“Take one for you? If we get caught, he’ll get angry. We’re in the middle of work.”
“I’m not working. I’m just hanging around. Here, take it.”
“Well, I’m working!”
“It’ll just be a second! This is all I want.”
Taiga fluffed up her dress a bit and struck a pose. Unable to do anything, Ryuuji hid the phone under the wagon and took a picture of her like that.
“Lemme see…”
He had thought Taiga would just check the picture, but she quickly turned the phone at Ryuuji. By the time he realized it, it had already made an idiotic noise, bing-koo-ring, and the shutter had gone off.
“Wow. This picture packs a punch. I got you making a really silly-looking face.”
“I’ll tell the guy to fire you.”
“Like I said, I’m not working.”
This girl… Ryuuji breathed out white breath and glared at Taiga for her juvenile attitude.
“Excuse me! Do you have smaller chocolates? Something with three pieces in it?”
A customer who seemed to be a local housewife started talking to them, sticking up three fingers. Ryuuji practically sprung up.
“Uh? Umm, we have the six-piece and twelve-piece ones…”
He answered indistinctly as though there were gravel in his mouth. Actually, he almost felt as though he hadn’t really answered her question.
“I see. Hmmm…milk chocolate.”
The person who talked to them looked at the chocolates for a bit and, in the end, seemed to lose interest. She put back the box she had in her hand and simply walked away.
“Ahhh. She left…”
“Whoa, I got pretty nervous. I just act too suspicious.”
“You have to be more like, ‘Welcome!’ Maybe that’s how you should say it?”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
He nodded to Taiga, and tried to rearrange the boxes of chocolates so they were easier to see in their pile on the wagon.
“Oi, you proletariats!”
“Huh?! W-welcome… Wait, it’s you!”
He felt like falling onto the register. The one standing there with a carefree grin on his face was none other than the familiar, lovable idiot, Haruta. Ryuuji had told Haruta that he was starting work that day, but he hadn’t asked him to stop by.
“This isn’t fun and games! Go home already! Get back before you get hair on the merchandise!”
Taiga used both her hands to shoo Haruta away. Her fingers slapped him right in the nose, but Haruta didn’t even stop laughing.
“Don’t say that, Tiger. I came here to buy chocolates.”
“We don’t have chocolates for caterpillars like you! Now, get home!”
“I’m not the one buying. Right?”
Haruta turned behind him, and a girl smiled back at him. She looked to be a college student. No, that wasn’t the issue. What? Ryuuji opened his eyes wide. Taiga too. They exchanged looks for a moment with their mouths half-agape.
“Haruta-kun, do you want a big one or a small one?”
“This is the point in the story where if I say that I want the big one, I’ll be in trouble later, won’t I?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then the big one~! Whoo~!”
I’d like that one. The girl pointed at the larger box. Under a knit cap, her long, pretty hair grew past her chest. She wore a light grey coat on her thin frame.
“Th-That’ll be five hundred eighty yen…please…”
“Okay. I’m sure I had a five hundred yen coin…umm.”
She pulled a strangely wide wallet from her bag. As she tried to pull out change, receipts, hundred yen coins, and a gold turtle meant to bring good luck fell onto the ground. Haruta picked those up.
“Aw, you’re so messy. Here.”
He intimately put the items into the girl’s pocket. If they weren’t really close, Ryuuji couldn’t think Haruta would be able to do something like that. In other words, what that meant was—
“You…had a sister?”
They had to be related.
Ryuuji asked the question to confirm his suspicion as he handed over the receipt and her twenty-yen change. If they weren’t, then what were they? Taiga didn’t move a muscle. Apparently even her mouth no longer worked.
“She’s not my sister! Hee haw! She’s my girlfriend!”
The girl beside Haruta smiled.
It’s got to be a lie. I can’t believe it. No matter how Ryuuji tried to deny it, there was a special sense of closeness in the eyes of the girl who looked up slightly at Haruta’s face.
He stared intently at the pale hands that accepted the chocolates he handed over. She was a normal—or actually, a rather pretty—girl and older, wasn’t she?
“Th-th-th-thank you so much!” Taiga lowered her head, and Ryuuji also did the same in a fluster.
After they left, Haruta jogged back to Ryuuji alone.
“I like her. I wanted to show her off to you without hiding anything, Taka-chan,” he whispered into Ryuuji’s ear. He giggled as though embarrassed, smiled, and followed behind the girl who had gone off ahead. Since Ryuuji had shared his unrequited love troubles during the school trip, Haruta must have decided to settle things with the girl he liked.
“How?! The world must be crazy…”
He couldn’t help but agree with Taiga. No, Haruta was definitely a really great guy, and Ryuuji liked him (though that was gross to admit), but what kind of trick had that guy used to snag such a pretty girl like her? How did he even meet her in the first place?
“I can’t accept it unless Haruta met her by like, passing by and helping her while she was drowning…! Damn it, welcome! We’re selling Valentine’s chocolates! Would you like some?! Welcome!”
Ryuuji was mostly jealous as he squeezed his voice out from the bottom of his gut. As though they had unexpectedly been ensnared by that, three people in a row bought chocolates. The third one even bought four boxes all at once.
Ryuuji cut and threw away the receipt that had grown long and unruly as he watched the customer take the scrap of paper and leave. He never thought his face was compatible with the service industry, but it seemed he was getting a pretty good start. The shock from Haruta disappeared from his head instantly, and his mouth loosened up.
“Hey,” said Taiga. “I was thinking about it, but I think it’s better when you don’t smile. How about you make that same face as earlier, like you were the captain of a pirate ghost ship?”
“S-since when did I look like the captain of a pirate ghost ship…?”
“I mean that face you made when you were looking jealous while you watched that idiot caterpillar walk away with his pretty girlfriend. Right, that face.”
“My face looks like this because you phrased that in a hurtful way…”
“Okay, and cross your arms. Close your mouth and stand up straight. Look sulky.”
He crossed his arms and silently stood behind the wagon just as she told him. Then, a pair of women who looked like they were coming from an office passed by.
“Oh, look. The pâtissier himself is selling chocolates…”
“Whoa, he looks so young but moody…”
“But you kind of feel like you can expect a lot out of up-and-coming workers like him and their chocolates.”
“Maybe I’ll buy some for my boyfriend.”
“I’ll buy some for myself.”
He didn’t know what they had associated him with, but as they approached, a passionate, continental melody came from their mouths, “Te te teeelelee rele rereleleelelee.” He didn’t know what to do when they asked, “These are handmade, right?” He didn’t have the confidence in himself to lie.
Without realizing it, Ryuuji had turned into a stone guardian dog… No, he opened his eyes wide like the hellhound Cerberus itself as he watched the two approach. It wasn’t that he’d decided to curse them for stepping into his hellish domain. I’ll sink you office ladies in a freezing bath of dirty blood and earth!
The two saw his face, and though they were slightly frightened, they pointed at the chocolate boxes.
“I’d like a big one.”
“I’d like a small one.”
Ryuuji put the chocolates in a bag and handed them over. “Thank you very much,” he said in an intentionally low voice, and the two of them accepted it seeming satisfied. We bought some! They left.
“See. You sold some.”
“I really did… Actually, can I really do that? The box says wherever processing plant it comes from right on the bottom… Can’t they see…!”
“We’re not actually lying or anything.”
Ryuuji felt like karma would catch up with him eventually. Maybe the sale had just been a coincidence, because customers stopped coming over right after that. Though they were approaching dinner time, and the number of people moving through the streets had increased, those types of customers might not have been the type to buy chocolates from the packed wagon.
“Takasuuu, Tigeeer, how’re you doing?”
Ryuuji looked up when someone called out to him. Noto, who appeared in his personal clothes with a grin on his face, contrarily made Ryuuji’s face strangely leaden and clouded over.
“I just ran into Haruta with his girlfriend over there…and he said you two were bored, so I came to window shop a little…ah ha…what’s with that…he has a girlfriend…a girlfriend!”
“Oh dear, oh my, seems we’ve come across a pitiful bespectacled boy.”
When she saw him all by himself, Taiga put her hands unpleasantly over her chest.
“That long-haired caterpillar and his gal were friendly enough to buy chocolates and to go on their merry way. Now that you’ve stopped here, you’re at least going to buy one box, right?”
“No way I’d ever do that! That’d be way too miserable! Takasu, did you have a clue?”
“Nope, I found out just now.”
“Right! Actually, what’s with that?! I can’t believe how much he’s accomplished right under my nose… Ahh, I hate this, ugh, what am I even doing… Has anyone else come by? Like the master?”
Ryuuji shook his head. Kitamura was probably still at the student council at school right around then, and Noto should have known that, too. What could he actually want to know?
“Umm, what about Ami-chan or Nanako-sama?”
At that moment, it clicked with Ryuuji. Oh, maybe he’s doing it so I don’t realize how his heart is racing.
“Kihara hasn’t been here.”
He tried to prod and casually draw out what was actually on his friend’s mind.