We parted ways with Serika at Takasaki Station and transferred to the Joshin Dentetsu Line. Gunma was a car-centric society, but the train still got pretty crowded during the evening commute home. Then again, band practice and my shifts at the café usually ended around 9 p.m., when there were hardly any people out.
Yamano and I managed to secure two seats next to each other. She stayed reticent for the majority of the train ride, until she finally asked, “Is my phrasing really that bad?” She sounded like she was in disbelief.
“Not normally, but it’s brutal when you’re giving criticism,” I answered.
“That’s probably because I’m irritated when I do that.”
“Yeah. And isn’t that why you end up choosing even harsher words?”
“Now that you point it out, I think you’re right. I fought with my friends today too...” Yamano crossed her arms, anxiety all over her face.
“What happened with those girls?”
“My friend wants to join the light music club, and she asked me for advice.”
“Really? Why don’t they join? Club observation week has already ended.”
“But she’s one of the ones who didn’t sign up because I’m in your band.”
Oh? That doesn’t sound good.
“She only wants to join the club so she can get close to you through me.”
“Wait, me?! Why?!” I exclaimed, surprised that I was involved.
“Senpai, it’s about time you got it into your head that you’re popular,” Yamano said, her tone laced with exasperation.
There are unexpected side effects of being popular, huh...
“Anyway, I don’t really care what her motives are, but she doesn’t even listen to much music, and she’s not interested in any particular instrument either. I felt like she was trying to use me. It pissed me off, so I told her that straight up.”
“Well, I understand where you’re coming from...” Of course Yamano would be a little fierce then.
“I told her she should be ashamed and that she was the trash of society.”
“Now that’s too far!” There’s gotta be a gentler way to say that, especially in Japanese!
“I just kinda snapped... I see, so my wording was the problem.” Yamano laughed, her eyes as empty as a dead fish. “I knew it. It was my fault.”
It looks like she’s taken a hefty amount of mental damage from that. I get how she feels, though. I’ve spent an entire night rolling around in bed because I regretted something I said. Heh heh heh. Kill me. Just end me, please!
“Senpai, why are you holding your head?” Yamano asked.
“Uh, I just remembered a dark moment in my past.”
“I’m not one to talk, but I’d say your dark moments are an ongoing process.”
“All right, we really need to teach you what’s okay to say and what’s not!” The truth can hurt people! Facts don’t always help!
Yamano obediently nodded and then, with a serious expression, asked, “All right, what do you think I should do?”
“You just need to watch your language, yeah?”
“Look, if it were that easy to fix, then I wouldn’t be struggling so much.”
Right. She didn’t even realize it until now. I know the feeling of becoming callous when you get heated.
“But I want to change too,” Yamano murmured. She turned to me and asked in an imploring tone “Senpai, how did you change yourself? I don’t want to repeat my mistakes from middle school.”
Yamano’s words reminded me of something. Namika had previously mentioned that there were unsavory rumors about Yamano floating around our middle school.
“So you knew about it,” she muttered when she saw my reaction.
“I heard from my little sister that there’s a rumor about you being the ringleader of some bullying.”
“Oh, right, you have a sister. She’s a year younger than me, isn’t she?”
“Yeah. That’s pretty much all I know, though. That a rumor exists, I mean.”
“Senpai, do you believe it?”
“I don’t think I need to verify it.”
“Why not?”
“Because the Yamano Saya I know wouldn’t bully anyone.”
She blinked at me. “Y’know, I kinda see how you got popular now.”
“Wait, was I pretty cool just then?” I asked smugly.
“You’ve ruined it by saying that. Oof, you’re still the same senpai I remember.” She burst into a raucous cackle for a bit, then suddenly went deadpan and looked down. “I was the one getting bullied.”
I frowned. I’d had the vague suspicion that was the case.
“I wouldn’t have been eating lunch on the roof with you if not for that,” she said.
I hadn’t asked Yamano any questions in middle school. Not because I hadn’t been curious about her situation, but because even if I had known what was going on, I would’ve been powerless to help her. Therefore, I’d given up on probing.
“My classmates were bullying me. Once, when I lost my temper, I talked back, and so it looked like I was the bully. I got reprimanded by the teacher and my parents, and then those rumors about me spread through school...”
I had hoped that Yamano hadn’t been on the roof for reasons like that. I had hoped that she’d spent so much time up there because she wanted to be alone or because she simply liked being up there.
“But I’m not holding any grudges.” Yamano kept her eyes pointed to the floor, and her tone sounded philosophical. “I mean, sure, they threw a bucket of water on me when I was on the toilet, stole my shoes from my shoe cubby, left my swimsuit on a boy’s desk, messed up my notebooks, and did all kinds of jerk moves that made me go, ‘Wow, I thought this stuff only happened in manga.’ And I honestly wanted to punch them a little...”
Scratch that—she isn’t philosophical at all. She’s clutching that grudge tightly. “That sounds awful.” All I could think to say was that bland, hackneyed line. I can’t imagine how much Yamano must’ve suffered back then. I was a loner hated by everyone, but I’ve never been bullied before.
“I’m gonna say something really embarrassing right now, okay?” she said.
We handed the train conductor our tickets and alighted at our unmanned station. There was no one and nothing in front of the station. Yamano walked a few steps forward and then turned around to face me.
“Senpai, spending time on the roof with you during lunch was my solace.” She seemed to mean every word, from what I could tell, because her eyes were a little moist.
By now, the sky had been dyed with the colors of twilight. The setting sun illuminated Yamano; her shadow stretched out behind her, and it was like her silhouette was being highlighted by the evening glow. In this surreal atmosphere, she appeared ephemeral.
“I was just minding my own business, eating lunch up there without a care in the world,” I said.
“That’s why I was happy, though. It was the one place in the entire school where I felt like I belonged...where I could let myself think it was okay for me to be there... That’s why, every day, I wished lunch break would come sooner.” Yamano’s voice quivered slightly as she recalled those days.
“I was scared to ask you why you were there because I knew I wouldn’t be able to do anything,” I said.
“If you had asked, I would’ve stopped going up there.”
Even though I had accidentally made the correct choice, I still regretted it. If my current self had been there, maybe I could’ve helped her.
“Senpai, let’s go home,” Yamano said, keeping her tone lighthearted to brighten up the mood. “My main bully was the president of the light music club, which I was a member of. We were in the same band, and I thought we were good friends. But next thing I knew, I was being hated on and the band broke up...” However, no amount of lightheartedness could reduce the gravity of this topic.
“And then it devolved into bullying?” I asked. I stayed a step behind Yamano as we headed home.
She continued walking silently for a while, then quietly said, “I bet I brought it on myself. I mean, I feel like I’m going through the same thing right now. Just like you pointed out, I must’ve been hated because I suck at wording things.”
I didn’t see what happened in middle school firsthand, so I can neither confirm nor deny. It’s hard to say that Yamano’s phrasing when her temper flares isn’t part of the issue. But... “Even if that’s true, it’s not okay to bully someone because you hate them.”
Yamano blinked at me, taken aback. “Senpai...thank you.” A wide smile spread across her face. “Do you know why I chose to go to Ryomei?”
“Didn’t you say it was ninety percent because of Serika?”
“That’s why I wanted to be in your band.”
I see. So the band and high school are separate things. Then... “Because hardly anyone from Mizumi goes to Ryomei?”
“That’s half right.”
“Then what’s the other half?” I asked.
“Because you’re here,” Yamano said, pointing at me. I thought she was joking, but she looked me straight in the eyes. “When I saw how dazzling you were at the school festival, I thought, ‘I want to become like that too.’”
Huh, I must’ve been really dazzling back then. Dazzling enough to change the lives of all sorts of people.
“I figured that if you, the scum of our school, could become that popular, then so could I.”
“Hold up. Did you just call me scum?!” We’re talking about word choice here, remember?! Okay, sure, maybe that was an accurate statement. Ugh, fine!
“I misspoke. You were like eraser shavings.”
“You didn’t need to get more specific! In fact, that’s even worse!” I quipped.
She cackled loudly.
“Stop dunking on people to hide your embarrassment,” I grumbled.
“I’m sorry. It’s the first time I’ve ever talked about myself to another person.” Yamano scratched her scarlet cheeks. Then, she looked me in the eye once again and said, “I want my high school life to go just as well as yours!”
I just realized something. Yamano sorta resembles what I was like in my first round. At this rate, her adolescence will be a drab gray, and she’ll very likely be full of regrets. But there’s something that clearly sets her apart from how I was in my first round. Yamano has me now. “All right, got it. Yamano, you just leave that to me!”
When there’s an underclassman in need, it’s a senpai’s duty to help!
“Th-Thank you a ton, senpai!”
It’s settled, then.