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.
“Wait...you definitely only decided to write it on my hand because you knew it had a ton of strokes! You bully!” I yelped.
“Bully? That’s going a little far, isn’t it? If that’s the attitude you’re gonna take, I think I’ll go ahead and show you how I write my signature while I’m at it!”
“Gyaaah! Cut it ooout!”
One tiny complaint was all it took to line me up for a brutal counterattack! Mio made good on her threat, by the way, and really did write her signature on my palm, this time with a pen. She turned out to be a genuine celebrity: Her signature was completely illegible.
Anyway, once those shenanigans were over and done with, we settled back down on the bench. All that squirming had made me work up a pretty serious sweat.
“Ahh, I actually tired myself out laughing that much,” said Mio. “You’re the most ticklish person I’ve ever met, Yotsuba.”
“I’m not happy about that at all, just so you know!”
“Aww, and here I meant it as a compliment. Oh, right! I should give this back before I forget,” Mio said, pivoting on a conversational dime and handing me my uniform. She’d carefully folded it up and carried it around in a rather sturdy paper bag.
She sure made that seem like an afterthought, but wasn’t this the whole reason she called me out here in the first place...?
“You sure you don’t want me to get it cleaned, though? I could do that, no problem,” Mio added.
“That would take time and cost money, though, right?” I countered. “And it’s not like you did anything that’d get it dirty.”
“Doesn’t it bother you, though? Like, just the thought of wearing clothes someone else had on...?”
“Not really. You’re kind of a neat freak, aren’t you?”
“Ugh... I don’t think I like you calling me any sort of freak,” Mio said, pursing her lips with a wince. She might have been an active member of the working world thanks to her idol career, but she was also my age, and every once in a while she actually acted like it. Those little moments of childishness were kinda cute. “Oh, and you don’t have to worry about the money part. I’m loaded.”
“That wasn’t cute at all!”
“I took a taxi here, and I’ll be taking one home too. And it’s late enough they’ll be charging the night rate!”
“You sound really proud about that and I have no clue why!”
Even a little kid like me knew that taxis were pretty darn expensive! I wasn’t totally sure what a night rate entailed, but it seemed safe to assume that it’d mean you’d have to pay a decent percentage more than they cost during the day. If I ended up in a position where my choices were to pay a rate like that out of my allowance or walk home, I’d lace up my shoes and hit the road for sure.
“You really don’t have to worry about it, though,” I continued. “I mean, it’s not like I got it cleaned before I loaned it to you.”
“I couldn’t have asked you to when you were the one doing me a favor, could I...? But, well, if you don’t mind, then I guess that’s that,” Mio said with a nod. She leaned way back onto the bench and heaved a heavy, languid sigh.
Huh? I sort of thought we’d split up and go home right after she gave it back, I thought...but I didn’t move either. I sat there for a moment, just watching her.
“Man,” said Mio, “it’s like I can still hear it, even now.”
“Hear it...? You mean today’s concert?” I asked.
“Yeah. It’s been a pretty long time since a performance left that much of an impression on me. Makes me wanna jump right into practice, here and now...or, really, it makes me want to put on a show of my own.”
The flames of motivation burning in Mio’s eyes were so distinct, even I could see them. To me, performances were something to watch. Once you’d seen one, that was all there was to it. Mio, however, was a performer. For her, seeing a show was only the start.
Something about that felt really impressive to me. I’d been super pessimistic about this whole endeavor from the start, and if I could turn back the clock and do it all over again, I still wouldn’t have actively wanted to go through with something so risky, but now that it was all over, I could at least say that I was glad I’d managed to give her the chance to see the show for herself.
“Hey, Yotsuba?”
“Yeah?”
“There’s, well... There’s a lot of stuff I’d like to talk about...but I’m honestly still a little worked up after everything that happened today, so this probably isn’t the right time. I’ll just leave it at this for now.”
She smiled at me. I had a feeling that it was the best smile that Mio—not Mio the idol, but plain old Mio Kuruma—could offer.
“Thanks, Yotsuba!”