They started letting guests in just past eleven. I emerged from my hiding place just as I saw them beginning to leak out into the garden. Not as Izumi Kazuko, but Generic High Schooler A. The bag I’d had the president fetch had been stuffed with a Kirinoki uniform, and it wasn’t at all uncommon for high schoolers to attend weddings in their uniform, so I had a decent enough cover.
“I love you, pants.”
Skirts were just too breezy for me. But perhaps they were nice in the summer. Toyohashi’s could get pretty sweltering.
I entered the waiting room. Tables and chairs lined the walls. The side facing the garden was all one big, glass sliding door. It was wide open now, letting in the warm, early summer breeze. There were guests chatting all over, but no Shiratama-san. No surprise.
The bar was right there, so I indulged in some oolong tea while I gathered my thoughts. It’d already been over an hour since we lost track of her, which probably meant she was lying in wait somewhere. The first floor was too packed. Maybe the second.
Two women came up next to me as I sipped. “Noritama-chan sure was cute. She’s wasted on Tanaka-sensei, I’m tellin’ ya.”
My heart did a backflip. That was Amanatsu-sensei. I quickly hid my face.
“I think she needs an older man, personally,” the other woman said. “Someone to spoil her rotten.”
Konuki-sensei too? I started to quietly shuffle away.
“Wish someone would spoil me. Shoulda bought that stinkin’ condo.”
“Konami, are you already drunk?”
“You’d know if I was drunk.”
So she was just always like that, on and off the clock. Noted. The depression made an excellent cover for my escape.
I didn’t find Shiratama-san anywhere in the crowds. I decided I’d have more luck in the quieter areas and managed to sneak my way into a dingy hallway that seemed to lead to a storage room. The label on the door said so, at least. I surveyed my surroundings, then tried it. Wasn’t locked. I opened it.
“Shiratama-san?” I whispered. “Are you here?”
It was pitch black. I felt around for a light switch, until something grabbed my arm and gripped it tight. I did, in fact, scream.
“Where have you been, Nukumizu-kun?!” That voice was Yanami all right. She yanked me into the darkness and shut the door. Her phone screen provided the only source of light.
“What are you doing in here?”
“Hiding from Shiratama-chan’s friggin’ family! They all showed up, like, right after you guys left, and what was I supposed to do, let her parents find me?! I’ve been playing hide-and-seek for the last hour!” I tried to say something, but she wouldn’t let me. “And you know what else? Before I found this place, some old guy caught me and started talking about stuff I have no idea about because we literally just met! And he said I was finally ‘filling out’ five whole times! Five! I lost three kilograms for this!”
“So, uh, your cover’s not blown. That’s good. Look, we’ve got to find Shiratama-san.” I checked her phone screen. It was 11:15. Only forty-five minutes to the ceremony. It was a race against the clock.
Yanami, finally out of steam, replaced her mask over her face. “Right. Anyway. She wasn’t in the bathroom, which means she has to be on the second floor. C’mon, I’m making you work.”
We were on the same page. I nodded and opened the door.
✦ ✦ ✦
On the second floor were the bride and groom suites. Ostensibly a private area, but family and friends coming to greet the couple meant there was always a trickle of foot traffic. We checked the area to the left first, opposite them.
The meeting room was about the size of a classroom. They’d held the presentation during the open house here, but today it was just storage. Again, no sign of Shiratama-san. I even checked the balcony through the big window at the far side of the room. No dice. I exited and regrouped with Yanami, who’d just finished checking the other rooms.
“Nothing on my end,” she said. That left only one place. I heard Yanami gulp. “We’re not gonna, y’know, walk in on a crime scene, are we? ’Cause I refuse to be the girl who finds the body. You go first.”
“People have been coming and going here all afternoon. Plus, she very well could be at the reception area further ahead.”
“Reception…” Yanami crossed her arms.
“Got an idea?”
“I’m a genius. It’s the cake!”
“That hungry?”
“Yes, but not the point. Weddings always have these huge, towering cakes, right? I bet Shiratama-chan ate through it and is hiding inside!”
Was she serious? Was I supposed to take this seriously? It was Yanami. Of course I was. “You know those things are fake, right? The only cake part is where the bride and groom cut it.”
“It’s…fake? No. Don’t do this to me.”
Yanami Anna, aged sixteen, pronounced deceased. Cause of death: psychic trauma from the cold, hard club of society known as “the truth.” I sympathized, but there was no time for a funeral right now.
“I’m sure it’s possible to make the whole thing cake, okay? Let’s go. We gotta move.”
“It was real. Once. Maybe before the bubble popped in the ’90s. It’s gotta be real.”
“Maybe if you’re good, the economy will inflate itself again, okay?” I practically dragged her back down the hallway, toward the stairs.
And just our luck, we happened to bump into a middle-aged woman climbing them. “Oh, look who it is! Riko-chan! Remember me? It’s Mitsue, from Kosai!”
And she just had to know Shiratama-san. Just our luck.
“It’s been a long time,” I heard Yanami say in Shiratama-san’s voice. Probably panicked and hit a button.
The Mitsue lady beamed and took her hand. “It sure has! You were all skin and bone in elementary school, but now look at you! All filled out! Er, you look good!”
“I sure do love eating.”
She’d dug her own hole replying in the first place. Now she had to hold a conversation with pre-recorded phrases. She looked at me with a sort of urgency in her eyes that I understood at once. “Go on without me,” they said.
Don’t mind if I do. I started to creep away, shooting her a thumbs-up before taking my leave. Making a concerted effort to ignore the daggers digging into my back.
✦ ✦ ✦
Along the hallway leading to the reception area were four doors. The far door was the bridal suite. Next to it, the groom suite. I reached for the doorknob of the room right before it and turned. It was unlocked.
Soft sunlight blanketed the girl that was inside. Shiratama Riko stood there, back straight, bouquet in hand, as if waiting for someone. My appearance disturbed the calm on her expression, like a ripple through the surface of a still lake.