“Er, no, you know Ten, from Moai? I think he’s a pretty big deal or something, but my friend Tousuke, the one with the glasses over there, he’s friends with Ten. That’s why I’m here.”
I was aware of how rushed and unnatural my explanation sounded. I was worried that Kawahara-san might think this odd, but instead she nodded, and said, “I haven’t talked to Ten-san, but I know about him.” The conversation trailed off there, a brief silence falling.
We had never spoken much about our private lives to one another, and neither of us was the especially chatty sort. I was starting to wonder if I had made things awkward, but before I could get a sense of that, thankfully Tousuke reappeared. When Tousuke spotted me, he signaled toward Kawahara-san with his eyes, silently asking who she was.
“Oh, Tousuke, um, let m…ah, this is K-Kawahara-san. She’s a freshman at our school, we work together.” It was not her name I had stumbled over, so much as wondering just how humble I ought to be in introducing her.
I pointed to Tousuke, saying, “This is my friend.”
Kawahara-san gave a polite bow and said plainly, “Hello, I’m Kawahara.” At times like these, I would have immediately slipped into a more polite register upon meeting someone for the first time, but judging by how he interacted with Pon-chan, Tousuke was accustomed to dealing with his juniors.
“Oh, nice to meet you! I’m Kaede’s friend. You all work together, huh? I’m sure Kaede’s always causing all sorts of trouble for you. Please forgive him!”
“You’ve never once visited me at work,” I jabbed back like usual, suddenly wondering if Kawahara-san would find that charming. In fact, the corners of her mouth pricked up slightly.
“No, he’s always looking after me, actually.”
“Oh, no, I’m the one always relying on you,” I replied, not remembering a time when I had ever been much use to her. Perhaps the phrase “looking after” had given Tousuke the wrong impression, because he looked at me with the sort of eyes he would about ten seconds before bullying someone. I changed the subject.
“So the friend you came with, is she connected to Moai somehow?”
“Yeah. I’ll introduce you when she gets back.”
Just as she said this, her friend walked over and introduced herself. It was surprising that Kawahara-san would make friends with someone who seemed like a bottomless ray of sunshine, but then, that was just the way, wasn’t it? Often in friendships, each party would make up for something that the other lacked.
Now, it was Kawahara-san’s turn to go greet her friend’s senpai. Speaking as her senior, at least at the university, I joked, “Don’t worry about us, go have fun,” to which she replied, “You too, Tabata-san.” That was not something I could do, in fact, but I graciously accepted the overture.
Once we were alone again, as I had predicted, Tousuke grinned and elbowed me.
“Going after young coworkers again, eh, Tabata-senpai?”
“No. Way. Maybe I should tell Pon-chan you went to a barbecue to pick up chicks.”
“That is not true! Well, whatever, you gotta be careful about acquaintances popping up like that.”
That was very true. I had to be more vigilant from here on out to keep an eye on every new person who arrived.
“She still recognized me right away even through all this. I wanna change.”
“What? But I mean, she didn’t say it looked weird or anything, right?”
“She said it was flashy.”
I didn’t tell Tousuke that she had meant it as a compliment.
After some time, Ten returned, a graceful lady on his arm. Several people piped up when they saw her; apparently, she knew quite a few attendees at this event.
“Well, she’s cute,” said Tousuke.
Maybe I will tell Pon-chan, I thought briefly.
Of course, we had not come here to feast our eyes on pretty girls, nor were we here to sample food, drink, and vices under the blazing sun.
We had a mission to accomplish.
Basically, what we needed was for Ten to disclose his indiscretions with women of his own volition. We needed to hear a tawdry saga of Ten using Moai as a hook-up spot and sinking his claws into professional women, throwing them away when he was through with them. From there we could sort out the facts and expose Moai’s evildoings. I, in fact, had a voice recorder in my breast pocket as we spoke, which would be recording all of the conversations around us. I’d considered posting Ten’s confessions to the web unedited, but I decided not to, as we would need the identity of the informant to remain anonymous.
Our team was but a select few. We had to do things aboveboard.
We would first need to make conversation with Ten’s group, but I was personally ill-suited to that sort of thing. Approaching someone and addressing them was a high-level skill. It was not as though I couldn’t do it, but doing so felt highly unnatural. Thankfully, Tousuke made up for what I lacked there. He could make targeted conversation much more smoothly.
Perhaps because he was so close with the organizers, Ten was frequently called by name, asked where drinks could be found, and asked to grill meat. Though he grinned and griped each time, he completed his duties swiftly and efficiently—perhaps a hallmark of someone who would have risen to the top ranks of an organization. No one would ever follow someone who was only ever flippant.
Without making any declaration about the start of the battle, Tousuke took point, saying, “Well, since we’re here, may as well eat something,” as he headed toward the smell of smoke and meat. I followed after him.
“Yo, Ten, can I grab some of these?”
“Whatever you need!”
Tousuke picked up two sets of plates and chopsticks and handed one of each to me, then approached Ten once again.
“Now, some meat, please!”
“I swear, all of you think I’m some kind of grilling machine! Just a minute!”
Tousuke grinned at Ten, who acted annoyed but actually seemed to be enjoying himself, and said, “Well, everyone’s been asking you for meat, so I just assumed you were the expert!” The other guys around Ten, who all seemed to be of his ilk, laughed and prodded Ten for meat as well. Seeing this, the nearby girls laughed too. Watching this all from Tousuke’s side, I gave a thin smile as well.
It was not unusual for us to keep loitering in the area, as we were waiting for our meat to be grilled. Tousuke informed the others around that he attended the same university as Ten and had gotten to know him this year. The others, who had known Ten for far longer, took the opportunity to bully Ten with facts that Tousuke was probably unaware of. Playing along, Tousuke responded, “Well, this is a side of Ten I’ve never seen!” which gave them a sense of superiority in their already standing closeness, and the friendly ribbing only increased. I watched this with a smile.
Naturally, the conversation eventually shifted to where the two had met. Both out of tact and technique, Tousuke prompted, “Well, about that…” looking to Ten, who followed up with, “Tousuke came to a Moai event.” And thus, we were able to get him to broach the subject of the group without us forcing his hand.
There did not appear to be any particularly outstanding reactions to this amongst the others. In fact, everyone laughed at the mention of Moai’s name, one of them quipping, “What, you still vying for world peace, Amano?” It was this impression of Moai they apparently had that they were laughing at.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I keep telling you guys though, I’m not some kind of hero or something.” Ten’s obvious sincerity in this just drew more laughter from the others.
“Well, aren’t you somethin’ special?”
“No way… Well, I suppose I am contributing more to society than you guys,” Ten said haughtily.
“Like what?!” they jeered back.
Just then, the girl who Ten had brought with him earlier returned with drink in hand.
“The leader’s always relying on him.”
Ten gushed at this.
“Seriously, no way. She snaps at me every time I slip up, and we’re always fighting. Oh, I mean Hiro is technically the leader, but really, she’s so annoying. She even asked me if you were my mother!”
Here was the first time I had ever seen such loquaciousness from Ten, who rarely spoke about others.
“A girl? Is she cute?”
“Everyone here is way cuter.” Very conveniently for our cause, all the girls laughed at Ten’s joking compliment, one bespectacled girl saying, “You better stop saying that to everyone before you get yourself dumped.” We had been hoping for a discussion of Ten’s love life.
Yes, this was the moment we had been waiting for. To be honest though, it didn’t feel right hearing about this. My sense of advantage lay somewhere, completely separate from my emotions.
Still, this was odd even for me. Though I had assumed that I would find a Moai that worshipped its current leader like a religion distasteful, I was in fact all the more upset and enraged to see even the management criticizing their leader. To think that this had become an organization where even the upper brass would talk behind each other’s backs…
I knew that I could not let my emotions get the better of me. I would just have to listen quietly.
Now that I thought back, the girl with the glasses had said “Get dumped,” rather than “dump.” Perhaps that was the view that everyone had of him.
The girl who Tousuke had previously deemed to be cute tipped up her canned chuhai and hummed a “Mmm…” as though she was thinking. “I’m pretty sure that leader girl is into you, Amano-kun.”
“No, like I said, we’re always fighting.”
“That’s just how girls are!” she said as though she were a spokesperson for all women, an assuredness that perhaps only stemmed from her confidence in her own appearance and strength.
“You all go to the same school, what do you think?”
Normally I would have cringed at the sudden question, but luckily, I had been keeping on my toes and was able to answer more quickly than Tousuke.
“Well, we don’t really know much about this leader, right?”
“Yeah,” Tousuke agreed, “At least, when I saw her at that one event, I couldn’t get any real sense from her.”
Whether that was not the response she had been hoping for, or whether she simply had no interest in us in the first place, the woman turned her gaze right back to Ten and said, unrelated to the previous flow of conversation, “You just seem so in love right now.”
I wouldn’t be able to live my life if I started to believe that I had no interest in these sorts of things. Plus, she was an unexpected assistance to us.