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 stuck-up 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.