“I’m getting married next month.”
Midori dropped the bomb while they were sitting at their usual booth at their usual bar. Her cute, bell-like voice was bright and happy. She couldn’t conceal her joy.
“Congratulations.” Toshihiko gave an exaggerated bow. “Why didn’t you announce this at work, though?”
Midori lowered her voice conspiratorially.
“There’s people there who might react to it badly. You know, like Ootani…”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
A while back, Ootani had taken one of the women at the office to task after she heard her refer to her husband as “the man of the house.”
“Oh, you mean he’s the one in charge? Have you no will of your own? Are you just a slave to him?”
She seemed to think that all relationships between men and women were founded on violent power struggles and that anyone who refused to put up a fight was beyond forgiveness. An announcement of marriage would have undoubtedly drawn her ire.
“Say, Katayama.”
Midori stared at Toshihiko fixedly.
“You find me pretty annoying, right?”
He wasn’t sure how to respond when asked point-blank like that. She seemed to take his silence as assent, though.
“Don’t worry, I get it. I love your face so much, I can barely stand it.”
“My face?”
“Yeah, your face. It’s the best.”
She downed the lemon sour cocktail she’d been drinking.
“It’s okay if you know this now, but I used to be a total fangirl for pop idols. The male ones, that is. If you’re wondering why I’m talking in the past tense, it’s because you ruined me for the rest of them. You just look so wonderful. I could sit and stare at your face for hours. I like it so much, I ended up pestering you about every little thing and glancing at you whenever I got a spare moment. I get how that would have been creepy. I’m sorry.”
She lowered her head in apology. Toshihiko was feeling more bewildered all the time. He thought back over Midori’s past words and actions. She’d definitely had a dreamy look in her eyes whenever she spoke to him. It was a gentle, affectionate gaze. He’d thought it meant she had romantic feelings for him.
“Sorry if I slip into fandom terms, but…I was on ‘Team Toshihiko,’ y’know? You were my golden idol. I’d have headed up your cheer squad any day of the week, but I wasn’t, like, into you.”
Unraveling all that, Midori had viewed Toshihiko as something of an unattainable idol. She’d wanted to support him and admire him from afar but had never really considered romance as a serious option.
“How about that…? I was the one who got the wrong idea,” he muttered under his breath.
Midori didn’t hear him, but he said it was nothing important and finished up his oolong-hai. His cheeks were flushed, and not just because he wasn’t used to alcohol. Pure and simple, he was embarrassed at the mistake he’d made.
Remorse closed in on him for thinking Midori might have been the stalker and for how cautious he’d been around her. When she’d said it was strange how obsessed he was getting with the welfare of one student, she’d just been giving him some good advice.
Speaking of Mirei Nakamura, she had withdrawn from Matsuno Juku. According to Hirona Ushijima, she’d returned to school and still wasn’t too enthused about studying, instead playing around with various guys.
“Anyway, it’s fine. I’m the one who should be sorry.”
Apologies for all kinds of things started spilling out of Toshihiko’s mouth.
“Nah, it’s fine. The way I was acting, it’s only natural you’d be cold toward me.”
After they’d gone back and forth apologizing to each other for a while, Toshihiko changed the subject.
“So, what kind of guy is your fiancé? You got a picture of him?”
“What, are you hoping he’s a cool guy like you?”
She brought out her phone and brought up a picture. A man with a healthy, prosperous physique that many people would find appealing smiled back at him.
“Looks kind of like Winnie-the-Pooh, don’t you think?” said Midori.
“Yeah. He’s cute rather than cool.”
“I know, right?” Midori laughed loud and shrill. “He’s a gentle giant, and he gets on well with my mom, too. She’s in a wheelchair, and he once carried her up three flights of stairs to get to a restaurant that didn’t have an elevator. He said that no matter what might happen, he’s got my back. He really is a great guy.”
“Sounds like it.”
Toshihiko was happy for her. Perhaps it was Midori’s destiny, as someone who was so thoroughly dependable, to meet someone just as wonderful and reliable as her. Rumi probably would have given him a look that could freeze the blood in his veins if he ever brought up the idea of destiny, though.
“What about you, Katayama? Don’t you have anyone special in your life? If you want, I could—”
“No need. I don’t have anyone. And honestly, I don’t think I need anyone.”
He cut her off before she could offer to set him up with one of her friends.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be a busybody. Of course you don’t need any help from me. You’ve probably got so many admirers that you have to beat them off with a stick… I don’t know, though. A person would have to be pretty confident in themselves to approach you directly.”
Vaguely agreeing with the sentiment, he thought of Yuuki Sayama. He’d quit his job at Matsuno Juku after the incident. The staff who worked at the cram school were all temp workers without regular contracts, so you wouldn’t have thought any one person would get too much attention. But everyone seemed to like Sayama. They’d thrown him a pretty big farewell party and had seemed genuinely sad to see him go.
Sayama had told them he had to leave to help out at his father’s company. He was going back to his family home, and his next place of employment would be the company that his father ran, but it wasn’t the whole truth. Sayama had told Toshihiko the real reason in private.