate teaching me that much?”

Sara looked up at him, stirring the ice cream around her glass.

“Of course not.”

Sakuta reached for a slice of the pizza toast and took a big bite.

“Then…”

“But I do think you should try out other teachers. For your own sake.”

“……”

“If you find a teacher you like better than me, switch to them. If you don’t, then I’ll just have to get better. Sound like a deal?”

“……You don’t care if I pick some other teacher?”

She was still stirring her cream soda. There was no longer a distinction between the cream and the soda. Sara’s eyes refused to budge from that glass.

“If your scores get better than they are now, then as your former teacher, I’d be tickled pink.”

“Even if you didn’t teach that stuff?”

“That part doesn’t really matter to me.”

“So I don’t really matter to you.”

“What matters to me is how much I can help you out. As your part-time cram school instructor.”

“Is that really how you think?”

“It is,” he said. No hesitation.

“……”

Sara was staring fixedly at him.

Paying that no heed, Sakuta took another bite of pizza toast. He’d meant every word he said, so there was no need to beat around the bush. Or any reason to overexplain himself.

Sara might be studying without any clear purpose now, but eventually, she’d probably find one. And when that happened, he didn’t want her regretting the choice she made now. She was already a bright student, so it couldn’t hurt to focus on improving some more. That would give her more options in the future. Whether he was personally involved in that improvement was irrelevant. He would always choose what made her future a richer one.

“……Sakuta-sensei, I get that you’re taking my life seriously,” Sara said after a long silence. She slurped up the rest of her cream soda. When the glass was empty, she added, “So I’ll take your advice to heart.”

She didn’t look entirely convinced by it. She knew he had a point, but it didn’t match up with how she felt. And her tone and pursed lips proved she wasn’t happy that this conversation hadn’t gone her way.

“I think that’s for the best,” he said, nodding.

Sara avoided his gaze, escaping to the windows.

“But if I can’t find a better teacher, I will come back to you.”

“In that case, you’ll have to help me grow as a teacher.”

“Fine! That works for me!”

Sara smiled, but the clouds had not fully cleared. He figured it would take a while before it all sank in.

And as she stared out the window, he felt her profile looked determined. Like her mind was already on the next step. And he was pretty sure that was not a figment of his imagination.

He paid the check, and they stepped out. “Thanks,” Sara said, bobbing her head.

They walked together toward the station. To her bus stop.

Neither spoke at first.

Eventually, they got stuck at a walk light, and Sara said, “Oh! Sakuta-sensei.”

Her voice was oddly cheery.

“Mm?” he asked, wondering what was up.

“Have you figured out your homework yet?”

“Homework?”

The light turned green, and they hit the crosswalk.

“Don’t act like you don’t know. My Adolescence Syndrome!”

“Oh, that. No clue whatsoever!”

“Sakuta-sensei, you’re not even trying to solve the problem.”

She grinned triumphantly, like she saw right through him.

“……?”

She’d definitely hit the nail on the head, which only deepened his suspicions.

“You’re trying to work backward and cure my syndrome that way.”

“……”

Sara was really driving that point home, and it made his heart skip a beat. The surprise itself passed quickly but left him drowning in an ocean of questions, an icy note of fear taking over. Sara might be a smart girl, but he didn’t see how she’d worked that out.

Before they reached the bus stop, Sakuta paused in the drop-off circle beneath the pedestrian overpass.

“For your own sake, I think you’re better off not curing my Adolescence Syndrome,” she said, stopping a few paces ahead.

“What do you mean?”

Both were bathed in the orange light of the setting sun.

Sara’s smile didn’t reach her eyes as she turned to face him.

“I looked it up. They call this remote viewing.”

She had her phone in her hand.

“Remote viewing?”

That wasn’t a phrase he was familiar with.

“No matter how far away I am, I know what someone is doing and thinking.”

“……”

“So I know a lot of your secrets, Sakuta-sensei.”

“The only secrets I have are that teaching-license thing and maybe my PIN number.”

“And the fact that you’re searching for Touko Kirishima.”

“……”

“Surprised?”

“Honestly, I’m flabbergasted.”

“I also know your PIN number. It’s your girlfriend’s birthday!”

“Do you also know what color underwear I have on?”

“That’s just inappropriate!” she said, her anger looking fairly genuine. “Don’t worry—I’m not peeping on you in the bath.”

Sakuta didn’t really mind if she did, but he figured saying so would be even more inappropriate.

“That idea is totally inappropriate,” Sara said, blushing slightly.

So much for freedom of thought.

“Back to the point—Himeji, do you know where Touko Kirishima is? Or what she’s doing?”

“Not at all.”

That wasn’t the answer he’d been expecting. Her attitude had suggested she did, so what was going on here?

“I can’t view just anyone. Only people I’ve met—and bumped pretty hard.”

She swung the hand holding her phone, demonstrating.

“Ah, quantum entanglement.”

“What’s that?”

Sara blinked at him. This cleared up one thing—she might be able to read his conscious thoughts, but she didn’t have access to his memories.

Reading that thought, she nodded.

“Quantum entanglement is a mysterious phenomenon that occurs at the microscopic level. I didn’t really follow the explanation beyond that.”

The details weren’t actually all that important.

He had other things to think about.

Like how to take advantage of Sara’s Adolescence Syndrome.

Used right, this could give him some insight into Touko Kirishima’s mind.

And he had to admit, that was a real boon.

“Uncured, I can help you out.”

“Himeji, could you see Touko Kirishima?”

Everything would hinge on that.

“I could! The miniskirt Santa Claus.”

The biggest hurdle had already been cleared.

“All you’ve gotta do is put us together.”

“She’s not someone you can just meet whenever you want.”

Sightings were rare and unpredictable.

“But you’ve promised to help her with a live broadcast.”

He had. Apparently, Sara had been watching that.

“If you call that a promise.”

The date was a real problem.

Touko had told him to help her on December 24.

Christmas Eve, the last day he wanted other plans.

“That explains it, right? This is why the two of us were together on Christmas Eve!”

Sara looked pleased with herself, like she’d just solved a difficult problem.

On the other hand, Sakuta just seemed glum.

Was there no way of escaping this twist of fate? He gave it some serious thought but saw no ray of hope. If he could learn something about Touko Kirishima, that was his top priority, even at the cost of a getaway with Mai.

Ever since Ikumi Akagi had relayed that message from the other potential world…until he knew what it meant, he had to pursue any lead.

“Himeji, are you free on the twenty-fourth?”

“If you absolutely insist, Sakuta-sensei, I could make it a date.”

“It’ll be cold, so dress warm.”

That was the sole battle he had a shot at winning here.