Meanwhile, Isshiki was sighing again. “Well, some boys are like that, huh. They won’t talk to you unless they have a reason. Which also means they’ll make up some stupid reason to pester you with an attempt at conversation.”
“Hey, stop it—some guys can do their best if they have a chance. Stop it.”
But Isshiki wasn’t listening. “Here I am thinking, You don’t have to bother coming all the way to me to ask what’ll be on the test; you should just ask your friends over there, and then they try to keep it going on forever on LINE and you pretend to fall asleep, y’knooow?”
“Stop it, stop it, stop it. Stop prodding the soft spots of middle school boys. Especially me. Sometimes one small action can change the world… I do believe that…”
Everything is like that. With a twist on the everyday, you can change the world. Let me change the world… I want to make miracles with you…
As I was gazing far off into the distance while mentally assembling my prayer of complaint, Isshiki watched me with a veeery dull look in her eyes, but that eventually turned into a smile that silently asked, What can you do? “Do you do that in your classroom, too? I know we just got new classes.”
“Well, yeah. And once you’re in third year, you’ll be somewhat familiar with basically everyone, so people aren’t really trying to go out and build new relationships—and I don’t just mean with me. So there isn’t really a need to talk with anyone.”
That was ultimately nothing more than my impression as an outsider, but Isshiki gave my views an mm-hmm. “I see… Well, you already are in third year, huh?”
“Yeah, I’m in third year…,” I said, before my voice darkened a little. “So now I’ve got different problems.”
Isshiki cocked her head, which made her pale hair swish down to hang over her white throat. Pushing aside the hairs that caught on her colored lip gloss, Isshiki wordlessly asked for me to continue.
I quickly folded my arms and let my tone darken a little more as I went on. “Some kids will start calling anything the last one of high school, and it gets a little obnoxious…”
The troublesome thing about remarks like these is the fact that they aren’t entirely wrong. You could even say this moment right now would be my own last something of high school.
It’s not like I don’t understand the desire to describe everything as “the last X of high school,” but if you say that, then every single day winds up commemorating something. So you’re Machi Tawara, huh?
It seemed my weariness had come out pretty clearly, regardless of my intentions. Isshiki made a face, too. “Ahhh, like a couple who’ve just started dating having an anniversary of whatever…”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Yeah, that is a little annoying… When they post that stuff on social media, you’re like, Ugh shut up, who cares, and you have to hit Like anyway.”
“Y-yeah, yeah…” I thought I’d been doing well listening along, but then suddenly, I stuttered. I see—so Irohasu is the type who will make sure to press Like, even if she secretly hates it. How nice… I have absolutely no plans to post anything about anniversaries on social media, but that got me thinking that I should try to avoid making people feel bad.
But even I am merely human. It’s not like I don’t get wanting to make an anniversary special.
Everyone will have one or two dates they’d like to remember. Even a trivial day of little importance can be an irreplaceable anniversary to someone.
The biggest example of this is birthdays.
Thinking of that, I picked up the Max can I’d left on the bench beside me and held it out to Isshiki. “Want this?”
“What? Uh, randomly offering someone a half-drunk drink is actually a crime, though.” Isshiki scoot-scoot-scooted over to the edge of the bench, raising up both hands in front of her chest in a total defensive stance.
“I haven’t even had any yet… Look. This tab is totally untouched. Pretty, isn’t it? This is unopened, you know?” To prove that, I waved the can and emphasized my innocence.
That seemed to win her over, as she inched back closer to her original position. Then she reached out with trepidation to accept the canned coffee from me. “Agh, well, thanks… Might as well take it, then. I’m not really sure if I’ll drink it, though…”
She is brutally honest, huh…? But I think it’s nice, the way she won’t flatly reject another’s goodwill, even when she’s reluctant.
“Happy birthday,” I said with a wry smile, putting the drink in her hand.
But there was no answer from her. She stared dumbly at the Max can enveloped in her hands.
“…” She blinked, expression vacant, and then all I heard was an unvoiced breath.
When I asked her with a look, What is it? she snapped out of it with a gasp and started fidgeting with her bangs. “…Y-you remembered, huh? You didn’t say anything, so I thought for sure you’d forgotten.”
“Nah, there just wasn’t the right moment to say it…” When I’d first caught sight of Isshiki, she’d been too far away, and once we’d started talking, that surprise bottled water attack had made it out of the question for the moment…
But I couldn’t possibly forget Iroha Isshiki’s birthday. She’d taken every opportunity to draw attention to it before, and most of all, for these past few days, the subject had been the talk of the Service Club, of which I was a member. Apparently, that day after school, the whole club was going to throw a surprise party.
But even if we were arranging a surprise, it would be too suspicious not to mention anything birthday adjacent even when I ran into her. When you get to a sensitivity championship of my level, you’ll see right through that stuff and think, That’s odd… It’s my birthday today, but nobody’s saying happy birthday to me… Aha! So they’re planning a surprise? And then the day just ends with nothing happening. That’s happened to me before.
If I anticipated such thoughts and wished Isshiki happy birthday now, I would be able to divert her attention away from hopes for or suspicion of a surprise. The plan here was to double the effect of the surprise. An absolutely enchanting play, if I do say so myself…
As I was feeling smug, there was a tugging on my sleeve. When I looked over like, What’s up? I saw Isshiki was turned away, pouting.
“One can of coffee isn’t enough, you know,” she muttered sulkily. “I’m not that cheap.”
I know. I do have my own sort of present for you… So I wanted to say, but I swallowed it. I had to leave that for the surprise after school.
Despite her insistence about her worth, Isshiki didn’t throw the Max can back at me and just tucked it into her blazer pocket.
Instead, she offered me something else. “…Um, here, I’ll give you this.”
“Oh, thanks.” I reflexively gave a Thank you, I accept… sort of bow as I took the I LOHAS she had been holding.
“…Huh? What?” I glanced up from my hands at Isshiki.
She was still looking away, but she answered my question surprisingly directly. “It’s a trade…for the coffee.”
I see. I don’t get it. Why did this girl give me an I LOHAS? I could explain the Max can as a birthday gift. But I couldn’t think of any reason for me to get something from her.
“Oh-ho…” So then is this the straw millionaire thing? I wondered, staring in confusion at the flavored water in my hands.