The next day.
When Hikari arrived at school, she punched my shoulder.
“Wh-What?” I was flustered, without question.
“You looked.” She regarded me with a cold gaze.
Wh-Why does she suspect me so strongly? She couldn’t have found out! “I— I told you I didn’t look!”
“You looked. Didn’t you?” She stared into my eyes.
“Nope! Like I said already, I didn’t.” I reflexively dropped my gaze down and ended up looking at Hikari’s body. Because of that, memories of yesterday’s spectacle flashed through my mind.
“You definitely saw! It’s written all over your face.”
“I... I didn’t! Show me the proof! Go on!”
“I can’t believe a real live human just said something only a criminal from a mystery novel would say.” She shot me an exasperated look.
Don’t say that! “For argument’s sake, even if I did see something, it wasn’t my fault!”
“Aha! You admit it! You did see! Stuuupid!”
Hikari and I walked into the classroom while we squabbled.
“What in the world are you two doing so early in the morning?”
The next thing I knew, Nanase was standing next to me, wearing an indescribable expression.
“Ah! Yuino-chan, listen to this! Natsuki-kun saw me naked!”
Our classmates—who had been watching us from afar while thinking “Those stupid lovebirds are at it again”—all snapped their wide-eyed gazes on me.
“Hey! You can’t just say that! You’re going to cause a misunderstanding!” I protested.
“Why don’t you explain yourself? In detail.” Nanase, Hikari’s guardian, exuded rage.
How did this become my fault? Supposed I did see. Is it really a problem, since we’re dating? However, it didn’t look like that argument would fly in this atmosphere. Inconceivable.
✦ ✦ ✦
Lunch break.
“Huh? You want my help?” Fujiwara Kanata tilted her head, puzzled.
After Nanase had finished lecturing me with stuff like “It’s too soon for that sort of thing while you’re still in high school, blah blah blah,” we had discussed our next step, and then agreed to ask our classmates for help.
“Actually, it’s about Nanase and the piano...” I started explaining the situation to our class leader.
“I see. That’s why she wasn’t eager to be the accompanist for our choir.” Fujiwara nodded once I’d finished, her expression grave.
“I’m sorry,” Nanase said. “It would cause trouble for everyone if I were suddenly unable to play.”
“Oh no, don’t worry about it. It’s fine. I don’t want to force you either,” Fujiwara replied quickly. Then she smiled, trying to put Nanase at ease. “Of course I’ll help out, though. How many people should we grab?”
“How about five or six,” I proposed. That was about the same number as when our friend group had watched her perform, but the goal this time was to see how she fared in front of people she was slightly less familiar with.
Nanase nodded. “Could you help us?”
“Yep! Do you need them for today after school?”
“That would work for me...but can you gather six people on such short notice?” Nanase asked, bewildered.
“What are you saying?” Fujiwara scoffed exasperatedly and tapped Nanase on the shoulder. “We’ll all get together no problem if it’s for you, Yuino.”
After that, Fujiwara reached out to the other girls in our class and explained the situation to them. At the sight of nearly all the girls huddled together, the boys’ faces flickered with curiosity, so Tatsuya, Reita, and I gave them the lowdown. After all, we might need to ask them for help in the future. Naturally, we had received permission from Nanase to bring them up to speed.
“Hey, uh... It’s fine. It won’t affect my everyday life, so there’s no issue. Okay?”
Nanase felt bad about taking up our time, so everyone tried to assuage her worries. She’s popular as always. Nanase likes to look after other people, so the girls in our class rely on her a ton.
“Everyone... Thank you,” Nanase said, surrounded by all the girls. “Since you’re all helping me, I better do my best too.”
Her tone sounded somewhat stiff when she added that. Hikari observed her all the while.
✦ ✦ ✦
I couldn’t accompany Nanase today since I had work after school. In all honesty, I wasn’t in the mood to go, but I couldn’t skip my shift. I continued to cook while suppressing my desire to pull out my phone and check my notifications.
When the dinner rush had abated, someone called out to me. “Natsuki, is something wrong?” Mei asked from across the counter. He was in charge of the front today.
Oh yeah. I’m on shift with Mei today. I’ve been so out of it that it slipped my mind. “Sorry. There’s something I’m a little worried about.” For a split second, I waffled on whether I should divulge Nanase’s situation to Mei. However, I hadn’t asked her if I could talk about it outside of our classmates.
“Is it about the music fest?” he asked.
Not gonna lie, I completely forgot about that.
“Looks like no.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t. Sorry, I need to think about that too.”
Mei peered at me coldly. “It’s written all over your face that you don’t think it’s important right now.”
“That’s not true,” was what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t refute him. It was a fact that I had been putting it on the back burner, which showed just how much the music fest meant to me.
“I’m sorry. I’m not trying to attack you. I do think that you should decline sooner rather than later, though. It’s rude to raise Hondo-san’s hopes only to make her wait.” Mei wrinkled his nose and made a weird smile.
While I’ve been thinking about Nanase, he’s had the music fest on his mind. That’s why he’s a little irritated to learn I haven’t given it any thought. “You’re right.”
He’s right about everything. Before I spend all my time worrying about someone else, I should settle my own problems. Do I want to appear in this festival? What do I want to achieve as part of this band? There’s no point in practicing when I’m full of hesitation. If I don’t figure it out, then—
“If you’re worried about Yuino, then focus on her first.” Serika’s voice suddenly rang out of nowhere.
I turned towards its source to see she was sitting at a table drinking coffee. “Serika...”
“I had a feeling you hadn’t noticed she was here.” Mei smiled bitterly.
Looks like I haven’t been paying attention to my surroundings at all today. “Sorry, Serika.”
“It’s fine. We’ll put band practice on hold for a while.” Serika spoke with her usual blasé attitude and downed the rest of her coffee. “If you rush to find your answer, you’ll definitely regret it.”
“So carefully agonize over it,” she seemed to imply.
“Are you sure you’re okay with that? We’ll lose practice time for the music fest,” Mei said.
“It’s not like we’ll die if we don’t participate in this event. It’s more important that we have a clear picture of our future direction. And I think we’ll need time for that.”
Serika always seems weirdly mature in times like these. It’s as if she can see right through me.
“Besides... The answer might be tied to helping Yuino,” she said with a profound smile, and then left the café.
Right when I thought she was gone, she cracked open the door and came back in.
“I forgot to pay.”
Nope, she’s the same old absent-minded Serika.
✦ ✦ ✦
After my shift, I messaged Hikari over RINE that I had made it home. As soon as my text was marked as read, she called me, and I picked up. What she reported to me was not what I’d been hoping to hear.
“It was a no go?” I said.
“Yeah. She tried to play a few times, but...she started exhibiting those symptoms. I’d calm her down before she looked like she was about to faint. I didn’t think we were getting anywhere today, so we stopped.”
“I see... How does Nanase look?”
“She felt guilty towards everyone who came, and apologized over and over. When we went home together, she was depressed the entire way back... She acted tough on the outside, though.” Hikari then described everything that had taken place.
The audience had consisted of five girls, all of them our classmates: Fujiwara, Onozawa-san, Terai-san, Kiyosato-san, Minoura-san, and Kiyoshi-san.
“Besides Onozawa-san, the rest of them chat with Nanase relatively often, right?” Incidentally, they’re all either part of the go home club, or in a culture club, which is probably why they were easy to recruit.
“Yeah. Onozawa-san said she likes Yuino-chan’s music, which is why she wanted to help.”
On top of those five, Hikari was there too, bringing the count up to six people total. That’s basically the same number of people as last session, but this time she failed to play no matter how many times she tried. “Does her relationship with the audience make a big difference after all?”
“It’s an issue of her mindset in the end. Everything depends on whether her memories of failure are superseded by her desire to succeed. I’m just repeating what Yuino-chan’s doctor said, though.”
“You talked to her doctor?” I asked.
“When I went to her hospital, I picked up a few bits of info.”
I could well see that Hikari’s desire to help Nanase was genuine. Lately, she had been studying psychology before bed too.
“Natsuki-kun, there’s something I want to try.” What she suggested next was rather shocking.
“In that case, Hikari, I also have an idea to add to that...”