“So she’s not here…,” Izumi said as Mimimi hmmed in response.
It was after school that day. We’d reunited with the science-track crew in the lunchroom, and we were exchanging information.
The arts crew—Mizusawa, Kikuchi-san, Mimimi, and I—were sitting on the big sofa seats at the back of the cafeteria, while the science people sat across from us—Nakamura, Izumi, Takei, and Tama-chan.
In other words, all the members of the Osaka group except for Hinami were there.
“Plus…I hear she hasn’t done anything with the student council,” Izumi continued.
“That’s…not like her.” The bad news made Mizusawa frown, too.
“Look, our school does that thing where they invite professionals from lots of career paths to talk about their jobs, right?” said Izumi.
“Oh yeah! The career-path seminar, right?” Mimimi said.
“That’s right!” Izumi replied.
Every year at Sekitomo, they have this useless event where we hear some “appreciated” talks from adult guests, supposedly to deepen our understanding of working life. Usually, nobody really cares to listen to what they have to say, but it’s par for the course at university-oriented schools.
“I think last year, it was…,” Mimimi said.
“An enka singer who grew up around here,” Tama-chan answered, which was met with dampened enthusiasm. Maybe that was because they recalled the extremely warm and mild-mannered air that had been in the gym during that event.
I seemed to remember it’d been fairly tough to sit through—she’d talked about the attitude of a professional, then had sung a song about her hometown. The bpm was way too slow for a high school, and I think there was too much vocal gymnastics.
Izumi raised her eyebrows in concern. “So I hear the student council is running that event…but now that Aoi suddenly can’t come to meetings, they’re struggling a lot.”
“That’s not good!” Takei commented.
I could imagine what was happening with them.
“They say Aoi was the one leading the group originally, so there’s no way to move forward until she takes over…”
So not only was she absent from school, but she also wasn’t even taking care of her work. That was a fairly big problem. The student council would also be trying to get in contact with Hinami, so if they couldn’t do that, then Hinami was ignoring everyone, not just us.
That would have been unthinkable for her before.
“So I was wondering if we couldn’t do something,” Izumi suggested earnestly.
Without even a pause, Nakamura answered, “Sorry, I’m out.” He’d been indignant ever since this discussion had begun.
“You’re out…? What do you mean, Shuji?” Izumi implored.
“There’s no need for us to go that far.”
“Why?” Izumi asked.
Nakamura wasn’t even trying to hide his annoyance. “After everything she said to us, she’s ignoring contact from us, too. We don’t need to make more concessions for her—that’s all.”
“…Well…”
When he put it that way, Izumi must not have known how to reply.
They didn’t understand the situation, and Hinami wasn’t explaining, either. It’s true that we had been the ones prying into her personal life, but her retaliation had been excessive. It was no surprise that Nakamura wouldn’t agree with Izumi when Hinami had been so sharp with him.
Izumi wilted, hanging her head, and clasped the hem of her skirt.
“Hey now, let’s think about it, Shuji.” Mizusawa cut in as smoothly as a willow tree fluttering in the wind. “It’s unusual for Aoi to act that way… Actually, it’s the first time. She’s got to have some reason, right?”
“Yeah, Nakamoo! Our friendship can’t be broken over something like this!” Mimimi added.
“It’s invulnerable, right?!” Takei joined the other two in staring at Nakamura.
“Well, that’s true. I don’t think it would break over something like this, either.”
“Nakamoo!”
“But…” Nakamura lowered his gaze a moment and let out a dissatisfied sigh. “This only means she would try to destroy her friendships just because we made a video letter without permission.”
“But, Shuji, when you get right down to it, this is my fault—,” Izumi began.
“Your fault, huh?” A wrinkle formed in Nakamura’s brow, and his voice darkened. “This is why I said I’m out.” He gave Izumi a fierce look. “If she’s making you feel that way, I don’t want to be a part of this,” he said flatly, then took the tray from his finished meal and stood from his seat.
“Hey! You’ll wait for me, right?!” Takei hurried after him.
Izumi watched the two of them go, her gaze wavering. “…Sorry, guys.” Eventually, she seemed to brace herself. “I’ve got to follow Shuji… See you!”
With that, she hurried after Nakamura.
Once the three of them had left, we wound up feeling kind of abandoned.
Even Mizusawa, who was usually cool and collected, was scratching his cheek uneasily. “Hmm, things aren’t going very well, are they?”
“…No.”
It wasn’t just our choices between course streams—even our feelings were divided. We looked at one another, and no one was able to smile for real.
“Well, anyway…guess we’ll call that it for the day.”
With that remark from Mizusawa, we all went our separate ways.
✦ ✦ ✦
Less than an hour later, I was sitting at a café in Omiya opposite Kikuchi-san.
“So…what did you want to tell me?”
I’d been wondering since this morning what she wanted to talk about. I was drinking lemon tea, a little cheery and a little nervous as I waited to hear what she had to say.
She seemed to be struggling a bit, but she reached into her pocket. “Um…actually, it’s about this.”
She offered me her phone, with a single e-mail displayed on it.
I accepted it from her, and I read a few lines in. “Huh…?”
The sender of the e-mail was a publisher calling themselves “Shobunsha.”
“‘I apologize for the sudden e-mail, but my name is Hanemoto, from Shobunsha’…”
Feeling Kikuchi-san’s gaze as she waited, I read the whole thing. They explained politely that they had read the novel that she’d uploaded on a submission site a little while ago, Pureblood Hybrid and Ice Cream. Eventually, it said:
“…‘And so—if we could discuss together the possibility of our company publishing the work in question’… Wait, huh?!” I cried out loud. “The e-mail’s domain is… Yeah, it’s legit.”
As a terminally online person, I did a quick and dirty check to determine that the e-mail address came from somewhere official as I digested this message.
When I checked the home page of the domain in the browser, I found it was a new publishing house that couldn’t be called large. They put out a few books a month, and they weren’t some dubious company. Fact-checking, done.
“Ohhh, they actually publish books every month,” I said.
“O-oh, they do…?”
A part of my mind had been restless ever since the Hinami incident, but now this was pulling at my heartstrings.
“You did it!” I cried, and I was as glad as if the accomplishment was mine. “This is great! You might be able to become a pro!”
“Ah, umm, er…but…” Kikuchi-san seemed humble about it for some reason, fumbling with her words.
I wanted to give her confidence. “No buts! Like, this means…!
✦ ✦ ✦
“It means your dream will come true!”
✦ ✦ ✦
She had put in her account bio that she wanted to be a novelist, and she’d been writing novels to that end. The dream that she’d been pursuing was now about to come true.
Her face relaxed into a smile as if reality was hitting her at long last.
“Y-yes…you’re right!”
It was as if she had finally managed to validate herself.
✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦
“That’s great! Wow, a novelist in high school.”
“W-well, it’s not like they’ve decided to publish it yet…”
As we were talking, the feeling sank in. Not that I was the one who needed to feel that.
But for some reason, Kikuchi-san’s expression was somehow glum.
“…Is something wrong?” I asked.
She nodded. “When I saw this e-mail, I was happy, but…” As if thinking back, she said, “If I’m going to get it properly published, then I’ll have to improve the quality of my work, won’t I?”
“Yeah.”
“And for that…I’ll have to think more about the characters…”
“…Do you mean…?” Now I figured out what Kikuchi-san was trying to say.
Before, Kikuchi-san had explained the reason she had written the novel Pureblood Hybrid and Ice Cream:
✦ ✦ ✦
“Because in the play script, I wasn’t able to fully depict the characters, aside from Kris.”