My phone dinged for the umpteenth time, ripping me back from the edge of sleep. Shiratama-san had changed and gone off to see her sister get married. I, meanwhile, had become a bump on a log. The log was the couch. Must’ve gotten really into the role, because I didn’t remember anything after her leaving. Probably passed out.
I sat up and rubbed my eyes. A Tsuwabuki blazer fell to the ground. Someone must’ve draped it over me. But I was already wearing a blazer. Was probably a fashion statement to be made in there somewhere. I scooped it up. Nice, comfy size for draping. Had to be Yanami’s.
A glance at my phone told me I hadn’t been asleep even an hour. I skimmed the messages. Some complications aside, the mission had been a success. Asagumo-san and the president were collecting some equipment they’d left around. Something about laws and radio devices or…something. Things we’d get in big trouble for if people found out.
Now, to the future. Shiratama-san had decided to hold on to her feelings toward Tanaka-sensei for now and be a good sister-in-law. If she decided to join the lit club, that’d be just fantastic.
I stood and hung Yanami’s blazer up on a rack. Then I saw the changing area’s curtain shake.
“Nukumizu-kun? You alone?”
“Oh, Yanami-san. You’re still here. Thanks for the blanket.”
Thank god I hadn’t mumbled anything incriminating to myself.
“I need you to come here,” she muttered.
There? Inside the curtain? “Changing rooms aren’t typically for sharing.”
“I’m dressed, dude. Hurry.”
So why didn’t she just come out herself? Only one way to find out, plus acquiescing was the path of least resistance here. I ducked behind the curtain, whereupon I lost the ability to speak.
Yanami was wearing Shiratama-san’s wedding dress. Her head was hung. Her bare shoulders shook. Her chest, occupying more physical space than Shiratama-san’s, was in a dangerous state. The dress was struggling.
“What am I looking at?” I asked.
“Undress me.”
I nearly choked. Was this real life? A dream? Nightmare, more like. She slowly looked up. Tears were in her eyes.
“I don’t think I’m the guy for this—”
“I just wanted to try it on, but now I can’t take it off! You gotta help me!” Stunlocked. “The zipper won’t budge, man! I think it shrunk a little. That can happen the first time you put something on!”
But of course. Happened to the best of us. This was a nightmare after all.
“I’ll get Asagumo-san or someone else. Hang tight,” I said.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, are you trying to traumatize me?! Don’t you dare tell a soul about this!” This just in: I did not have a soul. Yanami turned around and held her hair up. “Just unzip it!” she whined. “Hurry!”
Sure, okay. This was happening. Wish it wasn’t, but this was one of those situations where you kinda just had to roll with the punches. I would know. I was good at that.
I braced the zipper with my left hand, then pulled with my right…
“Holy crap, how has this not popped yet? It’s stuck stuck.”
“Maybe you just need to work out more.”
I could just leave her here. That was an increasingly appealing option. But that wasn’t the way of honor. I clenched and pulled harder. With every second, I could see just a little bit more skin. I looked away. The zipper made it halfway down, but there it stayed, refusing to move another centimeter.
“What’s the hold up? Yank that sucker,” Yanami said.
“Hang on, I can’t. It’s caught on something underneath. Looks blue?”
“Something blue?” It took her a bit to process that. Then she shrieked. “Wait, that’s my bra!”
The blue thing was underwear?! I could kinda see the hook on it, actually.
“All right, I really should just call somebody.”
“Uh, did I say bra?! I don’t wear those! Not me!”
How was that any better? Then again, she was the one telling me to keep going, so if I backed off like a wimp now, I’d never hear the end of it. I resolved to see this nightmare through to the end.
“No looking!” she spat. “And no touching!”
“Trust me. Don’t want to.”
“Uh, excuse you, I do my laundry! You know what? Touch all you want. Just get this thing off me.”
What would ever compel me to want to touch another person’s underwear? I did have to get a move on, though, or we’d be there forever.
“Hey, you got any butter or margarine on you?”
“Why? You turning me into dinner?”
Wasn’t planning on it. Who did she think I was? Her?
“I was going to use it to help the zipper move better. But yeah, like you have that just lying around somewhere.”
“In my bag.”
But why, though? Irrelevant. We had a nightmare to wake up from. And soon after, with the help of animal fat, we did.
✦ ✦ ✦
Sprinting all the way here with Shiratama-san in my arms had not been a third as exhausting as this entire experience was.
Yanami fell into the couch next to me, back in her uniform. “I feel violated.”
I felt people could take that dangerously out of context. Also, the audacity to say that to me after what she’d just put me through.
She finished messing with her ribbons and sighed. “So how’d you convince her?”
“What do you mean?”
“Shiratama-chan was pretty much hellbent on starting some crap, but you pulled her back from the edge just like that? How’d you do it?”
There wasn’t much to tell, really. Especially when it was kind of a private thing. I chose my next words carefully.
“I guess I just, uh…helped her realize there’s always tomorrow,” I said.
“What’s that mean? You teach her about delayed gratification or something?”
“More or less.”
Delayed gratification. Sometimes the end wasn’t the end. Sometimes, the thing you were looking for wouldn’t find you until days down the line. Maybe years. Maybe by the time it did, you wouldn’t even notice it. You could be looking for something else entirely different by then. Me, I never trusted my present self. Helped keep me from being too disappointed. Putting too much pressure on myself.
Shiratama-san would go on to live her life, and maybe she’d walk the homewrecker’s path and one day take Tanaka-sensei for herself. Or maybe she’d move on and find somebody new. However things ultimately fell, and fall they would, that was the business of the future, and the only one responsible for it would be whoever she saw in the mirror that day.
I caught Yanami making a face at me. “What?”
“You didn’t try to act slick and pull something on her in the heat of the moment, did you?”
“What? Of course n—”
I remembered the look in her eyes. How they’d almost sucked me in. Wanna kiss?
A prank, of course. An offer to be taken seriously at my own peril. Shiratama Riko was a dangerous woman.
“I knew it!” Yanami shouted. “You did something, didn’t you? Didn’t you?!”
“No! I turned her down, obviously!”
“Turned what down?!” Oops. Too much information. Yanami grabbed me by the tie, madness twisting her expression.
I had to do something before I was irrevocably mischaracterized. But it was as I floundered for a way out of the hole I’d dug for myself when I felt two pairs of eyes from the door. Sure enough, Asagumo-san and the president were looking this way. Most amused.
“Play nice,” they said.
In perfect unison, we shot back, “It’s not what it looks like!”