“Well, that’s just how it is with fathers and sons, not like I know. All you can talk about is money, or your impressions of the new Evangelion.”
“Hmm… You’ve got a closer father-son relationship than Komachi thought…” Komachi’s expression shifted from its former sorrow to a mildly discomfited wry smile. She was even pulling away slightly.
Well, it’s no wonder she would be put off by that… My dad and I are both the same in that once we start talking about our opinions, all we can say is “Thanks…” It hardly ever turns into a real conversation… Most people would get weirded out seeing us—two guys hardly meeting each other’s eyes, looking into blank space as they say “Thanks…”
Well, Dad’s one thing, but if Komachi was talking about school with our mom, then she should be fine.
She said so herself; she was having a normal, good, uneventful, and unchanging time at school.
“…Well, so long as you’re not having any particular problems, okay then,” I said.
“Mm-hmm.” And then Komachi nodded back at me and faced her textbook again.
I watched her until my mind started to drift.
A pleasant wind was blowing through the open window.
In the distance, I could hear the vigorous calls of sports club members cheering for their teammates, as well as out-of-tune notes from the brass band.
It sounded like there were new members in all the clubs. The after-school melody had become more irregular, but that just gave it an extra shot of lively energy.
Right now it was all disharmony, but with each following day, they would fall into sync, and eventually, it would become beautiful background music that we would remember fondly.
Inclining my ears to the sounds out the window, I turned my head to survey the clubroom.
The room was quiet, with just the scratching of a mechanical pencil and the occasional slide of a turning page.
The feeling that came over me was something like nostalgia—had the room been this big before? My eyes lay still on Komachi, who was sitting diagonally across from me.
The two of us were alone.
Komachi was silently reading her textbook, seemingly undistracted by anything.
The image was similar to the scene I’d witnessed in this clubroom just one year ago.
A girl reading a book in the slanting light.
It was a vivid reminder of her, back then.
If I hadn’t been dragged here on that day, would she still be reading alone here in this room, unchanging?
What a pointless thing to imagine.
No matter how you wonder about what-ifs, you can’t turn back time. Even if I could do it over, if I couldn’t carry forward this memory, the result still wouldn’t change. In the end, I would have been brought to this room.
So there was no point in this line of thought.
But if I were to try to find a point…
…I could say this hypothetical was a hint to how Komachi might be someday.
I would only be able to stay in this clubroom a bit longer. Graduation was waiting in less than a year. After we’d left, would she still be here, passing the mundane hours after school by herself? Here in this room, without the girls and no scent of tea?
The idea made my heart clench.
I’d known it would happen eventually, but it hadn’t felt real until I saw Komachi alone in the clubroom like this.
“Komachi,” I said. Her face popped up, and she tilted her head to ask without words, What?
“Do you wanna recruit new members?” I said with no preface at all.
She blinked. Eventually, surprise and confusion showed on her face. “Where’s this coming from…?”
“I mean, the other clubs have new members… I was thinking it’d be nice if we had some younger members, too.” I couldn’t say that it was because I’d just imagined a scenario that had prickled my heart, so I chose to be evasive instead.
Komachi narrowed her eyes at me. “Bro, I thought stuff like that was too much trouble for you. Like, you treat Taishi so bad.”
“That’s not true. I don’t hate hierarchical relationships when I’m the one on top.” I puffed out my chest.
Komachi was horrified. “The worst kind of senior…”
“Anyway, Taishi’s…you know. Not really a junior, more like Kawa-something’s little brother, or Keika’s older brother.” Taishi would indeed count as my junior at school, but since I’ve known him from before he came to this school, I didn’t really think of him that way.
If we became members of the same club or something and saw each other on a daily basis, I’m sure that relationship value would be updated, and I would be able to recognize him as my junior, but at this point, he was stuck as a maggot who had come near Komachi.
…Of course if I say anything about maggots or whatnot, Komachi will get upset with me again. Let’s not share that one, I thought, swallowing my words.
Komachi continued to look at me skeptically; she could probably tell I was trying not to say something unkind.
But upon hearing the pleasant sound of a metal bat and an off-key trumpet, she slid her gaze out the window. “To be honest, Komachi’s also thought about…” She gave a weak sigh.
Apparently, I didn’t even have to worry about it, because Komachi was thinking about the future, too. Phew…
But that relief only lasted a brief moment, as Komachi folded her arms with a hmm, making a face that put a wrinkle between her eyes. “Even if we were gonna recruit people, it’s hard to explain this club, you know.”
“Ahhh…yeah.” That got an automatic agreement from me. This club probably did seem pretty inscrutable to other people.
Despite being called the Service Club, it wasn’t like we were engaged in any service activity or what you might call “volunteer activities.” Lately, we had functionally become subcontractors for the student council, and the consultation and requests that occasionally came in were all very personal matters. It would be hard to explain to a third party.