Foreword

Foreword

Foreword

I T WAS OVER. PEACE HAD RETURNED TO THE LAND. “IT” being Valentine’s Day, and “the land” being the supermarket. But it was a false peace. Those chocolates that had survived the holiday were well on their way to being conscripted for White Day. That sweet aroma wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and it hit me as I passed by the sugary shelves, stirring still-fresh memories.

Electronics beeped familiar blips. Not far from my cart, I spotted a selection of hina-arare. Speaking of seasonal sweets, next week was Hinamatsuri. My family had our own doll display, of course, as was tradition for the holiday. I remembered the time when we were kids that Kaju confidently and staunchly decided that the emperor and empress dolls were, in fact, me and her. Leave it to my sister to make things awkward.

“Oh, hey.” I picked up a snack off to the side of the hina-arare. Inside the rectangular packaging were a bunch of pink, square mochi in neat rows. Boy did it take me back.

“Hey, I remember those. You ever squish ’em down to see how many you could fit on a toothpick?” The source of the ceaseless torrent of food quickly filling the cart was none other than my clubmate, Yanami Anna.

“Can’t say I did. I just saw Shikiya-senpai snacking on some a while ago.”

“Oh, you did, huh?” Yanami glared at me.

“Wh-what?”

’Twas a mystery. She just kept glaring. “You know something, Nukumizu-kun? You’ve been on thin ice lately.”

“I don’t know, actually. Care to elaborate?”

She took the cart from me and started walking. “I’m saying maybe we should start calling you Sneak -umizu, the way you’ve been acting.”

“Okay.”

Yanami’s glare got glarier. “What happened to our singles’ alliance, huh? We had a deal, and now you’re making eyes at girls? What’s up with that?”

I thought alliances required consent to be a part of. Speaking of consent, she was really misunderstanding just how much agency I had in being single. And her own, as a matter of fact.

“You’re reading way too much into this,” I said. “Let’s check out so we can get back to the club room.”

We’d been given a mission. By who? By Tsukinoki-senpai. To buy snacks. Our first interaction in a good while, and the first thing she did was send us on an errand. Some things never changed.

Yanami hunched over the cart and peered inside. “Potato chips, every flavor. Chocolate. Soft drinks. Tea. Think that’s everything?”

I followed suit. “Do we need all these cup noodles? She asked for snacks and drinks.”

“It’s called kaiseki, Nukumizu-kun. Haven’t you ever had a full-course meal? Someone’s uncultured.”

If her goal today was to piss me off, she was in top form this evening. But then it hit me that what she just said implied she considered cup noodles part of a traditional Japanese full-course. That saddened me beyond words.

She raised one of the cups aloft. “The last course is always soup or rice or something, but this? This here’s the king of carbs. And it’s got soup. Two for the price of one.”

I nodded. Not in understanding. Just nodded. “Cool. Let’s lose a few of these. You can keep yours.”

“What about everyone else’s? They’re gonna be hungry.”

“We’ll live. Let’s use the extra money to grab taiyaki or something on the way back. There’s a place near here.”

Her eyes lit up. “I saw dango too! All right, all right. I choose,” Yanami grinned, picked out one of the cups, and held it high, “you!”

Yakisoba. Wasn’t even ramen.

“There’s no soup in that. You’re compromising your ideals.”

“I crave what I crave.”

Didn’t we all?

I lined up at a register while she went and put the remaining cup noodles back. When she returned, she nudged me with her shoulder. “So why d’ya think Tsukinoki-senpai made us go shopping?”

“I assume because there’s something to…celebrate.”

We were in the latter half of February now, the tail end of college exam season. Tsukinoki-senpai had already flunked out of five. One remained. And according to Komari, that one was a shot in the dark. Results would have come out today.

My expression darkened.

Yanami nodded. “If she had good news, you know she’d be rubbing it in our faces right about now. These aren’t celebration snacks. This is stress eating. Trust me on this one.”

I tried to think of a reason to argue. I couldn’t find one. “I think you’re right.”

It was a dark day. The first of Tsukinoki-senpai’s life as a wanderer. Aimless in the unemployed void between secondary and tertiary education. A ronin.

I made a mental note to be nice today.