The Sena Ajisaide of the Story
Season 2
AS AJISAI WAS MAKING DINNER, Kouki asked her, “Hey, Oneechan, what’re you smiling about?”
She told him nothing, but later as she was helping wash dishes, her mother asked her, “Did something nice happen?”
Ajisai was at a bit of a loss. She wondered if she was as much of an open book as they made her out to be. Admittedly, yes, she was pretty elated—but it was only to be expected. After all, she’d been kept on hold for so long, and now she finally had her long-awaited reward.
“Good for you, Ajisai,” Mai told her later over a phone call as Ajisai curled up in bed. Mai’s voice sounded as lovely and clear, like golden light, as it ever was.
“Thanks. I’m really happy too. But Mai-chan are…are you okay with all this?”
There was no pretense in her voice as Mai said, “After your rendezvous with Renako, I, too, had her tell me how much she cared for me. So I’m perfectly all right.”
“Mm, that’s good to hear.”
Maybe Mai was just trying to act tougher than she felt. Or maybe she really meant it. Ajisai still couldn’t tell the difference, and possibly Mai herself didn’t even know, given how hard she tried to be strong.
But in spite of that—or rather, because of that—Ajisai-san said, “You know what, Mai-chan? Since we talked, I have a question for you too.”
“For me?”
“Yeah. What was your first kiss with Rena-chan like?”
“Ah. Well.” Mai sounded flustered, which Ajisai found so amusing she couldn’t help but laugh. Naturally, she figured it was less from embarrassment and more Mai’s concern that hearing it would cause Ajisai discomfort.
Hence, Ajisai pressed, “C’mon, tell me. It’s fine, we can talk about anything at this point. So long as I don’t know, I’m just gonna be curious, you know.”
“Hmmph,” Mai said. “Fine, fine. If you insist.”
Ajisai’s deliberately selfish demand put Mai on the spot. Presently, Ajisai had two goals. The first was to understand just what liking someone meant to Renako. No matter what, Renako persisted in thinking her feelings for Ajisai were one-sided, no matter how much Ajisai tried to explain otherwise. Therefore, she figured it was time for her actions to get the point across, although it’d certainly be an uphill battle.
Which brought her to the second goal.
“We were caught in a sudden rainstorm,” Mai said, “so I took her to a hotel.”
“A-a hotel?!”
Ajisai wanted Mai to be straight with her. Even if some things weren’t great to hear, or ended up hurting her, she wanted Mai to tell her them. Mai was by far a stronger person than Ajisai herself, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be hurt too. If both she and Ajisai were equal before Renako, then Ajisai wanted to shoulder part of the burden of Mai’s sadness and anxieties. Perhaps Mai had stronger feelings than ordinary girls. That thought worried Ajisai a little, but so be it, she decided. She had to nag the kiddos right and left if she wanted them to grow up to be model citizens. She cared about them more than anyone else in the world, and she knew there was no way she could worry about formalities when she was dealing with them.
Three-way relationships were complex, uncertain, puzzling things. They required hard work from every party in order to maintain a balance. That was why—
“But you know,” Mai said, “Renako claims that one didn’t count as it was only a kiss between friends. I took that rather harder than I should have.”
“Huh?” Ajisai said. “Isn’t a kiss just, like, a regular kiss?”
That was why Ajisai wanted to do everything that she could for the sake of her very odd, very extraordinary girlfriends.
She used her hand to fan herself as, red-faced, she mumbled, “I-I’m amazed. I can’t believe you and Rena-chan, like, went that far already…”
“Not exactly.”
“Huh?! What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, there’s so much more to it; it’s a long story… You know what, I’ll tell you another time. For now, I wish you the best of luck in your own endeavors, Ajisai!”
“Wait, what long story? Hey, Mai-chan! Now I’m super curious! Hey. Hey! What long story?”
Now that all three were dating, things were sure to be a lot of fun, Ajisai thought. She wasn’t trying to act tougher than she felt or convince herself that was true. She was sincerely excited for what the future might hold.