Naoya had always lived a relatively carefree life up until now.
He’d always abided by school rules, and his grades were good to match. Owing to his above-average intuition, he’d coasted easily through life by avoiding most conflicts. If any girls had shown him even a hint of affection or interest, he had been sure to let them down gently as soon as possible. So, in that regard, his reputation had always been completely clean, too.
As such, this was the first time in his life he’d ever had to deal with making a mistake of this magnitude.
It was the Monday after his disastrous visit to the Koyuki residence. It was lunch time, and he sat with three other people in the usual courtyard at school.
“Yeah, this is basically all your fault, Naoya.”
“You messed up big time.”
“I hope you’re reflecting on your thoughts and deeds.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Naoya replied meekly, hanging his head in assent.
He was sitting with Tatsumi, Yui, and Sakuya, and each of them had their own piece to say to him. Koyuki was nowhere to be seen—in fact, he hadn’t seen her once since the incident. He hadn’t heard anything from her over the weekend, and she had taken the day off school.
He hadn’t gotten a single opportunity to apologize and make up with her. I really screwed up this time. What the hell was I thinking? he lamented.
Tatsumi took a sidelong glance at Naoya and spoke up. “Even I know that Shirogane would run away if you were too forward with her, bro. Come on.”
“And she took the day off too...”
“Yes. Koyuki will only continue to hide like this unless we do something,” Sakuya informed them as she chewed on a piece of omelet. She finished her lunch, put it to one side, and bowed to Yui and Tatsumi. “Apologies for the late introduction. I’m Shirogane Sakuya. Thank you for looking after my sister and future brother-in-law.”
“Oooh, you’re so polite. And wow, you’re already treating Naoya like family,” Yui cooed.
“Wonder how long that’ll last now, though. Hahaha!” Tatsumi added with an incredible lack of tact.
“Well, I’m glad you all have opinions on this whole thing!” Naoya shouted indignantly. “This morning, Sakuya came up to me from the train station with a wig on—I thought she was Shirogane for a second! D’you know how excited I was, Sakuya?! Have you no heart?!”
“Wow. What a novel way to mess with him, Sakuya.”
“Got you,” Sakuya added without a hint of emotion. “And by the way, remind me which one of us is the one truly at fault here?”
“Me...” Naoya admitted after a long pause, then gave a melancholic nod. I knew confessing to her right then was a bad idea, but why did I end up blurting it out anyway? I couldn’t help myself, though. Man, I’m such a moron. He fell even deeper into his misery.
In contrast to Naoya’s gloom, a cheery voice spoke up, “I’m actually kinda relieved, you know.”
Naoya looked up and saw Yui smiling brightly at him. “Yui, you really enjoy seeing me suffer that much? You’re still mad about me forcibly hooking you up with Tatsumi, aren’t you?”
“Uh, no?” she replied incredulously. “I was just thinking that you would’ve never made a mistake like this before. You know, because of your ‘power’ and stuff.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that this is an opportunity for personal growth, young one,” Yui clarified in a condescending tone and pointed at Naoya for emphasis. “Relationships aren’t all sunshine and rainbows—we stumble our way through them, making mistake after mistake, but we keep moving forward. You have to learn from this instead of being so down on yourself.”
“Preach, girl. You know better than this guy,” Tatsumi added.
Just as she had implied, Yui and Tatsumi hadn’t always gotten along this well. Naoya had been there for the times where they’d had a falling out and disagreed, and because of that, he was well aware that what Yui had said made sense.
That’s right. This is like some sort of test. If I overcome this, I might be able to grow even closer to her! Naoya affirmed to himself. He smiled at his friend and said, “Thanks, Yui. I’m out of my funk now. I’ve never been in a situation like this before, so it threw me off more than I’d expected. I guess this is how normal people worry about stuff—it’s kind of refreshing, honestly.”
“You’re welcome. I’m only letting you get away with calling the rest of us ‘normal people’ because you’re you, got it?” Yui replied with a wry smile.
Tatsumi pounded a fist into his open palm and proclaimed, “This is like when a robot finally gains a soul.”
“Yeah, like in every sci-fi movie ever. And he’ll have to self-destruct at the end to save everyone.”
“Got it. Don’t worry, Naoya—I’ll travel to the ends of the earth to collect your bones and whatever. You go and self-destruct to your heart’s content.”
“I’ll be the subheroine watching the explosion from afar who sheds a meaningful tear.”
“We’ll be having a long talk when this is all over, you guys,” Naoya warned as he glared at his would-be sister-in-law and his childhood friends. He rubbed his head and sighed, “Seriously, though—I need to apologize to her, and I need to do it soon. I don’t want her to feel any worse than she already does.”
“What d’you mean?”
“Shirogane’s definitely feeling down about the whole thing, too,” Naoya explained.
Despite her constant attempts to keep up appearances, Koyuki was the type of girl who agonized over every little mistake. She’s probably doing even worse than me right now, Naoya fretted. He could picture it perfectly—she would be curled up in the fetal position in the corner of her room, regretting every action in her life that had gotten her to this point. The fact that he had visited her room recently made the mental image all the more clear.
“Still, Shirogane’s so awkward. I wonder if anything like this has happened to her before.”
“Even I don’t know anything about that,” Sakuya replied with a light shake of her head. Her eyes grew distant while she thought back on the past. “She was normal in elementary school. It was only after that she became the pretentious klutz we know now.”
“Damn, Sakuya, that’s pretty harsh,” Naoya said.
“Call it impartial. Still, Naoya, can’t you think of anything? You’re supposed to be able to read people’s hearts, right? Are you telling me you can’t even figure out if she has some sort of trauma?”
“I consider that an invasion of privacy,” he replied flatly. He had always had the impression that Koyuki kept a part of herself hidden away—a sort of figurative line that he had always taken great care not to cross. “And I wouldn’t want to know in the first place, to be honest. I told myself I wouldn’t worry about it until she feels comfortable enough to confide in me herself.”
“Hm, what a standup gentleman. That’s probably why Koyuki likes you so much,” Sakuya commended, her expression softening for a brief moment. Naoya could tell he’d passed another pop quiz of hers with flying colors. “Still, I want you to do something about this—and soon. The whole family is worried about her.”
“Oh god. D-Did she say anything to your dad?” Naoya asked hesitantly.
“She did. His response was, ‘For now, let’s put our trust in the boy and care for her as best as we can.’”
“Dad...” Naoya whispered.
“He tried to go to work in his pajamas today as a show of solidarity. You have to do something quick before he does something crazy, loses his job, and destroys our whole family.”
“Oh no! Don’t worry, I’ll fix this,” Naoya replied frantically. He could feel his shoulders sagging under the weight of the responsibility.
Tatsumi and Yui looked at Naoya, then at each other. “If he messes up again, though, things’ll be real bad,” Yui noted.
“True. What’s the plan, Naoya?”
“Hmm...” Naoya crossed his arms and thought deeply.
While it was true that he had acted like an idiot an inordinate amount of times recently, he was still confident in his ability. He was certain he would be able to coax Koyuki out of her room if it came down to it. Even so, he would like to avoid that if at all possible—it felt too much like tricking her, and the thought made him uncomfortable.
That left him with only one option. He spoke in a low voice, “We’ll just have to go with a full-frontal assault.”