“That’s quite the wild story, but at least I know what you’re doing here now.”
“Yup...”
Iroha and I sat hidden among the many boxes that were stored in Ghost Mansion’s staff passageway, our knees to our chests. We’d just caught each other up on how we’d gotten here. I didn’t know whether or not to be impressed that Tsukinomori Mizuki had felt no shame in inviting a teenager to join her, when said teenager was supposed to be in school.
Iroha had messaged me about being in Kyoto. I probably should’ve taken it as foreshadowing.
“I’m super jealous that you got to see a Hollywood film set up close,” I said.
“Yup. I sure have learned a ton.”
Whether Iroha realized it herself or not, she was supremely lucky. If this Hollywood director hadn’t decided he wanted his movie to be a musical, a Broadway actress like Mizuki-san would never have been involved.
As the creator of a certain online message board once said in an interview, “I’m successful, but I’m no genius. If I had to name one talent I did have, it would be luck—the luck to have done the right thing at the right time.”
Maybe you don’t need “talent” to create something people will appreciate years from now. Maybe you just need to create something, and if it’s still there after however many years, people’ll look back and say you’re “talented.” And if that’s true, then Iroha was already a prodigy.
I realized I could be pretty soft on my creators; I still looked at them through the same rose-tinted glasses parents looked at their children with. Though I hoped that my high expectations of them were more based in reality than runaway emotion.
“Y’know, you don’t usually make stupid mistakes like accidentally entering the visitors section of the attraction when you were just looking to buy some drinks. What, did you forget to pick up the map before you left the starting area?”
“Yup. I sure am pathetic, ain’t I?”
“Uh, why are you talking like that?”
“Yup. Talkin’ like what?”
“Like that! Like you’ve come here from the countryside or something.” I looked to my side, only then noticing that Iroha had her gaze pointed in the completely opposite direction. Her ear poked through a gap in her golden-yellow hair. It looked a little red. “Iroha.”
“Eek! Wh-What, Senpai?!”
“You’re acting weird. You’re not feeling sick or anything, are you?”
“Nope, I’m in tip-top shape! It’s just, uh... Y’know, it’s been a while since we’ve seen each other, so...”
“A while? I-It’s only been a few days. Y-You’re making a big deal out of nothing.”
“Y-Yeah, I know, but, um... Um...!” Iroha wrung her hands as she tried to think of what to say.
Seriously, what was up with her? Her usual peskiness was nowhere to be seen. In fact, she seemed almost nervous. Her abnormal behavior was messing with my head too. It was making me restless, and I was finding it difficult to look at her directly.
Iroha looked up at me from beneath her eyelashes, her gaze searching. And then, her expression did a complete one-eighty.
“Nooo, I can’t take it! It’s been so long since I’ve seen you that you look more handsome than ever... My heart’s pounding like a jackhammer because of you and it’s so darn annoying I could literally die...”
“H-Hey, quit it. Y’know, if you turn away from me and whisper like that, I can only assume you’re insulting me.”
“Insulting you? I wasn’t insulting you!”
“What were you saying then?”
“I-I can’t tell you!”
“Why not? If you really weren’t insulting me, you should be able to repeat it just fine.”
“Nngh...”
Even if she was insulting me, it shouldn’t have bothered me. Before now, it never would have.
What other people thought was irrelevant to the Alliance’s progress. I’d always focused solely on the task in front of me, and both praise and criticism from anyone else went straight in one ear and out the other.
Despite that, right now I was strangely fixated on every word that came out of Iroha’s mouth. What had she said about me? What did she think of me? Yeah, I know I was being so oversensitive, it was laughable.
Where she had mumbled before, suddenly Iroha’s voice burst out of its bounds. “Wh-Who cares what I was saying?! No one likes a nitpicker, especially not girls!”
“Girls don’t like me anyway!”
“Y’know, Senpai, there are many things in this world that humanity would be happier without. Like death, and war, and your lack of self-confidence!” Iroha glared at me stoutly, her arms crossed.
“One of those things is so not like the others.”
Speaking of, I was pretty sure I’d heard those words thrown around in memes on social media. As a producer, studying how those things spread so easily was probably a good idea. I wasn’t sure whether to be impressed or exasperated that Iroha managed to find a situation to repeat those words in real life, though.
“Also, that doesn’t make a lot of sense. The majority of humanity doesn’t even know who I am, let alone how confident I am in myself.”
“Y’know, Senpai, there are many things—”
“All right, I get it.”
No doubt she was going to add my pedantry to the list of things humanity could do without.
“Anyway, we should probably leave the conversation here,” I said, getting to my feet.
Iroha looked up at me. “Where are you going?”
“I gotta get back to the attraction. I came here with Mashiro.”
“Mashiro-senpai’s here too, huh?”
“We got separated, and she’ll be out there all by herself right now. I gotta hurry and catch up with her.”
I neglected to mention that we only got split up because Mashiro went on a rampage. However, I was more worried about the fact I was supposed to be spending this time with Mashiro, but was instead here with Iroha. It felt uncomfortable—awkward, even. And it made me feel like I was doing something wrong.
“So you’re with Mashiro-senpai, huh? I see. Huh.”
“What’s up?”
“Nothing. I was just thinking how you’re a disgrace to all studentkind, because you’re here on a cutesy-wootsy date with your girlfriend instead of doing something educational, like you’re s’posed to on a class trip. That’s all.”
“Oh, that’s all? I don’t think you get to tell me what is and isn’t a disgrace, when you’re the ex-honor student skipping school to come to Kyoto.”
“I’m an ex-nothing; my honor student status is still perfectly intact! Unlike you, Senpai, I can skip a day or two without it affecting my grades.”
“You could murder someone and still get top marks in everything too,” I grumbled, knowing she was right. In our society, once you’d established a reputation for yourself, it was difficult to get people to change their minds about you.
Suddenly, I spotted a figure in my peripheral vision. It was a woman wearing a sun visor, scurrying this way. If she wasn’t a member of staff, I didn’t know who was. I also didn’t know what the point of the sun visor was in a place that was not only indoors, but also blacker than the dark side of the moon. The woman spoke before I could ask.
“Excuse me, sir. This area is restricted to staff members. Or would you like to leave the attraction here?”
“Oh, uh, no thanks, I’ll head back in.”
“In that case, please go right that way. Only staff members and those who want to leave early are allowed in this space.”
She sure told me. But what could I say? I wasn’t supposed to be here.
I turned to go back to the stair landing without arguing.
“Your girlfriend too, please. Ma’am?”
“Huh?” Iroha gasped.
Startled, I turned around. The woman was blinking at us, her head cocked in confusion.
“Oh, did you perhaps want to leave the attraction by yourself?”
“Um...” Iroha faltered. I couldn’t blame her. This lady just assumed we were a couple out of nowhere.
Though I couldn’t really blame the staff member either. If we put aside the fact that Iroha was here with a Hollywood film crew, it was unclear where she stood in relation to them. She wasn’t quite an assistant, but she wasn’t quite a gofer either. There was no reason this woman should recognize her.
I would have at least expected Iroha to have some sort of visitor pass or sticker for security reasons, but I couldn’t see anything like that around her neck. Had she put it in her pocket maybe? In the words of longtime geeky event extraordinaire Murasaki Shikibu-sensei, that was a “big no-no” and completely missed the point of having a pass like that in the first place. She had actually gone on a massive tirade about that to me for ages, with way more enthusiasm than I’d ever seen her display in the classroom.
With that out of the way, it was time to save Iroha’s skin.
“Oh, actually, I wandered into this area by mistake and ran into this girl,” I explained.
“You two weren’t visiting the attraction together?”
“No, but it’s kind of a long story how we know each other. Right, Iroha?” I shot her a look, having set everything up to allow her to cinch victory.
She nodded.
Looks like she got it!
Then she grabbed onto my arm and clung to it.
Wait, did I read that right? She grabbed onto my arm and...?
“We’re actually dating for real!”
“Huh?!”
Wait, wait, wait, what the hell happened for this to happen after the other thing happened?! Why the hell did she nod if she wasn’t gonna follow my silent instructions?!
“Oh, I see.”
And this lady believed her! She was even nodding like she’d known what was up all along!
I mean, yeah, I get it! Why would a girl and a guy be sitting so close together and chatting back here if they weren’t a couple exploring the haunted house together?! And supposing they weren’t, it would spark off a huge mystery in this woman’s mind complex enough to keep her up at night!
“What’re you doing, Iroha?” I asked.
“Don’t sweat the small stuff!”
“I’m sweating something pretty big over here, actually! And it feels like you’re breaking my arm off. I swear, you used to be way more gentle.”
“C’mon! Let’s get going, Senpai!”
“Please enjoy the remainder of the attraction!”
The staff member waved us off with a perfectly polite smile, while I was dragged away by a grinning Iroha.