Loss 1: I'll Have You Know

Loss 1: I'll Have You Know

Loss 1:

I'll Have You Know

S TEAM BILLOWED FROM THE SPOUT OF A KETTLE resting on the club room’s portable stove. I pulled my tie loose and turned the page of my book.

The universe had been out to get me early today. It was after school now, and I still wasn’t over that bit of public humiliation. And I’d lost my brand-new book on top of it. At the very least I could lose myself in this one.

“Nukumizu-kun,” it moaned. “I’m bored.”

Yanami Anna made no effort to rise from the table. “It” was a fellow lit club member and classmate. Aside from her status as a losing heroine, having had her heart broken by a childhood friend just last summer, and frankly a few other things, she was as normal as normal could get for high school girls.

She might have been the only girl in the world I could be alone with and feel nothing in particular.

I could hear chewing noises. What was she eating this time?

“What is that purple string hanging out of your mouth?”

“Gummy,” she mumbled. “I read that you can lose weight by eating stuff that’s super chewy.” She presented an empty bag to me. Maken Gummy—a local Toyohashi candy. It was sort of like a long, edible sticky hand, but the hand at the end was in the shape of either rock, paper, or scissors. “Didn’t you eat these as a kid? Or what, are you too good for candy?”

Not true. I had eaten it. What I couldn’t understand was why she’d started at the hand, effectively turning it into a supersized gummy worm.

Yanami slurped it up like a noodle. “Something about being bored just makes you wanna eat, y’know? I bought a dozen of these, but I already know they’re gonna be gone in a few days.”

“There’s always homework. We got the same assignments, so I know you have a mountain of stuff to do.”

Yanami did not appreciate the reminder. “Why are you so mean, dude? Uh, hello? Your sweet and lovable friend, who you’ve been slowly warming up to, is in need over here!” She smacked the table a few times with her palm to get the point across. Even threw in a pout for good measure.

“Wow. Those are a lot of words you just put in my mouth.”

I closed my copy of My Childhood Friend Moved into My Attic So I Bought Some Pesticide , or Friendicide for short, that I’d narrowly escaped having confiscated. I clearly wasn’t going to get much reading done this evening.

The story revolved around the mind games between the protagonist and his parasitic childhood friend. People were calling it the Home Alone of light novels. In the most recent volume, the heroine had somehow managed to legally claim residence.

Yanami added a second hand to her displeased table-pounding. “You’re the president, aren’t you? Isn’t it, like, kinda your job to entertain me? If it wasn’t before, I think it should be.”

I disagreed.

“Still waiting on your draft for the journal,” I said. “How about you get on that?”

“I’ll get to it when I get to it. I’ve got the gist already.”

“Famous last words, Yanami-san.”

She decided to make a face at that instead of argue. A bit of quiet melancholy seemed to come over her, and every few seconds, she shot me the most self-pitying glance.

“Is something actually wrong?” I asked, just to be sure. I doubted it. But presidential responsibility and all that.

“So people were talking about doing a class party on the last day after the closing ceremony, right?”

I must have missed that conversation. “That’s on the twenty-fifth, isn’t it?”

Like a tortured soul from hell, Yanami groaned, “Christmas…” Fire filled her eyes as she finally sat upright. Dark and twisted were the only words I could use to describe that look. “And guess who’s leading the whole thing? Sousuke and Karen-chan.”

“Huh? But they’re—”

Yanami glared at me, daring me to finish that sentence. “Christmas Eve is couple’s territory, but Christmas Day is safe. And since Karen-chan’s parents are in the UK for work right now, she’s got the whole place to herself.” Ah, okay, I saw her point. “They invited me, but I dunno what to actually do. What would you do, Nukumizu-kun?”

“I dunno. I wasn’t invited.”

“Uh, so anyway…” Smooth. “I could turn them down, but then what if that makes things weird? Like, I don’t wanna make it seem like I care about being surrounded by tons of couples or being around Sousuke and Karen-chan after they spent the night together. Or that I might struggle to know what I’d even say to them, because I don’t. Care about that stuff, I mean. Not at all. But if I don’t go, they might think I do care. And so I was thinking maybe if you went with me, it might make it less awkward, y’know? We can be like safety buddies.”

The ramblings of someone who totally didn’t care.

“Sorry, but it’s my birthday that day. My sister wants to do something for it, so I’ll pass.”

“Wait, your birthday is on Christmas?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Oh. Well damn , guess Christmas is canceled this year!” How did that track? She clapped her hands together, eyes sparkling with new light. “All right, screw some dead guy’s birthday, yours is clearly more important!”

Was she for real? I’d never had a friend throw a party for me. I didn’t know what to say.

Yanami grinned at me. “We’re getting the girls together to celebrate. Lemon-chan and Komari-chan don’t have boyfriends, so they’ll be perfect.”

The girls, huh? What was I, some dead guy?

“Yakishio might be going to the Christmas party.”

“And you think I’m just gonna let her? Friends don’t let friends make self-destructive decisions, Nukumizu-kun.” She reached into her pocket, produced another gummy, and started to open the package.

“No one’s forcing you to go. Just tell them no. You don’t have to make up some event just so you have an excuse.”

“Sure, but do I really wanna have nothing going on during Christmas? Like, at all? And then do I really want to pretend like I’m busy just to save face?” The light left Yanami’s eyes as she flung the scissors-shaped gummy hand right into her mouth. “No… Just, no.”

The soft mushing of teeth against gelatinous sugar filled the room.

“You should go to the party, Yanami-san. There’ll be plenty of single people there, and you can take Yakishio. You can be her safety buddy.”

From what she needed to be safe, only Yanami knew apparently.

“Oh, I see. Yeah, she could be my fall—er, I mean, I could totally chaperone her and whatnot. I’ll ask if she’s going.”

She started tapping at her phone, and at long last, glorious silence returned. Just as I was savoring it, a ding came from inside a bag across the room.

“That looks like Yakishio’s,” I commented. “She leave it here?”

“She’s probably in remedial lessons. Apparently, she failed the finals.”

Had they been on the art of pencil-spinning, she could have aced them.

“Don’t you need to get going, then?”

“Uh, where?” Yanami cocked her head.

“Remedial lessons. Haven’t they already started?”

“Excuse me?! I passed my exams, thank you very much!” Huh. My mistake. “I’ll have you know I’m a fine test-taker! Check it!”

She dug through her bag and slapped a slip of paper on the table. It was the rankings for the finals. She stood at a solid 135 out of 228, which wasn’t bad. Not great, but not bad. Was it worth the pomp? Doubtful.

The door opened. Just in time too, because it saved me from an extremely awkward conversation. Creeping out from the half-ajar slit was our very own vice president, Komari Chika. The creature with an attitude twice her size, but for some reason only with me specifically.

Quickly shutting the door behind her, she surveyed the room for danger.

“What’s wrong?” Yanami asked. “Want me to kick the big, scary Nukumizu-kun out?”

“H-he can stay. For now,” she croaked. Suddenly, she jolted and whipped back around to the door. “I-I’m not here!”

“Uh, Komari?” I blabbed.

She dove under the table right when the door creaked open yet again. Konuki Sayo entered, our club’s supervisor, dressed in her trademark flowing white coat. She was also the school nurse and a walking innuendo who usually kept to her office.

“Something we can help you with?” I asked her.

“Hello there. You wouldn’t happen to have seen Komari-san, have you? I could have sworn she went this way.” She peered around the room, her head on a swivel.

Yanami and I exchanged looks. I shook my head. “Can’t say we have. Why do you ask?”

Sensei helped herself to a seat, crossing one long, stocking’d leg over the other. “I was trying to catch her, but she just keeps running away from me. I can’t imagine why.”

“Probably because you were trying to catch her. Why were you doing that, anyway?”

“Why? Because she’s just too darn cute, that’s why. I feel this urge, this passion come over me when I see the fear in her eyes. After twenty-seven long years of life, I never thought I’d feel it so vividly again. To think there were still doors just waiting for me to open.”

She needed to lock that one tight and throw away the key.

Yanami raised an eyebrow. “Was there some reason you needed to catch her?”

“I take it you had your bags searched this morning.” The nurse pulled out a small book from her coat pocket. “Vice President Basori-san confiscated this, but she’s returned it to me after deciding the contents were unproblematic. She asked me to pass it along to its owner.”

Ah, I remembered catching that frisk in-progress. The book’s title was Turn His Head: How to Leave the Friend Zone . A romance self-help book… Komari never struck me as the type to read something like that.

As I reached out to take it, Komari leapt from her hiding place, nearly toppling the table in her panic. “Th-thank you, I’ll take that!” She snatched it, then retreated to one corner of the room.

“Oh,” Konuki-sensei said. “There she is.”

Komari acknowledged the comment with barely a nod before resuming her huddling and trembling. Sensei turned back to me. “I’m lost, Mr. President. Did I touch a nerve?”

“I, uh… All I can tell you is not any more than usual.”

Sensei ruminated on that for a while before seemingly deciding it wasn’t worth the effort. She stood and waved. “Anyway, I’ll be off now. You visit me sometime, will you?”

“Uh, right. Sure, we’ll pop in.”

With the danger passed, Komari slowly emerged from her shell. “I-is she gone?”

“She seemed pretty busy to me.”

Komari still eyed the door nervously, waiting for it to crash open again, all the while still clutching her love bible to her chest. I was a little curious about it myself, since I was writing a rom-com.

“You using that for reference?” I asked. “Mind if I check it out?”

“N-no!” She stuffed it securely under her coat. There was frantic, and then there was Komari. “I-I’ve written stuff!”

“Yeah? Wow, you’re thorough. But relax, okay? I won’t steal your ideas.”

The shaking intensified. Her face got redder.

“Komari?”

“Sh-shut up! Die! I’m leaving!” she spat in quick succession, then made good on her promise.

Now what had I done to deserve that?

Yanami shrugged but did not share the answer to my question. “That right there, Nukumizu-kun. Maybe one day you’ll understand women.”

“So you know what that was about?”

“Nope, not a clue.”

Okay, then…what the hell?

I quickly gave up trying to understand and recounted the day’s events. It was obvious that Tiara-san had singled me out on purpose this morning, but it wasn’t necessarily me specifically she had it out for. She’d gotten Komari too. Even though her book wasn’t half as damning as mine had been, she’d lost it anyway. And following that train of logic…

I caught Yanami just before she could finish sizing up another gummy. “Did you make it through the bag check okay?”

“Oh, I ride my bike to school. Didn’t feel like stopping and getting off and then getting back on and ugh . So I just rode through.”

Powerful.

“They took a book from me. Which is weird, because it seemed like Komari and I were the only ones who—”

It hit me again. I hadn’t been the first. Komari had come after me, so who could have been before us? Some other club member?

Another click from the door, so quiet I almost missed it. Was Komari back? Or the devil herself?

The latter, as it turned out, based on the glasses on her scarf-shrouded face. It was Tsukinoki Koto, ex-vice president, and she very much looked like she did not want to be perceived.

We hadn’t really seen her since she retired after the festival. And yet, somehow, all that slinking around had me more suspicious than nostalgic.

“Long time no see,” I said. “Halloween was two months ago.”

Tsukinoki-senpai quietly shut the door, then skulked to a seat. “It’s been a while. How have you two been?”

Yanami beamed. “Pretty good! Well, I mean, Nukumizu-kun is Nukumizu-kun. How goes the studying? Good?”

“Not even remotely. But I’ve got more dire things to worry about than that.”

Did she?

I shared a knowing look with Yanami. What now?

“Sorry to hear that,” I said. “Tea?”

“I’ll put some on. Would you like some, Nukumizu-kun?” Yanami offered.

Tsukinoki-senpai raised her hand and stopped us before we could get very far. “Hear me out. You’ll wish you had if you forsake me now. Please.”

Our escape foiled, Yanami and I reluctantly returned to our seats. “We’ll take your word for it,” I said.

Senpai’s expression turned grim. “I’ll be plain. They confiscated a BL fic I wrote at the gate this morning.”

Already regretting my decision.

“Where are you finding the time to write about gay men when you have entrance exams coming up?”

She placed a hand on her forehead in dramatic fashion. “You’ve got it all wrong, Nukumizu-kun. It was the exams themselves that drove me to gay men. The stress, the pressure, I was beset on all sides. They were my only reprieve. I’m a victim, you see. A victim of this grand, fabricated competition we call ‘society.’”

“I don’t see how this is a huge problem. Won’t they just make you write an apology letter or something?” Something wasn’t adding up. If losing some BL book was all this was about, then why all the skulking around? “I seriously doubt this is new for you. What exactly about this is dire?”

“It’s a matter of…content,” Senpai confessed with difficulty. It took her some time to get the rest out. “It was RPF. So you can imagine why that could be a problem.”

“RPF?” Yanami parroted.

I spoke up on behalf of the unpoisoned. “It means, uh, real person fiction. As in the story involves actual, real-life people. It’s a fairly common tag in the BL world.” And there was only one reason that would be a problem in this context. “You used people at school, didn’t you?”

Senpai nodded. “You know Houkobaru, the student council president? I may have gender-bent her for BL purposes.”

“ Annnd there goes the last of my sympathy. Say hello to the consequences of your actions for me.”

Houkobaru Hibari was about as perfect as perfect could get. Smart. Sporty. Beautiful. She had it all—including a couple of loose screws.

A hand shot up. “Um, what’s ‘gender-bent’ mean?”

It was Tsukinoki-senpai’s turn to enlighten Yanami this time. “It means Houkobaru is a boy in my story. No reason. She just is.”

A perfect explanation. I could respect a solid “no reason” when it came to fiction.

Yanami, however, made a face like her gummy had just transmogrified into a worm. “But why would you want…? Actually, never mind. I don’t want to know.”

Excellent. She was on the path to understanding.

“The president would’ve been your underclassman when you were on the student council, right?” I continued. “Just go apologize and maybe they’ll give it back.”

Senpai wagged her finger and tutted. “RPF is for the like-minded connoisseur only. It’s never meant to reach the eyes of those involved. It’s the ultimate faux pas. And, at least for the time being, Houkobaru doesn’t know about it. I’d like to keep it that way and resolve this before the cat’s out of the bag. Ideally, you wouldn’t be a part of this at all, Nukumizu-kun, but what can you do? I’ll settle for one faux pas over two.”

“I can certainly understand wanting to keep thi—” Something inside me snapped. “What? What did you just say? Am I in it?”

“Rest assured, I took your inexperience in the genre into account and made you the top. Assertiveness actually comes to you quite naturally, you know. I was very pleased with how well you took to an aloof role.”

Glad to hear at least one of us was happy because it certainly wasn’t me.

“Where is it? Where did they take it? Please don’t tell me a teacher’s already seen it.”

“Presently, it’s in Basori-san’s hands. I’ve already been to beg her forgiveness, but I didn’t get far. She’s not very fond of me. According to her blustering, she intends to turn it in at the faculty meeting after the closing ceremony.”

So our teachers would get the greatest Christmas gift of all: steamy smut of me and a gender-bent student council president.

Senpai clapped her hands together pleadingly. “Please! You have to help me get it back! For the club!”

Honestly, I wasn’t feeling particularly motivated.

“You’re not even part of the club anymore. Seeing as you dug this hole yourself, I don’t think we should join you in it.” Sometimes, leaders had to make tough calls. Not that this was a particularly tough one.

The conversation hung awkwardly in the air for a while, Senpai’s eyes darting around the room every so often.

“What?” I dared to ask.

“I may have used the lit club as the official publisher. And your name for approval.”

Oh. Oh, she wasn’t just stupid. She was insane !

“So yeah, expect to go down with me if this makes it to that faculty meeting,” she prattled on. “You in?”

I was speechless.

Yanami offered me a gummy. I accepted, threw the rock-shaped hand straight down the hatch, and bit down. Hard.

***

Tsukinoki-senpai left, Yanami and I soon did the same. Me, to go grab something to drink from the breezeway by the courtyard. Yanami because she had nothing better to do than follow along.

“Look at it this way. Isn’t it comforting to know that she’s the same as ever?” she consoled between gummy chews.

“I wish she wasn’t.” I moaned about a lot of things, but this time I could claim with absolute impunity that none of this was my fault. Not even a little. “Seriously, why can’t Tamaki-senpai smooth things over? Why does she have to get us first-years involved?”

Tamaki Shintarou was our old president and Tsukinoki-senpai’s boyfriend. If it was anyone’s job to clean up her messes, surely it’d be that guy’s.

“You heard Tsukinoki-senpai. She doesn’t want him finding out.” Yanami dug through her pocket and frowned. Out of Maken Gummies. Sad.

“This is seriously awkward timing for everyone involved.”

Tamaki-senpai was bound for a nationally acclaimed university; it went without saying that Tsukinoki-senpai was not. For what it was worth, she did have a healthy sense of urgency when it came to the future, which of course begged the question: What was she doing writing BL?

“She’s our senpai, Nukumizu-kun. Doing her a solid’s the least you could do. Don’t you want to be a good person?” Yanami wagged her free lunch voucher (courtesy of Senpai) at me judgingly. “And it’s already got the lit club’s name on it, so what else are we supposed to do? They haven’t turned in the resignation paperwork yet either, so they’re both technically still members.”

She had a point, her and her lunch-priced morals. I hated when she had a point, and so I nodded quietly.

Strictly speaking, third-years didn’t have to retire. It was the expectation, but you could absolutely make it all the way to graduation while still participating in club activities.

“She was in the student council last year, right?” I thought aloud. “Way I heard it, the current president used to pick up after her a lot back in the day.”

“Can’t count on her if we can’t tell her anything. Maybe try to reason with Basori-san?”

“Not confident about that after this morning. She’s got a chip on her shoulder when it comes to the lit club. And that extends to all of us, not just Tsukinoki-senpai.” And now there was RPF smut with our name on it wasn’t a good look. If that went public… I shuddered. “The bird-watching club just got suspended. Genie’s out of the bottle. Could be us next.”

“Huh? How’d they manage that? It’s just birds.”

“It came out at the last club president meeting that apparently it was a little more than ‘just birds.’ They were sneaking photos of some of the more popular girls at school. Nothing, y’know, revealing , but they were even selling copies.”

As it happened, Yanami had sold eight in total. That was half of Yakishio’s sales and a quarter of Himemiya-san’s. As proud as I was for her, I was gonna take this knowledge to my grave.

“Well, we don’t wanna get suspended,” Yanami said. “Where else am I gonna eat snacks and do homework after school?”

“Not what the literature club is for.”

I stopped in front of the vending machine and gathered my thoughts. This was Tiara-san we were talking about. There would be no reasoning with her. She wouldn’t care that Tsukinoki-senpai had gone and used our name without our permission, and that argument already didn’t hold much water because, on paper, Senpai was still a member of the club.

It started to sink in. This could be very bad for the us.

“Hey, isn’t that Shikiya-senpai?” Yanami said. “She’s with the council, yeah?”

I followed her gaze to a lone, cold-looking bench in the courtyard. Sure enough, that was the student council secretary, Shikiya Yumeko. Second-year. The world’s most fashionable zombie.

“What’s she doing out there in the cold?” Yanami murmured. “You should go and see, Nukumizu-kun.”

“You trying to get me killed? One doesn’t simply ‘go and see’ a girl like that.” I pulled out the notebook from my blazer’s inside pocket.

“What are you doing?”

“I’ve made notes. Observations about Shikiya-senpai’s quirks and behaviors. I recognize this pattern.”

“Wow. And here I thought you were done creeping me out.”

“How is this creepy? You ever gone bird-watching before? It’s the same thing.” I opened up my notebook. Very uncreepily. “She starts to struggle to move in temperatures below twelve centigrade. I expect we’ll see that more often this month.”

Yanami’s eyes were dead. “You don’t say.”

I turned the page. “On gentle days like today, she’ll often go outside to bask and increase her body temperature, like she’s coldblooded or something. Similar to reptiles.”

Yanami let out a disinterested hum and looked up. “It’s evening. The whole bench is shaded.”

“In that case, her body temperature could fall so low that she stops being able to move. One could then posit that what we’re witnessing is a kind of stasis or hypothermia-related syncope.”

I thumped my notebook shut and faced the vending machine again. I felt like drinking something cold, just to spite the season. It’d go down well in the warm club room.

“Uh, so are we leaving her? Isn’t that, like, dangerous?” Yanami pointed out.

“Yeah,” I admitted. “Probably.”

I hit the button for a bottle of hot milk tea then trotted over.

***

Yanami, Shikiya-san, and I shared a table at a café just next door to the station. Before us lay a cup of coffee, some cake, and, naturally, a board game.

Full disclosure, this was a board game café; that was the shtick. Shikiya-san had insisted on coming here to thank us for rescuing her.

“Eat,” she wheezed. “My family’s…well off.”

“That’s generous of you,” I said. “Thank you.”

“Awesome! Eating!” Yanami’s cheeks were stuffed with cake before the final syllable left her lips.

It was a cheesecake. Simple, but this place baked them from scratch. One bite, and I could tell that perfect balance of tart and sweetness didn’t come easy.

Yanami beamed, and seconds later, she was already on her last forkful. “Senpai, this stuff is great!”

“Order more…if you want. Eat.”

Those were dangerous words to utter in Yanami’s presence. I braced myself for the avalanche.

I took in the atmosphere while I dumped some sugar into my coffee. Most of the clientele looked on the older side. College students, maybe, and everywhere I looked, a game was in progress. Where did they get that kind of free time on a weekday?

Shikiya-san began distributing pieces to the game in front of us with the practiced familiarity of having done it a hundred times before.

“What are we playing?” I asked.

“Fjords… Area control.” She did not elaborate.

I kept my mouth shut and waited for her to finish. Lest I push my luck.

Yanami leaned over, eyes locked on my cake, and whispered, “Hey, maybe you should ask about that thing.”

“What thing?”

“The thing Tsukinoki-senpai got confiscated. She’s on the student council. Maybe she can help.”

Another point to Yanami. But were we sure we could trust her?

Shikiya-san’s hands suddenly stopped. “Tsukinoki…senpai?” Her head fell to one side. Ears like a hawk. “What…about her?” Her pale white eyes searched me for an answer. They found mostly fear.

I hesitated. She clearly had a special relationship with the literature club, especially with Tsukinoki-senpai. But was it good? Terrible? That remained to be seen.

I looked to Yanami. She nodded slightly. “Okay, well…” I told her everything.

Shikiya-san listened intently, then let out a small sigh. “Tiara-chan…hates Tsukinoki-senpai.”

She resumed distributing pieces, leaving little room for misconstruction there.

“Tiara-san came into the student council after Senpai left, though,” I said. “How can she hate her?”

Shikiya-san finished handing out little wooden houses and people. Next, she produced a set of hexagonal tiles. “We take turns…placing these.”

“Huh? Oh, okay.”

Something told me her mind was elsewhere, so I played along. The rules were simple and came to me naturally over the course of the game. After creating our terrain and littering it with longhouses, each player took turns placing Vikings around the map to take over territory. Area control. Ah, I got it now.

“I, uh, don’t see anywhere else I can play,” I said.

“Then we’re done,” Shikiya-san breathed. “The one with the most tiles…wins.”

Shikiya-san came out on top; it wasn’t even close. I came in second after Yanami. Which I guess meant I came in third, but eh. Whatever. I’d just been distracted by other stuff and wasn’t locked in. She wouldn’t want to face a locked-in version of me.

Yanami elbowed me. “Nukumizu-kun, focus.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m in the zone now. I’ll get you next time.”

“I’m not talking about the game,” she hissed.

Oh. Right. I looked Shikiya-san in the eye. “So, what we were talking about before. Is there any way you can—”

“Tile,” she moaned.

“Oh. Right. My turn.”

Round two. And for the record, this wasn’t just fun and games. Indulging her was very important for the negotiations to come.

Yanami failed to notice at first and wouldn’t quit grumbling, but soon she too entered the fabled Zone. “Wait, don’t do that! I was gonna go there next!”

“Sucks to suck.”

I was determined to take her down this time. Beating her was all that mattered.

“I understand,” Shikiya-san said out of nowhere. She put down a black Viking piece with a pair of bony fingers. “But Tiara-chan… Tsukinoki-senpai…”

At last, falling action.

“This doesn’t just concern Tsukinoki-senpai,” I said. “The president could lose face too. I’d really like to resolve this behind the scenes. Peacefully.”

Shikiya-san nodded. “The boy… Sakurai would get an ulcer.”

Sakurai who? I felt sorry for his stomach. As well as an indescribable sense of camaraderie.

Yanami reached across the table over to my side. “Can I move for you?”

“No. And hush. The grown-ups are talking.” I took a sip of coffee to quell the developing ulcer in my own stomach. “We were hoping you could help mediate. You and Basori-san get along, don’t you?”

Shikiya-san blinked at that. “Yes…we do.” She froze, two pale hands coiled around her cup, staring off into nothing.

I waited for her to finish whatever it was she was doing.

“You could maybe,”—her lips hardly seemed to move—“bag her.”

It was my turn to blink. “I’m sorry?”

“Make her…yours.”

“I’m sorry?!”

Yanami started hacking on something. On what, I wondered for a split second, before realizing the brat had gotten to my cake.

I kicked up a whirlwind shaking my head. “No, no, no, off the table! Her name’s the only thing I know about her, and you want us to date?!”

Yanami smacked me on the back. “S-slow down there,” she continued to hack into a handkerchief. “No one said anything about dating.” Tears clung to the edges of judgmental eyes.

“What else could she possibly mean? I, uh… I don’t know if I can go along with ‘bagging’ anyone over something like this. As if I could even manage that.”

“Don’t worry…” Shikiya-san’s willowy hands made a heart. “Tiara-chan is easy.”

Honestly, I could believe that.

“Okay, but that doesn’t change the rest of my argument.”

“Stop being weird, Nukumizu-kun,” Yanami chided. “All you’ve gotta do is butter her up a bit until she’s willing to cough up you-know-what. Isn’t that right, Senpai?”

“Why does it have to be me? Wouldn’t you make more sense?” I argued.

“No. She scares me.”

Yeah, no duh. She scared me too. Matter of fact, someone at this very table scared me.

“Senpai, I really don’t see us hitting it off all of a sudden.”

“Just be nice…and she’s yours,” Shikiya-san said.

Basori Tiara, dating sim tutorial girl.

“I still think—” I started to protest.

“Cajole… Manipulate… Guilt-trip… Give no other option.” She clacked another black piece onto a tile. “I’ll help.”

One guess as to who at the table I was scared of. Hadn’t she just said they got along?

Shikiya-san sensed my hesitation. My weakness. “You want the book…don’t you?”

“I mean, yeah.”

Yanami gave me an impatient look. “Suck it up already, would you? You heard Senpai. She’s gonna help.”

“I’m not good with girls, okay? They make me clam up.”

“You’re awfully chatty with me. Can’t say I appreciate the implication,” Yanami grumbled. She slid an empty plate toward me and said a quiet thanks. So glad I gave her permission to eat that. “Besides, it only feels weird because you’re making it weird. You talk to your sister, don’t you? Just pretend Basori-san’s your sister.”

I considered that. The loud-mouthed tsundere was a classic little sister trope. Maybe she was on to something. But would she call me “Oniichan” or “stupid”? That was the question.

I put it to the test in a year-long mental simulation, then faced Shikiya-san again. “Just one problem. Basori-san doesn’t like the lit club. Period. She singled out pretty much every member she could during bag check this morning.” Shikiya-san listened. “As president, I intend to address this. I hope I’m not stepping on any toes by saying that.”

Shikiya-san swayed a bit then gave an unsteady nod. “No… Tiara-chan…overstepped.”

“Good. Then we have a deal. I’ll do everything in my power to resolve this as painlessly as possible.”

I could do no harm to my dear little sister. After all, she’d given me a hand-knit scarf for my birthday. My mind was made.

“I’ll help…where I can. Nothing more.”

Just then, my phone dinged. I glanced at the screen. From Yanami.

‹Yana-Chan: No funny business. You’re not getting a head start on me.›

She was right next to me. Was the message necessary?

Her expression betraying nothing, Yanami made her move and took the final tile, sealing my fate. Last again.

***

What a day.

I let myself collapse onto our living room sofa, the prospect of climbing the stairs to my room too daunting to confront at the moment. So much for enjoying some peace and quiet before winter break.

My eyes wandered for lack of anything better to do while I lamented. They fell on a big, handmade banner on the wall. “8 DAYS UNTIL NUKUMIZU KAZUHIKO’S BIRTHDAY!”

The number looked removable. Presumably for a countdown. Kaju’s doing, no doubt. This got more elaborate every year.

As I pondered the blinding speed of her development, the door opened. “I’m home, Oniisama!” Kaju waddled inside, hands full of grocery bags.

I stood and relieved her of them. “Hey. Out late?”

“Oh, thank you.” She giggled. “Look at us. A couple of newlyweds.”

I refused to comment. Got to stocking the fridge. “This is more than usual. Extra for snacks?”

“Yup. We’ll need lots for your birthday party, and your pre-birthday party, and your pre-pre-birthday party, and can’t forget your pre-pre-pre-birthday party. I was going to start baking a cake every day.”

“Let’s save that for the day of. That’s gonna be a lot of cake going to waste without a Yanami-san here to clear it out for us.”

“Then we should have her over this weekend! Should I extend an invitation?”

I could think of few things more exhausting than Yanami on a weekend. Unless we put her in the foyer. Then we could leave leftovers out for her at night.

“Diet season’s just about rolled around for her, so let’s not,” I decided. “Anyway, Mom and Dad are gonna be late. Want me to make dinner?”

“Would you? I’d love some of your dry curry!”

“Coming right up. We’ve still got ground meat in the freezer, right?” The grin suddenly fell from Kaju’s face. “What?”

“Dearest Oniisama, where were you today?”

“Stopped at a café to deal with—”

Kaju buried her face in my chest and started sniffing.

“Coffee and cheesecake,” she deduced. “And a woman.”

“A huh ?”

She peered up at me. “There’s makeup around your collar. Yanami-san doesn’t wear foundation at school, which must mean it belongs to someone else.”

How did she even know that? Either way, no doubt it was Shikiya-senpai’s. It’d probably rubbed off on me during our courtyard rescue.

“I had an acquaintance to talk to,” I mumbled.

“It must have been a very physical conversation. How did this little stain get there, I wonder.” Her grin turned to a sneer. I sensed peril.