Firmly resisting any potential urge to smile, I put on a particularly weighty expression and nodded at her. “Well, you know, it is quite possible that after looking into a variety of schools for comparison, we would choose the same prep school in the end.” But after getting that far, my attempt at a cool facade immediately flaked right off and fell away. “In fact, it’d probably happen; yes, I indubitably will do it.” Maybe that earlier weirdness hadn’t worn off completely.
That must have influenced her, too, as her nod in return was especially stiff. “Yes…that is my intention…”
And then both our gazes wandered around from embarrassment.
I blew at my long-cold coffee in an attempt to compose myself, while Yukinoshita rustled around in her bag as if to cover for being at loose ends.
We had nothing you could call real conversation during that time. Our eyes just met in occasional glances when we nodded at each other with shy, slightly crooked smiles.
What the heck is this…? It’s super-embarrassing… I suddenly want to die!
Okay, then let’s try to fix this with a topic change! I gulped down some coffee to sharpen my mind and my expression. “Oh yeah. Thanks for yesterday. For going out shopping for Komachi’s celebration,” I said, bringing it up as if I’d just remembered it.
Yukinoshita jolted and faced me again. With a small shake of her head, she smiled. “Oh, no, we were thinking we wanted to give her a little something, too. I should thank you. Sorry for leaving you to take care of the club yesterday.”
This time, I was the one shaking my head a little. I hadn’t done anything much. We hadn’t gotten any requests or consultations or anything. It had just been me minding the place in their absence and chatting with Komachi and Isshiki.
There was just one thing that was on my mind, though.
Those thoughts must have shown on my face, as Yukinoshita cocked her head. “Did something happen?”
“No… Well, I guess you could say there was something…,” I answered evasively as I wondered how to explain it.
The matter Isshiki had brought us the day before wasn’t big enough to be called a problem. She’d ultimately just come to check something. I might have just been trying to find a problem.
So first, I should tell her only the facts, with my personal opinion omitted. “Isshiki’s told us there’s a school information session coming up. Because of that, they’re apparently making some, like, club introduction material? And we were talking about whether to put us in,” I said, keeping it brief.
Yukinoshita gently touched a finger to her chin and considered awhile. “That’s an issue that will involve the Service Club next year and beyond. Since it is an official club, I get the feeling there’d be difficulties if we didn’t put it in…” Her thoughts were basically the same as mine. “Well, if we’re not going to be recruiting new members, we should be able to talk our way out of it somehow,” she said and concluded with an mm-hmm. We were on the same page, then.
When you got down to it, there was just one question here:
What did we plan to do with the Service Club next year? That was all.
“What did Komachi say?” Yukinoshita asked me.
“She didn’t seem enthusiastic about it.”
“I see…,” she said, then offered nothing else.
She couldn’t say any more. Just like me.
I could have an opinion, but I couldn’t make the decision. No, that was a cowardly way to put it. This was because I was unable to even offer my opinion.
If I’d said that I wanted the Service Club to continue, I’m sure Komachi would have respected that, regardless of her own desires. That’s what’s terrible about me—I twist things and put the responsibility on other people.
“The clubroom is larger than you might think. Though it didn’t bother me at all last year…,” Yukinoshita suddenly muttered in the silence. There was a hint of loneliness in her voice, as if she was worried for Komachi. Yukinoshita knew what it was like to be alone in that room.
Komachi would also be spending her time like that. Put in my own subjective terms, Komachi was being left behind in that clubroom. Maybe that was why it felt so desolate to me.
That scene I’d imagined back when Komachi and I were alone together in that room was playing across my mind again—until a bright voice broke into my thoughts.
“…But I think it will fit lots of people.” I looked up again to see Yukinoshita wearing a soft smile.
I couldn’t quite digest what she’d said. My head tilted, and I responded with a look: What do you mean?
Yukinoshita puffed out her modest chest with mild pride, a triumphant expression on her face. “Though it may be odd of me to say this of myself—people came to that clubroom even when I was the club captain, you know? Yuigahama joined, too. With Komachi as club captain, they’ll have plenty of business.”
“I can’t argue that… Particularly the even when I was the club captain part,” I shot back with a dry ha-ha.
Yukinoshita giggled. “Right? I think some of those are sure to be valuable encounters, too,” she said lightly, but with earnest warmth in her tone. Her gaze was peaceful, as if she were reflecting on this past year. And then her eyes softened a little shyly when she added at the end, “…Like us.”
“You think? …Yeah.” Finally, I was fully convinced.
Maybe I’d been too fixated on our relationships.
No, it was fair to say I’d deified them.
Somewhere in my heart, I must have believed the current Service Club—in other words, the way we were right this moment, with Komachi included—was the ultimate, was the greatest, was perfectly complete.
If not, then I wouldn’t have said Komachi was being “left behind.”
I’d unwittingly taken my own environment as an absolute; that misdirected sentimentality was based on my own subjectivity.
Selfish. Arrogant. Shortsighted and narrow-minded. Just how far up his own ass is this guy? I think he’s an idiot. I wanted to tell him to go and die for the next ten years.
Had our relationships ever been perfect?
No, absolutely not.
They had always been twisted, torn in some places, occasionally cut off with that thin connection persisting, stretching out between us even when we continued to go wrong. That was what I thought our relationships were.
And Komachi was sure to experience the same. She would have lots of encounters from now on, and those would lead into some of her own irreplaceable relationships. Though that was so completely obvious, my sentimentality had caused me to overlook even that.