When I moved that glass aside, I saw Edamoto-san, her eyes and mouth round.
“What’s wrong?”
As I looked at her, Edamoto-san’s cheeks lightly changed color.
“Nothing, ha ha… You really are a grown up.”
Edamoto-san grinned and nodded to herself gleefully.
“Even though I don’t like beer?”
“No, it’s not that…but I guess that works, too.”
Edamoto-san smiled vaguely and sipped her coke.
Unlike mine, her glass was emptying.
“Mm, this cola’s great.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“Do you want to trade for a little?”
“No, we shouldn’t…”
Her birthday was very far away, so she couldn’t even claim to be nearly twenty. If, hypothetically, I were to celebrate her twentieth birthday with her, that would be quite a while from now. By that time, I wondered if I would better understand the taste of beer.
“I said this earlier, but I really don’t think I can drink this many… What should we do about what’s left over?”
Tap tap tap, she tapped the surface of the cans one at a time. She didn’t act like she was very worried about dealing with them.
“How about we open them one at a time when you come over, Sayaka-senpai?”
“I generally only come here during lunch break between classes, though…”
I wondered what my friends would think if I opened a can of beer each lunch break and came back tipsy. I didn’t think that I would be able to actually attend a lecture after drinking.
“If you don’t think you can finish, then I’ll just drink it for you.”
“But you’re underage.”
“I think I could do it if I thought of it as bitter soda.”
Edamoto-san grinned widely, and I absently looked at her teeth.
When I tried to keep my eyes focused straight, I felt a little sick. I wonder what that was about.
Well, putting that aside…
Not to brag, but this college was a high level one.
Unless one was incredibly lucky, it would be near-impossible to get in with half-hearted study habits.
“Oh yeah.”
“What is it?”
As I nodded while tipping my glass, Edamoto-san peered at me.
“You must actually be pretty studious then, Edamoto-san.”
“Huh? Isn’t that rude and blunt?”
Edamoto-san squinted at me suspiciously. Perhaps that was an ill-advised statement.
“I didn’t mean that in a bad way.”
“Can you really mean that in a good way?”
“Isn’t excelling in the pursuit of knowledge a wonderful thing?”
“But you’re saying I really don’t seem like the type.”
Edamoto-san grinned, as though she were enjoying herself. She seemed to be rather self-aware.
“This might be presumptuous, but you don’t seem like you would like studying much.”
“Not particularly,” she admitted freely. “Why, do you?”
“Yes, it makes me happy to gain more knowledge.”
Whenever I learned something knew, the uncertain parts of my vision became clearer, as though I were putting on prescription glasses.
“Sayaka-senpai, you always sound so wise.”
“Are you saying I’m pretentious?”
“No, I didn’t mean it like that. That part of you is just really…um, yeah.”
She trailed off. I chuckled, sensing that she couldn’t find a positive way to phrase it.
I certainly did have a pretentious side. People seemed to expect it of me, so I simply responded accordingly.
But of course, I had my fair share of silly and utterly insignificant thoughts, too.
For example, I noticed that Edamoto-san was sweating quite a bit, yet I couldn’t really smell it much.
“Well, see…” Edamoto-san gulped down the rest of her cola. I was envious. “I was able to study because someone told me we should go here together. So I worked super hard.”
“…Your ex-girlfriend?”
Edamoto-san smiled and half-nodded, her ponytail bouncing with joy. “But still, all that studying was worth it. Since I got to meet you.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond. I was happy to have met her, too, but it was difficult for me to express my true feelings. That didn’t seem to matter to Edamoto-san, though. As I stewed on this, she grabbed a can of beer and pulled it towards herself.
“Since this doesn’t seem to suit your tastes…”
“Wait…”
Before I could protest, Edamoto-san had already cracked the can open and tilted it back. I could tell it was coursing smoothly down her throat. After a while, she pulled the can away from her mouth at last, still looking composed.
“Yup, that’s sour all right.”
She had the same impression as me but easily let it out. Unlike me, the bitterness hadn’t affected her.
“You seem like you’re used to it?” I said.
“I may have drunk some cooking alcohol before…” My underclassman averted her eyes slyly.
“So you’re actually a bad underclassman.”
“But you’re a good upperclassman, so it balances out.”
“We aren’t. This isn’t a scale. Relationships are more like…”
I tried to find a metaphor but couldn’t think of a good one. All I knew was that it wasn’t a scale. Even strangers who were irrelevant to each other could establish equilibrium.
I sank back into silence. Edamoto-san looked at me and the window as she tilted her glass. Since my body had nothing to do while we were silent, I sipped the beer little by little in spite of its sourness. As it went down my throat, I regretted that boredom-driven impulse immediately. Though I kept telling myself to stop, as soon as my attention drifted to my thoughts, the glass wound up at my lips again.
The next thing I knew, I had opened a second can.
Edamoto-san also opened a can and was pouring it into her glass, but it didn’t seem to be coke this time.
“So Sayaka…senpai…”
“Hmm? Oh, yes, go on.”
For some reason, my response to her voice was delayed. It was as though there was a bit of distance between myself and my brain.
Edamoto-san used her glass to hide her mouth, as she looked at me as if observing my behavior.
She was like a little dog showing its face as it peeked in from the brush.
“So, I’m only asking this because I’m kinda getting drunk now, but…”
“Wait, are you drunk? I’m completely sober.”
I waved my hand back and forth. But when I looked closely, it was tilted at a strange angle. Huh?
Without letting my slight confusion show, Edamoto-san was looking straight at me.
Then, she asked me a question.
“Sayaka-senpai, do you have a girlfriend?”
Her voice quietly pressed down on my throat.
Like her earlier question, she took a step into my life, but more definitely than when she had asked whether I was seeing someone.
The cloud-like blur over my eyes was cleared away.
I was now aware of the somewhat loud sound of the air conditioning running.
How should I respond to this question? There were many ways I could evade it. I had already thought of three. But those had no guarantee of smoothing over the situation. And most importantly…
I had the feeling that, at some point, this moment would come.
Knowing that, I had met Edamoto Haru.
I put aside the option of evading her and stood head-on in front of the question.