“Wait, but I thought you were going to clothesline me.”
“That part doesn’t matter! My point is, if you actually hated her, you wouldn’t have commented on it at all, am I right?”
I’m not sure about that, I thought to myself, but then I realized: Miki-san wasn’t the badmouthing type. If she had a problem with someone, she went right up to them and drop-kicked them.
“So I decided I’d use this shampoo to get you to talk about Miyazato-chan. And you did, which means I win.”
“Th-this isn’t a game, you know! Why didn’t you just ask Zuka to ask me?”
“What? No way! Miyazato-chan told me not to tell anyone! And besides, Zuka would’ve blabbed everything to you anyway since he loves you so much… Er, not to suggest I hate you or anything!”
I appreciated the friendly disclaimer, but at the same time, given everything I heard from Looney, it was kind of a “Huh?” moment.
“So yeah, since I couldn’t say anything to you directly, I had to wait until you were with Zuka to bring it up. But every time I tried to be subtle about it, he’d turn around and kill the conversation a second later!”
That was your idea of “subtle”? Impressive. Evidently even Miki-san didn’t have the guts to talk to her crush one-on-one. Wait, what?
“So I tried to create the same situation that happened with Miyazato-chan, but you didn’t notice at all! Then I almost lost my temper at the library that one time, but I still stuck to my guns. Remember? I didn’t say anything directly!”
So THAT’S what that was about… Wait, so when she said “You’ll drive all the girls away,” what she actually meant was…?
“I gotta be honest: I was never too good at this indirect communication stuff. So I asked Looney, like, how do I subtly express my feelings to someone who’s on my mind?”
…Huh?
“Wait, what? So when she said ‘interested,’ she didn’t mean romantically…?”
“When who said what?”
The words had slipped out unbidden, and I hastily fell silent. Fortunately, the mixture of disappointment and relief that had crawled up from the pit of my stomach didn’t make it past my lips.
Now I get it. I should’ve known. Good thing I didn’t make a giant ass of myself by asking her out. Instead, my shameful idiocy was kept safely locked away in my head. Of course, deep down, I was still devastated…but at the same time, a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
“Wait…Looney didn’t blab about it, did she? Ugh, I’ll kill her!”
The misunderstanding was so absurd, I couldn’t help but laugh. Then the rage faded from Miki-san’s face as an exclamation point sprang up in its place.
“Alrighty then! Guess I’ll take you to Miyazato-chan’s house!”
“Oh, gotcha… Wait, what? Right now?!”
I could picture a massive interrobang floating over my head. In response, Miki-san looked at me with a question mark.
“Huh? Yeah, right now. She’s been tutoring me for midterms, so I came here to buy her a magazine as a thank-you gift. I’m telling you, I totally aced the math test, and it’s all thanks to her! Everything we reviewed was on the test! Besides, not like you have any plans, right? Oh, wait, you were gonna buy a CD. Okay, you go take care of that, and I’ll wait here.”
You’ve gotta be kidding me. But I couldn’t argue with her, so instead I decided to go along with it. I was only going to be gone for five minutes tops, and yet she saw me off with a wave and a giant grin.
“Man, I’m so glad Miyazato-chan can have fun with us at school again!”
Floating over her head was a supersized exclamation point. She wasn’t lying, nor was she joking, nor was she just being polite. She sincerely meant every word.
She was weird, and crazy, and she kinda got my hopes up about some stuff that turned out to be a misunderstanding…but nevertheless, I was proud to be in love with her.
And yet the very next day, I was back to being sleepless and depressed.
“What’s the matter with you? Did you miss breakfast? Want mine?”
That morning, as I stared blankly into space, my kind and generous friend Zuka plopped down at the desk next to mine and offered me a pastry from the bag he was carrying.
“Nah, that’s okay. But just so you know, you can’t sit there anymore.”
“How come?”
Before I could answer, however, the classroom erupted in whispers.
“Guess who’s back, everybody? It’s Miyazato-chan!” Miki-san announced loudly as the two of them walked into the room. Miyazato-san stood behind her, looking very, very, very uncomfortable…but I could tell from the punctuation overhead that she wasn’t actually upset.
Before today, this sort of thing probably would have made her run for the hills, but today she allowed it. Why? Because she had grown to love Miki-san. I could relate to the feeling. People like me and Miyazato-san spent our whole lives fretting over other people, so you couldn’t help but admire people with the power to turn a blind eye to the small stuff. She was like the Sun and the North Wind combined; she could strip away a weary traveler’s sorrow and fear in seconds flat.
I looked at Zuka beside me. He was gazing at them with joy in his expression and his punctuation. Then he turned that smile in my direction. “I bet you feel better now, huh?”
Oh, Zuka, you truly are a saint.
It made sense, of course. Of course it made sense. But that didn’t mean I was ready to accept it. And so, once again, my mood soured.
Yesterday, when we went over to Miyazato-san’s house, she sat in stunned silence as Miki-san explained everything that happened. I apologized, and then Miyazato-san apologized, and right as we’d made it back to almost-friends or thereabouts, for some reason Miki-san suddenly decided she wanted to give Miyazato-san a nickname.
“What should it be? I feel like anything would work, but…I mean, people don’t call me ‘Mickey’ as a play on ‘Miki.’ It’s because Zuka said my laugh reminds him of some cartoon mouse.”
“Oh, I see,” Miyazato-san replied, quietly impressed. This must have encouraged Miki-san to keep going.
“That’s why I came up with the nickname ‘Zuka.’ See, right now he’s tall and handsome or whatever, but back in junior high, he could pretty much pass for a girl. So I was like ‘I bet you could be the first male member of the Takarazuka Revue!’ and from there, it got shortened to ‘Zuka.’ Whenever we meet someone new, they’re always like, ‘How did you get Zuka out of Takasaki Hirofumi?’ Ha ha!”
As usual, her laugh was nasally…and it was thanks to me that she was laughing at all. I was over the moon to have officially made friends with Miki-san and Miyazato-san.
“You and Zuka are super close, huh?”
“Well, we were in the same club for all those years, y’know? Feels like I can’t get away from him.”
But then Miyazato-san delivered the final blow in her small, meek, delicate, modest voice: “Oh, you’re not dating? I would have thought you were.”
Normally Miki-san would have protested like crazy, launching into a vicious tirade against Zuka. But instead her face flushed bright red, and she stared at the floor. “Yeah, right,” she muttered under her breath. And I didn’t need to look at her punctuation to know what that meant.
I get it.
But of course, I couldn’t say that out loud.
…Wait, what?! Seriously?!
As I screamed internally, I felt Miyazato-san tap me on the knee. I looked over, and for some reason, she did a little fist-pump in my direction. The only thing I could think of to take my mind off the situation was: Man, everyone who makes friends with Miki-san turns into a total weirdo.
Anyway, back to today. Zuka rose from the desk beside me. Then Miyazato-san slipped past Miki-san as she continued to make a scene and timidly headed over in our direction. And when she saw my face, her lips curled in a smile.
Don’t get me wrong—I was still depressed. But when I saw her expression and her punctuation, well…not to disregard the issue with Miki-san or anything, but…I decided to just be grateful that Miyazato-san had showed up at all.
“Good morning, Oozuka-kun.”
Accompanying her quiet voice was the faintest hint of Bilien.