Loss 2: It’s Complicated

Loss 2: It’s Complicated

Loss 2:

It’s Complicated

K ONUKI-SENSEI SAT ACROSS THE TABLE FROM ME in the nurse’s office. It was after school. She took a sip of coffee from her mug, then gave me a calming smile. “How’s Riko-chan been?”

“Just fine, at least in the club room. She read through our old journals yesterday.” I took a sip of hojicha green tea from a bottle I’d brought myself.

Shiratama-san had been attending club every day for the last week now. She’d show up, we’d talk about random, mundane things, then she’d leave after an hour. Always exactly an hour. And she never seemed keen on chatting with Yanami or Komari. She’d picked no less than two erasers off the ground so far.

“It’s important to have a place to belong at school. Keep watching her for me, will you?”

“I’m still not convinced the lit club is, well, that place. She’d be better off getting to know her own classmates, wouldn’t she?”

“I recall a time when you and Komari-san weren’t so different.” Fair. I wasn’t one to talk. Konuki-sensei suddenly became distant. Thoughtfully so. “Kids are so quick to make school their entire world. But that just goes to show how many others they still have to explore.”

“Other ‘worlds,’” I repeated for clarification.

She smiled softly. “I’ve seen a few myself. Died on hills, given up on others. I’ve been around the block a few times, you know.”

“Is there a euphemism I’m missing?”

She just laughed. Konuki-sensei clearly still thought about her teen years quite a bit. Held dearly to the things she’d felt and experienced. Maybe she saw some of those things in Shiratama-san. Maybe not. I wasn’t sure what she saw in that girl, but she clearly cared about her. Which only made my next question all the more burning.

We chatted a bit more, and when it was appropriate, I casually said, “So there’s something about Tanaka-sensei I was wondering about. You know, the one who teaches Japanese.”

“Oh? What’s that? Don’t be shy.”

“It has to do with his, uh…character. If you know what I mean.”

“His ‘character’?” Konuki-sensei’s eyes narrowed. Uh-oh. Land mine?

“I just mean, er, he showed me some events for the literature club a while ago. I was just wondering about him. Y’know.”

She nodded. My flimsy excuse seemed to work. “He used to be the supervisor, so I imagine he’s just a little sentimental. As for his ‘character’…” She looked up at the ceiling, searching her memory. “Faithful. That’s what I would call him. Principled enough to stay true to his partner despite the implicit advances of a coworker. Just as an example.”

“Sorry. Forget I asked.”

Tanaka-sensei’s coworker giggled. “Wise. Want one?” She handed me a container of mints.

I instinctively went to take one, but my better judgment intervened. “No, thank you.”

Konuki-sensei’s hand remained extended for several seconds before she finally shrugged. “Wise.”

***

I hurried back to the club room. My conversation with Konuki-sensei lingered in my head. Something about her had changed when I brought up Tanaka-sensei, but was that just me overthinking it? In any case, he wasn’t the kind of guy to hook up with a coworker.

Faithful. Right. I’d learned that much about him. Even if he and Shiratama-san were up to no good, that was none of my business.

I put all that from my mind for now. No doubt things were awkward at the club without me. I picked up the pace as I passed through the breezeway connecting to the west annex—only to stop in my tracks.

Konuki-sensei said Tanaka-sensei had a partner…

But that was none of my business. Nope.

I put a big ol’ pin in that and continued on my way.

***

So things weren’t awkward at the club without me. They were worse .

Yanami sat in her chair, hunched over, a stiff breeze away from crumbling like a pile of ashes. Komari, meanwhile, was having a staring contest with the wall and completely unresponsive. Muffled music came from the earbuds stuffed in her ears. One of her semimonthly moods.

“President!” Shiratama-san trotted over with her hands clasped in front of her chest.

“Uh, what happened here?”

“I’m not really sure. We were just talking, and then…”

If she didn’t understand, I seriously doubted my own ability to do so. It was really hard not to walk straight back out the door.

“You good?” I asked Yanami. “Want some sugar water?”

“No. No, I’m okay. It’s just a flesh wound.” She languidly brushed aside the hair clinging to her face.

Seeing her like this genuinely took me aback. Apparently, you could go lower than rock bottom. What in the world had Shiratama-san done to these poor souls?

“I guess I’ll make us some tea?” The panacea for all social ailments.

While I got on that, Shiratama-san came up next to me and started taking out cups. “I’m sorry. Gosh, I’m so awkward. The younger members should be doing little chores like this.”

“Eh, we’re not really stuffy like that. It’s no biggie.”

This was the land of the free, here at the lit club. I, for example, was free to make tea. Literally every time. Every day. For some reason.

“You’re so mature,” she murmured out of nowhere.

“Huh?”

“It’s just the way you carry yourself. You’re always so composed and easy to talk to. I thought second-years would be more, I don’t know, scary. But you sure proved me wrong.”

Huh. No one had ever said that to me before. The others better have been listening. I poured the tea, sending them a bit of side-eye.

“Most people are nice once you get to know them,” I said. “Your classmates too, I bet.”

“Maybe. But the girls don’t like me very much, so I usually hang out with the guys, to be honest. I guess you could say I’m a bit of a tomboy.” She poked her tongue out.

I believed her. She was cute. Too cute. Controversially so. Urge to protect rising.

“Tea’s ready, everybody!” Shiratama-san placed a cup in front of the fossilized Yanami and near a petrified Komari. Neither acknowledged her. I sat with my own cup, and she was quick to take the seat next to me. “Say, you were pretty late. What were you doing?”

“Oh, just talking to Konuki-sensei. She’s our supervisor.”

“Sayo-san’s so pretty, isn’t she? Sometimes I wish I was her.”

She would need no monkey’s paw to regret that wish. But I kept that to myself. “You two know each other, I hear.”

“Right. She’s an old friend of my sister’s. I’ve had her tutor me in the past, and we used to go out together sometimes.”

Out. With Konuki-sensei. Define “out.”

Before I could decide whether to give voice to those concerns, Shiratama-san filled the silence with a warm smile. Why was she so darn cute ? It was like an aura she emanated.

I smiled back, only to sense a disturbance. It originated from the one called Yanami, who was staring at me with half-dead eyes. “Having fun, Nukumizu-kun?”

I had been. Before the disturbance. “Well, uh, hey, if you’re feeling better, I’ve got an idea.”

“An ‘idea,’” she repeated doubtfully. Yanami sat upright again, scratching her head. Points to Shiratama-san. What kind of points? Irrelevant.

“I was thinking this weekend…” Iglanced at Komari. She wouldn’t hear squat with those earbuds in. So I called her phone.

She squawked.

I waited for her to answer, put her on speaker, and then set my phone in the middle of the table. There. Included.

“I was thinking this weekend,” I continued, “we could go somewhere together.”

There was a long period of tepid silence before Yanami finally dared to speak up. “You mean, like, an overnight thing?”

“Nothing that involved. Just a short excursion. Look for inspiration. Then we could have a meeting and spitball writing prompts.”

Last summer, the club had gone on a rather heartwarming field trip. Unless I was misremembering things. One person had gotten the short end of the stick. Two were dating now. That was a net positive, right? Hopefully there’d be less drama this time, but the spirit was the same: to get to know each other better.

Shiratama-san’s hand shot up. “That’s a great idea! I say let’s do it!”

Yanami side-eyed her, then fiddled with her phone. “I dunno, man, you can’t just spring this on me. I’ve got plans. And stuff.”

Komari nodded at the wall in agreement.

Great job, guys. Knew I could count on them. Granted, it was sudden.

“Okay, then let’s find a date when we’re all—”

“I guess it’s just the two of us then, huh?” Shiratama-san interrupted me. Yanami and Komari twitched. “Gosh, now I’m nervous. What to wear? Oh, but we should pick somewhere to actually go first, shouldn’t we?”

“Uh, the two of us?”

She gasped, then cast her eyes down sadly. “I’m sorry. I just assumed and got so excited. We don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“I mean, it’s not that I don’t want to.” Compared to the bottomless pit and the statue who could stand there reading for two hours straight while I wondered when the hell we were going to leave, yeah, I might have preferred her. She’d have to commit a crime or something to get on my bad side at this point.

Shiratama-san lit up. “Really? Then actually there’s this one place I’ve been meaning—”

“I’m going,” muttered Yanami.

“I thought you had plans,” I said.

“Nuh-uh.”

Rock solid defense. She had me. Honestly, I’d gotten so good at tuning her out I very well could have misheard her. Bad habit.

“Then how does Sunday sound?”

“I-I’m free too.” Komari half raised a trembling hand. How long had she been with us at the table for?

“Didn’t you have plans?”

“F-finished them.”

Already? The work ethic on that girl.

Yanami crossed her arms and put on her thinkin’ face. “So. Destinations. We doing lunch? Let’s figure out lunch.”

We would figure out lunch. After we figured out what we were actually doing.

“You were saying something about a place?” I said to Shiratama-san.

She looked around at each of us. “I was thinking Aeon Mall in Toyokawa.”

“Oh, I know the place.”

It was a big shopping center in the next town over. New enough that I hadn’t been myself yet. The closest train station to it was only twenty minutes from Toyohashi Station, so well within day trip distance.

I checked with the old guard. Yanami gave a thumbs-up. “Not bad, Shiratama-chan. We’ll eat like queens there.”

The hungry one was satisfied with this arrangement.

“Th-there’s a bookstore I w-wanted to look at there,” said the small one. She pulled out her wallet and started counting. She didn’t count long before her shoulders slumped.

“All right, then I guess keep your Sundays clear,” I said. “We’ll go over details in the group chat.”

Wait. I had Shiratama-san’s number, but she wasn’t in our group on LINE yet. I hadn’t added her, which complicated things.

Reading the situation, she offered her phone. “Feel free to friend me. If you don’t mind, of course.”

“Um, no, not at all.”

Murder. There was murder in the air all of a sudden, and it came from Yanami and Komari. The kind of aura devised by women to protect other women from predatory men who would use positions of authority to learn their contact details. Highly specific, yes, but very real.

“Let’s get you in that group! There we are! The group chat! The one I’m adding you to! Don’t miss the invite! To the group chat! The literature club group chat!” We men had our own defense measures. Less subtle kinds, maybe, but no less vital to survival.

Shiratama-san held her phone to her chest once it was all set up. “Oh wow, my first high school friend on LINE. That’s you, President! You were my very first.”

More murder. So much murder. But this time I refused to accept responsibility.

I turned away from the immense, seething urges to kill, only to meet Shiratama-san’s puppy dog eyes. “I hope I’m not being annoying when I say how happy that makes me,” she cooed.

“Um. No. You’re good.” I tried to smile at her, but the truth was, a doubt was starting to burgeon inside me.

Was she actually doing this on purpose?

***

What a beautiful Sunday it was. Four lit club members, new and old, made their way to Aeon Mall Toyokawa.

I stood in the main hall, staring up at the massive interior. That hall ran the entire length and was layered into three different floors, shops lining both sides the whole way down. It was a whole shopping district condensed into one ginormous building. I’d never been to a place like this before, and it was admittedly a lot to take in.

Komari gaped at the vast, empty space. “H-holy crap.”

Yeah. Holy crap. The catchphrase of all humankind rendered speechless. I couldn’t help but gape with her.

Yanami scoffed. “Stand back, kids, and follow my lead. Ain’t my first rodeo, so I’ll show you guys how it’s done.”

“Will you?” I asked. Mostly innocently.

She glared. “Oh. My bad. Never mind, everyone, the guy who can’t read and nearly put us on the Iida Line thinks I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

It wasn’t my fault the Iida and Meitetsu trains were right next to each other!

“I want to see how it’s done!” Shiratama-san interjected. She wore a floral, two-tone dress.

Yanami nodded, appeased. “At least one of us has some sense. Know what step one to any mall visit is?”

“No, ma’am!”

“I’ll tell you,” the great mall meister blustered. “It’s sit down and chill.”

“Already?” I couldn’t help but doubt.

She shook her head in disappointment. “Look at this place, Nukumizu-kun. How long do you think it takes to get from one end to the other? A long time. By the time you’ve finished your first lap, you’ve already forgotten the first half. And that’s how you get stuck going in circles.”

“That’s bad how? Sounds like fun.”

“If you’re short-sighted, maybe. Listen, in that first half, you’ve probably already snacked on something yummy. But what if there’s something even better in the second half? Your wallet has a limit. Your tummy has a limit. It’s an endurance run. You sit down and think first so you can plan a route.”

Her wallet had a limit. Her stomach? Not so much. Speaking from experience, of course.

“Okay, so where do we go?” I asked.

“They’ve got drinks and candy over that way. Come along, gang.”

Yanami led us into foreign lands of fast food and cafés. Of lemonades and ice cream. Of cream puffs and chocolates. And her eyes glimmered with desire. The war had begun.

***

I found a table off to the side of all the food places, sat, and immediately melted into the chair. “How can ordering a drink be so exhausting?”

It’d turned into this whole, convoluted thing that I didn’t care to get into the details of. Long story short, I should not have stuck with Yanami. Komari had been smarter. The fact that even Shiratama-san had dipped, completely unprompted, clearly meant she’d sensed the danger too.

I sipped on my iced hojicha.

“Hey, nice spot. Totally empty.”

“Guess who stood and waited for it to be.”

“Want a gold star? You’re so cool and awesome.” Yanami set her green-colored drink on the table. Little pieces of warabimochi littered the bottom with a thick layer of matcha paste on top. Crowning the whole arrangement was a helping of matcha soft serve.

“That thing sure is elaborate.”

“Mm-hmm. It’s called a ‘Matcha Warabimochi Cream Smoothie.’ On a diet, so I’m stickin’ with the drink.” I saw a few bits of the sweet, chewy mochi shoot up through the thick straw.

“Drinks have calories. And that one looks like it has a lot.”

“Okay, but this is Nishio matcha. And it’s a smoothie.”

“Okay.”

Slurp. Up went the mochi.

“Wait,” I said. “Not okay.”

Yanami smirked at me. “Do you even know what diet means , Nukumizu-kun?”

“Other than ‘something you do to lose weight’?”

“So small-minded. I’m always thinkin’ big picture stuff. We’re all on a diet, don’t you see? A diet’s just the stuff you eat. You can’t define that with numbers. Who cares if they’re big or small? It’s not worth the emotional roller coaster. I’m bigger than that now.”

“So you gave up.”

“Says who?!”

Sore loser.

“A diet is usually either good or bad. You’re supposed to watch what you eat, Yanami-san.”

“You and your boxes. Always trying to shove stuff inside ’em. I’m thinking higher concept here.”

“Okay.”

Aaand tuning out. This was brain poison.

“It all boils down to mental framing. Recent research shows that wanting to lose weight can actually nullify calories. Now, enter my mind palace. Matcha. Smoothie. Healthy-sounding stuff, right? I don’t believe this will make me gain weight, thus it will not.”

Didn’t know power scaling had invaded diet theory.

“Sounds like you need some salad senbei.”

“Now you’re getting it.” She siphoned some of the soft serve next.

On an unrelated note, the “salad” part of “salad senbei” came from salad oil specifically.

I’d had just about enough of diet dogma and was ready for someone else to tag in, so I scanned around for Komari or Shiratama-san. I actually found them relatively quickly. A surge of customers had come in, and they were stuck in the whirlpool.

No one send Komari to Tokyo either. But I knew that already.

“So sorry about that!” said Shiratama-san, joined by Komari, after being rescued yet again by Yanami. They each had matcha soft serve. Shiratama-san’s came with shiratama toppings. Whether this was purposeful or not was beyond me. “We ended up copying you two, but then it took so long to decide, and there was this crowd and, well, you saw what happened.”

She sat across from me with that cutesy grin I was starting to get used to. Komari sat next to her.

I spread a map out on the table. “Okay. What next?”

Yanami studied it closely. “I saw a place selling fruit sandwiches. But it could be fun to find the best ramen in the food court. Then again, I could really go for some teppan spaghetti from Ciao. But it is almost lunchtime.”

“Literally everything you just listed is lunch.”

Komari, already in tune-out mode, just nodded along. Shiratama-san smiled, unsure whether to laugh or take her seriously. Unfortunately, Yanami was incredibly serious about this. Now it was up to me to defuse the situation.

I finished my tea. “How about we just do some window shopping and see what we come across? You know, for inspiration. We can chat. Brainstorm?”

We were, nominally at least, here on club business after all. To get to know each other. Break the ice. Mostly for the benefit of the senior members.

Yanami nodded smugly. “I’ve got just the place. There’s a butcher shop that has the most awesome spread of meats you’ve ever seen.”

She, uh, had the spirit? Kind of.

Shiratama-san put her hands together. “Does anybody mind if we do a little clothes shopping? Your blouse is so pretty, Yanami-senpai, you absolutely must pick an outfit for me!”

“Oh. For real? Well, yeah, I might’ve wanted to show off a little. So glad one of us has the decency to notice.” She gave me a look for some reason. Different reaction to Komari’s but just as effective.

I wasn’t about to look this gift horse in the mouth. I stood. “Off we go!”

Komari gave me the stink eye. “C-can I finish eating?”

“Yeah, I’m not very good at eating and walking,” said Shiratama-san.

Right. Of course. I sat my butt back down.

***

Window shopping; noun; the act of perusing items at retail stores without intent to purchase. So not actually “shopping” at all. Kind of a misnomer, no? Blissfully (perhaps even willfully) ignorant of this linguistic crime, the girls were deep in a dress-up frenzy.

“Komari-chan, try this on. You’d be so cute.”

“I agree, Senpai!”

“Whuh?!” she croaked. Correction: Two were in a frenzy. One was the victim. They very nearly got her into the changing room before she slipped away. “I-I have clothes! D-don’t need more!”

By her logic, nudists were the only people allowed to buy clothes.

It was actually kinda fun watching them do their thing from a safe distance. Maybe I could start attending club meetings remotely. That was the dream.

Yanami dipped out of the confrontation with Komari and weaseled up next to me. “Enjoying yourself?”

“More than I thought I would, actually. Was it smart to abandon Komari?”

“She’ll be fine. Shiratama-chan knows her way around people. She’s not too bad.”

The girl in question held a piece of clothing up to Komari. Then another. Then another. Someone had found a new hobby. Surprisingly, they made a pretty good pair, if you ignored the light that had left Komari’s eyes.

“Had me fooled,” I said. “I thought you didn’t like her.”

“Do I look like the kinda girl who would bully my kouhai?”

I chose not to answer. “She, uh, complimented your shirt. Guess you two have more common ground than you thought.”

Yanami shrugged. “Flattery. It’s part of the social contract. You could learn a thing or two. Go on. Your turn.”

“What, like, compliment your outfit?”

She nodded, then did a twirl. Her light brown, frilly blouse…thing sure was, uh, on her body. And her pants were white and, like, baggy and stuff. Or was that a skirt?

“It’s got…colors,” I said.

“Oh god, it’s that bad?”

Sure was. I studied her closer. “It looks good and all, but why are the sleeves just a little too short?”

“They’re called three-quarter sleeves, thank you very much.”

Just three? Why not four? Who was the keeper of the final quarter?

“Uh-huh. Right. Looks chilly is all I’m saying.”

Yanami let out a sigh. With it went the last of her hope in me. “Dude, you can forget all about looking good if you care about the weather. Fashion doesn’t give a crap if it’s cold. That’s what all the hotties say, and they’re right. Take notes.”

“Uh, right. Yes, ma’am.” I wrote that down under “Yanami-isms” in my mental file cabinet. A wise person once said if you’re putting something down, better to put it up. Makes spring cleaning a breeze.

Komari and Shiratama-san started to move, so we followed. “You remembered to invite Yakishio, right?”

“They’ve got a meet coming up, so she said she’s busy. Why?”

“Just wondering. We’re all friends. Speaking of, you haven’t eaten much today.”

Yanami’s expression clouded over. “About that. You’re never gonna believe this.”

No way. Had a doctor finally woken her up? Was it terminal? I braced myself as she faced me with a grim expression. “I think I’m eating too much. The fact that you even asked me that question proves it.”

“Is this a bit? Am I supposed to say the punchline?”

“Save it. It’s just, we’re second-years now, y’know? I’ve gotta act more grown-up. For all the kids who look up to me.” Wow. That was a big step for her. Now for those alleged kids to materialize. She looked at me like she’d read my mind. “I’ve only had tea today. You’ve seriously gotta give me some credit. I can be feminine.”

So that concoction of sugar and calories was “tea” to her. She was right. I wasn’t giving her enough credit. Just not regarding her femininity.

“Wh-what’re you two lollygagging for?” Komari, having escaped Shiratama-san’s grasp, scuttled over.

“Just talking about high fashion and what it means to be a woman,” I said. “Done looking at clothes?”

She shook her head at me. What could it mean?

Shiratama-san appeared next. “Are clothes not your thing, Komari-senpai? If there’s somewhere else you’d rather go, you can tell me.”

“Er, I-I, um…” She croaked and sputtered, then floundered for her phone. She was running on fumes.

“You mentioned somewhere, didn’t you?” I asked mercifully.

“Y-yeah! B-bookstore!” She pulled out a gift card. One of the five thousand yen ones.

“Oh, we got a high roller here.”

Komari nodded giddily and held up two fingers. “Th-the time has come. I’m gonna buy t-two whole volumes.”

Not even gonna spend it all? How frugal. Good news for her future husband. She began leading the way, only to encounter a group of teens and promptly hide behind me. Some things never changed. Which was oddly comforting.

I made for the escalator.

***

Housendou, Aeon Mall Toyokawa branch. Despite the kanji being literally the same as Toyokawa, just read differently, it was headquartered in Toyohashi. This branch, though, was the biggest in the region, and it even came with its own adjoining café that liked to advertise its locally grown ingredients. One guess which part was currently driving Yanami crazy.

“It’s not time yet,” I told her.

“I know what time it is. And no, this isn’t drool. Grown-ups don’t drool.” She pulled out a handkerchief and wiped something from her mouth. Not drool apparently.

I was pretty excited too. Not to the point of drooling, but still. Komari had vanished pretty much as soon as we came in, and Shiratama-san was busy looking at the new arrivals. It was my turn to make myself scarce.

“What’s the point of buying books here specifically?” Yanami said, bringing my train of thought to a complete stop. “You can do that anywhere, can’t you?”

I shook my head. Oh, the ignorance on display. “No two bookstores are alike, Yanami-san. You’ll never find the same thing in the same way twice.”

“So do the cafés have, like, different menus or something?”

Books. Books, Yanami. Not food.

“Bookstores are for more than just buying . They’re for discovering . Different locations have different concepts, which come with different shelf arrangements, different books on display. What you find is a kind of conversation between employee and customer.”

“Oh, I get it! It’s a social thing!”

She could not have been further from the mark. How to get through to her?

“Okay, think of it like classical music. The same symphony can sound different through different conductors and orchestras. Through the kinds of books a particular store decides to show its clientele, it speaks to us. And they all have different things to say.”

“But all you ever buy are manga and light novels.”

Fair. Maybe not the perfect analogy. But there was still plenty of variety to be had there. Regardless, at least some of my wisdom had to have seeped its way into the sponge she called a brain.

Ensuring she was sufficiently distracted by a food magazine, I slinked off to do my own thing. My original plan to beeline for the manga and light novels was postponed after someone’s extremely judgmental comment, so I started my search elsewhere, and that was how I found Shiratama-san eyeing the shelves in the literature section. Creeping up behind her, I saw that it was a historical fiction novel that had her attention. Not really my field of expertise, but I was familiar with period dramas and stuff.

She noticed me, returning her hesitantly outstretched hand. “President? How long have you been there?”

“A few seconds?” I stood next to her. “Didn’t expect that to be your genre.”

“My grandpa got me on them, and I’ve been sort of hooked ever since.” She took a book titled The Recluse in the Leaky Row House , read the back synopsis, then put it back. “I know you planned all this for me.”

“Huh? I-I guess. I mean, in the sense that I wanted to help everyone get a little closer.”

Shiratama-san looked conflicted. Seemed she didn’t buy my flimsy attempt at consolation. “Yanami-senpai doesn’t like me. And Komari-senpai’s scared of me.”

“I, uh, think there’s more to it than that.” Yanami was just jealous and petty. Komari was Komari.

“Sorry. Not the time or place.” She smiled. Her own form of consolation. “I do want to bridge these gaps. I’ll do my best.”

“Right, well, don’t put too much pressure on yourself.”

I calmly left her. But inside I wanted to scream. Things had been going so well, at least on the surface. God, why did people have to be so complicated? There had to be a way to get the others to come around. Maybe food for Yanami, smut for Komari.

Wait. That’d totally work. It really was that easy.

I could hear Yanami now. All it’d take was one snack. Gee, Nukumizu-kun, turns out Shiratama-chan’s swell! You were right all along!

Yeah, I liked the sound of that. Could honestly start simulating her myself. Out with the old, in with the new. Komari was another matter. I started to scour the shelves for bait, then spotted her in the educational section clutching a thick hardback.

“What’s that?” I asked.

She shot me a glance but didn’t move. “I-it’s about clothes. Old w-western fashion. Wanted to use it for r-reference, but…” She showed me the back. The price tag was just a smidge outside of her gift card’s reach. With a sigh, she returned it. Another glance, sharper this time. “Wh-what do you want?”

“You’ve been keeping up with Clocked Out, Locked In this season, yeah?”

“O-oh. Yeah. That’s good.” An ominous and obscene grin spread across her lips.

“Gimme your OTP. Actually, I’m gonna guess Takaya-san, on the right of course, with—”

Komari’s elbow suddenly found itself in my solar plexus. “H-how do you know that?! D-don’t do that again!”

For my astuteness, my reward was pain. For what reason?

Whatever. I had what I needed. Just had to hit up the right place for the goods later.

***

We went to an arcade next. At Yanami’s suggestion, surprisingly enough. We played this VR zombie shooter game with big, bulky headsets and everything. I’d seen it around but never had the chance to try it out. Never thought I would, frankly. It was four player only.

Yanami stretched. “How come you’re so good at shooting games, Komari-chan? What’s the secret?”

“R-rage.” Komari brushed her bangs aside suavely.

“Rage, huh?”

“Rage.”

Why were they looking at me when they said that? I fled their gazes and found Shiratama-san’s instead.

“I’m still a little dizzy,” she laughed. “Sure was intense, huh?” She put her index fingers up to her temples and smiled. Cute. Cloying, but cute.

“Hey, I saw air hockey that way,” Yanami said to Komari. “Wanna go a round?”

“Y-you’re gonna regret that.”

A confident Komari? Now this I had to see.

I started to follow, when Shiratama-san grabbed my sleeve. “Hey, um, I could use a break. Will you come with me?”

“Oh, sure. Let me just let them know where we’ll be.” I searched, but they were quickly being swallowed by the crowd. I hesitated.

Shiratama-san tugged. Hard, this time. “I’ll just come out and say it.”

“Huh?”

She brought her face in close. Her big, round eyes came right next to mine. The world faded away around us as she whispered in my ear. “I want to be alone with you.”

***

Fancy ornaments and baubles glistened in the glass case. Shiratama-san gasped in delight. “Look at how pretty they are. What do you think that necklace is? Amethyst?”

“Uh, yeah. Could be.”

Shiratama-san had brought me to a jewelry store. Same mall. The whole place stank of “you can’t afford this.”

She frowned at me. “Sorry. I don’t mean to bore you.”

“Er, I’m not bored. It’s interesting. I’d never come here on my own.”

“Really? You’re so kind.” She beamed.

For the record, I hadn’t gone along with her because I had an ulterior motive or anything. She was struggling to get along with the other girls. I just wanted to lend a hand. Truly. Cross my heart.

But I wasn’t fooling myself. I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. She grinned as she ogled the glitzy accessories. Her shoulder-length hair framed a small, cherubic, yet somehow mature face. Though matching Yanami in height, she was so petite she looked as if she might shatter like porcelain at the faintest touch, sort of like Komari. But unlike Komari, she had a prominent figure that her clothing accentuated. Her features and proportions reminded me of Yakishio. Her perfect skin reminded me of Shikiya-san.

This girl was cuteness incarnate. I couldn’t even blame Yanami for being jealous, really. Don’t get me wrong—Yanami was pretty too, but she was also a lot of other things.

“What’s your birthstone?” she asked.

“Huh? Uh, I was born in December.” I went down the list provided by the store, and right then my phone went off. Again. I’d lost count of how many times it had done that. I had zero doubt it was Yanami. I went for it, but Shiratama-san held my hand still. “U-um.”

“I want you to myself. Just for now. Is that wrong?”

“I, um, well, n-no? I-I guess not?”

“Then a few more minutes won’t hurt, will it?” She bumped her shoulder against mine, guiding me further into the store. “Your birthstone is tanzanite. It represents intelligence and maturity. Sounds just like you, doesn’t it?”

“Y-yup. I get that a lot.”

I swallowed. Was this really happening? Had my spring finally sprung? Was it finally my turn to peak?

No. Unlikely. I remembered who I was—a total dweeb. And her? She was one of the cutest girls I’d ever met. Maybe if I was hot, like the protagonist of some light novel, I’d believe it. But I knew who I was. And someone like me was just along for the ride that was Shiratama-san’s story.

“Let’s see. What’s mine?” she mused.

“Shiratama-san,” I said. “Did you need something from me?”

Her smile twitched ever so slightly. A flaw quickly plastered over with a rejuvenated, somehow even sweeter glow. “I’m okay. Really. I know I got a little pessimistic earlier, but I just needed to get it off my chest.”

“Okay. Then are you waiting on someone?”

Her expression crumbled, and it didn’t return that time. Surprise and confusion filled in the cracks instead. “I… What?”

“You’ve only been pretending to look at accessories. You keep looking around like you’re expecting someone, and for whatever reason you keep pulling me back whenever I try to leave.”

“I’m just…” Her lips shut tight. Her legs shook like they wanted to run, but she was just barely holding them in place.

“Hey, I don’t mean to turn this into an interrogation, but I can only help if you’re open with me.”

Shiratama-san clutched her chest and hung her head. No one said anything for a long while. But when I finally tried to…

“Riko? Is that you?”

Shiratama-san’s head shot up at the voice I didn’t recognize. At the end of her gaze stood a young woman in her mid-twenties maybe, with mellow features and a face that could only be described as one thing: cute.

It didn’t take a detective.

Weakened and hardly audible, Shiratama-san murmured, “Oneechan…”

But it wasn’t the appearance of Shiratama Riko’s older sister that surprised me the most. It was the man standing next to her.

“You’re Nukumizu-kun,” he said. “Class C, right? What are you doing here with Riko-chan?”

It was Tanaka-sensei. Tsuwabuki Japanese teacher. And in the middle of this odd family reunion was me.

The tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife. But Shiratama Riko was quick to recover. Looping her arm around mine and practically throwing herself at me, she blurted, “He’s my boyfriend!”

Huh. Huh?! We were dating?! Since when?! I searched my brain for gaps in my memory to little success, but it would certainly explain her bringing me here. The mushy junk we’d been up to, what could we be other than a pair of lovebirds? Yeah, I could roll with this.

Shiratama-san’s sister froze up for several seconds. “Your boyfriend? I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.”

“I’m sorry. I know. You’ve just been so busy with the wedding, I never had a chance to tell you.” She beamed, as if to close the door on any and all doubts.

Her sister looked at me, still a little shaken. “And how long have you two, um, been together?”

“Uh, it’s sort of a…Schrodinger’s Cat situation,” I said.

“Don’t put him on the spot like that, Oneechan.”

Shiratama-san hugged me tighter and pouted.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. You just surprised me, Riko,” said her sister. “Still…”

“I’m a high schooler now. You had a crush on Tanaka-sensei at my age, didn’t you?”

“Riko!” Her sister’s face turned bright red. The cuteness was hereditary.

Tanaka-sensei put a hand on her shoulder and smiled softly. “We should get going, Minori-san.”

“But Yuuji-san…”