“R-right!” I said. “You’re both my…great friends! Wow, I’m the luckiest person alive to have friends like you. Makes me so happy I just…screamed! Yeah!” I forced myself to laugh.
See, Ajisai-san, Mai, and I were all dating. Not that this was a problem in and of itself. I mean, it wasn’t ideal! It was kind of a mess. But, like, the dating part was chill. You get what I’m saying. We all decided on it together, and so we at least had a common agreement.
No, the problem was the person driving the car at this very moment—Hanatori-san. She cared about nothing except for Mai’s happiness, and she’d once declared that if she ever got wind of anyone two-timing Mai, that person would be dead meat. Of course, that was only a hypothetical situation. As if there could ever be anyone who’d date Mai and, ha, another person at the same time? Get real!
Except, welp, here I was.
“Wh-whatever you say, Rena-chan,” said Ajiisai-san. “You’re a great friend to me too, of course.”
“Absolutely,” Mai added. “And we both swore we’d be here to help carry your burdens, didn’t we?”
Oh god, what was I supposed to do now? With my life on the line like this, their words were not making the slightest bit of impact on me.
“So if anything’s making you upset…” Ajisai-chan continued.
“Yes, if anything is troubling you, you should tell us.”
I fake laughed again. “W-wow, thanks! Gosh, you two are so nice to me I just can’t stop, uh, sweating! Boy, am I one lucky duck.”
I needed to (by some massive luck) prevent the word “girlfriend” popping up so Hanatori-san wouldn’t find out. That was the only way I’d make it through this conversation alive. The problem was, I didn’t know if I had the chops to do it. But if I didn’t, I’d be a Renakorpse, so my only option was to try!
Just then, Hanatori-san said, “My apologies, mistress, but might I interrupt your conversation?”
My heart about flew out of my mouth.
“Yes? What is it, Hanatori-san?” Mai said.
Oh god, oh god, oh god. I could hear it already: “Mistress, is this girl dating you and this other girl at the same time?” Then I’d go full aggro and be like, “Yeah, and? Whatcha gonna do about it? Listen up, sweet cheeks. If you kill me, Mai’ll be beside herself! Got that?” I couldn’t imagine Mai and Ajisai-san liking me after that. No, no, a thousand times no.
But Hanatori-san asked, “Which young lady am I dropping off first?”
“Oh, I suppose we didn’t say,” Mai mused. “Would you please take Ajisai home?”
“As you wish. Thank you, mistress.” Hanatori bobbed her head in polite acknowledgment and, with a smile still plastered on her face, shot me another look. Eep.
“Rena-chan?” Ajisai-san said. “You look deathly pale.”
“D-do I?” I said. “You must be imagining things.”
I forced myself to make a smile that didn’t reach my eyes. At this rate, I thought, I’d go gray by the end of the car ride.
Mai and Ajisai-san exchanged a quick look with one another.
“I guess she doesn’t want to open up to us,” Ajisai-san said.
“I fear you’re right. I had hoped we could help, but perhaps we’re simply being too nosy,” said Mai.
That wasn’t it. Really. None of the people here had done anything wrong. Well, maybe I had. Maybe my wish to obtain happiness was the underlying problem. Oh, whatever. I had to bite the bullet and get it over with. This wasn’t the kind of secret to take to the grave.
So I said, “No, that’s not it! It’s just. Um. My sister’s stopped going to school for mental health reasons!”
“Haruna-kun has?” Mai asked.
“But why?” said Ajisai-san. Both she and Mai turned pale. Oh shoot. They knew my sister. Like, as acquaintances!
“She didn’t tell me why,” I said. “It’s, uh, it’s kinda complicated. I get why it’d be hard for her to open up to me about it.”
Out of all my friends, only Satsuki-san knew I wasn’t inherently a chipper-dipper outgoing sort. But even then, I hadn’t told a soul about my own hooky days.
Mai looked concerned. “Perhaps it’s something that’s hard to talk about with her family.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Ajisai-san agreed. “No wonder you’ve been so upset.”
She looked devastated on my behalf. I’m sorry, Ajisai-san, I thought. Clamming up like this was just a survival instinct.
“She hasn’t gone to school for a whole three days now,” I said. “I’m pretty darn worried, as you can probably imagine.”
That certainly wasn’t a lie. I was worried about my sister’s well-being too, but I also felt like I was looking back at my junior high self every time I bumped into her. I wished she’d tell me what was going on. Maybe there was something I could do to help. Not very likely, mind you, but it was technically within the realm of possibility.
“Hmm,” Mai said. “What if I were to talk to Haruna-kun?”
“Huh?”
Ajisai-san clapped her hands in an “Ah-ha!” gesture. “That’s a great idea.”
“I-I dunno, guys,” I said. I started to go glassy-eyed from panic, but the conversation continued on without me.
“Yeah, yeah,” said Ajisai-san. “If we all showed up at Rena-chan’s house together, we might scare Haruna-chan. What if we each went to visit her one at a time?”
“A fantastic plan. Let’s do just that.”
I finally discovered a lull in their dialogue and thrust myself into it frantically. “You, uh, don’t have to go that far. Not for my sister.”
“But…” Ajisai-san, the kindest person on earth, faltered. “It’s not just because she’s your sister. I mean, that’s part of it. But I also talk to Haruna-chan on her own, you know? She feels like a kouhai to me. If one of my kouhais is struggling with something she can’t tell anyone, well…I want to be a listening ear for her, you know?”
“Ajisai-san…”
Mai, the most socially graceful person on earth, smiled and chimed in too. “I couldn’t have said it better myself. Well, what do you think, Renako? Would your sister mind if we offered an additional shoulder or two to cry on?”
Since they were offering, I mean…
I shook my head. “Not at all. That’d be huge.”
There was no freaking way my sister would talk to me, but maybe there was hope for Ajisai-san and Mai. Hope. A brilliance as bright as the sun. No matter what complex personal topic froze your heart solid, these two could melt the ice and let you get everything off your chest. At least, way better than I could!
Then Ajisai-san said, “Hey, Rena-chan. Um…do you mind if we shared this with Satsuki-chan and Kaho-chan? I know they were really worried about you this afternoon.”
It was sweet of her to say that, but I just didn’t know, man. I hemmed and hawed internally.
Mai laid a hand over mine. “Where’s the harm in talking? You know Satsuki and Kaho won’t take it poorly.”
She said it so kindly that I felt like agreeing with her. I felt my own ice melting too.
“I-if it’s not too much of a bother…” I said.
“Of course not,” said Mai.
“Not at all!” Ajisai-san agreed. She took my other hand in hers.
They were both so, so kind to me. And it wasn’t just because I was dating them. It’s because they were people with beautiful hearts.
Honestly, I was damn lucky to make the friends I had in high school. They were the kind of people I wanted to meet again in my next life.
Welp. I’d just have to do my best to survive that long, and for that, I needed to make sure Hanatori-san never found out. Actually, you know what? If I explained it to her, woman to woman, maybe she would understand. Maybe Hanatori-san wasn’t such a bad person after all. The way she talked was terrifying, and she glared like nobody’s business. But that had simply fooled me into thinking she was worse than she was. Maybe she would be forgiving about the whole two-timing thing. After all, she worked for Mai, and look how forgiving Mai was. That had to have rubbed off on her. Just like how Mai rubbed off on me.
Mai smiled. “After all, once you and I get married, Haruna-kun will be my little sister too. Why, she’s practically family already.”
I yelped, and my eyes bugged out of my sockets. I knew she was joking, but like. Come on.
“W-wow, Mai-chan, that’s bold,” Ajisai-san said. “Get a room, you two.” She made a show of fanning herself.
Mai chuckled. “Are you not in the same boat, Ajisai?”
Uhhhhhhh.
“Me?” Ajisai-san said. “I’ve never, uh… I’ve never thought that far ahead.” She fidgeted and blushed before shooting me a glance out of the corner of her eye.
Hey now. Mai × Satsu fangirl number one was listening.
But Hanatori-san made no comment and continued driving. Did this mean I was in the clear? Yeah, I was, right? Mai was blatant as heck, but not Ajisai-san. You wouldn’t have been able to tell I was dating both unless you knew already. Right? Right?!
Hanatori-san said nothing when we dropped off Ajisai-san. And she didn’t speak up when we got to my house either. Not a word. That definitely meant I was in the clear, right? I felt like I was jumping at shadows. I couldn’t just ask her, “Hey, did you just find out that I’m two-timing Mai?” so I had to no choice but to suppress the urge to leap at every hint of darkness conjured up by my guilty conscience. Which was exhausting, let me tell you!
The next day, my friends gave me an opportunity to talk about my little sister’s situation. Every one of them, even Satsuki-san and Kaho-chan, offered to help. Man, did I have the best friends ever or what?
All the while, the Hanatori-san in my head advanced on me with a chainsaw, whispering, “You would think spending so much time around such nice folks would make you a better person. So why are you still like that?” Ugh! Begone, mental Hanatori-sans! I spammed the delete key.
Fortunately, that turned out to be the end of this particular Hanatori-san nightmare. But I knew it was only a matter of time until a second or third came along…
Oh, shut up, I told myself. Now’s the time to focus on my sister.