Chapter 18

Let’s meet up, she’d written. “I can’t believe this woman…” Chitaira texted me soon after summer vacation had started. I read her short message, sitting on the floor in my room with my legs up, feet against the wall. I squinted at it, as if the screen was too bright. Are you actually insane? I wrote back. Is it insane to want to hang out with a new friend? she replied. I didn’t remember us being friends. Also, Mizuike was, like, right next to me? Maybe I should show her what her girlfriend was saying to me. On second thought, though, Mizuike might start hating both of us. I hadn’t done anything to deserve it, but that probably wouldn’t matter to her. Life was unfair, I inwardly sighed, dying from the heat. Do you have no consideration whatsoever for Mizuike? What do you mean? Am I not allowed to see friends now that I have a girlfriend? I. Wasn’t. A. Friend. You’re not in love with me, are you? Chitaira asked. Correct—I hate your guts. Then there’s no conflict of interest. By what twisted logic had she arrived at the conclusion I’d want to meet up with her, even though she knew I hated her? How stupid, I thought, letting go of the phone. I stared at the ceiling. Mizuike had never asked me out, yet the person who was the reason for that felt it was okay to just randomly text me. As for Mizuike, she was sitting with her knees bent, staring at her phone. I could easily tell she was feeling lonely from the way she was hanging her head and flexing her toes. She was probably agonizing over whether to text or call Chitaira. I was really tempted to show her my phone and say, “She’s texting me instead of you!” At that point, I couldn’t even tell who I was annoyed with, Chitaira or Mizuike. “Stop it!” my mother shouted from the living room. I’d been kicking the wall without realizing. I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around my legs. My hair was wet after my shower, and it was soaking the futon. It felt steaming hot, like my head was still under the shower. Mizuike started hesitantly typing on her phone. Her taps were so slow and awkward, it was obvious she wasn’t used to texting. Once she finished, she stared at the screen. It wasn’t hard to guess who she was texting. I was already sluggish from the hot shower, but knowing what Mizuike was doing made me feel 60 percent heavier. I wanted to sink through the thin futon into the hard floor. It wasn’t long before she got a reply. Her dark eyes lit up like little LEDs. She couldn’t help smiling from happiness. It was as if Chitaira was pouring water over the desiccated heart of Mizuike until it reached the moisture level found in normal living humans. It was suffocating to witness. So I sought escape from that painful reality in real pain. I groaned, feeling like I was having a really bad muscle cramp, but it wasn’t quite effective at distracting me from Mizuike. “Going on a date, huh?” I said to her, barely glancing her way. “How did you know?” “I read it on your face.” “…It’s not your business.” She’s right about that, I thought, angry that I couldn’t say anything back. My hands were tied…if I was going to be sensible. Not like I could do anything to make her love me anyway, I reminded myself masochistically. “…” My hand crept over the floor toward my phone. I picked it up. I don’t mind meeting up if it’s just a one-off. Amazing! How about the day after tomorrow? One slick woman. She was quick to reply. The day after your date with Mizuike? Sure. I was glad she’d had that painful experience with the failed threesome. If it even was as painful as she’d claimed—it didn’t seem to put her off chasing two asses at once. I was no psychology expert, but she gave the impression of a person who embraced everything in life, good or bad. She took a bit longer to reply. What? A star, an upward arrow, and the sky…? Oh, I get it. She’d spelled my name with pictograms. But why? Fooling around instead of giving me an answer, I thought peevishly. But it was a bit funny. That’s how it started—with a small act of rebellion. It wasn’t going to be a date—that was absolutely clear in my head. It was just a little mischief. An immature attempt to get even with Mizuike behind her back. I should’ve been ashamed of myself. As soon as I was alone after leaving the house, my head cooled off, but my thinking was still far from clear. Like, if you tell me someone on the other side of the planet urgently needs my help, it doesn’t matter how much I want to reach them. It’s just not possible. The residential area was built on a hill. I walked down the road, feeling like I was wearing a helmet made of cicadas—to give you an idea of how loud their chirping was. My gaze slid over stone walls, damaged through weathering, with weeds growing vigorously in the cracks, as if they were working together to break down the structures made by man. The straight road was bicycle-free—the tide of pedal-powered traffic had receded out of sight. The sun was baking my hair and the back of my head. By the time beads of perspiration started to appear on my neck, I was already wishing I’d just stayed home. We were going to meet outside the local train station. It shocked me at first that Chitaira would choose to meet there. Under normal circumstances, it was a perfectly ordinary meetup spot, but what about Mizuike? She might randomly go out and see us. What then? I was only meeting up with Chitaira to hang out; she wasn’t cheating on Mizuike with me, but Mizuike might jump to the wrong conclusion. She was very possessive of Chitaira, after all. I didn’t want her to see us, but I wasn’t sure if it was because I’d feel bad about hurting her feelings, or because she’d seriously hate me. I stopped next to a noticeboard with a big poster advertising a cram school. There was at least some shade here, and I looked around to see if anyone was coming. It wasn’t a station I went to often—actually, I didn’t really travel by train anywhere, ever—so I felt out of place. My high school was very close to the station—in fact, the station was named after my high school. If it weren’t summer vacation, there’d be students around, but the station was empty, and cicadas were my only company on the plaza. The train schedule informed that there was a train every fifteen minutes. I watched the station exit, guessing that Chitaira would arrive by the next train. There were a few chairs, yellowed from the sun, and a wooden bench with an uncomfortable-looking backrest. People would start their journeys shaded by this roof, watching the road and waiting for a train. Journeys? What was I talking about? I was making it sound too dramatic. Granted, my first train trip out of town had been a journey for me. A great adventure, full of painful memories to bring back home. “Hope you weren’t waiting long.” “Eep!” I was looking at the tracks when Chitaira suddenly tapped me on the shoulder. I recognized her voice and the overfamiliarity of her touch immediately. She was dressed in a kimono again, with her hair in an updo. The kimono was scarlet with a pattern like colorful fireworks. Chitaira must’ve come from the stairs going toward the residential district. Did she actually live right around here? “I was in the area on other business this morning. I’m finished now, though, so I have time for you, Takasora!” “Ah… Um… I see…” She must’ve read in my eyes what I’d been thinking. Chitaira was bound to attract attention in that kimono, and by extension, she’d attract attention to me, too. If anyone from my school year saw me, I’d become a target for gossip just like Mizuike. Also, the fact she called me by my first name gave me this uneasy feeling, like a bead of sweat rolling down my body. “Shall we go?” Chitaira extended her hand toward me. Did she think I’d hold her hand? What surprised me even more, though, was the beauty of the contrast between the scarlet fabric of her kimono and her lily-white hand. “Oops!” she said, withdrawing with a smile. Had she made that offer out of habit from her time with Mizuike? The thought made bile rise in my stomach. “You should be hanging out with Mizuike, not me,” I said. I didn’t want her to be seeing Mizuike, of course, but keeping them apart was out of my power anyway. “Oh, but I did. We went on a date yesterday.” “I know.” “I wouldn’t mind seeing her every day. She’s so adorable.” Walking up the stairs next to her, I wondered what the hell I was doing with this woman. Being with Shiho Chitaira felt like walking on top of clouds. She looked like she didn’t belong to this world, and somehow, by association, she changed the streets she walked on until they didn’t seem like my neighborhood anymore. The fierce summer heat didn’t help with that hallucinatory feeling. When I glanced at her, our eyes met, and she smiled at me warmly. That probably worked on all the other girls she’d been with. She never let you see her upset and made sure to smile often, which only made her beautiful face more attractive. Her charm stemmed partly from her good looks and partly from her attentiveness to the person she was with. If it weren’t for the fact that she fetishized high school girls and bribed them with money for sex, I would even have called her a socially savvy person. “My goal for today is to make you smile, Takasora.” “Not going to happen.” “Nothing motivates me like a difficult challenge!” I wasn’t going to let her charm me. She could try to melt my defenses with those warm smiles all she wanted; I’d just keep putting new walls between us. I hate her guts, I’d think to myself, and voilà! A sturdy stone wall would appear around my heart. “Gently prying open a tightly shut heart is a rare pleasure,” Chitaira said to me. “Oh yeah?” “It’s not good for everyone to be friendly without discretion.” She certainly was. She didn’t want more people like herself, then? “Even though that’s the ideal,” she added. “‘Ideal’ as in unrealistic.” “You’re absolutely correct. And it is in fact out of my reach—I’m afraid I’ve never been a peace-loving dove.” “…At least you’re self-aware.” If only she acted on her shortcomings instead of preaching about some ideal she never tried to work toward. We walked up the sloping residential road, past a railway crossing, and out onto the main road. I wasn’t doing anything bad, but I was becoming increasingly anxious as we got nearer and nearer the parts of town which were my home turf. Mizuike only ever went out if she was meeting up with Chitaira, but if by some strange coincidence she had decided to go out for a walk that day, it might end in disaster. “Takasora.” My back stiffened whenever she said my name in that pretty voice of hers. It didn’t sound the same as when my mother casually spoke it. I wondered what sort of emotion was coloring my name when it brushed against Chitaira’s lips. “A smile for you!” She didn’t have to announce it. When people talked about smiling with their whole face, they must have meant what Chitaira was doing right then. I didn’t know another person who smiled like that normally. The closest was probably Mizuike’s mom. Other people had too much going on to devote their entire face to that expression. “Are you trying to make some sort of point…?” “Don’t you find it hard to be hostile toward someone who only ever smiles at you?” “…Not really.” She got me. She must’ve learned how to work girls with my kind of personality. I wasn’t going to let her triumph over me, though. “You remind me of Umi when you’re like this.” “How so?” “She was gloomy and distrustful at first, too. But also a little lonely.” She made it sound like she’d managed to turn all that around. Were we really so similar? I didn’t know about that. Chitaira was telling me I seemed lonely, and maybe there was something to that—but I was perfectly able to live on my own. No, she was making a mistake comparing me to Mizuike. But I didn’t care about explaining that to Chitaira. “What’s your plan, then? Make me as dependent on you as Mizuike?” “No, that’s never been my intention. I only ever wanted to bring a smile to her face, but somehow, our relationship developed the way it did.” “Oh, is that why you bribed her to sleep with you? To bring a smile to her face?” “Indeed.” She was so shamelessly confident in herself. If she’d wanted Mizuike to smile, couldn’t she have found some other way? Then again, I never managed to make Mizuike smile. That made me feel the most like a loser. “You’re going to get stabbed someday.” “Umi isn’t a violent girl. I do worry about her, though.” She sounded like a mother talking about a problem child. How on earth did she see Mizuike? She did seem to be fond of her, but there was something else there, something grating like grains of sand. I wondered if Mizuike could feel them. “And where are we going?” We’d been walking for a while, but I had no idea if Chitaira had somewhere in mind for us to go. “Do you mind if we grab lunch somewhere first?” she asked. “I haven’t eaten yet.” “Sure, okay.” “Oh, and it’s my treat.” “No thanks. I’ll pay for my own food.” If I ended up owing her a favor, that would mean I’d lost the game. I tried not to think that maybe I’d lost already by coming out to meet her. “I’m not here looking to score a free meal.” “I’m curious what prompted you to come today.” “Spite.” If she was seeing me, she couldn’t see Mizuike. “Brilliant. Let’s go.” This woman… She took delight in my obvious distaste for her, but she’d probably have been equally delighted if I showed any signs of enjoying her company. There was no winning against her. We went down the main road to a pedestrian plaza. Chitaira gave a little wave to a giant plushie of a kids’ superhero character, an anthropomorphized sweet bun. I glared at her. She was trying to be cute, but I was immune. I kept staring at her more than I wanted, though. Her smile was pretty. She really was good at it. We stopped in front of a building with a narrow entrance. It was a Chinese restaurant, based on the plastic replicas of the dishes in the window and the menu displayed outside. I’d only been to one Chinese restaurant before, decorated with garish yellow and red. Even that had been many years back. On the first floor, they were selling food to take away. The showcases displayed dim sum, sweet-and-sour pork lunch boxes, and the like. I scanned the price tags and saw that a lunch box was nine hundred and fifty yen. Little steep for a lunch box, I thought. A box of caramelized walnuts was the same price, even though there weren’t even that many walnuts in it. What the heck? There was a poorly lit staircase next to the elevator, which was where Chitaira was headed. I glanced at the elevator, but I followed her. The staircase was probably meant only for emergency use. We went up to the second floor, where Chitaira opened a door with an “authorized personnel only” note stuck to it, and we came out into the restaurant reception area. “…What was the point of that?” I asked. We’d taken the long way for no apparent reason. “For fun!” “Not for me.” The reception area was a big lobby with a sofa. I started getting a bad feeling. This place looked expensive. I might’ve shot myself in the foot saying I’d pay for myself. “Do you have a table for two?” Chitaira asked the receptionist. A smartly dressed staff member promptly led us inside. I shuddered as the air-conditioned air chilled my arms and neck. I only used a fan at home, so this was a shock for my body. The restaurant had separate seating areas along the wall with windows, with the middle area with rows of tables for two. The staff showed us to a table on the right side of that area. It was strangely reassuring for me to get a seat by the wall. I pulled out the fairly heavy chair and sat down uneasily. I’d never been to a restaurant like this. The other customers were all older people. They were smartly dressed, though, unlike me. The woman who’d brought me there was the most elegant of all, even in a place this classy, which I felt made me stand out like a sore thumb. The server brought us menus, tea, and hot towels, and then exchanged a few words of greeting with Chitaira. It sounded like they knew each other. Was Chitaira a regular? She told me she’d been in the area on some other business, so she probably didn’t live in my town, but…what if she really was from my neighborhood? Wouldn’t that be funny. Chitaira passed me a menu. It felt heavy in my hands. I opened it. The first pages had lunch options, starting at two thousand yen. I broke out into a sweat despite the air-conditioning. I turned the page. Four-thousand-yen meals. Next page. Seven-thousand-yen meals. “Listen…,” I started. Couldn’t Chitaira have chosen a restaurant that a normal high schooler could actually afford to eat at? “Would you like to take me up on my offer?” she asked me. “…No thanks.” I stifled the desire to let her buy me an expensive meal. I just had to find something cheap on the menu. I flipped through the pages, scanning the prices. There wasn’t even a single appetizer below a thousand yen. Sweet-and-sour pork was three thousand, karaage chicken was two thousand three hundred, and scallop-and-prawn salad was two thousand three hundred. Where were they getting these numbers? I turned a few more pages and, at last, discovered corn soup at eight hundred yen. Eight hundred for some soup? I didn’t even know what corn soup was. The menu was heavy, and the prices were painful. Simple but filling meals like stir-fried rice or ramen cost a small fortune. I did have enough money in my wallet, but I didn’t want to spend it all on lunch and be eaten up by regret after. I kept skimming. “Takasora, dear…” I shifted uneasily. She always said my name in a way that felt like she was stroking my cheek. I looked at her over the top of the menu. She was smiling. Chitaira. This woman. Somehow, in my head she was two different entities. “There’s nothing wrong with letting the grown-up pay.” “…No. I’m not having you pay for me,” I said, but I took a little too long to reject her again. “Stop pushing me away so much, or I may end up falling in love with you,” she warned me without batting an eye.