After our plan to expose Ten’s scandalous behavior had ended in failure, we were left at a standstill. We were only university students after all; with no backing or support, we were limited in what we could do. The next meet-up was still a ways off as well. With not much time left before graduation, we began to attempt a lot of smaller tactics, figuring that we may as well do all we could manage for the time being.
First, we created several fake social media accounts. Posing as various fictitious university students and professionals, we began tweeting various slanderous and defamatory statements about Moai, in addition to believable posts about our everyday lives. Naturally, this had no real detrimental effect on Moai, but it was still better than doing nothing, so Tousuke and I always had our eyes glued to our phone screens.
We also began scouting new members for our rebellion amongst the social networks. If there were any people who had felt alienated amongst the Moai members, we might be able to recruit them to our cause. As it turned out, there were a surprising number of students who felt compelled to bad mouth Moai on social media, without even having the sort of motives we did. We observed their daily postings to determine if they were members of Moai or not.
Thinking about it though, it was obvious that if even proper members of Moai were already slandering the organization, there was little damage that someone like Pon-chan, who was only on the fringes of Moai, could accomplish. But naturally, no one who could actually deal a mortal wound to Moai, such as Ten, was posting anything that would be disadvantageous to Moai on Twitter or Facebook or the like, despite being active there.
Other than this, the only thing we could do with our smartphones and limited intel was to copy down and proliferate statements by people who had been harmed by Moai that we found on social media and send them directly to the accounts of Moai members. We sent Hiro and Ten the tirade of a professional who had ended up in a different industry than they intended because of the connections they made at the networking events, and the lamentations of a boy whose girlfriend was stolen from him by a working man, and other potential half-truths. Inspired by our actions, some of the accounts that seemed to belong to people who were already dissatisfied with Moai joined in with us.
Hiro and Ten more or less stayed silent on the matter, but some other Moai members began to message us in objection. However, since the “people” who were sending them these messages did not exist to begin with, it was little skin off of our backs.
What did make me cringe was when Kawahara-san suddenly brought up the subject.
“Those idiots are trash, laughing from behind the safety of their screens!”
I had worried that Kawahara-san might be on to us, but it turned out she was only making conversation. Ever since we had encountered one another at the barbecue, she had been talking to me much more often than before. Perhaps she felt that the event had given her a pass to.
The fact that she was bringing this up to me meant that it had probably started to become a topic of conversation amongst Moai proper. To see if we could add some fuel to this flame, Tousuke and I decided to try making some posters and posting them around.
Tousuke was the sort of student who was really enthusiastic about cultural festivals. When I suggested the poster idea, he went all out in Word and showed up later at my place with a copy of a poster that looked akin to a murderer’s warning note, the letters in all different sizes and fonts.
“I suppose there are other questions I should be asking, but you really have a lot of time on your hands, don’t you?”
“This was your idea!”
Even after our mission had dissolved, it seemed that Tousuke had still carried on his friendship with Ten.
“We got dinner together the other night. What sucks is that he’s actually a pretty great guy.”
I was struck again at how good and upstanding a guy Tousuke was, unlike me, who had long since withdrawn from that front—never mind that he was still helping me out this much. He declined to post any posters in his own dorm, given how many friends he had there, but I was grateful at least that he had taken the time to make them.
While I was busy sending the data stored in our file-sharing server to my barely functional printer and watching it spit out a large stack of posters, Tousuke sipped a probiotic drink and said to me something along the lines of, “Pon’s been wanting to see you.”
“Oh yeah, guess I haven’t seen her around school much lately.” I was sure he was exaggerating about her wanting to see me, so I did not react to the insinuation.
“We should get drinks again sometime, all three of us.”
“Sure, I’m free any day that I’m not working, so just coordinate something with Pon-chan.” I had just said that as a half-hearted response, but it turned out that our schedules aligned sooner than I expected. I was a little put out by this, though I didn’t really mind it.
Three days later, we all met for drinks. This time, we met up at Tousuke’s place. This was both to save on money and because Tousuke had purchased a takoyaki maker. It seemed like kind of a random investment, but apparently all the time he had to kill after receiving his job offer had been spent on hunting Moai and improving his cooking skills.
We decided to get started a bit early, around 6 PM, so as not to miss the last trains. While it was still light outside, the two of us had gone shopping for ingredients, which Tousuke was now prepping in the kitchen while I minced the rest on the small table in the living room. Just then, the bell rang. Tousuke went to the entrance, and I overheard a small squabble before finally Pon-chan burst into the room.
“Long time no see, Kaede-senpai! How’ve you been?”
“Pretty good, all told.”
“Glad to hear it!” Pon-chan was as chipper as ever. Her two healthy-looking arms peeked out from the summery outfit she was wearing. She held a bag in her hand.
“Tousuke-senpai, I brought some cake! Hope you like it!”
“Oh, thanks. Could you put that in the fridge?”
After greeting her, Tousuke went right back to mincing the octopus, while Pon-chan, as directed, opened the fridge in an apparently familiar fashion. Even from behind, there was something very feminine in the way that she slid the cake box into an open spot in the fridge.
“Pon-chan, have you been here before?” I asked as I chopped up a green onion, while she neatly folded up the bag that the cake had come in.
“We have our drinking parties here for our seminars. I mean, look at this place, it’s huge!!!”
Surely enough, Tousuke’s living room alone was at least 150 square feet and very well organized—incredibly spacious for a university student’s dorm.
“So, what should I do?” Pon-chan asked after washing her hands in the restroom, looking to the owner of the home.
“There’s two tupperware containers in the fridge. Put those out on the table,” Tousuke said, tossing all of the takoyaki ingredients together. After pulling said tupperware out, Pon-chan sat down in front of me as I minced the red ginger and then opened them. One had diced cucumber, the other a caprese salad.
“Oho!~” she cheered, pinching some cucumber and chomping down on it. “This is good! Want some, Kaede-senpai?”
“Oh yeah, I do! I’ll grab some after though,” I said, showing her my now red hands. At this, she grabbed a bundle of disposable chopsticks that were poking out from a bag on the floor, extracted and snapped a pair, grabbed some cucumber, and held it out to me.
“Open up!”
I could not ignore the cucumber that was being held right in front of my face, and I realized that it would be all the more embarrassing to act embarrassed at this, so instead I played dumb and accepted my fate. The cucumber seemed to be lightly seasoned with soy sauce and chili oil. It had retained a nice crunch and was quite delicious.
Eventually, Tousuke set up the takoyaki grill, heaping the ingredients on the table, and finally it was time for our takoyaki party to begin. Before we started grilling, we shared a toast. We all sipped our drinks as we waited for the iron plate to heat up, when suddenly, someone’s phone started vibrating. All of us simultaneously looked down at our phones, very much children of our generation, Tousuke finally exclaiming, “Oh, that’s me! Oh, sorry, just gonna step out for a second. Once that’s heated up, go ahead and pour in the batter and whatever fillings you want.”
“Alrighty!” said Pon-chan dutifully, poking idly at her own phone, an antithesis of my own preoccupation on what the call might be about. Maybe it was about his job offer or something, I wondered rather seriously.