5: Sometimes the final boss has gone through things that only a final boss could have gone through
5
Sometimes the final boss has gone through things that only a final boss could have gone through
Twenty or thirty minutes after Kikuchi-san interviewed Hinami, we were in the cafeteria.
The two of us were next to each other at a four-person table, with Mimimi and our classmate Tachibana on the other side.
We were an unusual quartet, but there was a reason for that.
“Anyway…you went to the same junior high as Hinami, right, Tachibana?” I said, placing my notebook and pen on the table.
Kikuchi-san and I had searched for people who knew about Hinami’s past and had interviewed Mimimi first. She told us about Tachibana, who she remembered had been on the basketball team with Hinami in junior high.
“Yeah,” he answered aloofly. “So what? You wanna interview me?”
He looked back and forth from me to Kikuchi-san.
I glanced over at my companion; her head was bowed nervously. She especially seemed to be struggling to look at Tachibana. Understandable; he’s got a powerful normie vibe.
I answered in the affirmative for her. Ever since I’d started eating lunch with Nakamura’s group, I’d been interacting more with Tachibana, and I could chat with him about normal stuff fairly easily now.
“Yeah, exactly. We wanted to find out more about Hinami’s past so we could use it for her character in the play.”
“Huh.”
He dipped his head noncommittally. I had to admit our logic was slightly sketchy. We wanted to hear about the actor’s past to write the character better? It wasn’t the most natural request, but it wasn’t the craziest thing ever. My guess was that he generally accepted the premise, even if he had a few lingering doubts.
“I’m curious, too! I only saw her now and then at games!” Mimimi said.
“You played her at some tournaments, didn’t you?” I added.
“Yeah! Nice one, Brain! I’m impressed you remembered!”
“Thanks,” I said, smoothly moving past her typical excited response. Huh. Maybe we were capable of having a normal conversation as long as other people were there.
By the way, we also asked Hinami to join us, but she said she had work to do and disappeared off somewhere. She told us we could go right ahead without her since she had nothing to hide. Typical perfect heroine.
“So the thing I remember most…” Tachibana pursed his lips and thought for a second, then hit us with a thunderbolt. “She dated this super-popular guy on the guys’ basketball team.”
I just about jumped out of my skin. “What?! Seriously?!” I shouted louder than anyone else.
“Be quiet, Brain!” Mimimi scolded in a tone she’d picked up from Tama-chan.
“Sorry, sorry,” I said, then fell into a downcast silence.
But honestly, I never imagined we’d turn up such a shocking story on our first try. I mean, given what she’s like, it would’ve been more surprising if she hadn’t had a boyfriend, but man. There’s always more to this Aoi Hinami than I realize.
“He was the vice president of the team, this cool older guy who all the girls were crazy about.”
“Wow…an older guy.”
I had this image that only the kids at the very top of the middle-school hierarchy had the right to date someone older. Kids like Hinami.
But Tachibana wasn’t done.
“Then she dumped him right away.”
“Sh-she dumped him…?”
The more I heard, the more I felt like I was listening to a story about some distant, incomprehensible world. What, was she already that strong back in middle school?
“I guess Hinami’s always been like that…?” I mused.
Surprisingly, Tachibana tilted his head. “No…I’m not so sure about that.”
“What?” I latched on instinctively. “…What do you mean?”
He paused for a second, reflecting. “It’s not like we were best friends or anything…but we were in the same class our first year.”
“Uh-huh…”
I was totally absorbed. His story contained an imperfect version of her, different from the Hinami I knew—not NO NAME and not the perfect heroine, either.
“But that year…I don’t think she stood out that much.”
“…Really?” I couldn’t help saying.
Mimimi and Kikuchi-san were both staring at Tachibana, like they were as transfixed as I was.
This was some pretty juicy stuff. You graduate from elementary school, and suddenly, you’re in your first year of middle school. The kids who rise right to the top on that clean slate don’t just have inherent potential; they also have a certain amount of luck. Any little incident could knock someone down a peg or two.
Gradually, that luck tapers off, and people settle into positions that reflect their inherent potential more accurately. That ends up being the class power structure.
But I could imagine what Tachibana was saying.
“So that was in her first year…”
In her case, she didn’t have enough potential to start with—which meant she must have accumulated the elements she needed to get popular one by one.
She wasn’t the kind of person who depended on random opportunities; she was the kind who built herself up layer by layer through sheer effort.
“But then around the middle of the first year or maybe the start of the second, more and more people started talking about this cute girl, and then she was dating the team’s vice president. And then when she dumped him after a few weeks, she got even more famous…and by the third year, she had, like, this crew of fans. She was insanely popular with the younger girls.”
“F-fans…”
I smiled wryly, but Tachibana’s expression was good-natured.
“You know what I’m talking about. The popular older kids who all the younger kids worshipped. They’d buy the same accessories or shampoo or whatever as their idol.”
“Oh, I definitely remember that!”
For me, my middle school years were a haze, but Mimimi nodded enthusiastically.
“Those were the days. I had some fans like that, too! There were these first-year girls who would call out, ‘Nanami-senpai!’ and wave at me. When I waved back, they’d get all excited and scream. I was like, It’s just me, but…”
“Oh yeah…”
I did have some memory of that, where these weird sheeplike girls would get obsessed with some cute older girl. I glanced at Kikuchi-san. She was nodding softly, like she remembered, too. I guess those kinds of people exist at every school.
“Right?” Tachibana said. “Aoi was an extreme version of that. At the end, it was just over the top, like some royalty-free model that everyone copied.”
“Wh-what do you mean, ‘royalty-free model’?” I asked.
Tachibana thought for a second, then gave me an exasperated smile. “There was an expression going around: ‘Just Aoi.’”
“Just Aoi…?” I repeated.
“Just Aoi being Aoi. It became a thing people said whenever Aoi got a compliment or did something impressive. Or if we were having some problem and she came along and solved it, we’d be like, ‘Just Aoi,’ ‘Just Aoi,” like a kind of slogan.”
“O-oh, I get it…”
I could imagine that. In normie groups, a certain word will suddenly get trendy, and then people will start using it in all sorts of different situations.
It’s like once the normies start picking up that phrase, anyone who says it must belong to their group. Obviously, everyone wants to use it, so it becomes really common. I remember that happening in junior high, and it happens sometimes with Nakamura’s group, too.
For something like that to become a running joke, it had to be general knowledge that she was amazing.
“Wowee. Typical amazing Aoi…” Mimimi was impressed, and so was I.
“…Yeah. We ask one question, and all this stuff comes spilling out.”
You could only know these things if you’d gone to the same junior high as her.
Feeling somewhat satisfied already, I glanced over at Kikuchi-san.
One long, white finger was resting on her lip as she looked down, like she was deep in thought.
Maybe because she sensed me looking at her, she suddenly turned to me and nodded meaningfully. Wait, what’s that about?
She slid her gaze over to Tachibana.
“Um…I have a question.”
“Uh-huh?” he said with a gentle expression.
When Kikuchi-san asked her question, her eyes were clear and strong.
“Do you remember anything specific about Hinami at the beginning of the first year?”
That caught me off guard.
I was glad we were learning this incredible stuff I’d had no way of knowing before, but I was getting sidetracked. We weren’t here to ask about how amazing Hinami had been in junior high—we were here to ask what she was like before she became so amazing.
But Kikuchi-san always kept her focus on what was beneath the surface as she listened to the conversation.
“Beginning of the first year…?” Tachibana frowned. Yeah, he wouldn’t remember that period as well as after she turned into an idol.
The incomplete Aoi Hinami—how on Earth did the preperfect heroine think?
I glanced at Mimimi, and she was staring at Tachibana with obvious interest.
“Oh wait, there’s one thing I remember really well.”
“Yeah?” I said, leaning forward in my seat. Kikuchi-san was watching him with a quiet, earnest expression, too.
“Do you guys remember those little pieces of paper with a weird cartoon character on them and a question like ‘What’s your favorite food?’ or ‘What’s your impression of me?’ or ‘Do you like anyone?’ written on them? And you’d give them to your friends and answer the question together?”
“…What?”
“Oh yeah! I remember that!”
“Yes, I do, too…”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but Mimimi and Kikuchi-san both got it right away.
“Oh yeah, yeah. Now I remember. Definitely.”
I was sure loners had not been a part of whatever this was, but if I wanted the conversation to continue, I better pretend I shared that experience, too. After all, Mimimi and Kikuchi-san both did. Tachibana might have been pitying me, but I didn’t see it, so no worries.
“Anyway…one time, Aoi gave me one of those out of the blue. We weren’t very close at that point, so it kinda came out of nowhere. I was like, What, does this girl like me or something? We were both on the basketball team, so, like, no way!”
“Okay, but then what?” Mimimi’s eyes were glowing with excitement. I was curious what he’d say next, too.
After a minute, he frowned slightly and continued, a little bothered.
“I heard—it wasn’t just me. She gave them to almost everyone in class. Girls and guys, everyone.” His chin resting in his hand, he looked back and forth between me and Kikuchi-san. “Weird, right?”
“Yes…yes, that is odd.” Kikuchi-san drew her eyebrows together in thought, then nodded.
“Huh. Wonder why she did that!” Mimimi wasn’t able to interpret it, either.
“Right? It really stuck in my mind because it was so sudden. Other than that, she was this totally ordinary girl, so I don’t remember much about her. When I think back now, I wonder why I didn’t notice a girl that cute…”
“Yes, I see…”
“Interesting.”
Everyone seemed puzzled.
Everyone except me.
At first glance, it was hard to imagine why she’d do that—but knowing how she thought and fought as NO NAME, I had a guess about her intentions.
According to Tachibana, the scraps of paper had questions about favorite foods and crushes and so on written on them. Even if they weren’t the most brilliant questions, they were questions, which gave me an idea of why she handed them out.
I think—she was collecting data.
I’m speculating here, but I’d be willing to bet the question she was most interested in was the second one: What’s your impression of me?
As you can see from the first goal she set for my special training—for someone else to point out that I’d changed—Hinami really values an outside perspective.
Which meant that before she decided to become perfect, the first thing she probably did was collect objective data on how the people around her saw her, compare it to how she saw herself, and use that information for self-improvement.
Simply put, what she needed was a survey. Market research.
If my speculation was right, signs of the current Hinami did exist in her first year of junior high even if she wasn’t perfect yet. Yikes.
“Oh, and one other thing. I remember this one really clearly.”
“Yeah? What?”
The memories were falling like dominoes now. Tachibana’s voice rose, and he pointed at me.
“It seems kinda weird now, and I don’t even know if anyone else remembers it.”
I braced myself for whatever would have been so “weird.”
“Maybe it was during some elective or at lunch? I don’t really remember the details. But the guys and girls in our group were talking.”
“Uh-huh…”
“We started talking about where we got our names. We were going around and each saying our answer, and everyone else would be like, ‘Wow, cool.’ You know, just a random conversation.”
“Oh, that’s neat! I think my parents chose the name ‘Minami’ because they wanted me to be warm, like the south. Gotta check that!”
“Huh. So anyway, Tachibana, what happened next?”
“Well, Aoi’s turn came, and…”
“Hey!”
Mimimi pretended to be offended that I’d just ignored her. Guess we can still joke around like this as long as other people are with us. Kikuchi-san giggled, which made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
“She said her family wanted her to point toward the sun and grow up as straight as the aoi flower. She told us a little factoid about how aoi flowers bloom facing the sun, so I’m pretty sure I’m remembering this right.”
“Seems believable,” I said. A typical naming story.
“Right. But get this. After she told us that, she said something else, like it was nothing.”
“…What’d she say?”
I needed to know, now. Kikuchi-san was leaning way forward in her chair, ready to hear this important information.
Tachibana slowly revealed the mystery.
“She said, ‘Of course, that has nothing to do with me.’”
This unnatural phrase echoed across the table.
Nothing to do with me.
It was fairly abstract, and an odd thing to say in a conversation about the origins of your own name…but it was hard to know what she really meant.
“What the heck? I get why you’d say it was weird…”
“Right?”
Tachibana raised his eyebrows, and next to me, Kikuchi-san slowly tilted her head.
“…I wonder what she meant,” she said.
Tachibana shrugged.
“No idea. It was just a side comment, so we didn’t ask her about it. You don’t really interrogate someone over that. But the reason I remember it so well is that everything felt a little off afterward.”
“Huh…”
The story seemed like a potential clue, but then again, maybe not. We’d have to combine it with other information to come up with our own interpretation. I didn’t think this story alone was enough to clear much up.
Tachibana rubbed his neck with his palm.
“That’s about it when it comes to Aoi.”
“…Thank you so much. That was very informative,” Kikuchi-san replied, nervous and stiff, then bowed her head dutifully in his direction.
“Oh yeah, by the way,” he added, as if he’d remembered something. He smiled shyly at Kikuchi-san.
Huh? What’s going on?
“Um, are you on LINE?”
My ears twitched.
“LINE…?”
Huh? He was clearly about to ask for her ID. Wait a second! Had he just realized how cute she was or something? Hold on! Red flag! I don’t like this! But I couldn’t think of a justification for intervening, so all I could do was glance over at her a couple of times.
She was glancing back at me like she didn’t know what to do, but I had no reason to step in…and while I was trying to figure out what to do, Tachibana went on.
“Uh, it would be good to have your ID so I can let you know if I think of anything else about Aoi,” he said.
Shit. I couldn’t come up with a reason to stop him, and now he had his in. No fair!
“Oh…I—I see,” Kikuchi-san said, nodding.
Wait, really? You’re okay with that, Kikuchi-san?
But since she’d agreed, there was nothing I could do except watch in a daze as they got ready to exchange LINE IDs. Dammit, I have to put a stop to this! But I can’t do it alone! Mimimi, help! Mimimi, where are you?
Just then, possibly sensing my desperation, Mimimi interrupted them by saying, “Oh, hey!” Nice, Mimimi! Keep going, keep going!
As I silently entrusted my future to her, she pulled out her phone.
“Can I have your ID, too, Kikuchi-san?”
Then she lowered her head, like she was asking Kikuchi-san to be her girlfriend, and extended her phone, which was in her right hand. Huh? That wasn’t what I was expecting. And why did she sound even shier than Tachibana? I didn’t care how much Kikuchi-san rivaled Tama-chan in her little-forest-critter cuteness—Mimimi was acting weird.
“Oh, okay…here you go.”
And then she exchanged her ID with the two of them in turn. I couldn’t stop them…
“Wait, aren’t you all in the class group?” I asked, suddenly realizing the obvious.
“Uh, you need to ask people for their IDs when you want to DM,” Tachibana retorted bewilderingly. I had no idea what his logic was, but he’s the normie, not me.
“Okay, got it. Thanks!”
“Thank you, Kikuchi-san!!”
“Oh, um, you’re welcome…,” she replied with a dreamy look. What the heck? What does this mean?!
Lost in my own suffering, I still managed to thank Tachibana for the interview.
“Hey, thanks, man…”
“Sure, no problem.”
I’d collected a number of interesting facts, but here at the end, I’d been thrown into a mental fog. I had no idea an enemy was lurking here…
* * *
The next day was Saturday.
Kikuchi-san and I had decided to get together over the weekend. We’d met at the Bean Tree sculpture outside Omiya Station and were heading toward our destination. Even after multiple outings together, I was still nervous.
“Hello.”
“Hello.”
After exchanging our usual greeting, I turned to her and took the lead.
“So should we get going?”
There was one reason for our outing.
More interviews.
We headed to the Saizeria diner near Omiya, in the building where the Loft store used to be.
“Uh…my name’s Tomozaki. Thanks for coming,” I said to the high school girl sitting across from me.
I was meeting her for the first time; her black hair was tied in pigtails, and she was wearing something low-cut and black. Instead of a necklace, she had one of those choker things around her neck. There was a furry black crucifix on it.
Next to her was—Tachibana. I wasn’t sure I liked him being there, but whatever. We’d been talking a lot lately.
Kikuchi-san was sitting next to me, which made for a two-on-two setup.
“I’m Maehashi. Hope I can help.” She bowed her head, her face blank. I wasn’t sure what to make of her polite but emotionless vibe.
“My name is Kikuchi. Thank you for coming.” She bowed her head, too.
So there we were, introducing ourselves to a girl we’d never met. As for why—
I took charge of the interview to get us rolling, using my experience with committee stuff and the script meetings with Kikuchi-san.
“Okay, so let’s get started… You went to elementary school with Hinami, right?”
Yup—the girl sitting across from us went to the same elementary school as Hinami.
Tachibana had told us about her the day before. Apparently, he’d sent Kikuchi-san a LINE message asking if she was free the next day and suggesting that we get together with Maehashi-san, and I came along to help. Not to guard Kikuchi-san. Just to help.
By the way, we also asked Hinami to join us again, but she said she was busy and that we should just go ahead without her. Typical perfect heroine.
“Hey, we’re all in the same grade, so let’s relax, okay, guys?” Tachibana interrupted. He was right—Maehashi-san had been in the same class as Hinami—but it was still hard to relax around someone I was meeting for the first time outside school, whether we were all the same age or not. Plus, interviewing her made me extra nervous.
Maehashi-san’s eyes glinted an odd color. She must be wearing those “color contacts.”
“Oh yeah, good point,” she said, glancing at me and Kikuchi-san. “Everyone okay with dropping the formalities?”
Her voice was flat, and her face was still expressionless; she was like some kind of doll. Even I could tell her eye makeup was really black and heavy, and the stuff on her cheeks (not sure what that’s called) was an eye-catching color. Her lipstick was bright red, so the overall contrast was strong.
“Sure,” I said. It didn’t come naturally, but if I made a conscious effort, it shouldn’t be that hard to talk to them as friends.
“Uh, um…” Kikuchi-san was obviously uncomfortable, which wasn’t surprising.
“Oh, you shouldn’t worry about it, Kikuchi-san. I mean, you’re so polite, even with us. Ha-ha-ha.”
But it wasn’t me who smoothly came to her rescue—it was Tachibana. Wait, I was about to say the same thing! It was like that crappy feeling when someone cuts ahead of you in line. Watch out, dude, I’m gonna use my honesty powers on you pretty soon.
“Oh, o-okay. Thank you so much.”
I watched enviously as she thanked him. He hadn’t done anything wrong, and yet I didn’t want to let him get away with it.
“Um, okay! So we’d like to interview you…” I tried to change the subject as I opened my notebook. “What was Hinami like in elementary school?”
“Let me think. I guess she was conscientious and cheerful… A good kid?” Maehashi-san answered flatly.
“Hmm, conscientious and cheerful?”
That didn’t sound very different from today’s perfect heroine, but the word conscientious did catch my attention.
Kikuchi-san must have noticed the same thing, because she asked the next question. “‘Conscientious’…what do you mean by that?”
“Um…”
Maehashi-san rubbed her chin with her red-tipped pointer finger and answered in the same bored tone. “Like, she always did what grown-ups told her to do.”
“…Interesting.”
“Like, she wasn’t a headstrong kid, you know.”
That description didn’t seem totally out of character, but it also wasn’t a perfect match. Hinami wasn’t the type to rebel against adults for no reason now, either…but the phrase she always did what grown-ups told her to do was fairly puzzling.
She did have the guts to confront adults head-on, like when she fearlessly picked a fight with the teachers in her speech for student council president. Just like how Alucia crossed swords with the king.
At the very least, not headstrong wasn’t the first thing I’d say if someone asked me to describe her personality.
“I see…,” Kikuchi-san said pensively, looking straight at Maehashi-san.
“Also, she seemed pretty attached to her family. I got the impression that she loved her little sisters a lot.”
“Oh yeah, now that you mention it, I remember that, too,” Tachibana said, nodding.
“…Really?”
I was moderately surprised by that. I didn’t even know she had younger sisters. If it had slipped even Tachibana’s mind, did that mean she’d changed when she got to high school?
“Let’s see, what else? I was a fairly loud kid, so I didn’t really hang out with Hinami-san in elementary school.”
Maehashi-san was loud, so they didn’t hang out?
That sounded a little harsh—that’s what you’d say about a kid at the bottom of the hierarchy, not the Hinami we knew now.
So Hinami wasn’t born and raised at the top of the heap after all.
“Hmm. Anything else? Anything you remember her saying, or any other impressions?”
“Well…”
Maehashi-san told us what Hinami’s friends were like, what extracurriculars she did, what her family was like, and some other stuff like that.
To roughly sum it up, it seemed that Hinami wasn’t exactly docile, but she wasn’t especially lively, either. She belonged to a middle-of-the-road group.
She also took piano lessons at the same school as Maehashi-san and went to a typical cram school. So she could play piano, huh?
Also, according to Maehashi-san, Hinami had gotten along unusually well with her family, and her parents were so cheerful and friendly to everyone that it made a bit of an impression on parent-participation days and things like that. If Maehashi-san remembered them out of the dozens of family members who would have been at those events, they must have been fairly exceptional.
Even though she wasn’t close friends with Hinami, Maehashi-san said she’d gone to her house with a group of kids to play a bunch of times, and Hinami’s parents would serve homemade cookies and juice and things like that. They seemed like a model of a warm, well-off family.
That’s where the final boss grew up? Man, human nature is a mystery. As far as I could tell from Maehashi-san’s stories, Hinami’s final-boss nature couldn’t have come from her family.
“…That’s about it,” Maehashi-san finally said. She seemed pleased with herself for talking so much. Some people just like to talk, no matter what they’re saying.
“Thank you so much. That was very helpful.”
Kikuchi-san took the lead in thanking her, and Tachibana and I followed up.
“So we’re all done, right?” I asked, consciously trying to grab the steering wheel again.
The three of them stood up. O-okay, great. I managed to take some leadership. Tachibana, you’re not gonna beat me.
With the interview over, we got ready to split up—or so I thought.
We were standing outside the ticket gate at Omiya Station.
“What train do you guys take?” Maehashi-san asked. I’d hung out in groups enough lately to recognize what was going on. She wanted to go with whoever took the same train as her.
But Tachibana said something I didn’t expect.
“Actually, the three of us have some stuff to talk about before we go home.”
“What?” I muttered, confused. Misread that one.
Maehashi-san just nodded, apparently unconcerned. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. So we’ll say bye here. Later.”
“Okay, later.”
I didn’t know exactly what he was thinking, but he was thinking something. Since there was no reason to get Maehashi-san involved, I went with the flow on this one.
“Um, bye.”
“Oh, okay…good-bye.”
Kikuchi-san seemed flustered, but she followed my lead and said good-bye to Maehashi-san, too. Maehashi-san waved her hand a couple of times, then disappeared through the gate.
—And then.
“Uh…?”
I turned to Tachibana, but he just laughed. What’s with that smile? If this is because you get to spend more time with Kikuchi-san, I’ll knock it right off your face, young man. Her father won’t stand for that.
“What’s going on…?” Kikuchi-san asked Tachibana with a piercing gaze. I doubted he could lie her. That look always shines a light into the darkness of my heart and helps me find the truth. He squinted, like he was looking at the sun.
“Oh, um, I just realized something. I mean, I wanted to tell you something.”
“You do…?” she asked quietly.
He nodded. “I knew that, too—that Aoi and her little sister were close.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” I said.
So everyone knew about that up through middle school, like I’d guessed. The reason not many people knew any more must be because when Hinami got to high school, she made a calculated decision that that part of her character wouldn’t work to her advantage. I could see her doing that.
“But there’s something odd about it.”
“…Really?” Kikuchi-san asked.
Tachibana nodded. “Maehashi said…‘sisters’ with an ‘s,’ right?”
I thought back on our conversation. “…Yeah, she did.”
“Yes, definitely.”
Tachibana nodded, a suspicious look on his face. “Thought so. It’s weird…”
“What?”
He frowned like he was struggling to put the pieces together.
“I’m sure…Aoi only has one sister.”
That only created more questions.
“Do you think you could be wrong?” I asked.
Tachibana tilted his head vaguely. “I guess I could be… I’ve never asked her specifically, You only have one sister, right? but I’m pretty sure. I don’t think she has a younger brother, either.”
“Huh. Then…what does it mean…?” I asked, confused.
It was a mystery. What should we do about this?
In elementary school, she had sisters, plural, but in junior high, she had only one. What did that mean?
“I can think of various explanations…but only a few seem possible,” Kikuchi-san said.
“…Right,” Tachibana answered.
I could think of a few of those possibilities myself.
First, Tachibana was wrong, and she still had two or even more sisters in junior high.
Second, something happened with her family, and the sisters were split up.
Or third—one of her younger sisters died.
“Well…it doesn’t seem like something we should ask her about. Especially since she hasn’t brought it up herself,” I said.
Tachibana and Kikuchi-san nodded.
“Yeah.”
“Let’s…act like we didn’t hear about this,” Kikuchi-san suggested with some solemnity. She paused for a moment, then added, “I think it may be best…to stop digging now.”
She sounded almost repentant, like she regretted starting in the first place. We’d gotten permission from Hinami, but maybe our own thoughtlessness was to blame for accidentally discovering this.
Tachibana and I both said we agreed. She sighed, as if to lighten the tension. “Well…I’ll see you two later.”
It was unusual for her to end a meeting, but this time, she took the lead. We each headed for our train, and I’m sure their feelings were as complicated as mine.
I still didn’t know what to make of the day’s events.
* * *
That night, my phone buzzed with a LINE notification.
I picked it up, wondering who’d sent me a message, and saw Kikuchi-san’s name, which also was unusual.
“…Wonder what’s up.”
I tapped on the message. I’ve heard that some people just read the push notification so the other person doesn’t know you’ve seen the message, but that’s for the pros. I’d be at a disadvantage the second I stepped into that particular ring, which is why my chosen battle strategy is to get that “read” notification on the other person’s screen as quickly as possible.
Anyway, this was what she said:
[Thank you very much for today.
Although I feel like we may have gone too far with our research…
But the other things she said were very interesting.
I think I have a slightly better idea of Alucia.
Well, I’ll see you on Monday. Good night.]
The first half of her message reassured me, but the last two words killed me.
“Good night…”
Those words were weirdly embarrassing. Like, they’re what you say just before you lie down to sleep. Together. The one problem was that it was only nine thirty, which was clearly too early for a high schooler to go to bed, but that didn’t make it any less of a KO. I guess Kikuchi-san goes to bed early.
Somehow resuscitating myself, I typed a reply.
[Good to hear.
Looking forward to reading the script.
Okay, goodnight!]
I almost fainted as I typed that last word, which kind of made me want to just stay like that and fall asleep so we could go to sleep together, but I still hadn’t taken a bath or brushed my teeth. In the end, I resisted. Impressive, huh?
I still had lots to think over in terms of the Hinami situation, but thanks to Kikuchi-san, I was nestled in soft clouds until I was able to drift off to sleep.
* * *
It was Monday morning, the start of a new week. I headed to Sewing Room #2 for my usual morning meeting.
I was especially anxious today. Partly, it was because I’d made zero progress on my assignment, but the bigger problem what we’d learned on Saturday. Of course, we were only guessing at the truth, and nothing was certain. Still, I’d learned a lot of things that Hinami had never told me herself. And learning them when she wasn’t there made me uncomfortable.
“All right. So about the weekend…”
I jumped, suddenly brought back to reality by Hinami’s words. She didn’t miss my reaction.
But the conclusion she drew from it wasn’t quite accurate.
“…Let me guess. You haven’t made any progress on your assignment.”
“Uh-uh…” I nodded noncommittally, vaguely relieved. Hinami sighed her usual sigh.
“Well, I suppose that interview helped you get a little closer to Kikuchi-san, but don’t let it go to your head. Keep your eye on the goal.”
“Oh right…”
The word interview had set me on edge again, but I’d managed to respond.
“I know the individual tasks are difficult, but you don’t seem to be making very good progress on your assignment lately.”
“I—I know.”
Despite my fears, Hinami didn’t ask about the details of the interview at all. I doubted I’d be able to keep our discovery secret if she went after me, but I wasn’t sure if it was okay to talk about. I was grateful she wasn’t bringing it up. On the other hand…
…she really wasn’t interested in her own past, was she?
“…Listen,” I said, making up my mind to give it a try.
She frowned, apparently sensing my intent. “Don’t tell me you’re going to annoy me again.” She sighed, as if she was sick of me.
Same old Hinami.
I didn’t have the mental strength to delve into her inner world.
“…Never mind.”
I probably couldn’t ask the question anyway.
I mean—it would be way too insensitive.
Tell me about your sister.
* * *
Afterward, in the classroom before homeroom, I heard a familiar voice.
“Tomozaki-kun.”
Turning around, I saw Kikuchi-san standing next to me. As usual, she was holding a copy of the script in a paper bag. The only difference was that the bag was thicker than usual.
“Morning.”
“Good morning.” She reached into the bag and pulled out the contents—about ten copies of the script, from the look of it.
“…So…”
“Mm-hmm.” She nodded. “You said we needed to start rehearsals today.”
I smiled. She’d made the deadline.
“Wow. You finished it?”
Maybe the interviews had borne fruit, or maybe she’d had more time because of the weekend. Whatever the reason, Kikuchi-san had finished the rehearsal script we’d be handing out. Which meant we could start practicing today.
But her face clouded over slightly.
“Actually…I didn’t finish the whole thing.”
“You didn’t?”
She shook her head apologetically. “No. I’ve finished editing the beginning and middle sections…but I’m not done with anything after the scene where they fly on the dragon.”
“Oh, okay.”
She was still unsure about the ending.
I waited for her to go on without rushing her.
“But…that scene is like a dividing line in the story. I thought we’d be able to rehearse it as long as it was finished up to that point. So I brought the copies.”
“That makes sense.”
I could see how that scene marked a climax in the story. The girl who raised flying dragons was taking flight herself—that could be the final scene of the whole play if she wanted. It was the perfect place for a pause.
“You know…if you run out of time, you could always end the play there.”
“Yes, but I’m going to give it a real ending!” she said, sounding very determined.
“Okay. Can’t wait to see it.”
“Let’s make it great!”
I took the pile of scripts she was handing me, happy that she’d spoken so strongly.
“…Yes, let’s do that,” I echoed, for my own resolve.
The performance was less than two weeks off.
At last, rehearsals were about to begin.
* * *
After school, the members of the organizing committee—including me—stood up in front of the class before we started on festival projects. We were going over what needed to be done that day, with Izumi at the forefront as the committee lead.
“Okay…next, let’s talk about the play. Tomozaki!”
All eyes turned in my direction. O-oh shit.
I envisioned myself facing forward with my body open to the crowd and my voice grounded.
“Uh, um, the script is ready, so those of you in the play, um, let’s start practicing today!”
My nervousness was on full display, but I heard enough “Ooh”s from the class that I must have managed to speak loudly enough. Okay. Glad everyone heard what I said.
“Um, okay, time to get started! Um, so…”
Izumi and I had already handed out the scripts to the actors this morning, but where were we supposed to rehearse? Just as the question crossed my mind, Izumi jumped in.
“Oh, I signed up to use an empty classroom, so everyone who’s in the play, follow me! Everyone else, please continue getting ready for our class stall!”
“What she said.”
Izumi smirked at my unhelpful addition. Hey, what’s that mean? What was I supposed to do? I didn’t know the plan!
About ten people followed Izumi to the spare classroom, including our mains, Hinami, Mizusawa, and Tama-chan, and supporting actors like Erika Konno. Of course, Kikuchi-san and I went along, too.
A jolt of excitement ran through me at the thought of the script we’d created becoming a play. Although, all I did was provide support.
“Damn, I wanted to be in the play, too…,” Takei moaned, gazing sadly at our backs as we walked off. Don’t worry about it, Takei. You’d probably have a hard time memorizing your lines, and then you’d forget them if you got nervous. It wasn’t meant to be.
* * *
There we were in the empty classroom.
The first rehearsal, day one, was about to begin. We didn’t have much time to practice.
“Um…what should we do?” Izumi said, peering at me with an anxious expression.
“Oh…right.”
How did you get started on something like this? Our school didn’t have a theater club, and I doubted any of the actors had much experience. This would be hard.
At least I’d searched for play rehearsal on YouTube over the weekend and watched a bunch of stuff, so I had a general idea of how it was supposed to go. Unfortunately, I didn’t really know how to get started. I glanced at my mentor for help, but Hinami was reading through the script and talking with Tama-chan. Hmph.
Well…all I could do was wing it. Time to gamble on the 40 percent success rate.
“Uh, um, okay, everyone, we’ll be starting the rehearsal now…,” I said, gathering my courage. Everyone looked at me, and I couldn’t exactly tell them to stop and just ignore me after all. Actually, I’d be in trouble if they weren’t looking at me.
I let out a long breath, screwed up my courage once again, and surveyed the group.
“Have you all read the script?”
“Yes,” Hinami answered earnestly.
Whew. It’s really stressful when you ask a question to a group and no one answers. Just that one “yes” from her was taking the tension out of my shoulders.
In the past, when I’d observed quick-answerers, I’d thought that only someone with a lot of confidence would do that, but now that I was the one asking the question, I was super grateful for them. Just Aoi.
“H-has anyone not read it? Um…should we take some time for reading?” I asked, gradually suppressing my nerves.
About half the group, including Erika Konno, called out that they hadn’t read it or were still just halfway done. Well, we only handed it out that morning.
“Okay, take a little time to skim through it right now. And, um, after that…”
“How about if the people who’ve already read it have questions about their role, they can ask Fuka-chan?” Hinami interrupted helpfully, since I clearly had no idea what should come next.
“Uh, yeah. That.”
“Got it! Thanks!”
She acted like I was the one who’d suggested it. When she was in perfect-heroine mode, Hinami’s social skills were something else. All I did was say yes.
“Hey, Kikuchi-san!” Hinami called, walking over to her. “I was wondering how Alucia was feeling in this scene…”
With that, she started asking questions. Whatever she did, she took the lead. Before long, everyone else was crowding around Kikuchi-san, too, listening to her answers and flipping through the script to find their own questions. The mood was generally positive—a perfect example of leading through actions instead of words. It’s always tough to be the first one, no matter what you’re doing.
“Thanks. So…like this?”
I guess Hinami had gotten all the information she wanted from Kikuchi-san; she took a deep breath and said:
“If I don’t do this, they’ll kill you, Libra!”
Her hands emphasized the words, too—she was acting out the scene where Alucia and Libra come to the garden for the first time and she suddenly tries to break the dragon’s wings.
Her acting wasn’t overly dramatic, although her voice carried well, and Alucia’s urgency was clear.
“Let me do it!”
She lowered the script and grinned at Kikuchi-san.
“How was that?”
“It was p-perfect…”
Kikuchi-san was in awe. It was as if Hinami hadn’t just fulfilled her image of Alucia but had shown her a far better version of the character. Some of that admiration probably came from how Hinami had done it so quickly and casually, but all the same, the performance was perfect. Well, Hinami’s whole life is an act, so her foundation is a little different from everyone else’s.
“Great! Actually, I’ve got some student council work in around twenty minutes, so do you mind if I leave early? Sorry about that. I’ll keep going with my role along those lines, so don’t worry about me!” she said.
Suddenly, it all clicked. So that was what she was up to.
“Well…going by your performance just now, I think it should be fine.”
“Right! Kikuchi-san, is that okay with you?”
“Oh, um, yes. No problem at all.”
“Thanks! Sorry!” She covered her face with her hands in a goofy way.
My guess was that she’d made a quick display of her seriousness in order to both increase our confidence in her and lower the amount of time she had to spend at rehearsals, since she was already double-booked with other commitments. It was scary to witness a seemingly minor incident like this and realize she was reading the game so far in advance.
We chatted for a few more minutes. When Erika Konno came over to say she was done reading, it was really time to start the rehearsal.
“Um, okay then, let’s get started.”
“Sounds good.”
Once again, when I made an effort to get the ball rolling, Hinami saved my butt by answering, even though she wasn’t going to be here the whole time. Just Aoi, as they say.
* * *
“Nice work.”
“S-same to you.”
A chaotic read-through by the ten actors had just ended. Since everyone was still rehearsing with the script in their hands, we managed to get through without any major hiccups, but overseeing the whole thing was still exhausting.
I sat down next to Kikuchi-san, who was squatting next to the wall.
“That went okay, don’t you think?”
She looked up at me and smiled slightly. “…Yes.”
I could tell she was drained—but satisfied, too.
Watching people perform the lines she’d thought up must have felt like something else.
The actors had split into groups of friends and were scattered around the room, chatting. I could hear people saying they thought the play was pretty good, and I’ll admit, I was pleased.
“…Even though we only did a read-through, I was nervous about every line… I wasn’t quite myself.” She laughed, as if to shake off her tiredness. “But…it was really fun.”
“Yeah?”
I was relieved to see her so satisfied. Her story was becoming a play performed by her classmates. It must have been stressful.
But if she was able to say she ultimately enjoyed it, then I’m sure the endeavor was worthwhile for her.
“Um…” She was studying my face.
“What?”
“Thank you. Thank you for all your help.” She sounded slightly shy, but her voice was full of emotion.
“It’s nothing! …I’m doing it because I want to,” I said, but she kept staring at me.
“I know, but…I’ve been thinking. You can’t keep this up.”
“…What do you mean?” I asked.
“You have the thing with Nanami-san,” she reminded me.
“…The comedy skit?”
“Yes,” she nodded. “Don’t you need to work on that, too?”
“Yeah, I guess so…”
I wasn’t sure what to do. Without realizing it, I’d been focusing all my energy on the play, but if we didn’t get started on the skit soon, we’d be in trouble. Actually, we already were.
“Um…” Kikuchi-san peered at me. “Please work on that tomorrow.”
Her eyes were filled with a strength that wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“But…what about the rehearsal?”
“I think…”
“…What’s up?”
She seemed to make up her mind. “I can take the lead, so it’ll be fine.”
“Really?”
I wanted to respect her powerful determination, but as far as I could tell from today’s rehearsal and past events, I was worried she’d have a hard time. I mean, she barely seemed able to say her opinion in an ordinary situation…
Nevertheless, she kept that powerful stare fixed on me.
“…You’re wrong.”
“Wrong?”
I didn’t know what she meant.
“I’ve been thinking this for a little while now… You’ve changed, and Hanabi-chan has changed, and I’m the only one being left behind.”
There was an emotion like worry or even fear in her words and eyes. She was hugging the script to her chest, but her gaze was directed straight ahead. “I’ve been feeling like…it’s time for me to change, too.”
“…Really?”
Her words were filled with a clear will to move forward.
Up till now, she had been settled comfortably in her own world.
“This is…a good opportunity for me to change. Don’t you agree?”
It was true that she was gradually edging toward the outside world. And now she had a chance like never before.
Plus, if she was saying it herself, then I wasn’t about to stop her. “I understand.” After all, she was choosing on her own to take the first step into that outside world. I had no reason to get in her way.
“I think this arrangement would be ideal.”
“…Okay.”
But for some reason…the word ideal made me uncomfortable.
I drowned out that discomfort by nodding. She was choosing to move forward of her own free will. Nothing was more important than respecting that.
“Thank you… I’ll do my best,” she said with a smile.
There was a clear shade of worry in her voice, but her eyes were focused ahead of her.
* * *
After school the next day, I met with Mimimi.
“Brain!! We’re running out of time!!”
“I know. What should we do?”
“You’re so calm!”
We’d come to the cafeteria to talk. By the way, the reason for changing locations from our last meeting was simple. There weren’t enough people in the stairwell, which meant we were overly aware of each other.
I wasn’t sure if it was thanks to our new location, but this one-on-one meeting was proceeding more normally. The presence or absence of other people nearby makes such a big difference psychologically.
“But you’re right… There’s not much time left. We probably don’t have time to come up with something from scratch.”
“Yeah. Which means…”
“Our only option…is to do that c-couple skit you mentioned before.”
I might have been talking in a normal way, but when it came to the implications of that word, I couldn’t help stumbling. This doesn’t bode well.
“Hmm. So that’s the Brain’s wish!”
“My wish? What are you talking about?”
“A couple skit! That’s your request!”
“U-um…”
That also had implications…which was probably what she intended. Now that Mimimi was feeling slightly more at ease, she had me in the palm of her hand.
“Okay, let’s go with that for now,” I said. She batted her eyelashes, scrunched down, and then jumped into a standing position, clapping her hands.
“Hello, everyone!”
“Wait, wait, wait!” I shouted. She was already starting the skit? “How am I supposed to dive right in like that?”
“Why not?!”
“Because we have to decide what to say first!”
“Even a dynamic duo like the Brain and me?”
“‘Dynamic duo’?”
“Even though we cuddle up next to the heater every night?!”
“…Well, yeah, ’cause the heater’s warm.”
Mimimi was even more outrageous than usual, and given the subject matter, I was getting more and more embarrassed.
“Have you forgotten how well we worked together…?”
“Okay, seriously, come on!” I snapped back, ignoring her joke—but for some reason, her eyes were sparkling.
“Hey, that was pretty good!”
“What was?”
She leaned way forward in my direction. Why are you so close? Why?
“What we just did! Just now!”
“Huh?” I tilted my head. What was she talking about?
“We were having a normal conversation, but it sounded like a comedy skit! The straight man and the funny girl!”
“What? Oh…”
I guess you could say that. I mean, Mimimi was being so ridiculous, all I had to do was make normal comebacks, and it turned into that. It wasn’t exactly good enough to perform up on stage.
“We just improv’d a couple skit!”
“W-we did…?”
If Mimimi said so…but really?
She wasn’t totally wrong—I’d focused on comebacks as part of my special training for the game of life, so I guess you could say that was paying off now. Although, I’d rather they pay off in real life than in a comedy skit…
“I think it was good! I think we can do this!”
“I doubt it’ll be that easy.”
Our conversation was bouncing along at a good pace, and to my own surprise, it didn’t feel forced. Everything Mimimi said was pulling my replies out of me, one after another.
But when I thought about it, I realized I’d probably talked to Mimimi more than anyone else since starting my special training. We got off at the same station, so we usually walked home together, and maybe my internal conversational tempo was naturally adjusting to hers.
“If we keep it up like this, we should be fine. And the script should work, too!”
“…Script?” The word caught me off guard.
“Weren’t ready for that, were you?! Believe it or not, I already wrote it!”
“What, really?”
This was good news; I’d been thinking we’d be in trouble if we didn’t come up with something soon. Of course, it would have been a problem if she invited me to do a comedy skit and then didn’t do anything to write it.
“…So where’s this script?”
Mimimi seemed to have left her bag in the classroom, and she wasn’t carrying anything. Where would she have it?
“He-he-he! You underestimate me!” she said, pulling out her phone. Then I put two and two together.
“Oh! A text file.”
“Correct! I’ll send it to you, okay?”
With that, she sent me the file, which was labeled “Zoo.txt,” via LINE, and I saved it on my phone.
“Got it.”
“I’m getting kinda nervous!”
“Ha-ha-ha, that’s normal.”
I glanced over the script while we chatted.
When I finished reading the last line, I told her my honest opinion.
“Wow, seems like a real comedy skit.” It was more polished than I’d expected.
“R-really?!”
“Yeah, it’s solid.”
She latched on to that, puffing out her chest and snorting noisily. “It is, isn’t it?!”
“Don’t get too full of yourself.”
“Heh-heh!”
I glanced over the script again.
Like she said, it was a couple comedy. The wife (Mimimi) asks to go somewhere, but the husband (me) makes up ridiculous reasons not to go, and their argument goes more and more off the rails.
When Mimimi says she wants to go to the zoo, I say, “But what if a lion escapes?”
“Then bring a stun gun,” she says.
“But they’ll confiscate it at the gate.”
Then she starts getting desperate. “Well then, work out! You only need three years or so at the gym to beat up a lion, right?”
I answer logically. “Who plans a trip to the zoo three years in advance?” Then I really go off topic: “And even if I did beat up a lion, what do you think it’d do to me? I’m sure I’d lose an arm or two. Would you still love me without arms?”
And she wraps it all up by saying, “What in the world are we talking about anyway?!”
She really had written a solid script. I knew she liked comedy, but I never guessed she’d make something this polished. The part about love or whatever was a little embarrassing, but the skit overall was so well done that I could push through.
“Did you come up with this yourself?” I asked.
She hesitated. “The jokes are mine, but the style I copied from Bramayo!”
“Bramayo…?”
“You’ve never heard of Black Mayonnaise?! Their skits are like this!”
“Oh yeah…”
The name rang a bell. I might have seen some of their work before. I think they did arguments where they’d go on and on endlessly about some little thing. I didn’t watch much TV, though, so I couldn’t quite remember.
“It’s two guys, right? So I thought I’d give it a little twist and do their style as a couple’s argument.”
“…Huh.”
Essentially, she was saying that if we kept their pattern of complaining about some tiny detail and then going off the rails, but changed the characters to a married couple, we’d end up with a somewhat original script. Hmm. It was very similar to what you did when you first wanted to improve at a game.
Which meant…
“I think this’ll work.”
If it made sense from a game perspective, then I could see a way forward.
“Really?! You thought it was funny?!”
I didn’t know what to say. “I thought it was well done, but if you’re asking if I laughed…”
“What?!” Mimimi stared at me in astonishment.
“No…I mean, I’ve never read a comedy script before, and you wouldn’t normally laugh just reading the words, right?”
“Oh, okay…” She read the script again herself. “Now it doesn’t seem funny anymore…”
“Hey, come on.” I reread it, too—and strangely enough, it was way less funny than the first time. Visions of a stone-cold audience rose before my eyes. “Wow, you’re right.”
“I—I am?!”
“It doesn’t seem funny at all anymore…”
“What?! No way…”
We both read it from the top again. This time, it…might get a laugh?
Mimimi flopped on the table like a wet rag. “Noooo. It sucks now…”
“Huh? I thought it was funny this time…”
“Y-you did?!”
We were going back and forth even though not a single word had changed. What the heck?
“One more t-time!” Mimimi blurted and started from the beginning again.
We weren’t going to get anywhere like this, so I made my mind up to suggest something. “Um, I have an idea.”
“What?”
“How about we just try it?”
“Huh?”
If you’re unsure about something, just give it a shot. That was one of the golden rules I’d discovered during my special training in the game of life.
“Let’s read it out loud and record ourselves if we can.”
“…Oh, good idea!” Mimimi’s face suddenly brightened.
One of my routines in the game of life was to record myself and listen back from an objective perspective.
I was fairly sure the same thing would work for a comedy skit that was supposed to entertain people.
“Let’s get started!”
With that, we recorded ourselves reading the script out loud.
The results?
“It’s not too bad…right?” I said without much confidence as we listened to the recording I’d made on my phone.
Recording ourselves seemed like a good idea in theory, but once we did, I still couldn’t decide if the script was any good. I mean, I didn’t really watch much comedy to start with.
“What did you thi…? Hey, what’s wrong?” I asked.
When I glanced over at her, she was replaying the recording with a pensive expression.
“…Brain, I have a thought.”
“Uh-huh?”
She paused for a second, then looked straight at me. “I don’t think we should memorize the script too closely.”
I didn’t really get her point.
“Wh-why? What if we messed it up because we hadn’t practiced enough? That would kinda suck…”
“Yeah, but…I’m not sure how to put this.”
“Put what?”
She hesitated, choosing her words carefully. “Don’t you think it would be funnier if we were just having one of our normal conversations?”
“Huh?”
“On this recording, we’ve got a good tempo going in some spots, right?”
“Yeah…”
“And maybe it’s partly because it was our first time—but it sounds like we’re reading the script, or something…”
“Oh…I can see that.”
Now I was following. As she said, our delivery was less like a conversation and more like we were taking turns reading lines.
“The best comedians sound like they’re having a conversation right then and there.”
“Okay, I can see that.”
It was especially true of the duo she’d based her skit on.
“That’s why I’m thinking we should memorize the general flow of the skit, but not nail down the script so firmly that it sounds like we’re reading it.”
“Y-you don’t want to decide on it all the way?”
She swiped through the screen on her phone. “Let’s see…like where you say, ‘That’s the most important part!’ Instead, you could say, I mean, isn’t that kinda important? or You’re talking about the most important part… or something!”
“Oh…I get what you mean.”
I looked at the script, imagining how I could change it around. The idea was to keep the content the same but base the actual words on the mood at that moment so that we didn’t end up reciting memorized lines.
It would sound more like a conversation, but…
“That’s…kinda scary.”
She was talking about ad-libbing around a third of it, which would be tough for a novice.
“I know…but listen.” She grinned and went on in a happy, reassuring tone. “You and I always have silly conversations like this, so don’t you think we can pull it off?”
That was kind of our relationship in a nutshell.
I talked to her more than anyone else, and I’d picked up my tempo from her, which was fairly slapsticky already.
In a sense, our normal conversations were practice for our comedy skit.
“Well, if you put it like that…I guess you’re right.”
“I am! I have high expectations for your comebacks, Brain!”
Her cheerful smile made me feel like as long as she was there, it would work out somehow.
“…But when I think about it, I’m probably the one who says more stupid stuff.”
“Ah-ha-ha! Well…”
“Aw, come on…”
Bit by bit, our practice session was settling into something more natural. I still felt a little embarrassed around her, but the usual fun was returning.
Right then, something sort of clicked. When I talked to Nakamura about the meaning of dating, he’d said, “It just happened,” and now that I was here with Mimimi, I was starting to understand what he meant.
It was easy for me to imagine having a good time with someone and then dating them as an extension of that.
But—how was that different from being friends?
* * *
We kept practicing until it got dark, then headed home together.
As we walked toward our houses from Kitayono Station, a lot of things were on my mind.
Farther down this same street was the spot where Mimimi had told me she liked me, and I still hadn’t given her an answer.
I couldn’t, because I didn’t know what that would mean to me.
“…Ergh…,” I groaned almost without realizing.
Mimimi stared at me. Those eyes of hers, as round as acorns, were taking me in unflinchingly. The clarity and power in them were almost overwhelming, but I thought I could see a gentle light somewhere in their depths, too.
“…You’re always thinking these days, aren’t you, Brain?”
“You can tell?”
“Yeah.”
She nodded.
Well, she was right that I had a lot to think about. There was the whole What is dating? question, which I was pondering at that very moment, and our research into Hinami’s background. Most of all, there was the play. Each one was fairly substantial, and to have them all running through my mind at once was a heavy burden for me. And I had my assignment on top of that.
“Thinking, or…well…,” I blurted out.
Mimimi thumped my shoulder. “What, what?! If you’ve got something on your mind, Uncle Mimimi is here to listen!”
“Uh, Uncle Mimimi?” I wasn’t sure how to respond to that.
She poked me in the side a couple of times. Stop it! My defense is even lower there than on my shoulder!
“You’ll only make yourself sick keeping your problems to yourself.”
“W-will I…?”
“Yeah! Everything a girl my age says is true!”
“Wait, I thought you were my uncle…” I snickered, but I was happy about her friendly concern for me.
“Um…thanks,” I said honestly.
She turned beet red. “Wh-wh-wh-why?”
“For worrying about me…”
“D-d-d-don’t mention it!”
Man, she stuttered worse than me these days. But if she was offering to listen, maybe I should tell her. Even if she couldn’t solve my problems, I wondered if sharing them with someone else would make me feel better. Lately, I was starting to understand those things, mundane as they were.
“Actually, I’ve had a lot to think about lately.”
“Such as?”
She smiled and raised her eyebrows really high. Her expression was both funny and encouraging at the same time.
“Well, the playscript for one, and Hinami for another…”
I didn’t mention the meaning of dating, which I’d been thinking about right when she asked, but I did bring up some of the other things in the mountain of problems I currently faced.
“Aoi…?”
She latched on to the second one, I guess because I’d mentioned an actual person’s name.
“Um, well, it has to do with the play, but…remember when we talked to Tachibana the other day?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, there’s so much I don’t know.”
I told Mimimi about our investigation. Of course, I didn’t mention the parts that I thought should stay secret. Which reminded me—Mimimi had been there when we interviewed Tachibana, but she hadn’t said much about how she viewed Hinami.
“Like, why does she push herself that hard?” My interest in the question was becoming more for myself than for Kikuchi-san’s script.
“Oh, that.” She indicated her understanding, then considered the question for a moment, her lips pursed. “I’ve thought a lot about it since then…”
“Since when?”
“You know, since everything happened with me and her.”
“Oh right…”
She was talking about the election and the track-team incident.
When she realized she couldn’t push herself as hard as Hinami, she’d wondered out loud how Hinami was able to do it…but no one had an answer.
She sounded troubled but also fairly confident in her words.
“I thought about it again after we talked to Tachibana…and I feel like I realized one thing.”
“…Oh yeah?”
I was more than a little interested.
Mimimi was close to Hinami, and the two of them were always vying for the top two places. Finally, though, Mimimi had realized she could never win.
Given her background, Mimimi might have some insights.
“Yeah. Maybe,” she said, but she sounded surer than that. “I think she’s like me.”
“…Really?”
Mimimi nodded. “I… Before, I told you that I wanted to be the best at something because I felt like I wasn’t special, right?”
“…Yeah.”
I thought back to that conversation, when she’d confessed to contenting herself with second place since she couldn’t beat Hinami. After so long, it had left a hollow spot in her heart.
She couldn’t see herself as special, so her only option was to become the best at something—to attain that specialness through effort.
“I think…”
She was studying the pavement and speaking with careful consideration.
“…Aoi—might be aiming for first place so she can be special, too.”
So that was her theory.
“…Interesting.”
The logic was simple when I thought about it.
If that was the reason Mimimi had tortured herself trying to be number one…
…then didn’t it make sense to think that Hinami—who was trying just as hard to be number one—had the same motivation?
It could certainly explain their relationship during that period.
They’d been driven to compete by the same motivation, but one of them had just been more motivated. If the type of fuel burning inside them was the same, but the quantity was so different—then it would be impossible for them to switch places. A harsh truth, for sure.
“…You could be right.”
I didn’t say all that straight-out, of course.
Mimimi nodded vaguely, but her eyes were distant and contemplative.
“…Mimimi?” I asked, noticing something was off.
She gave me a complicated smile. “I’m kind of…a little worried.”
“About what?”
She looked up at the dark December sky.
“Maybe Aoi is like me. Hollow.”
The words dropped quietly into the deserted Kitayono alleyway—her concern for her close friend and rival.
“You think…Hinami is hollow?”
I’d never considered that possibility before, but I couldn’t dismiss it.
“It’s true that I don’t know what her core motivation is,” I said, borrowing Kikuchi-san’s phrase.
Mimimi rubbed her chin and smiled. “Exactly! That is why Mimimi, ace detective, posits that the sealed box is actually empty!” she joked, trying to lighten the heavy air settling over us.
I nodded. Her tone was comical, but her words contained a question I couldn’t ignore.
“…An empty box, huh?”
Meanwhile, Mimimi just went on with her bewildering detective persona. “However, my dear Watson! I do hope that something is hidden inside that box!”
“You do? Even though you posited that it’s empty?”
Mimimi the detective wagged her finger at the sky. “And that’s where you’re wrong, my dear Watson! I’m not talking about theories—I’m talking about hope! I mean, can you imagine? If she works so hard and the box is actually empty? That would be so sad, and if it’s true…then she might…”
The strength of her voice steadily faded, dissolving into the cold air.
“Might what?”
She spun around toward me, her humor gone. “…She might never come to me to talk it through.”
She smiled sadly.
“That’s…”
I couldn’t think of anything to say. Mimimi was right. If Hinami really did have a weakness…I doubt she’d ever talk to Mimimi about it.
…Would she ever talk to anyone about it?
To confess her own hollowness to another person…I couldn’t imagine Aoi Hinami doing that.
“Oh, you agree! I can see it in your eyes!”
“H-hey, that’s…”
“You do, don’t you?! Mimimi, the famous detective, sees right through you!”
She was joking, but she’d hit the nail on the head. I was at a loss for words.
“Ha-ha-ha. You’re an open book, Brain.”
“S-sorry.”
Mimimi laughed off my apology. “Anyway, it’s fine! One day, I shall unmask the mysterious thief!”
Was I seeing things, or was there a flicker of something else behind her cheerful smile?
“…You will, huh?” I said, unsure how to answer.
Mimimi’s words were swirling in my mind. She was saying Hinami had an empty place in her heart—a feeling that she wasn’t special.
And the reason she worked so hard was to attain that specialness.
It did make sense.
I mean, to put it in my kind of terminology—she took the player’s perspective fully. Her playstyle was to value objectivity over subjectivity.
She didn’t think like me or Tama-chan at all—we were like, This is me! and believed in that even if we didn’t have much of a reason to, but her way of thinking was based on other people’s standards. Mimimi was the same.
In which case, it would be logical to think that Hinami needed some firm foundation in order to feel worthy. Even when she was the pinnacle of self-confidence, though? It felt like a contradiction, but maybe not. I’d need more time to think it through.
“Anyway, thanks. There’s a lot in what you said that’ll help me figure it out, I think.”
“Really? I hardly said anything! Aoi, you damn thief! No one’s gonna break into this box on my watch! …Uh, wait a second, that’s not right…” She frowned, starting to put her thoughts in order. “Ha-ha-ha…if Hinami’s the thief, then she’d be the one stealing what’s in the box.”
“Oh right! That’s not good, then!”
I was naturally enjoying this random conversation.
“Since Hinami is the owner of the box…would she be more like the director of the museum or something?” I said.
“Possibly! But Hinami’s hot, so let’s keep her as the thief.”
“Come on, that makes zero sense.”
“Details, details! Hotness is all that matters!”
“We’re way off topic…”
But Mimimi had shown me a new perspective in this after-school conversation. I had to admit, with her almost childlike agility in how she expressed herself, Mimimi had a brilliance that put me at ease.