Chapter 9:
Drinking Party
A LOT OF CIRCLES HAD DRINKING PARTIES after exams. Ayaka’s outdoorsman’s circle was among them, and they happened to throw a big one. I doubted many other circles would rent out a whole izakaya in front of a station just for a drinking party. I couldn’t help but get excited. This would be the biggest one I’d been to since my first year in university.
There were only about forty people in my basketball circle, and when we had a drinking party, not even ten of them would go. Meanwhile, Ayaka’s circle might as well be renamed the drunkard’s circle. It was already a large group, and they had a very high participation rate in drinking parties. Plus, they even let outsiders like me attend, so their numbers only ballooned even further from there. According to Ayaka, there were sixty people who were planning to come. Collecting payment from each and every person would be a hard task.
When I saw door curtains with the word Kaguya written on them, I stepped over the threshold and went in. I’d arrived at the venue ten minutes before the planned time, but there were already lots of people inside, so the place was already bustling.
There were six tables with sunken kotatsu seats, and plates had already been distributed across them. I removed my boots and put them in the shoe cupboard before walking onto the tatami mat.
“Ooh, you’re here!” a lively voice called out. I turned around and saw Ayaka waving at me.
“Yeah!” I replied, louder than usual so that she could hear me above the commotion. I headed over, and when I sat down next to her, she held out a hand toward me. “Hm?”
Do the people in this circle high-five when they sit down, or something?
I tried putting my hand on hers, but she acted surprised.
“Whoa, what’re you doing?”
“Oh. Sorry. I just assumed it was a circle thing or something,” I defended myself.
Ayaka giggled in understanding. “No, it’s not like that. I was offering to hang up your coat for you.”
“What the heck? So I’m supposed to be embarrassed now, huh?” I pushed her hand away and took my coat off. My palm started to burn a little bit.
When I handed my coat over, Ayaka nodded and got up. There was a place to hang coats a short distance away. I was unsure whether this was her being considerate or an elaborate prank.
“Yuuta, you and Aya-chan sure get along well!” the girl in front of me remarked. She was a petite woman with brown hair in a mushroom bob. Round eyes peeked out behind big, black-rimmed glasses. “It’s been a while!” she smiled.
This girl was one of the girls at the mixer, the only one I’d really hit it off with.
“Yeah, it has. You remember me?”
“Of course I do. It’s only been a month! My memory isn’t that bad, silly.”
“Heh, yeah, my bad.”
Her name was Yamanashi Natsuki. When I first heard it, I thought it was a pretty name. It was rare for me to think that, so I remembered it well. Especially with her surname being an uncommon kanji spelling.
Since she’d told me to call her whatever I wanted back at the mixer, I took her up on the offer and just called her Natsuki without any honorifics. It’d be harder to shift from calling her by her surname to her given name, but if I called her by her given name to begin with, then it was easier.
We’d only spent two hours together eating dinner, but I already considered her a friend. Maybe not a friend-friend, but the kind of person you’d say hello to when you saw them. In my experience, when someone at this level of friendship invited you out to karaoke, there was only about a twenty percent chance it would lead to anything. These kinds of people could even forget each other’s names, but Natsuki herself had remembered mine just fine.
Ayaka had mentioned last night that this girl was happy I was coming. I was kind of surprised that she’d liked me that much from just one mixer.
“What circles are you in, Yuuta-kun? You’re not in the outdoorsman’s circle, right?”
“I’m in a basketball circle…but I only go if I really feel like it.”
“Did you ghost them?”
“I’m not that awful.” Since I’d showed up just yesterday, I’d hopefully dispelled any suspicion of ghosting. Even leaving Toudou aside, I had a decent relationship with the other seniors there, so I was probably fine. It’d be seriously awkward to play games with them otherwise.
“Join ours! It’s totally okay to join midway through the year,” she offered. She presumably meant the outdoorsman’s circle.
“Hmm,” I pretended to think, but I shook my head in the end. “I’d love to, but it’s too big! Managing it all would be too much work.” I strung together insincere, yet diplomatic words. People would often invite me to join friends’ circles when I visited them, but I knew they weren’t serious.
“Aww, guess so,” Natsuki laughed in response and handed me a pair of chopsticks. She seemed to be no exception to the rule. “But Aya-chan’s gonna be the vice president next year. You’ve got connections, so you can get in if you want!”
“Ha ha ha, well, I’ll think about it.”
Vice president, huh? The seniors must have recommended her. Knowing Ayaka, they all love her.
“So, are you going to be the president?” I asked Natsuki.