Satsuki-san was soft on Ajisai-san. If I put sugar into a rice ball instead of salt, Satsuki-san would have taken one bite, thrown it the floor, and trampled it into the dirt. But if she got a sugared rice ball from Ajisai-san, she’d smile, chow down, and proclaim it the best thing since sliced bread. That’s how much Satsuki-san adored her. It only made sense she would choose Ajisai-san’s video game clone.
“You’re wrong,” Satsuki-san said. “They’re nothing alike.”
“No, but just look at her! It’s the way she talks. Her whole vibe!”
“What, do you think Sena is the only girl who talks like that? Sena’s most Sena-ish aspect is her heart. Her ability to reach out to every sorry soul out there. Please don’t compare me to the likes of you, not when you go leaping after every pretty girl you catch sight of.”
“Um, the game’s barely started? You have no idea how much heart this girl has. But you still picked her! Because she’s like Ajisai-san!”
“Goodness gracious, you say the most out of pocket things. But never mind about that. Let’s take Sena on an aquarium date.”
“You literally just called her Sena!”
She glared at me for screaming in her ear. “Shut up.” Why bully me? I was right!
Finally, having had her fun of horsing around all summer vacation long, Satsuki-san saved the game and put the game down.
“Break time’s over,” she said. “Time for the real Amaori Renako to Study.”
“Better watch out for my Stamina and Stress meters,” I said, giving her the very cutest, most pleadingest face I could.
And yet for all my efforts, she just told me, “Shut up.”
Bruh. Did this mean I had zero Looks irl too?
Okay, so kinda off topic here, but from that day on, Satsuki-san started messaging me about the game. “What is this?” messages, or “I made it to XYZ” messages. You know, happy progress updates. Except she’d write them like this:
Amaori Renako finally came first in class.
Amaori Renako placed dead last in the sports festival. Work out more.
I take it there are some nasty rumors spreading among Amaori Renako’s flock of girls. Thought you ought to know.
That was just how the game worked, though! Satsuki-san was clearly getting a kick out of giving me heart attacks. That friggin’ girl. She was a trickster, I tell you.
But whatever. One day, when we were taking a break from studying, I sat back down across from her and opened my big fat mouth without thinking. “Why the sudden interest in dating sims anyway?”
“I beg your pardon?” she said.
“Like, I thought you weren’t into romance. You literally once called it stupid.”
“Well…” Satsuki-san looked away. It was a very OOC response for her, considering how confident she normally was. Why was she playing coy? “It has to do with Mai.”
“With Mai?” I repeated. “What’d she do now?”
Satsuki-san closed her eyes. “I assume she’ll come beg me for romantic advice about you before too long, so I thought it best I brush up on my concept of puppy love.”
“Oh. That makes sense.” Things were clicking. “And your mom said you’ve been reading romance novels nonstop lately, huh? I guess that’s part of it too.”
“Indeed.” Then, for some very odd reason, Satsuki-san glared at me through half-lidded eyes. “And? Got a problem with it?”
“Huh?” What was she so aggro for? “Uh, no? I was just thinking, that’s nice of you.”
“Me, nice? Nonsense. I’ve never been nice in my life.”
“You tried to help my sister out. And, like, you’re playing a game to help Mai…”
Satsuki-san struggled to come up with an answer for that. Finally, she spat, “Hush. Keep your comments to yourself.”
“S-sorry,” I stammered back.
We lapsed into silence for a moment. Oof. It was kind of awkward. Maybe I put my foot in my mouth with that one. Maybe I owed her a more sincere apology.
But before I could say anything, Satsuki-san went, “Amaori?”
“Y-yeah?”
She leered at me. “Is it fun? Your, ah. Your real-life version of this ‘dating’ thing.”
“Um. Well. I think so.”
“I personally am not interested in dating,” she said. “Close friends are all I need, as clichéd as it is.”
“Well, I get that. Like even now, I kinda feel the same way.” But, also, like… Man, how do I say this? I looked down at my hands and mumbled, “But I mean…in the end, they’re both just relationships.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, you know. People have been caring about each other in some way or another since the dawn of time, right? And I don’t just mean guys for girls and vice versa. Like, girls care for each other too.”
Satsuki-san sat with that for a sec before she said, “Go on.”
Well, okay.
“And I guess people put a label on it later, right? Someone tells you, ‘Hey, I want to go out with you,’ so you promise that you’re going to love this person forever. Using that ‘lover’ label. But like, at the heart of it all, that label’s grounded in the simple desire to care for the other person. You know?”
And that all meant…
“See, I just want Mai and Ajisai-san to be happy. If they both want me in a certain way, then I want to try and give them what they want. But like…it doesn’t make a big difference to me what we call it. Like we could be friends, or lovers, or family—it’s whatever. In the end, it’s just…a relationship. Do you get what I’m saying?”
I looked at Satsuki-san to see how she was taking it. Her eyes were cold as she looked back at me.
“Last time I checked,” she said, “friends don’t kiss or get butterflies in their stomach around each other.”
She was all but saying, “These are clearly different things.” But I disagreed.
“…I dunno about that,” I said.
“Pardon?”
“Oh, never mind!” I thought she’d get mad at me if I told her, so I bit back what I was about to say.
“No, tell me. I’ll be mad if you don’t.”
“Seriously, how the heck are you reading my mind, and can you stop?!”
“Never you mind about that. Just tell me.”
“Eep.” I laced my fingers together over my chest and very hesitantly confessed, “I just… My heart beat a mile a minute when you kissed me and when we bathed together. So I just think…maybe you can have that kind of thing as friends. Like, if you respect someone, and really admire someone…maybe you can still get butterflies in your stomach.”
“…Excuse me?”
And Satsuki-san. Well.
She turned just as red as the night she kissed me for the first time. “You—” she spluttered.
“Wait, no! Sorry! That came out wrong.”
“Are you telling me…you have feelings for me?”
“Huh?!” I cried. I waved my hands in a frantic effort to refute her. “No, not at all. I think! Like, of course I have feelings about you—but not in that sense. I promise! Besides, I already have a girlfr—multiple girlfriends.”
Satsuki-san put a hand to her mouth and looked at a spot on the floor. She looked like she was thinking it over. However, I could still see her ears where her hair didn’t cover them, and they were bright red. That, in turn, made me feel embarrassed.