3

Important items are usually lying around in enchanted forests

The next day was Thursday.

Since I’d sent the photo in advance, the morning meeting went smoothly. Hinami listened to me give a rough overview of my conversation with Mimimi, told me to keep up the hard work on both assignments, and let me go. Also, she told me I “have the right attitude,” but I didn’t really know what that meant.

Later, during the break before we switched classrooms, I went to the library and stood nervously in front of the door again.

Last time, Kikuchi-san had confided in me.

“If you don’t mind, there’s something I want you to see…”

“I…wrote a new book. I thought…”

Going by that, she was probably going to give me the manuscript today. I was super nervous, but I bet Kikuchi-san was a hundred times more nervous to be showing me what she’d written. I should act as confident as possible—but the sense of having a mission to fulfill just made me more apprehensive.

When I opened the door to the library, I saw Kikuchi-san jump slightly, like a little dog who had just found a bone hidden in the ground. Her anxiety was easy to see.

I walked over to her (well aware that I was walking a little stiffly) and sat down.

“H-hello.”

“Um, hello.”

Our greeting was a little shakier than usual.

I glanced at her. She was holding an ancient book imprinted with a holy seal in both her hands— Er, no, it was probably the manuscript she had written.

I waited for her to make a move. Trying to hurry this along was definitely not the way to go.

“Here!!”

Suddenly, she thrust the book at me, speaking at full volume. She looked surprised by how loud she was. Then she went silent again, her lips quivering.

“If it’s not too much trouble, w-would you…?”

When I took the pile of papers, she withdrew her hands abruptly. Then she rested them on her skirt, her fingers twined together. A short, awkward silence followed.

“…Y-yeah, of course. You want me to read it and tell you what I think, right?”

“Mm-hmm…,” she said, barely audible. She wasn’t as put-together as she usually was, her bangs falling loosely over her eyes and partially hiding them. From what I could see, her eyes looked anxious and slightly moist, as fragile as a sandcastle that crumbles at the lightest touch. Crap, what is going on? I was feeling strangely protective.

But I couldn’t find the right words, so I sat there feeling lost.

“Th…th…th…”

“…Huh?”

Kikuchi-san was stuttering now. “This is the first time!!”

Once again, her voice was at full volume. The only levels available to her right now seemed to be zero or one hundred. Like before, she looked surprised by her own loudness.

“Th-this is the first time I’ve shown it to anyone, so please go easy on me…”

“Y-yeah, for sure.” I nodded slowly, trying not to react awkwardly to Kikuchi-san’s obvious nervousness.

Her chair clattered as she got to her feet, even though it was much earlier than she usually left the library.

“O-okay, bye…!”

“Uh, okay. Bye.”

With that, she walked away. All I could do was sit there alone as she pattered out of the room.

I felt strangely restless. Part of it was the way she stole my heart like a soft little forest creature, but that wasn’t all.

I was curious what secrets the manuscript held within.

* * *

School normally ended after sixth period, but that day, we had a special seventh period to talk about the festival as a whole class. We were right in the middle of the discussion.

Apparently, we would be staying late every day from this point on to get ready for the festival. Things were really gearing up now.

All eight committee members were standing in front of the blackboard.

“Okay, we’ll start by deciding on our plans for the performance.”

Since Izumi was now chair of the entire organizing committee, she was leading the class discussion instead of Mimimi today. She seemed a little unused to the role, but the nature of her leadership was already taking shape. A testament to her communication skills.

The current item on the docket was our performance in the gym, which we’d decided to take on the other day without any specific plan. What should we do? I had to make some suggestions, but there wasn’t anything I was really interested in.

Izumi rested her hands on the podium and leaned forward, addressing the whole class. “Does anyone have an idea?”

“I wanna do a comedy routine!”

The person who raised her hand was a member of the committee—Mimimi. Geez, she has no sense of restraint.

“A-a comedy routine? You think we can pull that off?” Izumi asked timidly.

“No problem! Just leave it to me!”

“Um…”

“I’m on it!”

She sounded extremely confident, which was actually a little scary. The rest of the class was giggling. Still, Mimimi loved comedy.

One of the other girls on the committee wrote comedy routine on the blackboard, giggling herself.

“Okay, so we have one idea. Anything else?” Izumi asked the class.

A few hands went up, and people suggested skits, a fashion show, and karaoke. Karaoke? Really?

I definitely wanted to shoot down the comedy routine. If we did that idea, I was sure Mimimi would say, The Brain would be the perfect straight man! And then Hinami would tell me I had to do it, so I wouldn’t be able to say no.

“Is that all?” Izumi asked.

No one raised their hand. Performances were harder to envision than a booth.

“…Okay, then we’ll vote!”

Everyone would get to cast one vote for either the comedy routine, the skit, the fashion show, or karaoke.

“First…” Izumi started taking a count of raised hands. The skit ended up getting eleven votes, and karaoke got ten, so we decided to have another discussion and then vote again on those two. The comedy routine only got four votes. Don’t be too sad, Mimimi.

But really, how would we even do karaoke? The person who suggested it seemed to have raised their hand just because they were excited about the idea. Was it actually feasible? I decided to speak up, partly because of my assignment. I still hadn’t gained much of my EXP from talking in front of the class, and I wanted to share my own thoughts as much as possible.

I calmed my nerves, planned out a natural-sounding sentence in my head, and spoke a little louder than normal.

“Um, with karaoke, are we imagining someone standing up on stage to sing with music in the background?”

“Yeah, I think so…,” Izumi said, but I still wasn’t sure what the plan was.

“So…who would be singing?”

“Oh, that’s a good question!”

“Kinda, yeah.”

Had she not thought about that?

Mizusawa and Mimimi giggled at my little jab. Not many other people were smiling. Man, they were cold.

“Okay, let’s ask. Who wants to sing?”

“Me!” Takei was the only one who raised his hand. Well, that tracks.

“No one else?”

We had only one volunteer, and he was way too happy about it. Come on, it still wasn’t in the bag!

Izumi looked up at Mizusawa anxiously. “What about you, Hiro?! You’re a great singer!”

“Nope, I’ll pass.”

“Oh, okay.”

That took some of the wind out her sails. Yeah, this was turning out just like I suspected.

I turned to Izumi again. I could feel everyone watching us, but I made an effort to keep my voice steady.

“…So karaoke would basically be a one-man show for Takei?”

“Uh, I guess?” Izumi said nervously, turning back to the class. Everyone was smiling awkwardly; they realized this wasn’t going to work.

“Okay then, let’s take another vote,” she said.

The results were three votes for karaoke and the rest for a skit. Which was good, but why did anyone beside Takei choose karaoke? They were from the same jock group as he was, so maybe they thought it would be funny to make him sing. And they were right; it’d be hilarious, but let’s give it up, guys.

“Great, so we’re doing a skit!”

“What? No way! That sucks!”

Takei face-palmed theatrically, which made everyone laugh. His karaoke dreams may have been crushed, but ever since we’d started this festival prep, he seemed to be having the time of his life.

Mizusawa smoothly jumped in. “But what will our skit be?”

Izumi thought about it for a minute. “R-Romeo and Juliet?”

“Ha-ha-ha. Sticking with the classics, huh?” Mizusawa laughed lightly. Now that he said it, though, I realized the options for a skit were endless. Classic, modern, or original?

We’d chosen a skit by process of elimination, but this was actually going to be tough. Everyone seemed a little scared, but there was nothing for it now but to make it work.

“But maybe we should stick with something familiar,” Mimimi said.

“Yeah, probably.”

The conversation was just veering in the direction of doing a classic play, when…

…I sensed someone staring at me.

Predictably, it belonged to my Spartan master. Okay, I get it. You want me to make a suggestion. Seriously, who sends messages by just glaring daggers at a person? Fine, fine. I’ll do it.

But what exactly was I supposed to do? Everyone was saying they wanted to do a classic. That meant I had to steer it toward something else…which left me with one option: boldly suggest the opposite approach. Well, I was getting more comfortable talking in front of the class. Here goes nothing.

“Wait, if we’re going to do this, don’t you want to take the plunge and do an original?!”

For a second, the whole class was silent.

And then—

“That’s what I’m talkin’ about, Farm Boy!”

—I was rescued by Takei’s loud voice. Wow, I was not expecting that. Takei as my savior?

“Didn’t know you were that ambitious, Tomozaki!”

Mimimi sounded surprised. Okay, now everyone was looking at me. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound.

I stood up super straight to make myself confident and imagined my voice flying straight forward. “Yeah, guess so!”

“Well, if you want to do it that badly… Honestly, I’m good with whatever,” Mizusawa said, cackling. At least he was being honest about not being invested.

Uh, or something like that.

“Yeah, why not do an original and leave the details to Tomozaki?” Nakamura jumped in, too.

“Leave the details to Tomozaki”? What the hell? I was not planning on that. Was this his way of dumping all the work on me?

“Okay, then should we do an original directed by Tomozaki?” Mimimi said teasingly.

D-director? Wait a second now—this is spinning out of control.

“What should we do? Should we see if there are any other ideas, then take a vote?” Izumi asked the class.

“But I don’t think anyone has an idea they really want to do, right? So why not just go with an original?” Mizusawa said, cackling again.

He was really backing up my suggestion of doing an original, but what was he really thinking? Did he want to see me in the role of director? I could imagine him trying to get the most entertaining result out of this. I wish he’d stop with that.

Izumi nodded and turned to the class again. “If no one else has another suggestion, then we’ll go with an original! Anyone?”

No one spoke up, so there was no point in voting. We were doing an original. W-wonder how this’ll turn out. As an assignment, it seems promising—just don’t ask me about the director part.

* * *

That day after school, a big group of us were walking home together.

“I lost again?!”

“Better luck next time, Takei!”

Mimimi was teasing Takei after a round of rock-paper-scissors.

Hinami, Mimimi, Tama-chan, Nakamura, Mizusawa, Takei, and I were playing porter, that elementary school game where the loser of a rock-paper-scissors match had to carry everyone else’s bags to the next telephone pole or corner or whatever. Very nostalgic.

And the cold, harsh truth was that Takei had just lost four times in a row.

“Why me again?!” he howled, pressing a hand to his head dramatically.

Well, the answer was simple. Takei always carried our bags because he always went with rock when it mattered most. He played normally when we were in a big group, but when it came down to a runoff between two or three people, he could only produce rocks for whatever reason.

At first, other people lost some rounds and had to carry the bags, but the more we played, the more people started to notice his fatal flaw, and now he was at four straight losses. With only himself to blame.

“To that corner, please,” Nakamura said, a little meanly.

“Dang it!” Takei sounded humiliated, but I could still tell he was having fun. That was just how he was. “Oof!!!”

He heaved all our bags onto his shoulders and sped ahead of the rest of us. Amazing horsepower.

“C’mon, man, hurry up!” the unburdened Nakamura said, running alongside Takei.

Mimimi watched with glittering eyes. “Ooh, are we racing?!”

“Yep, see ya!”

A second before Mimimi took off running, Mizusawa sprinted ahead with a cool smile.

“Hey, false start!”

“Byeeee!”

“Et tu, Aoi?!”

Mimimi started to run a few paces behind Hinami and Mizusawa. Everyone looked super happy racing down the long, straight stretch.

“They sure have a lot of energy!”

Tama-chan was standing next to me, smiling. Huh. Was this my chance? The only photo in my quest that I could take on this walk home was the shot of Tama-chan making a funny face, so the fact that we were alone together was a big plus.

“Yeah. You’re not gonna join the race?”

She looked at the others with a placid expression. There was no tension in her face at all; she was completely relaxed and open. Until recently, I’d never seen her like this—before, she was always somehow on guard.

“Nope.” She spoke slowly, as if she was thinking aloud. “Recently, I’ve felt more like I can just hang out without doing stuff I’m not comfortable with.”

“…Huh.”

She gave me a confident look. “Thank you again!”

“Nah, you’re the one who made it happen.”

I meant it, too, but she sounded a little sullen when she responded:

“Come on! I doubt I could have done any of that without everything you taught me.”

“I guess so…,” I said hesitantly.

She pointed at me sharply, like she always did. “Just take the compliment already!”

She was so completely herself, so completely honest that it really blew me away.

I nodded slowly. “Okay. Thank you.”

“Much better!”

She grinned, and it felt like sunshine.

Anyway, the assignment. How could I get her to make a funny face? I was trying to think of something when I had a realization.

Tama-chan and I had a particular way of communicating.

I looked her straight in the eye.

“Hey.”

“What?”

I took out my phone. “So I got an Instagram, and I wanted to post a picture of you making a funny face. Mind making one for me?”

“What?!”

Yup. This approach always works well with Tama-chan. If my assignment is to take a picture of her making a funny face, then I’d just ask her directly. Surefire.

“I thought it would be something different to post.”

“Well, that’s sudden.”

“I know.”

I looked steadily at her. It was so easy to talk like this without any pretenses. She thought for a minute before answering.

“Okay…that’s fine.”

She seemed confused that I’d asked so directly, but maybe she couldn’t think of a reason to say no. She showed up on Hinami’s Instagram sometimes, so she didn’t seem opposed to having her picture online.

Hinami probably wanted me to use my conversational skills to get her to make a funny face, but our relationship wasn’t like that. Not bad, huh? Bet you never guessed I’d ask her straight-out, eh, Hinami?

“Okay, great. I’ll just take a couple.”

We stopped walking and began a strange little photo shoot.

“How’s this?” Using her inborn potential to the full, she made an adorable, hilarious face.

“Ha-ha-ha, that’s awesome.”

I took the shot. She looked like her sunny smile had just exploded into a supernova. Very impressive facial muscles.

“Can I post this one?”

“Yeah, sure.” She agreed immediately. Huh. Asking directly is so easy.

“You do one, too, Tomozaki!”

She held up her phone. Huh? Me? I’ve never made a funny face in my life.

But I couldn’t exactly say no after asking her to do the same thing, so I had to try…

“O-okay.”

I made my own version of a funny face, and she snapped a photo.

“…Hmm.” She looked at her phone and made a noncommittal sound.

“Wh-what?”

“It’s not very funny.”

She showed me the photo, and I was definitely holding back. Compared with her, I clearly had no idea what I was doing.

“Y-yeah, this is kinda eh.”

“All right. If you screw up your face like this…”

“Oh, okay…”

Suddenly, she was giving me a lecture on funny faces. Not only was my student outdoing me, she was taking on my role. Looking forward to future lessons, Tama-sensei.

* * *

That night, I was sitting at my desk, as I had been for the past few hours.

“This is…”

In my hands was the one-centimeter-thick manuscript Kikuchi-san had given me. I’d started reading around an hour earlier, and I only had a few pages left.

“…Wow.”

I was completely spellbound by her book.

To tell the truth, I don’t read many things like this, and I don’t know about the finer points of story writing.

I love video games, but I don’t watch a lot of narrative stuff like anime or movies, so I can’t really compare her book to much else.

But I can say one thing.

The stories Kikuchi-san created were gentle and warm.

The manuscript she gave me was made up of five short stories with loosely connected themes.

The story of a human who hurt a mermaid in order to take her tears, which were made of jewels.

The story of a boy and a half human, half beast who built a relationship as they talked from either side of a large rock blocking the mouth of a cave.

The story of a werewolf who yearned to be human after his heart was stolen by the beauty of the moon reflected in a lake.

The story of a robot maid to an aristocratic family who fell in love with a tin toy.

All were set in fantasy worlds, and while they had elements of harsh realism, they all ended on a gentle note.

They reflected Kikuchi-san’s clear-eyed worldview and how she saw everything without passing judgment, and that made reading them very enjoyable. She was like an angel.

I was on the last story.

“On the Wings of the Unknown.”

It was the tale of a girl who cared for a flying dragon in a castle garden isolated from the world.

This was the gist of the story.

There once was a world where humans and dragons lived together in harmony.

The land dragons, who ran on the ground, were raised by people to serve as their porters and means of transportation. Because these dragons reproduced easily and ate anything, they were used in many fields of work.

They grew to be the size of houses, and they shed their skins many times along the way. That skin was used to make clothes and other items. Its strength made it valuable in many applications, so it was ubiquitous in the humans’ lives. The dragons were powerful, too, and if trained well, they had the ability to perform repetitive tasks. They were used on construction sites and other situations where great strength was needed.

Dragons were a deeply ingrained part of everyday life.

But the flying dragons, on the other hand, were special.

Unlike the other dragons, they did not reproduce easily. They only drank pure water and ate the fruit of trees fed by this water, and they were fickle and hard to tame. They weren’t as resilient under stress, which made them difficult to raise.

Yet the pure-white creatures were incredibly beautiful. When they flew, their translucent wings caught the sunlight and shone with a rainbow of colors. But most importantly, this world had no airplanes or hot-air balloons, so the royalty and aristocracy treasured them for their ability to make the human dream of flight a reality.

The flying dragons were so delicate that the slightest error in raising them could lead to their death. Not only that, but a dragon that survived to adulthood would often be unable to use its wings to fly.

When raising these creatures, one element was said to be more important than anything else.

They must never be exposed to the impurities of the world.

The story had three main characters:

Libra, a curious commoner who was the son of a locksmith and came to the castle regularly with his father.

Alucia, a strong-willed, quick-witted member of the royal family who was directly in line to be queen.

And Kris, an orphan girl who grew up isolated in the garden where she cared for flying dragons. She had been allowed no human contact with anyone other than the royal family since she was very young.

The tale began with a castle guard discovering a baby who had been abandoned outside the castle. This was not so unusual, perhaps because when parents were unable to care for a child, they often thought the child would have a better life if he or she were taken in by the castle. The guard told the chancellor that he planned to “deal with” the baby as he usually did.

But it so happened that at that particular time, the chancellor was searching for someone unsullied by the world’s impurities, someone who could be locked away and wouldn’t be missed. Perhaps the orphaned baby could be the dragon keeper.

The slaves already knew the impurities of the world. But if the job was given to a member of the royal family, they would have to be cut off from the world in order to stay pure.

It was common for royalty to leave the castle after reaching a certain age, and the chancellor was not sure how much worldly impurity was tolerable. Those with royal blood were said to be pure, but how much could they interact with the world without losing that purity? The line was not easy to draw.

Ideally, a royal child would be isolated from birth, but of course, no parents would allow such a thing.

And it was as the chancellor was considering this dilemma that the newborn, completely unsullied baby was left outside the castle, with no parents or family to utter a word of complaint. This was the perfect candidate for a dragon keeper.

Fifteen years had passed since that day.

Libra, the would-be locksmith who lived in the castle town, was headed to the castle with his father.

The royal family was a regular client of his father’s, and Libra—who was going to take over the family business in the future—accompanied his father each time he went there in order to learn the ins and outs of the job.

In the course of his trips to the castle to learn the locksmith’s craft, Libra began talking with Alucia, a young girl just his age who was in line for the throne. They became best friends.

Now Libra and Alucia were fifteen. Like many young people of their age, they were overflowing with curiosity and energy.

The castle had a number of areas where entrance was strictly forbidden—perhaps it was only natural that they were desperately inquisitive.

But the things they hoped to find—such as old torture devices left over from a bygone era, or a book of magic with the power to destroy the world, sealed away in some old room—were completely lacking. The forbidden areas were merely musty and dilapidated, kept hidden to prevent visitors from seeing any shamefully imperfect sights. Of course, the two teenagers did not know that.

One day, they slipped away from Libra’s father and the chancellor, who was overseeing his work, and using Libra’s lockpicking skills, they snuck through a locked door into that old section of the castle.

They found the forbidden places to be much more ordinary than they had expected, but still, their hearts were thrilled by the sense of adventure, and they explored the whole castle.

Finally, their adventure was nearing its end.

They opened the large door leading to a garden that they had been instructed to never, ever enter.

There, they encountered a pure-white dragon with enormous wings, and a single orphan girl, whose skin was as pale as her ward’s and who knew nothing of the world.

“…Wow.”

Like the other stories, I sensed Kikuchi-san’s touch in many places as I lost myself in the tale.

The characters seemed to be having so much fun that just reading about them was enjoyable. I wasn’t sure what was different about this story. But compared with the other four, the emotions of the characters seemed to flow effortlessly into my mind.

I turned page after page—and then the story took a more serious turn.

When it became known that Libra and Alucia had met Kris, both intruders were caught, but Libra, the outsider, was imprisoned in the castle dungeon.

As the keeper of the flying dragon, Kris had to avoid becoming tainted by the world’s impurities. But her encounter with the common Libra was deemed a contamination. What should their punishment be? How should the impurity be removed? They awaited judgment.

Finally, the king—Alucia’s father—concluded that Libra must be sacrificed on the altar of the gods.

Those, of course, were only the fancy political words devised to make the decision look better to the public; in reality, he was to be executed.

The rearing of flying dragons was a project of the utmost importance to the kingdom. A great deal of money had been spent preparing the garden and purchasing baby dragons. Even the slightest risks had to be avoided so that the investment did not go to waste, and if any action held the tiniest possibility of cleansing the impurity, then it must be implemented.

Thus, the execution. That was the decision of the king.

But the moment he announced it, Alucia spoke up.

“Father. Do you not remember?” she asked slowly.

“…Remember what?” Her father’s eyebrows shot up.

“You have quite a few love children hidden away.”

“Alucia…what are you saying?”

“Pardon me. I shall keep your secret from the public. In exchange…there is something I would like you to hear. I have learned Libra is actually one of those love children, which means he is of the line of kings. And that means he cannot contaminate the flying dragons.”

Alucia’s bluff turned her childhood best friend into a temporary brother.

As Alucia’s sibling, Libra was not viewed as impure, and he was spared execution.

I was surprised that Kikuchi-san had come up with a character who would blackmail her father with information he did not want revealed and lie to him about her friend’s identity. She really did think about the darker side of the world.

Libra was taken in by the royal family and charged with caring for Kris. Basically, in exchange for being allowed to live and adopted by the royal family, he was made to perform an essentially unnecessary odd job.

Libra and Alucia made friends with Kris, who had never had anyone care for her in her life, and after that, there were a few big events followed by periods of calm as the story progressed toward its end. When I thought about the fact that Kikuchi-san was the one writing about the romance between the three, those scenes felt more vivid and fresh, brief as they were.

I was reading the manuscript as a story, but it also felt a little like spying on Kikuchi-san’s heart. Finally, I turned the last page.

“…What?”

The story was unfinished.

“This…can’t be the end.”

The page was blank, but clearly, the story wasn’t over. This wasn’t merely an unresolved ending—several storylines were cut off midway through.

Was it a mistake?

I considered asking Kikuchi-san about it over LINE, but it was already after midnight, so I decided not to. She definitely seemed like the early-to-bed, early-to-rise type.

“…Huh.”

I put the manuscript in my bag, feeling vaguely unsatisfied, then brushed my teeth, crawled into bed, and closed my eyes.

How would the story of Kris, Libra, and Alucia end?

What kind of climax did Kikuchi-san have in mind?

As I lay there awake, I couldn’t stop the questions from spinning around in my mind.

* * *

At the next morning’s meeting, I showed Hinami the picture of Tama-chan and got a predictably sarcastic response. “Finally, a photo that’s not blurry.”

Before I knew it, lunchtime had arrived.

“…Kikuchi-san.”

“Oh…yes?”

It was unusual for me to talk to Kikuchi-san at this time of day. She sat behind me and over one row, so when fourth period ended, I took about ten breaths to calm myself down, then turned around and started a conversation to her right away. I know taking ten breaths first isn’t technically “right away,” but I did my best.

“Hey, um, can you talk right now?”

“Um, o-okay.” She seemed a little flustered. It was the first time I’d talked to her at lunch, after all.

But I wanted to have a real conversation, not just exchange a few words between classes. All the stories she’d given me were great, and I wanted to let her know.

“So, er…,” I said, whispering so no one else could hear me. “I read the book.”

“You did?” she said, her eyes darting around. Finally, she looked at me. “All of it…?”

“Um, yeah, all of it.”

Did I read it too fast? Maybe she was thinking, I just gave it to him yesterday, and he already read it? Is he desperate or something? Hinami might say I came off as overeager.

“Th-thank you…”

But she just blushed and thanked me. I breathed a sigh of relief. Good thing Kikuchi-san is an actual angel.

“I wanted to tell you what I thought…”

“Oh, yes…I’d like to hear it, too.”

We both looked away from each other. What was this?

Kikuchi-san glanced around like a squirrel poking its head out of its nest, held her breath for a second, then opened her mouth a little.

“Then d-do you want to…eat lunch together?” she asked haltingly. Her voice was shaky, and she had to pause for breath, but it was still clear and beautiful as a bell. The light in her eyes as they gently pierced me were as enchanting as a pool of water sprinkled with flower petals in early afternoon.

“Uh, okay. Let’s go eat.”

I was starting to hyperventilate a little, too, as I nodded. Finally, I managed to take a deep breath and calm myself down. Kikuchi-san was blushing. What was going on? I definitely hadn’t expected her to invite me to have lunch together, so she’d already caught me off guard. Awfully sly for an angel.

“Um, I’ll get ready, then.”

“O-okay.”

I took my wallet out of my bag and turned to Kikuchi-san again. She was ready, too, so the two of us walked to the dining hall together. I had no idea what was going on, but I felt really restless. Maybe because people were watching us.

Right. I was so caught up in trying to talk to her that I completely forgot about what this might look like to everyone else. No doubt Mizusawa would tease me about it later. Man, I hope he doesn’t find out.

* * *

“And when Andy held out the ferns right then, it was, like, wow…”

We were sitting in the back of the cafeteria, where we were less likely to be seen—Kikuchi-san and me, eating lunch together. I’d bought some udon from the cafeteria, and she had brought hers from home.

Obviously, we were talking about the stories she’d let me read.

“O-oh.”

“And the story about Wolfin…”

I was using the Tomozaki Method to the max—which was to say, I was telling her exactly what I thought. I’d always been good at that, and combined with the weapons I’d picked up more recently, like vocal tone and expression, I was even better at it now. Maybe I should call this the Tomozaki Method 2.0. No, maybe I wasn’t there yet.

“I never guessed his dad was going to show up at the end!”

“Oh, that! I actually thought of that after I finished writing and changed the ending.”

“Really?”

“I thought it would be a weight off his mind…”

“Oh yeah! I definitely agree.”

Kikuchi-san nodded shyly as she listened to me.

This was a bit different from our gentle time in the library; it was livelier.

“And you’d think Lugor would be the one to break the rock, since he’s the beast-person, so when Mita did it as a human, it was like, whoa.”

“Oh, I know!”

“It was like he was breaking through the barrier between their species by using intelligence instead of brute strength…”

“Wow…I’m so happy you got that…”

I was telling Kikuchi-san my reactions to her stories, which reflected her thoughts. And through her answers, I was learning if I had guessed those thoughts correctly.

I wasn’t talking about myself, but somehow, this was as exciting as sharing secrets.

It was like we were able to understand each other just by doing this.

“And then…!”

I was having so much fun that I started peppering her with comments. She giggled, and the expression on her face looked somehow grown-up.

“…Huh?”

She slowly placed her hands on her chest and smiled a truly happy smile.

“I’m so glad you read it.”

Her smile was so perfect, it could have been created just to melt my heart. I let it wrap around me like a pair of huge wings from her back, dissolving me body and soul into motes of glittering light that floated off to the Land of Euphoria.

“Um, me too… Thanks for letting me read it.”

The Land of Euphoria was made entirely of pleasant warmth and gentle smiles, but for some reason, my whole body was burning up. I hastily gulped down some water to fix that, then took a long, slow breath and exhaled.

Then I remembered my question from the night before.

“Oh yeah. I wanted to ask you something…”

“What?” Kikuchi-san tilted her head at the precise angle the gods had deemed most adorable.

“The last story didn’t seem to have an ending. Why was that?”

“Really?!” she said. “Do you mean the story about the flying dragon?”

“Yeah.”

She rested one finger on her lips. “I—I made a mistake.”

“You did?”

She nodded. “It’s not finished yet. It was in the same file as the others… I must have printed it along with them accidentally.”

“Oh, that’s what happened.”

So she wrote multiple stories in the same Word file, or whatever software she was using. When she printed them, all the stories came out at once, including the one that was incomplete.

“Yes…I should have left that one out.”

“I guess…but…” I rested my chin on my hand. “I thought that one was really interesting.”

Kikuchi-san nodded, apparently ashamed. “Th-thank you… I’m sorry for giving you something unfinished to read.” She looked depressed.

I shook my head. “No, even if it wasn’t finished, I really liked it. I’m glad I got to read it.”

“R-really?” She turned to me, brightening up a bit.

“I’m looking forward to reading the rest.”

“Thank you.”

I smiled at her as kindly as possible, channeling Mizusawa’s cool expression.

Kikuchi-san blinked a few times, then looked away modestly. Huh? Did I do something wrong?

Finally, she slowly turned her gaze to me again, and this time, her eyes were oddly serious. “Um, I was wondering… Which part of the book stayed with you the most?”

“…Um…” I paused for just a moment, landing on an answer faster than I expected.

There was no question—that last story had resonated more than all the others.

“I’m not sure if this is the answer you want to hear, but…”

“…Yes?”

I returned Kikuchi-san’s solemn gaze. “It was the unfinished story—the one about the flying dragon.”

Kikuchi-san widened her eyes in surprise. Her right eye was the moon, and her left was the sun.

“When I was reading it, it was like the characters were alive in my mind, or something…”

I was supposed to be good at speaking what I thought, but parsing that abstract feeling into precise words was hard. I didn’t know how to get that across other than saying, well…“I don’t know how to explain it, but it was really good.”

What was the name for that feeling?

As I read that story, a world formed in my mind with strange effortlessness. The subtlest moods, the smell of the earth, and the breath of the characters reached me through the page.

Simply by reading it, I was experiencing all the colors of the story’s world—

“…Oh.” Suddenly, as I wandered through my thoughts, I hit on it.

Kikuchi-san was waiting for me to go on, her expression still serious.

“You told me something once before,” I said.

“I did?”

I nodded. “You said when you read Andi’s books, you see the world he’s created in your mind’s eye, and that’s what you like about his work.”

“…Yes, that’s true.” She smiled happily.

“When I read that last story of yours…”

“…Yes?”

And then I told her my realization exactly as it occurred to me.

“…I saw everything in full color.”

“…Really?”

She parted her lips slightly in surprise.

I took stock of the difference between my feelings and my words, speaking bit by bit to gradually filter out anything that didn’t line up.

“Yeah. That’s really what it was like. While I was reading, a film was just…playing in my mind. The characters felt so real, and it was like I wanted to help them somehow… Yeah! It was like I wanted to go there myself!”

I was getting more excited as I found the right words to communicate.

“Ever since we started talking, I’ve been reading Andi’s books, right? I was never really into reading, but I started to like his stuff.”

“…Uh-huh.” She nodded slowly.

“His books are about fantasy worlds, but they’re so gentle. The characters feel so familiar—kinda cynical, but you can’t help caring about them anyway…!”

I looked at the manuscript laying on the table.

“And that’s how I felt about your last story!”

I ended on a very forceful note.

“Basically…I really liked it.”

Yeah, I know I got too worked up. I was talking pretty loud there at the end. It’s that nerdy side of me; I always talk too much about stuff I like.

I looked back up at Kikuchi-san, slightly ashamed of myself.

—Huh?!

Her eyes were filled with tears!

“Wh-what’s wrong?!”

I was freaking out. What the heck what the heck what the heck? How did I just end up making a girl cry when we’re alone together? This is like one of those mega-super-hard optional dungeons! I don’t have the levels for this! I mean, why was she crying? Was my nerdiness so overpowering that it brought her to tears? She was right there in front of me feeling sad, and if there was some way, any way, to take away her pain, I wanted to do it, but how? What am I even talking about?

Then, inexplicably, Kikuchi-san apologized. “Um…I’m sorry.”

“…You’re sorry? About what?”

She sniffled and rubbed her eyes. Apparently, there weren’t enough tears pooled up to overflow. M-maybe that was a good sign?

“Uh, um…”

“Uh-huh?”

She had calmed down now, and as she was searching for words, she didn’t look the least bit sad.

“I’ve loved Andi’s books for forever, and I’ve always wanted to write something like that myself… I really do mean ‘always.’”

“…Uh-huh…”

It was like she was reflecting on her whole life so far.

“I love the atmosphere of his worlds, and his characters… I think that’s what I wanted to create…” She smiled, her eyes moist and filled with emotion. “I know it’s still not done, but for you to read it and say it’s similar to his books… I’m so happy,” she said, as if she was savoring the words, and placed her hands gently on the manuscript.

“…Oh.”

I took it all in for a moment, then silently looked at her hands, which were resting on the sheaf of papers.

At her long, slender fingers and her neatly trimmed, pale-pink nails.

At her skin, as fine and white as fresh snow.

She had created that story with those fingers.

“Kikuchi-san, I was thinking…”

My mouth was moving of its own will…

“Maybe you could use that last story…”

…because this was what I really, truly wanted.

“…to write the class play?”