I could pretend that I was a total gentleman who preferred to keep his distance all I liked, but the fact I never asked her to move away out loud proved I was actually something much more pathetic than that. The most I could do to fight back against this was to avoid looking at Iroha and getting visual affirmation of just how close we were at all costs.
“Look, Senpai!”
“No thanks. I’m not looking at anything.”
“The heck? This is no time to be fooling around!”
“I’m doing the total opposite right now! I don’t care what you say, I’m not gonna look and that’s final!”
“Huh? Seriously, are you sleepwalking or something? Just look! I found Mashiro-senpai!”
“What about Mashiro?”
“I. Found. Mashiro-senpai. The girl we’re literally looking for right now!”
Iroha’s scathingly patronizing tone brought me back to my senses. “Ah!”
Right—we were looking for Mashiro! We were in huge trouble if we couldn’t find her—and here I was getting distracted by other huge things.
“Look, over there! She’s getting on that ride!” Iroha pointed at what looked like a boarding gate for a spaceship, which Mashiro was going into. She’d skipped right past the long line. “Hey, how come she doesn’t have to join the line?”
“That’s the power of LVIP.”
“What’s LVIP? Sounds pretty epic.”
“It stands for Legendary VIP pass. It can only be issued by an elite class of employee, and the holder can skip the line for any attraction, boarding it via a special LVIP entrance. It basically gets you special treatment.”
“Nice, you sound like a total nerd. That, or someone who knows all about it explained the exact same thing to you recently.”
Yup. I’d pretty much parroted the total nerd who gave me the rundown.
“Anyway, roger that. Kinda sucks for us, though. If we wanna go after her, we’ll have to join this massive line, and then we’ll probably end up losing her. We could wait for her to come out, but there’s gonna be a ton of people doing just that at the exact same time...”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll have you know I’m an LVIP too!”
“Wh-What?!” Iroha blinked. “What the heck are you and Mashiro-senpai doing with those passes?”
“Right, I should probably explain. Y’see, we ran into Otoha-san, and—”
“Thank you for your patience. All guests with ticket numbers below 221, please come forward to enter the ride.”
My explanation was interrupted by an attendant with a megaphone before it could even begin.
Iroha hurriedly yanked on my arm. “The ride’s starting! You can fill me in on the deets later—for now, let’s just use that LVIP pass of yours to barge right on in!”
“R-Right, good idea. We’ll probably end up next to Mashiro too, since we’re both LVIPs.”
Then we’d be reunited, and it’d be mission complete!
There was a time, not long ago, when my head was full of naive thoughts just like that one.
“What the hell’s Mashiro doing all the way over there?!”
“Look, Senpai, I know she might hear you if you shout, but you’re also gonna tick off all the other people here.”
We managed to get on the ride using my LVIP pass, but ended up on the very last car of a seven-car coaster. Each car held four people, and Iroha and I were given a car all to ourselves, no doubt thanks to the pass’s power. But although we didn’t have to sit next to any strangers, neither did Mashiro.
“I’m terribly sorry. The seat with the best view—the one at the front—has already been taken by another LVIP pass holder. Would you mind riding in a different car?”
“Oh, uh, we’re fine sharing with the other LVIP.”
“I couldn’t ask you to do that! LVIPs must be given as much space to enjoy themselves as possible! If you would like to sit at the front, I’d be happy to allow you that seat on the next ride, but I’m afraid I cannot offer it to you for this one.”
“But if you give both LVIPs a whole car each, won’t that deny spaces to a lot of other customers?”
“Oh, sir, that’s so thoughtful of you!”
“Huh?”
“I understand. You don’t want to monopolize such a big portion of the ride, for the sake of the people waiting, yes? But you don’t need to worry about that. We can’t allow our LVIPs to show such consideration, or we’ll get in trouble with the CEO.”
And that was how Iroha and I got completely cut off from Mashiro.
I always thought I was more assertive than passive, but maybe I was actually pretty easy to push around.
“This is so annoying,” I said. “I can see Mashiro right there, but we can’t even talk to her. Maybe we should try and pass a message along the cars to her and let her know we’re here?”
“Remember what I said about ticking off literally everyone? Not to mention making us look like we’re up to something.”
“I thought ticking people off was your bread and butter?”
“Hey, I am so not doing this! Anyway, I like ticking you off. To everyone else, I’m a perfectly innocent honor student who wouldn’t hurt a fly, remember?”
“Ugh, you really can’t make an exception just this once, huh?”
Iroha started whistling then. Was it just me, or was she in a weirdly good mood? She might just have been genuinely excited to be on this ride, despite the fact we weren’t able to meet up with Mashiro.
“The safety bars will now be lowered.”
The steel bars above our heads came down and settled into position with a satisfying clank. About eighty percent of me felt safer, feeling that solid bar in front of my stomach. The other twenty percent doubted whether a simple bar would be enough to stop me going flying. Following up on that thought was scaring me enough to consider hopping right off, so I desperately chased it from my mind.
It’ll be fun. They run this thing hundreds if not thousands of times a year, and there’s never been an accident. Never ever.
“Hey, Senpai, wanna know a fun fact?”
“What?”
“The slogan for this ride is ‘Experience the Universe!’ I saw it on a sign just now.”
“That seems kinda overdramatic. Though I guess that’s what makes a good slogan.”
“Apparently, you’re s’posed to feel like you’re in a space shuttle smashing through the atmosphere.”
“Now that’s just false advertising. You’d need to be able to break the first cosmic velocity for that, and that’s impossible for a rollercoaster.”
Iroha grinned.
“Like I said, impossible...right?” I said.
“I dunno. But it’s got a reputation for going that fast.” Iroha’s eyes sparkled with mischief. She was enjoying this way too much.
“You seem pretty relaxed to me. You realize you’re in the same boat—uh, car—as me, don’t you?”
Iroha cackled. “Meaning you think I’m a total scaredy-cat?”
“I know you’re a total scaredy-cat.”
“Methinks the lad hasn’t put enough thought into this.” Iroha wagged a finger at me, that smug grin still on her face.
The seat under my butt started clattering and vibrating, and the car started to move.