“Thank you for waiting for me, Renako… Renako, are you quite all right?”
I staggered into the limo and threw my arms around the seated Mai within. I groaned. “Mai, please be the one person who sticks with me until the end.”
“Y-yes, I suppose? What happened?”
My conversation with Kaho-chan at lunch ate at me for the rest of the day. I could barely focus in class all afternoon—although that was nothing new.
Today we were busting out the big guns in our war on Haruna. Big guns = Mai. But before we got to the showdown, I needed to get my head on straight.
I groaned again. “Maaaiii. Oh, is it really you? You feel just like her…smell just like her too.”
“Y-yes, well. That would be because I’m me.” She patted my back as I draped myself across her lap.
“What about you, Mai?” I said. “Do you have an old friend from childhood?”
“I do, but I don’t see why you’re asking.”
“Don’t tell me. Are they a Hollywood actor?”
“No. To the best of my knowledge, Satsuki has never been in any films.” As I was still sprawled across her legs, she asked me, “Is your imagination acting up and causing you to get anxious again?”
“You know me so well,” I said. “You could be a professor in Amaori Renakology when you grow up.”
“That would be lovely.”
Mai was a sweetheart. She just rolled with my incomprehensible nonsense. God, I didn’t want to lose her. That’s why I kept working so hard. Yet for a self-appointed goal, I was awfully quick to lose heart whenever a new opportunity for worry presented itself.
I could feel my inner jerkwad junior-high self cackling at me. “You shouldn’t have tried earning this happiness to begin with! You don’t deserve it!” Oh, goddamn it. I couldn’t let myself be beaten by someone who did nothing but look down on other people. Even if that person was, well, also myself.
I lurched upright and off of Mai’s lap.
“No!” I said. “Forget any of this ever happened. Redo! Oh, Mai, it’s so good to see you. Thank you for coming home with me today.”
I shot her an easygoing, happy smile. Then Mai took my hand and planted a kiss on the tip of my nose. Gwagh! It was the lightest of touches, just a brush of her lips against my face, but I stiffened. My cheeks lit up fire engine red.
Mai beamed at me. “There,” she said. “Feeling better now?”
I nodded woodenly. “Yeah.”
“Are you sure? We could go a bit further, if you’d like.”
“Nuh-uh no way no Touchy Time or Touched Time before we see my sister because that is literally the most awkward thing on the planet and oh my god I would die!” I slammed back at roughly fifty million kilometers per hour.
Mai chuckled. My heart galloped like a racehorse. Just because. Well. You know. Because she caught me off guard!
Shocking, wasn’t it, how a single bit of PDA could wash all that evil anxiety away. Brains, man. I dunno how the heck they worked.
Speaking of brains, the Amaori Renako who lived inside my brain turned her withering gaze on me. “You worked yourself up into a tizzy, and then you’re all back to normal the minute your gurrrlfriend kisses you? Yuck. Get a load of this schoolgirl with a crush, everybody.”
Yeah, and what of it? Maybe I was a schoolgirl with a crush. So what? Mai and I were dating. So what?! Yes, classifying myself as a “schoolgirl with a crush” made my hair stand on end. But what of it? Huh? Huh?!
(Hold on. Give me a sec to catch my breath.)
Well, from the sheer shock of the kiss, at least I was no longer worried about the jealousy issue.
“Mai,” I said. “Your first impression of me must be totally shattered.” Cat was out of the bag now. Amaori Renako was a W-E-I-R-D-O.
“Oh? I-I suppose, yes.” She looked slightly startled. “Well, but of course I thought you were charming from the moment we met. But I have noticed a growing maturity every time you surmount a fresh obstacle. Not to mention…” Almost like she was professing her feelings to me, Mai whispered, “Not to mention, you’re more adorable than ever.”
I made a strange choking noise before I finally coughed out, “Thanks!” I smiled like I was dead inside. God, this was mortifying.
Mai’s eyes widened in momentary surprise, and then she laughed.
“Wh-what’s so funny?” I said.
“Oh, nothing. I was only thinking that I always tell you the truth. But this is the first time you’ve ever accepted a compliment.”
There went the choking noise again. This time, my head also went ka-boom.
“You’ve come a long way,” Mai said. She folded her arms. “Oh, that you have.”
I protested, my voice rising to tones so shrill they flirted with the upper range of the human hearing spectrum, “Th-th-th-that’s not true! I was just! Going along with the bit! Yes, and-ing you! Because you were clearly making a joke! I’m not adorable in the slightest!”
“My next goal will be for you to respond to my compliments with, ‘Aww, thanks. You make me smile!’”
“So not happening. Not in a million years.”
“You’re adorable, Renako.”
“I most certainly am not! I have never been adorable, not once in my whole life!” I snarled at her.
Mai just shrugged back, clearly amused with herself. This freaking girl, I’m telling you. Gaaaaaaaaaaaahd. This freaking girl!
I placed a hand on my chest above my haywire heart. This time, I wasn’t freaked out about jealousy and its related issues. I was much, much more concerned about turning into the complete antithesis of myself. I mean, I’d only known Mai for what, less than a year? By the time the year was out, maybe I really would be all, “Aww, you make me smile!” If that happened, I’d…well, I’d…
Scratch that. Point was, I had no idea how much Mai really meant that. Either way, she’d gotten rid of my fears…by giving me a whole host of bigger things to worry about.
The source of said worries beamed. “To return to the topic at hand, I do understand your concern. It’s only natural to be worried when one’s sister turns truant.”
“Yeah. You’re telling me.”
Mind you, that was only number three on my list of concerns. (Terrible older sister, that’s me.) You know what? It was time to shape up and focus on my baby sis. Shifting into serious mode. Amaorinvolved and Amaorinterested Renako time.
“That aside,” I said, “thanks for coming with me today. Seriously. I appreciate you taking the time off work to help me.”
“Oh heavens, what are you saying? Haruna is my future sister-in-law, so why wouldn’t I drop everything and help? Also, did you tell her we were coming?”
“Yeah, a few minutes ago.”
To be honest, I had wanted to spring a surprise attack on my sis, but Mai insisted I text that we were on our way. I guess Mai was that confident in her own abilities. That, or she had some other plan. The situation was so dire that all my hopes rode on her, and I felt kinda guilty about that. Whatever issue my sister had going on looked pretty darn thorny, you know?
“Ajisai-san and Satsuki-san didn’t have any luck,” I reminded her. “You don’t need to bend over backward to pull this off either.”
“I know,” said Mai. “Don’t worry.”
I took her hand in mine and squeezed it. “It’ll be okay. I know all your bad sides, all the things that you want to keep hidden. And I still want to be with you, remember? I see you for who you are—the real Mai. Not just the fantasy Mai.”
“Y-yes, I know. But I was not aware you’d lost so much faith in me…?”
She looked pained. But I didn’t mean it like that!
“No! It’s just, agh! It’s a thing Satsuki-san said the other day!”
I could only imagine the stink eye Hanatori-san was giving us as we freaked out in the backseat. When I felt her eyes on me, I sobered up. I doubted she was thinking much of anything… But you know.
Then I spilled all the beans to Mai. I felt like I was doing Satsuki-san dirty, exposing her like this, which made me too afraid to look at my phone for a while afterward. (By the way, Satsuki-san never ended up texting me. I guess her sharp ears weren’t omnipotent after all.)
Once I was done, Mai smiled gently. “Hmm, I see. But I don’t understand why that is an issue. After all, I have shown you quite a few humiliating aspects of myself from day one.”
Wait, she had? “You sure? You’ve always looked really cool to me.”
I scrutinized her so heavily she turned away. “…As thrilled as I am to hear you say that, you make me very bashful.” She covered her reddening cheeks. Aww. That was cute. Mai was way cuter than me, that’s for sure!
Also, I dunno if I agreed with her. It’s true that Mai had slipped up in front of me a lot. But the way she acted in the interclass competition was so cool it superseded all of that. Besides, Mai may have been a glamorous model and the supadari of Ashigaya High, but she was at her core just one teenage girl. Yeah. Just a girl who lit up when I complimented her.
From moment one of high school, I had idolized Mai with all my heart. Then as time went on, I learned a lot more about her. But I don’t think that made me like her any less. If anything, my feelings for her only grew. Maybe this was another example of me being a weirdo.