“Ready to go, Rena-chan?” Ajisai-san asked me with a big smile.
“Uh-huh.”
God, she was so cute. Cuteness incarnate.
Anyway, four beautiful girls had come together with the mission of rescuing one Amaori Haruna. Step one: Ajisai-san gracing our humble home with her presence this afternoon. Mai offered to go first, but alas, she had too much work. Her schedule wouldn’t open up for another week.
Now, I said step one, but I didn’t anticipate us needing any more steps after that. Ajisai-san was a much better big sister than me. She’d mop the floor with my baby sis. Heh heh heh.
Wait, how come the instant Ajisai-san and I were alone together, she went totally quiet? What was that about? Seriously, the whole time we were at the train station and on the train itself, Ajisai-san didn’t say a word. I kept sneaking glances at her, but weirdly enough, she never met my eye. Uh, hello?
“Are you nervous, Ajisai-san?” I asked. Because I was nervous!
Or wait a minute… Oh no. A very frightening possibility just occurred to me. Maybe Hanatori-san had cornered her and subjected her to questioning. Maybe Ajisai-san would turn to me and say, “I’m really sorry, Rena-chan. Hanatori-san’s set an assassin after you. I don’t think you stand a chance, but good luck, I guess? Lololol.” Or had I unwittingly done something rude and hurt Ajisai-san’s feelings? Oh no! There were just too many likely possibilities!
Just then, Ajisai-san jolted. “Oops, I’m sorry,” she said. “I was kind of spacing out there.”
“Oh, was that all it was? Whew. So it’s not my fault? I didn’t accidentally say anything so out of pocket you wanted to stop being friends with me, right? Man, for a minute there, I was worried.”
“Rena-chan, I wouldn’t stop being friends with you just for a single slipup,” Ajisai-san said, bringing me back down to earth once again. Ah, she was so grounding. If she grounded me any harder, I’d have to start calling her Mom.
“Or anyone,” she added. “I don’t get mad that easily.”
“Ahh, a second helping. Thank you, Mom, I couldn’t eat another bite.”
“Uh, what?” She seemed genuinely baffled at my show of appreciation for her welcome rain of grounding comments. Don’t worry about it, Ajisai-san. I’m just basking in this pleasant feeling.
Ajisai-san laced her fingers together and said, “Hey, you know what?” Cute af.
“What’s up?”
“You know… This is kind of embarrassing, but I should probably bring it up.”
She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened her mouth again. She was obviously trying to make up her mind. It was really darn cute.
I realized that I trusted her enough to know she wouldn’t deliver some scathing criticism. Well…I mean, did I? Really, really? We all know how much I sucked. I was terrified she’d say something hellish. Like, “You know, I think we should go our separate ways after all. If people see us together, they might start a nasty rumor that we’re friends.”
“I was hoping to bring this up once we were alone,” she said. “I, uh, feel bad about my behavior the other day.”
I was stunned into silence. What other day? What was she talking about? The day Hanatori-san took us home in the limo? Lunch the other day? Or some time way before that? My life flashed before my eyes, but I could not find a single instance of bad behavior on Ajisai-san’s part.
The train passed through a whole stop before I finally shook my head and said, “Uh, I don’t think you did anything…wrong…?”
“O-oh, really?” She looked discomfited. Maybe it was the delay in my response. “I mean, it wasn’t a nice thing, though. I shouldn’t have let another girl stick herself all over me right in front of you.”
“Wait, what?”
“After all…I’m your girlfriend, Rena-chan.” Ajisai-san turned bright red.
I opened my mouth, and absolutely nothing came out. The G-word rattled my skull. Now I remembered. The day we went shoe shopping. Kaho-chan sat on Ajisai-san’s lap, and Ajisai-san hugged her from behind. That’s what Ajisai-san was referring to.
Wait, wait, wait. Back up a bit. Did this mean she’d been worried ever since? About my feelings? Ajisai-san? Worried about me?! It was almost like she cared about me or something!
“Wait, no!” I said, flapping my hands in refusal. “I didn’t mind at all.”
“You looked spitting mad, though…”
Not at Ajisai-san. I was just making that face because Kaho-chan was trying to flex on me. Duh! Sure, maybe I was kind of annoyed, but at Kaho-chan and Kaho-chan only.
Okay, I needed to calm down. I took a sec to get my words in order. “Just so you know, I’ve never been mad at you for hanging out with other people. No matter who! I always think, ‘Gosh, she’s so popular,’ and that’s it.”
“…R-really? You never get a little…uh, jealous?”
“Me, jealous? Pfft! Nah!” I declared, in my best attempt to cheer her up. “Why would I be jealous? People can touch you all they want, and I’d never think twice about it. Jealous? Not in a million years!”
Ajisai-san looked horrified. What for?! “O-oh. Okay. I see.”
“Yeah! I mean, everyone loves you, right? You’re the angel of Ashigaya High. I can’t try to hog you all to myself.”
“Right…”
The more I tried to amp her up, the more she wilted. Satsuki-san, help me! I thought. My hand gravitated to my phone, but I knew that leaving Ajisai-san to call Satsuki-san would lock me into a bad ending. So I forced myself to ignore my phone. I needed to cheer Ajisai-san up some way, any way! All on my lonesome!
“Um. Uh. Ajisai-san? You, uh. You look really cute today…?” I tried. Nope. My voice came out so thin I sounded like a mosquito.
She giggled and flashed me double peace signs, but it didn’t look natural. “Wow…thanks. You sure, uh…always put a smile on my face.”
Whew. I guess I pulled that off someh—actually, I don’t think I did at all. Because she was clearly faking it!
“I’m sorry, Ajisai-san!” I said. “To be real with you, I don’t have a clue what’s going on!”
“R-Rena-chan?”
I completely gave up and bowed to her. If we hadn’t been on the train, I would have groveled on the ground in front of her. As horribly brazen as it was, I needed answers.
“Did you…want me to be jealous?” I asked.
Ajisai-san bit her lip. “Mmmmmmm…?” She looked like she was trying to hold back a hiccup. Then she looked away and started mumbling, “W-well, I guess I did bring this up. As e-embarrassing as it is, you won’t know unless I tell you…out right…”
Then she made up her mind, looked at me, and nodded. “I-if you’re not jealous at all, I feel, just…a little unappreciated.”
“Oh…”
“Y-yeah.”
Okay, got it. So she would’ve been happier had I been kinda jealous. “All right. I’ll do my best. Time to be jealous.”
“Y-you don’t have to force yourself.”
“No, I have to! I promised to try my best, remember? So I’m going to try my best at being jealous! Grr, I wish I was your uniform! How come it gets to stick to your chest and I don’t, huh? The nerve!”
“That’s not at all what I meant, though!”
Oh, really? Guess I was going down the wrong track. And now Ajisai-san was telling me off… God, I really couldn’t do anything right.
“Okay, so what’s your version of jealousy?” I asked her. “Can you give me an example?”
“Huh?!” She turned even redder. “A-an example…? Oh gosh. Uh, I dunno…”
“I mean, I have no idea what you want from me! So I want to learn. I’ll get some books on psychology and read those!”
“You can’t learn jealousy from a book.” Ajisai-san grimaced for a few moments and then very, very quietly said, “J-just as a theoretical example…it’s like if I saw you and Satsuki-san talking…just, you know, theoretically…and I started to wonder what you guys were talking about, and…you know.”
Her faltering, and entirely theoretical, explanation gave me a light bulb moment. “Oh, I get it. That’s what you mean by jealousy. That makes sense!”
“J-just so you know, I made that up! It’s not real!” she insisted.
I smiled at her brightly, the way my little sister taught me. “Don’t worry, I get it. Everyone loves you, remember? You’re the angel of Ashigaya High. It’s okay! I know I’m nothing but a Joe Schmoe, so I can do whatever I want and you’ll never, ever feel jealous of me. Not in a million years!”