I flushed bright red and flapped my hands in frantic denial. “D-don’t worry! Look, I’ll text Mai right now. Then you can trust me, right?”
“I bet that account’s fake. I bet you made an alt with the name of Oduka Mai just so you could trick me.”
“What, like I’m a con artist?!”
“Rena-chin does have a track record,” Kaho-chan unhelpfully supplied.
“Excuse me, madam!” I snapped back at her. “Quit sipping your iced milk on the sidelines and get in here! This is all your fault.”
Thanks to Kaho-chan, this poor, innocent teenage girl now had zero trust in me. Even after the whole sister thing got cleared up, my relationship with Seira-san would be ruined!
“See?! Look!” I said. “I’m sending a message to Mai right now.”
And I dashed off a text to Mai in two seconds flat: One of my sister’s friends is a fan of yours. Would you be willing to meet her sometime?
I brandished my phone at Seira-san, and she scrutinized the message with narrowed eyes.
“You sent it, I’ll give you that,” she finally conceded. “But that could just be for me to see. You could always erase the message before whoever’s on the other end has a chance to look at it.”
“Oh, for the love of—how am I supposed to prove this to you?”
Seira-san held up her phone. “I want video evidence.”
“Huh?”
“I want your statement on video. Right here, right now. Do you have your school ID on you?”
“I do, but what for?”
She ignored that question. “I’m going to send you a statement. Face the camera and read it aloud.”
Seira-san sent me a text file. I held my student ID over my chest, looked straight into the camera, and forced myself to smile as I recited, “I, Amaori Renako of Ashigaya High Class 1-A, seat 2, do declare that I have committed grievous injury to my little sister’s friend and owe her recompense. If I should ever break a promise to her again, I solemnly swear to pay one hundred million yen in damages.”
“Good. Now, let’s see them boobies.”
“Literally what?!” I shrieked—understandable, given the nature of her request—and Seira-san clicked her tongue.
She turned her phone off. All was forgiven, or so it seemed. Also, uh. One hundred million yen? Really?
“Fulfill your promise within a year, please and thank you,” she said. “Should you exceed the time limit, the entire internet will know what you’ve done.”
“Christ almighty…”
She’d got me well and good. Seira-san could ruin my entire life with a flick of her finger.
“And now we come to you, Nagipo-san,” Seira-san said. “Oh yes, now we come to you.”
“Hm? What about me?”
“Wait, why are you recording us?!”
Kaho-chan had her camera up, along with a sickly-sweet, doll-like smile. “’Cause you’re threatening Mai’s bestie.”
Seira-san squawked and grabbed Kaho-chan by the collar. “Turn it off, I beg you! If she sees that, she’ll never agree to meet me. Oh god, you’ll make her hate me!”
Kaho-chan looked in the other direction and whistled innocently.
Seira-san gasped and drew back. “No… Was this your goal all along?”
“This is what they call insurance, y’know?” Kaho-chan giggled.
And that meant… I raised my camera too. “So be it,” I said. “Kaho-chan, let’s see them boobies.”
“Wait, why me?” she protested.
“Ah yes,” said Seira-san. “The old Mexican standoff.”
Seira-san had me by the (metaphorical) balls. Kaho-chan had Seira-san by her (metaphorical) balls. So unless I went for Kaho-chan’s (figurative) nut sack, things wouldn’t be balanced. Right?
“If ya say so.” Kaho-chan sighed. “You’re a nasty perv, Rena-chin, but I guess I already knew that from all our one-on-one action.”
“Could you have picked a worse way to phrase that?!” I demanded.
Seira-san’s eyes grew wide. “Wait a sec,” she said. “You two are…?”
“Are not!” I said.
“Are too,” said Kaho-chan. “But she’s only in it for my body.”
“Kaho-chan, would you take your contacts out already?!”
Seira-san blushed, and I shuddered to think what she was imagining. “I guess that’s what happens when you hit high school,” she murmured. “How mature… Okay, never mind. Let’s get down to business. You know, the thing you wanted to see me for?”
“Oh, right.”
Before I could clear up the misunderstanding for Seira-san, the conversation moved on without me. Come to think of it, Youko-chan was under the mistaken impression that Kaho-chan and I were dating too… I wished people would start listening when I said that wasn’t true, dammit.
Anyway, back on track. “It’s about my sister,” I said.
Now that the topic had finally been broached, Seira-san’s expression darkened. “I don’t want to talk about it, which is why I kept leaving you guys on read. You know that, right?”
Eep. She sounded so accusatory.
I gave Seira-san a very small nod. “I know. And I’m sorry. But please tell me anyway. You know something, don’t you?”
Seira-san slurped some of the ice cream off her spoon. Her eyes were heavy with emotion. “Whatcha gonna do if I tell you?” she asked. “You might feel better once it’s no longer a mystery, but if you’re just asking ’cause you’re curious, you should quit while you’re ahead.”
“No, I’m not just being nosy.” Or at least I didn’t think I was, but I had trouble getting those words out.
Kaho-chan bailed me out. “Yeah, Rena-chin’s not like that.”
“Hm?” said Seira-san.
“She’s legit worried about her baby sis. ’Sides, you know I’d never go this far to help a classmate unless it was, like, a big deal. Mai even lent us her account too. We’re all helping Rena-chin ’cause she’s seriously concerned.”
Oh, Kaho-chan! She could bully and harass me to the moon and back, but that didn’t change how much of a lifesaver she was at this moment. There was no way I’d ever say it out loud, but I knew: Kaho-chan was a Good Person.
…Wait a minute. That was the kind of thing a victim of domestic abuse would say.
“Hmm.” Seira-san took a deep breath. Then, she finally said, “Fine. I’ll tell you.”
“Seriously?” I meant to follow that up with a thank you, but Seira-san stuck out her hand before I could finish.
“Save your thanks. You and Haruna will probably both hate me once I tell you.”
“Huh?” Why would I hate her? That was so ominous I felt unsettled.
Seira-san began slowly. “It all started with some stupid argument. Minato spread a bad rumor, but it wasn’t, like, this huge deal. Haruna totally overreacted to it.”
“What was the rumor?” I asked.
“Something stupid. It doesn’t matter. But Haruna started icing out Minato, and I didn’t get why. I told her to stop acting like a little kid, but she wouldn’t listen to me.”
Neither Kaho-chan or I said a word as we listened to Seira-san’s story.
“Then Minato started getting worked up too. Anyone would, right? She didn’t have a clue why her friend was giving her the cold shoulder. Things got super tense.”
Seira-san clenched her fists tightly on the tabletop.
“Then they had one last, huge fight. Minato rushed at Haruna, and…”
Seira-san gritted her teeth and took the final plunge.
“Haruna punched Minato.”
My eyes blew wide open in shock. “Wait. She punched her?!”
I understood what each of the words meant individually, but none of it made sense when put together. My sister punched her friend? I pictured my little sister laughing in the bathroom, and I couldn’t connect that same girl with the one in Seira-san’s story.
Seira-san slapped the table like she couldn’t take it any longer. “Yeah! She punched Minato right in the face.”
I flinched involuntarily.
“Don’t you think that’s terrible?” Seira-san went on. “She left a bruise! See, I’m a cosplayer, so I know just how important it is for a girl to take care of her face!”
My heart was pounding like crazy.
“I don’t care what excuse she has,” Seira-san yelled. “What she did was inexcusable!”
I felt so dizzy it was as if I’d been punched too. Haruna hit her friend in the face? The same friend who came to our house during summer vacation? Back then, she, Haruna, and Seira-san all looked so friendly. Looks could be deceiving, but like… What the hell, man?
I stared down into my lap. Beside me, I heard Kaho-chan say “Rena-chin?” in a concerned tone. Kaho-chan had set this whole opportunity up for me, but I just couldn’t respond at all.
“The way I see it, she’s prolly better off staying away from school,” Seira-san added. “No one’s gonna have anything to do with her if she does show up. I guess that’s why she’s running away, huh? Coward.”
“Cool it, Serara,” Kaho-chan snapped.
She glared at Seira-san, telling her to watch her mouth, but Seira-san just kept right on going. “Haruna was one of my besties, y’know? She could get kinda carried away and obnoxious sometimes, but I thought she was a good person. I can be forgiving, but I’m not so forgiving I can ignore anyone flying off the handle the way she did.”
That sounded like a clear We are done! directed at my absent sister.
Seira-san exhaled and took a moment to calm down before she finally said, “Minato hasn’t come back to school since the day of the fight either. I keep messaging her, but she doesn’t respond. I’m really worried about her, y’know? Haruna, though… She can go take a hike.”
There was such vitriol in Seira-san’s words that I couldn’t say a thing in response. By the time I looked up, I had already left the café behind and was halfway home.
I let myself into the house without announcing my return and found Haruna flopped on the sofa playing a game. She jolted when she saw me.
“Ack!” she yelped. “I thought you were a burglar.”
Then, when she realized I was still too stunned to speak, she frowned. “What’s the matter?” she said. “Did you lose your wallet? Or what, crack your phone screen?”
“No. It’s nothing.”
I couldn’t look Haruna in the eyes. All I could do was hear her voice playing in my head: If anyone bullied me so hard I quit school, I’d give them as good as I got. At that point, it’d be more like me getting suspended for fighting. She grinned as she said it, so I thought it was a joke. I could have sworn it was a joke.
And then there were those bandages on her hand. From punching Minato. Right?
God. What the hell was I supposed to do now? Wait for things to simmer down in another two months and send Haruna back to school? And then they would all live happily ever after, right?
Haruna cocked her head at me inquisitively, but I didn’t say anything to her. I just turned and left the living room.
Behind me, she called, “You’re a weirdo, you know that?”
Gah.
But even then, I couldn’t say anything. So I retreated back to my room and face-planted into bed. I couldn’t forget my sister’s nonchalant grin or the look of hatred on Seira-san’s face.