♪♪♪
REI was baffled when I stopped bringing up Tomoi’s name as if he’d been exorcised from my life like an evil spirit.
“Have you finally seen the light?” Rei asked, peering at my face after I ended up not giving Mr. Matsuda any chocolate on Valentine’s Day.
“Never. I still think there aren’t many men out there as amazing as Mr. Matsuda.”
“You think that highly of him?! Then why in the world did you quit stalking him in the morning?”
Don’t call me a stalker. Those were the adorable actions common to a middle school girl with a one-sided crush. Or so I’d like to think.
“Because Mr. Matsuda has had feelings for someone else for forever… Oh, but don’t ever share that with anyone else, ‘kay? I’ll be ticked if weird rumors get around about him.”
“I’d never do something as scary as make an enemy of you, Mashiro,” Rei retorted with a grimace, but she was still unnaturally nice to me for a while after that. She seemed to be trying to comfort me in her own way for what she believed was a broken heart.
She’d lent me her copy of a historical novel tilted, Onihei Hankachō. I was slowly reading through it during my breaks between piano practice, but the sheer number of proverbs in it made my brain go numb. But our shared knowledge of the series made for fun times mimicking the characters and storyline.
“What? You haven’t done any of your homework yet? You’ll be the one who’s troubled in the future if you don’t study properly while you’re a student, Rei.”
“Listen to me closely, Lady Mashiro. Those known as women have no past, and even less of a future—all we have is our present selves,” Rei recited with great pomp.
“Who are you, Hasegawa Heizō?”
We played around like that a lot. I’d forgotten that middle schoolers spent their days laughing away at absolutely ridiculous stuff like this. This feeling was incredibly nostalgic to me.
I ended up saving the extra chocolate to eat myself. The extra ended up being the almond chocolates I’d bought for Mr. Mizusawa. I planned to give him the champagne truffles I’d purchased for Mr. Matsuda instead.
On my way home from school on Valentine’s Day, Kou called out to me as he was on his way home too. Normally, I would’ve been on guard, but I was honestly grateful to him this time around. I had been debating how I should get in touch with Mr. Mizusawa to give him the chocolate.
Kou stepped out of the car once it parked on the side of the road with its flashers on. Through the backseat window I spotted a mountain of wrapped presents stacked up to the car ceiling.
“Hi, Mashiro. I’m glad I ran into you.”
“Hello. You stopped with really good timing!” I put on a wide smile and leaned down toward the passenger’s seat window, careful not to scuff up the cleanly polished car. “Mr. Mizusawa, can I have a moment of your time?” I called his name in a loud voice so he could hear me in the driver’s seat. Surprised as he was, Mr. Mizusawa immediately stepped out of the car and walked around to the sidewalk.
I pulled a tiny gift bag from my schoolbag and held it out to him with both hands. “This is for you. You always take such good care of me, this is just a small token of my appreciation.”
“For me?” Mr. Mizusawa confirmed, pointing to himself and stealing a glance at Kou. Perhaps it was just my imagination, but for a second, a wicked smirk seemed t0 flash across his face. “Thank you very much, Lady Mashiro. I will thoroughly enjoy them.”
Kou glared down Mr. Mizusawa as if he had just become the greatest enemy in his life. Despite his car overflowing with enough chocolate to fill a swimming pool, he appeared to want more.
“Just for Mizusawa? Don’t have any for me?”
“None for you. I can’t even come close to buying the expensive chocolates the kids at Seio exchange with my allowance. And you’re the one who once told me, ‘Spare me the handmade crap,’ so I didn’t waste my time on it.”
Kou sighed and gave me a look words couldn’t even begin to describe.
Save the suggestive wiles for your fanclub members, will ya?!
✦ ✦ ✦
♪♪♪
“YOU seem like you’ve been having a blast every day, Mashiro,” Dad commented, happily watching me during dinner.
“Do I seem that way? I guess you could say that. Studying and playing the piano are just so much fun. All of my friends are great, and I have a sweet family, too. Recently I’ve started thinking about how incredibly blessed I am.”
“You’ve finally grown up, huh, Mashiro?” Mom chimed in with a grin. “You hear all these horror stories about when kids are going through puberty in middle school, but I think our Mashiro might be an early bloomer.”
“I think you’re on to something there. She was always more on edge and uneasy than she is now,” Dad wholeheartedly agreed with Mom.
“Ugh…it hurts because you’re right. Sorry?”
I definitely couldn’t tell them that it wasn’t an early onset of puberty, but the result of a jumble of things related to my past life. Wanting to dodge where this conversation was heading, I directed the focus onto Hanaka.
“How was Hanaka? During puberty?” I asked casually. Our parents burst out laughing in unison. Hanaka turned tomato-red and fanned her face with both hands.
“You don’t have to talk about me! Stop right there! End of topic! Period!”
“Okay, okay. We won’t talk about it. Mashiro doesn’t seem to remember anyway.”
“Good for you, Hanaka. Aren’t you glad your little sister didn’t catch you wearing black leather gloves and a cape while you pretended to have superpowers?”
“GAH! I can’t hear you! I can’t hear you!”
Who knew that Hanaka had Chūnibyō, the disease that makes middle schoolers think they have superpowers!
“PFT! Black leather gloves…and superpowers!” I laughed.
“Sheesh! I kept hoping you guys had forgotten about it by now!” Hanaka stomped her feet in frustration.
Surrounded by everyone’s cheerful laughter in the living room, I swore to never do anything that’d make my family in this life grieve.