I knocked. From inside, I heard Shiratama-san tell me to come in, so I did.
She flashed me a composed smile. “Good evening. Have a seat.”
“Uh, okay.” I sat across from her.
“In a minute or less, please introduce yourself and state your reason for applying today.” She waited just long enough for me to flounder in confusion for a while, then giggled to herself. “Sorry. I had interviews on the brain and wanted to have a little fun.”
Cute prank for a cute girl. But I could ponder that later.
“I’m sorry too. For, well, how weird this must have been.”
“I understand. You have your concerns.” The humor in her expression evaporated. “I assume you told the others?”
It took me a beat to mentally recover from the shift. “I, uh, did have to fill them in.”
“I understand. I’d be a little scared of me too.”
I didn’t know how to respond. She smiled awkwardly to soften the silence. This was not going well.
With feigned vigor, I said, “Just know that none of us is out to get you or anything. We just want to get to know you, so the lit club can be, you know, a place for you. Um…” Words were quick to fail me. I had to feel for more, and I found them again in familiar places. “Komari and I. We were in sort of a similar boat last year. Nowhere to really belong.” Shiratama-san started to speak before catching herself and shutting her lips again. “Not that there’s anything wrong with being alone. It’s just, I found the lit club. And then I made friends through it. And turns out it’s…not so bad. Y’know?”
I scratched my face. Nervous, all of a sudden.
Shiratama-san was quiet for a while. “You’re all good people.”
“I mean, it’s give and take, right?”
She began to fashion a smile but quickly gave up the effort. “I can’t ignore these feelings I have.”
“You don’t mean—”
She shook her head. “I’m not plotting to steal him back. I’m not that delusional. He’ll never be mine.” Resignation twisted her voice. “But I refuse to have regrets. I want to fight back. Struggle. Throw myself off the deep end. Whatever it takes to put it all to bed for good.”
I chewed on every syllable of her dull, monotone declaration. “So what exactly does that entail for you?”
A naive question, perhaps. But how could I not ask? She already had a criminal record. I couldn’t not intervene if she planned on expanding her rap sheet.
“Good question. Last time it was putting on my sister’s dress and holding a little photo shoot at the chapel, but I made two mistakes there.”
“What were those?”
Shiratama-san blinked her big, round eyes, recovering her enigmatic smile in all its inscrutable glory. “First: They don’t actually keep the dress at the venue until the day of. It was a total waste of time from the start.”
Huh. Interesting. I stifled the urge to quip and gestured for her to continue.
“The second mistake was assuming I’d be safe at night, but as soon as I got in, there were guards on me. Professionals, am I right? Rent-a-cops everywhere. Real ones too.”
“Anyway!” Too much information. “How did you even get inside in the first place? It had to have been locked.”
Her eyes gleamed. “I actually worked that out myself. I made this tool, see—”
Too much. Too much incriminating information. I was standing in a verbal minefield.
“Let’s talk about something else! So you learned that it’s bad to make trouble for people. Right?”
“Right. I learned that lesson well. I’ll have to be more subtle next time.” She stuck her tongue out and bopped herself on the head. The universal gesture for those who hadn’t learned jack. But, it was cute, so yes, I did consider letting her off the hook. As long as she kept from breaking the law. Please, for the love of God. “Don’t worry. The last thing I want is to drag your club down with me. I’ll keep my distance.”
“Huh?” I felt a sudden and poignant sense of loss. Like something had just slipped through my fingers. “Wait—”
“I don’t want to implicate the lit club in anything, so whatever I do, I’ll do it alone from now on.” Shiratama-san took her bag and silently stood.
“Hold on.”
“If things go well, and I’m still around at Tsuwabuki, I hope I can come visit.”
If she was “still around”? She was seriously that determined? She was willing to wager her entire high school career on this?
I stood. Not at all silently. “Wait a second, Shiratama-san. Alone? You can’t do that.”
“No? Are you offering to be my partner in crime?”
“I…”
She simply smiled and reached for the doorknob.
We were the same, she and I. The way she pushed others away. The way she rejected their company when she needed it most. She and the whole literature club, they were one and the same. Every single one of us was an idiot who tried to take on the world by ourselves.
But it was that same bunch of idiots that showed me things could be different.
I stormed toward her and grabbed her arm. “No, Shiratama-san.”
She stiffened. “I don’t want to make problems for everyone.”
Her voice was low. She spoke more to the floor than to me directly.
“Problems are for sharing.”
Yanami. Yakishio. Komari. Heck, even our senpai. Even me, not least of all. We were all a bunch of screwed up problem havers. Always making them someone else’s. And yet we still called each other friends. And sure, I might’ve complained a little—okay, a lot—but I’d never once held that against them. Not once.
“The absolute worst thing you can do when you’re at wit’s end is isolate yourself,” I said. “You don’t have to do that. You have me. You have the literature club. We’re in this together.”
The tension drained from her. “We…are?”
“We are. I promise.”
Shiratama-san finally whipped around to face me. Big blobs of tears clung desperately to the corners of her eyes. “You’ll really help me?!”
Yep, we sure…would? Was that what I’d said? Could’ve sworn the message here was “never go it alone.” How’d we get here?
“I, uh, did say we were in this together, didn’t I?”
“Thank you so much. Honestly, I’ve been so unsure about everything. I never expected this in a million years. Gosh, look at me. I’m a mess. These aren’t crocodile tears, I swear.” She clumsily wiped them, giggling.