U-um, hey, I think that’s one of the things that makes you a good senior… If you weren’t, then Irohasu wouldn’t be able to be so brutally honest. I think that might mean she’s just opened her heart to you that much…
When I was hesitating as to whether I should try to be supportive and say that, suddenly Komachi spun to face me. Then she gave Isshiki a cutesy grin. “Eh-heh, please take care of me. ”
It was so sudden, Isshiki’s expression went blank. She blinked a couple of times, then cleared her throat quietly. “Hrm… Well, maybe it’s not bad to have someone younger around,” she said as she looked away. It seemed she was flattered by the prospect of someone looking up to her. I cracked a crooked smile as she quietly finger-combed some of her hair over her ears.
“So watch out for her, if anything happens,” I said.
Isshiki and Komachi would be together a year longer than the rest of us, with our graduation waiting in the spring. Such a connection with an older girl should be encouraging…, I thought, nodding with my arms folded like an old kung fu master.
Isshiki gave me a skeptical look. “Agh, you can ask me for whatever, but there isn’t much I can d—” Then she must have realized something, as she cut off there. She jerked backward, flapping her hands hastily as she rattled off quickly, “Ah! Were you just hitting on me, ’cause like it’s not so bad if you’re casually proposing and implying like ‘please take care of my little sister,’ but now that I think about it being youngest is the juiciest position so I’m sorry.” Then she bobbed her head in a clean bow.
Satisfied by that, I nodded a couple of times. “Yeah, sure.”
Isshiki would come up with these nonsense reasons to reject me in seconds over every little thing, completely unprompted. It had enabled me to ignore it from the start.
But Isshiki seemed unsatisfied, as she was puffing up her cheeks sulkily and pouting. “There it is—you’re not listening again…”
“It’d be crazier to actually listen to something like that… I did give you an answer, like Yeah, sure.” At this point, it’s just a basic conversational flow task; topics roll up on the conveyor belt in front of me, and I plop little dandelions like I get that and For sure on top of them. Though it’s trash labor that doesn’t pay.
But those thoughts must have been totally obvious, as Isshiki breathed a resigned sigh. “Well, I suppose that’s true…”
“Yeah, yeah, for sure,” I agreed carelessly, and Komachi made an oh-hooo sound like she was somehow super-impressed. There was a sparkle in her eyes as she watched Isshiki and me.
Then Komachi timidly addressed Isshiki. “Ummm…”
“Yes? What is it, Okome-chan?” Isshiki said with a long-suffering sigh.
Komachi clasped her hands together in a praying gesture and said sweetly, with wibbly eyes, “Could I call you ‘big sister’? I could even start with ‘provisional’ and then go from there on a case-by-case basis?”
“Why?! I don’t wanna! That assessment seems like a huge hassle!” Isshiki refused flatly.
But Komachi ignored her so hard, it was refreshing. “In ancient times, people said: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and trash for trash… You’re the best option, according to that old adage. If nothing else. In a sense, you’re actually the ideal big sister—in a sense.”
“Huh? What the heck is she talking about…? And that doesn’t feel like a compliment at all…” Isshiki eyed my spellbound and dreamy sister distrustfully. Her nose was wrinkled in the classic expression of being weirded out.
But Komachi completely ignored that, too. “You know, Komachi doesn’t need a brother at all times, so I was thinking I’d like a big sister…since that would ultimately be best for him… My concern is worth a lot of Komachi points.”
“Oh? It is? But you said you don’t need a brother, so doesn’t that mean it scores pretty low?” I shot back. The debt you incurred on the first half was so big, you can’t repay it on the latter half anymore, can you? You should reconsider where you’re allotting your points, okay? But it seems that point allotment is highly subjective.
Unexpectedly, Yuigahama and Yukinoshita started muttering to themselves. “Komachi-chan as a little sister…might be nice.”
“Me as a big sister… That’s not so bad.”
When they noticed they’d spoken at the same time, they looked at each other. “Huh?”
“Oh?”
They stared at each other wordlessly—one smiling boldly, one smiling arrogantly. Somehow that brief confrontation felt very, very long.
“Whoa, this is definitely gonna be a hassle…,” Isshiki muttered quietly in the perilous air that hung around them.
Even Tobe was mussing the hair at the back of his head as he scrambled for an excuse. “Dude… Ah! The artist I came for is coming soon; gotta go!” Before he’d even finished his sentence, he scampered off as fast as he could.
Isshiki yelled after him. “Ah, hey! Why’re you running away?!”
“Dude!” Tobe cried over his shoulder as he ran. His escape speed and his crisis-detection abilities were excellent—he was moving like the comic relief character who would survive to the end in a Hollywood movie.
Isshiki let out a loud “Agh,” then clapped her hands to get herself back in the mood. “Okay! We can talk more about this next time! So let’s wrap this up, too!” she said with extra cheer, cutting in between Yukinoshita and Yuigahama. The fest was approaching the latter half. This would be the perfect time to end our break.
I went wholeheartedly in on Isshiki’s suggestion. “Y-yeah. It’s that time anyway,” I said, and Yuigahama and Yukinoshita glanced over at the clock. Then they looked at each other again and exchanged warm smiles.
The tension relaxed all at once, and Yuigahama stretched wide. “Yeah! We’re almost at the climax of the fest after all!”
“…Well then, let’s enjoy the second half as much as the first,” Yukinoshita said with a calm smile.
“Whoo!” Komachi thrust a fist high.
With that as our signal, we left the rest area and started heading back to the hall.
Perhaps it was thanks to a full break, or perhaps their hearts were racing in anticipation of the climax of the fest, but the girls’ steps were buoyant.
The lights spilling out from the performance hall hit their silhouettes walking a few steps ahead of me, and it was so bright, it made me squint.
Their long shadows did not stay in one place, wavering back and forth, fuzzy and fading into their surroundings, but they were clearly overlapping.
The moment I saw that, my feet stopped—I’d uncharacteristically found myself wanting to look at them a little longer.
“Hikigaya, what are you doing? We’ll leave you behind.” Yukinoshita turned to question my pause, while beside her, Yuigahama was waving her arms wide.
“Hikki, hurry, hurry!”
“You’re too sloooow.” Isshiki was aggressively sullen.
“Big Bro, let’s go, let’s go!” Komachi hopped up and down, beckoning to me.
How many more times would I get to see them all lined up together?
There was only a little time left. Eventually, the seasons would pass, and a fleeting parting awaited us when spring visited once more.
The festival time would not last forever, either. That inevitable end is what makes a festival a festival.
Turn it the other way, and you can say that all things that end eventually are festivals.
So then—
—even these days of nothing are a kind of festival.
They are our fest.
I’m sure they’re singular occurrences, things that happen only once in a lifetime: unique, ultimate experiences.
Someone long ago once said Chiba is famous for festivals and dancing. There are idiots who dance and idiots who watch, so if you’re an idiot like the rest, you’ve got to dance and sing a song.
It truly is a wise saying.
I chuckled under my breath. “Yeah, I’m coming.”
Then I headed to the finale, where the headliner was waiting.
I strode off to the performance hall where I could watch the awesome climax with my own eyes. Where they waited.