3: After a difficult quest, your latent abilities rise to the surface
That Monday, I was in Sewing Room #2.
“So have you made any progress on your assignment?”
As usual, I could hardly tell that Hinami had just finished morning practice. I decided to start with a basic overview of my current position.
“Um, well, I’ve finally got an idea of the conditions I need to create.”
Hinami nodded admiringly.
“Wow. If you really have, you’re moving faster than I expected.”
“Really?”
I guess talking to all those people had sped up my progress.
“We still have plenty of time, so I’m not gonna ask you about your approach just yet. I’m looking forward to the outcome.”
“You don’t want to hear the details?”
“Nope. In the early stages of this assignment, you need to experiment for yourself.”
As I suspected, it was on me to choose and implement a course of action independently instead of relying on Hinami’s instructions.
“So you’re telling me to stand on my own two feet?”
“Yup,” she said curtly. The ideas behind this assignment were obvious from the way she was acting.
“Got it… By the way, I’ve been getting advice from a lot of people on how to tackle this. Do you have a problem with that?”
Hinami smiled and shook her head.
“No, that’s actually the right approach. Isn’t that what you typically do in games? Since you’re up against a tough boss this time, you need to get help from other people on anything you can’t handle
alone. Making sure that’s taken care of is part of the assignment.”
“So this is good?”
“Yes.”
“…Okay, got it.”
I thought back to how I’d relied so heavily on Tama-chan when Mimimi needed help. This was similar. It was okay to get help from other people if I had a strategy but not the skills to carry it out on my own.
“But if you leave everything, including the planning, up to other people, then you’ve got your priorities backward. You’re the one who needs to be playing the game. If you hand the controller over to someone else, there’s no point to any of it. You understand that, right?”
“Yes, of course.”
Having checked the rules with Hinami, I started planning my strategy.
* * *
We finished up the morning meeting and left Sewing Room #2. As soon as I got to our classroom, I noticed something. I walked over to Mizusawa and Takei.
“Nakamura…isn’t coming today, either?”
Mizusawa frowned worriedly. “Seems that way. I sent him a message on LINE, but this is all I got back.”
He showed me the conversation on his phone.
[You skipping again? Something happen with Yoshiko?
It’s crazy how tough she is on you.
C’mon, don’t ignore me.
Playing
Dogfight again?
]
[Yeah.
Tell Kawamura-sensei I have a fever.
]
“Huh.”
He was so damn stubborn. He ignored everything else and just made his point.
Dogfight
was the game we were playing the other day at the
arcade. So he was playing that again. Must be busy with both Atafami
and Dogfight
to keep up with. Well, for a gamer, that’s not a bad thing.
“You see how he’s acting? All I can do is leave him alone for a while.”
Mizusawa sounded tired.
Takei agreed. “Shuji’s so annoying when he gets like this!”
“S-so that’s what’s going on…”
I tried to judge how involved they were with the problem based on how they were reacting.
Mizusawa nodded. “This fight is really dragging on. He skipped school last Friday, and now he’s skipping again after the weekend.”
“Oh, has that not happened before?”
He nodded again. “Before, he’d typically take a day or so off, then come back to school like nothing happened… If they’ve been fighting all weekend, this could be their biggest blowup yet.”
“Could be. Wonder what set ’em off this time,” Takei said.
“No idea. I’ll ask him later. Not that he’ll answer me.”
“All we can do is wait it out, huh?”
“Yeah. He better come back before the sports tournament, though. We’re gonna need him.”
“Geez, Takahiro. Now we know what you
care about.”
“Ha-ha-ha.”
They wrapped up the conversation and shifted smoothly back to normal subjects. Listening to them talk, I noticed they were concerned about Nakamura, but they kept a certain distance. This must be how guy friendships work. I was stepping into a whole new world here.
The next morning, I was in class again before first period.
“Looks like he’s breaking his record for longest absence,” Mizusawa said, frowning.
Once again, Nakamura wasn’t here. Even I was getting slightly worried.
I’d gotten used to my daily morning meeting with Mizusawa and Takei, but today, the mood was a little heavier than usual.
“He’s taking it too far this time.”
Takei was acting more or less the same as always, but I
sensed anxiety now. I didn’t know he was capable of that emotion.
“I got this from him,” Mizusawa said, showing us his phone.
[Say I’ve had a fever all week.
]
My mouth dropped open.
“This is getting worse.”
Mizusawa nodded.
“Yeah. I mean, we have exams coming up. We’re about to start prepping for them, and it’s gonna hit hard if he misses the whole first part.”
“…True.”
I agreed. The teachers were handing out worksheets and booklets and explaining how to use them and how their classes would generally go. If he missed all that, it wouldn’t be a fatal blow, but it definitely wouldn’t be good.
“Shit. What the hell is he thinking?!”
Takei ran his fingers through his hair, genuinely upset. Mizusawa smiled slightly as he watched him, but his eyes were serious.
“Well, he might know all this already, but Shuji never liked thinking things through.”
Mizusawa scratched his neck, then folded his arms in thought.
First period ended after a painful initiation into math, and then we had a short break. Suddenly, I felt someone poking my left shoulder.
“Ack!”
“Overreaction much?”
I looked to my left and saw Izumi leaning away from me with a frown.
“Oh, s-sorry.”
I might have gotten somewhat used to talking to and even teasing people lately, but I still fell apart when someone caught me off guard. I’m still a bottom-tier character, after all.
“What’s up?” I asked. Izumi glanced down but then made eye contact.
“I was just…wondering about Shuji.”
She looked very serious, and her cheeks were slightly flushed. Now this was a top-tier character—stirring my protective instincts with her vulnerability. Crafty, too. But I knew how these top-tier characters used their cuteness, and I stayed firm.
“Uh…um, you mean about him being absent?”
When I finally managed a response, I found I was more shaken than I thought, but it wasn’t a big deal. Izumi was as flustered as usual to be talking about Nakamura.
“Yeah,” she said with a nod. “I saw you talking to Hiro a minute ago, so I thought you might know something.”
Oh right, Izumi called Mizusawa “Hiro.” I wasn’t sure how to respond.
“…Well, on the one hand, he’s just skipping today, but we were saying he’s gonna have a hard time if this keeps up.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” she said, nodding glumly. “Wonder how long this’ll go on.”
I thought back to the LINE message Mizusawa had shown me.
“Mizusawa got a message saying he’d be out all week.”
“From Shuji?”
“Yeah.”
“All week? Yikes.”
I agreed. “Yeah. We’ve got entrance exams to think about, and if he misses the beginning of the exam-prep classes, he’ll be in a bad place.”
“Oh…I hadn’t even thought of that.”
Izumi seemed to be uncertain about something. I wondered what exactly she meant.
“What were you thinking about?”
“Oh, nothing… It’s just…”
Izumi paused, scratching her nose, before continuing. “It seems like he fights with his parents a lot, but it’s already been a week. And it’s still not over. Like, missing school is bad, too, but…I’m worried about his relationship with his parents.”
“Oh…”
I hadn’t thought that deeply about the situation. I already knew Izumi had a kind heart, but seeing her worry about Nakamura’s relationship with his mom was another reminder. She really had a lot of empathy for him.
“That’s important, too, right?” she said.
“Yeah.”
Izumi bit her lip worriedly. “If he would at least come to school, I could drag the whole story out of him. But if he’s not here, there’s nothing I can do…”
She sighed with exasperation, and I decided to bring up the point Mizusawa and Takei had been talking about the day before.
“He’ll come in time for the sports tournament…won’t he?”
“Maybe? I hope he does. If we’re going to do it, I’d rather everyone be there.”
“Me too…”
“Yeah.” Izumi nodded solemnly.
“We were just talking about how he tends to act before he thinks.”
“Oh, he totally does,” she said, pointing at me. Guess I hit the nail on the head.
I couldn’t help but smile ruefully. “So he’s always like that, huh?”
Izumi knew that about him, and she liked him anyway. When you’re in love, everything about the other person is beautiful to you, huh? Aww.
“That’s just who he is. We were in the same class last year, so I’m used to it.”
She sounded happily resigned to his flaws.
“You sound like you’re already married!” I joked.
Izumi turned red. How about that? That was actually kinda smooth, wasn’t it?
It came out so naturally because I wasn’t really trying—I just said what I thought, and it happened to have that result. I felt like I’d been button mashing and accidentally delivered a perfect uppercut. Oh well—it worked out just fine, looks like.
* * *
It was sixth period, the last class of the day—a long homeroom.
“All right, since we chose the captains for the sports tournament last week, let’s nail down a few other things for the tournament today,” Kawamura-sensei said, writing the words Top Sports Choices
on the board. We were starting the meeting without
Nakamura. “Like last year, the boys and girls in each grade level will choose one sport respectively and compete against the other classes in the same grade. Last year, we had…soccer, basketball, dodgeball, volleyball, and softball. But as long as a court is open, you can choose other sports, too. Captains, please lead the discussion… Takei, Hirabayashi, come up here.”
She gestured for the two of them to come to the front of the class.
“All right, guys! We’re going with soccer, right?!”
The class giggled as Takei walked up to the front. Hirabayashi-san followed quietly in his shadow. She didn’t seem used to this kind of role. All I could do was let Takei handle the situation. I don’t quite trust you, man, but…do your best to take the lead, okay?
“There’s no guarantee you’ll get your first choice at the captains’ meetings, so you should choose your top three. I’ve heard Takei always loses at rock-paper-scissors, so that’s the safest bet.”
“Hey! C’mon, you’re supposed to be a teacher!”
The class laughed again. When I looked at Hirabayashi-san, I could see she was too nervous to fully smile, but at least she looked amused. Keep it up, Takei.
I glanced at Erika Konno. She was laughing normally. Maybe she didn’t need to be uptight now that the captains had been chosen. At moments like this, she reminded me of one of those trendsetting fashionistas—cute and impossible to ignore. Her ordinary attitude was just too scary.
Anyway, sports. And motivating Erika Konno. We had to make the right choice here if I was going to complete my assignment. If our first choice ended up being something she hated, the cost part of the cost-performance equation would go up.
“…Hey, Izumi,” I whispered. After all, we had the same goal here. “Which sport do you think Konno would care about the most?”
“Hmm…” She whispered back, “Maybe softball?”
“Huh. Really?”
I’d been expecting her to say none
, so a straightforward answer like this was good news.
“Yeah… She doesn’t wanna get hit with a ball, so dodgeball, volleyball, soccer, and basketball are out.”
“Oh, makes sense…” That was one way to narrow it down.
“Does she like any other sports?”
“Let’s see… She’s fairly athletic, but I haven’t really seen her having fun with anything else.”
“Huh…”
“I think we should try to get everyone on board with softball.”
“Okay.”
I nodded. Izumi took a deep breath, preparing herself for a fight. I liked that gamer spirit—figure out what you need to do and do it. Nice job, apprentice! I better give this my all, too.
Not that I had much say in which sport the girls chose.
“Okay, you have twenty minutes, guys. Until…two thirty-five. Captains, you’re in charge of the discussion. The best option is to come to a consensus. If you can’t, we’ll decide by majority rule. We’ll start with the boys.”
“We’re going with soccer, right?!”
The second Kawamura-sensei handed the reins to Takei, he made his proposal to the class. This wasn’t so much a normie thing as it was just…a Takei thing. He’d announced soccer as his choice as soon as he got the position, so I didn’t expect much discussion.
I was wrong.
“Nah, we should do basketball!”
Tachibana, the guy I’d talked to the other day, was rebelling. Before, I’d only guessed he was on the basketball team, but it looked like I was right. I hadn’t expected the guys to split at this point in the process. I’d better observe and analyze the situation carefully to figure out why.
“What?! You’re kidding! Not soccer?!” Takei said, throwing the “leader” mantle out the window. Typical Takei.
“I’d rather do softball.”
The second guy to shoot his arrow was a member of Tachibana’s group. Uh, what was his name? Shimizudani? He was buff and had a shaved head, which suggested he was on the baseball team. I think I’ve been judging people based on their looks too much lately.
“Okay, softball is fun, but…”
Once again, Takei wasn’t so much pulling the class together as saying his personal opinion. Yeah, you’re not really suited for this
. I thought about why the class hadn’t just gone along with soccer, even
though Takei had announced before that he would get us soccer in the captains’ meeting. Plus, the high-ranking Nakamura was on the soccer team. Then it hit me.
Nakamura wasn’t here.
The guys who’d just suggested basketball and softball were jocks—they had decent status, but they were below Nakamura. They had less power in the class even though they had more members in their group.
If Nakamura had been here, the midranking guys would probably have gone along with whatever he wanted, but since he wasn’t around to control the mood, some individuals had started to splinter off, dividing the overall opinion. It was starting to come together. And since there were so many of them, we could be in big trouble. Wow, Nakamura has a huge presence, doesn’t he?
“We’ve got a lot of guys on the basketball team, so we could probably win.”
“True!”
“We’ve got a lot on the baseball team, too…”
“Yeah, both could work.”
Multiple positions were emerging within the jock group. They weren’t being pushy, though. It was more like they were testing the waters and adjusting in response to one another. Compared with Nakamura’s usual method of insisting on what he wanted, these guys seemed downright considerate. Their group probably had no clear central figure equivalent to Nakamura, and so they had no clear, single direction.
Takei looked helpless. He was probably panicking because he couldn’t get everyone to reach a consensus.
“Uh, so what are we going with? Soccer, basketball, and softball?” he asked.
“I say we just vote.”
“Yeah, sounds good,” Takei said, nodding. We were going to vote before the time limit was even up. Takei wrote Soccer
, Basketball
, and Softball
on the board and started to count up votes.
“Okay, guys, who votes for soccer?”
Aside from Takei, only three other guys raised their hand, including Mizusawa. I didn’t raise my hand, by the way. I might suck at sports, but I planned to vote for basketball to get at least some enjoyment out of this event. For us nerds, manipulating a ball with our feet or a bat is even harder than throwing it.
Sorry, Takei, I’ve gotta vote for fun. Sorry to you, too, Nakamura.
“Seriously?” Takei sighed, writing a big 4
next to Soccer
. Uh, I think people usually use tally marks for stuff like this. I almost laughed, just because it was such a Takei thing to do. Close call.
He took the votes for basketball and softball and ended up with nine for the former and six for the latter, which decided the ranking of our top three choices. Soccer was third, unbelievably. With Nakamura out, the midlevel guys had fragmented, and then all the lower-ranking “boring” guys in the class had gone for basketball. They probably figured they could get away without much court time—I know, because that’s how I thought until this year.
“Shit, no way! It’s basketball, then softball, then soccer.”
Takei wasn’t even pretending to be neutral about this. The guys’ discussion was over in around five minutes, and the baton was passed to Hirabayashi-san.
“Um, so let’s decide on the girls’ top choices now.”
The class suddenly felt very quiet. It was probably because Takei was so loud, but as everyone sensed the hush, the whole temperature of the class grew colder and colder. I glanced around, observing the people sitting nearby. They all looked tense. Or maybe I was just making assumptions.
I looked at Erika Konno, wondering what she would do in this situation. I watched as she slowly removed her hand from her cheek, folded her arms over her chest, and slumped grumpily back in her chair. Well, that was easy to read. Just watching her or sitting near her would be enough to make you shrink in on yourself a little.
“…Damn,” Izumi whispered.
“…Erika Konno?” I whispered back. She nodded rapidly several times, her round eyes glittering. She reminded me of a frightened dog. But yeah, given how obvious Erika Konno was making her opinion, everyone must have noticed it. That’s when I realized something.
Was this another method Erika Konno used to control the mood?
She displayed her opinion not just with words, but with her glances, posture, and actions. In fact, the first thing Hinami taught me was how to control my own expression and posture.
Thanks to her, I could tell a healthy debate would be hard,
but that didn’t mean the class had completely frozen up.
“I vote for basketball! With Hinami and me on the team, we’ll win for sure!” Mimimi was waving her hand enthusiastically.
“Well, I can probably only be there for half the game,” Hinami said, smiling a little regretfully.
“What?! …Oh right. You’re student council president!”
“Yup. But I still think basketball is best.”
They were cheerfully ignoring Erika Konno and carrying out their own plans. Unlike the guys, who were dominated by Nakamura’s group, the girls in class had two major factions: the Konno group and the Hinami group. There was more to the power structure than met the eye.
“Okay, basketball… Anyone else?”
No one responded to Hirabayashi-san’s question. Shit. Someone needed to do something, or we’d never end up with softball. I checked to see how Izumi was doing. She seemed nervous, too, glancing back and forth between Mimimi, Hinami, and Hirabayashi-san. Finally, she looked at me. I nodded rapidly a few times to encourage her. Damn, I’m picking up more of her gestures.
She nodded back at me a couple times herself. After a few more moments of hesitation—
“I wanna do volleyball,” Tama-chan said, shooting her hand straight up. Huh?
Izumi’s hand was already halfway in the air; she brought it to her head and combed her hair with her fingers instead. Come on, don’t wimp out!
Of course, I knew where she was coming from.
“Okay, volleyball. What should we do? Which one should be our first choice? Or does anyone else have a suggestion?”
Rather than rushing into the majority rule like Takei, Hirabayashi-san was trying to follow Kawamura-sensei’s instructions to decide by consensus. Good job.
Tama-chan had some real power in situations like this. The queen at the top of the hierarchy had created a silence so heavy, only Hinami and Mimimi could break it, and yet Tama-chan still raised a third opinion. Maybe it was because she was friends with those two. Either way, it was impressive.
It seemed likely to end up a close call between basketball or volleyball. Izumi glanced at me again uncertainly. Of course she was nervous. Suggesting yet another choice at this point would take
some willpower. That was understandable. From the outside, it didn’t seem like much, but when you were the one sticking your neck out, it was exhausting.
Still, setting the stage properly was crucial if we were going to convince the queen. Plus, it would be way easier to have fun in the tournament and help Hirabayashi-san if both of the top two girls’ cliques in class were on board. I pumped my fist at Izumi to encourage her some more. She nodded rapidly again like a dog and turned decisively toward the front.
“…I think I’d rather do softball,” she said, timidly raising her hand. Yes! You did it, Izumi!
“Okay, softball. Um, do each of you have a reason for your choice? Oh, Nanami-san already said why she wanted basketball,” Hirabayashi-san said. She sounded hesitant, but she was sticking with the consensus method. “Natsubayashi-san, how about you?”
Tama-chan paused for a moment.
“Uh…because I want to play volleyball?”
There was a brief, awkward silence. Maybe a little too honest.
“Come on, that’s not a real reason!” Mimimi shot back jokingly, gesturing comically with both arms outstretched. That was the signal for the class to burst into laughter. Okay, so this is another method for getting the group to laugh—poke fun at someone else if they say something a little weird.
I tried to imagine myself doing that at some future point. Key word being tried
. Yeah, that was still beyond me, even on an imaginary level.
In any case, that was an impressive move by Mimimi. Not only did she make the group laugh, but she was protecting Tama-chan. I remembered that Tama-chan had been described as not very flexible. In the exchange just now, Mimimi had very clearly helped her blend into the group. If she hadn’t done anything, we might still be in an awkward silence.
“Okay, Izumi-san, you’re next…”
Just as we were about to continue the discussion, a grumpy voice interrupted.
“Look, if we can’t all agree, we should just vote.”
The queen was attacking the captain.
“Uh, um, yes, but…”
Hirabayashi-san immediately crumbled before the intimidating and vaguely hostile reply. She glanced at Kawamura-sensei and the rest of us pleadingly, and the teacher finally stepped in.
“…Konno. I’d rather not jump straight to using the majority rule. I was hoping we could try coming to an agreement through dialogue. So I’m going to take over from here. Okay, first…”
With that, she smoothly took over leading the discussion, protecting Hirabayashi-san with cool confidence. Hirabayashi-san sighed with relief.
Pretty soon, Izumi-san was giving her reason for choosing softball, which was carefully adjusted to fit the general mood. I glanced at Erika Konno. Like before, she was leaning back in her chair with her legs crossed to make sure we all knew she was bored. Izumi sat back down. Our eyes met.
“…Erika scared me to death,” she whispered.
“Yeah…,” I whispered back as I kept watching the discussion.
Ultimately, the girls took a vote: six for basketball, five for softball, and two for volleyball. That made basketball their first choice. Welp. So much for softball. Guess this wouldn’t be so easy.
To be honest, I hadn’t expected Erika Konno to vote at all, but Kawamura-sensei was watching her. She ended up voting for softball, so Izumi had been right. She really was good at reading people.
After the discussion, we had a break. Izumi was slumped on her desk, looking exhausted.
“…Nice work.”
I wanted to congratulate her for surviving, even if it was a small struggle in the scope of things. She looked up at me and smiled vulnerably.
“Thanks.”
“Of course.”
Her unguarded face was like a magnet drawing my eyes. I forced myself to look away so I could regain my composure, and thought about our next move.
“Konno is an iron wall, isn’t she…? I can’t imagine her getting into this.”
“Ah-ha-ha, me neither.”
She smiled naively, trustingly. Stop that! If you don’t, I might trust you, too.
Wait, is that really such a bad thing?
“At this rate, we’re gonna have a hard time no matter what sport we get.”
“Yeah. Maybe I should give up on this. But poor Hirabayashi-san…” Izumi sighed.
“We’re going to need some new tactics…”
Izumi looked at me blankly.
“Tactics? Oh yeah, I guess so. Do you have any ideas?”
“N-not yet…” Tactics—something to hit her weak points. “I’ll give it some thought.”
“All right!” Izumi said, making an okay
sign with her finger and thumb.
Hmm… So we needed a way to get Erika Konno excited. Some trick to convince her that everyone will look down on her if she doesn’t. Or we could appeal to something else she wants.
I asked Izumi some more questions about Konno, but I didn’t get any new information or new ideas. Still, I felt like I was on the verge of a breakthrough.
* * *
It was after school, and I was at my usual meeting—but not the one in Sewing Room #2. This time, I was standing at the window where Nakamura’s group always hung out.
Mizusawa, Takei, and I had been chatting when Izumi and Hinami joined the conversation, which eventually turned to the Nakamura issue. Apparently, all the sports teams and clubs had the day off because the teachers were at some training event away from school. It went without saying that the topic of conversation was whether or not we should leave Nakamura alone.
“…I mean, there’s not much we can do,” Mizusawa said.
Hinami smiled cynically. “Yeah, it’s tough when he won’t tell us what’s going on.”
“Exactly,” Izumi said, nodding.
Mizusawa frowned. “Which means…we really shouldn’t do anything. At least for now.”
Izumi seemed upset by this idea. “What? Why? If there’s something we can do, we should do it, right?”
Takei nodded. “I think Yuzucchi is right! If Nakamura’s in trouble, we’ve gotta help him!”
“Okay, but…,” Hinami said with a vaguely reluctant smile, “it is
a family issue, and Shuji doesn’t seem to want us to get involved…”
“And that’s our real problem,” Mizusawa said.
They were right. I understood Izumi’s and Takei’s desire to help, but it was a delicate question. How far do you stick your nose into a family fight? Hinami nodded at Mizusawa with a frustrated look on her face.
“Yeah. If we force our way in when he doesn’t want us involved, we’d just end up being pushy…”
The group was silent for a moment. I wasn’t sure if Hinami’s comment came from the heroine mask or NO NAME, logic incarnate, but I got the sense it reflected her true feelings. I mean, this was directly related to her earlier point about rights and responsibility.
“Your rights only extend as far as you can take responsibility.”
Imagine if we butted into Nakamura’s problem without his permission, and something bad ended up happening. None of us would be ready for that level of responsibility. Ergo, we shouldn’t get involved. Personally, I agreed.
“I guess so…,” Izumi finally said. She seemed convinced, but unsure what to do.
“Yeah, Takahiro and Aoi are usually right, but still…”
Takei also sounded uncertain, even though he was putting his trust in the other two.
“We can let him know we’re here for him if he needs to talk, but I really think we should hold off on anything else,” Hinami urged.
“Yeah…you’re right.”
Izumi was clearly depressed, but she nodded slowly. She probably still wanted to help, but Hinami believed that acting on one’s own desires was the wrong choice in this case. She was wearing her perfect heroine mask and softening the edges of her words, but she was still trying to control Izumi.
A quiet disagreement was taking place.
Hinami’s unwavering principle was to choose the most rational path of action. It was extreme, but it had put her at the top
in all realms of life, so of course she was going to keep Izumi, who just wanted to do something different, from acting irrationally. But then a thought occurred to me.
I’m not Hinami.
I have one basic guiding principle: I plan to enjoy the game of life, so I put what I want first. Meaning, I shouldn’t just choose the most rational approach like Hinami did. If I was really trying to live life consciously, I needed to ask myself what I
wanted in this situation. Answering that question was my first order of business.
“…”
Not that I was any good at it yet, but I tried to sort out my emotions into words. I needed to prioritize my own feelings, my own direction, my own wants.
For a moment, I remained introspective, groping for an answer. Then I looked at the dejected face of my apprentice, Izumi, and made my decision. It was very different from Hinami’s “rational” conclusion, but I felt like I had to stick with it. And if I wanted to make it happen, I’d need to get the mood on my side. I came up with a plan, carefully chose my words, and turned to the group.
“I agree; we shouldn’t get involved in Nakamura’s problems carelessly.”
Basically, the current situation called for waiting it out. Hinami was right that the logical way to handle this was to wait until he came to us for help. And that was why I kept talking.
“…But here’s the thing.”
“…Hmm?”
It was Hinami, not Izumi, who reacted. I kept going, in part to organize my own thoughts and in part to make them into reality.
“It would
be a mistake to do something before he asks. But I think we can start getting ready now to help him when he does.”
“…How?” Hinami sounded unconvinced.
“Yeah, what do you mean?”
Izumi’s eyes glittered with a small spark of hope. I continued explaining my idea to the two of them.
“It would be wrong to, like, force him back to school or say something to his mom so they make up. But as long as we don’t make things worse, I think it would be a good idea to try to find out what’s going on and start getting ready to help him in case we do need to act eventually. We wouldn’t implement any plans just yet, but we’d be
prepared to help when he needs it.”
I wasn’t saying anything groundbreaking—just that we could start thinking about this now. Maybe he’d never ask us and we were wasting our time, but what I wanted in this situation was extremely simple.
I wanted to respect Izumi’s desire to help Nakamura.
That was the conclusion I’d come to after taking a look into my own heart.
“Yeah, yeah! Maybe we could end up helping him!”
“Exactly,” I said, nodding at the sparkly-eyed Izumi. I glanced quickly at Hinami, then back at Izumi. “If you want to help him, then I think you should go for it and give it your all.”
I was talking to Izumi, but I was also sending a little irony Hinami’s way. What can I say? It’s how I really felt.
“Yeah! I totally get you,” Izumi said excitedly.
“Huh… I guess that’s one way to look at it.”
Hinami looked unsure, but on the surface, at least, she wasn’t contradicting me. After all, I wasn’t saying anything that extreme. I was only suggesting we do everything we could, regardless of whether it’d end up being a waste of time. She probably couldn’t find a reason good enough for the perfect heroine Aoi Hinami to contradict that idea.
But I could read her real thoughts like a book.
Right now, Nakamura was rejecting any involvement from us. And knowing him, he wasn’t gonna change his mind. Anything we did now was almost certainly going to be a waste of time, and that wouldn’t accomplish her goals. It would be ineffective, unproductive, and just not an objectively good decision. If we had time for this, we’d be better off using it for something productive. Therefore, we should take a wait-and-see approach.
Taking it even further, if Nakamura had chosen a course of action that would cause himself harm, he should take responsibility for his own decisions. There was no need for us to go out of our way to help him.
I would have bet money that was what she was thinking. I’m a gamer, too; I get it. And I essentially agreed with her.
But life was just more fun
when you put what you wanted first. That was my philosophy.
I’d told Hinami I would teach her how to enjoy life, and I meant it. We were starting now. I had no idea if it was the “correct” thing to do, but we shouldn’t set the bar too high just yet!
“Let’s give it a try!”
Izumi looked around at everyone with her innocent eyes. She wanted to help so badly; she really was in love. In my opinion, that’s one of the hardest “moods” in the whole world to overturn. So this time, I was using it to my advantage. I figured it wouldn’t be a bad thing if the mood respected what Izumi wanted. Maybe I had inherited some of Hinami’s cold logic. The important point was that the goal itself wasn’t false.
“Fine, if Fumiya insists, I guess we can try it out,” Mizusawa said, smiling with exasperation.
“Yeah!” Izumi said brightly.
Takei nodded, too. “I’m with Farm Boy!” he said.
Once we’d established that, even Aoi Hinami would have a hard time reversing the course. I grinned and looked at her. For just an instant, she met my eyes with a meaningful glare.
“Agreed! It definitely makes sense to give it a try!” she said with the smile of a perfect heroine. As usual, an impeccable performance. I knew she was internally groaning about the waste of time, but she couldn’t say that without breaking character. Her mask had come back to bite her. She had to accept a truly irrational plan so that Izumi and I could get what we wanted.
“All right, so we’ll do what we can.”
As Mizusawa restated the final decision, our overall direction fell into place. Hinami looked at us nonchalantly.
“So the first thing we need to do…”
She took the lead in organizing our plan. Wow. Slightly surprising, yet in character. Even if the direction wasn’t what she’d hoped for, once it was decided, she’d throw herself into making it as efficient as possible. She’d never allow these irrational standards to take hold. That defiance was her strength.
Oh, and if she asks me later why I suggested that plan, I’m going to tell her I thought it would be good experience for defeating Erika Konno. That should save me. Making excuses is an important life skill.
* * *
The discussion began, with Hinami at the center.
“First of all, if we don’t know what’s going on with Shuji, we can’t do much to help. I think we have two options to learn why he’s been gone for so long—we either find a subtle way of asking him directly, or we ask his mom without making everything worse.”
Mizusawa turned to her in surprise.
“Wouldn’t asking his mom be a little much? Just going to his house would be making a huge deal out of it.”
Hinami shook her head.
“Well…he’s got a lot of handouts on his desk now, right?”
“Huh? Oh yeah,” Mizusawa said, nodding but still confused.
“Plus, he texted you saying he wouldn’t be back for another week, right? We could say you offered to bring them home to him when you told the teacher. Like, If he’s going to miss a whole week, we thought we’d come by!
”
“Oh…yeah, I guess that wouldn’t be weird.” Mizusawa sounded a bit outmaneuvered.
“And since he’s still fighting with his mom, he won’t be home. Then we can just strike up a conversation! If we’re smart about it, we should be able to find out why they’re fighting! But we don’t want to make too big a deal out of it, so we should probably only have one person go. She may be a tough nut to crack…but I think I can handle it!”
Hinami jokingly made a macho muscleman pose with one arm. I was honestly surprised by how smoothly she explained her ideas while keeping the whole mood positive. I’d intended to pull her into a more subjective approach, but instead she’d created a pocket of rationality within this irrationality and was racing along the shortest path possible to a solution.
I realized I’d never actually seen her work at solving a problem. She was always the one putting me through tests, so she didn’t offer solutions herself. I’d like to steal a few skills from this girl. After all, observation was one of my assignments, wasn’t it?
As I watched her speedily string together the most relevant bits of information we currently had and casually propose a workable plan, I felt like I was witnessing the very essence of Aoi Hinami, a terrifying force of efficiency and productivity. If this plan
failed, she’d have two or three more waiting in the wings.
“Makes sense to me…so can we leave it to you, Aoi?”
Mizusawa was once again attempting to pull together the group’s position when someone interrupted.
“Um, would it be bad if I was the one to do it?”
It was Izumi—shy but resolute.
“Uhhh…”
Hinami hesitated. What was she thinking right now? She was probably searching for a way to turn down Izumi’s suggestion without causing trouble. Or maybe she was calculating the risk of failure that would come with handing off the job. Before she could say anything else, though, Izumi broke in again, more forcefully this time.
“I want
to do it.”
She looked at Hinami with even more determination than before. I’d never seen her fight this hard against her tendency to disappear into the flow. Ah, the power of love.
I was fairly sure she was taking this stand because she wanted to help Nakamura personally. It wasn’t a rational position. She was just putting her feelings out there. The power of her will to do what she wanted was no joke, but it had no logic to back it up.
Basically, this was about as irrational as you could get. She was totally prioritizing her own desires over efficient problem-solving. Of course Hinami disapproved.
“I totally get where you’re coming from, but…”
Her tone was bright, but she avoided saying anything conclusive. Just as she was trying to find the shortest possible path of escape from an illogical approach, Izumi was again blocking her way.
Izumi’s proposal might have been irrational, but it arose straight out of her very genuine feelings for Nakamura. The perfect heroine couldn’t very well toss the idea away without a backward glance. Hinami was probably internally screaming. This was getting fun. The mood of the maiden in love was powerful indeed.
Eventually, Hinami broke her silence.
“Okay! It’s in your hands, Yuzu!”
Once again, logic had lost. She probably had to accept irrational choices now and then as part of her role as the perfect heroine, but doing so when she had to solve a practical problem was the polar opposite of Aoi Hinami’s approach to life.
Takei jumped in with a joke.
“You sure you can handle this, Yuzucchi?! Don’t you think you should leave it to Aoi?!”
I was surprised to hear Takei using his head, even accidentally, but Izumi just raised one finger and winked.
“Leave it to me! I’m an expert at reading a room!”
She looked at me and smiled. Why was she being so masochistic? And looking at me? Was it because she’d talked to me about this? Well, if she was comfortable enough to poke fun at it, that was a good thing. Plus, she was doing a good job of stating her opinion.
In this short period of time, she’d really made progress. EXP gained from love was a marvel to behold. Leveling up in life wasn’t exactly a competition, but I couldn’t let my guard down with her.
“Gotcha. So that’s the plan,” Mizusawa said, wrapping up the meeting.
“All right, step one: talking to Kawamura-sensei!” cried Hinami.
With that, the plan swung into action.
* * *
About an hour later, after Kawamura-sensei gave the go-ahead and Mizusawa led us to Nakamura’s house, Izumi headed off to her task while the rest of us went to wait in front of a convenience store nearby. We’d been there for about fifteen minutes when Hinami started to worry.
“It’s been a while…”
Takei nodded.
“I wonder what they’re talking about.”
“Maybe Shuji was home, and they got into a conversation,” said Mizusawa.
We hung out, chatting and making random guesses, for another ten minutes or so. Finally, Izumi returned, and she looked exhausted.
“Hey! What were you doing in there, Yuzucchi?!” Takei asked, waving exaggeratedly. Izumi waved weakly back, holding her hand at chest level.
“I got the info… Had to listen to Shuji’s mom complain about him the whole time…”
She gave a thin, weak laugh.
“Good work…,” I said, almost without thinking.
“Yeah…thanks.”
Izumi rested both her arms on Hinami’s shoulder and slumped there. Hinami patted her head.
“There, there.”
“I’m not a baby!” Izumi protested. Hinami kept patting her head for a little too long, teasing her. This was fun to watch.
After a minute, Izumi leaped away from Hinami and clapped her hands.
“…Anyway!”
“So? Why are they fighting?” Hinami asked, smoothly switching modes. Izumi nodded quickly.
“I figured it out! Well, I mean, she just kind of told me, but…”
She smiled awkwardly.
“…C’mon, tell us!” Hinami said eagerly, watching her.
Izumi sighed and frowned as she answered.
“He was playing Atafami
too much, so she told him he couldn’t play at home anymore. That’s why they got in a huge fight…”
…
Everyone was silent for a second. Then Mizusawa and Takei both let out huge sighs.
“I think I’ve finally met someone dumber than Takei…”
“Hey! Wait a second, that’s harsh!”
Izumi sighed, too, watching them. I could tell she thought it was about the stupidest reason ever for such a big fight.
But I also had my own feelings about this, and I probably wasn’t the only one. I glanced at Hinami. She was looking at me. We nodded at each other, confirming our unspoken thought, then looked away. When we heard the reason for Nakamura’s fight, we’d been on the same wavelength.
I don’t care what’s going on; you can’t just ban
Atafami!
But I decided not to let it show.
* * *
After leaving the convenience store, we went to a family restaurant nearby.
“Well, whatever his reason, now is not a good time to be missing a lot of school…”
Our morale had plunged, and Mizusawa was trying to boost it again by reminding us of our goal.
“Yeah. It’s really not. Anyway, the reason may be dumb, but a fight’s a fight…,” Izumi said weakly, like she was trying to find her motivation again.
“Right…” Takei was completely deflated.
On the other hand, Hinami and I were both feeling a little more motivated than before.
“Yeah, we can’t let it stay like this forever.”
“Exactly! Plus, it must be tough not being allowed to do his favorite thing!”
“What’s with you two…?” Mizusawa said, noticing the difference and looking at us suspiciously. Hinami quickly changed the subject.
“Anyway, I think there’s a lot we can do!”
“Really?! Like what?!”
Izumi scooted up against her and waited eagerly for her next words.
“Shuji’s mom probably thinks playing Atafami
makes his brain rot or something.”
“Oh… Yeah, she did seem to think that!”
“So…Tomozaki-kun,” Hinami said, suddenly mentioning me by name.
“Huh?”
“What was your class ranking at the end of last semester?”
“Um, last semester? Around fortieth…”
Actually, it was thirty-eighth. Given there were a little under two hundred kids in our year, that wasn’t bad. I didn’t have bottom-tier grades, at least. But why was she asking?
“So you’re probably above Shuji, right?”
Mizusawa nodded. “Yeah. He’s not too bad, but I’m guessing he’s right around the middle.”
Hinami grinned. “Plus…I’ve actually been playing a lot of Atafami
myself lately.”
“Really? Guess everyone’s getting into it these days.” Mizusawa smiled.
She said “lately,” but NO NAME popped up online more than six months ago. Well, in gamer terms, that was recent.
“Yup. Which means Tomozaki-kun and I both play Atafami
, and both of us are fairly good students. What if we found a way to casually drop that info in front of Shuji’s mom?”
“…Aha.”
Mizusawa smiled, but without much enthusiasm.
I got Hinami’s point, too. She continued happily.
“Couldn’t we clear up her misconception that Atafami
makes you dumb?”
The idea was slightly silly, but if the plan went well, the problem would be resolved almost instantly. Telling her we were both good students and Atafami
players would be easy enough.
Mizusawa wasn’t really enjoying this conversation, but he rubbed his chin solemnly.
“It’s not a bad idea… From what I’ve heard about Yoshiko, she’d have respect for the top student in the class.”
“…True.”
I nodded. It was a stereotype, but I definitely had an image of those overzealous helicopter moms latching onto trustworthy information about other people: The smartest kid in class is doing such and such!
Plus, I might not be that convincing on my own with my grades, but the other Atafami
player happened to be Aoi Hinami, who was at the top of the class. This boosted the persuasiveness of our argument significantly. We could even argue that Atafami
was excellent exercise for the brain. The strategy was classic Hinami: a head-on attack; bulldozing through with sheer effort.
Mizusawa agreed.
“So basically, we’ll have Aoi go and chat with Shuji’s mom… But hasn’t it been a while since last semester’s exams? Wouldn’t it be unnatural bringing them up now?”
Aoi acted unsure for a second. Right before she answered,
her lips seemed to curl upward very briefly, but maybe it was just my imagination. I was still bracing for the worst.
“You have a point… It’s already second semester, so that might be weird… Maybe something else would be more natural.”
“Like what?” Mizusawa asked. Hinami hesitated again and then, for some reason, looked me in the eye as she continued.
“We have a math quiz the day after tomorrow, right?”
“Huh? Uh, yeah, but so what?” I had a bad feeling about this.
Hinami grinned. “Well, when we go to his house again in a few days to bring him his handouts…we’ll bring Tomozaki-kun’s and my answer sheets from the test! With scores of at least ninety.”
“What?!”
Hinami’s full-on sadism threw me for a loop. Hold up! Ninety percent?!
“M-math isn’t my best subject…,” I protested.
Hinami laughed. Though she was smiling, her eyes were glittering sadistically.
“Maybe so, but can’t you try a little harder than usual for Shuji’s sake?”
“Uh, okay…”
I was trapped; she was using the same argument I’d used earlier. What a perfect counter. She was getting her revenge.
“Uh, um…”
Suddenly, Izumi broke in, haltingly but with determination. I glanced at her, and she was timidly holding up her hand next to her face. Hinami blinked dramatically.
“Yes, Yuzu?”
Izumi looked at her.
“I’ve been playing Atafami
lately, too.”
“Oh, you have?”
I could tell Hinami wasn’t ready for that.
Izumi nodded firmly. “Tomozaki told me I was almost ready to be Shuji’s practice partner. I think I practice more than most people!”
“Really?” Hinami said, tilting her head quizzically. She didn’t sound very convinced.
Eventually, Izumi’s gaze stopped shifting around, and she met Hinami’s eyes.
“So I’m thinking that if I also do well on the math quiz, maybe
that’ll help convince her, too.”
She waited solemnly for Hinami’s answer. Once again, she was insisting on what she wanted.
Hinami glanced at me, probably to see whether Izumi was telling the truth about Atafami
. Or maybe she was thinking the two of us were enough, and Izumi didn’t need to take the trouble to score high on the quiz. And Hinami would never recommend wasting effort. After all, between the famous Aoi Hinami and an extra person like me, we ought to be plenty convincing. Not to mention, she was just good at talking people into things.
From Hinami’s logical perspective, Izumi didn’t need to wear herself out trying to ace the quiz. Which was why I decided to argue.
“Izumi has been practicing hard lately, that’s for sure. And I know what I’m talking about when it comes to Atafami
. I think it’s a good idea for her to join us.”
Still looking at me, Hinami furrowed her brows for a second, then went back to smiling cheerfully. Well, she might have her ideas about what’s best, but I’d made up my mind to respect Izumi’s desire to help the boy she liked. Logic would just have to take a day off. After all, I knew what it felt like to want to achieve something. Really, really
knew.
“…All right, then!”
Hinami clapped her hands, pushing the conversation along. Her tone was bright and sincere, but I bet she was complaining deep down. “So that’s your approach, huh, Tomozaki?”
I was gonna pay for this.
“So the three of us will get scores of at least ninety percent on our math quiz! And when we bring the quiz to Shuji, we’ll casually bring it up during a conversation with his mom! Sound good?”
“Yeah!”
“Sure.”
Izumi and I nodded, and so did Takei and Mizusawa. Hinami smiled enthusiastically. It was so weird how her smile could be so nice when this wasn’t going her way at all.
“The only other thing is whether Shuji would actually want us to do it,” she said.
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Mizusawa smiled.
It wasn’t like we were going to make things worse, but Nakamura probably wouldn’t take very well to us going over and
getting information from his mom, then coming back with a math quiz and making a little speech about how playing Atafami
doesn’t rot your brain or whatever. In which case, somebody should probably get him on board with our plan first…
“So how are we going to convince him this is a good idea? What—?”
“I’ll give it a try.”
Once again, Izumi broke in with great determination.
“Oh, okay. I’ll leave it to you, then!”
Hinami must have learned her lesson, because this time, she handed Izumi the baton without a fight. Izumi had finally gained the inner strength to bend Hinami to her will. The power of love was even stronger than the perfect heroine.
I felt like this was a good job for her. After all, it was almost an established fact that they both liked each other.
“But wait, isn’t it gonna be hard to get Shuji to see you?” Takei pointed out. Izumi giggled confidently.
“We have plans to go out this weekend! Shuji can be difficult sometimes, but he wouldn’t stand me up at the last minute!”
Oh right, they had a date for the second week of September. But Izumi’s belief in him wasn’t quite ironclad just yet.
“…I don’t think so, at least.”
“Now you’re not sure?” I asked, making an effort to tease her and get a laugh from the others. I was really just copying Nakamura’s and Mizusawa’s skill here. Mizusawa chuckled.
“Nah, I don’t think he’d blow you off,” he said, before adding a teasing “…Probably.”
“Hey! Have a little more faith in us, Hiro!”
Everyone laughed at Izumi’s reaction. Yeah, watching us speak back-to-back like this, it’s obvious that Mizusawa still has the upper hand when it comes to messing with people. Gotta work on that.
Hinami looked at Izumi, her hand on her chin.
“You know the quiz is on Thursday, right? You don’t mind studying before you check with Shuji?”
Her point was that if Nakamura didn’t give us his approval, then it wouldn’t matter if Izumi scored 90 percent or not. In other words, this could be a big waste of her time.
But for Izumi, Hinami’s argument was trivial. She had already
made up her mind.
“I know I may not need to, but if there’s a chance it’ll help, I want to do it.”
“…Okay.”
Izumi wanted to help Nakamura more than anything else, even if there was a chance her effort would be wasted. See, Hinami? This is what it looks like to follow your heart.
With our plan basically decided, Hinami started to wrap up the discussion.
“Well, the rest is up to Shuji now. If Yuzu can convince him, we’ll use the plan we discussed to get his mom on board with Atafami
. Case closed. If not…we’ll come up with something else!”
“Agreed!”
Izumi was beaming. And with that, the strategy meeting came to an end.
* * *
That night, I was sitting at my desk in my room, studying math and reflecting on the events of the day. Hinami’s overly rational approach to the problem had surprised me. But what stuck with me even more was the way Izumi was so intent on following her heart. The reason Izumi took action—her desire to help—was uniquely her own, but this wasn’t the first time I’d seen something similar. I didn’t think she was the only one who’d acted like this…
That was when I connected the dots between what Kikuchi-san had said to me at the café and the reason Izumi took action in the current situation.
“So that means…”
I had a small aha moment.
It wasn’t quite the same as Konno and her fear of others looking down on her, but if my theory was correct, this new weapon could play a major role in my quest to defeat her.
Maybe I should be thinking more along these lines—but it probably wouldn’t be enough. I’d just discovered another way to strike at Konno’s weaknesses, but it wasn’t a powerful enough weapon for a one-hit KO.
So do I need a way to strengthen it…or…?
I thought about it late into the night.
* * *
After school the next day, instead of the usual meeting with Hinami, I was attending a different kind of gathering: a study session for Izumi and me, led by Hinami.
“Yep, yep. If you substitute there…see?”
“Oh, that makes sense.”
Predictably, Hinami was a good teacher. She instantly intuited what I was having trouble with and knew exactly what to say to help me put it together. Instead of giving me the correct answer, she’d tell me just enough for me to realize my mistake, fix it, and have the satisfaction of solving the problem, which helped me remember the formulas much better, too. She made an excellent tutor. Plus, she was pretty.
But just as I was thinking that such a perfect teaching style would guarantee better grades for anyone, the exception to the rule popped up.
“Um…substitute for this ‘X’?”
Izumi’s brain was working so hard, I could almost see the steam coming from her ears.
“Right. And then you can use this formula, which we just went over…”
“Um…which one was that again?”
“It’s… Okay, here—”
“Oh…I-I’m sorry.”
Izumi was having more trouble than I’d expected. She was getting more and more dejected until finally, she was reduced to apologies, and the tension was starting to rise. But Hinami just turned to her with a slightly teasing, mischievous smile.
“Yuzu…how in the world did you get into our high school?”
“Sh-shut up!”
The two of them burst into giggles. The mood lightened.
Wow. That was a completely insignificant exchange, but it was incredible to me. Instead of following Izumi’s lead with something like Don’t worry about it!
Hinami had lightened the mood by teasing her for being a hopeless student. It was a very advanced
skill.
The funny thing was, her approach ended up creating the impression that it didn’t matter. If she’d said we still had time or she shouldn’t worry, it would have added more weight to the failure by suggesting she didn’t want to hurt Izumi’s feelings. Her tactic produced a better result, but it was a bit too advanced for me to copy at this stage. I think she was able to pull it off because she perfectly controlled her tone and expression. If I tried the same thing, it would probably come across as a low blow and hurt Izumi even more.
Izumi laced her fingers together and stretched her hands high over her head.
“I just happened to do well on the Hokushin test and got in on early admission. This was actually the only place I applied to.”
“Oh, really?”
I listened from the sidelines, thinking about Saitama’s mysterious early-admission system. A couple times a year, junior high kids took the Hokushin, a prefectural scholastic aptitude test. If you did well on that, you were virtually guaranteed to pass the high school entrance exam. Basically, if your two best scores were above a certain level, you could count on passing the exam. Also, it was easier to pass if you only applied to one school. Izumi must have lucked out and made it to our school by scoring high enough on her top two tests and getting the bonus for only applying here. Welcome to the dark side of Saitama Prefecture.
“Yeah… But I think I’m starting to get this math stuff! Thanks, Aoi-sensei!”
Hinami made a pained expression. “I’ve gotta head to practice soon. Are you gonna be okay?”
“Oh right! I’ve gotta go, too!” Izumi said, hurriedly packing her bag.
“So for the rest, will everyone just study on their own?” Hinami asked us, sticking her notebook into her already packed bag and slinging it onto her shoulder. She was even efficient about this.
“Yeah, I think so…”
Izumi shut her notebook uncertainly and stuffed it into her bag. I couldn’t help thinking she’d have a tough time studying enough tonight to get a ninety on the test the following day. Hinami probably thought Izumi didn’t need to do that well as long as the two
of us did, and that was why she wasn’t pushing her too hard. Which was true, if you were only concerned about solving Nakamura’s problem.
But the thing I wanted to avoid the most was for Izumi to fail in what she wanted, which in this case was to get a high score. It might be a silly goal, but I could feel something indefinable in my heart saying I needed to go for it.
That’s why I did what I did next.
“Um, Hinami?”
“…Huh? What?”
Hinami turned to me and answered just a moment too late. She might have known she wouldn’t like where this was going—and if she did, she was right. I scrunched my face into a look of concern instead of a grin and told her my idea.
“I’m still feeling a little shaky on some points, so I was wondering if we could go to a diner or something to study some more after your practice.”
“Uh… I won’t get out till late…,” she said, not giving a clear yes or no.
“I was just gonna study in the library and go meet you whenever you’re done.”
“Oh, really?” she said with clear displeasure. Now came the meat of my proposal. I looked at Izumi.
“If you’ve still got questions, too, you wanna come with us?”
Her eyes lit up. “If it’s okay with you, Aoi, that would be a real lifesaver!”
Anyone could have guessed her feelings from the sparkles in her eyes—she was counting on Hinami from the bottom of her heart. It was next to impossible for Hinami to see all that hope and turn her down. She’d proven that much several times the day before.
“…Okay then, let’s all meet up afterward!”
She accepted our plan with a well-guarded smile, and I could almost hear her yelling Goddammit, Tomozaki!
at me in her head. But I’d done it. Now Izumi would have a fighting chance at getting a top score.
After Izumi used the power of hope to defeat Hinami, I hunkered down in the library to study for a while. When Hinami was available again, we met at a diner near school, got another great tutoring session from her, and headed home.
Well, I’d done everything I could. Now we just had to take the quiz.
Man, following my heart was fun. The world seemed a little brighter and more colorful—and I don’t think I was imagining things.
* * *
It was break time before math class on the day of the test. Izumi was on edge. Her eyes were puffy, and she was gulping down a can of black coffee to drown her sleepiness. She grimaced with every sip. She probably hated coffee and only bought it because that’s what people do when they’re tired.
“…I hope this goes okay…” Shivering like a puppy, she went over the notes from the day before again and again.
“You’ll be fine! Think about how much you studied!” Hinami said encouragingly.
“Y-yeah,” I added. “Honestly, I’m worried, too…”
“Tomozaki-kun. We’re focusing on Izumi right now, okay?”
“Huh? Oh yeah, r-right… You’ll be fine, Izumi.”
“Uhhh, that wasn’t very convincing!”
“Yuzu, why don’t you go over the problems I showed you yesterday? The ones that are most likely to be on the test.”
“Ooh, good idea!”
“Y-yeah!”
“I wasn’t talking to you, Tomozaki-kun…”
Under Hinami’s watchful eye, the two of us looked over our notes until the end of break. As soon as class started, the math teacher handed out the quizzes, and I got to work on the rows of numbers. I was slightly more nervous than usual, but I muddled through all the questions.
Compared with our other quizzes so far, this one seemed slightly harder. But thanks to Hinami’s tutoring, I was fairly confident in all my answers. And she was right about a bunch of the problems she said would probably be on the test. I’m bad at math, but this time, I think I might have aced it.
When the time was up, we handed in our tests, and the teacher quickly looked through them. In the meantime, I leaned over to Izumi.
“…How’d it go?” I whispered.
Her lips pressed together tightly, she nodded a few times.
“Well, I’m not a hundred percent sure I couldn’t do it. So I can definitely say I don’t know,” she said in a rather clipped tone. Huh?
“Uh…so I guess we just have to wait for the results.”
“Yep. That’s all we can do.”
“…Yeah.”
Maybe because she’d used part of her brain that she didn’t usually use, or maybe because she was anxious about the results, Izumi was acting stiffer than usual. I decided to leave her alone and focus on class.
Izumi, I really hope you reach your goal, even if it’s by a hair…
* * *
The next day was super embarrassing.
“Congratulations, Yuzu! You make your tutor proud!”
“Thanks! I really have you to thank!”
Izumi threw her arms around Hinami, who patted her head. This time, Izumi let her do it without insisting she wasn’t a baby.
During the break after our math quizzes were handed back, the three of us had gathered with Mizusawa and Takei to go over our scores. Of course, Izumi and I had already shown each other what we got, since we sit right next to each other. Anyway, the all-important scores…
Hinami: 100 percent.
Izumi: 95 percent.
Me: 85 percent.
Meaning this little strategy ended with everyone but me achieving their goal. What was I thinking the previous day? I
was the one who didn’t reach my goal, and by quite a bit more than a hair.
“Aw, don’t sweat it, Farm Boy!”
“Fumiya… Well, it wasn’t a horrible score…”
“Sh-shut up! I told you, math isn’t my thing!” I snapped back, playing up the despair. All four of them laughed. Well, that went over well. The area of effect for my skills must be improving with practice.
Now if I could just expand it to the whole class, that would be huge.
Hinami seemed pleased by the results.
“But anyway, two of us scored over ninety, and Tomozaki-kun… Well, he didn’t quite hit the target, but his score was still good. I think we’ll be able to make a convincing case!”
I was sure her smile had much less to do with the support for our argument and more to do with her sadistic pleasure in my low score. Still, I turned to Izumi and nodded.
“So now all you have to do is tell Nakamura about the plan.”
“Right!”
Izumi nodded back, her smile full of that freedom and relief that came with completing a difficult task. It was
impressive to think she’d gone from being that bad at math to acing her test—all thanks to how strong her desire to help Nakamura was. This was her special gift. Of course, what right does the worst scorer have to be thinking about it at all?
Hinami slapped Izumi’s back lightly.
“Good luck talking Shuji into our plan this weekend!” she said.
“Of course! I got this!”
Izumi patted her own chest with new confidence. I felt like she’d just taken a step up toward the next tier. I also felt like her chest jiggled a little when she patted it. Wait, what am I talking about?!
* * *
The following Monday, I had a quick morning meeting with Hinami, then I headed to our classroom. The members of the Nakamura Crisis Team, including Hinami, were already together by the back windows. Most likely, Izumi was giving them the rundown on her date with Nakamura over the weekend.
“Man, you’re late, Farm Boy!”
“Oh, uh, sorry.”
Actually, I’d gotten to Sewing Room #2 early, and the only reason I was late now was because Hinami had headed to class first…so Takei’s comment struck me as slightly absurd, but my only option was to apologize.
“I told Shuji everything, just like I promised! I told him I studied my butt off even though I hate math and got a ninety-five, and he got all grumpy and called me stupid! You can’t get a ninety-five if you’re stupid, though, right?”
“I don’t think that’s what he meant,” I shot back. Izumi brightened right up.
“Anyway, he said to ‘do whatever,’ so we’re okay to move forward with the plan! I was just telling everyone I think we should go to his house today!”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah!”
So Nakamura’s “do whatever
” meant yes
? Normie language was hard. Putting that aside, I was happy about Izumi’s good news. As I watched Izumi bask in her success, I remembered the other thing I’d been wondering about.
“But…how did the date go?” I asked her.
“C’mon, it wasn’t a date
!”
Her face turned bright red. Talking about romance was a weak point for her. Her and everyone alive, really.
“I was wondering about that, too! Give us the deets, Yuzucchi!” Takei said.
“Um, well…”
As Izumi was trying to avoid answering, a massive pair of hands reached out and grabbed her head, messing up her pretty, dyed-brown hair.
“’Sup?”
The owner of the hands was Nakamura. Wait, Nakamura?!
I did a double take. We were all staring at him as he let her go. For some reason, Takei’s eyes were filled with tears.
“…Shuji!!”
Takei grabbed Nakamura by the shoulders and shook him back and forth. Nakamura didn’t look happy about it, but he didn’t brush him off immediately.
“…Stop it already, man!” he finally said, elbowing Takei when he’d had enough.
“Owww!” Takei yelped, a huge smile on his face.
So Nakamura was back. Which meant the problem was solved before Hinami ever implemented her plan.
“Hey. What’s it been, a week?”
Mizusawa looked at Nakamura with a smile of defeat.
“I just skipped a couple days; you guys are making way too big a deal out of this. I don’t get why you studied super hard just to argue with my mom.”
Nakamura scratched his head roughly.
“What are you talking about? We busted our butts for you!”
Hinami elbowed him teasingly. She was one of the few people who could tease him naturally. I’d done it a couple of times as an assignment, but I could never pull it off the way she could.
“Yeah, yeah, fine. Thanks. Aren’t you already good at math?”
“Yeah, but I had to work hard to teach these two!”
“Fine, I’ll give you that. Not like I asked you to.”
Nakamura made sure his thanks came along with some snark. What he was saying was logical enough, and he probably didn’t want to come across as too
humble. Some good lessons there.
Izumi was standing next to Nakamura, shooting him shy glances.
“…Morning.”
Finally, she sighed out a quiet, vulnerable greeting for his ears alone, blushing and peering up at him through her lashes.
“…Hey.”
She seemed to have had an effect, because Nakamura looked away and sounded the tiniest bit embarrassed when he answered. How can you two turn a simple
good morning into flirting? That’s communication on a whole different level.
Even as dense as he was, Nakamura must have realized how much effort Izumi put in over the past couple days. Of course he would feel embarrassed. He quickly rallied, however.
“But come on, you worry too much. What the hell, getting a ninety-five on the quiz?”
And now he was needling Izumi, too. I think it might actually kill him to be honest for once.
“What?! You made us so worried, and that’s all you can say?!”
“You always get a ton of problems wrong! It’s just a weird way of helping,” he said bluntly. Maybe I was imagining it, but I thought I saw a very un-Nakamura-like glint of kindness deep in his eyes.
“That’s so mean! It was all your
fault!”
“Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I’m not skipping school anymore, so you can cut it out with all this,” he said lightly, flicking Izumi’s forehead.
“Ouch! Stop it!” Izumi protested, but Nakamura had already turned to Mizusawa and started a different conversation. She stared at his back with a mixture of anger and reassurance.
I realized something as I watched her. The reason Nakamura was back in school had less to do with Hinami’s rational strategy and more to do with Izumi’s efforts. Her simple desire to help Nakamura got through to him. That’s all there was to it. And that knowledge
made me extremely happy.
The bell rang a few minutes later. We all wanted to keep talking, but we had to sit down. In the minutes before the teacher got to class, while everyone was chatting noisily, I heard someone whisper my name.
“Hey, Tomozaki!”
“…Yeah?”
I turned toward the voice. Izumi was looking down, somehow staring off into space with fire burning in her eyes.
“Uh, what’s wrong?”
This was different than usual. She tightened her fingers around her pen on her desk, as if that fire was burning brighter minute by minute.
“I just had a thought.”
As if whatever was possessing her had released her, she looked suddenly calm, with a quieter kind of excitement.
“What kind of thought…?”
She slowly turned toward me and looked me straight in the eye. “Well…” Her gaze was powerful. I’d noticed her new core of strength recently, but right now, that core suddenly seemed way stronger. I remembered what Kikuchi-san had said to me at the café in Omiya: “You’re facing the future more straightforwardly than you were before.”
That’s exactly how Izumi struck me at that moment.
“So…remember how I wasn’t sure if I should help Hirabayashi-san or not?”
“Huh…? Oh right.”
I nodded.
“I was on the fence at first, but not helping would be the same as letting Erika tell me what to do. I’d be letting the mood carry me along. I’d be the kind of person I’m trying not to be anymore.”
She strung the words together little by little, awkwardly but steadily giving her feelings a concrete shape.
“Yeah…you did say that.”
I sensed she’d arrived at an answer. My job right now was just to listen. I had to become the bottom-tier character again and hear her out without getting in the way.
“But…I realized right now I was wrong.”
“Wrong about what?”
Izumi reached over to her right hand and squeezed her fingers.
“I did everything I did because I wanted to help Shuji, right?”
“Yes…”
She seemed to be working out her feelings as she spoke.
“I did everything I wanted, like volunteering to talk to his mom and studying math. I got Aoi and everyone to help me, and…I went a little crazy. Like, geez, chill out, right?”
She covered up her embarrassment with a little joke.
“Maybe—you were really going for it.”
I couldn’t help smiling as I thought back to how she’d been acting lately. True enough, she was so intense about this that Hinami was powerless against her. To say nothing of the studying for math.
“Ah-ha-ha. Thought so. I was on overdrive, and now I’m kinda regretting it…”
“Ha-ha-ha…really?”
In a sense, she’d lost sight of reason.
“But at the same time…Shuji came back to school after all that. And I realized something.”
“Mm-hmm?”
She looked down at her chest like she was trying to see into her heart.
“It seems obvious, but…I did everything because I just wanted to help Shuji, right?”
“…Yeah.”
“No one told me to do it, right?”
“Nope, no one did.”
Izumi took a deep breath. “So I think the same should go for Hirabayashi-san.”
“…How so?”
She looked back at me.
“Erika tried to make me captain, but that doesn’t matter. I want to help Hirabayashi-san, so I’m going to help her. That’s it!”
I was fairly surprised to hear that.
“Really…? So you’ll just do what you want?”
She nodded deeply again.
“Yeah. I don’t care about the mood. If I want to help her, then I should help her. That’s what I want to do!”
Her words and expression were gentle, yet firm and powerful, like a willow tree. She looked at Hirabayashi-san, who sat near the front of the classroom.
“I’m going to ask her if she wants me to take over the role of captain. If she still says she’ll do it, then I’ll leave it to her, but I think she’s probably having a really rough time with Erika.”
Her voice was full of resolve, as if the fog had cleared.
“…Huh, that could be a good approach.”
“I think so… Thanks for listening to me, Tomozaki! I feel better now!”
Her tone clearly required major skill—soft, but full of energy—and her charming smile was like a ray of sunlight.
“Er, I mean…you’re welcome.”
“Oh, also,” she said, lowering her voice. “Let’s keep working on Erika, too.”
She smiled mischievously and jokingly raised one finger. Her expression was as cheerful as a sunflower, but filled with a light that was uniquely Izumi’s.
The teacher had arrived, and class was about to start, but I nodded back at Izumi.
“Sure thing!”
She grinned and then turned toward the front of the class.
Interesting.
I mulled it over for a bit.
Even when everyone had been trying to pin the role of captain on someone else—
Even though the class queen had tried to force her into doing it—
Even though she’d rather not do it—
Even though doing it would require sacrificing herself—
Even then.
If she wanted to help someone and made the choice herself, then she wasn’t succumbing to the mood or someone else’s will.
It was an act she chose herself, thanks to her own steadfast will.
That was a discovery she had made on her own. From an outside perspective, it probably didn’t look like a dramatic change. You could even say her actions themselves took her back to her old self—helping someone in trouble and taking on a job no one else wanted.
But it was what she wanted to do. And that was why she was able to walk down her own path so confidently.
When I realized that, I was filled with admiration for Yuzu Izumi’s strength. She had found how she wanted to live and grabbed hold of it.
“Damn…she’s one strong character,” I murmured, nodding at my own conclusion.