Life Goes On, Like It or Not
I got home...somehow. All of a sudden I was waking up in my apartment, still wearing my uniform, with no clear memory of how I made it back. My head throbbed a bit as I listlessly hauled myself upright, but compared to the night before, it was totally tolerable. I recover from that sort of stuff pretty darn quickly, if I do say so myself.
I wasn’t exactly raring to greet the new day, but at the very least I’d recovered enough to function on a basic level. I figured it was time to make like a student and go to school. As I was heading out the door, though, a thought came to me, so I glanced at my phone. Yeeeup, ten in the morning. Unambiguously late. Probably shouldn’t have bothered taking a shower after I got up, but I was absolutely drenched with sweat and I had to draw the line somewhere.
“Oh, huh. I missed a call?”
According to my phone, Kaito tried to call me at some point. He’d sent a text after I failed to pick up, which read: “You left your bag at my place last night.” Which, in retrospect, would explain why I felt so unburdened: I actually was empty-handed.
I sent him a text in reply: “Sorry, just noticed. Bring it to school for me?”
I knew he was probably in class, but I didn’t let that stop me. If he’d happened to forget to put his phone on silent, he’d probably get chewed out. Given the time, I figured he was probably partway through Japanese class, which just so happens to be led by a certain short-fused, perpetually single teacher who’s already made a minor appearance thus far. She’s young and has looks to spare, but her impatience to get married has driven her into a bit of a self-sabotaging frenzy. She is, in other words, another cliché character archetype to toss onto the pile. I was sure that if Kaito’s phone rang in front of her, she’d use it as a chance to vent her frustrations at him. Mwa ha ha ha!
Huh? Wait a second. If his phone rings and she sees my text, wouldn’t I be the one she’d explode at? I mean, I’m the guy who’s casually sending texts when I’m supposed to be in class.
Oh, crap. Oooooh, crap! Code red! I do not wanna get lectured two days in a row! I’d fallen into serious danger of getting demoted from “best friend extra” to “problem student,” and being a “problem student” is pretty much synonymous with being one misstep away from fast-tracking my way onto the teacher route!
I mean, sure, having the best friend fall hopelessly in love with his teacher and get brutally rejected is certainly a perfectly acceptable rom-com development, assuming the teacher isn’t already part of the harem herself. It, like, humanizes the best friend, and gives the audience a chance to see his vulnerable side, and all that jazz. But the plot had not progressed nearly enough for that sort of thing to transpire! If you were to jump right into the best friend episode this early in the game, it’s totally possible that he’d get written out of the rest of the story without ever actually getting to support the protagonist!
My mindset did a complete 180 and I prayed feverishly that our teacher didn’t catch that text after all. A couple seconds later, my phone beeped.
Kaito: Left it at home.
“Phew... Huh?”
I was relieved that he apparently didn’t get caught, for a moment, but wait, at home? He left it...at home...?
“He left it at home?!”
Meaning: my bag’s currently lying abandoned in the Ayase household?!
Kaito: Hikari’s home, so you can go get it yourself.
Gaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh?!
I just barely held a scream in after that last text. She stayed home from school to watch over my bag?! Why in the hell would she do that?! There’s being considerate, and then there’s being way too considerate in a weird and totally unhelpful direction!
Kou: why?!
Kaito: She said she’s sick.
Not that part! I mean, okay, that part too, but no!
Kou: you couldn’t have brought it to school with you?!
Kaito: Lol nope
Kou: so what, you expect your sick sister to wait on me?!
Kaito: Hikari said she was fine with it.
What?! What’s fine?! Don’t give me that crap, man! Gaaah, whatever—standing around sending texts wasn’t gonna get me anywhere!
I figured I might as well just call him, but before I could even process that idea, he actually called me instead. Heheheh, excellent work, best friend! We really are on the same wavelength!
“Hey, Kaito! The hell does—”
“Kunugi.”
“...O-Oh.”
“You’ve got some nerve, showing up late two days in a row.”
“D-D-D-Daimon-sensei?!”
“I’ve got the gist of the situation. Go pick up your bag, then get your ass to school on the double!”
Why did she know about the situation? Why was she letting me go get my bag? Why wasn’t she telling me to get my ass to school right this instant?!
“Understand?”
“Y-Yes, ma’am!”
It was the end of the line for me. I mean, I couldn’t exactly weasel my way out of a direct order from my teacher. I felt the blood drain from my face, and as despair set in, I heard Daimon-sensei say “Thanks, Ayase” as she passed the phone back to Kaito.
“So, uhh... I’m hanging up now,” said Kaito.
“‘Hanging up now’ my ass, you traitor! What kind of monster sells his best friend out to his teacher?! Dammit, that old bag’s been on the shelf for so long that her mind’s gone twisted! We’re young and free, and that pisses her off! This is exactly why she can’t find a husband!”
“Kou...”
“What?!”
“I’m so sorry. You’re on speakerphone.”
He hung up.
“......Wha?”
It took me several long, painful seconds to parse his last words. Speakerphone? Does that mean what I think it means? It does, doesn’t it? It totally means exactly what I think it does. But wait, no, c’mon, seriously? She heard all that? Then, that means...
“Yup. I’m super dead.”
She’s gonna bring the iron fist of rage down upon me, no question about it. That would definitely count as corporal punishment, but it’s a pipe dream to think that’d stop her! For every misdeed, a price must be paid—that’s the cardinal rule of society. Not only did I have to go visit Kaito’s house and engage with his little sister to get my bag, I had to march right over to school to get the crap beaten out of me immediately after.
“Could this day get any more cursed...?”
A part of me couldn’t help but wish I’d just slept the entire day away.
❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤
“Finally made it...”
I heaved a heavy sigh as I wiped the sweat from my brow. The Ayase household: at a glance it looked like any other family home, but I knew for a fact that Ayase Hikari lurked somewhere within, waiting for me. As I reached a trembling finger out towards the intercom, it occurred to me that this was the first opportunity we’d had to really speak with each other since we met the previous morning.
C’mon, stop freaking out! I might’ve tossed cookies yesterday, sure, but that was just because it all happened so suddenly! I’ve had plenty of time to prepare myself today; it’ll be fine!
Thinking about our first meeting made me realize something strange: I’d passed by the place where it happened on the way to her house, and in spite of the rampaging pervert who was caught in the area the day before, there wasn’t a single stranger-danger warning sign or poster to be seen. I sort of assumed it’d be pretty big news, but apparently word had yet to spread about it. Either that, or maybe incidents like that happen so regularly around here that it wasn’t even newsworthy? Was that disaster just the tip of the iceberg?
“Nah, that can’t possibly be it. No way.”
Stay focused, Kunugi Kou! No more weird mental tangents! That guy was just a gag character, you’ll never have to meet him again! Or so I told myself—my life would never be the same if I didn’t believe that.
“Gah, crap, stop it! Don’t give him a second thought! Block that memory out! I just have to get my bag. As long as I can get my bag back, everything’ll work out just fine.”
The streaker’s horrifying silhouette loomed large in my mind, but I drove it away and finally pushed the intercom’s call button. It made a cheerful “ding-dong!” noise, and a few seconds later, I heard a reply.
“Yes?”
It was a girl’s voice. Considering my reaction the night before, I was surprised by how normal she sounded—perhaps due to the machine mediating our conversation.
“Hey, it’s Kunugi. Kaito’s friend? Apparently I left my bag here.”
I answered a bit nervously and heard a quiet gasp from the intercom.
“I’ll be right there, Senpai!”
The front door opened just a moment later to reveal (unsurprisingly) the little sister of Ayase Kaito: Ayase Hikari. She was exactly as pretty as Kaito was handsome, and she seemed a bit nervous as she peeked out the door at me.
“Hmm?”
“Um, Senpai...?”
“Hmmmmm?” I felt no sign whatsoever of the nausea-inducing allergic reaction from yesterday. “You’re Ayase Hikari, right? Like, for real?”
“Um, yes?”
“Ooooh? Hmm? Hmm. Gotcha, gotcha!”
“Ah, ouch!”
I was so overjoyed that I gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder. Long story short, it seemed my allergy had been cured! She was the same girl from the day before, no doubt about it. She had the same brown hair as Kaito, cut just a bit above her shoulders, and her big, round eyes gave her more of a cute sort of image than a beautiful one. But when all was said and done, she was normal. Absolutely unremarkable. She was cute, she was the protagonist’s sister, and she got chased around the block by a naked old man the day before, but she was still normal. Seeing her in that new light, I realized there was nothing for me to be scared of at all.
“Okay, kind of in a rush here, so I’ll just grab my bag and—”
“Please, come inside for a moment!”
“My... My bag...?”
Huh? Wait, I’m here to get my bag, right? Why’s she inviting me in?
While I was busy scratching my head in befuddlement, she disappeared into her house. I glanced around, but there was no sign of my bag anywhere I could see from the entryway.
“Th-Thanks for having me?”
I guess this is fine? Yeah, this is fine. I followed her into the living room, where I found her fussing about with something in the connected kitchen.
“Are you a tea drinker, Senpai?”
“Umm, nah, not really.”
“Oh, okay. Coffee, then?”
“Not a fan. You really don’t have to bother; if I can just get my bag, I’ll—”
“Okay, water it is! I’m sorry, I’d offer you something more interesting, but we’re fresh out of soda. I should’ve stocked up last time I was at the store.”
She went over to the sink and filled up a glass with water. It sort of felt like she was using the sound of the tap as an excuse to ignore me.
“Ah, thanks.”
Apparently she’d already brewed some tea for herself, which she set out on the living room table along with my glass of water. She sat down, and I followed her lead, pulling out a chair across from her. Then she just sorta...stared at me. It was incredibly uncomfortable.
“Senpai?”
“Ah, yeah?”
“Thank you so much for yesterday.”
“Oh, you mean with the creepy old dude?”
“Please don’t talk about him. I’m...trying to forget.”
“Yeah, fair enough.”
I was right with her on that one, but the more I tried to forget about him, the clearer the image grew. I tried to at least pixelate him out in my mind’s eye, but somehow that just made the whole thing even grosser. Why do creeps like that have to exist in the first place?! In any case, it didn’t seem like she was done talking. She began to speak again, slowly and nervously, like she was choosing each word with great care.
“I want to do something for you...to thank you.”
“Nah, it’s cool.”
“But you saved me!”
“It was more of a self-defense sorta situation from my perspective.”
It was simply my survival instincts that made me kick the guy, so I couldn’t exactly pretend like I was a hero. Also, do the two of us have absolutely nothing in common to talk about other than him, or what? It felt like I was gonna start hallucinating a creepy old dude trying to set the two of us up at any second—and of course, no sooner had I thought that than a shoulder-angel-sized old creeper drifted through the air between us. My symptoms were terminal.
“Hey, piss off!” I shouted internally, and he vanished as quickly as he’d appeared. Evil spirit: vanquished! All right, time to change the topic while I have the chance!
“So, on a completely different note...” I continued.
“Yes?”
“Err, don’t you have to go to school today?” I asked on the spur of the moment, and realized a second later that it was a terrible move. Her expression clouded over and she stared at the floor.
“I’m...too scared to go outside.”
No further explanation was needed. I mean, who wouldn’t have the heebie-jeebies about going outside, or get a bit scared of random guys on the street after running into a perverted old... OLD MAAAAAAN?! Oh god, I thought I got rid of him, but he’s back! And he’s giving me a thumbs-up?! Out! Out, I say!
“Crap, this isn’t working...” I mumbled to myself.
“Huh?” Apparently she overheard me.
“If I wanna go back to my life of peace, that old dude’s gonna have to go...”
“‘Old dude’?”
“As long as you’re shackled by your old dude trauma, we’re both stuck with him for life! Old sleazebag! Literally forever! You get me, right?!”
“No, I really don’t!”
“Look, just hear me out on this. Imagine your best friend dies, okay?”
“Umm, okay?”
“Right, your best friend...” Dies... I froze, my mouth still half-open. Hikari cocked her head in confusion. Something about the way she was looking at me made me feel a strange, crushing sensation deep inside my chest...
“...Senpai?”
“Ah, no, I mean... Forget the ‘best friend’ thing. Imagine, um, some random person you see out on the street every once in a while dies all of a sudden.”
“This feels a lot less personal now.”
“Like hell it does! All life is equally precious!”
“R-Right, that’s true.”
I was getting desperate, and she looked a little weirded out. Okay, no, extremely weirded out.
“So, imagine you end up going to that person’s funeral.”
“I don’t think I’d get invited to a funeral for a person I barely knew, though...”
“Let’s just say you were. Roll with it.”
“Umm, okay, I guess. This is getting harder and harder to imagine, but I’ll do my best.”
This girl’s poking holes in my hypothetical! At least let me finish the setup without interrupting, please! She said that she’d do her best, though, so I decided to give it another go and see what happens.
“So you’re at the funeral, okay? You end up seeing their body in the casket. Wouldn’t that make you think, like, ‘Oh, wow, this person’s dead’?”
“I think I’d realize they were dead at the point I got invited to their funeral, actually.”
“No, I mean, like, at that point, you’d really feel it.”
“I’d ‘feel’ it...? Okay, I think I understand.” Man, she’s really good at keeping her cool. Maybe even a bit pragmatic? Is that just what kids are like these days?
“But you’d still have all your memories of that person. Like, you’d always think, ‘Oh, right, we always chatted at that one place’ or whatever.”
“Right.”
“So, as long as you have those memories, that person will still be alive somewhere in your heart. Even if they’re only a memory, they’ll never disappear.”
“I guess so. Yeah, that makes sense.”
She nodded, apparently convinced. The cool, pragmatic girl and I had transcended our differences and reached an understanding. You see this sort of logic in all sorts of grand, moving tales. As long as you don’t forget those you’ve lost, they’ll live on forever; you’ll carry them along with you. Comes up all the time, right? But...
“But that means that as long as you haven’t forgotten that creepy, perverted dude, he’ll live on inside you forever!”
“What?!”
“Even if he gets locked up for life, in your heart, he’ll always be right by your side!”
“What kind of logic is that?!”
“Even if he’s socially dead and buried, the scars he left in the minds of his victims will remain forevermore!”
“That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard!”
She was starting to tear up. I know, right? Right?! And, err, sorry. This is excruciating for me too, for whatever that’s worth.
“Look, I don’t like it any more than you do. I was just going with the flow when I saved you, but speaking as someone who’s carrying the same freaky streaker on my back as you, I wanna get rid of him as soon as possible.”
“Y-You shouldn’t commit any crimes, okay?”
“Like hell I would! Do you have any idea how stupid that’d be?! If I actually, literally killed the guy, I’d end up in the books as the Old Man Slayer! No way I could stand having that creeper go down on my permanent record!”
There’d be no hope left for me if I ended up in that situation! Death would be the only option, but even if I killed myself, he’d totally haunt me beyond the grave. I don’t even wanna think about having my obituary read: “Driven to suicide by mental trauma of murdering a middle-aged pervert”!
“Okay, look, this is getting grim. Let’s talk about something happy for a change. Any good topics come to mind, Ayase Hikari?”
“Hmm, good topics... Actually, first of all— ‘Ayase Hikari’?”
“Huh? That’s your name, isn’t it?”
“It is, yeah, but isn’t it kind of weird to casually call someone by their full name?”
“Countless generations of ancestors passed your last name down to you, and your parents put love and care into picking out your first name! You’d scorn all of their good intentions?!”
“That’s not what I meant at all!”
Ayase Hikari’s face flushed with indignation. My effort to liven up the conversation was a rousing success! I thought, smirking like a nihilistic mastermind whose plan was going, for lack of better words, just as planned.
“Okay then, I’ll call you Ayase.”
“My last name, huh?”
“Countless generations of ancestors passed your—”
“I’m not scorning them! I wouldn’t mock my ancestors!”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“...Fine, you win.” Ayase pouted for some reason. C’mon, this conversation’s going nowhere!
“Anyway, happy topics! You’ve gotta have something in mind, right?”
“Not off the top of my head, no...”
“Oh! Make it something about guys, if you can. You’ve got a nasty image of men planted in your head right now, so it’d be best if you could overwrite it with a good one.”
“That just makes this even harder... Ah.”
She suddenly looked back up at me, as if a thought had just struck her. Our eyes met for the umpteenth time that day, and for just an instant I felt an unnerving chill flash through my body. The blood drained from my face in a flash. Ayase, meanwhile, was faintly blushing.
“There’s, well, someone I’m a bit interested in...”
Oh, crap. An immediate sense of dread came over me. Being the best friend of a thickheaded protagonist means that you can’t be thickheaded yourself, or else the entire plot grinds to a halt. That’s why I’ve been trying my best to stay aware of everyone’s emotional subtleties, and that’s why I could tell where she was going with this. Maybe my nerves were making me read too much into it, but at the very least the warning signs were clear. Before I knew it, the same nauseous sensation I’d felt the day before was beginning to overwhelm me again.
“I, um...”
A voice inside of me screamed: Stop! Not for Ayase’s sake—for my own. My faint memories of a joyous yet cruel time long past were once again coming back to me. Her gaze was burning my heart to ashes.
“Senpai, when you saved me, I—”
Think. Think. Think! How can I stop her? How can I change her mind? How can I run away from all this? I thought and thought, but the more I focused, the more my mind was dominated by one image—that day, the village, the girl, and...
“STOP!”
I shouted before I could stop myself. I wasn’t acting on any sort of logic. I was just flailing wildly to suppress the memories that were rising up within me. But somehow, it actually worked. Ayase froze, her sentence unfinished, and stared at me in shock.
“Uh, umm... Senpai...?”
“Ah, no, I mean...”
Ayase sounded shaken, and I faltered as well, mumbling incoherently. I told myself once more: the girl in front of me is Ayase Hikari. She’s just a girl who’s a little younger than me, that’s all. A perfectly normal girl. Drowning out or evading her words out of pure selfishness would be incredibly dishonest of me. And yet...
“Well, y’know, we can think up a better method some other time.”
I took advantage of her hesitation and dodged the topic. God, I’m pathetic. What kind of garbage sidekick steamrolls the protagonist’s sister to keep her feelings ambiguous?
“I guess we can, yeah.”
I couldn’t quite tell whether she’d caught on to my intentions, but she mumbled a quiet reply and took a sip of her tea. The conversation ground to a halt as she slowly savored it. It sort of felt like she was trying to take a moment to cool off and collect herself.
“So, yeah, long story short: you can’t let that old dude tie you down anymore.”
“I still can’t bring myself to go outside, though... I’m scared of what might happen, with all the men out there...”
Her worries were completely reasonable. They say if you find one cockroach in your house, it’s pretty much guaranteed there’s a whole nest of them hidden just out of sight, and that logic extends beyond the realm of household pests. There are seven and a half billion people on this planet, so, if anything, it was surprising she’d only met one degenerate flasher so far. Three cheers for miracles, I guess.
“Aren’t your friends worried about you?”
“I guess they might be, but...” She trailed off, looking a bit shaken, before hanging her head disconsolately, her hands faintly trembling. I realized at that point that pushing my agenda any further would probably just cause her more pain. It’s not like I’m a trained counselor in the first place.
I took that thought process a step further and reminded myself that I’m also not the protagonist. Girls with Ayase’s heroine aura belong alongside a legendary holy warrior, or at least a proper main character. She needed a real hero to save her from the demonic old man who was haunting her. And, guess what? It was her lucky day! I knew just the hero—and he happened to be closer to her than anyone else.
“You’ve got your brother there for you, right? Kaito, I mean. You’d be fine if he was around, wouldn’t you?”
“I...suppose. He’s family, so of course I don’t get scared talking with him.”
“Okay then, how ’bout you start by going out somewhere with him?”
“With Kaito?”
“Why not? You two’re pretty close, right?”
She looked a bit put off by that one. I was caught off guard by that reaction in turn and leaned forward.
“Wait, you’re not? Do you guys not get along?”
“No, it’s not like that.” She shifted uncomfortably.
“You make his lunch every day, right?”
“Well, yeah, since cooking’s one of my chores.”
“Don’t you love him?”
“Love him?”
“You know, like, as a guy.”
“Absolutely not!”
She wasn’t just being shy about it. She was genuinely, overtly indignant, and her shout almost sent me toppling over backwards, chair and all. But come on, she’s the protagonist’s sister in a rom-com, right? Why wouldn’t she have a thing for her brother? I mean, okay, from a “common sense” perspective, blood relatives being into each other like that’s pretty out there. I totally get why she’d be reluctant to admit it to some random guy she’d only just met.
Even so, you’d think that when I brought it up she’d jump right into tsundere mode, or protest a bit too much, or something. Y’know, something to foreshadow that classic rom-com plot twist! Judging by her reaction alone, I’d almost think that Ayase actually, honestly isn’t crushing on her brother, but that’s impossible! There’s no such thing as a little sister who’s not into her big bro!
Right around that point, Ayase sighed and rolled her eyes. She might’ve realized what I was thinking.
“Do you have any siblings, Senpai?”
“Nope, sure don’t.”
“Then I guess it makes sense you wouldn’t know this. Look, it might be true that siblings are ‘special’ to each other, in a sense, but generally speaking, most people find their siblings more ‘obnoxious’ than anything else.”
Whoa! Did she seriously just say that?! I mean, yeah, you hear that sometimes, but not from a little sister! Little sister characters aren’t supposed to talk like that!
“We’re living alone together right now because of family circumstances, but we don’t really talk much at all.”
Doesn’t she care about the popularity poll?! She knows this is gonna get her flamed by the fans, right?!
“I mean, we don’t have much to talk about to begin with.”
All tsun! No dere!
“Every once in a while he asks me if I want to take a bath with him, though.”
Ooof, yeah, sounds like him. That’s kinda weird, not gonna lie.
“Well, um,” I began, trying to get back to the core issue. “Anyway, the goal here is rehabilitation! Why not start by getting used to being around your brother, and... Um... Right...”
The ship showed absolutely no signs of sailing whatsoever, and as that fact gradually sank in, I decided that it was probably about time to move the conversation along. Sorry, Kaito. I don’t know if I’ll be able to look you in the eye from now on...
“A-Anyway, you can start by getting used to your brother, then move on to someone else you’re pretty close to. Like, yeah, one of your guy friends or something. You...have some of those, right?”
“Guy friends, huh...?”
“Or, like, a boyfriend or something.”
“...I don’t have one.” She glowered at me. Right, okay, point taken. My bad.
If I were the protagonist, now’s the bit where I’d be like (imagine this next part in a sexy voice) “You don’t? What a waste! And you’re such a beauty!” Then she’d blush and get all flustered, probably. Unfortunately, though, I’m not the protagonist, and my voice isn’t even slightly sexy.
“Oh. Makes sense.”
“What does that mean?”
“Huh?”
“Why does it ‘make sense’ that I don’t have a boyfriend?”
Her glower evolved into a full-on glare. Guess implying that it was only natural she wouldn’t be in a relationship must’ve touched a nerve? She looked pretty pissed.
“So, what, I’m totally unattractive? Is that it?”
Oooh, okay, I get it now. My thoughtless comment must’ve wounded her pride.
“No, that’s not what I meant,” I said, trying to recover. “I just figured that, y’know, you just started high school and all, so it figures you wouldn’t have one yet.”
“I’m actually quite popular, I’ll have you know! I’ve been asked out and gotten love letters a bunch of times.”
“Oh, huh. That’s pretty impressive.”
Of course, what’s really impressive is that people are still sending love letters in this day and age. Never got one myself, so I wouldn’t know. Wonder if Kaito has? Wouldn’t surprise me, but I’m not actually sure. Maybe I should rifle through his bag sometime soon.
“Thinking about all that is just frightening me all over again. I have a feeling some of the guys who asked me out or wrote those letters were, uh, sort of nasty.”
“Ahh, yeah, I could see that. Like, imagine if you had a supernatural power to make the guys around you get so turned on, they turn into flashers! That’d majorly tip the scales in favor of you running into that sort of situation again.”
“You go off on some pretty bizarre tangents sometimes, Senpai. Superpowers aren’t real, you know?”
“Exactly! Superpowers aren’t real, ergo, the odds of you getting assaulted by some random person are really low!”
Ayase’s eyes widened, and she smiled. I think she bought it.
“You have a really weird way of comforting people.”
“Are you not impressed?”
“...Thank you.”
“Wait, what?”
“You were trying to make me feel better, right? I appreciate it.”
Ayase smiled brightly. A moment later, she stood up and walked over to the TV in the living room. She reached behind it and pulled out a plastic bag.
“What’s that?”
I watched her absentmindedly—right up until she pulled a certain something out of the bag, and I shouted.
“My bag?!”
“Yup!”
She agreed, apparently seeing nothing wrong with the situation.
“Why was it back there?!”
“I thought you’d leave if I gave it back right away, so I hid it.”
She hid it...? Okay, but why? Before I had the chance to question her, Ayase tucked my bag under her arm and pulled out her smartphone.
“Will you give me your number, Senpai?”
“Huh? Why?”
This time I questioned her immediately, and got an intense stare in response.
“You’re going to help me wipe that man from my memory, aren’t you? I’ll have to get in touch with you for that.”
“Wait, I am?”
“You are.”
Pressured by her smile, I reluctantly pulled out my phone, opened up my contacts menu, and froze.
“Senpai?”
“Ah, um...”
I thought for a moment, then made a proposal.
“I’m fine with giving you my number, but let’s stick to actual calls, okay?”
“Actual calls? So, no texting or email?”
She frowned, unable to figure out what I was aiming for.
“You know what they say: you get about seventy percent less information through text than you would in person. Considering your current state, I’m sorta worried I’ll send a careless message and make things even worse.”
“All right, then. It’s better than the alternative, at least.”
My logic was flimsy at best, but Ayase seemed satisfied, and I ended up giving her my phone number while keeping my email private. As I stepped away from her, she mumbled something so quietly, I couldn’t make it out at all. Meh, no reason to pry. Probably better off not hearing it anyway.
“’Kay, sorry to bother you. Oh, and thanks for the bag.”
“You’re welcome, Senpai.”
She passed me my bag, and we said our goodbyes. Definitely not letting her keep me here any longer than she already has.
“I’ll give you a call sometime soon,” she added.
“...Right.”
“Oh, and Senpai?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll do my best to get through this. So, um... If anything happens, will you come save me again?”
“Doesn’t have to be me, does it? I mean, you could ask Kaito, or Kaito, or maybe Kaito...”
“If I know you’re watching over me, it’ll help me stay motivated to get better.”
“...Oh? Well in that case, I’ll do what I can.”
“Great! I’ll be counting on you, Senpai.”
Ayase grinned, and I returned the smile with a slightly strained one of my own. Then I got the heck out of the Ayase household. A block or two away, I paused for a moment to sigh.
“Ayase Hikari, huh? Man...”
I thought about her as I strolled towards school, weighed down by my bag once more. On one hand, she seemed totally fine when she was talking to me; on the other, she was an honor student on the student council, and was skipping school in spite of the pressure to perform I had to assume she felt. It seemed safe to say her emotional wounds were a lot deeper than I could perceive on a surface level. Resolving them would take a lot of time and a lot of work, so I had a lot of thinking to do about what the best way to go about that would be.
Something about Ayase reminded me of her. Their personalities were totally different. They were both beautiful, sure, but that aside, they honestly didn’t even look that similar. Yet still, somehow, something I couldn’t pin down made me associate the two of them with each other. The one thing I knew for sure was that I should do as much as I could to not get involved with her.
Nothing good could come of getting involved with Ayase Hikari. It’d end in disaster. Just like it did for her.
