4
That’s why Saika Totsuka feels admiration.
After I made it through our time in the clubroom, I headed to the community center and switched my brain to work mode. I waited by the entrance for a while for Isshiki to arrive, but she never showed up, even once it was the usual time.
Maybe she’d gone in without me earlier. I decided to give up on waiting for her and head into the lecture room.
The community center felt quieter than usual. It seemed that usual dance or whatever club activity wasn’t happening that day, but I could hear voices coming from the lecture room we used.
When I opened the rather loud sliding door and went inside, I found most of those voices were from Kaihin High School. Comparatively, there wasn’t much conversation from the Soubu kids.
“’Sup,” I called out, and after setting my bag down, I suddenly noticed something. Isshiki, who I’d assumed would have arrived before I did, was not there. “Where’s Isshiki?” I asked.
The vice president, sitting nearby, appeared surprised. “She isn’t here yet… You didn’t come together?”
When I shook my head in response, the vice president asked the other members of the student council, “Has anyone heard anything?”
“Sorry, I tried texting her…,” said one girl. I assumed she was a first-year, judging from the respectful manner in which she spoke to the vice president. She was probably their clerk or treasurer or something like that. She had glasses and a braid and wore her uniform precisely to school regulations. She seemed like the quiet type. Kind of timid, too.
She was a first-year like Isshiki, but it didn’t seem they were close. I’d never really seen them talking to each other, and even now, the girl was only texting instead of calling. I guess there’s a boundary line somewhere between those two methods of communication. It’s so complicated…
That girl gave me and the vice president a cautious glance as she muttered, “She might still be at her club.”
I realized it was very possible. Before Isshiki had become student council president, she’d been the manager of the soccer club—and she still was.
If Isshiki was still showing up at her club, like I was, then she might not have been able to check her phone. It’d probably be faster to contact her in person.
“I’ll go get her,” I volunteered.
“O-oh, thanks,” said the vice president.
With that, I left the lecture room and went alone back down the road I’d just come.
The school was only a few minutes away by bike; I’d get there in no time. I sailed along, hurrying to our school’s sports field.
The field wasn’t all that big, and the baseball, soccer, rugby, and track clubs were all busy practicing there, as usual.
Though the sun was going down, it was bright enough that you could still identify people. I stopped my bicycle beside the field, then headed over to where a bunch of the soccer club guys were hanging around.
Watching from afar, I saw the soccer team was divided into two groups, probably having a scrimmage. Isshiki wasn’t there, and another (cute) manager girl was there with a stopwatch and whistle in her hands. She tweeted the whistle. Then the guys all relaxed and strolled over to the school building, drinking from the bottles they’d left there. It seemed they were starting a break.
Among them, I found Tobe. He noticed me, too, casually raising a hand and coming over. Hey, cut it out. If you do something like that, I’m gonna think we’re friends or something.
“Huh? It’s Hikitani-kun. What’s up?” He addressed me in a super-friendly manner.
I don’t know if he’s just an idiot or what. Why is he being so chummy with me? I don’t think he’s a bad guy, so it’s fine, though.
Well, this worked out well. I’d ask Tobe. “Is Isshiki here?”
“Irohasu? She’s… Huh? She’s not here, huh?” Tobe glanced around, looking for Isshiki, but when he realized she wasn’t there, he called out loudly to Hayama a little ways away. “Hayato, you know where Irohasu is?”
Hayama took a towel from the (cute) manager, and after using that to wipe off his sweat, he approached me and Tobe. Whoa, manager girls actually do hand you towels! If they did something like that to me, I’d sweat even more from nerves.
“Iroha just left. Said she had some things to do,” Hayama answered Tobe.
Then Tobe looked at me. “There ya go, Hikitani.”
“Oh, okay. Thanks, sorry for the trouble. See you.” It seemed we’d missed each other somewhere. What a waste of time. I grabbed the handlebars of my bicycle, figuring I’d go straight back. I thanked the two guys.
“Oh, it’s totally fine, no prob,” Tobe said with a bright smile and a casual wave.
Beside him, Hayama still wore a cool expression. “Tobe, divide the teams for the next scrimmage.”
“Huh? Oh, roger.” Upon receiving that sudden instruction, Tobe trotted off to the field. It was almost like he was being shooed away.
I couldn’t stay, either. I pushed my bike along, meaning to go right back to the community center.
But then someone called out to me from behind. “…Do you have a minute?”
When I turned around, Hayama was still there.
Hayama pulled off the towel hanging around his neck. Folding it lightly, he said, “Seems like it’s rough going.”
I didn’t really understand what he was referring to. With a tilt of my head, I asked what he meant.
Inferring from my expression, Hayama smiled. “You’ve been doing a lot of work on the student council’s request, haven’t you? Thanks for helping out Iroha.”
“Oh, you knew?” I’d thought for sure Isshiki hadn’t said anything to Hayama about this.
He smiled wryly. “Yeah. She won’t say what she’s doing, but she does make it look like she’s busy.”
I see. So it’s a complex maiden circuit thing, where she doesn’t want to cause him trouble, but she wants him to know what she’s doing. I understand. Wait, no I don’t.
I also didn’t understand Hayama’s attitude. “If you know, then you help her out.” Hayama had more of a relationship with Isshiki than I did. Isshiki had told me the reason she wouldn’t rely on him, but I’d gotten the impression that if Hayama inferred she was busy, he’d at least offer to help.
But Hayama gave a thin but genuine smile and said something unexpected. “She didn’t exactly look to me for help. You’re the one she’s counting on.”
“She’s just getting what she can out of me.”
“Because you can never refuse when someone asks for help.” He said that kindly, almost appreciatively. However, as pleasant to the ears as that remark was, it also struck me as sarcastic.
So I replied more harshly. “That’s what my club does. There’s no particular reason for me to refuse. And unlike you, I have nothing else to do.”
“Is that all?”
“…What are you trying to say?” His question had sounded like a test, and it got on my nerves.
Hayama didn’t reply, and neither did his smile fade. I felt like the calls of the guys practicing were just as loud as he was quiet, but despite that, the noise seemed far away from where Hayama and I stood.
The silence was painful, and I had to fill it. “…I mean, you don’t refuse, even though it’s not your club.”
“I don’t know…” Hayama turned his face away and looked toward the western sky.
The trailing clouds were beginning to tinge red.
Hayama pursed his lips in thought before turning back to me. Though his face was lit by the setting sun, strangely, I felt no warmth in it. “…I’m not as good a person as you think I am,” he said with distaste. His eyes glared at me with penetrating cold. I couldn’t say a thing.
Though he was quiet, his tone was severe. I felt as if I’d heard it before, at some point during summer vacation. Was this the look he had given me in the darkness of that night?
I didn’t respond, and Hayama didn’t say anything more.
Our gazes intersected, but I don’t think there was any other point of contact between us. It was as if time stopped right there. Only the calls of the teams practicing continued without pause, the sole indication of the passage of time.
One of those voices called, particularly loud.
“Hayatoooo, we’re starting again!” Tobe’s yell made Hayama suddenly snap out of it.
“Coming!” He replied to Tobe, who was farther down the field, then raised a casual hand at me and walked away. “See you, then…”
“…Yeah, sorry for bothering you.” Without watching Hayama go, I threw a leg over my bicycle. When I pushed off, I suddenly noticed my legs were tense.
Hayato’s attitude rubbed me the wrong way. It was like he was poking around for my true intentions, and I was uneasy that I’d overlooked something. Both feelings lurked in the pit of my stomach, making me feel sick.
Something about his attitude didn’t sit right with me.
Just what was wrong about my perception of Hayato Hayama?
I think he’s a good guy. On the other hand, I also understand he’s not an ordinary person. He will occasionally reveal a more callous side in the name of his goal—maintaining the friendships around him. That was who I’d thought Hayato Hayama was.
But that smile had been a little different. That mild and gentle smile had looked perfect at a glance. But the perfection of that impenetrable mask made it cold and empty, hiding whatever lay far beneath it.
I know I’ve seen something very much like that before.
As I pedaled my bike, searching for the answer, I arrived at the community center. I stopped my bicycle and was about to go inside when Isshiki came out of the convenience store on the other side of the street. Her head sagged as she walked, and her stride was particularly slow.
“Isshiki,” I called out to her, and she looked up.
When she noticed me, with rustling convenience store bags in both her hands, she breathed a little sigh, then grinned. “Oh, sorry. Did I make you wait a little?”
“Wait? I actually went to look for you.”
“Isn’t that where you’re supposed to say, I wasn’t waiting at all, I just got here…?” Isshiki pouted sullenly, and without a word, I reached out to her. She looked at my hand and huffed into a smile. Almost like a tiny sigh. “…They’re not particularly heavy today.”
“Is that right?”
“Yep,” she replied briefly. It was true the bags didn’t seem all that heavy. But her arms carrying them actually looked more burdened than usual. “We’re late, so let’s hurry,” she said. She went into the community center, and I followed.
From behind, her shoulders appeared more slumped than usual, and her back was a little hunched.
Ugh, her motivation’s drying up, huh…? She comes off as bold, but she’s surprisingly weak.
That was understandable. The event itself and the internal affairs of the student council were not going well, so she had to be fed up. It was a fairly heavy situation for a first-year.
But my own actions were one of the factors that had trapped her in this sort of environment. There wasn’t much I could do to help, but still, I would support her as best I could.
For the time being, all I could do was carry her convenience store bags, though.
If you spend more time on something, will you get more out of it?
I think that question may be an eternal challenge for people who create things.
Very often, you’ll be thinking, I still have time, I’m still good, I think it’s almost done… And then before you know it, it’s all fallen apart. The more time you have, the more you can slack off, get lazy, and underestimate the task. That’s how humans are. You think it’s that easy? What are you talking about?! This is just carelessness!
And right now, the situation had gotten pretty bad while we were telling ourselves, We can still save it! We can still save it! We’ll just corporate slave it!
As proposed by Kaihin High School previously, starting that day, some elementary school kids from a nearby school would be joining us. Despite not a single concrete decision having been made, the scale had grown.
“From here on out, let’s decide things together! I want everyone to make lots of suggestions!” Tamanawa greeted the elementary schoolers with enthusiasm and nothing else.
The kids answered back with their formal greeting in unison, fully matching the energy in his voice.
Of course, we couldn’t have every kid in the school participating, so the elementary school had selected some children to come—I guess you could call them a kids’ council. There were about ten of them.
And I saw a familiar face among them.
She looked a little more mature than the other kids, so I recognized her at a glance. She had long, glossy black hair and a somehow chilly air to her.
Rumi Tsurumi was alone, as she had been during summer vacation.
As I was watching her, she must have noticed me as well, because her eyes widened. But then she averted her gaze, looking at the floor instead.
There was such a difference between that gesture of hers and the excitement of the other children, it reminded me of what I’d done to her.
In Chiba Village during summer vacation, at their summer camp, I’d destroyed the relationships that surrounded Rumi Tsurumi—while pushing Hayama and his friends to act as the bad guys.
The results of that were now right in front of me.
I don’t know if that was right or not. And as for whether the results helped her, only she could be the judge.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
Turning toward the voice, I saw Isshiki giving me a confused look.
“…It’s nothing,” I replied briefly, looking back at the kids again.
I didn’t see any of the other children from that field trip group here. So that meant I didn’t know what was happening in Rumi’s social life now. I could mull it over all I wanted, but it would never leave the realm of speculation. So I stopped.
There were other things I should be thinking about now. Like first, how to deal with these kids. They were here, but it wasn’t as if any particular role had been given to them. A teacher from their school had come with them just in case, supposedly as supervision, but it seemed they intended to leave the course of action to us big kids. After exchanging a few remarks with Tamanawa and his crowd at the beginning, the teacher immediately backed off.
And as for Tamanawa, once he had concluded his introductory remarks, he came over to us with a cheery smile on his face. “Well then, can I count on you to handle them?”
You’re gonna invite ’em over and then dump ’em, huh…? Nothing had been decided yet, so all we could do was chitchat. What’s more, the kids couldn’t be kept there very late, so our operational hours would be limited. Frankly, it didn’t seem like there was much point in having them there.
“…Hmm…” Unsurprisingly, Isshiki’s response to Tamanawa’s request was a complicated expression.
But now that he’d approached her with this, it was too late for her to tell him we didn’t need them after all. I don’t know what Tamanawa had said when they were negotiating, but since we’d left that to Kaihin, then we would owe them. Our failure to shoot down the idea during the brainstorming was another painful point.
If we were to quarrel over this now, it would negatively affect the reputations of both our schools and the elementary school, as well as every institution that had agreed to this project. We’d already reached a deadlock, and if we were to quarrel any more, we’d be even more dead and locked.
Make one side happy, and you irritate the other… This is beyond damned if you do, damned if you don’t! It’s pamyu if you do, pamyu if you don’t! Pon pon way!
We were wondering what the heck to do here, but that was even more true for the kids. We’d brought them over, but they didn’t know what they were supposed to do, and so they’d all gathered in a clump.
All except for one.
I didn’t even have to check to know it was Rumi.
As the other kids were discussing things in a hushed manner, she did not enter their circle.
The kids glanced over at us, then started whispering in one another’s ears.
“Should we go ask what we should do?”
“Who?”
“Rock-paper-scissors?”
“Sure, but…how many rounds?”
“Wait. Are we going on ‘shoot’?”
At some point during the discussion, the kids seemed to have forgotten this was supposed to be a secret, and their voices got louder and louder until we could hear them, too.
Yeah, that’s a thing, the culture of trying to decide everything via rock-paper-scissors. It’s like those overcompetitive types who try to settle everything via some kind of match. And then when some loner wins, they’ll be like, Then the winner has to go do it! Then make it majority rule to begin with! Then you’ll be braced for it. Poor elementary-school me.
Well, never mind me. As I was watching, wondering about modern elementary school culture, something surprising happened.
“…I’ll go,” Rumi said with a glance at them—she must have been listening in from the side. She didn’t seem particularly eager about it, and perhaps her calm attitude seemed imposing to the other kids. Apparently overwhelmed, the kids sent Rumi off with some timid remarks.
“Oh, okay…”
“Thanks…”
Rumi didn’t really respond to their feeble send-off as she walked up to us. Unsurprisingly, she must have felt hesitant about talking to me, as she addressed the nearby vice president instead. “What should we do?”
Rumi was quite composed for her age, while the vice president was flustered instead. “U-um…” Worried about how he should answer, he looked over to me. “What should they do?”
“Don’t ask me…”
“Oh, sorry.” So the vice president looked over at Isshiki. Indeed, if you considered the chain of command, he should be checking with Isshiki first.
She was with Tamanawa, so I called, “Isshiki!” and summoned her over. She casually let Tamanawa know she was leaving, then trotted back to us.
“What are we gonna tell the kids to do?” I asked.
Isshiki folded her arms loosely and tilted her head. “Ummm, but nothing has been decided, huh…? I guess it’d be a good idea to check with them?”
“Uh…” With the way the Kaihin guys had been acting, I got the feeling there was no use asking. Since they’d left the kids to us, we had to think up something. “I guess something that won’t get in our way, but also that needs to get done. They can do things like decorating, or like putting together a tree, right? So going out to buy materials, then making stuff, I guess…”
“…Yeah. Then, let’s do that,” Isshiki said with a nod. I went to explain that to the kids, Rumi included.
This was a good enough task for the time being, but we had to think about the future, too. We didn’t even know what we ourselves should be doing, and now we had even more to think about. We urgently had to solidify a structure for this event, or else we’d wind up spending this time as a disorganized crowd sitting around.
I left dealing with the kids to Isshiki and the others, and I walked over to Tamanawa. This was really something Isshiki should be doing, but compatibility is a genuine issue when it comes to interpersonal interaction. Isshiki must have felt she had to hold back because she was younger, so she couldn’t assert herself with Tamanawa. So that was where I should help her out.
I approached him where he was chatting with his friends and lightly cleared my throat. Noticing my presence, he turned around. “What is it?” he asked with a bright smile.
I’m not really good at dealing with guys like him. At a glance, he gives off this “good guy” aura, and I can’t help but be reminded of another guy I know. I was feeling overly conscious of this, and it made me speak somewhat awkwardly. “Well, even now that we have more people, we’re not gonna get anywhere unless we decide what the event will be…”
“Then let’s all consider it together.” His answer came back to me almost instantaneously, leaving me speechless.
“Together…? If you’re just gonna have those vague discussions, it’ll never get decided. First, we have to choose what to do, then consider—”
“But then wouldn’t that narrow our outlook? I think we should explore a way we can resolve things together.” Tamanawa cut me off without waiting for me to finish speaking.
But if I were to back down now, we’d only get a repeat of before. So I tried again, a counterargument from a different angle. “Uh, but we don’t have time…”
“That’s right; we have to consider what to do about that together, too.”
This discussion was like a meeting about reducing overtime hours…running late and making everyone do overtime. I scratched my head roughly, thinking about how I could phrase things to get my point across, but Tamanawa must have taken that as impatience. He put on a particularly kind smile.
“I understand you’re impatient, but we’ll work hard to support one another.” In a bit of a melodramatic gesture, he patted me encouragingly on the shoulder. My shoulders hadn’t really been tense, but they slumped slightly.
It seemed nothing I said would work.
I’m repeating myself here, but compatibility is a genuine issue when it comes to interpersonal interaction. And in that area, the compatibility between me and Tamanawa was the worst. And it was probably not all Tamanawa’s fault.
It’s true that often you can create excellent results through the wisdom of the crowd, incorporating the opinions and points of view of many people. Maybe that’s simply not the way I do things.
To work together with others and rely on them often means expending more time to do it. I don’t have much experience with that, so I suspect I won’t really understand the way Tamanawa does things.
I’ve made many mistakes. Maybe I was wrong this time, too.
“…Fine. But then you should have that meeting already,” I said, smothering my doubts.
“So then let’s get it started.” Tamanawa ended his discussion with me, called out to the Kaihin students, and began the meeting.
In the meeting that day, we discussed the event in more specifics. “I think with the brainstorming we’ve done before, we managed to share the grand design with one another, so at this point in time, let’s do a deep dive into the creative aspects of the event.” From his moderator-like position, Tamanawa gave his overly long statement.
Everyone nodded in response.
The students from Soubu were also participating in the meeting, though we’d left behind one person to supervise the kids making decorations.
Would starting with a discussion of content specifics finally mean some progress with this meeting?
Confirming there was no opposition to his proposal, Tamanawa addressed the room in a calm tone. “We’re starting from scratch here, so feel free to express all your ideas, everyone.”
Then some ideas popped up from the Kaihin side.
“Something Christmassy would be good, right?”
“I think traditional elements will be essential.”
“But they expect something high schoolers would do, yes?”
And yet again, the discussion was tending further and further toward abstract ideas. This is bad… At this rate, it won’t be any different from the brainstorming the other day.
Even Tamanawa seemed to understand that, as he nodded and said to everyone, “Something that evokes Christmas and also feels like us. What sort of thing, for example?”
And then, like a word association game, ideas popped up.
“I feel like for regional events, a classical Christmas concert is fairly standard.”
“But wouldn’t it be best to include something youth-minded? A band, for example.”
“Wouldn’t jazz be more like Christmas?”
“So then a choir instead. And we borrow a pipe organ.”
The Kaihin students seemed plenty motivated and proactively made suggestions. Whenever someone put forth an idea, someone else brought up another that expanded on that possibility further.
An orchestra, a jazz concert, a choir, dance, theater, gospel, a musical, a dramatic reading, etc.…
Since my job was to make a record of the meeting, I scribbled down the ideas that came up.
This was going in a decent enough direction, almost as if the snags in the previous meetings had never happened.
Before I knew it, the Soubu student council members were also raising their hands to propose their own ideas. In the earlier sessions, the mood had made it hard for them to talk, so they hadn’t taken the initiative to speak.
I continued taking notes for a while.
We’d probably exhausted nearly every concept we could think of. When I looked over what I’d listed again, I felt like I could see hope, even if just a bit. At this rate, maybe we would decide on what we were going to do within the day.
However, a moment later, Tamanawa said something fearsome.
“Good, let’s consider all of these ideas.”
Are you kidding? Is this some kind of Chibalian joke? I thought, looking at Tamanawa, but he seemed incredibly sincere. In fact, he had a sunny smile on his face as if he were enjoying how things were going.
…By all of these ideas, does he mean every single one that’s been brought up so far? He’s telling us to consider every single one to see if it’s viable?
In my opinion, we really didn’t have much time. We only had just over a week until the Christmas event. Whatever we were going to do, considering we needed to devote time to training, practicing, and coordinating with the relevant parties, we had to start preparing right away.
“Wouldn’t it be faster to pick one idea now?” I asked, unable to take it anymore.
Tamanawa closed his eyes and slowly shook his head. “Rather than rejecting ideas immediately, we should take in all suggestions to make something that will satisfy everyone.”
“Uh, but, like…” I tried to argue, but Tamanawa would not back down.
“Some of them are systematically similar,” he said, “so I think we can afford to do it together.”
He was right that exploring compromises between suggestions would be one way of doing this. But was it the best way?
I was getting an awful feeling like something was out of place, a scraping at the inside of my stomach.
But before I could think of a further argument, the discussion had moved on without me.
After that, the meeting took a turn.
“How about we consolidate the musical ideas to make a Christmas concert of various genres?”
“If we’re considering this from a consolidation viewpoint, then music and musicals are highly compatible.”
“Why not do everything and make it into a movie?”
It seemed the Kaihin students were, as Tamanawa had proposed, exploring compromises. The majority of the discussion shifted to how to actualize all the ideas.
There’s nothing wrong with bringing up suggestions. Anything that creates energy in a meeting should be welcomed. I also wasn’t really against choosing the brainstorm format in order to bring out as many ideas as possible.
But with the way Tamanawa conducted these meetings, I could see no conclusion. He wouldn’t reject anyone’s ideas.
I’d thought this meeting was starting to come together, but the way the wind was blowing now, I was skeptical of its success. Before I knew it, my hands had stopped recording. My arm dangled beneath the desk as I watched the meeting in silence.
Those actively discussing wore completely different expressions from me. They all had bright, lively smiles on their faces.
That was when I realized.
They were enjoying themselves right now. In fact, they were enjoying this exchange.
What they wanted was not particularly the volunteer effort in itself—they just wanted to feel good about themselves for doing this kind of work.
They didn’t want to do work. They wanted to bask in the feeling of doing work. They had the impression that they were accomplishing something.
And in the end, they’d think they’d done a hard day’s work, but it would all be for nothing.
Ahhh, it’s exactly like a certain someone. It’s like I’m having my past mistakes shoved in my face, and it really pisses me off.
You believe you’ve accomplished something when you haven’t done squat; you don’t see anything.
In the end, we took the whole meeting not to come to a conclusion, and the rest was put off until the next day.
We decided we would wrap up the meeting for now, while each of us would explore the feasibility of the ideas on our own. We’d discuss it again as a group later.
The elementary school kids had left quite a while ago. Those of us who remained got our things together and then left in turn.
Parting ways with Isshiki and the student council, I was pedaling away from the community center on my bicycle, when I suddenly realized something.
I’m hungry… Since I’d been zoning out, I’d forgotten to eat any snacks during the meeting.
If I went home, there would be dinner, but now that I was aware of my hunger, home was too far away. I guess I could have a quick bite somewhere… I stopped my bicycle for a moment and sent Komachi a brief text like a telegram: Don’t need dinner tonight.
Then, calculating based on my current location and the state of my stomach, I considered the optimal meal. They say hunger is the greatest spice, but that’s wrong. I think the greatest spice is when someone else pays for your meal. But, well, I was alone, so it wasn’t as if anyone would pay for me. So I had to take into account the state of my own wallet, too.
So…ramen, I guess.
Once I had decided, I was quick to act.
Humming Raa, ra, ra-ra, ra, ramen like Nausicaa, I cheerfully raced my bicycle down the road.
Crossing an overpass, I reached Inage Station. When you pass the roundabout in front of the station, you come out into a commercial district with various restaurants, an arcade, a bowling alley, and karaoke places all in a row. Turning left at the intersection beyond that and going a bit farther, I’d arrived at my goal.
At the intersection, I waited for the light to turn from red to green.
There, I caught sight of someone unexpected.
He wore a windbreaker over a Soubu gym uniform with a fluffy scarf around his neck—it was Totsuka.
He must have noticed me, too, as he hefted up the tennis bag on his back as if it were a little heavy and waved at me. When the light turned, he looked right, then left, and ran up to me.
“Hachiman!” Totsuka puffed white breath as he called my name.
Though I was surprised by the coincidence of running into him in the middle of town, I casually raised a hand in response. “Yo.”
“Yeah. Yo.” Totsuka must have felt shy about making such a flippant greeting, as he raised his hand a little with a bashful smile.
Ahhh, this is so soothing…
It wasn’t often I got the chance to meet Totsuka outside of school. Or rather, that’s because I don’t go outside much. But when something like this happens, I find myself thinking maybe magic and miracles are real.
But, well, they aren’t; that’s just the world we live in. Why was Totsuka here?
“What’re you doing in a place like this?” I asked, and Totsuka tugged up his tennis bag and showed it to me.
“I’m on my way back from tennis classes.”
Oh yeah, aside from the tennis club, Totsuka takes extracurriculars, too. Is that school close to here? …Okay, from now on, I’ll make sure to be around here for no reason at all around this time. Oh, but if I run into him too often, he’ll find it creepy. Maybe just once a week.
As I was drafting my weekly plans for the future, Totsuka was staring curiously at me on my bicycle. “What about you, Hachiman? Your house isn’t around here, is it?”
“Oh, I wanted to get something to eat.”
“Oh really?” Totsuka replied with a little hmm of acknowledgment, then he paused a bit in consideration. With a little tilt of his head, he looked at me with hesitant, upturned eyes. “…Can I come with you?”
“Hwa?” His unexpected remark made me freeze up, and a really dumb sound came out of my mouth.
Meanwhile, Totsuka was squeezing the scarf at his collar and twisting around uneasily as he waited for my reply.
“Y-yeah. Of course,” I said.
Totsuka sighed in apparent relief, and a soft smile came to his lips. “That’s great. Then what should we eat?”
“I’m fine with anything.” Once the words were out of my mouth, I realized maybe that was a poor response. With a girl, you can’t say you’re fine with anything, huh? By the way, I hear even if the guy answers with something specific like ramen or udon, she’ll give him a sour look. In other words, when a girl asks you, “What should we eat?” you have to reply with your best guess at what she wants. What the heck kind of catch-22 is this? Are girls a system for cultivating espers?
But Totsuka is a boy, so it’s okay.
He blinked a couple times and then asked me, “Hachiman, you haven’t decided what you’ll eat?”
I was on the verge of saying, I’m going to eat…you! like the wolf in “Little Red Riding Hood,” but there was no way I could say that, ’cause I’m a human…
“Oh, I was just kind of wandering over here, so anything is fine,” I said in a particularly gentlemanly voice.
My intention had been to go for ramen, but that had been by process of elimination. When you eat alone a lot, you wind up unconsciously choosing places that have counter seats. There’s nothing to worry about when it’s not crowded, but using a table seat when I’m alone makes me feel bad.
Besides, I didn’t have to fixate on ramen—eating with Totsuka would make anything taste delicious. I said earlier that having someone pay for your food is the best spice, but I take that back. The best spice is Totsuka. It’d be crazy if Momoya started selling something like It’s Totsuka! It’d go beyond panic buying—it’d hit corporate buyout levels.
While we were talking about what to eat, Totsuka clapped his hands. “Ah. Then how about yakiniku?”
Hey, hey, you know what they say about a man and a woman eating yakiniku together, but what about two boys eating yakiniku together…?
As I was thinking this, Totsuka seemed to realize that wasn’t so good, as he tilted his head. “Hmm, I guess yakiniku is a little expensive.”
“Yeah, that’s something you eat on someone else’s dime.”
“You’re always such a character, Hachiman…” Totsuka laughed an embarrassed “Ah-ha-ha.”
But yakiniku, huh…?
If you want to eat meat, I think there are other options, though…, I thought, looking around, and a certain fast food place, Fa-Kin, caught my eye. Since it was in a great location close to the station, it was a fairly popular place for kids around here. There was a hanging banner set outside the shop with the words YAKINIKU KALBI WRAP dancing on it.
“How about that?” I pointed at it, and Totsuka’s eyes sparkled.
“Ohhh! Yeah, I think I’d like that!”
Upon gaining Totsuka’s approval, we headed into the Fa-Kin in front of the station. But what’s with the abbreviation Fa-Kin? It seems kind of unfortunate.
The restaurant’s interior was a sharp contrast from the outside. It was warm and crowded inside, despite the cold wind blowing through the door. This had to be about the time when people returning from cram school and work would be stopping by for food.
When we lined up in front of the register, Totsuka breathed a little sigh. His cheeks were slightly red.
“They keep it pretty hot in here,” he said as he brought his thin fingers to his scarf. I heard the cloth slide off, revealing a strangely captivating neck. Just looking at it made my face red.
This is strange; this is strange. Totsuka is a boy. The heating must be making my face red right now, or it’s entirely possible that I’ve caught a cold or something. Calm down. Calm down and compose a haiku!
So am I sick, then? / No way, of course I’m not sick! / Ah, I think I’m sick… (I’m sick.)
…Yeah, I’m sick. If you’re composing a haiku about it, there’s definitely something wrong.
As I lined up, feeling flustered, our turn finally came. Judging from the level of the crowds, rather than us ordering as individuals, it seemed it’d be better for us to order together.
I stood next to Totsuka, and together we took a cursory look at the menu.
Totsuka pointed to something on it—the yakiniku kalbi wrap. “Oh, Hachiman. Let’s have these.”
“Yeah. Okay, let’s go with that.”
We paid, accepted the yakiniku kalbi wrap combo dishes, then went to the second floor. Fortunately, there was a table open. I thumped myself down and decided to eat right away. First, I munched on what you could call the main item, the yakiniku kalbi wrap itself.
If you’re asking if I burst out yelling, It’s so goooood! as lights exploded from my eyes and mouth while I swam through outer space, of course it wasn’t that amazing, but Totsuka’s recommendation helped, and, well, it was as good as you’d expect.
And I was fine with that, but I didn’t quite understand the reason Totsuka had recommended this.
“…But why yakiniku?” I asked. I’d had a number of opportunities to eat with him, and I seemed to recall he was a light eater. And I’d also gotten the feeling that, if anything, he liked vegetables more than meat, too.
Sounding a little embarrassed, Totsuka said, “I figured maybe something like that is good when you’re tired…”
Oh, I see. He had exercised not long ago, so maybe he was hungry. It’s like, you know, how it’s best to eat protein or whatever after working out.
Or so I had interpreted it in my head, but Totsuka added quietly, “Since you’ve seemed tired lately, Hachiman…”
“Have I?” I was aware of my own fatigue. But that was more like worry, a mental thing. My expression said, This is nothing.
But Totsuka shook his head vigorously. He put his food down and timorously peered into my face. “Did something happen?” His eyes and voice were both kind. But his gaze looked much more determined than usual, and his earnestness overwhelmed me.
Before replying, I brought my oolong tea to my lips. I felt like if I didn’t, my voice would come out hoarse. “…Not really. Nothing’s happened.” I’d swallowed so many things, that answer came out smoother than I’d expected. My tone was more cheerful than usual, and I think I was smiling, too, to avoid making him worry.
But my smile just seemed to make him a little sad. “…Oh yeah, you don’t talk about that sort of thing, huh, Hachiman?” His shoulders slumped and his head drooped, so I couldn’t see the expression on his face. Still glum, he added, “Maybe Zaimokuza would know…”
“No, he’s got nothing to do with anything.” I was a little surprised Totsuka would pull out that random name out of nowhere.
But it was relevant to Totsuka, apparently, as he shook his head hard and lifted his face. “But you told Zaimokuza before,” he said, and finally, I understood what he was talking about.
During the student council election, the one person I’d consulted, aside from Komachi, who was family, had been Zaimokuza. After that, Komachi had pulled some strings and gotten a bunch of people to help me, but the only one I’d spoken to personally was Zaimokuza. I’d never meant for that to have any kind of special meaning. He’d simply been the first one I’d seen who was also easy to talk to; he was also someone I had no reservation about getting help from.
But Totsuka must have interpreted that differently.
“I thought it was nice… I was really envious you could talk to him about that stuff, you know…” Totsuka slowly and falteringly put one word after another. When he said it that way, he made it sound like a good thing.
But it wasn’t. I’m sure it’s nothing so beautiful as what Totsuka was saying. I think it was self-righteous and self-interested, just relying on someone else’s kindness.
Totsuka didn’t know about that.
That was why he was still speaking to me so warmly.
“I don’t think I’d be useful, but…”
I could see Totsuka squeezing his jacket underneath the table. His thin shoulders were trembling as if he were shivering. I didn’t want to cause him any more unnecessary worry.
I hesitated a bit as to how I should talk my way out of this, scratching my head roughly as I put it into halting words. “That’s not it. It really wasn’t anything big. Isshiki just asked me to do something, and I was busy with that… And since I was basically the one who recommended her to be president, well, that was part of it. That’s all.” I summed up the brief facts to tell him and mentioned nothing else. The omission made it that much harder to say.
But it seemed even that was better than nothing, as Totsuka lifted his head. Then he looked me straight in the eye, as if trying to ascertain whether this was true or not. “Really?”
“Yeah. So you don’t need to worry about it.” If I had even a moment to think, I’d say something else. So I answered instantly.
“Okay.” He breathed a little sigh, then reached out for his coffee. Even after taking a sip, he didn’t let go of it. With the cup warming his palms, he muttered, “You really are cool, Hachiman.”
“What?”
My surprise must have been quite apparent; when Totsuka saw my face, he was startled, too. “I—I don’t mean it in a weird way!” He waved his hands frantically. Face bright red and fiddling with his hair, he added, “Ummm, I’m not quite sure how I should say it, but…you don’t ever complain, and you work hard on your own, even when things are painful or tough. I think…it’s just…cool…”
His explanation made me even more embarrassed. I pretended to lean my face on my hand and looked away. Reflexively, my manner of speech became curt. “…Not really. I complain, and I whine a hell of a lot, too.”
“Ah-ha-ha, maybe that’s true.” Totsuka suddenly burst into smiles. And then, his expression still kind, he hesitantly murmured, “…But if you’re in trouble, tell me, ’kay?” He added that question at the end like a reminder, and I nodded wordlessly in response. The seriousness of his tone reminded me I shouldn’t speak so casually. All the more so if Totsuka thought trust and cooperation were beautiful things.
When I agreed, Totsuka nodded back at me.
There was a strange silence then. Totsuka looked down, a little shyly.
The air between us felt more relaxed than before. “Wanna eat something sweet?” I asked casually.
“Oh yeah. Dessert,” Totsuka agreed, head jerking up.
“I’ll go buy whatever. You wait here.” The moment that was out of my mouth, I stood up without waiting for his reply.
When I went down to the first floor, the register was crowded like before. I was going to have to wait awhile.
Perhaps because there were so many people coming in and out of the restaurant, the area next to the register was a little warm. I started worrying I would zone out, so I decided to go outside for a bit.
The December night was cold, but the chilly outside air felt good on my cheeks. I’d come outside without putting on my coat or scarf, and the dry wind sneaked down my collar. I huddled into myself.
As I was trembling alone on the nighttime street corner, one of the passersby gave me a funny look. Most of the other people didn’t pay attention to me.
Suddenly, what Totsuka had just said rose in my mind.
Cool, huh…?
He was wrong about me. I was probably being stubborn. I think I was just trying to look good.
What he said was “cool” was nothing more than a form of obstinacy, an attempt not to betray the version of myself I’d decided I should be.
Even now, a repulsive monster of reason and self-consciousness haunts this body.
Maybe I should have simply taken what Totsuka said positively rather than focus so hard on it.
However, Yuigahama’s forced happy face, Isshiki’s occasionally revealed glum expressions, Rumi Tsurumi’s isolation, and most of all, Yukinoshita’s quiet, resigned smiles asked me repeatedly:
Was that really right?
I sighed, looking up at the starless night sky. Illuminated by the lights of the city, the part of the sky I could see was covered with clouds.
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