“But in spite of all that, she refuses to let anyone outshine her at school. Like, she wants to win at school if nothing else, you know? She’s really sincere about that. But at this rate, Oduka-san’s gonna take away every place where Himi-chan can be herself.”
Ah, so that’s what Haga-san meant by it being a matter of life or death. It seemed like quite a few models around my age were impacted by Mai. There were probably tons of girls out there like Takada-san. I randomly happened to think back to the video Hanatori-san had shown me with Mai, Satsuki-san, and the crowd of little girl models behind them.
But with that being said… “That kinda feels like an unreasonable grudge,” I said.
“Totally,” Haga-san agreed. “But I still think that if she can beat Oduka-san, Himi-chan will be able to move on. Please, Amaori-san.” She looked at me with everything she had. “Please. We’ll apologize to Sena-san for what we did and everything… So would you, pretty please? Help us out, Amaori-san.”
That was asking for too much.
“You can ask all you want,” I said, “but I just can’t. Sorry.”
“Amaori-san!”
I couldn’t bear to be there any longer, so I dashed away to outrun her stare.
Even if she was doing this for her friend, this was no fair. If she had the time to go preying on people’s goodwill, then she could have used that to get more practice in! I mean, maybe she did practice. But you get what I’m trying to say. She could ask until she was blue in the face, but there was no freaking way I’d help her enough to throw the whole game.
But then, after I’d freed myself from Haga-san…
I got caught by the next person. “Please, Amaori-san,” she begged, executing a perfect ninety-degree bow. This was Kamesaki Chiduru-san, she of the long bangs and the somewhat inexpressive face. It was exactly like that time with Haga-san.
“Wh-what do you want?” I asked. “You’re not going to ask me to lose the competition on purpose, are you?”
It was a one-on-one with Kamesaki-san and me in the deserted outdoor walkway. Kamesaki-san jolted in shock and then nodded earnestly. “Yes, indeed,” she said. “I’ve never seen Himiko look so nervous before.”
I didn’t want to hear it, but Kamesaki-san started to explain the details of her own accord. “She always has confidence in spades, no matter what. It’s rare for her to express any insecurities. Now that there is no going back, she has no choice but to win. And if she loses, she’ll lose everything. She says that the rest of her high school experience will be ruined.”
The no-going-back part, I assumed, referred to how she knocked Ajisai-san’s pencil case off the desk. Yeah, to be fair, that was the moment when the rivalry between Class A and Class B ceased to be just a joke. Class A came together with Takada-san as our bad guy. But, I mean…she started it.
“You see,” Kamesaki-san went on, “Himiko has always been the type to get carried away or run with her incorrect impressions of things. And then she gets herself hurt. I just can’t bear to watch; it’s so risky. She’s a fool, you know. But this current episode is completely unlike all the rest.”
No way. I felt like she was telling me the backstory of some character I didn’t know. The only Takada-san I knew was the one who threw down with Mai. But now they kept on telling me that there was so much more to her story than met the eye. Please, I’d really rather stay out of it. Or was this what Haga-san meant by me standing out?
“Please, Amaori-san,” Kamesaki-san said. “I know it’s wretched of me to ask, but I simply don’t have any other alternatives. I know Himiko would be furious with me if she knew what I was doing, but all the same… Would you please?”
I stiffened as Kamesaki-san bowed before me. How come Haga-san and Kamesaki-san were begging me, of all people? Suddenly, the answer hit me.
There’s always a story to the lives of extroverts. Let’s take Oduka Mai for instance, as she’s a good example. Mai cooked up her own story and pulled everyone in school, Takada-san included, into it—saving me when I became her friend, dominating over Satsuki-san as her rival, and more. That was just how Mai rolled. Now, if I had remained an asocial loser even in high school, and had I met Mai by chance for a moment—say she’d smiled at me in the library after school or kindly swapped two or three words with me—that would have become a treasured memory even after I’d graduated. That was the power of Mai’s story. She was a popular, extroverted person, which gave her a kind of glowing presence. And Mai wasn’t the only one with that. Satsuki-san, Ajisai-san, and Kaho-chan all influenced other people to this day.
And so maybe… Maybe from the moment Takada-san had knocked over Ajisai-san’s pencil case and I’d gotten fired up and declared war, I’d accidentally crossed the threshold into such an existence. The thought frightened me.
“Sorry,” I said, “but I just can’t. That’s not an option for me!”
“Oh, Amaori-san!”
I refused her plea. Making an impact on someone isn’t always a good thing. If someone makes an unreasonable demand of you and you refuse it, they can hold a grudge for no good reason. Which is absurd. But Mai had been hurt by such absurdity many times over, I knew. People talk about the price of fame, but I hadn’t really considered it before. Standing out in the public eye meant that someone will come along and cast you as a character in their story without any of your input.
Miss me with that. Being a popular girl wasn’t a privilege. It was a responsibility. But I couldn’t be a part of so many people’s lives. My communication juice ran out way too quickly, and my mental points recovered too slowly. Now that I was out of my league, status-wise, there was nothing I could do. Even when Haga-san and Kamesaki-san bombarded me with their feelings, saying it was for Takada-san’s own good, I couldn’t criticize them or try to persuade them that what they were doing was unreasonable. All I could do was build a wall and run away.
My breathing was ragged. While I took a short rest, someone behind me called, “Oh hey, Amaori-san! You got a sec?”
I turned to look. There stood the mysterious girl who aped Kaho-chan, both hands pressed together and an apologetic look on her face. Oh, for the love of god. Spare me.