The car entered the Bayshore Route from the Shinyamashita tollbooth.
“……”
“……”
Neither Sakuta nor Touko said a word at first. The tension in the car was so thick you could cut it.
Honestly, Sakuta thought going to see Takumi was a huge gamble. He had no way of knowing how this would turn out.
If the birthday scarf provided the impetus to make Takumi perceive Nana again, great. But the opposite was equally likely, and this might end with her sight unseen.
The first outcome naturally presented no issues.
But if the latter happened? The one possible solution he’d finally hit on might well go up in smoke. Betray Sakuta’s and Nene’s hopes. He couldn’t imagine what that would do to her. Maybe nothing…maybe it would make things far worse.
It was risky.
But he’d decided to bet on Takumi anyway.
Sakuta had no way to save Nene himself.
This wasn’t like when he’d declared his love for Mai before the whole school. To Nene Iwamizawa, Sakuta was nothing but a bystander. He was not part of her life.
If there was anyone who could really reach her, it was Takumi.
Sakuta had to bet on him.
The car was smoothly running across reclaimed land, down the Bayshore Route.
“Tell me about Fukuyama.”
“Like what?”
“Who asked out who?” Sakuta asked, his eyes on the car in front.
“Takumi never quite worked up the nerve, so I goaded him into it.”
“How?”
“I mentioned a third-year boy had asked me out. That lit a fire under him.”
Out the corner of his eye, he saw no smile on her face. Her voice was flat.
“I can see him sweating that.”
“It still took him a while.”
“That shows how much he meant it.”
“Is that how it works?” Touko glanced his way.
“I mean, I’d say something right away.”
Outside the left window, he saw a huge building—the steelworks.
“You even tell her how much you adore her on campus.”
“I usually just stick with love.”
“You’re very odd.”
This, he let pass.
He asked a different question instead.
“You and he went to the same high school?”
“Yeah, same junior high, too.”
“Were you aware of him then?”
“I knew he liked me.”
“What made you like him?”
“You ask a lot of questions.”
Clearly, she wanted a break.
But Sakuta kept pushing.
“I like how you don’t have to watch what you say around him, and he doesn’t watch what he says to you.”
“For example?”
“When college started up, Fukuyama was the first one to just outright ask if it was true about me and Mai.”
Word got around almost immediately that he was dating Mai Sakurajima, and lots of people were curious. But no one dared come over and ask. They were letting sleeping dogs lie.
Takumi had pointedly ignored that tacit understanding and laid the question out there.
“You really dating Mai Sakurajima?”
That moment right there had forever changed Sakuta’s standing on campus. His relationship with Mai went from rumor to fact. From supposition to reality.
That was a bigger sea change than you’d think.
“For a man who can’t work up the nerve to ask a girl out, he was always good at that.”
“Like how?”
“In junior high, a boy moved from Tokyo to our area. A transfer student. He’d been avoiding school for a while, and rumors about that preceded him—everyone wound up waiting for someone else to talk to him first.”
Her hands were on the wheel, and her profile suggested she was taking a trip down memory lane.
“And Takumi was the first to talk to him, as if he hadn’t noticed any of that.”
“That’s pretty cool.”
“I guess I owe that transfer student. That’s when I started noticing Takumi.”
“He’s been going to a lot of mixers, so you’ve got a right to be mad at him.”
“If he can see me, I will be.”
There was a hint of a smile on her lips.
“Still, never imagined Fukuyama was older than me.”
He was turning twenty-one today. Two years older than Sakuta.
“I’m gonna have to call him senpai.”
“Takumi will hate that.”
“Fitting punishment for a man who forgot his girlfriend.”
“You are a strange one.”
“I’m totally normal.”
He checked the navigator, and Haneda was only a couple of miles out. To Sakuta, it seemed like they could get to Takumi before his flight left. But given boarding procedures and baggage checks, they wouldn’t have much wiggle room.
Maybe five, ten minutes tops.
Not much to work with. It was unclear if that tiny window would be enough to make him perceive Nene Iwamizawa.
Knowing they were short on time was making things tense.
They could see the airport now.
A plane was taking off from it.