really not sure what's so crazy about that," Rinka said as she held a hand out to Yuna. "There's nothing weird about us shaking hands firsthand, much less secondhand," Yuna agreed as she accepted it. "Gyaaah?!" Akksy shouted, reeling back like she'd been socked in the face by an invisible fist before crumpling to her knees! "That's...so...lewd..." "It was a handshake!" said Rinka. "Maybe you could keep going and move on to a hug...?" "And now she's asking for more from us?!" said Yuna. Akksy had officially and entirely pulled the two of them into her own little conversational vortex. As I tried not to laugh, my gaze wandered, and... Huh...? ...I glimpsed something out of the corner of my eye, in one of the school's windows—a silhouette. It was dark, and I wasn't totally sure, but whoever it was looked familiar. Was that...? Could it be?! "Hey, Yuna, Rinka!" I said. "Take care of Akksy for a minute, please!" "What?!" yelped Yuna. "Take care of her how, exactly?!" asked Rinka. "Please! Just one hug! Pleeease!" Akksy pleaded. I left the two of them to pull her out of whatever state of confusion she'd worked herself into and sprinted off for the school's main building. ◇◇◇ Nighttime. A schoolhouse. The exact sort of place where countless ghost stories had been set since time immemorial. Rumors about music rooms and nurse's offices were particularly prone to center around spooky supernatural happenings...and for people like me—which is to say, chicken-hearted cowards who ended up unable to sleep after just watching the trailer for a horror film—they were, without exaggeration, tremendously difficult places to be at night, even under the best of circumstances. The cultural festival's after-party was still in full swing, so access to the schoolhouse wasn't currently restricted. I probably wasn't the only one inside—a few people would be loitering here and there in the hallways and classrooms, most likely gazing out the windows at the bonfire. Some of them would be taking advantage of the dark of night to, er...spend a few intimate moments with each other, let's say. I, however, was desperately, frantically praying that just for now, just while I was passing by, nobody would make any sounds or reveal any hints that they were around whatsoever! "Please, no ghosts... No ghosts..." I muttered under my breath as I timidly braved the school's hallways with only my cell phone's light to guide me. Crash! "Hyeeek?!" What was that?! I definitely just heard something! Was that one of those ghost sounds?! I know for a fact that when you hear a weird sound in a place like this when nobody else is around, it's basically guaranteed to be a ghost thing! They're, like, those weird sounds that you hear when you're home alone! Okay, so maybe they're not supernatural happenings after all, and the truth is just that when you're not alone the people around you make enough noise to drown out all sorts of little pops and creaks that happen all the time but you can totally hear then when you're the only one around, and they're really caused by changes in atmospheric pressure and humidity and gradually deteriorating furniture and stuff and have nothing to do with ghosts or anything supernatural at all, so it's all totally natural and has nothing to do with departed humans doing their best to contact the living and absolutely not curse or haunt them, nope, not any sort of threat whatsoever, and anyway schools like this get used for decades on end so of course little bits and pieces would be worn out all over the place and of course they'd just naturally make sounds from time to time which of course have nothing to do with ghosts since ghosts don't exist in the first place, so everything's totally fine and no matter how many times you look you won't see anything ghosty and you'll be just fine because everything's fine and— Clunk! "Gyaaah?!" Nope! Whatever that noise was, "the gradual degradation of the building" and "spontaneous noises brought about by ambient conditions" absolutely cannot explain it!!! "It's all right, Yotsuba!" My inner angel! "Didn't your little monologue already cover this crap? You know there's people watching the bonfire from in here—you said it yourself!" And my inner devil! I actually got so scared that my inner angel and devil were dispatched to reassure me! I can always count on them! Crack! "Bwaugh?!" my inner angel and my inner devil yelped in unison as they flinched away from yet another inexplicable sound! And since both of them were imaginary beings born from my own mind, it goes without saying that I did the same. I was, after all, extremely timid and easily startled by ghos—I mean, by perfectly ordinary noises brought about by a building's gradual degradation and other natural factors! "Yotsuba? The school rules are very specific about not running in the hallways, but it's nighttime, and that means that the rules do not currently apply. Run away as fast as possible, right this instant." Is that really how this works, inner angel?! "If anything gets in your way, bowl it over and keep running!" What do you mean "anything," inner devil?! There's nothing here to get in my way at all! I can't see anything, anyway! B-But then again, just because I can't see it doesn't mean there's nothing to worry about, does it...?! "...uch." "!!!" A-A voice?! "Y-Yotsuba!" "Haul ass!" Spurred by the terrified voices of my inner angel and devil, I took off down the corridor at an all-out sprint. ◇◇◇ The bonfire glimmered in the distance, its flickering light illuminating the students gathered in jubilant celebration around it. The girl who watched them through the window, in contrast, seemed lonesome—and yet at the same time, her solitude seemed self-imposed, as if she were dedicated to rejecting anyone and everyone who might try to approach her. At any other moment, I might have hesitated to try. "MAKINAAAAAAAAA!!!" "Wha—?!" At that particular moment, however—a moment in which a ghost was surely breathing down my neck—I didn't have anything even remotely close to the mental leeway to register any of that. Kinda the opposite, actually: The second I saw a familiar face (well, a familiar back), I mustered up the last of my stamina to shoot forward in one final burst of speed and hug her—no, tackle her! "Thank...goodness..." I wheezed as I gasped for breath. "I'm so glad it was you, Makina..." "Y-Yotsy?!" Makina yelped. "Halfway here, I started wondering if maybe the silhouette I saw in the window wasn't you after all, and was actually a ghost instead, and I got so worried, and... Wait. You are Makina, right? You're not a ghost in disguise, right?!" "I-It's me, really! I'm the one and only Makina Oda." "Thank goodneeeeeess!!!" I practically wailed. Relief hit hard as the adrenaline rush faded, leaving me more or less dangling from her shoulders. I'm saved... There's no doubt about it—a ghost would never be this warm! Everyone knows that ghosts are cold! Against all odds, I'd managed to make it to class 2-A's room. I had no idea what Makina was doing here, or why she hadn't bothered to turn the lights on, but I'd made it and I could finally rest easy, in more ways than one. "Yotsy...? What are you doing here?" Makina asked. "What do you mean? I'm here because you are, obviously," I replied. Makina hesitated. "That's not true," she finally said, shaking her head as she gently pushed me away from her. "There's no way you could have recognized me from outside —not when it's this dark. You said it yourself, didn't you? You were worried that I might have been a ghost." "Well, yeah... But it's still true that I thought it was you! Why else would I have come here?" If I'd given myself the time to actually think about it, I might have stopped or turned around. The truth was, however, that "thinking" had never entered the picture. The moment I saw a figure in the window, my intuition had told me it was Makina, and I'd run off without doubting that hunch for a second. There wasn't much else that could've driven me into the pitch-black, utterly terrifying schoolhouse...and in the end, I really had managed to meet with her. The process that brought me there didn't really matter—or at least, it wouldn't change the fact that I was glad I'd found her. Makina's expression, however, was as glum as ever. Glum enough to make me wonder if she hadn't wanted to see me at all. "Did I, umm...do something wrong?" I asked. "Ah!" Makina gasped. "N-No, that's—" "Wait, what am I saying? I've done so many things wrong! Like sneaking Mio into school without telling you, for one thing, or how you told me how you felt about me and I still haven't..." "No! That's not it! That's not it at all..." Makina said. She reached out to grab my sleeve, clinging to it like it was her only lifeline. She was trying to communicate that she didn't want to drive me away...but even more than that, it made me realize just how unlike herself she was behaving. There was a frailty to her bearing that reminded me of the old Makina—of how she'd behaved when we first met. We've both changed. We're nothing like the people we were back then... But that doesn't mean that there's something wrong with acting the way we used to every once in a while, does it? "Makimaki?" "Ah..." I went out of my way to use my old nickname for her as I grabbed onto her wrist. It wasn't a big gesture at all—just a single word—but that was all it took for Makina's eyes to widen with shock and transparent emotion. "Let's sit down and talk, okay?" I suggested. Our desks were right next to each other, and I'd shared textbooks with her a bunch of times, but we hadn't had the chance to talk face-to-face since she'd transferred into my class. The classroom felt nothing like it did during the daytime. It was just about pitch black, but my eyes had started adjusting to the darkness and just enough light was filtering in from the courtyard outside for me to see Makina's face. Her expression was totally clear to me. "Okay, go ahead!" I said. "Say whatever you want to me!" "Umm..." Makina hesitated. "Lay it on me, Makimaki! Anything at all! If you want to gripe about me, then that's fine, and if you want to talk about something else, that's totally okay too. I mean it—you can say anything at all...like you used to." "Like...I used to..." Makina repeated. "Oh, but first things first—let's work on your tone, okay?" "Huh?" "What's with all the hesitating? I know that being polite and proper and thinking everything through really carefully before you say it is just what's normal for you these days...but honestly, it makes me feel like we're not really connecting. It feels like you're putting up walls and keeping me at a distance." "Th-That's not what I was trying to—" "Yeah, I know. I'm reading too much into it. But still...just give it a try, okay? Try to loosen up and tell me what's really on your mind, for me," I said. I was doing my best to do the same—to tell her exactly how I felt, slowly but surely, looking her in the eye with her hand still in mine. Makina didn't try to escape, but she also couldn't quite seem to return my gaze. Her eyes were wavering anxiously in a way that didn't seem to be entirely under her control. The natural response when someone was acting in a really intense manner was to lower your own intensity level, but the opposite was also true: When faced with someone who was far more depressed and distressed than I was, it just felt natural to be there for them in as gentle of a manner as I possibly could. "Makimaki?" Makina hesitated for just a moment longer. "All right," she finally said with a nod that was both clearly unintentional and just a little too exaggerated to come across as natural. She returned my grasp on her hand, squeezing mine back...as a tear rolled its way down her cheek. "I... I challenged Yuna and Rinka to a contest." "Wait, what?" "The stakes were that if I won, neither of them would get in my way when I tried to flirt with you." She spoke slowly, forcing the words out one after another. I'd been confused this whole time about why Yuna and Rinka had ended up joining the performance. Now I was finally learning the truth. "And if I lost...I would promise to never, ever approach you in that sort of way again..." It had all been about me. All of it—for Yuna, for Rinka...and for Makina as well. Everything they did, they did for my sake. "When you got up in front of the class and said all those things about what I wanted...that whole time, I was thinking about how you were wrong. About how I'm not the sort of pure and perfect person you think I am. And that's why..." "Oh..." I said. "That's why you've felt a little distant ever since then." Makina looked away from me. It wasn't exactly a direct confirmation, but for all intents and purposes, it might as well have been. "After I heard what you said about me, I started questioning everything. What if you were right, and that really was how I felt? What if I just hadn't understood my own feelings...? I couldn't stop wondering and worrying, and I still hadn't figured anything out by the time the performance started...and in the end, Mio saw right through me." "Oooh..." I'd had no idea that the circumstances behind Mio's outburst were so involved...but I had suspected that Makina's less-than-perfect performance was my fault, and on that front, I'd been completely correct. There was no way for me to turn a blind eye to how massive my influence was on her anymore. "Getting up on that stage...was harder than it'd ever been before. I had to put on a good show. I'd lose you if I didn't. But Yuna and Rinka had both improved so much, and they looked so confident in the moment that I just panicked...and then it hit me." "What did?" "The truth. About my own feelings... About why I decided to propose that contest in the first place, and why I decided to perform at the festival." Makina's voice was so feeble, it seemed like she might break down in tears at any second. I squeezed her hand tightly and did my best to keep a straight face, even though I knew that some of my own nervousness was probably showing through regardless. I had plenty of things that I wanted to ask and say to her, but compared to her troubles —compared to the sheer courage and trepidation that laced each and every word she forced herself to speak— everything I could've brought up seemed trivial. "You mean...you figured out why you decided to make your contest with Yuna and Rinka be about the performance, even though you knew there were a ton of other ways you could've done it?" I asked. "Right..." said Makina. I'd learned a lesson from my bet with Mio: Using an idol show as the subject of a contest was a lot harder than you'd think it'd be. It wasn't like you could put a clear point value on everyone's performances to figure out who had won and who had lost. It was all about subjective impressions, in the end, and even if you managed to come up with some sort of answer, the odds were good that it wouldn't come across as particularly compelling. I was, by the way, shocked to learn that the three of them had had a bet of their own going on at the same time I had, but I decided to put my surprise on hold for the time being. That could wait till later. "The truth is... The real reason I wanted to perform was..." Makina began, tears once again overflowing as she grasped my hand. "I did it...because I wanted you to see me. I wanted you to know that I'd become one of the idols we watched and looked up to back in the day. I wanted to prove that I was the real thing..." A memory resurfaced of the words I'd casually, carelessly spoken to Makina on the day we reunited: "You really did become an idol in the end, huh, Makimaki?" Maybe that was the moment she'd realized I barely knew about her achievements as Maki Amagi at all. She'd been working her hardest for years, all for my sake, and yet I'd let all her efforts fly over my head. I hadn't watched her—or even noticed her. She hadn't gotten angry at me in a way that I could tell. She'd responded to my clueless layman's remark with a smile. That, I knew with certainty, had been an act of kindness on her part. She was forgiving enough to overlook my complete lack of tact. But...that didn't mean that my words hadn't had an effect on her. It didn't mean they hadn't bothered her at all. "I wanted to sing in front of you, and I wanted you to praise me for it. I wanted you to say that I'd worked hard— that I was talented and amazing. More than anyone else, you're the one I've always wanted to acknowledge me now that I'm an idol." Each word drove a blade into my chest. My thoughtlessness had hurt her deeply, and that pain was directly linked to her current suffering. I felt like an idiot for thinking that I could comfort her—that there was something I could do to support her. How could I, when I'd been the one causing her all that pain in the first place? Wasn't all of this my fault, from start to finish? "No..." "Huh?" I grunted. Makina shook her head. "I didn't mean to say any of this to you. I didn't mean to whine to you like a stupid, selfish, embarrassing little brat." "But if you didn't tell me, how would we—" "No, no—you don't get it. It's already over. You already saved me." "I... What?" A smile spread across Makina's tearstained face. A warm, contented smile. "You cheered for me, didn't you...? You called my name." Of course I had. It was the least I could have done. After everything that had happened between us... "That's all I needed. It made me so happy, nothing else seemed to matter anymore. It's actually ridiculous how stupidly happy it made me... Just like that, the most painful performance I'd ever been a part of became the happiest moment of my lifetime." "Makina..." "And that's why...I was finally able to put it all to rest." "Put it to rest"...? "After everything was over—I guess I can just say 'last night,' actually—I talked with Mio again. She told me that she'd wait for me. She'd never really complimented me to my face like that before, you know? Not even once. Neither of us could ever be honest with each other...but it feels like, for the first time, she finally saw me for who I am." Makina's voice was bright and clear. I, meanwhile, was bewildered. I was the one who'd made her suffer...but at the same time, she claimed that I was the one who'd freed her from that suffering. Nothing about how she'd said it seemed fake—not her words, and not the smile she'd worn as she said them. But if all that was true...then why had she looked so sad when I first arrived in the classroom? Why had she been avoiding me? "Put what to rest...?" I asked. The smile on her face felt feeble. It was the sort of kindhearted smile that you'd wear to cover up the pain you were feeling—in other words, a smile that proved she was still in pain. "I love you, Yotsy," said Makina, her smile never shifting. "To me, you've always been light itself. I always believed that if you went away, I wouldn't be able to live on...but that wasn't the half of it. Performing for you made me realize that I love you even more than I ever knew. And so..." Makina paused to wipe away her tears. "And so, I had to put it all to rest. I had to take some time to sort out my feelings before I could give up on you." With that, she let go of my hand. "Wha... What are you...?" "I told you, didn't I? I made a bet with Yuna and Rinka, with my feelings for you on the line. And once it was all over...there was no question whatsoever who had won. Those two believed in you from the very start to the very end. They love you in an even deeper, more profound way than I do. I let my doubts get the better of me and put on a pathetic excuse for a performance until the moment you called my name—and that means I lost." Makina admitted her defeat with grace and dignity. She spoke so plainly, it felt like she was reciting words from a script she'd read so many times, she'd memorized it by rote. "I went around the festival with some people from our class today," Makina continued. "They invited me. I would've preferred to look around with you, really... Hee hee! Of course, I couldn't, right? But in the end, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I was so preoccupied that I can't even remember any of the things I saw and did." A change had come over Makina. She was almost acting like she had when we first reunited near the end of summer...but no, that wasn't quite right. The polite, affable, but entirely forced smile on her face was like nothing I'd seen from her before. It was like she'd turned into a totally different person. "Thanks to that, I ended up dragging things out until now without ever really accepting how it had to be...but it's the strangest thing. Now that I've told you everything, I feel so much...lighter. Who knew? At long last, it feels like I can finally give up on you. Thank you for everything." Those, it seemed, were meant to be her parting words. Her smile never slipped as she stood up from her desk. "Goodbye, Yotsy. Whatever happens, I hope you'll be happy." And then she walked away. I was certain that once she passed by me, she'd keep going without ever looking back. "I love you, Yotsy." Barely a moment had passed since she'd said those words to me. Was this really how she meant for it to end? Would she really put a lid on those feelings and stow them away for good? Maybe that was the right thing for her to do. Those feelings were where all of this had started. I hadn't known about them, and by the time we were reunited, I was already taken. Keeping her feelings for me alive and well, even when she knew I loved someone else, couldn't possibly have been easy. Maybe it would have been better for everyone if she'd given up and gone out to look for some other fish in the sea. I had no right to say anything to her. I was in no position to criticize her at all, and I knew it very well. And yet...! "Makina!" I shouted. "Let me ask just one thing." By the time I raised my voice, Makina's hand was already resting on the classroom's door. I thought she'd open it up and walk away...but she didn't. She stopped, standing stockstill. "What is it?" Makina asked. Her hand was still on the door, and she didn't turn to look back at me. There wasn't a trace of emotion to be heard in her voice, but I was just happy that she hadn't ignored me entirely. Maybe that happiness was part of why I suddenly felt much more positive than when I'd first spoken up...and why I was able to ask her the worst, most unfair question possible. "Will this make you happy, Makina?" "What...?" I heard a clatter as the door shuddered. There could hardly have been a clearer sign of how shaken she was. "Why would...you even ask that?" Makina asked. "Because you're lying to me," I said. "N-No, I am not!" "Then look me in the eye and say it again. Say that you don't love me anymore. Say that you've given up on me!" I really was the worst. I was toying with her feelings, and I knew it—but I still had to ask. I had to be sure. I knew that if I didn't—if I kicked the problem down the road again, taking refuge in ambiguity...it would mean the end for us. We'd no longer be anything to each other—not even childhood friends. I walked over to Makina and took her hand in mine once again. Makina's shoulders shuddered, but she didn't shake me off. Instead, she slowly turned to face me. "Yotsy..." Our gazes met—and instantly, the mask she'd been wearing fell away from her face, revealing the Makina I knew once more. "Why won't you let me go...? Don't you understand? You won't ever love me, so...so why?!" "It's not like that," I said. "You have it all wrong." "Do I?! How?! You're not— You won't...!" "I do love you, Makina! Maybe not in exactly the way you wished I would...but that doesn't mean you're not important to me! It doesn't mean I don't want you to be happy, from the bottom of my heart!" I was an idiot. What was right and what was wrong were just two of the many, many things I didn't understand. There was one thing, however, that I understood with absolute clarity: If I let Makina leave, both of us would come to regret it. "Yes, I'm already in a relationship. I may be a dirty cheater, but I still can't bring myself to betray Yuna and Rinka," I said. "So then—" "But I know we don't have to be dating to stay together! There has to be a way!" I shouted. My emotions were overflowing...and before I knew it, I'd thrown my arms around her. "We can still love each other in our own ways, and still be happy. It may take time, but someday, it'll happen... I'm sure of it. It has to be true. It'd be just...way too sad if it wasn't." "What do you mean 'sad'...?" "Well, come on! We just reunited, didn't we?! Back when you went away, I thought I'd never see you again, but you came to find me... And okay, yes, I was pretty confused for all sorts of reasons, but I was still really happy, and it's been just as fun as it's been a problem to have you around! I've never, ever, even for a second wished that you hadn't shown up again, and I'd be lonely if you left! I don't want that! It'd be sad, and painful...just like it was the first time." I was distraught when Makina moved away, but I was also a completely helpless little kid. There hadn't been anything at all I could do about it...and since her absence was so heart-wrenchingly painful, I'd fallen back on the only solution I could find: forgetting about her. Looking back, I didn't think that had been the right decision by any means. I'd made the wrong choice once, and I never wanted to make it again. "What about you, Makina...?" I said. "Do you hate me now? Would you be happy if you never saw me again?" "Of course...not...!" Makina just barely managed to choke out. "Well...then don't go! If neither of us wants the other to go away—if it'd make both of us sad—then why do it? Why not stay together instead?" I couldn't be the lover that Makina wanted me to be. I'd agonized over it ever since the day she opened up about her feelings for me, and that was the decision I'd reached...but did my inability to return her feelings really have to mean we couldn't be around each other anymore? Then again, ignoring her feelings and acting like we were friends in the same way we'd always been wasn't tenable either. Things couldn't be that easy. I'd thought, and thought, and thought...and while I couldn't quite say with confidence that the conclusion I'd landed on was a real answer to the problem, it was all I had. "I don't know how our feelings will change from now on," I said, "but as long as we're together, we'll always be something to each other. Maybe not lovers, or friends, or even childhood friends...but something else. We could be something special, just for the two of us—no, we would be! I'm sure of it! I don't know what I'd call it, but I'm sure... All I want is for me to keep being someone special for you, and for you to keep being someone special for me." "Someone special...just for us...?" "That's right. Something even deeper than just being childhood friends, I'd bet!" I couldn't rule out the possibility that Makina would get sick of me someday, of course. It was very possible that we'd end up living in completely different worlds in the long term. In that moment, however, I didn't have the time for that sort of pessimism. In that moment, at the very least—a moment in which we still loved each other—I had confidence that the future could never possibly be so bleak. When all was said and done, I was just being selfish. Maybe Makina could go on to lead a perfectly happy, fulfilled life without me. I sure as heck could never be stuckup enough to think that she couldn't live a happy life without me! But that didn't change the fact that I wanted to stay with her. I didn't want to have to go through another tearful parting. Even if we did say our goodbyes someday, I wanted it to be in a mutual sort of way that both of us could accept. That was the answer I'd settled on. It was the conclusion of the long, long train of thought I'd been traveling along ever since the day I learned how Makina felt about me. I knew painfully well how hopelessly naive a conclusion it was to expect, but I also knew that not being true to your feelings about the things that were really important to you would always lead to regrets. No matter how much it made you look like an idiot, no matter how ashamed it left you, you had to be honest—to make it perfectly clear exactly how you felt. After all...she'd done it as well. Makina had worked up more courage than I could ever even imagine, all to tell me that she loved me. Makina and I stood there hugging for quite some time. I'm not really sure how long, exactly—long enough that by the time she said, "Thank you, Yotsy," and pulled away, the only evidence left that she'd been crying was the wet spot where she'd used my uniform as an impromptu handkerchief. Well, that and the fact that her eyelids were slightly swollen, probably from when she'd rubbed them. "But still," Makina continued, "I just can't..." "Huh?" "I made a promise with those two. I told them I wouldn't act like this with you anymore if I lost...and I know that if I'm around you, I won't be able to control myself. I'll just end up wanting you all over again..." Makina flashed me a slightly awkward smile. Not the fake smile she'd used to hide her feelings—this time, it was genuine. "Staying with you would mean that I lied to the people who're most important to you. I just know you'd get hurt in the end... And so..." "Who said anything about you losing?" "...What?" I grunted. That hadn't been my voice, or Makina's either. I jerked my head over to look in the direction it had come from—and saw an eye peering into the classroom through the cracked door! "Hyeeeeeek?!" "Wh-What the— Yotsy?!" Makina yelped as I reeled back, tripped, and fell flat on my butt, pulling her down with me in the process! "Excuse me, Yotsuba! What sort of person falls over from seeing their girlfriend's face?" the voice rang out again. "Honestly, I can't blame her this time. The look on your face is a little scary right now, Yuna," a second voice interjected. "It so is not!" The door slid open with a clatter, revealing Yuna and Rinka! B-But wait—why are they here...? "Did you really think we wouldn't worry after you ran off like that?" Yuna said, answering my question before I could ask it. "It would have been much harder to follow you if Koganezaki hadn't happened to pass by right after you left. We were able to foist the president on her," Rinka explained. Saved by a passing Koganezaki! I wonder if she realized that Akksy had gone on a rampage and went to search for her? Thanks, Koganezaki, for so many things... Wait, no! Not the time! "H-How much did you hear?!" I asked. "Hmm..." Yuna broke eye contact. "You know, that's a good question..." Rinka also broke eye contact. Eye contact broken! Twice!!! That definitely means they were listening from the very start, or at least caught all the juicy bits! "Just for the record, it's not like we think eavesdropping's A-okay or anything," Yuna quickly added in a flustered mutter. "But it really didn't feel like the right moment for us to come in either..." "And leaving didn't feel much better," Rinka noted as well. "Someone had to be here to intervene in case things took a turn for the worse—not that that was likely, of course." Apparently, my horrified stare had freaked them out so much they'd felt the need to offer excuses to me. They were acting a lot like I usually did, actually! I hadn't been planning on blaming them to begin with—after all, I knew that I would've done the same thing if I'd been in their position—but I was curious about why they'd decided to make their entrance now in particular. "So anyway, Makina," said Yuna, "who said anything about you losing? Since when was that a done deal?" "Well...it was obvious. I conceded defeat myself," Makina replied. "But that wasn't our arrangement, was it?" said Rinka. "We agreed that we'd determine who won from the surveys that we'd have the audience fill out. I don't recall anyone ever saying that our personal opinions would be weighed in the final outcome. Do you?" O-Oh! Is that how it was supposed to work? That makes so much more sense than how we did our bet! "And our classmates were nice enough to get those survey results all compiled before the festival was even over," said Yuna. "It's all up in our group chat—though considering how you've been acting so far, I think I can hazard a guess that you haven't seen it yet." "Everyone took the time to fill those surveys out for us. It'd be a shame to not at least take a glance at them before you decide that you've lost, wouldn't it?" said Rinka. Makina seemed bewildered, but she gave Yuna and Rinka a nod, then pulled out her phone. I assumed she was looking at the class chat, and I checked my own phone to follow her example. "Wait...does this mean...?" I muttered. Our class rep had read and summarized all of the surveys from the performance, and the moment I read her summary, I found myself reflexively looking over at Makina. She was standing in total silence, eyes wide as she stared at her phone's screen. I had to look back and reread the message myself, just to make sure I wasn't misunderstanding something. In short: Basically nobody at all had written about which performer they thought had put on the best show. Somehow, astonishingly, there were almost no submissions that only talked about how great the Sacrosanct were or how amazing it had been to see a real idol. The overwhelming majority of the surveys had given the show rave reviews and said that all three performers were incredible. Some of them singled out the band and the organizing staff for praise too, of course. Overall, the compliments couldn't have been more universal. "Turns out we were all thinking about this in the wrong way," said Yuna. "What...?" said Makina. "This was a performance, not a contest. Performances aren't supposed to have a winner, are they? Of course the audience wouldn't think they needed to pick one of us to single out as being the best. They thought that all of us were good, and that's good enough for me." "And, looking at it from another perspective, this feels like a pretty clear sign that none of our performances stood head and shoulders above the others," Rinka added. "Maybe the fact that a professional idol like you didn't manage to overwhelm a pair of amateurs like us feels like a failing from your perspective, but when you consider that the audience was made up exclusively of our teachers and classmates—people who've known us on a personal level for over a year longer than they've known you—I would say it starts feeling like we were the ones with a leg up, actually. Which means..." Rinka paused for a moment to glance at Yuna. Yuna flashed her a rather confident smile and nodded. "...our 'see who can get the most positive reviews from the audience' contest...has ended in a draw." The way Rinka delivered the news couldn't have been more different from how Makina had announced her loss to me moments before. She spoke so perfectly casually and matter-of-factly, you would've thought it didn't matter to her at all. "A...draw...?" Makina repeated. "But...why? I already conceded my loss..." "Rules are rules, right? That's just how it goes," said Yuna. "Oh, and you can't concede after the results are already out! That's definitely not something the rules allow." Makina had admitted defeat—only for Yuna and Rinka to reject it. The match was a draw. No winners, no losers. "Why are you doing this?" asked Makina. "Why would you help your own enemy...?" "Maybe because we don't see you as an enemy in the first place?" said Yuna. "Huh?" "Right," said Rinka. "You're our fellow performer...but I guess the show's over now, so that doesn't exactly apply anymore. A friend in the making, maybe? Definitely not an enemy, in any case." "But—" "No buts!" Yuna snapped, jabbing a finger into the tip of Makina's nose. "And for the record, we're not saying we lost either, okay?! It was a draw, meaning we're back to square one! We're still Yotsuba's girlfriends, and we're still never gonna give that spot up to you!" "If you have a problem with that, you can always challenge us again—" Rinka said before pausing for a beat. "On second thought, maybe not. I think I've had enough of those. Performing with you was fun, sure, but it was just as hard and exhausting..." "Wha— Rinka?!" Yuna yelped. "You could've kept that to yourself! This was wrapping up so nicely, and you totally ruined the vibe!" "Well, it's true, isn't it? You remember how weirdly tense the stress made us back in the beginning, don't you? It was bad enough to make Yotsuba worry about us! I think one experience like that per year is plenty." "Okay, when you put it that way, once a year actually sounds a little too much for my liking... Yeah, I'm on board. Peace and quiet's the better option for sure!" Yuna and Rinka had bantered their way right through what would've been the appropriate moment for Makina to respond to them. She just stood there in a daze, staring at them with a blank, uncomprehending look on her face. This, I imagined, was a sort of logic that Makina was totally unfamiliar with. The way Yuna and Rinka saw it, everyone involved had wagered something important to them, everyone involved had done their best, and they'd all managed to make something great together as a result. The actual contest had become an afterthought, at most. That probably seemed unthinkable to Makina. All that said, not being too bothered about the contest was by no means a sign that Yuna and Rinka weren't taking this seriously in their own right. I still wasn't exactly sure of how or why they'd ended up playing along with it all in the first place...but as long as they were satisfied with these results, I wasn't about to question them. "Well, you heard them, Makina," I cheerfully chimed in, giving Makina a pat on the shoulder for good measure. "Yotsy..." Makina replied. The look on her face was conflicted. From what I could tell, it wasn't that she couldn't accept the challenge's lack of an outcome or Yuna and Rinka's refusal to acknowledge her concession—it was that she couldn't understand their mindset, period. I, on the other hand, instantly understood both the feelings of the audience members who'd filled out the surveys and Yuna and Rinka's ultimate decision. They all just made sense to me. At the very least, it felt like a much less tragic outcome than Makina having to live with her loss on her own. "Ah, look! Look!" Yuna suddenly shouted as she glanced out the window. "Oh! Fireworks," Rinka observed. I could see them as well. A number of students had started lighting up fireworks around the bonfire. Not, like, big rockets that burst in the air, of course. They were playing with the smaller sort of fireworks that you held in your hand or that stayed mostly on the ground. "They're so pretty..." I said. "A little hard to see well from here, though." "Should we go outside to watch?" asked Makina. "Nah... I think I'm fine here, actually," I replied, shaking my head as I took her hand and gave it a squeeze. If we went outside, then she, Yuna, and Rinka would all attract a ton of attention. Maybe it was selfish of me, but I wanted to keep this moment just for the four of us. That way, all three of them would hopefully be able to be their normal, natural selves. "Yotsy...is it really okay for me to stay with you?" asked Makina. "Yeah," I said. "Of course it is." "Not as her girlfriend, though! Those seats are already taken!" Yuna interjected. "And knowing Yotsuba, if we let her pull any more seats up to the table she'd never stop," Rinka noted. "Does nobody have any faith in me?!" I wailed. And is that why they've been bringing this up so much recently?! Sure, I've really expanded my social circle lately, but that's just because I'm finally making friends! There's nothing deeper to it than that...right? "Heh heh..." Makina chuckled, a smile finally spreading across her face. "When you put it that way, it does seem like being her girlfriend isn't the easiest thing in the world." Had Rinka's words seemed just that convincing to her? The face-value meaning of Makina's statement was hardly any different from what she'd said moments before about giving up on me...but this time, it somehow came across as far, far more positive. "But, no...I'll be trying to build up a relationship with Yotsy that's just for the two of us," Makina added, squeezing my hand back. The smile on her face wasn't like anything I'd seen from her—or at least, not recently. It was an innocent sort of smile. Almost childish. The way I understood it, Makina was simply reaffirming the words I'd spoken to her earlier. Buuut... "Was that supposed to be some sort of shot at us?" Yuna commented. "Hee hee hee! I wonder?" Makina replied. ...Yuna and Rinka clearly hadn't taken it in quite the same way I had. For a moment, an almost electrical tension crackled in the air...but it vanished away again just as quickly. "Ah, look! They lit up a big one!" I shouted. Someone had set up one of those fireworks that shoots a big, colorful burst of sparks up from the ground, which was now shining away in the courtyard. "Oh, wow!" said Yuna. "Oooh..." Rinka cooed. "It really is pretty...isn't it?" said Makina. For a moment, we were captivated. It wasn't exactly the same sort of festive atmosphere that the students frolicking in the courtyard had going, but on the other hand, there was something sort of classy about silently watching fireworks from off in the distance. And that was exactly what we did. Past that point, none of us said a word as we gazed out through the window, watching the festival's final hurrah unfold. Looking back over the past two months—the span of time since Makina transferred into our school—it felt like my relationships with the three of them hadn't really changed all that much, in the end. Yuna, Rinka, and I were still in the same three-way, two-timing relationship as ever, and Makina was still my childhood friend, her feelings for me kept in a state of unanswered limbo. That said, it wasn't like there hadn't been any changes. The three of them had grown a little closer over the course of their preparations for the idol show, for one thing. I'd befriended Mukai and Akksy, seen a new side of Koganezaki, reaffirmed the fact that Emma was a certifiable angel, gotten a few chances to dote on Sakura and Aoi, and had Mio lead me around by the nose. Looking back, it'd all been, well... How to put it...? "Haaaaaah..." In such perfect unison you'd think we'd planned it in advance, all four of us let out a long, synchronized sigh. Normally that would've probably surprised me, but at that particular moment, the wave of exhaustion rolling over me dulled whatever shock I might've felt. And, before I knew it, we'd all burst into a fit of tired, listless laughter. "This has all been a lot, huh?" said Yuna. "No kidding," Rinka agreed. "And now the cultural festival is over," said Makina. I just quietly listened...and thought to myself about how I'd sleep more soundly tonight than I had in a very, very long time. Epilogue Eichou High's cultural festival took place on Saturday and Sunday. Seeing as that meant we had to go to school on the weekend, everyone was given Monday and Tuesday off in exchange. I saw off my little sisters, who made a very firm point of making sure I knew exactly how unfair it was that they still had to go to school when I didn't, and also my parents, who let me know how much of a relief it was to not have to do the laundry or clean up the kitchen after breakfast, since they knew I'd be around to handle it. Then all that was left for me was to enjoy my weekday off in blissful idleness! For this brief, shining moment, I reign supreme over the whole Hazama household! Bwa hah hah! Okay...so the truth was that, actually, I had been thinking about taking advantage of the weekday off to go out and do stuff without having to deal with weekend crowds for once. I had been thinking about it, past tense, because everyone who I'd asked to hang out had turned me down. It just made sense, really—everyone was either so worn out that they wanted to relax instead or had already booked up their break before I got to them. Huh? That's weird. I thought I'd made a bunch more friends lately, but maybe I was just imagining it? Maybe everyone's going out to have some sort of cultural-festival after-party whatchamajigger sans me?! Which was exactly what I asked Mukai in a text, to which she responded: "nope (lol)". Sorry for the pointless ping, Mukai. Speaking of Mukai, her creative drive had gotten kicked into overdrive in the festival's aftermath, and she'd be using her days off to shut herself up in her room and draw like no tomorrow. She had a sort of self-discipline when it came to her art that I really admired. Oh—and I also eventually learned that there would be an after-party, but that the plan was to put it off for a while so everyone could rest and recover beforehand. My classmates were so considerate, it was actually a little scary. You'd almost think that I was totally thoughtless in comparison! Right?! And so, I ended up with so much free time on my hands that I soon found myself sprawled out on the couch in the otherwise abandoned living room, watching TV. My parents subscribed to a streaming service—one of the ones that let you watch all the old movies and TV shows you wanted— from which I'd picked something out more or less at random. "These services sure are handy," I said to myself. My parents were the ones who paid the subscription fee, so I got to watch all I wanted without having to put any strain on my own wallet at all. Not too long ago, most people would've gone to rental shops instead of streaming stuff online...and, in fact, I actually remembered begging my parents to rent movies for me when I was little. That was where the idol-show recordings that Makina and I had watched back in the day came from, mostly. She owned a few of her own, but the bulk of them, we'd had to borrow. You could see recordings like that even easier these days—of the famous groups, anyway—and there were even sometimes concert recordings that were exclusive to streaming services, apparently. Not that Makina watches that sort of thing anymore, most likely, I thought to myself as I munched on snack foods and flipped through the movie listings. I'd started with a movie that I'd been interested in but hadn't quite gotten around to seeing while it was still in theaters, then moved right onto another film without missing a beat. Just as that was wrapping up and I was considering a third—seriously, I could've killed infinite time like that if I'd had the chance— my phone rang. "Hello? Yotsuba?" said the girl who'd called me. "Hey! Did you need something, Mio?" I replied. "Not really. I had a free moment, and started wondering what you were up to." Y-You mean she called me on the phone even though she didn't have any real reason to?! Extroverts are amazing! "I just wrapped up lunch, and since I've got work this afternoon, I was about to leave school for the day. You?" Mio asked. She had a high school idol's schedule, all right. Just the thought of it was exhausting. I wasn't sure what sort of whim had led her to call me at that particular moment, but my circumstances were almost laughably lax compared to hers, and so... "I'm, uhh...g-going over my notes from the class I just took, basically?" I said, lying on reflex. Actually, maybe "posturing" would be the better word in this case? "Huh? I thought you had the day off 'cause of your cultural festival?" "H-How'd you know?!" "Maki mentioned it when I called her earlier. But, wait— you have classes anyway, so... Oh. Are you taking makeup lessons right now, Yotsuba? Heh heh! Yeah, that sounds like you for sure." I'd tried to show off, and where did it get me? Buried neck-deep in a misunderstanding that actually made me look worse than the reality of the situation would've! And it really did sound just like me, when she put it that way! "N-No, I'm not! I'm actually...well, lazing around watching movies at home, more or less," I admitted. "What, really? Why didn't you just say so in the first place?" "Ugh... It sounds like you're really busy with work, so I thought you might get annoyed if you knew I was slacking off." "Why would that annoy me?" Mio asked with a sharp laugh. The sounds in the background made me think she was probably walking somewhere while she talked to me, but she didn't seem like she was tense or in any particular hurry. I guess that's a real celebrity for you. She's incredible... "Yotsuba? Are you listening?" "Ah—yeah! I, umm... Sorry, what did you just say?" "So you weren't listening. Great. I was just asking what movie you were watching." "Oooh. Umm..." I took a moment to tell her about the two films I'd watched. Both of them had come out in the past two or three years. "Hmm... Hey, Yotsuba—ever heard of a movie called The Ladies' Academy Case Files?" "The name rings a bell, I think...?" "Well, if you don't have anything better to do, watch that next. It's not bad at all." "'Not bad'...?" I repeated. It wasn't exactly the most glowing review for a movie she was actively recommending. I searched for it on the streaming service, and... O-Oh! "Wait, Makina stars in it?!" "Yup! And I'm a supporting actress." "Hold on—is everyone from Shooting Star in this movie?!" "That's right. A lot of people treated it as a B-tier idol commercial as a result...which, I mean, it was, don't get me wrong, but it also turned out pretty darn well, considering. It got a good reception among insiders, you could say." "Huuuh..." That explained a lot. No wonder I'd heard about it in passing—with a cast like that, Sakura and Aoi had almost certainly gone to see it, and they'd likely mentioned it to me. "The elevator pitch is that there's a murder in an all girls' boarding school for the upper crust that's located deep in the mountains. Maki's the detective who gets called in to solve the mystery, and I'm her assistant," Mio explained. "Oooh...?" "Maki said you hadn't touched any of the stuff that our group's done. I figured it wouldn't kill you to watch a single movie that we were in, right?" "Ugh... Sorry," I said with a wince. "But also, thanks! I'll watch it for sure!" "Great, you do that. Oh, and this won't be for a little while, but the four of us—like, all our members except Maki —are gonna be having a concert! It'll be a little smaller scale than our usual shows, but we're making sure all the music and stuff meshes with the small-scale vibe. We're doing everything we can to make sure we'll power up something major by the time Maki comes back!" Mio declared in a very spirited tone. "Some of our fans'll probably pitch a fit about us carrying on without her, I guess, but we don't have time to spin our wheels. If she's not coming back right away, we'll just have to see what we can do without her—and there's plenty of stuff we'll only be able to try out while she's away, so this is our moment to throw all that at the wall and see what sticks!" "Bwuuuh..." "What's that groan supposed to mean, doofus?" "Wha—?! Nothing! I mean, I was just thinking, 'Wow, that's amazing,' and couldn't quite figure out how to put it into words just right..." I said. I realize that this might come across as being pretty backhanded in a condescending sort of way, but I was shocked, honestly. There I was, completely occupied with choosing whether I should even try to get into college, and meanwhile Mio was out there grabbing life itself by the horns. "You know, you're really cool, Mio..." "Huh? O-Oh, you think? Can't say I disagree," said Mio. The way she'd barely hesitated before agreeing was just like her, somehow, but that ever so slight moment of bashfulness that had preceded her boast also nearly made me crack up. "But, like...I wasn't telling you all this to show off, for the record! Anyway, do you wanna come watch?" "Wait, watch what?" "Our show! I can get you an invite, so you wouldn't need to buy a ticket. Think of it as thanks for showing me your cultural-festival performance." "I wouldn't exactly say I showed it to you..." "Plus, I'm the sort of idol who likes making sure her friends all get the chance to see what I'm really made of." H-Her friends! She just called me a friend just now, didn't she?! There's that extroversion in action again! I can't believe she's accepting enough to call someone like me a friend! "I mean...probably," Mio added a second later. "Probably?!" "The thing is, looking back, I haven't really had all that many real friend-friends...? I always had to prioritize work and practice when I was a kid, so I never got to go out to play or hang out much." Wait. Does that mean...? "S-So when they told me I could invite people to the show if I wanted to, you were the first person who came to mind, and I was like, 'Oh, I guess I'm the shows-off-to-her-friends type, it turns out!' That's all! You don't even have to come, if you don't—" "Of course I'll come!" I exclaimed. "I'd love to! For sure!" Mio's not the ultra-social extrovert I took her for after all! It turns out...I really am just friends with her, plain and simple! Sorry, Mio! I've totally been assuming that I was just one of a bunch of friends for you this whole time! "Oh? Well, good," said Mio. "I'll send you all the deets later." "Great!" "Oh, and also..." Mio continued, her voice fading into a slight mumble. "Tell Maki that the four of us are moving on ahead. If she wants to come reclaim her spot with us, she's gonna have to earn it, or there might not be a spot left anymore!" "Wait, why me?! Didn't you say you talked with her on the phone just a minute ago?! Why didn't you just say all that to her?!" "Ugh... It wasn't that sort of phone call, okay? We were just chatting, basically." "Oh. Really?" "We've never done the 'just chatting' thing before, you know? It's always been all about work for us, which is probably why our relationship's been so weirdly tense for so long... So I decided that it's about time I tried to learn more about her, you know? Like, Maki herself," Mio muttered in a way that really made it sound like she was making up excuses for herself. In a weird sort of way, the contrast that cut with her usual straight-to-the-point persona made it easier to take her words at face value. Considering how the two of them had come across during their confrontation at the cultural festival, I saw them trying to get to know each other more personally as a step in the right direction. After all, I was positive that Shooting Star was just as important to Makina as it was to Mio. It was a place where she belonged, in her own sort of way. "So saying that sorta stuff myself would be, well... It can wait for a little longer, that's all. It's not that I'm too scared to say it to her face, okay?!" "Ha ha ha! Yeah, I know. I get the picture—especially the part where you made sure to say there only might not be a spot for her at the end," I said. Mio let out a strangled gasp. Knowing how she tended to act, it would've been incredibly in character for her to flat out say that there wouldn't be a spot left for Makina, period. The fact that she'd gone out of her way to phrase around that implication almost felt like it was asserting the opposite —like she was saying that when Makina finally came back to the group, Mio would make a spot for her, no matter what it took. "Wh-Whatever! Not my problem how you read into it," said Mio. She hadn't even been able to bring herself to deny it, so obviously, I was onto something. Hee hee! You know, she's actually surprisingly easy to read now that I know her a little better. "Anyway," Mio said after a pause, "I'm getting pretty close to the place I'm heading, so I'm gonna hang up now." "Got it," I replied. "Oh! Hey, Mio?" "What?" "Good luck with your work!" "Oh... Come on, as if I'd need luck! But also...thanks!" With that, Mio hung up. I slumped onto the couch, flopping listlessly onto my back. Talking about Makina with Mio...well, it hadn't made me nervous, per se, but it did prompt all sorts of questions for me. Mio had still seemed a little awkward and stuff during that part of our conversation, but if sneaking her into the cultural festival had helped the two of them get at least a little closer to each other, then I liked to think that my efforts hadn't been in vain. Or Mukai's, Koganezaki's, and everyone else's efforts, of course! "I'm kind of excited to see Mio's show...but I hope I get to see them all together someday. The whole group, Makina included," I muttered to myself. When the opportunity arose, I wanted to earn the money for tickets and pay my own way into one of their concerts. Which would be pretty hard, considering how tough it would probably be to get tickets and how I'd first have to find a part-time job I could actually succeed at, but it would be nice if I could manage it. "Guess I'll start by watching that movie Mio recommended." A frighteningly believable image of myself failing to deal with a customer at a convenience store's counter was beginning to form in my mind, and I escaped it—along with reality—by hitting the "play" button. ◇◇◇ Wednesday arrived, and our oddly timed pseudoweekend came to a close. "Good morning, Yotsy!" "M-Morning...Makina..." "Huh...? Yotsy?" I'd promised Makina that I'd walk to school with her, and we met up in the morning, just as planned...but I couldn't bring myself to look directly at her. Why? Because the movie that Mio had recommended to me, The Ladies' Academy Case Files...had turned out to be really, really good! Not only was the movie's story just plain interesting, Makina and Mio's chemistry had been ridiculously perfect. If I hadn't had a handkerchief handy, I never would've made it through the climax! Thanks to that experience, my internal image of Makina had gone through a rather dramatic revision. I just couldn't stop myself from seeing her as a big-name actress now, and looking directly at her felt...I dunno, a little presumptuous, I guess? Like, this was a girl who'd won the Yotsuba Academy Award for Best Starring Actress, in a manner of speaking...and it definitely didn't help that afterward, I'd gone on to watch as many episodes of this one TV show that Makina and Mio were both in as I could access from that streaming service. Even its theme song was great! After all this time, I was finally turning into a Shooting Star fan—or, from another perspective, I'd finally fallen into the Shooting Star pit trap. "Heeey, Yotsy?" "Bwaugh?!" I yelped. While I'd been lost in thought, Makina had leaned in to peer at my face! Her eyelashes were so long! And her eyes were so shapely! Her chin too! She was so pretty! "You're a little spacey today," said Makina. "Did you not get enough sleep?" "N-Nope!" I yelped. "Nope, nah, not at all! I'm the same as ever! T-Totally normal!" "Oh, really?" Makina was walking by my side, as if it were perfectly normal for us to be together. I'd always known how incredible of a thing that was, of course, but as time passed by, it was like I was becoming more and more aware of it on some deeper level... And aaaah, it feels like my face is on fire! "Yotsy...?" "Y-Yeah? What is it, Maki—" Smch! The next thing I knew, Makina had leaned in so close I could almost see her pores...and I felt the softness of her lips. We were on a public street—an abandoned public street in a quiet residential area, sure, but still a public street—in the middle of the morning, and she'd kissed me out of the blue?! "M-Makina?!" I shouted. "Hee hee! You made it so easy, I couldn't resist," she replied. "You couldn't resist...? D-Don't you know how risky that was?! What if this ends up in the tabloids?!" "Oh? Are you paying me back for the fib I told back when we met in the summer?" No! I mean, okay, I guess she did lie to me about being followed around by paparazzi back then...but just because that wasn't true doesn't mean it couldn't actually happen, and if it did, she might not even know about it! "But you know, if someone did take a picture of us...that might not be so bad. It'd be nice to show our relationship off to the whole world," said Makina. Not only was she not cowed by my warning at all, she actually got even closer and wrapped her arms around one of mine?! "U-Uh, excuse me, Makina...?!" I said. "I sort of remember you saying a bunch of stuff about giving up on becoming my girlfriend? Does that ring a bell...?" "Oh, yes, I've given up on that," Makina replied. "That's why my current plan's to be your mistress instead." "M-My mistress?!" "Exactly! In the 'person you're cheating with' sense, just in case that wasn't clear. We'll have something deeper, more sensual than plain old bittersweet love," she whispered straight into my ear, her voice breathy in just the right way to scramble my brain like an egg! "Yuna and Rinka have a lead on me now, maybe, but that's just fine with me. Oh, and I don't mind at all if your relationship with them stays the same as ever, of course. I just thought it'd be nice to make sure you can't live without me on the side." That was a really cute way to tell me something that isn't the slightest bit cute, content-wise! Makina had polished a powerful, adultlike sort of appeal in her time in the entertainment industry, and now she was turning the full brunt of all of it directly on me! "Don't worry. We have plenty of time. But then again, how about we skip school today and get a head start?" "Bwuh, ahbwuguwaugh..." "If you want, the two of us can head right back to my place. We'll be nice and alone, and we can take all the time we need to—" "Nooope!!!" Wha—?! That was Yuna's voice! "Tch!" And now Makina's clicking her tongue?! "Good morning, Yuna," Makina said after a particularly pregnant pause. "And Rinka as well. I'm quite sure I remember arranging for us to meet up several blocks away from here?" "And then I had a bad feeling and changed those plans," said Yuna. "A bad feeling that was clearly right on the money," noted Rinka. "Remarkable," said Makina. "You have the finely honed instincts of a wild animal." H-Hmm? That's weird. All three of them are smiling, but the atmosphere's so tense I can actually hear the strain in the air...?! "You should be more careful, Yotsuba," said Rinka. "Even the loveliest roses have their thorns." "Thorns? I have no such thing," said Makina. "I might have my fair share of sweet, sweet nectar, though." "You mean poison!" snapped Yuna. Rinka peeled me and Makina apart while Yuna interposed herself between us as a human shield. Meanwhile, Makina was still smiling away as happily as ever...which was really scary! It feels like they might start duking it out at any second! What is happening here?! "No need to be so on guard, you two," said Makina. "I've settled on just being Yotsy's mistress, after all." "Her mistress?!" Yuna and Rinka shouted. "Precisely! The two of you can have your sweet little high school romances with her, and meanwhile, I'll be taking a step ahead and leading her up the stairs to adulthood. Hee hee—that way I won't be getting in your way at all anymore, will I?" "You'll be doing something way worse!" said Yuna. "I can't think of a more distasteful way you could've bounced back," Rinka commented. I thought the three of them were getting along way better than they used to! Did something happen over those two days off to make their relationship backslide in a major way...? None of them said anything about meeting up...so maybe this is one of those things where their mindsets naturally changed over the course of time? Or maybe they can be this openly at each other's throats specifically because they get along well now? One way or another... "I think it's clear we have to set the record straight again, Makina," Rinka said in a very firm tone. "We're never, eeeeeever giving Yotsuba up to you!" declared Yuna. "Of course. I'd expect nothing less," Makina replied with such a bright, spirited look on her face, you would've thought that every doubt she'd ever felt in her life had been cleared away. Yeah, okay, this is a sign of how well they're getting along! Thank goodness! All's well that ends well! I thought, reassuring myself with the power of pure, undiluted denial as the three of them more or less played tug-of-war with my arms. All I ask is for none of this to actually end up on the front page of some tabloid! Side Story: Our Own AfterParty! "Okay, everyone has a drink, right?" asked Yuna. "Cheers!" "Cheers!" Rinka repeated. "Ch-Cheers!" I sort of stiffly followed up as we all raised our glasses. A few days had passed since the cultural festival came to an end, and Yuna, Rinka, and I had all gotten together to have our own three-person after-party in advance of the fullblown one our class would be throwing. The venue: a yakiniku joint by the local station! It was part of a chain with branches scattered all across the country, and it happened to offer a student discount that made it a very easy-on-thewallet sort of place for people like us to frequent! Which was, of course, all news to me! The total price for today's two-hour course, including allyou-can-drink soda: two thousand yen each! Which was cheap! Probably! I'd never been to an after-party before and had no clue what the usual price for something like this was, so I wasn't in any position to judge!!! "Hee hee!" Yuna giggled as she looked over at me. "You can go ahead and stuff yourself until you're sick today, Yotsuba! Eat as much as you want!" "I will!" I said. "Hold on. It's already all-you-can-eat, for one thing, and for another, you're not even treating her," Rinka chimed in with a roll of her eyes. "Oh, lighten up! It's an atmosphere thing," Yuna declared with a cocky grin before grabbing a nearby pair of tongs and loading the grill up with thinly sliced beef, which had arrived with our drinks. "Gotta go with rib meat first! It's the only right choice!" "I'm more of a skirt steak person, myself," Rinka said as she filled the unoccupied portions of the grill with her own choice of meat. Before I knew it, the grill on our table had transformed into a barbecue battlefield! We were seated at a four-person booth, and after a very strict discussion of the possible arrangements, Yuna and Rinka had ended up on one side of the table while I sat alone on the other. That meant there wasn't much I could do to intervene—I just had to sit still and watch their struggle play out! "Don't worry, Yotsuba," said Yuna. "I'll grill up plenty of rib meat for both of us!" "I have her portion under control, actually," Rinka chimed in. "I'm pretty confident when it comes to cooking skirt steak." "Excuse me? What's your deal?" "I could ask you the same thing." "H-Hey, guys...?!" I anxiously interjected. Yuna and Rinka were giving each other very pointed looks, and the festive after-party atmosphere I'd been enjoying just seconds ago had been overwritten by something a lot less peaceful! "Who goes to a yakiniku joint and doesn't order rib meat?!" snapped Yuna. "People who aren't hopelessly behind the times and know that skirt steak's better, maybe?!" countered Rinka. "I, umm, I like both of them, actually," I stammered. "Oh! Hey, who wants rice?! I don't know about you, but I don't think any trip to a yakiniku place is complete without a big bowl of—" "Get me a large!" Yuna and Rinka said in perfect unison! "Did you two rehearse that in advance or what?!" One second they were taking hard-line stances in the rib meat versus skirt steak debate, and the next, they were placing the same order with pinpoint precision! I was overwhelmed—and a little exasperated, honestly—as I grabbed the menu tablet and placed an order for three bowls of rice, two large and one medium. Then I added in a salad and some soup too, on a whim. It was all-you-can-eat, so why not? "Okay, rib meat's done!" said Yuna. "The skirt steak's cooked just right as well!" said Rinka. "Th-Thanks!" I said as they piled my plate high with lightly browned meat in the blink of an eye. Hmm? Is it just me, or am I not going to have to cook my own meat at all tonight...? I wondered. The two of them were reigning over the grill like a pair of feuding feudal lords, after all. I usually ended up doing most of the cooking when my family went to this sort of restaurant, so being fed like this made me feel a little restless. "Okay, let's eat!" I said. Our rice hadn't arrived yet, but it would've been a shame to let the first round of meat go cold. The question was: Which to start with? Eeny, meeny, miney...this one! "I'll start with a piece of skirt steak... Mmmh, this is so good!" "Heh heh!" Rinka triumphantly chuckled. "Grr... I never said skirt steak was bad," grumbled Yuna. The meat was soft, but had just enough chew to be satisfying—exactly how skirt steak should be. Rinka had talked a big game about knowing how to cook it just right, and she'd lived up to her own hype. I wonder if she'd cook skirt steak like this for me every day if I asked...? Rinka was giving Yuna a How do you like that? sort of look, and Yuna seemed a little frustrated...b-but I wasn't trying to take a side in the great meat debate or anything, for the record! "Okay, time to try the rib meat next!" I quickly continued. "Mmh, yeah, this is great too!" "Of course it is," Yuna huffed. "I guess...that makes this a draw?" said Rinka. The rib meat was ridiculously tasty in a super in-your-face sort of way. It came drenched in sauce that matched its meaty flavor really nicely, and Yuna had done an incredible job cooking it to perfection! I had absolute confidence that I was, at that very moment, eating the tastiest grilled rib meat in the world. Love really is the ultimate seasoning! This is bliss! "You sure can make a piece of meat look like it tastes amazing," said Yuna. "That's because the two of you cooked it for me!" I replied. "Oh, but don't mind me—you should eat up too, okay?! We're on a time limit!" "Naturally," said Rinka. Yuna and Rinka grinned at me, then got to work on their own helpings of meat. To my surprise, they both ended up grabbing equal portions of each cut. Eh, they're both delicious, so no wonder. Enjoying both of them is the right move for sure! The rice that I'd ordered arrived soon after, and the salad and soup came out just a moment later. Seeing as I wasn't on grilling duty, I took it upon myself to portion them all out to everyone. Grilled meat tasted even better when you'd done something to earn it, after all! "So, which is your favorite in the end, Yotsuba?" asked Yuna. "Skirt steak, right? Right?" said Rinka. "Hmm... Well," I began before resting my chin in the palm of my hand and pausing to ponder. Had I preferred the ultrasavory flavor bomb that was the rib meat, or the soft, exquisitely meaty skirt steak? "If I had to pick a favorite, it'd have to be...intestine, I guess." "Intestine?!" Yuna and Rinka exclaimed in unison. Awww, come on! It's really tasty! ◇◇◇ To make a long story short, all three of us kept ordering plate after plate of food, grilling and sharing away as our after-party carried on. I'd been really set on getting my money's worth at first, but the thing about two-hour all-youcan-eat deals is that you always seem to end up feeling pretty stuffed just half an hour to an hour in. Around the time our grilling and ordering speeds had slowed to a leisurely crawl, a thought seemed to strike Rinka. "By the way," she said, "you met up with Mio Kuruma again after the first day of the festival ended, didn't you?" "Oh, yeah," I replied. "We had to so she could give my uniform back." "I figured," said Yuna. "You smelled like her afterward, you know?" "W-We didn't do anything weird, if that's what you're thinking!" I hadn't noticed any lingering scents on my uniform at all the next time I put it on, honestly...but Yuna and Rinka, it seemed, were a little more sensitive on that front. Mio had given it back to me on the night after she snuck into the festival... ◆ ◆ ◆ The night after the cultural festival's first day, Mio called me out to the same park where she and I had ended up talking the first time we met. "My, Yotsuba! Good evening to you." "Whahuh? Uhh, g-good evening?!" "Ha ha ha! C'mon, I'm just messing with you," Mio said with a grin as she plopped down on a nearby bench and beckoned me over to her. She'd ditched the wig she wore to the cultural festival in favor of her hat, and she'd left her sunglasses and mask off this time, leaving her in sort of a casual half disguise. "What? It'd be weird to wear a disguise when I'm going out to meet a friend, right?" "You read my mind again...?!" "Haven't I told you you're easy to read? You're the sort of person who always gets voted out on Night One when you play Werewolf." "'Werewolf'?" "Oh, uhh... You know what, never mind," Mio said, awkwardly glancing away from me. That more or less told me all I needed to know: "Werewolf" was probably one of those games that you needed a bunch of people to play. Information about games like that barely ever made its way to me, considering I had almost no friends...or, well, considering that my group of friends was still a pretty small community even these days. One might go so far as to say that I was chronically shut out from that sort of social interaction! "Why're you still standing, anyway? This bench is big enough for two," said Mio. "Oh, sure. Thanks, Mio," I said, then hesitated. "It's not a problem for me to call you that or anything, right?" "Yeah, that's fine. It's my real name, so whatever. I just write it differently for the stage-name version. My real name's written, uhh—here." Mio grabbed my hand and started to write on it with her index finger. "Hyeeek?!" "Ha ha ha! Quit squirming, sheesh." She definitely knew that this would really, really tickle! She's doing it on purpose! Mio took her time to sloooooowly trace her name onto my palm. It tickled so much, it felt like it was going to drive me crazy...but I at least had enough presence of mind left to figure out that she was writing a character for "waterway." At least, I couldn't think of any other characters that could be read "Mio" and had that number of strokes, so that was probably the one.
