7

Accessories are the only equipment every character can share

What happened after was basically the best-case scenario.

First, Mimimi went back to the track team surprisingly quickly, given all the fuss she’d raised. Some of her teammates were critical, but she was duly apologetic and rejoined successfully. Most of them didn’t know what had happened, so it was fairly chaotic, and she rejoined the very next day after she turned in the form to quit. After apologizing to everyone, she apparently introduced herself by saying, “I’m your new team member Nanami. Looking forward to running together!” and everyone rolled their eyes and called her an idiot, which successfully turned the whole situation into a source of good-natured gossip. Mimimi does it again.

As for the key problem of Mimimi’s feelings toward Hinami, it seemed that the jealousy and desire to win that had blurred into her gratitude and respect faded significantly thanks to her talk with Tama-chan. On the other hand, I feel like her sexual harassment attacks on Tama-chan increased threefold, which I’d call a plus. After all, it was fun to watch. Keep it up, Mimimi.

All the big events happened on Monday; the situation was wrapped up on Tuesday; and then it was Wednesday, the last day of first semester—a bit later than other schools, since we’re a college prep. In other words, tomorrow would be the start of the long-awaited summer vacation.

But before it began, I received my toughest assignment yet.

“Oh, uh, thanks…”

“Oh, um, it’s nothing. You helped me out.”

“Ah, um…”

The last homeroom of the semester had just ended. A minute earlier, Izumi had declared “I have to go to him!” like some TV character struck by a sudden impulse, and then she’d walked up to Nakamura and handed him a small, cutely wrapped package. Both of them were blushing and avoiding eye contact as they stumbled over their words in a pure and innocent conversation. Come on, guys. Get together already.

That’s right—it was Nakamura’s birthday.

Unfortunately, their one-on-one was doomed to be short-lived. Why? Because today Hinami had given me the following assignment:

Give Nakamura his present and talk to him for at least three minutes.

Seriously? What was that about? Was this half for her personal entertainment? But when nanashi makes a decision, he follows through, which left me no other option except obedience.

“N-Nakamura.” I busted into their little world, an entirely unwanted nuisance.

“Oh, hey, Tomozaki.”

He seemed less harsh than usual. Maybe I had Izumi’s present to thank for that?

“Uh, here…this is for your birthday.”

“…Huh?” He gaped at me in confusion.

“Listen, just take it already!”

I pulled the unwrapped present out of its paper bag and thrust it toward Nakamura. He stared at it in surprise.

“…A controller.”

I nodded. When we’d played Atafami in the old principal’s office, I’d assumed the console was Nakamura’s, and the stick on the controller had been on its last legs. In Atafami, a worn-out stick is a fairly serious problem. The problem is deeper than just difficulty controlling your character; you’ll do the same motions but get a different result each time, which not only interferes with the game at hand, it also gets in the way of skill-building. That’s why the controller is so crucial to anyone who wants to practice in order to get better. Also, even at big tournaments, everyone brings their own controller.

I explained it all under the terrifying gaze of Nakamura. Aka, I bought time by talking about Atafami and some other things I’d already thought about. Three minutes—that was my assignment.

“Huh…,” Nakamura said, nodding with great interest. “Okay, did someone above you tell you to do this?” he asked, frowning. Scary, scary!

I answered honestly, as usual. “No, it’s not that…”

“What, then?”

“When it comes to people who hate to lose…well, I get it—I mean, I kinda know where they’re coming from…and since I’m a gamer who loves Atafami, I’ve got a thing about fair play…”

I managed to explain myself, even if I did trail off at the end as I crumbled under Nakamura’s coercive aura.

“That so?” Nakamura deadpanned. “…I’ll take it.”

“…Okay.”

Nakamura put the controller in his bag. I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. When I glanced in that direction, Izumi was giving me a low wave and winking, as if to say, “You did it!”

Oh right—this was part of her big scheme to help us make up. Guess that scheme succeeded?

“Oh.”

I glanced at my watch. Three minutes hadn’t passed yet. Shit, what do I do? Hinami was standing nearby, and she was probably timing me. Even if she wasn’t, I’d come this far, so why not go all the way?

I frantically searched my mental files for a conversation topic I could use on Nakamura, blurting out the first one I hit upon.

“B-by the way, is it true that Hinami and Mizusawa are dating?”

* * *

“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

Mimimi burst out laughing at a family restaurant on the way home from school. She’d invited me to join her, Hinami, and Tama-chan for lunch there. We met up after the three of them finished club, and I read an Andi book in the library. What the heck? If you didn’t know better, you’d think I was a normie already.

“Seriously, where did that even come from, Tomozaki?!”

“Oh, give it a rest!”

Mimimi was full-on teasing me after I told her what I’d said to Nakamura.

“‘B-by the way, is it true that Hinami and Mizusawa are dating?’”

“Ha… Minmi, you sound exactly like him…!” Tama-chan giggled.

“S-sorry, Tomozaki-kun…” Hinami laughed. “Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

“Damn, a-all three of you…”

Tama-chan and Hinami were cracking up at Mimimi’s perfect impression of me. This was seriously hurting my feelings! I wished I could get in a time machine and change the past.

Mimimi just seemed amused by my reaction.

“But thanks for asking, Tomozaki! Everyone’s been wondering!”

“Oh, have they?”

“Yes, Aoi-san! Why don’t you share the truth with us? Well?”

Mimimi cornered Hinami with her special interview attack. Hinami looked at the ceiling and smiled evasively.

“Um…,” she said in an extremely cutesy voice. “What’s your guess?”

She looked at me and smiled impishly. What the heck? The real Hinami would never make that expression. Honestly, she was cute as hell. I had to look away.

“Ooh! Your face is bright red! Looks like Tomozaki has a cr—”

“Hell no!”

My vocal training and comeback practice allowed me to summon something to say before that unfortunate word could be spoken.

“Watch your mouth, Tomozaki! This is a family restaurant!” Tama-chan scolded me sternly.

“S-sorry.” She’d sure popped that bubble.

“But. The point is. I wanna know, too! So what’s the answer, Aoi? Well?” Mimimi rubbed her head on Hinami’s chest as she asked again.

“Sigh… Guess I’ll just have to confess.”

Gulp. I swallowed without even realizing.

“We’re dating.”

“What?!”

Not only did I blurt out my answer really loudly, I also reacted before everyone else. Mimimi and Tama-chan were both too surprised by my outburst to say anything themselves.

“…So what would you do if I said that?”

“Oh geez.”

Hinami giggled, then took a deep breath and, for some reason, looked at me.

“Of course we’re not dating.”

She seemed to be speaking to me, specifically. The combination of that and the weirdly attractive look on her face, which was a perfect illustration of self-confidence, made my thoughts grind to a halt.

“…Ooh, Aoi, you are bad!”

“Well, Tomozaki embarrassed me in front of the whole class. Just getting my revenge!”

“…Oof.”

Hinami covered her mouth delicately and threw me an amused smile. Why was she being so cute? She was pissing me off.

“Mister Tomozaki! Give us your honest reaction to this news!”

“Uh, um…no comment.”

Hinami stared at me. “What? You went to the trouble of asking, and that’s all you have to say?”

Her testing eyes pierced me again. She seemed thoroughly entertained and satisfied by the way my eyes were darting between her beautiful, glistening, bizarrely attractive eyes and her ruthless yet magnetic expression. Sadistic as ever.

“Whatever,” she said, directing her gaze to the top of my head. “But look at that!”

“What?”

“Did you buy some hair wax?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Yup, it was the wax Mizusawa had demoed for me and I’d bought for myself later. While everything was happening with Mimimi, I hadn’t felt like using it, but now that the storm had blown over, I’d decided to try it out. Well, actually, I’d been bringing it to school with me every day, and when Hinami told me I had to talk to Nakamura for at least three minutes, I decided to put it on during lunch. Kind of like armor.

“This is what I got,” I said, pulling it out of my bag.

“Huh! You didn’t have it on this morning, did you?”

“Um…”

Hinami looked at me intently, grinning. Then she stuck one finger in the air. “Not bad!”

“Really?”

That was a surprise. Bet it was because I’d learned from Mizusawa. I’d done some review myself afterward, too.

“I like it.”

“I think it looks pretty good, too, Tomozaki! You gonna use it every day now? …Oh right, tomorrow is summer vacation!”

What’s this? A stamp of approval from Mimimi and Tama-chan?

“But…it could just be beginner’s luck,” Hinami added.

“Hey now, if I did a good job, just let me have the compliment,” I said, putting the wax back in my bag. Mimimi burst out laughing.

“Ah-ha-ha-ha! You two are really in sync!”

“Huh?”

Actually, I think that was the first time I’d heard a real snipe from the fake Hinami.

“You really are good friends!”

“Are we?”

Mimimi had said that once before. She was right, though—to outsiders, we probably did look like friends just now. It was the same thing Mizusawa always did. He’d give some good-natured ribbing, but it didn’t make you feel bad. That’s what I’d named the Mizusawa Method. This was similar.

And it sounded like it gave Mimimi the impression we were friends. Very interesting. In that case, might as well use it more often.

“Well, now that the truth is all out in the open…the reason you are gathered here today is…”

With those oddly ceremonious words, Mimimi opened her bag.

“Hey, what are you up to, Minmi?” Tama-chan looked at her suspiciously.

“This is…to apologize for making such a fuss recently. I’m sorry!!” She pulled a paper bag out of her bag.

“What’s that?” Hinami said.

“It’s a little token of my gratitude. Or you could call it a symbol of our friendship!”

Mimimi took three palm-sized packages from the paper bag and passed them out to us… But.

“Um, is this what I think it is?” I asked. Yeah, no doubt about it. I knew what this was—one of those weird striped haniwa things. Like the one Mimimi had on her bag. The giant, not-at-all-cute charm.

“I know I caused you all a lot of worries, and you had to go out of your way to help me. We went through a lot, but now everything is back to normal! So I wanted to give you each one of these little guys! They’re my favorite, and I got everyone a different color!”

She looked around the table like she expected us to be genuinely happy. I looked at the charms. Like she said, each one had different color stripes, but they all had the same haniwa eyes and mouth. To be more straightforward, it was the polar opposite of cute.

“Th-thanks…”

Hinami was staring at her charm. Of course she was. Anyone would stare if they received one of these weird things out of the blue.

“…Thanks,” Tama-chan whispered. I copied them and added my own “Thanks…”

An uncomfortable silence fell as we all stared at our key chains. What the heck?

…Well, I guess I could understand.

No one had done anything wrong, but there had been all sorts of misunderstandings. People had been hurt when they didn’t need to be. But in the end, Mimimi had decided to give each of us one of her favorite things. Bad taste aside, it was the strongest sign of appreciation and friendship possible. I couldn’t believe she’d included me in the group. Guess I’d served some purpose despite being a bottom-tier character, and that made me genuinely happy. Anyway, it was a beautiful thing to witness a good friendship staying that way.

“…”

But this silence was going on too long. No doubt before long Hinami would break it, maybe with a rude comment that would come across as a friendly jab, à la the Mizusawa Method, and bring the brightness back to the situation. I glanced over at her.

Huh?

Hinami was gazing adoringly at the key chain. Not only that—Tama-chan had the same enchanted look in her eyes. What the heck? Finally, Hinami broke the silence.

“Ever since you put that on you bag, I’ve been thinking…”

Tama-chan nodded in agreement. “Yeah…”

Then, in unison, they said the unthinkable.

““It’s so cute!””

“Huh?!”

Suddenly, I felt alone in the world. Sigh. The brutal truth was staring me in the face: I was still far from acquiring a normie aesthetic.

I mean, seriously. They thought this thing was cute?