Seishun Buta Yarou Series - Volume 9 - Chapter 1.2

2

Once Mai’s mom’s car was out of sight, they started walking. Back to the light at Route 134. Naturally, it showed no signs of turning green anytime soon.

It felt like a full two minutes before they finally crossed. And two minutes was all it took to reach Shichirigahama Station, where they boarded a train from Kamakura, bound for Fujisawa.

A four-car train with a retro-styled green-and-cream exterior.

It was a Sunday, so the train was packed with college groups and young couples. There was barely any room to stand.

Mai had graduated from Minegahara High earlier that day, so this was her final ride home from school. She seemed disinclined to savor the moment, but the way she gazed at the ocean through the windows made it clear she didn’t care how packed the train was.

Sakuta and Mai barely spoke on the fifteen-minute ride to the end of the line, Fujisawa Station.

As they stepped off, Mai said, “That was the last time.” A bit wistfully. She’d ridden that train daily for three whole years. And she could always ride it again if she chose to. As long as she lived in Fujisawa, it was easy enough. But she would likely never ride it as frequently as she had been.

That was part of the whole graduation thing.

Some things changed without you knowing it, and others didn’t but felt like they did. It all came down to how you perceived it.

“I’d better feast my eyes on you in uniform while I still can.”

“You’re not that into school uniforms, though.”

“What matters is what’s inside.”

But if this really was the last time, that did feel like a shame.

“You can ask, but I’m never putting it on for you.”

“If I’m asking, it’ll be the bunny-girl outfit.”

As they chatted, they followed the flood of people out of the gates and across the bridge to the JR station.

Kamakura lay to the east of Fujisawa and Chigasaki to the west. That meant Fujisawa Station housed not only the Enoden, but the Tokaido Line and the Odakyu Enoshima Line. A substantial portion of this crowd was here changing lines.

Sakuta and Mai came in the JR Fujisawa Station’s southern doors and went right past the gates and out the north side. They walked through the electronic store to the supermarket.

Sakuta pushed the cart around, following Mai’s lead. She picked up ingredients and dropped them into the cart. The good beef, sausage, fresh veggies, and a range of seafood—tuna, salmon, squid, and octopus.

“Whatcha making, Mai?”

In honor of her graduation, they were eating at his place.

“Still a secret,” she said, with a hint of glee. Their shopping date was a delight.

Once they’d paid, he carried the bulk of the bags, and they made their way home.

The farther from the station they got, the less foot traffic there was. The big-box stores gave way to mom-and-pop shops, and then those gave way to residential buildings.

“Oh, right. Mai,” Sakuta began.

“Yes?”

He’d been trying to work up the courage to ask.

“When’d you make up with your mom?”

From what he knew, this was not a rift that could be easily healed. Mai did not even like talking about her mother.

So he’d been surprised the lady showed up for her graduation. Surprised Mai had allowed her to attend.

“I didn’t.”

Mai kept her eyes forward and her tone uninterested.

“Mm?”

He was lost.

“I didn’t make up with her.”

Even more lost.

“But she came to your graduation?”

“I didn’t ask her to.”

She was getting slightly annoyed. It was like this every time. Mai’s hackles went up at the very mention of her mom.

“Then why?” he asked, turning to look at her.

Mai noticed and briefly glanced his way, then dodged his gaze. When he kept staring, she sighed and begrudgingly explained, “I went to Kyoto for that shoot last month.”

“Yeah.”

Mid-February. It was what forced them to spend their first Valentine’s Day apart. He remembered not getting chocolate very well.

“There was a child actress there, from her agency.”

Still not calling her Mom.

“So your mom came to Kyoto with the kid?” he surmised.

Mai nodded wordlessly.

“Said the girl was a fan of mine. Brought her to my dressing room.”

Her lips pursed, irritated. She was reliving the emotions of that moment.

“I couldn’t fight with her in front of a kid…then she got the graduation date out of me.”

“And that’s why she showed up?”

“Yeah. Although, honestly, I assumed she’d be too busy to make it. That sure backfired,” Mai added, half smiling.

He’d never seen that look on her face when talking about her mother before. Despite her protests, she was clearly a bit more at ease—enough to laugh at her own failings.

Which made Sakuta want to pry further.

“Do you still have it in for her, Mai?”

“Absolutely,” she snapped. Didn’t have to think about it, didn’t hesitate at all. But it didn’t seem like she was being stubborn or sticking to her guns, just saying how she felt in so many words. Still, her anger felt a lot more…subdued.

“That photo album in junior high—I said I wasn’t doing any swimsuits, but she booked the shoot anyway. I’m not letting her off the hook for that, ever.”

To Mai, that was a simple statement of fact. Not easily forgiven. Time did not heal this wound, nor did it make that woman any less Mai’s mom. And because she was Mai’s mom, that pain wouldn’t fade so soon. It was that kind of wound.

“Just…a lot happened in the last year.”

Mai glanced at him then. A hint of warmth in her gaze. Sakuta felt like he knew what she meant. But he wanted her to say it, in her own words. He was no actor, but he did his best to pretend like he didn’t understand.

She saw through the act right away but let him win.

“My bout of Adolescence Syndrome, meeting you…and Shouko. She sure put us through a lot, but the upshot is that I figured out what really matters.”

Her voice got real quiet toward the end, but he heard it all. She meant these words for his ears alone.

“My gripe with her didn’t go away. But I have more things that matter. And surrounded by all that…well, it just feels less real, the emotions less intense. Mm, that sounds right.”

Mai struggled a little looking for the right words, but by the end, she’d clearly found them. It all made sense to him, and what she’d said helped him figure something out himself.

Emotions don’t exist in isolation. One good thing can make you not care so much about whatever you’ve been hung up on. No matter how much something rankles, it only takes one blessing to make forgiveness possible. Like Mai said, other things were important to her now.

Mai might not have realized it, but this was an admission that her vendetta against her mother also mattered. And for a while, it had been all that mattered.

“Also…,” she began, then cut herself short.

“Yes?” he said, looking at her.

She gave him a long look as she thought it over.

“The little girl I met in Kyoto? She was just like me.”

“How so?”

“Her father left home a few years back, leaving her and her mother. And I wound up talking to the kid’s mother a bit on break…”

“And?”

“She said, ‘Without a father, we’re not exactly a standard family. And I act like she’s special so she doesn’t ever feel like she’s worse off because of that.’”

“Huh.”

He wasn’t really sure how to take that.

“She also said I was their role model, the one they admired most, and…that sure shut me up.”

Mai Sakurajima’s grasp on the “number one actress you wish were your daughter” throne had lasted years. Especially for any families in the child-actress game—for stage moms, Mai was the ultimate success story. She was special. And he got why a mom would want their kid to be that kind of special. Doting on your kids was just what parents did.

“After hearing their stories and watching the kid try to meet her mother’s expectations…well, I just didn’t have it in me to criticize her mother. They seemed so close, really working together to achieve their goals.”

“Were you like that, once?”

“……”

She neither confirmed nor denied.

“I don’t really remember,” she said at length. “I was just so busy. My head spinning, constantly dizzy… Every day, I was memorizing lines, rehearsing, filming, being driven from place to place, then having her help me prep for the next day’s work. Day after day. Sleeping in the car on the way, naps in the dressing room on breaks, weeks on end in hotels, never seeing our own home…”

“And she was there with you every step of the way? Your mom’s something else.”

Mai could sleep in the car, but her mother was obviously driving. When had she slept? Mai could nap in the break room, but her mother was there as her manager and couldn’t exactly just lie down and close her eyes.

But voicing this opinion earned him a glare.

“Whose side are you on?”

“Yours, of course.”

“Fine. We’re done talking about this.”

She picked up the pace, going on ahead. He scrambled to keep up.

Not looking at him, she added, “I didn’t think I was ready to get it.”

“Get what?”

“Why a mother would want her daughter to be special.”

Apparently, Mai was only “done” talking about her relationship with her own mother; the topic at large was still going strong.

“My father said I’d figure out how parents feel when I had kids myself,” Sakuta said.

And he’d probably meant it wasn’t possible until that happened.

“Maybe he’s right. But back to the point—I still hate her. But for the sake of the future…I’d also like to try to fix that.”

“What future is this?”

“If I’m gonna have a family of my own, I need to know how to be a family,” Mai said, blushing a bit.

“In my mind, you’ll be the best wife ever, so I’m pretty sure we’re gonna be just fine.”

“Let’s hope.”

“Oh? Not even scolding me for picturing us as newlyweds?”

“I’m saving that for if you imagine yourself with anyone else.”

She took a few dance-like steps and spun around to face him. They’d reached the street between their respective buildings.

“Mai.”

“Yes?”

“Can you hold these for a second?”

He hefted the grocery bags.

“But we’re home?”

“I want to give you a hug, but I can’t with my hands full.”

This was a natural impulse after seeing something that adorable. Mai had only herself to blame.

“I don’t want anyone snapping pics for the tabloids.”

She did an about-face and waved the diploma tube over her shoulder.

“I’ll be over around four.”

With that, she passed through the doors to her building. She was soon out of sight.

No use standing around in the street alone. Sakuta went inside the building opposite, checked the empty mailbox, and took the elevator to the fifth floor.

He unlocked the door and stepped in.

“I’m home!” he called, moving to the living room.

Kaede was at the kotatsu with her laptop open. She looked up and said hi.

He put the grocery bags in the kitchen and headed to his room to change.

He dropped his backpack on the bed and took off his uniform. Blazer, trousers, white shirt. He’d had a T-shirt under that, and he removed it and his socks, leaving him in just his underwear.

He turned to the closet to grab some sweats and caught a glimpse of himself in the window—and that was when he noticed something wasn’t right.

“……?”

Something that shouldn’t be there.

And he wasn’t imagining it.

He turned to face the window glass.

There he was, resplendent in his undies. With a scar across his stomach, like a crack in the pavement. A single claw mark that ran across his right side to his belly button. White and puffy, the scab already gone.

“What the…?”

But no one could answer this question.

He looked down, and the scar was very clearly real.