Saeki Sayaka:
Class 2-C, Tomosumi Girls’ Academy
“SAYAKA-CHAN.”
I turned around when I heard my first name, which didn’t happen often at school.
It was an upperclassman from the choir club. I always called her Yuzuki-senpai, so I didn’t actually know her first name. Mine, on the other hand, rolled off her tongue quite naturally. On top of that, she had even added a -chan to the end of it.
I was a little bit miffed by this. It didn’t sound right to my ears.
“What is it?”
“Oh, nothing. I saw you, so I called your name, that’s all.”
Her tidy hair, not quite long enough to reach her shoulders, fluttered faintly. There was no ulterior motive behind her bright smile—it seemed she really had just called out to me for the sake of it.
Something about that reminded me of swimming lessons.
How was I supposed to respond in times like these? Saying, “Oh, I see,” would seem too curt and unfriendly. Maybe it would be best for me to just smile ambiguously, as if nothing had happened? When I gave that a try, her eyes went wide for a moment, but she immediately started smiling again.
“You’re headed to the club room, right?”
“Yes.”
She came to stand by my side, presumably indicating she would go with me. I don’t think you could say that Yuzuki-senpai and I were close, nor that she ever particularly looked out for me. She was in the grade above me, and we’d been in the same club ever since I joined in April of my first year, but that was all. Even when I went out with friends, it was always with students in the same grade as me, so I’d never once seen her outside of school.
Still, there was something about her that felt different from the other upperclassman. As if there was something separating her from them.
“So, have you heard?”
“About what?”
The light coming into the corridor from the window that day was serene and pleasant. You’d never guess it was June from the lack of humidity. My hands and arms felt light as they moved.
“People have been saying you’re going to be the next president, Sayaka-chan.”
I take that back. When she said that so casually, my entire body grew heavy. The pit of my stomach sank, as if the rest of my body might leave it behind as I tried to move forward.
“Why me?” I acted doubtful, but the truth was that I’d been getting the feeling that this might happen for a while now.
“Well, you’re so on top of things, for one.”
“I don’t know about that…”
I didn’t feel like I had been on top of things at all when it came to choir activities. The upperclassmen in choir already had things well in hand, so it wasn’t as though I had no choice but to take the lead. But even that would change after this summer.
Yuzuki-senpai, on the other hand, was dreamy—mostly in the way she spoke and acted. If a strong wind came by, I could picture her unraveling like a ball of cotton.
There were a lot of people like that around here. The overall mood of the school was slightly different from what I’d imagined when I first enrolled.
“I’m counting on you, too, Sayaka-chan.”
When she told me that with a friendly smile, I didn’t sense any ill will. I nearly let it win me over, but there was something that gave me pause.
“But I’m an underclassman.” As my upperclassman, she ought to be the one I could count on.
Her eyes gently wandered away. “Hmm… But that only means I was born a year earlier than you. What’s important is how that year was spent.” She nodded to herself, looking satisfied. I felt like we weren’t quite seeing eye to eye on this conversation.
And yet, she was casually calling me Sayaka-chan. Perhaps because this place had a reputation as a “rich-girl school,” it wasn’t unusual for upperclassmen to call underclassmen by their first names, and to add a -chan to the end. That never felt right to me, so I called everyone alike by their last name with a -san. I was worried at first that it would alienate them, but it didn’t seem to be causing any problems so far.
I didn’t have anyone I was on a first-name basis with other than my family. Maybe I’d meet someone like that someday, but it didn’t seem like it would happen anytime soon. This combined junior high and high school was girls-only, for one thing.
My eyes met with my own faint reflection in the window. When I looked down, I felt like my gaze met with that of my elementary school self, too.
Time had passed, and I was a proper thirteen-year-old now: a junior high student. I commuted three stations from my house to Tomosumi Girls’ Academy, and I even wore a school uniform. There was always a cool, collected look on my face when I walked through the hall, as though I were one of the adults.
Going to school by train was a lot more trouble than I had thought it would be. I had shunned the local schools and chosen one far away because of my family’s recommendation. In a way, though, it felt like a godsend. I had been somewhat reluctant to see that girl again in junior high.
“………”
I used junior high as an opportunity to quit most of my many extracurricular activities. The only ones I kept were the ikebana lessons because my grandparents wanted me to continue. I told my parents that I wanted to quit the rest in order to spend my time studying for school, and they accepted it. It was the truth, but I was also reaching the limit of how long I could keep ahead of everyone else in so many different fields. I had been gauging my abilities based solely on whether I was winning or losing against others, but now I knew that you couldn’t get ahead just by mindlessly pushing forward.