Well, it’s not really something I have to worry about, but still…
I’m not a member of the club or anything, so I knew it wasn’t like my showing up that day would resolve that discussion from the day before.
But even so, when I saw him and Okome-chan alone together in that big room, it put me in a mood to pop in for the heck of it. Well, I’d made up my mind to begin to pop in as often as I could when they were there, though, so whatever.
And so, once again, I’d shown up at the Service Club room.
This time, it was me, Yui, and Okome-chan.
With just the three of us, the clubroom really was just like the day before, but it looked somehow half-empty.
I’d like to quickly work out the stuff we talked about yesterday, though… I don’t know if they’re on a prep school tour or a crap date or what, but I’m pretty busy myself now that summer’s coming, I thought as I glared at one of the two empty chairs lined up together.
Then I got curious about something. “Ohhh, wait. You didn’t have to go tour any prep schools, Yui?” I plunged right in.
“Huh?” Yui, who’d been munching on snacks and guzzling tea like eeeverything was normal, jumped in her seat, then went back to munching.
“Ummm,” she mused. She swallowed a gulp of tea, stroked her bun, and smiled awkwardly. “Wellll, I was wondering about what I should do…,” she said with an evasive ah-ha-haa.
Seeing that, I sneakily whispered into the ear of Okome-chan, who was beside me. “She’s moving to the defensive.”
“You don’t think her strategy is to deliberately take a step back…? Komachi’s heard that the game isn’t just about playing hard to get or getting ahead, but also about letting your opponent take a fake lead and cornering your mark,” Okome-chan said as she nodded oh-ho, oh-ho with a know-it-all face.
The heck is this girl talking about…? I thought, giving her a sidelong glance.
Meanwhile, Yui stabbed out one hand to flatly argue, “No, that’s not what it is. I was thinking maybe I could ask Hikki afterward and then go where he was going.”
This time, Okome-chan brought her face closer to mine to whisper, “Isn’t this an attack?”
“True…nothing’s stronger than throwing out paper the instant your opponent plays rock…”
…Well, with that guy, if you ask him to teach you, help you, or give him a hand, he’ll complain, but he will actually work things out for you. As expected of Yui. She’s known him for a long time—yeah, she gets it, I thought, impressed.
Meanwhile, Yui was flailing and waving her hands. “No! That’s not what it’s about at all! I’m saying it’ll be useful, since we’ll be taking exams for the same sorts of places!”
“Oh, really?” Okome-chan’s mouth popped open as she cocked her head quizzically.
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“Yeah. I’m going for private liberal arts, so, well, probably mostly the same?” Yui answered, nodding, but then her head tilted to the side for some reason. This was about her own future.
Incidentally, I was also hmming thoughtfully. “Ohhh. So you’re taking entrance exams, too,” I commented carelessly.
“Of course I am!” Yui whipped back toward me. I worried she was going to break into whimpering tears. “Come on… Iroha-chan, do you think I’m that stupid?”
“No, no, that’s not what I mean at all. I knew you were going to take entrance exams; I understood that. It’s just, like, hearing about it struck me again…,” I added hurriedly, sneaking my eyes away. Uh, not out of guilt or anything. I did think Yui was a little eh in the brains department, but honestly just a little…
And then, after averting them, my eyes landed on that pair of empty seats.
I probably hadn’t just been looking away from Yui. I think I was unconsciously looking there, too.
Coming to the clubroom when they weren’t there that day and the day before, seeing Okome-chan looking far quieter than usual, and hearing talk about a future where prep school and entrance exams had become concrete—the reality was sinking in.
They honestly were going away.
“Ahhh, yeah… So, I guess, until summer?” Yui said, her gentle voice not a reply to my flustered excuse, but maybe directed to the room she was gazing slowly over.
The stacks of desks, the swaying curtains, the wall clock that was a little behind, the abandoned Christmas debris in the corner, the blackboard with some faint, half-erased characters, the table with the tea set on it, the two empty seats side by side.
Yui gazed at each thing, and her eyes softened with fondness. Her glossy lips curved in just a slight arc.
Watching that mature smile, I gave a listless little sigh.
Whoa. I could even cry.
It totally wasn’t even time yet for graduation or retiring from clubs or anything, but it felt like a weird switch was about to flip in me. Crying now would be a waste of tears, so instead, I let out a big haagh. This is just such a hassle, that sigh said, I so don’t have the energy.
“Summer, huhhh. Then I guess it’s like you’ll just baaarely miss the school info session,” I said, forcibly bringing up a different topic.
Yui cocked her head and asked me with her big eyes, Is there something?
“Oh, there’s, like, this information session for middle school students who’ll be taking our exams. There’s going to be a school tour, and we, like, introduce the school clubs and stuff.”
The beautiful and adult smile melted off Yui’s face. “Ohhh,” she said, nodding with her mouth hanging open dumbly. My moist eyes dried in seconds.
Since I’m here, might as well ask Yui.
This was an issue I had to deal with now, while they were still here. If I didn’t, then I’d get tied up in the “now,” then get caught in the past, and then she and I both wouldn’t be able to go anywhere anymore.
I folded my arms with a hmm, tilted my head, and continued. “So we have to put together a pamphlet introducing the clubs, and we were talking about whether to put the Service Club in and what we should do with that. Right?” I turned it to Okome-chan beside me.
She was folding her arms in the same way I was, tilting her head. “Hmm, yeahhh. I wonder what we should do,” she replied with zero sense of seriousness. It’s not like I expected Okome-chan’s answer to change in just one day, so that was fine.
When I looked over at Yui like, What do you think? she jumped on it with her answer.
“Why not—let’s put it in. Let’s get lots of new members,” she said forthrightly, the words a certain guy had hesitated to say before.
I’d known she would say that.
Yui understood all the considerations and reservations that kept him and Yukino from saying things, thinking they were being kind, and then Yui deliberately pretended to be an idiot to say it out loud for them.
Okome-chan hmmmed uneasily before shooting back with a strained smile, “In Komachi terms, I don’t think we need to do any of that for a while, though… Komachi’s got her hands full taking care of my bro.”
“Ahhh. Mm, well, yeah, Hikki,” Yui said, gently going along with that, though she smiled wryly in exasperation. I couldn’t bring myself to smile.
Well, I’d figured Okome-chan would say something like that. She was playing it off as a joke, but that was probably pretty for real. She really couldn’t think about new members right now, and it was true she was looking out for him in all sorts of ways.
So most likely, what Okome-chan valued was not the Service Club itself, but the Service Club as it was now. What she wanted to take care of was ultimately the space and time where they were. It was kind of like how I’d thought briefly that if the Service Club was going away, maybe they could do their stuff in the student council instead.
…Though I don’t actually know what Okome-chan thinks about it.
The only one I know is myself, so there’s nothing for it but to imagine based on my own standards—at least, that was how I used to think. I didn’t want anything foreign in there, myself included. I don’t think that at all now, and it’s even like, I don’t really care.
Still, I couldn’t help but react when Yui softly said, “Hmm, but maybe someone will come and join…eventually…”
“Huh? You think?” I replied.
“Is there someone?” Okome-chan joined in.
When the two of us both jumped on that, Yui rapidly apologized, drawing away slightly. “Huh, oh, sorry, I have no idea. I was just kinda trying out saying it.”
Whaaat, you were just saying it?! You made me get all excited… I sulked hard at Yui.
Then she clapped her hands and patched over what she’d said. “Okay, but look, you don’t know about the future, right? Anyone could just walk in, not just the new students. It was around this time when I joined in my second year. And Hikki joined around then, too.”
“Now that you mention it, yeah…,” Okome-chan acknowledged.
But I didn’t know any of that, so I wound up reacting like Huhhh, really? I’d never heard about that stuff at all. The three of them were already there by the time I’d come to the Service Club, so I’d assumed they’d always been members.
Then Yui nodded as if to say Right, right with an easygoing laugh. “So I think it might become something like that… Like us,” she said offhandedly. But…
“Ohhh, like you guys is frankly a little yikes, though,” I said, waving my hands in front of my chest like No way, no way.
“Komachi’s a little unsure, too…” Okome-chan’s shoulders slumped dejectedly, and she gave a strained smile.
“Huhhh…? I meant it as a good thing, though…” Yui was tilting her head like Ohhh? That’s funny. But she knew what I meant.
Relationships like theirs—overly complicated, ridiculously troublesome, and constantly going wrong—can’t be built so easily. I mean, I don’t even want that. No matter how hard I deliberately tangle things up, I wind up assembling way better, way more respectable relationships.
But they’ll still probably go wrong somewhere along the line.
Maybe someday the two of us will find relationships like that. I’m sure of it.
With that thought, I glanced to the side, and our eyes met.
And we shrugged, sighed, and giggled softly.