As a second-year, it was hard for me to observe what Yamano’s high school life was like. Nevertheless, in my current state, I had other ways of collecting information.
“Yamano-san? I think she was alone all day today.”
During lunch, I had reached out to Sakata-kun, a first-year from the light music club. He was in the same class as Yamano, 1-3, and was the person most likely to know how she was doing. We sat on a sunny bench in the courtyard and chatted as we ate lunch.
Sakata-kun was an inexperienced, aspiring guitarist who I taught on occasion. Apparently he idolized me, and we chatted often. It’s useful to have connections with underclassmen for times like this.
“Yamano-san fought with Matsui-san’s group yesterday. I think it was bound to happen. Don’t worry, Haibara-senpai; I suspect they’ll bury the hatchet eventually,” Sakata-kun said optimistically, wanting to reassure me. “Plus, even if she’s in your band, I don’t think you need to go so far as to look after how she’s doing in school.”
It must look like I’m excessively concerned about my underclassman, huh? Well, not just looks like, it’s the plain truth. This is outside of a normal upperclassman’s jurisdiction. “Yeah, it’s just in case. She’s been looking down in the dumps during practice.” I’ve managed to verify her present situation, at least. As I suspected, she hasn’t reconciled with her friends in class yet.
“Haibara-senpai, you’re so nice!”
“Sakata-kun, help smooth things out between them if you can, will you?”
“I can try...but I can’t interfere much with the girls’ cliques, so don’t count on me too much, okay?”
“Figures. Thanks for clueing me in, though.”
I was about to end the conversation, but Sakata-kun stopped me with a timid “Um.” He awkwardly scratched his head and then said, “Keep this between you and me, but she’s kinda out of place.”
It sounded like he hadn’t originally intended to tell me this.
“How do I put it? Her wording is intense a lot of times... She’s, I dunno, inconsiderate? The boys don’t really mind, but girls are more sensitive to it, so there are some in our class that avoid Yamano-san. It’s not like anyone’s admitted to it openly, though.”
Hearing it from Sakata-kun added palpability, since he was in the same class as them.
“Still, it used to be okay because Matsui-san, one of the popular girls, was friends with her, but after their spat yesterday... Things might go south for her quickly at this rate.”
“I see...” The situation is more dire than I thought. If we leave things as is, it’ll be a repeat of her middle school mistakes. Yamano told me she wanted to change, and I want to answer her expectations. We better make a move ASAP. Drag our feet, and she’ll end up in the same position I used to be in.
“Then again, Yamano and I aren’t exactly friends either, so I don’t really care.” Sakata-kun shrugged. “I’ll help a little here and there, so will you give me guitar lessons again?”
“Of course. And thanks.” With that, I stood up and parted ways with him. I climbed the stairs and headed for the roof. As one would expect, going up three flights was tiring; I was a little out of breath by the time I reached the top.
I might’ve gone through all this trouble for nothing. It wasn’t like I had agreed to meet her up here. However, somehow or other, I was certain she would be there. I opened the door and stepped onto the rooftop. Then, I looked around the back.
“Yo, Yamano.”
She was eating her bento with her back leaned against the stairwell bulkhead.
“Senpai...” She looked shocked to see me and then awkwardly averted her gaze. “Need something?”
I sat down next to her.
“Senpai, I hate this part about you,” she said.
“Where’d that come from all of a sudden?”
“If you show up here, then it’s the same as it was in middle school.”
“Things are different from back then,” I said confidently.
Yamano tilted her head to the side incredulously.
“I said I’d help you change, remember?” Back in middle school, all I could do was keep you company. But the current me can become your pillar of strength.
“Did you come up with an idea, then?” she asked.
“Yeah. I call it the Yamano Saya Reform Plan!” After talking to Miori, I had racked my brain all morning during classes. How can Yamano change? There was a hint that had led me to the answer—the difference between my failure in my first round and my success in my second.
“You just named it exactly what the plan is. Whatever. So, how are you going to reform me?”
“This plan has two phases. Do you know what the first phase is?”
“Quit beating around the bush and tell me already.”
“Analysis.”
“Huh? Analysis?” Yamano gave me a blank stare.
“You need to earnestly collect data on the people you interact with.” In my first round, I barely knew a thing about those around me. All I thought of was how to make my high school debut a success. The fact of the matter was, I didn’t actually care about truly getting to know my classmates. “You don’t really know much about your friends that you’re hanging out with, do you?” Yamano shares the same disposition the past me had.
“Hmm... You think so?” she questioned.
As thickheaded as I am, now I try to observe the people around me closely. I’ve gotten to know them very well because I take genuine interest in them whenever we interact.
“It’s only been a month since school started, so I feel like it’s normal not to know much about them, though,” she said.
“One month would be enough to know about their personalities, hobbies, special skills, and clubs, right?”
“No, I don’t know any of that. I know their names, though.”
“That’s what I suspected. Listen, Yamano. It’s standard to know that much about them by now.”
“R-Really?”
“You don’t know any of that because you’re not interested in them. And when you’re not interested, you don’t try to learn about them; even if they told you, you’d forget. Yamano, your conversations with your classmates don’t last long, do they?”
“H-How’d you know?! If it’s about music, we can talk for a while, though...”
She resembles my old self way too much! You can keep the conversation going if it’s related to your hobbies, but that’s it. I can relate. “Conversations don’t last if you don’t actually care about who you’re talking to, because you don’t try to deepen your understanding of them.”
“Is it bad to be disinterested in my classmates?”
“It’s not bad, per se. You’re free to spend high school however you’d like, but you want to change, right?”
“Yes. I want to have a bright high school life like you!”
“Then you need to be thoughtful towards others when you socialize.”
“Thoughtful?” Yamano furrowed her brow. “Now that’s an alien word.”
“I know you can be thoughtful towards other people,” I said reassuringly. When Miori had gone missing last winter, Yamano had been there with us. She’d stuck around because she was worried about Miori. Because to Yamano, Miori was her precious childhood friend.
“But when it comes to people you don’t care about, you probably don’t think about their feelings.” And that’s why your words are blunt and your phrasing is awful.
“You might be right.” Yamano put down her chopsticks. “I only had music on my mind—I didn’t think about how Shinohara-senpai felt whatsoever.”
Which means Yamano wasn’t really interested in Mei. I guess it makes sense, since she joined the band for Serika.
“How is this connected to analysis?” she asked.
“It might sound paradoxical, but when you really get to know a person, you also start to care about them.” If you can be considerate towards the people you’re interested in, then all you need to do is get interested in more people!
Yamano gave me a small nod, finally understanding what I was trying to say.
“Even if you don’t care about them,” I said, “at the very least, if you know more about them, you can avoid any land mines.” For example, you won’t set off any inferiority complexes. That was one of the reasons people called me insensitive in my first round.
“If the first phase is analysis, then what’s the second?”
“Implementation. Ultimately, it’s okay that you’re not interested in others. However, if you can pretend like you do care, then you’ll be able to keep conversations alive. Likewise, it’s fine if you only pretend to be thoughtful.” I’m also only pretending to be an extrovert. And not gonna lie, besides my close friends, I don’t really care about other people. But just because you don’t care about someone, that doesn’t mean it’s okay to be inconsiderate of their feelings. Slowly but surely, I’ve come to understand this over time.
“For example, that girl you fought with... Matsui-san, was it?”
“Yep. She’s got a lot of pull in class; she’s basically the leader of the girls. I figured if I was going to make my high school debut work out, I should cozy up to her first, so I chatted her up.”
Looks like Yamano also put a bunch of thought into her behavior in order to change in high school. That’s another thing that resembles how I was in my first round. The effort is there. “Do you know Matsui-san’s given name?”
“Dunno...”
But she’s going about it wrong. That’s all. “There are four girls that usually hang out with Matsui-san, right?”
“Um... There’s Midorikawa-san, Ando-san, Makita-san, and the last one’s... Huh? What was her name again?”
Wow, you really couldn’t care less about them! This is the problem!