Epilogue
AFTER EVERYTHING, I THINK the rewards I got for trying my best might have been going a little overboard.
I stood in front of the girls’ bathroom mirror, my face as stiff with anxiety as if I’d used glue in place of lotion. Once the competition was over, my muscles were sore as hell and my poor health came back, but I managed to get past all of that somehow. Now it was after school a few days later. The weather was great, a late burst of warmth, even though we were creeping into fall.
I left the bathroom and set off. When I’d gotten the message last night that said, “I’ll wait for you on the roof after school tomorrow,” I didn’t know what to respond with apart from an OK stamp, but I’d been worried sick ever since. My heart was beating so fast I felt like it was about to explode. If I met Ajisai-san in this condition, I figured I’d straight up die on the spot.
We all knew what this “reward” entailed: a kiss from Ajisai-san.
I groaned and clutched my chest. To be real with you, I was still torn over whether or not I was down for this. By “still,” I mean “now and forever,” mind you. I’m pretty sure a good twenty thousand years could pass, mankind would have settled in outer space, and I’d still be on the fence about it.
But I’d already made my decision. I’d tried my best, and now here was a kiss as my reward. Yeah, maybe I would be confused as heck to pick up Excalibur in the first dungeon, but getting the holy sword in the final dungeon came with a real sense of accomplishment, a feeling like “Wow, I’ve really come this far?” And that’s what this was. Well…I mean, it’d all felt super difficult while I was doing it, but now that it was over, could I really say that the practice and the match were a big enough deal to warrant a kiss from Ajisai-san? Wouldn’t you need to, like, defeat an NBA-level team to deserve a kiss? Oh god, I was getting scared as heck. See, with Mai and Satsuki-san, there’d been that element of surprise. Now that I had plenty of time to put myself in the right mindset, I couldn’t remotely get in the zone at all!
I looked up at the stairs leading to the roof and balled my hands into fists. Okay. You know what? Time to skedaddle. With the positive light of egress shining in my eyes, I made an about-face. Just to be on the safe side, I figured I should fall down the stairs and break a bone or two by way of an excuse.
And just as I was possessed by those dirty, rotten thoughts, someone said, “Amaori-san, may we borrow you for a moment?”
“Huh?”
There stood Takada-san, with three other girls flanking her.
Well, that solved the bone issue. Think they’ll stop after just one?
They took me out behind the school building. I backed away for dear life until I bumped up into a wall.
“Wh-what’s all this about?” I stammered. “Is this payback because you lost? What, are you going to take turns beating us all up? Am I your first target?”
Or was this divine punishment for trying to run away mere moments before I met Ajisai-san? Please, God! That was only my imagination running wild! You know I could never defy one of your angels, right? This is going too far!
I was on the verge of begging for my life in tears when, completely without warning, Takada-san bowed to me. “I most sincerely apologize,” she said.
“H-huh? What for?”
Ajisai-san was the one to apologize to, not me. But she’d already done that to make up for all the trouble the four of them had caused. So, to my mind, there shouldn’t have been anything else for us to talk about.
“My friends told me what they did to you,” Takada-san said.
“Right, and what was that again?”
Wait, was I legit going to come away from this without getting thrashed? Are you sure?
Just then, Haga-san, standing at the back of the pack, recited like she was reading off of a pre-written apology, “We…asked you to throw the match for us.”
“Oh, that.”
“Honestly!” Takada-san yelled. The other three behind her flinched. “Of all the horrid things! My blood just about boiled when I heard about it afterward. You can’t seriously believe I’d be happy if that’s what made us win. I am well and truly disgusted with all of you.”
“I-I’m sorry, Amaori-san,” Kamesaki-san sniffled through tears. “I’m so sorry.”
Oh, thank god. So they weren’t about to put me in a concrete overcoat.
Relieved, I reassessed the situation. So, Takada-san had brought the other three with her to apologize to me over the whole interclass athletics competition debacle, huh? Okay, that made sense. And now that I thought about it, that request of theirs had been pretty infuriating…
“Uh, Takada-san,” I said. “I’m not bothered about it anymore. So you don’t need to be so upset at them.”
Takada-san lifted her eyebrows, evidently surprised. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“I mean, they were just trying their best, right? To make Class B—or, well, you—win. Sure, they might not have gone about it in the best way, but it was all to help you out, right?”
Surprised, the other three girls looked to me as one. Takada-san frowned. “I am extremely reluctant to have it thought that this was done on my behalf.”
“Well, I mean—”
“However!” Takada-san took a deep breath, like she was a flamethrower. “Given that you are the party who was affected by their actions, I’m afraid I don’t have a leg to stand on.”
Without turning around and her head still hung low, she addressed the other three. “Girls, please don’t ever do this again… That is, if you really are doing it for my sake.”
Each of her friends looked disheartened as they responded to her.
Yeah, when we do things based on our own good intentions, we never know how the other person will take it. I’ve had situations like that too. For instance, I thought it was nice to offer to pay when I went on my trip with Ajisai-san, but she thought it’d be a good thing to pay for the whole trip herself. We had a conflict of values, which turned into a whole thing—but in the end, we managed to figure it out without shit hitting the fan. I guess it all boils down to talking it out, you know? What can you both do for each other? And how will it make them feel? I mean, it’s still bad to go bothering other people like these three did. Also, wait—Ajisai-san was waiting for me!
“If we’re done here,” I said, “I have to bounce.”
“Oh, yes,” Takada-san said. “I suppose I’ve never told you why I’m so fixated on Oduka Mai, have I?”
“Huh?”
I mean, I already knew. But if I were to tell her that I’d heard from Haga-san, that’d be breaking my promise to her.
I hemmed and hawed before going, “Y-yeah, I guess not.”
“Well, we’ve caused you quite a lot of trouble this time around. So very well, I shall divulge my hidden shame to you and you alone. You see, it all began back when I was in fifth grade…”
She got a faraway look in her eyes as she put her hand on her chest. W-well, so long as she kept this short, I guess it would be fine… I’d just have to book it to the roof once she was done… Uh-huh…
However, Takada-san’s solo performance did not seem to be hurrying toward a conclusion.
“And then it was as if a bolt of lightning ran through my body,” she said. “Ah, how gorgeous she was, I thought. I had no idea a person so beloved by Venus could truly exist.”
And later: “It was complete defeat. I was utterly dejected. But that left me with two future options: to accept my fate or reject it. In order to protect myself, I turned against Oduka Mai.”
And: “Yet I never expected to see her again. In Ashigaya High, no less! Oduka Mai had already become a figure in my mind that I could never accept. Now, I had no choice but to treat her with hostility. That is why I decided to reign over Class B as its queen.”
And: “This curse of mine has endured so long… Though I may be but a young maiden of sixteen, it truly was a long, long curse to bear. But I now recognize my defeat, and so perhaps I can finally move on.”
You know what was long? Her story!