7
Unexpectedly, Yumiko Miura is actually paying attention.
It was the second day of the field trip. Today, I would be touring with my group, traveling from Uzumasa to the Rakusai area.
Our first goal point of the day was the Toei Kyoto Studio Park. It was a period theme park used in real dramas, too, with elaborately made sets of a townscape re-creating places like Yoshiwara Street and the Ikedaya Inn. Plus, it had lots of fun attractions: historical costumes to borrow, a haunted house, a ninja house, and other stuff. It was a famous tourist spot.
We took the city bus from the hotel to the Studio Park.
The day-long bus pass is a powerful ally to tourists and students on field trips. It’s the free pass of dreams: for a mere five hundred yen, you can ride the Kyoto municipal bus as much as you want. The Kyoto bus network is particularly developed, so you can take it to practically all the major tourist spots.
But there is an unexpected pitfall here.
This being the season when fall leaves were still in color, the buses were packed like cans of sardines. It had to be at about 150 percent capacity. The city bus was so convenient and such a good deal that tons of tourists were using it. The population density was basically rush-hour levels, and it just about broke me. I’m not gonna get a job, I’m not gonna get a job… If it means feeling like this, then I need no employment!
Maybe boys would be fine in such a brutal crowd, but I started getting concerned about fragile girls and Totsuka.
But the girls had Miura and Kawasaki glaring at everyone, and their intimidation kept Ebina and Yuigahama super-safe.
Yeah, um, those two are scary, huh…?
And as for Totsuka, he made sure to move into a safe zone.
“H-Hachiman, do you mind? Sorry.” He looked at me apologetically from my arms.
“Hey, it’s no big deal. People are just constantly elbowing me in the stomach and stepping on my feet, that’s all.”
“My bad! Sorry, Hikitani! But what can ya do about it, eh? This is way too crowded, man.”
Damn you, Tobe…, I thought, but he was only barely maintaining his position, too. He was also being pushed from the side and stepped on from behind, and that was why he’d elbowed me a moment ago. It wasn’t enough to make me mad.
“Don’t forget, we’re getting off at the next stop,” Hayama told us. Even now, he was being considerate. I was impressed.
Finally, the bus pulled up to Toei Kyoto Studio Park and spit us out in front of the other kids on field trips and tourists as everyone crawled from the vehicle. We’d only just gotten there and hadn’t had any fun yet, and we were already feeling ragged.
I would have liked to go straight to the nearby Komeda’s Coffee and take a break with one of their Shiro-Noirs—ice cream on a hot Danish—but Tobe raced straight over to get tickets.
“Here, Ebina,” he said.
“Thanks.”
Oh, so he’d run over to buy them so he could hand her ticket to her directly—if he was too slow, Hayama or someone else would have promptly gone to buy them.
“And here ya go, Hikitani.”
“…Uh-huh.”
Well, it looked like he was feeling motivated, so I’d put a little effort into this, too.
We headed straight into the Studio Park. As soon as I passed through the gates, I suddenly saw some Precure stuff, but I mean, I was a grown boy, after all, so I’d go another time, when I was alone. For the time being, I’d look around the rest of the park.
We passed through an area with a smattering of Edo city buildings. Occasionally, we’d pass by some people wearing samurai outfits. They must have been staff or something.
There were oiran courtesans on the streets, impromptu lessons in stage sword-fighting, and even a mysterious little dinosaur that popped out of the pond… Just being among them helped me start to enjoy myself.
The pond where the dinosaur came out was especially enjoyable. You could just tell something was going to happen, but then it just poked its head out, huffed its token amount of smoke with a fshhhh, and then blooped back underwater again. Really surreal.
After we watched the dinosaur disappear into the pond, a strange silence hung around us. The bizarre sight had left us all frozen.
“…Let’s move on,” Hayama said with a smile.
Tobe unfroze and rebooted, too. “Y-yeah! Go, go, go!”
“Hey, so why don’t we go there next?” Yuigahama was pointing at the most terrifying haunted house in history. She’d had her eye on it from the beginning, in all likelihood.
Well, it was a standard choice. Actually, she might have figured it would do something for Tobe and Ebina. The so-called suspension-bridge effect. Dinosaur aside—there was some hope for the haunted house.
And this place was not to be underestimated as just another haunted house. Toei’s version meets expectations. Of course, they put some legit effort into the ghost sets and stuff, but the monsters that jump out at you are also Toei actors.
I thought maybe somebody in the group wouldn’t want to go, but nobody excused themselves, and we found ourselves in the lineup.
“Hayatooo, I’m scaaared.” Miura flirtatiously snuggled up to Hayama.
I think you’re cuter when you’re looking after all these kids like a mom, though, Miura. You should consider appealing to that.
“Yeah, I can’t really handle this stuff, either.” Hayama gave a shy ah-ha-ha to cover up his embarrassment. He was usually perfect, so that little sign of weakness even got me right in the heart.
Before long, it was our turn. Of course, a party of eight was too many at once, so we decided to split into groups of four.
The first member of Hayama’s group disappeared inside, then the second, and eventually, when all of them were gone, our group headed into the haunted house, too.
The first part was the introduction. Since some of the ghosts were played by actors, they played a video warning us not to hit, kick, or otherwise be violent to them. But the video just made it more surreal… It’s kinda like a spoiler. I mean, it’s smacking you in the face with a reminder that this is totally fake.
Or so I’d thought, until now. One step in, and everything felt different.
The theme here seemed to be the Edo period. It was dark, with only absolutely minimal lighting, but the light sources were positioned to guide the eye to all the classically eerie objects. They limit your field of vision and then place items around in the vague, dark areas so that they jump out and shock you when you see them.
Calmly analyzing it like this made it…scary. Scary is scary, man.
It was hard to see the group ahead—probably Hayama’s—and tell how far they were because of the darkness and the constant stream of Buddhist chanting and resentful muttering we heard around us.
It was only thanks to their typical antics that I could still tell they were Hayama and co.
“Ohmanohmanohmanohmanohmaaaagh!” Tobe, with his reputation for going along with any vibe, was completely swallowed up by the terror of the haunted house. He was constantly terrified and never left Hayama’s side the whole time. Ebina watched them with a sound like guh-heh.
“Yeek! I just heard something weird…” Kawasaki, walking behind me, was so frightened that she yanked at my blazer.
Um, you’re gonna rip it off, so please don’t? That’s just Ebina, nothing sca… Actually, you’re right; she is.
As I examined the design of the interior here and there, the setting appeared to be a household massacre in an Edo-period mansion, or something like that. It was a standard haunted house, but that was exactly why the interior sucked you in.
Yuigahama timidly laid her hand on my shoulder as she tottered beside me with weak knees. “I—I can’t really handle stuff like this…,” she said, constantly vigilant and anxious that something might leap out.
So I deployed my pet theory. “Ghosts at a haunted house aren’t scary. What’s scary is people.”
“There you go, being grumpy again! …But maybe that just means we can rely on you.” Yuigahama didn’t take me seriously and just laughed.
But you know, humans really are the scary thing here.
“…In other words, the most terrifying type of haunted house is the kind where people do the scaring.”
“Nope! We can’t count on you at all!”
I mean, stuff scares me, too. If I’d come in there alone, I probably would have sprinted through the whole thing screaming Sooooi! Soi! Sooooi! or something equally nonsensical to distract myself from the fear. I might not have even been able to find the exit.
However, I didn’t have to scream now, and since the others were being so loud, I wasn’t that scared.
I don’t know if it was for the same reasons as me, but Totsuka didn’t seem very frightened, either. In fact, he even seemed to be enjoying himself.
“You look totally fine with this, Totsuka…,” I commented.
“Yeah, I like this sort of thing.” I could see that beaming smile of his even in the darkness.
His radiance might just end up saving us from the global energy crisis, I thought. This will be the era of smiles, not oil!
We moved on a little farther, and a ghost (with a person inside it) jumped out and yelled, “BRYARGH!”
Kawasaki’s back went stiff and straight, and then without a word, she sprinted her way out of there as fast as her legs would go. Totsuka, who seemed more startled by her reaction, hurried after her.
I was playing it calm, but I was pretty freaked out, too. I cringed reflexively, bumping into Yuigahama beside me. Well, more like our heads cracked together.
“Ngk…”
“Ow…”
The two of us squatted down right there, rubbing our respective injuries.
“S-sorry…”
“No, I’m sorry, I was startled…,” I apologized, facing her.
Tears in her eyes, Yuigahama gently reached her hand out to me, touching my head and patting it to make sure it was okay. “It didn’t hurt?”
“Oh, it hurt like hell.” But that’s embarrassing, so stop. I jerked my head away, escaping her hand to stand up. Yuigahama was still squatting. “Anyway, let’s go. They’ll leave us behind.” I extended my hand to help her up, too. I think the big-brother skill I used for my sister, Komachi, just activated automatically.
“Huh?” Yuigahama looked at my hand incredulously.
Wait, this is okay to do because it’s my little sister. I rethought it, and I was about to put my hand in my pocket.
“Thanks.” She grabbed my hand.
Well, I suppose it was just a nice thing to do. The fabled act of kindness. The act of a gentleman. I’d just done what any human would have done. There was just no helping it for a nice guy like me.
Which was why I couldn’t shake off her hand.
“Then let’s head to the finish point.” Yuigahama smiled brightly and gently let go. Before I had the time to feel disappointed, she tugged on my shoulder. “Come on.”
It was dark and chilly. We made our way forward through the haunted house, encountering blood splatter here and there, getting chased around by severed heads and fallen soldiers and such.
“This looks like the exit,” I said. Light from outside seeped in through the final door. As we stepped through it, a fresh breeze blew on our faces.
“I-it’s over… That was pretty scary…” Yuigahama must have been on edge. She was suddenly drained, staggering around in search of a bench. Hayama, Totsuka, and the others had already finished and were currently occupying the bench she sought.
I followed after her. Oh, I was seriously exhausted. My heart was thumping uncomfortably hard. Isn’t this, like, cardiac arrhythmia? Quick, get me some medicine.
When I came up beside the bench to take a break, Totsuka turned to me. “That was so much fun, huh, Hachiman?”
His smile made me dizzy. Now I’m getting light-headed? His pretty smile was curing me with the glittering force of all the stars. It made my heart pound, bringing the feelings inside me to a new stage.
“I think we’re done with this one. Let’s get going to the next attraction.” Hayama examined the group. It seemed there were no objections.
Miura hopped up from the bench. “Then I’m gonna call over Ebina,” she announced, dashing to the souvenir shop. I’d assumed all of us were there, but Ebina and Tobe were gone, huh? I glanced at the shop and saw Ebina rapt and panting at the Shinsengumi goods, while Tobe was going on like, “Man…wooden swords are expensive…”
O-okay… Maybe the haunted house worked…?
Our next goal was the Rakusai area. We would be going there on the bus from Uzumasa.
But Rakusai has a lot of popular tourist spots, including Kinkaku-ji Temple, and with the fall colors still in season, the bus was packed to the rafters.
What’s more, since tourists were coming out of the Studio Park, too, we would probably be waiting for quite a while. We’d already watched multiple buses pass by, and I was getting tired of waiting for nothing.
I am a man who hates full trains. A long time ago, I had to go to a university in Tokyo for a mock test, but it would have meant riding the Tozai Line during rush hour, so I gave up. I didn’t take that mock test. Such is my past.
So consequently, I really wanted to avoid getting on this city bus right now.
Mentally cackling as I looked around the area for some other way—or some way out, somewhere—suddenly, my eyes landed on the taxi stand.
Hmm.
It’s strange. Once you know there’s an easier way, the next time around, you won’t hesitate to pick the method of the undisciplined.
Yuigahama was lined up beside me, so I patted her shoulder. She was probably a little tired, as she was slow to react. She turned only her head toward me. “What?”
“Let’s get a taxi,” I said.
She drew her eyebrows together and hmm’d. “A taxi? Aren’t they expensive? We’re not doing anything expensive.” And to put a period on the matter, she turned back again to wait for the bus.
She’s kind of housewifely… She was being pretty strict about money—it was the same during the cultural festival, too.
But I couldn’t let her beat me in the realm of the stay-at-homes.
Or rather, I couldn’t allow her to beat me in the area of sophistry and pulling money from somewhere or other. I’m the fun-money alchemist.
“Just listen. You’d think it’s expensive because of Tokyo, but Kyoto is cheaper, comparatively. Compact cars are mainstream here. In fact, it’s so cheap, you’d be losing money if you didn’t take a taxi. Besides, if we split it with everyone in the same car, it won’t be that much.”
“Ehhh…”
Hmm, she still didn’t seem on board. I’d actually been attempting to make a decent argument, such as it was, but this wasn’t enough to move Yuigahama’s heart. I had to change tacks. “Hold on, calm down. Losing time here would be the greater cost.”
“How?” Yuigahama was trying to casually ignore me, as if this conversation was just a way to kill time while she waited. Agh…
Times like this, first, you have to start by striking at their personal interests. “Do you like Destiny Land?”
“I do. So?”
Now, unlike before, her whole upper body turned toward me, not just her head. I know quite a bit about Chiba. So of course, I am knowledgeable about Destiny Land. Of my Chiba-related knowledge, the only thing I figured would intersect with Yuigahama’s interests was Destiny Land and related topics. So I decided to attack from this angle. “It’s popular as a date spot, too, right?”
“Yeah, it is.” Yuigahama nodded with an uh-huh.
“I have sad news about that.”
“Huh? What?”
Now her entire body was facing me. I must have piqued her curiosity.
Seeing her interest, I informed her of the rest. “Couples who go on dates to Destiny Land end up separating.”
“Oh, I’ve heard that one before. Like it’s a jinx?”
“Yeah. But, well, if you think about it, it’s obvious.” No mysterious powers or whatever at work here. It’s a simple question of human psychology. “When you wait a long time for a ride, it’ll always stress you out. And you run out of things to talk about, too. And so the irritation and the silence build and build, and you start thinking your date is really boring. It’s like the opposite of the suspension-bridge effect.”
“Ohhh, I get it~.” Impressed, Yuigahama nodded vigorously. It seemed I’d convinced her. So then this meant just one more push.
“Don’t you think right now is a similar situation?”
“You and me? Um, not really,” she said with a blank expression.
Hey, don’t look at me like that’s never even crossed your mind.
“No…Tobe and Ebina.”
“Oh, I—I get it…” Yuigahama blushed and looked down, as if embarrassed about her misunderstanding.
I surreptitiously poked my thumb toward the pair ahead of us.
Both Tobe and Ebina seemed bored, and Ebina was half paying attention to a conversation with Miura as she occasionally messed around with her phone. Tobe was a few steps behind her, swinging a wooden sword. Wait, he bought that?
“Y-yeah…” Nobody would claim this was going well. Yuigahama crossed her arms, mulling over it for a bit.
Well, I suppose I’ll add this, just to make doubly sure. “Besides, a taxi is kinda like a locked room. Feels more intimate.”
Or if it’s Conan, it means someone will die.
Now that I’d brought it up, Yuigahama suddenly clued in, too. “I—I get it… I’ll go try asking them.” She called to the group lining up ahead, waving her arm. “Heeeey! Why don’t we all take a taxi?” she said.
They all reacted with skepticism. Unsurprisingly, high school kids weren’t thrilled with the idea, but there was no helping that. Because of the long-standing belief that taxis were expensive, they just didn’t see them as an option for students.
I figured I might as well try convincing them. I didn’t want to pack into a bus after all. “If we get a compact car and split it among four people, it won’t cost that much.”
“I see.” Hayama was thankfully quick on the uptake. Once our trusty leader agreed, the rest would all follow in succession. Miura and Tobe had no complaints. Ebina nodded, too, and we quickly got Kawasaki to agree as well. It seemed Totsuka didn’t have any objections, either, and he would come with us.
So we left the lineup and moved over to the taxi stand.
There were eight of us, so thinking about it normally, we’d be getting in two taxis in groups of four.
Up until we got to the taxi stand, Hayama and Miura were at the front of the line, with Kawasaki and Totsuka behind them, while I was the wall separating the remaining three from them. Now, when we got in, inevitably, Tobe, Ebina, Yuigahama, and I would be a group of four. Here, the role of wall was important.
Hey, this is me we’re talking about—I always get shunted to leftover defense positions whenever we have to play sports. I have an established reputation for playing defense.
Hayama took the lead until we got to the taxi stand.
“Then go on in.” I prompted Hayama, at the head of the line, to proceed ahead of us. Now the rest of us just had to get in like natural.
“Yeah. Then Yumiko,” Hayama called.
“Okay!” Miura immediately took a seat. Hayama continued to stand in front of the door and called the next person into the cab. “Let’s go, Tobe.”
Tobe, behind me, reacted nimbly. “Oh, gotcha. Then you come, too, Ebina.”
“Okeydoke. I’ll see you later, then, Yui, Saki-Saki.”
Tobe and Ebina both went over to Hayama and got in the car one after the other. Right as Ebina was stepping into the taxi, she gave Yuigahama and Kawasaki a wave.
“Oh, yeah, see you soon.”
“Don’t call me Saki-Saki.”
Yuigahama replied with a casual half wave, while Saki-Saki snapped at her with a blush.
Then Hayama went for shotgun. “…We’ll see you there, then.” Hayama was talking to me but not looking at me. I was sure there was something I should have said in reply, but the door closed before I could.
…Hmm, I see.
And so I had to get the rest of us into a taxi, too.
“So who’s going to sit where?” Totsuka asked me, but I mean, the reasonable solution would be to put me in the front seat.
“I’ll go in front, and you three in the back,” I said.
The door opened automatically, and I made sure Totsuka, Kawasaki, and Yuigahama got in first. Then I opened the passenger’s side door, sat myself down, and fastened the seat belt.
“To Ninna-ji Temple,” I said briefly, and then the driver, who just looked like a softhearted person, smiled and repeated our destination.
The car quietly rolled out.
While we were waiting at a light, the driver asked me, “Are you on a school field trip?”
“Yeah, basically,” I replied shortly, glancing over for a second. I didn’t mean to act so curt, but I wasn’t used to this small talk.
“Where are you from?”
“Tokyo.”
Here’s a factoid about the Chibanese: When we go somewhere and people ask where we’re from, we end up answering From Tokyo. I mean, if you tell them it’s Chiba, they don’t really get it… Like, you know, it’s similar to how lots of people from Kanagawa pretend they’re from Yokohama.
My halting and fragmented conversation with the driver went on. Ah, so this is a pitfall of taxis…
Meanwhile, in the back seat, they were talking about the girls’ room.
“Yeah. So then Saki started getting serious and threw a pillow, and Yumiko burst into tears.”
“You don’t have to talk about this…”
Through the rearview mirror, I could see Yuigahama apparently enjoying the conversation, while Kawasaki grumpily crossed her legs in the opposite direction.
Man, Miura cries too much…
Totsuka giggled as he followed up with gossip from the boys’ room. “A pillow fight sounds fun, though. We were playing mah-jongg and Uno and stuff. Oh, and Hachiman lost, but then he forgot about his punishment.”
Though I was only slightly separated from them, their conversation felt very far away.
As for me, I ended up feeling kind of like I had to be considerate to the driver beside me, so I didn’t join in the discussion. I just stared emptily at the town as it flowed by.
Ninna-ji Temple is the temple famous for the careless, giggling priest who sticks out his tongue and appears in part fifty-two of Tsurezuregusa, which often shows up in textbooks.
The place had to be more popular in spring than in fall. There were apparently cherry blossoms blooming all over the place. But even in late fall, there were tourists, of course, and the temple and garden were both well worth seeing.
But regrettably, we were high school students in the prime of our youth. So the extent of our discussion was comments like “So amazing,” “I know,” and “It really is so amazing.”
Where did the energy from the Studio Park go…?
Still, it wasn’t as if I had any deep knowledge about temples, either. All I could do was impertinently mutter, “Oh-ho, so this is that famous spot from Tsurezuregusa…” Well, it’s not like Ninna-ji Temple itself is the main subject of part fifty-two, though.
We looked around the temple and garden for a while until we were all silently wondering Can we go now?
Yuigahama, as the one particularly sensitive to our impatience, prompted us. “Righty then, let’s move on!”
Mysteriously, we were all more excited to leave, and we all followed after Yuigahama and left Ninna-ji Temple.
Now then, our next goal point was Ryouan-ji Temple. Not only did this one have a cool name—the Temple of the Peaceful Dragon—it had a famous rock garden. Even more cool. By the way, Tenryuu-ji Temple has an equally cool name, the Temple of the Heavenly Dragon, but first place is a duel between Konkai Koumyou-ji Temple (Temple to the Golden Light of Virtue) or Kyouou Gokoku-ji Temple (Defender of King and Country Temple). Adashino Nenbutsu-ji Temple is kinda like the secret unlock character here.
It was about ten minutes walking from Ninna-ji Temple to Ryouan-ji Temple. We headed off at a slow and steady pace, red leaves fluttering down around us.
I was strolling at the very back, a habit of mine when I was walking in a group. Yuigahama should have been in the lead, but she gradually slowed her pace until before I knew it, she was by my side.
“It’s not going good, huh?” she murmured, looking a little glum. She must have been talking about Tobe and Ebina.
“Of course it isn’t. I can’t even manage myself right. I can’t be taking care of other people, too.”
“…Yeah…that’s true.”
“And besides…”
“Besides?”
And besides, the trouble wasn’t Yuigahama’s fault. This wasn’t just something I wanted to say to make her feel better. It was fact.
We had Tobe’s natural personality to contend with, plus the fact that Ebina didn’t even consider him an option. But more than that, more than anything, one of the group was doing things that didn’t make sense. I was sure this was one factor getting in the way.
I didn’t know what was motivating this strange behavior, and I didn’t think there was much point in mentioning it when I couldn’t be certain of it. Suspicion and misgivings are not to be voiced out loud; they’re things you should bottle up inside yourself. Especially when they’re really bad. If you go and say them and they turn out to be true, you’re out of luck.
Suspicions that stay suspicions don’t hurt anyone.
Yuigahama was waiting for me to continue, so I told her something unrelated. “We don’t have to be so aggressive about it. If it’s not gonna happen, it’s not gonna happen.”
“But I want you to really try.” Yuigahama’s shoulders fell a little again, and her feet seemed to drag as they scuffed over some fallen leaves.
“Don’t take this too far. It’d suck if Ebina gets annoyed by it.”
“Oh…”
“These things really do work if the person in question is even a little bit interested, though.”
“Hmm…,” Yuigahama replied listlessly.
No, it really does. It’s awful.
As we walked and talked, we noticed Hayama and the others waiting ahead of us. We’d arrived at Ryouan-ji Temple.
We went through the visitors’ reception and onto the temple grounds to look out over a big pond. Apparently, this was called Kyoyochi Pond, and it covered about half of the whole area. Aristocrats of the Heian period would amuse themselves boating here.
A fence of woven bamboo was built along the road to the shrine, going up the stone steps.
Going into this place called Houjou—well, basically, it’s a temple hall—we were finally face-to-face with the rock garden.
Kare-sansui refers to a style of garden that doesn’t use water, expressing the form of a garden through stones and such. I guess this white sand represents the surface of the water. Hmm, I see. I bet these concentric circles around the rocks are supposed to be ripples, probably.
Everyone was a little tired from walking around and sat down to gaze at the rock garden vacantly. I decided to do the same and, with a heavy sigh, made to seat myself at the edge of the bench.
The person next to me scooched away slightly. I pardoned myself with a casual bow and a hand gesture in thanks, and then the person spoke to me. “Oh, fancy meeting you here.”
I turned to look with a “Huh?” and found the one sitting there was Yukino Yukinoshita.
“Oh, you’re here, too?”
“I am.”
Looking over, I saw what appeared to be her group. Some proper, modest, quiet-looking girls were all sitting in a line. The suspicious looks they shot at me were a little uncomfortable… Well, an outsider might find it strange for me and Yukinoshita to be together.
But from where I stood, Yukinoshita was way stranger just by being herself.
Whether or not she had real friends in her class, she could be part of a group, although she couldn’t mess around with them on an equal basis the way Yuigahama did. I more got the impression these girls had gathered to worship her from afar.
Well, you’ll get different impressions of a person depending on your perspective.
For example, this rock garden. Supposedly, you can’t see all fifteen stones placed in it at once from any single angle. Depending on your point of view, they change. The people who made this garden were probably thinking something more grand and philosophical, but being the shallow person I am, all I could come up with was this cliché analysis.
The world was full of so many things I didn’t understand: the meaning in this rock garden, people’s true faces, and how to engage with others.
As I lost myself in thought staring blankly at the rock garden, Yukinoshita stood up beside me and then sat down again.
I looked at her as if to ask, Why the heck did you just stand up…? Yukinoshita noticed and replied, “This place is also known as the garden where the tiger carries her cub across the river, so I was wondering which part represented the tiger.”
Oh-ho. She’s curious about it because tigers are cats, isn’t she?
A tiger carrying its cub across the river, huh…? I stood up to look at it, too, wondering which part was the tiger.
Yep. I have no idea.
But Yukinoshita seemed so at peace as she drank in the landscape that I figured she must have found some insight.
I dunno; maybe this is a moment to say “Deep” or something. But even that thought is particularly shallow.
This gazing went on for a while.
“Oh, Yukinon.”
I hadn’t even realized Yuigahama was next to me. When she noticed Yukinoshita, too, she moved to sit in between me and her.
Yukinoshita smirked and stood up. “Shall we go elsewhere?”
“Yeah, let’s talk over there,” said Yuigahama.
With a flutter of her hair, Yukinoshita spun around. “I’m sorry. I’ll be leaving you for a bit. I don’t mind if you move on without me,” she said to her classmates from Class J, and they looked at her with adoring, sparkling eyes as they nodded their assent.
It’s like they’re her lovestruck underclassmen at a private school for rich girls… Well, if push came to shove, I wouldn’t say they were that close.
As I was pondering Yukinoshita’s relationship with her classmates, a voice came down to me. “What’re you doing? Hurry up.”
Oh. So I’m going, too. When I stood up as well, the girls from Class J glared daggers at me, and it was a little scary. I’m not, like, gonna get stabbed by Yukinoshita’s fangirls anytime soon, am I? Am I gonna have to start stuffing manga magazines under my shirt tomorrow?
They decided to leave Houjou and walk a circle around the garden. I followed after them.
“How is the request going?” Yukinoshita asked.
“Hmm… Not too great.” Yuigahama summed up the situation thus far.
Yukinoshita looked down, a little apologetic. “I see. I’m sorry I’ve made you do everything.”
“Oh, no, don’t worry about it.” Yuigahama waved her hands below her chest in tiny motions.
The gesture seemed to relieve Yukinoshita, and she smiled. “I can’t really say this will make up for it, but I have been considering the matter.”
“Considering what?” I asked.
Yukinoshita looked at me. “There are some famous Kyoto locations women tend to enjoy. I figured they might be useful for the free day tomorrow.”
“Ohhh, awesome, Yukinon! Okay, let’s go there tomorrow, then!”
“With Tobe and everyone else?” I got the feeling that wouldn’t be much different from how today had been.
“No,” said Yuigahama. “We’ll follow after them, and if anything happens, we’ll help them out.”
“I can’t say that sounds very classy.” Sneaking after people and spying on them didn’t seem very admirable.
“Well, whether we follow after them or not, if we just recommend a tour to Tobecchi and the others, they’ll probably go along with it. So if anything happens, we can go meet up with them.”
So we’d plan out their date and propose the idea to them, huh? Well, if we stayed nearby, then they could call for us if there were any issues, and we could potentially help out.
“I can’t say it’s a very sound idea, either, but we have nothing else,” said Yukinoshita.
At any rate, we’d settled on a plan for the next day. I had no idea how we should do this, nor how it would benefit Tobe.
Right about then, we finished a full circle of the garden and returned to the main gate.
“We’re going to Kinkaku-ji Temple now,” I said.
“Then I’ll head back,” said Yukinoshita.
“Okay, see you again tomorrow,” Yuigahama replied.
“Yes, see you tomorrow.”
Parting ways with Yukinoshita, we met up with Hayama’s group. We still had places to go.
We walked the easy slope from Ryouan-ji Temple to Kinkaku-ji Temple, and the twisting road took us past Ritsumeikan University.
Seeing Kinkaku-ji Temple ended up using all our touring time. It was past five now. From Kinkaku-ji Temple, we waited for yet another bus and returned to the hotel. Hayama called our homeroom teacher to say we’d be late, and in the end, by the time we arrived at the hotel, the boys’ bathing time had already passed.
And so I ended up using the inside bath on the second day, too.
No, it’s still okay—there’s still the third day! I won’t give up!
Dinnertime in the banquet hall was truly packed.
Why is it that when high school boys go on a field trip and they serve themselves rice at dinner, they give themselves Nihon Mukashibanashi–level portions?
Thanks to that, I didn’t get any rice at all.
I think there was a big mah-jongg tournament going on in the room right then, since according to dinnertime conversation, every room had had a mah-jongg game the previous night. So now they were going to decide who was the champion.
If I were to go back to the room now, I would probably encounter the aftershocks of the tournament, which would keep me from the bath. And if I couldn’t get into the bath, then the chances of some unexpected incident between me and Totsuka would be zero.
Then it was best not to go back for a while.
I was feeling peckish, so to satisfy my stomach, I wandered out of the hotel. If a teacher were to find out, they’d probably be angry, but this was where my (self-generated) active camouflage was useful. I made it to the convenience store around the corner without anyone questioning me.
First, as was my usual habit, I cruised around the magazine corner. Hmm… Sunday GX, Sunday GX…
As I was searching for the magazine, an imperious voice called out to me. “Oh, it’s Hikio.”
Before I could find Sunday GX, which I love but had just forgotten to buy, someone else found me instead. I replied to the unpleasant nickname with a particularly vile, rotten glare.
But the one who’d said it, Yumiko Miura, had her eyes on a magazine and not me.
So then why’d you talk to me…?
It seemed that in her mind, I was basically a natural phenomenon. She’d mentioned me just now in the same way you’d be like, Oh, it’s raining when you start to see drops.
But, well, the distance she maintained made things easier for me, so I was fine with it. If she wasn’t being considerate to me, I didn’t have to be considerate to her, either. Without turning toward her, I picked up GX and immediately started flipping through it.
“Listen, like, what are you guys trying to do?” she said suddenly, and I jumped a little.
I’m not a fan of the scary tone…, I thought as I faced her. But she was still picking out fashion magazines.
She must have guessed that I’d turned toward her, though, as she continued the conversation on her own. “Could you stop trying to interfere with Ebina’s business?” Maybe nobody taught her that you should look at someone when you talk to them. Her eyes never left the magazine.
She flipped another page. “Are you listening?”
I wanted to ask her that, but I suppose I hadn’t said anything in the first place. I’d say it now, then. “I’m listening. And it’s not like we’re really interfering with her business.”
“You are. It’s obvious.” She suddenly closed the magazine. It seemed she finally meant to actually talk to me. “And it’s annoying,” she said, reaching out to the magazine beside the other one. She carefully removed the elastic band around it and opened it, too.
Aren’t you not supposed to do that…? I thought, but I was basically guilty of the same offense, so I couldn’t say anything, either—not to her, at least.
“So it’s annoying you, is it?” I said. “Well, there’s someone else who wants us to. One person’s gain is another’s loss. That’s normal. Give it up. Besides, it’s not like it’s hurting you directly.”
“What?” For the first time in this crude exchange that hardly qualified as conversation, Miura looked at me. The queen’s eyes were filled with animosity. “I’m gonna be the one who’s hurt.”
“…” That was unexpected, and it confused me a little. This was Miura, so I’d assumed she would arrogantly enlighten me as to just how much annoyance she was suffering right then. Following which, I’d figured I would argue down each of her points with care, piss her off, and then make myself scarce.
I had guessed wrong. I didn’t expect her to speak about it in future tense.
I must have looked quite silly, going silent like that, as Miura gave me a hard look. “Listen, you’re with Yui, so you understand Ebina, too, right?”
“I…I-I-I-I’m not with Yui at all…” Hearing this unfamiliar revelation made me a panicky, stuttering mess. Hey, what the heck, this is too random! I-I’m n-not with her, not at all!
Seeing me dripping blobs of gross sweat, Miura gave a wholeheartedly derisive smile. “Why are you getting the wrong idea about that? Ew. Of course she wouldn’t be with you. That’s not what I mean, like, you know? I mean, you’d get it, since you talk with her and stuff. Ew.”
…You didn’t have to say it again at the end.
So she didn’t mean “going out with” but just “hanging out with as a friend,” huh?
But even understanding that much, I still didn’t get what Miura was trying to say. “What do you mean? I don’t think they’re at all alike.”
“Well, since their personalities are different…” Miura’s gaze softened just slightly. “Yui’s, like… She can tell how people are feeling, and she goes along with everyone else, right? Though lately she’s started being more open with what she wants to say.”
Miura was right—when I’d first gotten to know Yuigahama, she’d been constantly sensitive to the reactions of others and the social atmosphere, establishing a place for herself by assimilating and adapting.
“Well, yeah…”
“Ebina’s the same. She’s the same but kind of in the opposite way.” Miura smiled with just a hint of sadness and returned the magazine to the shelf. “She goes along with things by ignoring the mood.”
The same as Yuigahama, but opposite. The way she put it—going along with things by ignoring the mood—fit so perfectly. “Oh, huh, now that you put it that way, I get it.”
“That’s how she is. That’s why this stuff is so dangerous. It’s just been working out somehow, ’cause Ebina’s good at handling it.”
So basically, Ebina maintained an appropriate distance from others by acting out that character and making others go along with it. She wasn’t naturally a weirdo—she was only encouraging others to treat her like a weirdo.
Miura continued, her tone nostalgic. “If Ebina just keeps her mouth shut, lots of guys are into her, so a lot of them ask me to introduce them to her. But if I do, she always rejects them one way or another. I thought she was just shy, so I was real persistent about it. So then what do you think she said?”
“I dunno,” I said with a shrug. Of course, I couldn’t answer a pop quiz with no hints at all.
Miura quietly looked down. It was a gesture unusual for the Queen of Fire, and somehow sad.
“‘Oh, then I’m done.’ She was smiling. Like I was a total stranger.”
Miura’s quote played in my mind particularly vividly. Ebina’s tone, smile, and eyes were cold as she stood just a step away, allowing no intrusion.
“Ebina doesn’t really talk about herself, and I don’t really ask. But…I think she hates that sort of thing.”
I didn’t think that was quite it. I figured if Ebina were about to lose something, she would choose to break it herself instead. She would give up on it and throw it away rather than making the many sacrifices needed to protect it.
She would probably throw away the relationships she had now.
“Y’know, I’m having plenty of fun right now. But if Ebina stops hanging out with us, things might not ever be the same. We might not be able to do stupid stuff together anymore,” Miura said, her voice shaking a little. “So could you not do anything you don’t have to?”
This was probably the first time Miura had looked at me and actually seen me. The feeling was clear in her gaze.
This was why I would respond with as much sincerity as I could muster.
“You don’t need to worry about it.”
“How can you say that?” Miura asked me, as if it were the obvious question.
Well, it was. Miura had zero reason to be trusting me. If you want someone to trust you or have faith in you, first, you have to gain a mutual understanding, then start building it up steadily, one piece at a time, until they’ll trust you to handle things.
Such trust had not been built between myself and Miura.
But still, I said with the utmost confidence, “It’ll be fine. Hayama said he’d manage it somehow.”
“Whaaat? Well, if Hayama says so, then whatever,” she said, smiling.
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