There were several others in the main building’s center garden, but they found an open picnic table. Sakuta and Miori took seats on opposite sides of the table, armed with bottled tea and sandwiches from a convenience store.
First, they unwrapped the sandwiches and filled themselves up. Miori was opening her mouth wide, happily wolfing it down.
The garden was drenched in spring sunshine.
There was a man-made lake with a bridge over it, and on a rock in the middle, a rather large turtle was happily drying its shell.
A peaceful lunchtime.
“So, Mitou.”
“What?”
“Wanna rent a car and go for a drive this weekend?”
In response to his suggestion, Miori first blinked twice, saying nothing. Then she flashed a vicious smirk.
“Sounds like a line for your girlfriend,” she said pointedly.
“Mai’s real busy. She’s gotta be Touko Kirishima now.”
“Everyone’s talking about that.”
Miori glanced at the table next to them, where four girls sat, peering at a phone lying on the center of the table. They could just make out a Touko Kirishima song. The girls were laughing and chatting, the names Touko Kirishima and Mai Sakurajima floating on the breeze.
“So if your girlfriend’s unavailable, best to invite another friend who’s got a license.”
“Does that apply to potential friends?” Miori asked. She was smiling.
“Mitou, to your mind, where does ‘friend’ begin?”
“I feel like taken men asking another girl on a drive rules it out.”
“I’m asking where the border of friendship lies, not the border of infidelity.”
“Azusagawa,” Miori said, before he’d even finished. The mood changed in an instant.
“What?”
“You ever kill anyone?”
The tone of her voice hadn’t changed at all. But the question blindsided him.
“……”
He failed to find the words.
“I have. On Christmas Eve, my first year of high school.”
Still, her tone stayed the same.
Her expression never wavered.
Her eyes stayed on the turtle sunning itself.
“A friend of mine was supposed to come over. I was waiting at home for her, and she texted me. ‘At the store, what you want?’ I wrote back, ‘Curry bun!’ A minute later, she sent ‘Curry bun acquired!’ But I waited and waited, and she never showed up. I texted, ‘Where are you?’ and it never got marked read. A car had run a red light and hit my friend.”
Not once did an emotion cross Miori’s face. Her expression as still as the turtle on that rock.
“You think if you hadn’t asked for a curry bun, your friend wouldn’t have been run over?”
“She’d have gotten through the line that much faster.”
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Sakuta hadn’t been there; he couldn’t know for sure.
All he knew was that Miori’s friend had lost her life in the accident.
“That friend was Touko Kirishima,” he said, looking right at her.
“……”
She didn’t seem surprised.
“You were ‘Touko Kirishima’ all along.”
Still no real reaction.
And she soon told him why.
“I got a letter yesterday. From Touko’s mom. She said a high school girl came to visit, with a college boy in tow. That’s why, Azusagawa.”
“Why what?”
“Why we can never be friends.”
Miori looked at him and smiled. A beautiful smile that would make most men fall for her. But to Sakuta’s eyes, it looked impossibly fragile and delicate. She seemed like she might shatter any minute now. That’s what made it beautiful. Like cherry blossoms. The kind of smile that rejected anyone and anything.
A bell rang. Lunchtime was almost over.
Miori took that as her cue to stand up.
“I’ve got a shift, so I’d better go,” she said, and she walked off toward the main gates.
“Mitou,” Sakuta said, getting up and calling after her.
She didn’t pause. Didn’t even look back.
Sakuta didn’t let that bother him.
He just kept talking.
“Saturday. Meet me at the gates of Ofuna Station at noon.”
Miori’s back gave him no answer.
Not even a flicker of response.
In time, she vanished through the gates and out of Sakuta’s line of sight.
✦ ✦ ✦
After Miori left, Sakuta headed for the library. He printed out syllabi he thought he’d need and went home.
The gingko lane was still packed with clubs recruiting freshmen. Sakuta blew past that commotion and out the gates.
“There you are,” said the last person he expected.
Saki Kamisato was glaring at him. She was Yuuma’s girlfriend—well, ex-girlfriend.
“Have you heard from Ikumi?” she asked, before he could say a word.
“Akagi? I thought the nursing program moved to the Fukuura campus for the second year?”
“That’s why I’m waiting here! I can’t get in touch with her. She hasn’t been to classes.”
“Oh?”
“She’s not reading any messages I sent, and if I call, it says the number’s out of service.”
He remembered getting the same message the last time he tried to call.
“Since when?”
“Since the night of the first. That morning, she said she was going to the festival with you.”
“That’s the last time I saw her.”
Less than a week had passed since then. It was pretty common for him to go a week or two without seeing her. He hadn’t noticed anything wrong.
“So you know nothing, Azusagawa?” Saki asked, equal parts anxious and irritated.
“I don’t know anything. If I get in touch with her, I’ll tell her you’re worried.”
“Okay. Do that.”
With that, Saki spun on her heel and stalked off toward the station.
“Hey, Kamisato,” Sakuta called after her.
“What?”
She stopped and turned around, clearly put out.
“Why’d you join the nursing program?”
“None of your business.”
“Because your ex is a firefighter?”
“……!”
Her brows jumped.
“So what?” she snapped, scowling at him.
“If you’re still in love, why’d you break up?”
“Ask Yuuma.”
With that, Saki walked away. She wasn’t about to stop again, and he didn’t consider stopping her.
Sakuta watched until she was out of sight, then stepped into the phone booth by the gates.
He lifted the receiver and inserted some coins into the green machine.
Naturally, he dialed Ikumi’s number.
Saki had said she couldn’t get in touch.
He hoped that was all in her head.
Just poor timing or a missed connection. He really didn’t need any further problems.
But his faint hope was scattered by the mechanical message on the line.
“The number you have dialed is not in service. Please check the number and try again.”
Just to be sure, he checked the number in his head and dialed once more.
But the outcome didn’t change.
He put the phone down. There was a click, and his change was returned.
“What happened to Akagi?”
Was this reality being rewritten again?
He wasn’t sure.
But if it was, his solution was unchanged.
The ball was in Miori’s court.
He had no other means to restore this broken world.
Pinning his hopes on their Saturday excursion, he grabbed his change and left the phone booth.