I noticed just then that Pon-chan had divided the rolled omelet into portions for all three of us. I thanked her, to which she replied, “Well, when it comes time to really pull out the big guns, I’ll leave it to you two senpai.” How smooth of her.
“I’m not really big on them, either. Anyway, I just thought this sort of gathering is probably useful for folks who know exactly what it is that they want.”
“That’s a pretty Tousuke-like appraisal.” Being able to distinguish his thoughts from his feelings, that was.
“Well, that is my appraisal. What Pon said earlier was right, though. It’s not the same as ‘becoming your ideal self,’ so I don’t think it’d be suitable for those who can’t deal with that sort of dissonance. I think that’s why she got fed up with it.”
“What I just wanna know is why you, someone who supposedly hated Moai, had such a blast at the event that you’re still acting like you enjoyed it,” said Pon-chan.
“I mean it was pretty fun,” Tousuke said, before glancing my way and whispering, “It does at least give me some new perspective on them.” Though that much was already obvious from looking at him, I was glad that at least he did not lie to me about it.
“Still, I can’t really speak on the whole of Moai, but the leadership seems to be pretty gung ho about their initiatives and the stuff they’ve got planned. I got particularly ticked off at all those haughty attitudes that the high-ranking guys had, but it did seem like a lot of work went into planning this event. So, ticked off or no, I can respect that these are guys who get the job done. You can really tell they’re ready to graduate into real society.” It was a very forthright opinion, which I couldn’t help but acknowledge.
“Still, like, this is stuff that the university’s employment office could take care of for you, and I don’t like the idea of schmoozing with professionals as some kind of backdoor cheat code to getting a job. It would be a perfectly fine event without Moai focusing on all that. Even the discussion groups were mostly just professionals gloating about stuff.”
“And then there was that old geezer who was probably just some underling who was forced to give up his weekend to come here and give some scripted talk. I wanted to wring his neck.”
“Hah, that bad, huh?” I laughed at Pon-chan’s complaint, but honestly, I was just relieved to hear Tousuke actually criticizing Moai.
“Well, it was at least useful for learning what companies not to work at. I’m assuming you got business cards from recruiters in your prospective field afterwards?”
“That’s true. One sec.” Pon-chan fished a hand into her breast pocket. It took her a bit longer than expected because she couldn’t reach it with her opposing hand. It looked like it must be painful to have the buttons pulling at the fabric like that.
“Here we go! Takasaki Hirofumi-san. He was tall and pretty handsome. He didn’t piss me off too much either because he seemed like he was actually successful.”
“I get that.”
“Man, he was suuuuuuch a nice person! Unlike you, Tousuke-senpai! You’re so small and clingy…!!!”
I was glad that it at least appeared to have been a fruitful day for Pon-chan. It was for the sake of our plan that she had ended up attending, so I would have hated for her to come back with nothing but exhaustion.
I breathed a solitary sigh. At least the day’s operations had concluded without any major slip-ups. The next course of action I would discuss with Tousuke at his place later, once we had wrapped up here. I thought about this as I moved some grated daikon atop my rolled omelet and took a bite, when suddenly Pon-chan offered up an unexpected fact.
“Oh, right, Tousuke-senpai. Didn’t you exchange numbers with someone?”
“Oh yeah, that Ten guy!”
“Seriously?!” I asked in shock. Tousuke turned to me and gave an emphatic blink, which I could only assume was a failed wink. “I mean, are you seriously thinking about joining Moai, Tousuke?”
“That’s what I was wondering,” Pon-chan chided.
Tousuke, for some reason, shrugged and shook his head. “That’s not it. We just ended up in the same group a bunch of times! I just happened to talk to him while Pon was collecting business cards. It turns out he also got an offer from the company that offered me a position, but he ended up settling on somewhere else and turned them down. He was just telling me we should go for drinks sometime, so we traded numbers.”
Well, that certainly was something.
“You see there, Kaede-senpai? Those two fools had a deep, spiritual bond. I suppose we ought to live a more serious life too.” I laughed at this.
However, I could feel a strange, slow dread beginning to crawl up my fingertips. I had no way of confirming these fears of mine there, as Pon-chan suggested we move the conversation to less dry topics. It did feel strange to be obsessing over Moai in a place like this, so we shifted gears and made idle conversation a while, drinking and enjoying the rich food.
Before we knew it, two hours had passed. Within the bustle of the restaurant, not even the loud sounds of laughter or glasses breaking was enough to rouse Pon-chan from her position where she had collapsed upon the table. She had had more than enough to drink and was likely already exhausted.
“Seriously though, thanks,” I said, lifting my lemon sour. Tousuke, who had moved to beside Pon-chan after getting up to use the restroom, raised his glass to mine and clinked it. “Sorry to make you do most of the legwork. If there’s anything I can do to help out with Pon-chan’s job hunt, let me know.”
“I’m sure she’d be happy to hear that, but seriously, I’m fine. I’m already done with my hunt, so I was mostly just watching over my kouhai from up on high.”
“Really though… Also, that’s some fancy footwork you must’ve done to get close enough to that guy to get his information.” Without Tousuke, I would have never been able to get this far this quickly.