“Hey...”
“.........”
“Hey, are you still angry at me?”
“I’m not angry,” said Houki, curtly.
“You look angry to me.”
“I always look like this.”
It was the second day of school, eight in the morning. We were eating in the cafeteria for the first years, and girls surrounded me in all directions. It scared me that even all the employees were women, but I shouldn’t have been surprised. I was eating breakfast together with Houki in the interest of maintaining positive relations with my roommate, but we hadn’t been able to talk properly since the day before. I had a Japanese breakfast, incidentally; there was rice, natto, sliced salmon, miso soup, and also some vegetables as a side dish. I was basically eating tax money, and it was pretty good. Bless the power of the state.
Houki was eating the same. Japanese people ate rice for breakfast, period. Not that bread was bad, but... salmon was just too good to pass up. It had a faint but pleasant trace of salt, and the rice was soft and warm. Sheer excellence! Generic electric rice cookers had nothing on this.
“Houki, this is really good.”
“.........”
She was ignoring me. Still, she took a bite of the salmon, as if to acknowledge agreement.
I’d always lived together with my sister Chifuyu, so it wasn’t like living alone with a girl made me a raving lunatic. I’d washed Chifuyu’s clothes for a long time, in fact, so I wasn’t going to freak out over some panties. That was only my side of the story, though. My childhood friend across the table was probably not seeing things quite like that. Maybe she hated how seeing her panties wasn’t a big deal for me? I had no idea what was going through her mind.
“I told you that I’m not angry.”
She brought that up herself, though. She hardly ever looked at me, and if our eyes met by accident, she’d look away. Well, if that wasn’t being angry at me, then there was still hope for global peace.
“Hey, he’s the boy they’re all talking about.”
“And he’s the brother of Chifuyu as well!”
“Whoa, both brother and sister are IS pilots? Do you think he’s good, too?”
Everything was just as it had been the day before. The girls around me were keeping their distance, but clearly paid attention only to me, barely containing their interest. It was irritating. If this had been a fishing operation, it would’ve been a great catch. Pretty dumb metaphor if you ask me, but hey—
“So, Houki...”
“D-Don’t use my name.”
“Shinonono?”
“.........”
I tried calling her by her last name, but that didn’t seem to make her happy, either. Houki still didn’t like her name, apparently. Well, there was a bit of a story behind that.
“O-Orimura, may we sit here?”
“Hm?”
I looked over and saw three girls, carrying breakfast trays and awaiting my answer.
“Yeah, sure.”
The girl who had asked me sighed with relief and the others struck a victorious pose. I heard murmurs among the crowd around us.
“Oh, no... I should have talked to him...”
“It’s... It’s just the second day... There’s no rush. Don’t worry...”
“I heard they saw a girl on top of him yesterday.”
“What?!”
Oh, yeah. The day before, 8 girls in first year, 15 in second year, and 21 in third year had come to introduce themselves. I had a tough time just remembering their names. If any of them had come up to me afterward and asked me if I remembered her name, chances would have been about 50-50. What more could you have expected?
It was first thing in the morning today, and I had to remember another three. This group of girls had, apparently, already made a deal with respect to who got to sit where, and they took up their positions very smoothly. It was a table for six. Houki and I were sitting by the window. They took three more. One was left, and I wanted it to stay empty.
“Wow, you can eat so much in the morning, Orimura.”
“Yeah, boys can eat so much...”
“I don’t eat a lot for dinner, so I eat more in the morning,” I replied.
That was actually the truth. I had experimented for a number of years, but ultimately this turned out to be the best for me. Well... I was just imitating Chifuyu, if anything.
“Are you girls okay eating so little in the morning?”
The three girls who joined us all had different meals, but largely shared the same things: a slice of bread, a glass of juice, and a side dish... A small side dish at that.
“W-We’ll be...”
“Um... Fine?”
How fuel-efficient. Maybe that was the reason only girls could pilot the IS?
“We eat a lot of sweets...”
—You’ll get fat doing that.
It probably wasn’t healthy. People had to take care of their body during their teenage years. I once read that you start to age faster as early as 22.
“Orimura, I’m going ahead.”
“Hm? Oh. See you later.”
Houki finished her food and left. All Houki had eaten was Japanese-style food from the buffet; the food of ancient Japan, just like a real samurai. She was the image of the ideal woman in the middle ages. Or maybe not, I dunno.
I hadn’t expected my roommate to be Houki. I suppose it was definitely better than living with a girl I didn’t know. Houki and I had known each other as kids; back in elementary school, Chifuyu had taken me to kendo, and I was in the same class with Houki until we were 10. Her parents often invited us for dinner since ours weren’t around anymore. We were pretty poor, so that helped a lot. It wasn’t like Houki and I were always friends, though. At first, we didn’t get along at all, but as we practiced kendo together, we warmed to each other. I think, anyway— It was all kind of vague to me now. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t remember as well? Whatever. The past is the past, after all. There’s no time like the present.
“Orimura, do you get along with Shinonono?”
“I-I heard you share a room?”
“Oh, yeah. We’re childhood friends.”
That itself didn’t really mean much to me, but it caused a stir around me. A faint “What?!” could be heard off in the distance.
“S-So, uh...”
Ah, the girl next to me named... Tanimoto? Yeah, she was trying to ask me something, but a loud clap rang out in the cafeteria.
“How long are you going to stay here and eat? Finish your food efficiently. If you’re late for class, I’ll make you run ten laps.”
My sister Chifuyu had appeared. Everyone in the cafeteria went back to eating their food.
A lap around the IS campus was five kilometers long. Having to run all of it was no joke. I finished my food as fast as possible as well.