3

Villagers have their own way of life

“Are you okay, Tama?! Sorry I haven’t been able to help you at all!”

“Oh, it’s fine. Thanks, though.”

“I want to stop her, but I’m not that brave!”

“Ah-ha-ha. Yeah, Konno is pretty scary.”

“She sure is!”

A couple of minutes had passed since Takei arrived in the classroom. Mizusawa and I had asked Tama-chan and him to have a one-on-one conversation, hoping to kill two birds with one stone: we wanted her to learn the secrets of charm and practice breaking the ice. We were watching silently from the sidelines.

The situation was totally unnatural, but Takei had unquestioningly accepted Mizusawa’s request to encourage Tama-chan with his natural cheer, and things were rolling along smoothly so far. Nice work, Takei. You’re so easy to control.

By the way, I’d also asked Tama-chan to record the conversation using the recorder I’d lent her so she could listen to it afterward. I wanted her to objectively compare her tone with Takei’s to see how they were different.

“Once Erika gets mad, she stays mad forever! I don’t think you did anything wrong!”

“You don’t? Thanks, Takei.”

“No, don’t thank me! I should be saying sorry!”

“Ah-ha-ha. Okay.”

Maybe it was their similar natures, or maybe it was the power of Takei’s sheer obliviousness, but as far as I could tell, the conversation wasn’t going too badly. As for what Mizusawa and I were up to, well, we were searching for hints—how Takei left himself vulnerable and how Tama-chan could apply the same techniques.

“What do you think, Fumiya?” Mizusawa said, looking toward me. From this angle, his nose and chin looked flawless, perfectly offsetting his sidelong glance. He was at least 30 percent more handsome than usual. On top of that, his hair looked like he could be a model in one of those magazines at the hair salon. Damn, his stats were off the charts. I tried not to compare myself as I answered him. Stay positive! Self-confidence is key!

“To me, it seems like his charm is coming from how he doesn’t hide his true feelings.”

“That jumped out at me, too.”

“But Tama-chan does the same thing…”

“Yeah. Maybe the difference is how goofy he is about it?”

By talking about what we noticed, we were hoping to tackle the problem by finding a new angle that we wouldn’t be able to see alone. Mizusawa was smart, and he had a normie perspective, which made him an incredible asset to this project. As for me, I felt fairly confident in my analytical ability. Together, we should be able to come up with a strategy to break the current stalemate. I was doing my best to clearly convey each step in my thought process.

“They do talk in totally different ways… I guess the simplest idea would be for Tama-chan to copy the way Takei speaks so she can create some vulnerability. I bet she could mimic him just fine if she put her mind to it.”

I thought back to the tone exercise we’d done on the first day of training, where I’d had her talk only using vowels. I had no doubts that she could produce a tone that was just as cheerful as his, based on what I’d observed of him.

“True, stealing directly from him could work, as long as she can make it natural. If she suddenly started speaking like Takei, everyone would wonder if something was wrong with her. She’d have to keep it within reasonable limits.”

“Very true.”

I almost burst out laughing as I imagined her dialing the silliness all the way up, but I managed to tell Mizusawa I agreed with him. People would definitely worry if she started pointing at the ceiling and yelling Yeah, dude! Mizusawa smiled and looked back at Tama-chan and Takei.

“So we’ll ask her to do that…and what else?”

“Hmm…”

We sank into silence and went back to observing their conversation.

“You’ve got people on your side!”

“I know. And now I know you’re one of them. That’s a relief.”

“Right?! Mika was saying the other day that she thought Erika was going too far!”

“Um, Mika?”

“You know, Mika! Erika’s friend, Mika Akiyama?”

“Oh, Akiyama-san. The one with the short hair?”

“Yeah, her! So it’s not like everyone is against you!”

While I was still analyzing the exchange, I was a little surprised by what Takei had said. One of Erika’s friends had started saying she was going too far? I glanced at Mizusawa.

“Akiyama… She’s one of Konno’s groupies, right?”

I was sure she was the girl Hinami had been talking to this week.

“Yeah,” Mizusawa said with a grin. “But ‘groupie’ is a pretty direct way of describing her.”

“Oh…yeah, guess it is.”

That’s how I’d always thought of Konno’s crew when it came to this issue—Hinami’s, too—so it kind of slipped out. Groupie was my perspective; from within the clique, she was just another member. Guess I was a little sloppy in my characterization.

“So anyway, she’s one of her groupies. You could also consider her a friend,” I said.

“Right. And?” Mizusawa cackled. I felt embarrassed, but I soldiered on.

“Does this Akiyama girl dislike Konno?”

Mizusawa thought for a second.

“It’s not exactly dislike…but Erika is harder on Mika than she is on anyone else in the group.”

“How so?”

“You’ve seen it before, right? How hierarchies form? In that group, Erika’s at the top, and everyone else watches her reactions.”

“It does seem like that.”

I could tell that much, even from the outside.

“Erika always dumps the annoying stuff on Mika…so sometimes, Mika complains behind her back.”

“Gotcha…”

“My guess is that she’s the one who actually has to go and break the pencil leads and pens.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. So the friendship is a little complicated.”

I could see his point. Konno was the obvious autocrat in her group, so it would be natural for the other members to obey her in public but complain about her in private. And it was easy to imagine the weakest member of the group being assigned the dirty work and going along with it, not having much of a choice. It was a little suspicious that Hinami was making contact with this particular member of the group. But if what Mizusawa said was true, I saw a possible opportunity for a breakthrough.

“Doesn’t that mean the longer Konno keeps harassing Tama-chan, the more isolated she’ll become in her own group, and the shakier her position in class will be? I mean, she’s the one creating all the tension, and no one really liked her to start with.”

Mizusawa frowned.

“I don’t think that would happen without intervention.”

“Really?”

Considering how arrogant she was, a fall from grace seemed entirely possible. I must be missing something here.

“How do I put it…? She has an amazing sense of balance for that kind of stuff. I mean, she’s kept her position for this long. She makes sure people don’t rebel even if they’re tired of her BS. Like with Akiyama. She’s usually hard on her, but when they’re in a small group together, she’s really nice. Stuff like that.”

“A sense of balance, huh…?”

“Yeah. Like with Tama, she hasn’t done anything really dramatic, right?”

“…Uh-huh.”

I’d had the same thought myself.

“You’re right. She only does little things that could be seen as a coincidence,” I said. “She just does it a lot.” Mizusawa nodded.

“My guess is she’s purposely stopping short of anything that would make people feel really bad for Tama. And I hate to say it, but Tama didn’t exactly fit in to start with. Put the two together, and people’s general reaction tends to be Ugh, she overreacts to everything.”

I bit my lip, thinking about our class.

“That sounds about right…”

“What I’m saying is, she’s a master of class politics.”

Politics, huh?

“You mean she’s good at knowing the effects she causes?”

“Yeah. It’s not like she doesn’t think about all this stuff. I mean, part of it is probably instinct, of course.”

“Interesting…”

Konno appeared to be acting based on emotion, but Mizusawa didn’t think so. To maintain a position at the top of the class, you really would need some sort of ability that the other members of the class lacked. In her case, that was political skill and a sense of balance.

“Which is why you think things won’t get better if we leave them alone?”

I could still just say It’s a crappy situation and call it a day, but it was important for me to get a better grasp on the rules governing that situation. Mizusawa was watching Tama-chan and Takei with narrowed eyes.

“So what do you think about those two?”

“The question is, what’s different aside from their way of talking?”

“Exactly.”

I started watching them again, too.

“And Yuko was worried about you, too!”

“Who’s Yuko?”

“Ueda, Yuko Ueda! She said you didn’t do anything wrong!”

“…Huh. Thanks.”

Takei was still trying to cheer Tama-chan up. Takei’s vulnerability was really obvious in the way he was talking.

Mizusawa and I continued our discussion.

“I think Tama needs to volunteer more of her own thoughts, and she also needs to express more emotion,” he commented.

“…Could be,” I answered, nodding. But I’d noticed something else about their current conversation, and maybe about their entire exchange so far. There was something else she needed to look out for.

“You know, Mizusawa…”

“What?” He glanced at me.

“I think I figured out another reason Tama doesn’t get along with people very well.”

“Really?” His eyes were glittering.

“Yeah.”

I nodded quietly but confidently. This was more than a hunch—it was intuition. No, it was practically a certainty—because I’d been the exact same way.

I stood up and looked at Tama-chan. “Hey, Tama-chan, can I talk to you for a second?”

She looked at me and walked a couple of steps in my direction.

“Did you figure something out?”

“Yeah,” said Mizusawa, “Fumiya seems to have a reason why you’re having such a hard time.”

“Really?!” Takei yelped. “Ooooh, tell us!”

I ignored his shouting and went on with my explanation. Sorry, Takei. Hope you can understand why this is important.

“Well…the reason I know this is because I used to be the same way myself.”

I’ve spent so many years looking out at a world without color.

“So…what?”

And I’m fairly sure this is way more important than skills or techniques when it comes to interacting with other people.

“Tama-chan…”

I recalled my old frame of mind.

“You’re not very interested in the other kids in our class, are you?”

She shut her mouth and stared up at me in surprise. Mizusawa stared at me, too, blinking.

“Fumiya, what’s that me—?”

“You’re right. Honestly, I’m not,” she said, interrupting Mizusawa’s question. He looked even more confused. But I was right.

“…Thought so.”

I let out a breath. The same thing had happened several times in this conversation with Takei. He’d brought up someone’s first name, and Tama-chan hadn’t known whom he was talking about.

“And that’s what you think is key?” Mizusawa stared at me searchingly, like he guessed what I was thinking. I kept talking, partly so he could decide if he agreed, and partly to get new ideas from him.

“Well, speaking from experience, yeah.”

“Huh.”

I thought back to what happened during summer vacation.

“As Tama-chan and Mizusawa already know, I’ve been doing a bunch of stuff to change myself lately. Practicing how I talk and being more expressive and things like that.”

“Uh-huh.”

Tama-chan was looking me straight in the eye as she listened. Takei was just staring with his mouth open; we’d left him in the dust a while ago.

“But before I started, I wasn’t interested in any of that. I thought life was like a broken game, so trying to get better at it was pointless. I assumed the normies who were super into it were all stupid, even though I didn’t have a good reason to believe that.”

“Ha-ha-ha. Really?”

Mizusawa laughed with a mixture of surprise and amusement.

“Yeah. I was super cynical back then.”

“Huh. You know, at first, I wouldn’t have even noticed if you were absent.”

“Oof…”

It was a painful jab, but I kept talking.

“Anyway, since I thought everyone was stupid, I obviously wasn’t interested in them. I had no reason to care about what they were doing, so I didn’t pay attention to gossip or anything… But something happened that made me want to change, so I decided to start practicing how I spoke and all that.”

“And what happened?”

Tama-chan was watching my mouth, like she wanted to catch every word I said.

“Well, I slowly became better at talking to people. And the results from gaining that experience encouraged me to do more.”

“Ha-ha-ha. Gotcha. You sound like a gamer.”

Mizusawa spoke in a casual tone, but he’d actually hit the nail on the head. What I’d described was exactly what I’d call gamer effort. In other words, trial and error with the intention of advancing toward a goal. Effort made with the controller in your own hands. I was impressed that Mizusawa could understand my mindset and not just his own perspective as a normie. He was something else.

“As my motivation increased, I improved more and became able to talk to more people. I could give my own opinions and ask other people for theirs—and then I realized something.”

I thought about all the normies I’d interacted with and all the nameless students I’d watched from the classroom window as they practiced sports.

“All those normies I’d brushed off weren’t stupid. They had their own thoughts and worries and goals.” I smiled wryly. “…I mean, of course they did.”

“True,” Tama-chan said. Her eyes wandered uncomfortably for a second.

“Up to that point, I’d been talking to others just to level up, but once I got to know a bunch of different people, well…”

I met Tama-chan’s gaze.

“…I started talking to them because I wanted to know what they were thinking.”

She stared back at me.

“Once I got interested in other people, I wanted to know specific things about them, and when I asked the questions to find out, it led to a conversation. I started thinking about what I wanted them to know about me, and what else I wanted to talk to them about, and then I’d have something to say.”

“…Huh.”

Mizusawa crossed his arms and pursed his lips in thought.

“Of course, it’s not always easy. Sometimes, I do use topics I’ve thought up beforehand or other stuff I’ve practiced,” I said in a slightly joking tone.

Mizusawa chuckled. “Ah-ha, I see. And?”

“Well, if Tama-chan wants more people to accept her and wants to make more friends, it’s definitely worthwhile to practice surface-level skills like having a more cheerful tone, but that’s not the biggest thing.”

I thought about how my own state of mind had changed, how color had come into my world.

“I think it’s important to take an interest in everyone else and work on accepting them.”

When I finished talking, Tama-chan looked down at her hands. After a moment, she clenched them into fists and nodded slightly.

“…Yeah, you could be right. I won’t really get along with people I don’t care about, will I?”

She looked up at me again, and this time, her face was full of positive determination. Tama-chan was back to her usual self, with her old strength.

Mizusawa unfolded his arms and gave us a calm, gentle look. “You’re full of surprises, aren’t you, Fumiya?” He was back to normal, too, with his smirks and teasing.

“What’s that mean?”

“It’s a compliment, so don’t worry about it.”

“Okay, if you say so…,” I said, mystified. Yeah, Mizusawa was always in control.

Suddenly, I glanced at Takei. For some reason, he was looking at me with moist eyes.

“Uh, Takei…?”

“…Dude!! That was some good shit!!”

“Huh?”

He rushed over to me and shook my shoulders. Wait a second! I thought I’d lost him a while back. Or maybe he’d picked up a general sense of what I meant? Either way, it was amazing he’d get teary-eyed over that.

“Oh look, everyone’s getting ready to go home.”

“Oh yeah, you’re right. Should we go?”

“Amazing, Tomozaki!!”

“S-stop it…”

I didn’t quite know how to handle Takei’s inexplicably emotional reaction. Meanwhile, Hinami and Mimimi finished up their late practice down on the field, and our meeting came to an end. I guess this was just the usual Takei—maybe overenthusiastic, maybe a simple guy, but oddly charming either way.

* * *

“There’s even more of you today!”

When Tama-chan, Mizusawa, Takei, and I appeared on the field, Mimimi’s surprise was extremely evident. Glad to see she’s putting those high-jump skills to good use. Hinami was sitting on the step leading to the team office, smiling sardonically.

Takei jumped on the bandwagon and approached Mimimi, palm raised.

“Cheers!”

“Cheers!” she said, giving him a high five. What the heck? When these two get together, it’s double the craziness. Hinami and Mimimi were the only ones left on the field because they’d been practicing late, but you’d never have guessed it from the level of excitement.

“Cheers, Aoi!” Takei said.

Hinami’s eyes sparkled. “What? Cheese?” she cried theatrically.

Takei burst out laughing. “No, no! You are way too into cheese, Aoi!”

“Ah-ha-ha, whoops. Cheers,” she parried with a grown-up smile. A second ago, she’d been wearing a totally different, beguiling persona. What was with the quick-change act? “Anyway, what are you four up to? You came last week, too, right?”

Her tone was soft, but the slower delivery helped draw our eyes to her and give her control of the group. I had a better sense of all this now that I’d been working on tone myself. It was surprisingly hard to speak in that slow, imposing voice when you were the only one talking in a group. You had to have confidence, but Hinami was also able to soften that confidence. The higher my own level got, the more I understood just how much better Hinami was at all this.

I was a little uncomfortable giving my reply.

“We were just talking about what we could do about Tama’s situation.”

“Oh, you were?”

She nodded solemnly, like she took the situation very seriously—but for a second, she glanced at me. Uh-oh. After all, she was totally opposed to us trying to change Tama-chan. Wonder how this would turn out…

Mimimi laughed, maybe trying to cover up the slightly dark mood coming from Hinami. Then she looked back at us.

“Okay, but why is there one more person every time you come?!” she asked intently, her eyes sparkling.

“I guess Team Tomozaki is growing,” Mizusawa said, thumping my shoulder. Team Tomozaki, huh?

“Wait a second—I didn’t know this was my team.”

“Of course it is. It was your idea, right?”

“N-no…I mean, I guess.”

“Right? We’re counting on you, boss.”

“U-uh, boss…?”

As I was floundering under this bewildering pressure from Mizusawa, Mimimi gave an impressed sigh next to me.

“That’s Tomozaki for ya! Half brain, half boss!”

“Hey, stop giving me extra titles…”

“Yeah, that’s Tomozaki for you.”

“…Uh…”

As we headed off school grounds, I felt like I was being crushed by Mimimi’s weighty title and Hinami’s ironic jab. My stomach was starting to hurt…

The six of us, including Hinami and Mimimi, were walking toward the station. As the buzzing of insects filled the air on the country road, Mizusawa sighed and fiddled with his phone.

“Seems like Erika’s never gonna get tired of her game.”

Once again, that was the topic of conversation. I was on edge trying to figure out how to act with Hinami around.

Mimimi smiled wryly in response to Mizusawa’s comment. “Yeah, where does she get the energy for all that?”

“Good question. Maybe she just hates to lose. Or she’s insanely stubborn.” Mizusawa frowned and stuck his phone in his pocket.

“Yeah… We really have to do something,” Hinami said, joining the general flow of the conversation. She bit her lip.

“…Yeah!”

Mimimi’s cheerful tone sounded like she was trying to hide her anxiety. Up till now, Mimimi and Tama-chan had avoided talking about Konno when they were together and pretended they were just messing around like usual. But now, probably because Mizusawa and Takei were there, we were all talking about her.

Takei peered at Tama-chan with concern. “Are you okay after all that?! I mean, they broke your pencils and stuff, right?”

“Yeah, they did…”

Tama-chan looked away, as if she was searching for the right words.

“Oh, Tama, I just remembered!” Mimimi yelled loudly. “I wanted to give this to you!”

She opened her backpack and pulled out a plastic bag.

“What’s that?” Tama-chan asked. Mimimi opened the bag dramatically and showed it to us. There were about ten packs of mechanical pencil lead inside. Puffing her chest out jokingly, she pulled one out to display it.

“I got these for really cheap in my neighborhood! She can break all the leads she wants, and you’ll keep pulling out more! Like you’ve got a little factory!” She passed the whole bag to Tama-chan.

“But I should pay you back…”

“Don’t worry about it! Anyway, you always let me nibble your cheeks. Consider it payment for my snacks!”

“…Really? Thanks, Minmi.”

“Uh, payment for your snacks…?” I retorted softly, but my heart was actually warmed by this little scene. These two really do have a one-in-a-million friendship.

“And now…for the main attraction!”

With that, Mimimi pulled out a small, rectangular box. It was a case for pencil lead that was covered in cute decorations. I’m guessing she put the decorations on herself.

“This thing looks cheap, so she won’t suspect a thing. If you put the leads in here, you’ll be in good shape!”

She stuck the box into Tama-chan’s chest pocket. Tama-chan ran her finger over it and sighed appreciatively.

“…Thanks, Minmi. I’ll take good care of it.”

She smiled softly for a brief moment. Hinami watched the two of them, apparently moved, and then put her hand to her chin.

“You know, if you keep your leads in your pocket, you don’t need to fool her, right?”

Mimimi froze for a second, then laughed awkwardly.

“True!” she said. Yup, same old Mimimi.

* * *

We kept walking toward the station.

“What do you think, Aoi?” Tama-chan asked solemnly.

“…Well…,” Hinami said, matching her serious expression.

“…”

I watched them nervously. There were six of us in the group. I didn’t know this when I was a loner, but when this many people do something together, they don’t always talk as one, big group. A lot of times, the group seems to break up into smaller conversations. Currently, those subgroups consisted of Mizusawa, Takei, and Mimimi, then Hinami, Tama-chan, and me. The most nerve-racking breakdown possible.

I was trying to solve the problem by changing Tama-chan, Hinami was trying to solve the problem without changing Tama-chan, and Tama-chan herself was between us now. I had no idea what we were going to talk about. Since this was Hinami, she’d manage to create a conversation that was appropriately serious but not provocative enough to ruffle any feathers.

At least, that was what I was expecting.

Hinami’s shoes made a rough, almost shaky sound as they hit the ground.

“Hanabi, do you want to change?”

I gulped and glanced involuntarily at Hinami. She was being so direct. It was like she’d plunged an ice pick into the center of whatever the source of the tension between us was. Her eyes were hesitant and somehow sad.

“…Aoi?” Tama-chan seemed surprised

“Oh, sorry. I’ve just been wondering!” she said, dialing up the cheer and softening everything.

Tama-chan seemed convinced by the act and responded after a pause.

“Oh, okay… Well…” At first, her words were halting. “Yes, I do want to change.”

Then they were suddenly decisive.

Hinami’s expression didn’t change much, but her eyebrows twitched upward. To me, it was an undeniable sign that Tama-chan’s words had pierced her like an arrow.

“Oh…”

She looked down, her eyes so sad that she could hardly hide it any longer. Tama-chan gazed up at her, worried.

“Do you think I shouldn’t?”

“…I…”

Hinami hesitated, her voice quavering uncharacteristically and her gaze shifting. There was an uncomfortable pause as she frantically searched for the words to get the conversation back under control. Was it another act? Or was it real? I couldn’t tell.

After a few seconds, she continued. “I don’t want you to change.”

Tama-chan blinked twice in thought. Then she looked deep into Hinami’s eyes without a hint of pretense. When she spoke next, she was trying to make sure of something—or at least, get a general sense of something.

“You don’t want me to change?” Her tone was careful and penetrating. “Not ‘you don’t think I should change’?”

She waited for Hinami’s response. I was startled. Tama-chan was right—the phrase wasn’t something Hinami would normally say.

“I don’t want you to change.”

Those weren’t the words of someone thinking about the best strategy one should take to solve the problem. In a sense, they disregarded problem-solving altogether for the sake of her personal wish.

“Right,” Hinami said. “I don’t want to think you made a mistake by facing her head-on.”

Her gaze was distant, but her tone was full of definite emotion. She was being harsher than usual and strangely earnest, almost like she was atoning for a time when she wasn’t.

“Hinami…?” I whispered. She took a breath, startled. For an instant, her expression was unguarded, but the next moment, her usual mask returned.

“…You’re not in the wrong, so I don’t want you to change. Of course, I don’t have the right to decide that for you. That’s just what I want!”

Those were the words of the perfect heroine. Her voice was strong and cheerful, like a single, strong line traced over the shaky one she had drawn a moment ago.

“…I understand. Thanks for worrying about me, Aoi.”

Tama-chan smiled gently, accepting Hinami’s words at face value.

The final boss had slid her mask back on before I knew it, as if it had never slipped at all. The change was so complete that even I wasn’t sure how far the mask went.

“…I know this is tough for you…so try not to overdo it, okay?”

“Okay. But Tomozaki and the others are backing me up, and I do want to see if I can change a little.” She turned to me and smiled brightly.

I sensed a gray storm cloud over Hinami, but I tried to take heart in Tama-chan’s words and answer her cheerfully.

“Right, let’s do this!”

“Yeah. I’m counting on you! Not for much, but still!”

“Remember what we said before about being too honest…?”

Tama-chan laughed.

Hinami widened her eyes and nodded, apparently satisfied. “Huh.”

She smiled. Was I imagining things? I felt like a very small but sharp point of sadness lay behind that smile.

Hinami went on talking.

“You really are two of a kind.”

There wasn’t anything strange about her words—in fact, they were just another part of her perfect-heroine persona. Still, I couldn’t help but sense such a lack of commitment behind them that it almost felt like despair.

“Anyway, if that’s the case, I’m behind you!”

But in no time at all, that vibe vanished so completely that I wondered if it had been nothing more than the product of my own preconceptions. A soft, gentle aura once again surrounded Hinami.

“Oh right! Aoi?”

Mizusawa was calling to her from behind. She dropped back to join his group, and our conversation ended. The prickly discomfort receded, and the sun came out again around us. Still, I felt like what she’d said to Tama-chan and me revealed something inside her. I wondered if she would ever let me near it—if that was even possible.

Maybe even that expression beneath her mask was just another mask, too.

* * *

That night, I was sitting on my bed, my body stiff with nerves, having a staring contest with my phone. The LINE chat app was on the screen. Mizusawa had created a three-person strategy chat group, and we were talking about our plans moving forward. The members were Tama-chan, Mizusawa, and me. As usual, Takei wasn’t included because he wouldn’t be much use. Sorry, Takei.

I’d advanced enough that this by itself wouldn’t have made me nervous. I’d vacillated for less than a minute after the sudden invitation arrived, and a few deep breaths had been enough to calm me down. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was the message Mizusawa had sent.

[Wanna do a conference call around nine?]

That was a shock to the system.

I was used to in-person conversations, but for some reason, phone calls still made me nervous. A conference call might as well be a one-hit KO. Maybe I would have survived if I had no warning, but since he’d told me the time in advance, there I was, waiting with my heart pounding.

It was currently 9:02 PM. He’d said “around nine,” which meant it shouldn’t matter if he was a couple minutes late, but the ambiguity just made my nerves worse. Hurry up and put me out of my misery.

And the phone rang.

“Whoa,” I said with such good English pronunciation that you’d never guess I was Japanese. Once I’d calmed down a bit, I tapped the JOIN button on the screen. I was already wearing headphones, and a voice reached my ears.

“Hey.”

Cool and calm, like the ideal older brother. Mizusawa. Through the headphones, he sounded smug and casual, but also smooth. His voice had a mysterious tone to it that I could never reproduce. Geez. And all he’d said so far was hey.

“Hello? Can you hear me?”

That was Tama-chan. Her voice sounded young and cute, but her pronunciation was crystal clear and easy to understand. From the moment she started talking, her words were crisp and distinct. The modulation really reflected her personality.

“Yeah, I can hear you,” I said. I didn’t know how the two of them felt about hearing my voice through the phone, but based on the many times I’d recorded myself and worked on improving my voice, my guess was that I was cheerful but nothing special. That was my own self-evaluation at this point.

Now that we were all connected, the meeting began.

“What should we talk about first?” Mizusawa said, taking on the leadership role. I decided to bring up something that was on my mind.

“Well, I was wondering…”

“Yeah?”

“Tama-chan, have you tried listening to those voice recordings yet?”

She waited a beat before answering. “Yeah, I did.”

“And?” Mizusawa asked.

“Well…I did sound different than I’d imagined. I really noticed the gap between me and Takei,” she said pensively.

Mizusawa responded encouragingly. “Oh, that’s great. So do you think you can open yourself up like he does?”

“I’m not sure. Wouldn’t it be weird if I took it that far?” She sounded a little nervous.

“Yeah, probably,” he replied.

“Okay, so that was a bad idea!”

“Ha-ha-ha. All you have to do is keep it subtle enough so that it doesn’t sound weird.”

“Oh, yeah. I guess that could work.”

“Think you can do it?”

“…I’ll try.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” I finally said.

I didn’t really know where to jump in on the phone, so I hadn’t said anything between my initial question to Tama-chan and that last okay. I was psyching myself up to try harder next time, when Mizusawa said my name.

“Fumiya, do you have any advice as a veteran?”

“Uh, a veteran?”

“Yeah. As I recall, you took inspiration from someone else,” he teased.

“Oh right.”

I heard him cackling on the other end of the line. Ergh, shit. That “someone” would be Mizusawa himself. Sometimes, the model you were copying found out what you were up to, so you had to be careful.

“You did, Tomozaki?”

“Uh, kinda. Anyway, you wanted some advice.”

I hustled the conversation forward before she could ask who I’d copied. That was too embarrassing to talk about with Mizusawa on the line.

“Yeah. I wanna know if there’s anything to watch out for when I’m copying him.”

“Ah, gotcha.”

“You can’t really know until you’ve done it yourself with this stuff, huh?”

“Yeah, true.”

Now that she mentioned it, I realized not many people were familiar with the art of copying someone else’s way of talking. In that sense, I guess I’m a highly valuable resource. Finally, my status as a bottom-tier character had a purpose. Glad to be of service.

I thought back again on that experience—about what I’d been thinking about when I copied Mizusawa’s conversation style, and what I’d watched out for.

“Let’s see… One thing is, it’s fine to go in pretty hard from the get-go. In my case, even when I thought I was doing a great job, I’d listen to the recordings of myself later and realize I was still way too monotonous—stuff like that.”

“Huh, really?” Mizusawa said. It was emotionally confusing to have my model responding to my comments, but I went on talking.

“Well, basically. Anyway, start off bold and then see how you did later by listening to the recording. Just do it over and over and you’ll be good.”

“Got it. Over and over. I’ll practice tonight.”

Tama-chan was a very earnest student.

“Okay, so today at home, she’ll work on fixing her tone. The question is…how to put it into practice starting tomorrow.”

“Um, yeah.”

I tried to keep up as Mizusawa efficiently moved the conversation forward.

“…After you practice tonight, it might be a good idea for me or Mizusawa to tag along with you tomorrow and watch while you practice some more. If you record yourself practicing during breaks and we give you feedback on what to fix, you should be able to get a lot done in one day.”

“Huh. Good idea,” Mizusawa commented.

“Yeah, I don’t have much time. I’ll give it a try.”

“Okay then, are we good?”

Just as the plan was coming together, I started to worry about something. “Uh…,” I mused.

“Fumiya, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, it’s just…” I thought about what Mizusawa had said. “It’s just, I’m wondering how much changing your tone will actually create that sense of consistent vulnerability.”

“…Yeah, you do have a point there.”

It was true she might open herself up a bit by copying Takei’s tone and general aura, but it wouldn’t be so straightforward or easy-to-understand.

“It might be better to have something really obvious, like the thing Mizusawa pointed out with Hinami and cheese.”

“True. If you want people to get used to your character, a classic routine will probably help the most.”

“A routine…”

Essentially, it means an immediately recognizable item or characteristic has become iconic for that person. If there’s a certain pattern of actions that goes along with that trait, it becomes especially recognizable, and that creates charm. In Tama-chan’s case, it would probably have to relate to her nickname or appearance, but it was hard to think of something specific.

“Hmm…I wonder what would work.”

I thought about it for a minute, but I had no idea where to even start.

“Well, it’s not the kind of thing you can create overnight,” Mizusawa said. “I’ll give it some thought. You two should do the same.”

“Okay, got it,” I replied.

“Okay!”

“Well…” Mizusawa started wrapping up the meeting. “Are we good for today? Do either of you want to add anything?”

“…Um…”

I thought it would be a good idea to touch on the problem of her being disinterested in the people around her. But that issue was deeply rooted in her underlying mental stance. A few words on the phone right now wouldn’t do much to solve it.

“Never mind, I’m good. For now, let’s just agree to meet up tomorrow during breaks, okay?” I said.

“Sounds good. But I usually hang out with Shuji during breaks, so I might not be able to go every time. Is it okay with you two if I just sneak away when I can?”

After all, Nakamura and Tama-chan had their ongoing feud, so Mizusawa wasn’t entirely free to act.

“Of course. I’ll be the main one shadowing her. I’m just thankful you’re helping us out at all. Don’t worry about the rest.”

“Okay… I appreciate it,” Mizusawa said a little timidly.

“Anyway,” I said as casually as possible, “I think this plan’s got potential!”

“Yeah. If you practice that much, it shouldn’t be too hard to improve.”

“So everyone on board?”

“One hundred percent.”

As Mizusawa and I psyched each other up, Tama-chan chimed in softly.

“…Thanks, guys.”

She was thanking us, but something about the way she said it was apologetic or even helpless.

“Of course! No worries!” I said, as dramatic and silly as how I talked during the vowel exercise. It was oddly entertaining to talk that way because it felt so weird. It was perfect for making a fool of myself.

“Ah-ha-ha. Thanks,” Tama-chan said with a giggle.

“Yeah, Tama!! You better cheer up!!”

Mizusawa followed my lead with an unmistakably Takei-like form of encouragement.

“Ah-ha-ha. I’m on it!”

“That was a little sample of how to copy Takei.”

“Yeah, yeah, thank you.”

After we joked around like that for a minute, we wrapped up the meeting.

“All right, guys…if anything changes, get in touch,” Mizusawa said.

“Okay, will do.”

“Gotcha.”

“Okay, later,” Mizusawa said.

“Later,” Tama-chan echoed.

“L-later,” I stuttered.

With that, the group call ended, and there I was, alone again on top of my bed with that loneliness that came after ending a fun phone call.

“But…yeah.”

We were moving gradually forward, and a path toward our larger goal had come into sight. This time, I wasn’t fighting alone like I always had with Atafami—I was heading down that road with friends I could count on. I set my phone down softly next to my pillow, oddly tickled by the idea that I was part of the group.

* * *

The next morning, with no meeting to go to, I got to class earlier than usual and sat at my desk, grappling with the Tama-chan issue.

There were two main questions I was struggling with. One was what specific vulnerability she might be able to create. The other was how to deal with her lack of interest in other people.

Hoping to find some new hint in the actions or conversations of our classmates, I shifted my gaze, observing them carefully. Mostly, they were talking about TV shows and online videos or casually teasing each other according to established conversational etiquette. If there was a solution here, it must lie in how they were each creating their own vulnerabilities and familiarizing the group with their character. Hmmm.

As I was processing everything, Mimimi walked in. That’s when I had another idea. If observation wasn’t helping…it was time to gather some intel. Past experience led straight to that conclusion. Mimimi in particular seemed like a prime source. She was equally good at messing with people and being messed with, so she could probably provide lots of new ideas. She’d also helped Tama-chan become more integrated into the class when they first started high school, which meant she likely held the key to getting us out of this dilemma.

I left my bag on my desk and walked over to Mimimi, who was looking around the classroom.

“Mimimi?”

“Huh?” she said, turning toward me with a blank look. “Oh, Tomozaki! You’re here early! What’s up?”

She giggled and punched my shoulder. She sounded happy, but I could tell from the strength of her hit that she was actually a little bit down. It might be a dumb way to judge someone’s mood, but as the Brain, I could tell.

“Um…,” I said, pulling my thoughts together. I wanted to figure out how Tama-chan could create a specific vulnerability and get everyone familiarized with it. Like Mizusawa said, it would be best if she had a classic pattern, so it’d be ideal if I could find some ideas on that front. Which meant the first thing I should ask was…

“You like to mess with Tama-chan a lot, right?”

“Wait a second, Tomozaki, I can’t let that slide. I’m not messing with her; I’m just expressing my love!”

“Oh.”

“That was weak. I need a stronger comeback! Don’t kill the joke!”

“Now, now, Mimimi, everyone needs variation in their comebacks.”

That was a lesson I’d learned from Tama-chan. Mimimi seemed at a loss for words.

“…Indeed. Count on the Brain to be a little different!”

“R-really?”

“Of course! I’ve only got one partner, and that’s the Brain!”

“Next thing I know, you’ll be making me do comedy routines.”

Mimimi pounded my shoulder again, still a little more weakly than usual.

“Um, but anyway, when you teas—I mean, express your love for Tama-chan, what parts of her do you, uh…express love for?”

Mimimi smiled with satisfaction at my self-corrections.

“Hmm…how cute she is, and how small she is?”

“Huh. That’s what I thought.”

I reflected on what I’d just learned, hoping to find some new angle, but even Tama-chan’s best friend, Mimimi, teased her about easy-to-understand, surface-level things. Mizusawa had said her success would depend on how she used those same qualities. Hmm.

Maybe surface-level qualities made for better vulnerabilities. But it was still important to figure out the right angle to make them funny.

At times like this, I needed to use…a real pro as my model. You have to start by copying the experts. And so…

“Oh right. Sorry to change the subject, but have you seen any good comedies or stand-up routines lately? I could use a couple of recommendations.”

“Huh? What’s that all about?”

Mimimi stared up at me with her big, bold eyes. Whoa. I didn’t notice it when she was fooling around, but when she gave me a look like that, I was suddenly struck by how beautiful she was. That face was invincible.

“Oh, I’m just working on some different ideas for helping Tama-chan.”

To create our classic routine, I wanted to take some hints from the pros—that is, comedians.

“…Huh.”

Now she was studying me. The fact that she didn’t seem completely aware of her own beauty made it all the more overwhelming.

“Uh, yeah. It’s not the kind of problem that’s gonna solve itself…” I felt my face growing hot and glanced away.

“…You sure are sneaky, Tomozaki,” Mimimi muttered.

“Huh?”

I was still blushing, but I looked back at Mimimi, confused. For some reason, she was pouting.

“You act all shy, but you really turn up the heat when it counts… Well?”

“Ouch! What are you doing?!”

She was shoving my nose up, making it look like a pig’s snout. What was the sudden attack for?

“Your messiah complex has granted you a pig’s nose for your sins.”

“What the heck is that supposed to mean?!”

“Ah-ha-ha! You don’t need to know!”

She laughed innocently. Shit. It was impossible to be mad at her when she smiled so beautifully.

“Damn, that’s really ugly on you!”

“Hey!”

I was about to say that I was always ugly, but I stopped myself. After all, I’d just gotten that lecture about how it was bad to put myself down too much. Okay then.

“Sometimes, ugly people are, um, beautiful on the inside! Or something!”

I almost chickened out, but I managed to say it confidently.

“I know that!”

“…?!”

Mimimi grinned and peered into my face. Wait, what? She was hitting me with another totally unexpected attack. Why? I was completely at a loss for words. Suddenly, she released my nose and started fiddling with her phone.

“You wanted some recommendations for funny videos, right? Um…”

“Oh right…”

The detour in our conversation left me feeling the aftershocks more strongly than I normally would have, but Mimimi recommended a bunch of videos, and I saved them in a video player app on my phone. Man, my heart was still pounding.

* * *

During lunch break, Mizusawa, Tama-chan, and I met in a stairwell in an abandoned part of the school.

“Sorry I couldn’t stop by before, guys,” Mizusawa said, smiling attractively at us. Tama-chan and I had been meeting in this stairwell during every break for tone training, but Mizusawa hadn’t been able to slip away from Nakamura. Finally, at lunch, the three of us managed to get together.

“Well, you are a regular in Nakamura’s group,” I said. He apologized again, bringing his hands together in a plea for forgiveness.

“So how’s today’s training going?” he asked with a serious expression. Tama-chan looked at me questioningly.

“Um…what do you think, professor?”

“Th-that’s me, right…?” I smiled awkwardly.

“Of course,” Tama-chan teased.

“Oh, okay… Well, I think you’re making good progress.”

“For real?” She sounded unsure.

“Yeah, I promise.”

“Really?” Mizusawa broke in.

I nodded and made a conscious effort to sound casual.

“Although, the professor would like some instruction from his professor at this point.”

“Ha-ha-ha. The professor’s professor is me, I take it?”

“Of course.”

I looked from one of them to the other and grinned. For some reason, Mizusawa smiled happily.

“Fumiya, you’re sounding pretty slick these days,” he said, maybe reflecting with some nostalgia for the old me, and leaned against the wall.

“What can I say?” I said cockily. Now that I was in a position to teach Tama-chan, I was motivated to get my own act together, and I think I was succeeding these days.

Mizusawa heaved himself off the wall and clapped his hands once like he was ready to get down to business.

“Okay, Tama, show me your Takei act.”

“Sure!”

She let out a long breath and assumed a super-cheerful expression.

“Bring it on!” she said, raising one fist near her face.

Mizusawa nodded, looking impressed. “Wow, you already sound way brighter.”

“Right? I’ve been training hard!” she said, puffing out her cheeks proudly. Her eyes were round and playful.

“Ooh, nice. So what kind of training have you been doing?”

“Well,” she chirped, “I’ve just been recording myself talking and then comparing myself with Takei and other people and fixing things!”

“So basically what we talked about before.”

“Right! But then I thought of some other people to model myself on!”

“Now that you mention it, we didn’t say anything about that, did we?”

The closest person to Tama-chan had an inborn sanguinity that was impossible to dislike. Considering they were the same gender, too, there couldn’t be a better person for Tama-chan to learn from when it came to conversation style. Even when Mimimi wasn’t there in person, she was able to help Tama-chan.

“Yeah, it wasn’t Tomozaki’s idea; it was mine! Star pupil, right?”

“Ha-ha-ha. Yeah, very good, very good,” Mizusawa said in a joking singsong, smiling kindly.

“Hey! That wasn’t very genuine!”

“Oh, you’re right, so sorry.”

“That wasn’t, either!”

In a sense, Tama-chan was still as sharp as ever, but because of her expression and slightly brighter tone, along with the flow of conversation that had led us here, she came off as friendlier than usual. She was progressing nicely.

“Okay, okay, I’ll try to be more sincere.”

“I’m not convinced!”

“Ha-ha-ha.”

Their conversation was bouncing along so smoothly, it was hard to believe that until recently, the two of them had an awkward relationship. The mood was really upbeat, too.

Tama-chan was quiet for a moment, then she peered at Mizusawa again.

“…So what do you think? I’m trying to sound more cheerful…”

Mizusawa nodded right away. “Yeah, it’s way easier to talk to you now, and I think you’ve got a little more charm than you did before.”

“R-really?”

Tama-chan looked very pleased to hear that. I pumped my fist into the air, too.

“Now if you could just come up with a routine for everyone, that would be ideal… I haven’t been able to think of anything yet,” Mizusawa said.

“Speaking of which…,” I broke in calmly.

“Oh, you thought of something?” Mizusawa said, looking at me with an expectant smile. Stop already.

“More like stole it, but…”

It had to do with creating an easy-to-understand character, and the standard routines you could implement to get other people used to it—although, this was easier said than done.

I winked at Tama-chan. During our earlier breaks, we’d been studying the comedy videos Mimimi had recommended and had taken some lessons from them. Now it was time to try them out on Mizusawa.

“Um, wanna do it now?” I said.

“Uh, okay… I’ll try,” she mumbled with a mixture of nervousness and embarrassment. I was super nervous, too, because I was about to do something I wasn’t used to. I took a deep breath, going over what we’d already practiced a bunch of times this morning.

“…Uh, Tama-chan, why are you so far away?” I asked. Tama-chan jabbed a finger my way and gave a sassy answer.

“I’m just short! I’m not far away; it’s the law of perspective!”

“Oh, really?”

“Really! It’s an optical illusion!”

Mizusawa stared, blinking, at this odd exchange between Tama-chan and me. I could feel his gaze burning into me. But I wasn’t giving up. I played the fool again.

“Oh, huh… Hey, did you notice how big this stairway landing is?”

“I told you, it’s because I’m short! It just feels big because I’m so small! It’s actually tiny!”

Mizusawa snickered, apparently having figured out our schtick. I looked at Tama-chan’s drawstring bag, which she was holding in her right hand and which had her lunch inside.

“Weird…your bento box sure is huge.”

“It’s because I’m short! My bento box just looks big! It’s completely normal!”

“Really?”

“Really! I told you, optical illusions.”

Mizusawa smiled and gave a small, impressed hum. He pulled out his phone casually and glanced at Tama-chan.

“Wow, fifteen minutes of lunch break have already passed,” he said.

Tama-chan answered immediately.

“It hasn’t actually been that long!” she snapped. “It just feels long because I’m short!”

“Ha-ha-ha! What the hell?”

He put his phone back in his pocket. Since he’d gotten in on the joke and we’d basically shown him what we wanted to show him, I wrapped up our little skit.

“…Easy to understand, and specific. If we do that, I was thinking it would help people get used to Tama-chan’s weak spot.”

I’d based the routine on a similar one; there was a comedian who was popular for a little while when I was in elementary school, but his running gag focused on how big his face was. It was among the videos Mimimi had recommended that morning. When I saw it, three things linked together in my mind.

First was the fact that a surface-level feature could work as a vulnerability.

Second was the fact that Tama-chan’s size was one of her most noticeable surface-level features.

And third was that Tama-chan was great at sharp comebacks.

All we had to do was fit Tama-chan’s shortness into a classic pattern and turn the comedian’s joke on its head, and we’d be able to reproduce the same, general routine.

“Wh-what do you think?” Tama-chan asked Mizusawa nervously. It was typical Tama-chan to be really nervous but still fire off those quick comebacks during the actual performance. Mizusawa nodded twice, looking a little world-weary as he smiled, but still like he was having fun.

“Not bad, not bad. I even wanted to get in on the joke myself. With this kind of thing, it’s key for other people to want to be a part of it.”

“…Which means…?” I asked.

Mizusawa raised one eyebrow and smiled cockily. “Looks like we’ve nailed down our strategy.”

“Yes!” Tama-chan and I both yelled.

Mizusawa slapped my shoulder. “Not surprising with such a good teacher, eh?”

“Uh…guess so!”

Suppressing my instinct to act humble, I answered with a joking, cocky tone. Self-confidence, right? Plus, it seemed rude to the student for the teacher to demean himself in front of her.

Mizusawa was quiet for a second, like he hadn’t expected me to answer like that, then sighed.

“Looks like you’re advancing as fast as your student, huh, Fumiya?”

“A-am I…? You could be right.”

I’d vaguely realized if I was going to teach someone else what I’d learned myself so far, I had to take responsibility for it. That’s why I’d tried hard to put my experiences in perspective and express them in words. If I didn’t try to understand my own knowledge more and break things down, it would be hard to communicate them to someone else. That process was a sort of training in itself.

Mizusawa was looking at Tama-chan and me with a satisfied expression.

“Yeah, you’ve both grown a lot. As I’d expect from such a talented teacher and student.”

Tama-chan and I responded at the same time to his compliment.

“Heh-heh…I am talented, aren’t I?!”

“Uh…thanks.”

Mizusawa burst out laughing. He looked at me and grinned.

“One thing is a little sad, though… The teacher is being totally outdone by his student.”

I’d been vaguely aware of that fact, but he was making it crystal clear. I slumped my shoulders.

“I—I was worried about that…”

“Too bad for you, Tomozaki!”

Tama-chan gave me a smile bursting with charm and cheerfulness. It seemed to express all her guileless honesty, like a sunflower shining in the summer sun.

And so, as I silently admitted to myself that Tama-chan had outpaced me with her overwhelming potential, stage one of her charm school came to an end. Yeah, we bottom-tier characters need to take things slow.

* * *

After that, we talked about what to do next as we ate our bento and sandwiches. Mizusawa crammed a big bite of his fried yakisoba bun into his mouth.

“It might be okay for you to start mingling with other kids in class tomorrow, but it could come off as a little weird. As Fumiya said, we’ve gotta think about risk management.”

“Yeah, true.”

I nodded, chewing on my croquette sandwich. He had a point. The other day, I’d talked about the importance of practicing in a safe environment. From that perspective, it was slightly dangerous for Tama-chan to jump straight from training with us to conversing with the rest of the class. She was fine with Mizusawa and me, but that might be because she was used to us.

Once she was out in the real world interacting with different people, she couldn’t afford to get nervous, mess up, and be stuck spinning her wheels. It would be especially painful to see her mess up the because I’m short joke.

I tried to think of how to create a safe space, but all that came to me was a headache.

“…That’s a hard one right now.”

Mizusawa nodded coolly.

“It is?” Tama-chan asked, tilting her head as she took a big bite of tamagoyaki. Maybe the effects of our routine earlier were lingering, because the gesture felt slightly vulnerable—charming. This was a good sign. Mizusawa gulped down the bread in his mouth and turned to Tama-chan to explain.

“I’d like to invite someone to meet up with us after class to do a dry run, but right now, they’re all avoiding you.”

It was true. The whole class was treating her like an inflamed wound they shouldn’t touch. It seemed unlikely anyone would help us out.

“Oh…,” Tama-chan said glumly.

“This is tough.”

“It is. Aoi and Mimimi are on your side, but you’re too close to them, so it wouldn’t be real practice. Who else could we ask? Who’d help us out?”

I considered it for a second.

“Um…how about Izumi?”

I remembered our conversation from the previous week. She seemed like a promising candidate. But Mizusawa didn’t look hopeful.

“I think she’d help, but…if Konno happened to catch her with us, her position would be at risk.”

“…Oh.”

On the one hand was Konno’s obvious enemy, Tama-chan. On the other was her closest friend, Izumi. If Konno caught the two of them colluding, she’d be pissed. Hinami had already warned me about something similar in a different situation. Thanks to the Nakamura incident, Izumi had found her identity in helping other people, so she’d probably say yes if I asked. But I wanted to avoid all the potential problems that could cause her.

“Yeah, makes sense. That’s probably not a good plan,” I said. We were all silent for a moment.

“…So who else is there? Someone who’s neutral and low-risk even if she messes up, and who’s not close with either Konno or Tama.”

Mizusawa sighed, apparently running through the qualifications in his mind as he searched for a candidate. But who could tick all those boxes? Someone who wasn’t influenced by the anti-Tama-chan mood in class, who wouldn’t make a big deal out of flubs, who didn’t have much to do with Konno, and who didn’t know Tama-chan well, either. I was thinking how unlikely we were to find someone when suddenly, a face popped into my head.

“Ah-ha!” I blurted out.

“What, you thought of someone that might be a good fit, Fumiya?”

“Well, it’s not that they ‘might’ be a good fit…”

She was right in the center of the Venn diagram. She met all the conditions to a T. She was the perfect candidate.

“Oh?”

“Um…”

Yes.

Kikuchi-san.

For some reason, my heart was pounding, but I focused on speaking slowly.

“…Let me see if they’re interested.”

“So you do have someone in mind?” Mizusawa looked at me expectantly.

“Um, yeah…but I’m not sure.”

Tama-chan seemed very interested. “Ooh, who is it?”

Her eyes were sparkling with curiosity. She definitely came off as friendlier than before. I almost gave in to the pressure but managed not to.

“Uh, I don’t want to tell you until I’m sure they’ll help us out.”

I put off a real answer. I wasn’t sure how I felt about throwing Kikuchi-san’s name out there, since she had that divine aura that set her aside from worldly concerns. I didn’t want to tear open the sacred boundary around her, so I concealed her identity—and I’d feel bad if this started any rumors about us.

“I’m going to check with them first.”

“Gotcha. We’ll let you handle it, Fumiya,” Mizusawa said nonchalantly.

“Thanks.”

Something about the phrase we’ll let you handle it made me strangely happy.

“If you say so, Tomozaki!”

Tama-chan went along with Mizusawa and didn’t ask me any more questions. Why’d they trust me so much? Now I was all warm and fuzzy.

As I was basking in that glow, Mizusawa started to wrap things up as usual.

“So for now, we should just keep in touch if anything changes, right?”

“Right.”

“Okay!”

Even when it came to those formulaic ending words, Tama-chan outdid me in every respect. With that, our lunch meeting disbanded.

* * *

After school, I went to the library to wait for Tama-chan and Mizusawa to finish with their club activities. Lately, I’d been coming to the library every day after school, so I was getting used to this new schedule—or I should have been.

Today, though, one thing was different from usual.

A voice like the trumpets of angels heralding the birth of new life rang out, blessing my eardrums.

“I-I’m nervous…”

The intelligence in her voice resonated with the pages of the books in the library, but it also carried a warmth like an embrace from the Holy Mother. It swirled through my very cells, permeating my entire body.

Yes, you guessed it. Today, Kikuchi-san was sitting in the chair next to mine.

“Um, yeah. That makes sense.”

After our last homeroom, when everyone was hurrying off to their clubs and team practices or going home, I’d walked over to speak with her. Specifically, I’d asked if she would help with Tama-chan’s training after school.

“All I have to do is talk to her like I normally would?”

“Yeah, just like normal.”

I’d simply said I wanted her to have a conversation with Tama-chan. This would be Tama-chan’s dress rehearsal before applying her tonal practice and because I’m short strategy to the whole class. And Kikuchi-san was going to play the role of her conversation partner.

“A-all right.”

I told her Mizusawa would be there, too. Her voice was unsteady and nervous, probably because she was imagining herself leaping into such an unfamiliar situation.

All the same, she’d agreed to my request in order to help Tama-chan out. As I suspected, it wasn’t just her looks and surface-level actions that were angelic. Even her heart was made from holy material.

Incidentally, I didn’t mention that Tama-chan was changing her way of talking or anything else like that. I thought it would be best for her to make her own judgment without any preconceptions.

“You haven’t talked much with Tama-chan, have you?”

Kikuchi-san shook her head slowly. “No. When I see her in class, she strikes me as a really powerful person…but I’ve never really talked to her.”

“Huh.”

Our conversation petered out. We’d already gone over the key points for the rehearsal, and I didn’t have anything left to explain. All the same, I stayed calm and thought about what I wanted to say to her, searching inside myself for my genuine feelings. Keeping it natural, no big-guy bluffs. When I thought of something, I just said it.

“…So what do you think about all this? I mean, about the way Konno is harassing Tama-chan and how everyone else is obviously avoiding her.”

How did this awful situation look through Kikuchi-san’s unclouded eyes? I wanted to know, pure and simple.

“I…”

Kikuchi-san parted her pale-pink lips and paused. I doubted there was much (if any) lipstick on them, and yet they glistened mysteriously, as if they were covered in a glossy, translucent veil.

After thinking for a moment, she continued.

“I feel really bad for Hanabi-chan. I think the situation is unfair. But…I can’t blame Konno-san or the rest of the class.”

I hadn’t expected that answer. One thing in particular caught my attention.

“You can’t blame them? What do you mean?” I asked directly.

Kikuchi-san gripped the fingers on her left hand with her right hand.

“Um…I think it’s wrong to harass someone or avoid a certain person just because everyone else is doing it.”

“Uh-huh…”

She shook her head. “But I think the reason they do that…is because they’re weak.”

“…Weak?”

That was unexpected.

Kikuchi-san nodded hesitantly. “I’m sure…that they have a kind of conflict inside them that they can’t resolve themselves. They have to release that tension somehow…and they know it’s not right, but they worry about what other people think. So they go along with it. That’s what I think is going on…”

Her words were halting and unsure, but the sketch they created was certain, powerful, and deep. She went on transforming the scene she saw into words.

“I think Konno-san and everyone else is doing this to escape from something they can’t resolve on their own… Of course, it’s the wrong way to handle it.”

“Escape…huh?”

In Konno’s case, she must be running from the stress caused by Izumi and Nakamura getting together. For everyone else, there was the general feeling that people who brought everyone down should be held responsible. Instead of facing up to the sources of stress, they were taking the path of least resistance.

“Yes…although, I’m hardly one to speak since I’ve just been watching passively.” She shook her head in chagrin.

“Th-that’s not true. Sometimes, you can’t get involved even if you want to…”

“Thank you,” she said softly, smiling modestly, then went on talking. “If you think about Konno-san, our classmates, and Hanabi-chan, I think the strongest person of them all is really Hanabi-chan.”

She lowered her long lashes as she spoke. I reflected quietly on her words, which rang out as beautifully as graceful ripples on the water’s surface.

“…I think you might be right. Tama-chan is very strong.”

Kikuchi-san pressed her lips together for a moment before responding.

“Yes. I think Konno-san and everyone else depends on her strength. It’s easier than fighting their own internal confusion. Because no matter how much they lean on her, Hanabi-chan never collapses.”

She rubbed her delicate collarbone, which was as white and beautiful as a snow-covered mountainside.

“…Leaning on her, huh?”

Her perspective was more than a little surprising to me. She carefully considered each player in the drama—truly a heaven’s-eye view. But that didn’t mean what she was saying was odd.

Konno wasn’t just attacking Tama-chan. She was turning away from the stress she felt and compensating with harassment to make herself feel better, a strategy that depended on Tama-chan’s strength. Meanwhile, the rest of the class wasn’t merely avoiding Tama-chan; they were avoiding a battle with the mood and justifying their own behavior by labeling the invincible Tama-chan as “the culprit” and attacking her in the name of “justice.”

And it was happening because Tama-chan was strong and they were weak, according to Kikuchi-san.

“But that doesn’t mean they should be doing those things…and I think the problem has to be resolved. I’m thrilled you’re giving me the chance to get involved. Thank you.”

She looked straight at me as she spoke. Her skin was as smooth and clear as porcelain; I couldn’t help staring. Her radiance was so powerful, it seemed to be its own source of light. But more than anything, the words this beautiful being was saying were so positive, so human.

“Yeah. Let’s get to work on it, then.”

Kikuchi-san’s innocent, unguarded smile enveloped me like the arms of a goddess.

“Yes. Let’s work on it…together,” she said in a fluent, kind voice filled with gentle determination. I nodded and returned her smile, convinced that the overwhelming brilliance of her expression would remain etched in my retinas for eternity.

We were walking together toward the same goal. That was a first for me. I realized I was oddly tickled by the idea of fighting alongside this person who was so important to me.

As always, the time I spent with her felt natural, unhurried, gentle, and warm.

* * *

After I got a message from Mizusawa in our LINE group chat, Kikuchi-san and I headed to the classroom where he and Tama-chan were already waiting. They were looking out the window and talking; they didn’t seem to have noticed us yet.

I hadn’t had a chance to tell them who was going to help us. Neither of them had mentioned it after Mizusawa said he’d let me handle it. They really did seem to trust me on this one. That sort of acceptance was typical Mizusawa, and I wanted to live up to his expectations.

With Kikuchi-san trailing half a step behind me, I went into the classroom, somewhat nervous about how they would react to her.

“Um…hey,” I called to them. They both looked at me, and then at Kikuchi-san. Both of them widened their eyes in surprise. Well, I could have predicted that. Mizusawa was the first to talk.

“Hey, Fumiya…and Kikuchi-san?”

Half-hidden behind me, she peered out at them.

“H-hello,” she said, her voice a little high from nervousness. She was still using me for cover. Tama-chan must have noticed how nervous she was, because she changed her expression from surprise to a friendly smile and looked straight at her.

“Hi, Fuka-chan. Hi, Tomozaki.”

Her direct, strong reply was pure Tama-chan. But I wondered why she called Kikuchi-san by her first name even though she didn’t know her well. Were girls just less formal with each other from the start?

“H-hello,” Kikuchi-san said again. This was her second hello of the day.

Mizusawa-san scratched his head softly, still looking surprised.

“Um, thanks for helping us out, Kikuchi-san. So this was the person you were thinking of, Fumiya?”

“Um, yeah.”

“Huh.”

He looked at me intently. There it was again—that look he got when he was searching someone’s soul. Right now, he was probing our relationship. I’d better watch out—Mizusawa could always see straight through me. Not that I had anything to hide, really.

Eventually, he shifted his gaze to Kikuchi-san and nodded. Wh-what? What was that nod supposed to mean?

“Well, she’s neutral in this whole situation, doesn’t have a big influence on the class, isn’t connected to Konno, and isn’t friends with Tama-chan… Just like we said.”

“R-right?” I said, still flustered.

“Um, Kikuchi-san, has Fumiya explained everything to you?”

“…What do you mean, ‘everything’?”

Kikuchi-san was slowly emerging from behind me as she talked to Mizusawa. Now she was maybe 70 percent out in the open. Doing good, Kikuchi-san.

“Well, did he tell you about our strategy to help Tama? And that today, we just want you to have a normal conversation with her?”

“Oh, um, yes. He did.”

By now, she was about 80 percent out.

“Okay then!” Mizusawa said casually, then smirked. “By the way, why do you seem so anxious?”

“Oh, um, because I don’t know you very well…”

“Hmm,” Mizusawa said, not sounding convinced, but then next moment, he nodded. After his comment, Kikuchi-san shrank back to being 60 percent exposed. What a weird barometer.

“Okay, no big deal. Let’s get started.”

“O-okay.”

That was how the conversation, which now included Kikuchi-san, began. Now that I thought about it, I’d never seen Kikuchi-san in a group setting. Aside from when I borrowed the tissue from Izumi and the time Hinami and I happened to go to the café where she worked, I hadn’t really seen her talking to other people. I mean, there were times in class when we naturally had to speak with our classmates, but aside from that, I’d almost never seen her having a conversation.

“Well, should we get started?” Mizusawa called, like he was starting a lesson. Tama-chan nodded timidly.

“I guess so.”

“Great. The two of us will watch.”

He walked over to me and nudged Kikuchi-san toward Tama-chan with a smile.

“Oh, okay.”

Maybe out of nervousness, she walked over to Tama-chan, a bit more squirrel-like than usual, and bowed politely. Um, this isn’t a martial arts match…

I chuckled a little when Mizusawa whispered into my ear.

“Hey, Fumiya, I didn’t know you guys were friends.”

“Um, well, I guess we are,” I mumbled incoherently.

Mizusawa hmmed. “There’s more to you than meets the eye,” he whispered, and grinned teasingly.

“Wh-what’s that supposed to mean?” I said anxiously.

He nudged me with his elbow. “Nothing, it’s just…”

“Wh-what?”

He glanced at her before continuing in a whisper.

“She doesn’t stand out much, but she’s supercute in a quiet sort of way.”

My brain froze for a second. I stood there blinking, my head spinning as I tried unsuccessfully to figure out what I should be thinking. After a minute, I muttered some vague response.

“…What’s the matter?” Mizusawa said, tilting his head at me. I had no idea.

It was just like, when I heard someone else say she was cute, my brain got all fuzzy, and even though that should have been a good thing because he was complimenting her, my heart jumped, and I didn’t know what that meant. Yeah, I just had no idea.

“Nothing,” I said. I wasn’t so much talking as making an emotionless sound, but that was all I was capable of. Mizusawa was watching me with a grin. Wh-what’s that face for?

* * *

Tama-chan and Kikuchi-san were facing each other. The classroom had practically become a magical forest, showcasing a meeting between a woodland creature and a fairy, but the first thing Tama-chan said kinda shattered that.

“Fuka-chan, I didn’t know you and Tomozaki were friends!”

Plunging straight into that level of intimacy was a move reminiscent of a certain idiot, but she also had his vulnerability in her tone to make that brave first step feel less harsh. Huh. I think Tama-chan picked things up so fast because she was honest right down to her core.

Maybe out of surprise, Kikuchi-san burst out laughing. The tension drained from her face as she looked Tama-chan in the eye.

“Yes. I’m fortunate to call him a friend.”

She smiled lovingly. Her stiffness had disappeared, and the orb of glowing light that usually surrounded her was back. Tama-chan smiled back at her.

“Tomozaki has gotten a lot happier lately, hasn’t he?”

Kikuchi-san blinked, her eyes opening again, as round as acorns and as bright as pools of water reflecting the clouds and sun, and she answered after a pause.

“Yes, he has… I think it’s wonderful when people make the effort to become the person they want to be.”

Mizusawa looked surprised by the way her gentle, affirming words reverberated through the classroom like a majestic song. Eventually, he glanced at me jokingly.

“You heard the lady,” he said, slapping my shoulder.

“Uh, yeah.”

He was definitely teasing me because Kikuchi-san had called my recent changes wonderful. But I was sure those words weren’t intended for only me.

“…You think so?” Tama-chan mumbled, sinking somewhere deep inside herself.

“Yes…I think it’s just terrific.”

“…Huh.”

The two of them exchanged a look that suggested some sort of important thread had been tied between them. Finally, Kikuchi-san asked Tama-chan a question with some concern.

“Hanabi-chan…have you been doing all right lately?”

Tama-chan nodded firmly, and the gesture was honest.

“Yeah. Sometimes, I don’t like what’s going on, but I’m fine! Aoi and Minmi are there for me, and Tomozaki and Mizusawa are helping me, too. I’ve been able to work on some things!”

Kikuchi-san smiled, apparently relieved by Tama-chan’s positivity and spirit.

“I’m happy to hear that.”

“Thanks for worrying about me!”

“You’re welcome. I’m jealous that you have so many friends you can count on.”

“Yes, I really can rely on everyone aside from Tomozaki!”

“Hey!” I said, jumping into their conversation. Kikuchi-san giggled.

“…I think the reason everyone gathers around you despite the difficulty is because they all care about you so much.”

She smiled a soft smile that seemed to wrap itself around Tama-chan. Yeah, Kikuchi-san’s angel wings were definitely out.

“N-now you’re making me shy!”

Maybe since this was the first time she was experiencing Kikuchi-san’s holy aura, Tama-chan blushed and looked flustered.

“Hee-hee. I always knew you were a lovely, adorable person.”

“No! …It’s just because I’m short!”

“…Short?”

Kikuchi-san tilted her head, puzzled, and Mizusawa and I burst out laughing.

“Oh, no, never mind! Forget I said that!”

Tama-chan blushed and looked even more flustered. Glad we did this dry run.

“Hey, Tama!” I called. “You don’t have to run all the way over there just because you’re embarrassed!”

“Come on! I’m just short! I didn’t go anywhere; I’m just hard to see.”

“Oh, really?”

“Really! It’s just an optical illusion!”

“Hee-hee-hee. You’re so cute.”

“Come on!”

There was something refreshing about the sight of Kikuchi-san smothering Tama-chan with compliments and Tama-chan blushing and being completely at a loss on how to respond. Practice and all that aside, maybe it was really good that these two just got to talk.

* * *

The conversation between Tama-chan and Kikuchi-san had reached a natural ending point, and we were all walking down the hallway.

“Well…how was that?” Mizusawa gently asked Kikuchi-san, who was floating among us like a celestial nymph.

She gave him an elegant smile. “She was very easy to talk to.”

Huh. So Kikuchi-san graces Mizusawa with that beautiful smile, too. As I reflected on this completely obvious fact, I continued listening to their conversation.

“Excellent. So the training was a success… Uh, Fumiya?”

“Huh? Oh right,” I answered lifelessly, caught off guard.

“Why are you so out of it?”

“Um, no reason. It’s nothing.”

“What? You’re acting weird today.”

“I—I am? I don’t think I am.”

“…Hmm.”

Mizusawa gave a knowing grin and finally looked away from me. Honestly, what was that about?

The four of us left the school building and headed toward the field, with me still an emotional wreck.

“Okay, so aside from this, the main question is whether Tama-chan has any interest in our other classmates, right?” Mizusawa said, readjusting the heel of the outside shoes he’d just changed into.

“…Yeah,” Tama-chan mumbled without much confidence. After all, that wasn’t a simple problem to solve.

“Fumiya, what was the spark that got you interested in other people?”

“Me? Well…”

I reflected, trying to remember what had changed my outlook.

“At first, I decided to try to find out a little bit more about other people. And once I knew one thing, I wanted to know the next, and it just bubbled up from there.”

“You tried to find out more about them, huh…?”

Tama-chan’s quiet voice drifted to me on the autumn breeze. Kikuchi-san was listening to our conversation silently, a serious expression on her face.

“If you’re like me, then my guess is you’re holding yourself back from taking that first step,” I said to Tama-chan.

She looked at me anxiously. “Holding myself back?”

“Yeah. You tell yourself their world doesn’t have anything to do with yours. That you can’t be part of their group.”

She glanced down. “…That might be true.”

Yeah, we really were similar. I kept going, like I was talking to the old me.

“When you look at people talking and messing around in class, and you have those assumptions at the bottom of your heart, then they feel far away from you, like they’re characters in a book. Farther than that, really. The whole world looks gray.”

Mizusawa sighed quietly.

“A gray world, huh…?”

Gray. That was the word Kikuchi-san had said to me over summer vacation. Now she was walking along next to me, listening to our conversation, watching our hearts with those clear eyes of hers.

“But there’s no real basis for that. If you decide to jump in and do it, the world starts to take on color, and gradually, you feel better about being there. Your life starts getting more fun, and the world draws you in more, too.”

“…I can see that,” Tama-chan said, like she was remembering something.

“It’s not about forcing yourself to be interested. I think the first step is to believe that maybe, if you take that step, you might enjoy it. Then you try to learn a little bit about other people. That’s what happened to me. I got myself involved, and the interest came from there.”

“It just came from there…”

Tama-chan echoed my words to herself. I was fairly sure she hadn’t taken that first step yet—she still lived in her own world. In my case, Hinami had pushed me forward so I could finally leap into the world at large. That leap had carried me over all kinds of stereotypes, fears, and beliefs that things could never change. Getting past all of it was tough, but on the other side was a colorful world I didn’t even know existed.

“I bet you think you won’t like people that much—but actually, there aren’t many truly bad people out there.”

I stopped there. That was as much as I could say about my motivation for moving forward as aggressively as I was.

When I did, Kikuchi-san finally spoke up. Her voice was quiet, but it drew everyone’s attention.

“For example…”

“For example?” I echoed, glancing at her. She was looking intently at Tama-chan, almost like she was praying.

“For example, Konno-san hates to lose, and she hates feeling less than others. But she can also be very compassionate toward the people she decides are her friends,” she began, full of emotion, like she was reading a book out loud.

“…Fuka-chan?”

“And Akiyama-san—well, I’m sure she doesn’t have any self-confidence. To make up for that, she tries to be friends with confident people. In a sense, it’s a beautiful way of taking the initiative to change the situation around her.”

All three of us were mesmerized by Kikuchi-san’s words.

“And another example…Izumi-san puts other people before herself, so she tends to be on the losing end a lot. But from another perspective, you can see her gentleness. She feels the pain of others like it’s her own.”

She sighed like she was shutting the book and suddenly looked in front of her.

“…I think each character in the story of our class has their own background and their own struggles and their own growth and false beliefs. Not one of them is going through life without thinking. Of course, the same goes for you and me and Mizusawa-kun and Tomozaki-kun as well.”

She smiled at Tama-chan with a literary aura around her.

“I think if you take that perspective, you’ll start to find you want to know more.”

The tale she’d woven had completely absorbed me. When I glanced at Mizusawa, he was uncharacteristically flustered. When our eyes met, he nodded meaningfully and then turned away. Tama-chan was gazing at Kikuchi-san with surprise, but she also seemed encouraged. She bobbed her head slightly.

“…I think I understand a little better now. Thank you, Tomozaki and Fuka-chan.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You’re welcome.”

I was embarrassed by her direct thanks. No matter how much time passed, I never seemed to build up any defenses against that sort of thing. Meanwhile, Kikuchi-san accepted her gratitude gracefully.

“I was thinking,” Mizusawa suddenly said.

“Huh?”

“Fumiya…and Kikuchi-san, too, maybe. You move forward slowly, but you’re very careful about it.”

“Uh, really?”

I didn’t know how to take his abstract comment. He let out a quiet, little laugh, while Kikuchi-san looked at him with interest.

“Yeah. It’s like you notice every grain of sand dropped on the ground…the total opposite of me.”

He sounded kind of like he was putting himself down, but his gaze was fixed straight ahead.

“Which means…?” I asked.

He hurried on, like he was trying to cut me off before I could say anything else. “Anyway, I feel like we’ve chased some ghosts away. How about you, Tama?”

“Um…okay,” I mumbled, while Tama-chan looked at him with a mixture of fear and determination.

“I’ll do the best I can,” she mumbled. She glanced down, as if to confirm to herself that she was still physically there. “I wonder if I can get along with everyone after all,” she said with a sigh. She sounded very earnest. To me, her unspoken message showed her single-minded determination not to bring Mimimi any more grief.

“I’m sure you can,” I said confidently, before anyone else could respond.

Tama-chan pressed her lips together and nodded like she was trying to encourage herself.

“Thanks… I’ll do my best!”

This time, her voice was filled with the same directness as always, but it also had an outward brightness. A big smile shone on her face.

* * *

“So the ranks have grown again…and now it’s Kikuchi-san?!”

“H-hi.”

Mimimi was definitely surprised by the new addition to our group. Kikuchi-san gave a flustered, polite bow as she stood on the school field.

“Uh, um, hi!”

“Hi!”

Once again, Kikuchi-san did a double greeting, then walked backward a couple of steps and hid about 10 percent of herself behind me. Huh. So she was 90 percent out from the start this time. Good progress, Kikuchi-san.

“What is this group all about?!”

“Ha-ha-ha. Figures you’d be confused!” Mizusawa laughed, watching the bewildered Mimimi. Her teammates weren’t paying much attention, maybe because they were used to us coming to meet her by now.

“Is Kikuchi-san part of the Tama-rescue team, too?”

“Uh, um…,” Kikuchi-san said, still flustered.

“Yeah, kind of. More like a temporary assistant on Team Tomozaki,” Mizusawa interjected, coming to Kikuchi-san’s rescue. Nice move. I better get on top of that.

“Oh, huh…”

Mimimi still seemed totally lost, but she nevertheless nodded in a show of understanding. She could adapt quickly.

“Apparently, she and Tomozaki were friends, and she offered to help.”

Mimimi froze with her eyes round and mouth gaping.

“…Huh? Tomozaki and her?” she said in a daze.

Mizusawa cackled. “Yup. Never would’ve guessed, huh?”

Mimimi nodded a few more times, eyes still wide, and looked back and forth between the two of us.

“Definitely. Huh…”

“…Wh-what?”

I didn’t know how to react to the look she gave me with those bewildered, blinking eyes.

Kikuchi-san tilted her face down awkwardly and flashed a few glances up at Mimimi. What was with this mood?

“Hmm…”

Mimimi stared appraisingly at Kikuchi-san.

Probably nervous, Kikuchi-san was turning redder and redder as she struggled to keep eye contact with Mimimi. I bet she was trying not to be rude. Angel.

After this mysterious interlude, Mimimi finally mumbled, “…You’re cute.”

“Umm…?”

Her expression was utterly serious as she kept her gaze fixed on Kikuchi-san, who looked slightly frightened by the sudden compliment.

“Yes…you’re adorable!!”

She turned toward Kikuchi-san, welcoming her with open arms.

“How could I have missed someone as adorable as you?! You’re totally my type! You’re almost as incredible as Tama!! Welcome to Nanami World!”

“Nanami…what?”

Her excitement suddenly exploded, leaving Kikuchi-san completely confused. I figured I’d better come to her rescue before Mizusawa did.

“Come on, Mimimi, tone it down!”

She gave me a sulky look, then suddenly brought both hands to her eyes and pretended to burst into tears.

“You’re so mean…taking Kikuchi-san’s side over mine…”

“That’s not the issue!”

“You must have forgotten, Tomozaki…about our dazzling days of love…”

“What are you talking about?! That never happened!” I cried in a panic. She was crazy!

She brushed me off with a laugh. “You’re getting better at your comebacks, Brain! All the more reason to make more jokes!”

I sighed at her total refusal to tone anything down.

“Fine, make your jokes; just don’t start any rumors…”

“Ah-ha-ha! Good point!”

“Man…”

I let go of my tension and smiled, looking at Mimimi. She seemed pleased with herself. Apparently, she was satisfied now. Mizusawa shrugged and rolled his eyes.

“Would you two quit it with the comedy routine?”

“That’s asking too much, Takahiro! Our husband-and-wife routine is pure improv!”

“I know that…,” he sighed.

“Wh-what?!” I yelped.

“Minmi?” Tama chimed in. “No one thought you had a script to start with.”

All this ruckus was going on near the track-team office. I happened to look over at Kikuchi-san and noticed she was staring at me in a daze. Her eyes were filled half with surprise, half with girlish interest. Suddenly, she giggled, covering her mouth daintily with her hand. If there’s a smile that could be described as gentle beaming, this was it.

“…Kikuchi-san?” I said.

“This is so fun,” she said softly, the words leaving her delicate lips with warm emotion.

“…Huh?”

Mimimi gave Kikuchi-san a blank look. Kikuchi-san smiled back at her, her warmth embracing even Mimimi’s confusion.

“I feel like…I’m starting to understand why Tomozaki-kun changed,” she said gently, as if she was putting away something very important for safekeeping. Her words seemed to glow with a certain inner warmth. Mimimi blinked at her.

“…Yeah, makes sense,” I answered. I’m sure this would be enough for her to see. I glanced up and noticed Mizusawa was carefully observing the two of us, as usual.

He was nodding slowly over and over as he hmmed to himself. He was getting a kick out of something in the midst of all this.

“Wh-what?” I said accusingly.

“Oh, nothing,” he answered with a wicked grin. Liar.

“Come on, what?”

“Hmm? You have a guess?”

“What are you talking about?!”

“What’s the matter, Fumiya? I bet you wanted to say—”

That was enough to completely shatter my composure, and I interrupted him midsentence.

“Okay, I’ve had enough. I’m leaving!” I shouted. Everyone, including Kikuchi-san, broke out laughing.

* * *

I’d been tricked.

As I walked home on the dark streets, I cursed my own carelessness.

It had happened a couple minutes earlier. Mimimi had changed out of her track uniform, and we were all about to leave.

First, Mimimi said she had to use the bathroom and disappeared into the school with Tama-chan. That was normal enough. But then Mizusawa said they were taking forever to come back and went to look for them. That’s when I should have realized what was up.

Why would Mizusawa go look for them in the girl’s bathroom?

A few minutes later, I got a LINE message from him saying, [We headed home! Good luck.] The second I read it, everything became very clear.

I’m not sure if he was doing it as a joke or because he thought he was helping, but he’d cooked up a scheme to get Kikuchi-san and me alone.

So now Kikuchi-san and I were walking together down a dim, country road. S-screw you, Mizusawa. Now that I thought about it, the trap was totally obvious, but I didn’t have the EXP to see it. Behold, the level gap.

Anyway, my only choice now was to roll with it.

If Kikuchi-san and I had already been out to eat and gone to the movies together, why did I feel so nervous about suddenly walking home from school with her, like it was some huge deal? Maybe it was because everyone was teasing me so much earlier.

“Um…,” I ventured.

Kikuchi-san looked at me. It was well past six, but even in the dusky light, she was as pale and beautiful as an albino Yggdragon. The air sparkled with an attractiveness so powerful that I was sure some spell had been cast over it.

I took the hit from the magic head-on, even as I searched my heart for what I wanted to talk to Kikuchi-san about. This was what came out.

“How did you like talking with everyone?”

I didn’t think she’d interacted much with the other kids in our class up to this point. Then today, she’d suddenly jumped into talking about all sorts of stuff in a big group. I wondered what she thought about the whole experience. As for me, the only thing I really remembered was the weird way my heart jumped every time Mizusawa teased me about her, but we’ll leave that aside for now.

“Um…I was nervous.”

“Really?!”

“There were so many people I hadn’t talked to before…”

“Oh, that’s what you meant. Yeah, makes sense.”

“…?”

She tilted her head, puzzled. I’d been startled for a second because I was thinking about how my own heart kept pounding from being teased, but yeah, of course that’s not what she meant. Putting on a calm front to hopefully hide that, I kept talking.

“It was a nice change of pace to see you speaking with everyone like that.”

She looked a little embarrassed. “Yes…it was a nice change of pace for me, too.” She brought her hand to her chest. “And it was nice to see you up close, having a good time with everyone.”

“R-really?”

She nodded slowly and kindly. Her strangely alluring smile melted my heart like a chunk of chocolate in a warm hand.

“Yes. I’ve seen you with other people in class, but this was the first time I got to watch up close… It was a great thing to see.”

She smiled a warm, grown-up smile. Then she looked up at me, the autumn breeze ruffling her moonlit hair.

“You always show me things I’ve never seen before.”

Her eyes each held a miniature universe inside of which were glittering stars that harbored all the mysteries of life. Perhaps I had already fallen into them.

“Oh, uh-huh…”

My brain was dangerously close to overheating. When I got home, I could hardly remember anything we talked about after that. All I knew was that a pleasant warmth lingered in my chest.

I was done for. Kikuchi-san truly was an enchantress.

* * *

The next day, it was finally time for Tama-chan to take the next step; she was going to go through with her plan to be more charming while interacting with other people.

The first part of the strategy was simple. With Mimimi’s help, she would hang out with Mimimi’s group of girls and try to join their conversation. Hinami would probably be there, too, which would make her more comfortable. Apparently, Mizusawa had talked it through with Mimimi the day before, while I was walking home with Kikuchi-san. Props to the guy who can do everything.

During break after first period, Tama-chan got right to work with Mimimi. I watched from the back of the classroom with Mizusawa.

“Wonder how this will go.”

“Yeah, who knows…?”

Up till now, most of the kids in class had avoided her somewhat. But when she stopped fighting back against Konno, the mood improved a little. Then she’d done some training to stop putting up walls and defending herself so completely. Those two steps should have removed the surface-level obstacles keeping her from fitting in.

What she needed now was the courage to take the first step into the fray.

“Oh, hey, I forgot to tell you,” Mizusawa said.

“Huh? What?”

“When I was walking home with Mimimi and Tama the other day, I took your advice to heart and asked Mimimi some stuff.”

“…Like what?”

“I mean, you were talking about how important it is to take an interest in other people and accept them if you want to get along. Getting to know them a little is a key part of that, right?”

“Oh, uh-huh,” I agreed.

“And Kikuchi-san pointed out some things, too, right? About everyone’s personality.”

“Yeah…”

Mizusawa looked at Mimimi and Tama-chan.

“So I got Mimimi to tell me some things, for Tama’s sake. About what her friends are like.”

“…Oh.”

“I asked her what she liked most about different people. She had thoughts or a story about each one of them. Tama-chan seemed surprised.”

“…Because she wouldn’t have been able to do that?”

Mizusawa nodded. “It was like something hit her. I think she was surprised by the fact that Kikuchi-san and Mimimi both pay so much attention to our classmates…and just the simple fact that everyone has something likable about them.”

I nodded slowly in return. “So she’s starting to develop an interest?”

Mizusawa tilted his head to the side. “Maybe. My guess is that after she heard everything you and Kikuchi-san said, and after seeing it in practice with Mimimi, she probably felt motivated to give it a try.”

“Huh…well, that’s promising,” I replied.

Mizusawa was looking at Tama-chan. “I’ve got a good feeling about this.” He smiled gently and let out a relieved sigh.

“You could be right,” I said admiringly.

Mizusawa’s smile grew more teasing, then suddenly, he gave me a serious look. “Actually, I learned a lot myself,” he said.

“What’s that mean?”

He cackled and laid a hand on my shoulder. “Wouldn’t expect any less from the Brain-slash-Leader.”

“You and Mimimi just gave me those names randomly!”

“Ha-ha-ha. Well, Team Tomozaki has done all it could.”

“So it’s still named after me, huh…?”

The day passed like that, with the two of us watching from a distance as Tama-chan talked earnestly and cheerfully with our classmates. Even from afar, I could see that her expressions and gestures were winning people over. I could only hear fragments of her conversations, but it was obvious that the mood was cheerful and lively.

At first, everyone was a little unnerved by Tama-chan’s presence, but by lunchtime, the tension was gone, and she seemed to have been accepted into the group. Mizusawa must have talked to Mimimi about the short joke, because she and Tama-chan did that routine a couple of times, too.

Still, that acceptance could very well be at only a surface-level. They’d been avoiding her until very recently, so maybe they secretly felt awkward. But time would probably take care of that.

If we continued on this path, the mood should soon be on our side.

* * *

“Cheers!”

Takei took the lead in making a toast at the bar—the drink bar, of course. School was out, and we were at a diner just off the road between school and the station. The group included Tama-chan, Mizusawa, Takei, and me. As soon as her extralong track practice ended, Mimimi was supposed to meet us here.

“How’s the response so far, Tama?” Mizusawa asked. Tama-chan nodded, taking a sip of orange juice.

“Once I started trying to be more cheerful, the conversation gradually started to go better.”

I couldn’t help grinning. “Really? So you did it!”

“Yeah! Thanks, guys.”

“Whoo-hoo! That’s awesome!!”

As usual, Takei probably only understood half of what was going on, but he was twice as affected as anyone else. Mizusawa smiled wryly and took the helm.

“I think from here on out, you’ll be fine if you just go with the flow. I’m betting Konno will stop harassing you pretty soon.”

“Really?” Tama-chan tilted her head, looking puzzled.

Mizusawa nodded at her. “Yeah, although, it’s just a guess. Once you’ve got the class on your side, they’ll be upset if she harasses you, right?”

“Ah, makes sense,” I said. It had to do with Konno’s sense of balance, which Mizusawa had brought up before. “So once the mood shifts in our favor, Konno will realize she’ll be making things awkward if she keeps up the harassment, right?”

Mizusawa smiled.

“Right. And she’s a good politician—when that happens, I’m guessing she’ll quit.”

Mizusawa and I were on the same page, but Tama-chan was frowning and kept her head tilted to the side still.

“Are you sure?” she said.

“Ha-ha-ha. Don’t worry about the details. All we’re saying is that the problem should resolve itself soon.”

“You think so? Then we can toast?”

“Ha-ha-ha. Yeah. Cheers!”

And so our party went on. Are you watching, Hinami? While you were restricting yourself and trying to avoid changing Tama-chan, we tackled the problem head-on and used all the strategies available to us, and now we’re in sight of our goal. Would you still say we made a mistake?

And why did you insist on playing with a handicap for so long anyway?

“By the way, Fumiya, how’d things go the other day?”

“Huh? The other day?” I said, returning to the present and turning to Mizusawa.

“Don’t play dumb, man. You and Kikuchi-san walked to the station together, right?”

“Oh yeah, that…”

The universe inside Kikuchi-san’s eyes came back to me. The words she said that night were still echoing inside me, and yet all I could remember was my overheated brain.

“…Tomozaki? You’re blushing,” Tama-chan said.

“What?!” I cried, flustered. Mizusawa might lie just to mess with me, but not Tama-chan. I was definitely blushing.

“Hmm, I see… It’s more serious than I thought,” Mizusawa said, smiling sadistically.

“What’s serious?” I said, looking away.

“Oh, you don’t know? Should I give it to you straight, then?”

“Fine, I know! I know, so don’t say anything! But you’re also wrong!”

“Uh-oh! Farm Boy is growing up!!”

“No I’m not!”

Just as everyone was mercilessly teasing me, I spotted Mimimi walking into the restaurant. What timing.

“Hey! Having fun, huh? What’s up? What are you talking about?!”

“We’re not talking about anything!!” I shouted, wiping the cold sweat off my face.