A Perfectly Normal Lunchtime, Probably
Oumei High has a courtyard. It’s located between the main schoolhouse and the gym and serves as a nice little gathering space for the students. There are some benches and tables set up so that people can eat lunch out there, and since the buildings that flank it keep it nice and shaded, it’s cool even during the heat of summer. Whoever designed the place did their homework. I’d never actually bothered going out there before and was surprised to find how pleasant it was.
I was lurking in a corner of that courtyard, hidden behind a convenient pillar. As for why I was forgoing food and sleep in spite of my hearty appetite for both, well...there was really only one reason.
“I’m sorry, Yuu-chan—you’re definitely mad at me, aren’t you? I lost track of time and spent way too long talking with our teacher, I know...”
“Huh? Ah, no I’m not! You didn’t do anything wrong, Hikari-chan! I’m mad about something totally different!”
“And in a manner of speaking, I made you wait for me the whole week I wasn’t at school...”
“Th-That wasn’t your fault! You had some sorta unavoidable circumstances to deal with, right?!”
“No, I was just playing hooky.”
“Whaaat?!”
“Gotcha! I was just kidding, Yuu-chan.” She chuckled and stuck out her tongue in a teasing sort of way.
It was her: Ayase Hikari. Normally behaving like that would be unspeakably obnoxious, but somehow, she had a way of making you want to let it slide. That might’ve just been my own bias talking, though.
In spite of it being her first day back after a long break, Ayase seemed to be in top form. The way she was joking around and giggling was perfectly natural, and watching her casually mess with Yuuta made it easy to see just how deep their friendship ran.
They chatted peacefully as they sat down at one of the tables, opened up the lunch boxes Yuuta had been so proud of, and started to eat. If Yuuta’s info was correct, Ayase had made them herself. In other words, they were the same as the relatively plain but scrumptious-looking lunches that Kaito ate every day... Ah, dammit, now I’m even hungrier than ever.
I was a lot more concerned about them—or rather, about Ayase—than I was about the state of my stomach, though. Had she returned to her normal, everyday life without any issues after what I did to her? Was she experiencing any aftereffects? I didn’t have any real right to worry about her, considering my involvement, but I did anyway.
C’mon, Yuuta! Question her! Ask her if she’s still feeling sick, or something along those lines! Yuuta was the only person in a position to actually question her about it, so I placed all my hopes in her and tried to beam my instructions to her via telepathy. Which didn’t work, of course, ’cause telepathy’s not real.
“Are you still feeling sick, Hikari-chan?”
Hoooooly crap, it worked?! She actually asked! I mean, it was a natural question to ask in the first place. If an honor student like Ayase goes missing for the better part of a week, it’s easy to conclude she must’ve been sick. Wasn’t surprising at all that Yuuta would be thinking along those lines.
“I’m fine!” Ayase replied. “I wasn’t sick to begin with. That’s not why I missed school.”
“It’s not?”
“Yeah, but...I don’t actually know why I did. I know that I had a reason, but I’m not sure what it was.”
“Was it all that stuff with Mikura-san?” Yuuta asked after a moment of timid hesitation.
“I mean, that was part of it, I think...”
“Mikura” was one of Ayase’s classmates whose jealousy ended up driving her to subject Ayase to some low-key bullying. It didn’t make any sense for that alone to cause her to cut class, though, and by the look of things Ayase herself was aware of that fact. If she didn’t remember why she’d ended up cutting school, that meant the real reason was about me—or rather, about a certain creepy old pervert. Point is, it had to do with the memories I erased.
“Guess that means it worked,” I mumbled to myself. “Probably.”
“Kunugi-kun? What are you doing?”
“
Aughwhaaa?!” Somebody tapped me on the shoulder from behind, and I shrieked. I was so focused on eavesdropping on Ayase’s conversation, I completely failed to notice that somebody was approaching me in the meantime.
“Huh?! It feels like someone’s watching us!” Yuuta jumped up to scan her surroundings, and I hastily withdrew all the way behind the pillar. Then I turned to look at the girl who’d decided to talk to me.
“Wh-What’s up, Kiryu-san?”
“I feel like I should be asking you that! All I did was talk to you...” I was obviously freaking out, and Kiryu didn’t look very happy about it. “I saw you clutching at this pillar and was worried your raging hormones might’ve been making you act out again.”
“What sorta person do you take me for?!”
“I understand now, though. It was even worse than I thought. I never took you for a kidnapper.”
“A kidnapper?!” I’d been demoted from pillar-molesting pervert to child-snatcher in her mind! Not really, of course—judging by how she smiled at my reaction, she was definitely just teasing me. If she’d seen me creeping around like that just a couple weeks back, she would’ve probably flung a couple biting insults at me and not even bothered to talk to me at all.
“So, why are you spying on Hikari-san?” she asked.
“‘Hikari-san’? You know her?”
“I do, yes. She’s Ayase-kun’s sister and her grade’s class representative, after all. I’ve spoken with her a number of times in passing.” Hikari had earned the right to be the class representative by getting the top score on her entrance exam, and Kiryu had done the same the year before. It wasn’t totally implausible for that shared experience to lead to the two of them touching base with each other.
“Exactly—she’s Kaito’s sister, and speaking as her older brother’s best friend, it’s only natural for me to worry if she’s doing okay after she skipped school without explanation.”
“In other words, you’re being a snoop.”
“You could say that.” In the sense that she was a notable figure and I was part of the riffraff, “snooping” expressed the distance between the two of us pretty perfectly. Like I was the paparazzi or something.
“From what I understand, yesterday was her first day back at school,” continued Kiryu.
“Pretty rare for you to have info on one of your kouhais, isn’t it?”
“Ayase-kun and Kotou-san told me, that’s all.”
I paused, shocked. “Kaito did? But he didn’t say anything to me at all!”
“Why would you be jealous about that? It’s your own fault for being absent on the day she came back.” Harsh, but fair! It would be sorta weird to contact a guy who’s at home sick to tell him that your sister’s back at school after being out for a week. Can’t exactly post it on social media either—you’d get chewed out for spreading private info online.
“In any case,” Kiryu sighed, “you’ve certainly bounced back quickly. Considering how bad you looked yesterday, I almost can’t believe it.”
“They say that boys in puberty change so quickly, you might not even recognize ’em if you go a couple days without seeing ’em!”
“It hasn’t even been a full day since I saw you, and that’s not even remotely the same thing regardless.” She was back to half-glaring at me. I felt a bead of sweat drip down my brow.
“W-Well, the point is that there’s more to me than meets the eye. Anyway, I’ve actually got more important things to be doing right now, so—”
“‘More important things’?” She grabbed me by the shoulders. H-Holy crap, why’s she being so intense all of a sudden?! “You do not have ‘more important things.’ Do you have any idea how worried I was after you ran out yesterday? You left your phone behind, so I couldn’t even call you!”
“Err, I mean, you see—”
“The president and I were chatting over snacks after you left, and we were both worried that you might’ve been so shocked by, well, you-know-what that you might’ve tried to kill yourself!”
“Yeah, okay, sorry about... ‘Over snacks’?! Sounds like you were pretty calm after all!”
“They say that good things come to those who wait, don’t they?” Welp, didn’t think that expression would end up turning against me today! Dunno if it really applies in this context, but I can’t argue against it either. Curse this girl and her smarty-pants wiles! “Anyway, the truth is that the president stopped me from going after you. She said that it was too dangerous to go running around in the dark, so we should leave it to her people.”
“Makes sense, I guess.”
“And thanks to that, I ended up having to deal with her all night long...”
“Hot!” An image jumped into my mind: Kiryu and Renge, lying on a king-sized bed, limbs entwined in a beguilingly seductive manner. Feels like the sort of scene that girls would be into more than guys, though, especially if we had Kiryu crossdress for it...
“You’re thinking about something weird, aren’t you?” She pinched my cheek (with her nails!) and the bedroom scene dissolved into mental mist.
“Am not!”
“For the record, I did end up staying over at her house, but nothing in particular happened between us. The worst I could say of the experience is, well...” Her sentence trailed off halfway. Kiryu blushed and looked away from me.
“I knew it—something sexy totally happened after all!”
“It did not!” She went after both my cheeks, nails and everything. It hurt, but to an outside observer, it probably looked like I was grinning! Or it would’ve—if it weren’t for the tears in my eyes. Ow.
My body might’ve been unusually healthy thanks to the mana that dwelled within it, but under normal circumstances I was still just a totally ordinary human. Painful things were still painful, and my tear glands worked just fine. As did my stomach, which grumbled with all the force and volume of an orchestra’s bass section. Kiryu paused, cocked her head, and let go of my cheeks.
“Are you hungry?” I rubbed my still-stinging cheeks with both hands as I nodded vigorously. “I have some sandwiches... Would you like one?”
“For real?!”
“For real.”
She smiled kindly. It was the smile of a saint; a smile most men would fall for on the spot. Her carrot-and-stick treatment got me good, and I would’ve just wallowed in that expression if I could’ve.
❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤
“Man, it’s been ages since I’ve had your cooking, Hikari-chan... All the shame and misery I had to live through to get to this point finally feels like it was worth it...”
“That’s a bit much, Yuu-chan.”
I shivered as I dug into the sandwich that Kiryu gave me. I could clearly hear Ayase and Yuuta shouting and giggling as they ate their own lunches behind me.
“What?” said Kiryu, who was sitting so close to me that our shoulders were almost touching and giving me a casual glare. Just how many different glares does this girl have up her sleeve, anyway? She’s got quite the repertoire. “You’re the one who said you’d taken an interest in those two, aren’t you?”
“Great phrasing there—definitely not gonna cause any misunderstandings.”
“I think I’m on the verge of misunderstanding something, myself.”
“Yeah, guess you would be.” I felt my cheeks grow even hotter and redder than they were when she pinched me. Wonder why? Who can say! It’s a real mystery! “Anyway, are you really sure about this? Aren’t we way too close?”
“The best place to hide a tree is in a forest.”
“You’re just saying that ’cause you think it sounds cool! The forest doesn’t help if the tree’s literally right next to you!” We were, in fact, more or less right next to them. Specifically, we were sitting on a bench that was installed right near their table, facing away from it. Our backs were turned to them, sure, but that was all we had going for us stealth-wise.
“It’s not as bad as you’re making it sound,” she argued. “It’s not like we’re all that distinctive from behind or anything.”
“What, a looker like you? I could pick you out of a crowd from the back of your head, no sweat.”
“O-Oh, really...? I could do the same with you, though!”
“Is this a competition now?” Kiryu took a bite out of her sandwich and pointedly didn’t reply. The conversation ground to a halt.
Ayase and Yuuta, in contrast, were still merrily chatting away as they enjoyed their happy little lunchtime. Nothing in their conversation was particularly interesting, though I did take note of how Yuuta was extolling the virtues of Ayase’s lunch box with the tone and vocabulary of a gourmet food reviewer.
“They sound like they’re having fun,” noted Kiryu with a slight smile.
“Oh, huh. Didn’t think you were the type to care about whether or not other people enjoy stuff.”
“Do you want to get pinched again?”
“Oh, Kiryu-sama, how wondrous a person you are! Oh, how my heart is moved by your kindness and affection!” Yup, there’s the carrot and stick again. She’s got me for sure. “But yeah, agreed. Kind of a relief to see them like this.”
“Right... Now then, about yesterday. Explain.”
“You really don’t let yourself get sidetracked, do you?” That said, I couldn’t completely dodge the question. As long as I left out all the bargain-bin fantasy novel nonsense about magic and alternate worlds, it’d probably be fine to fill her in.
So I did! I tinkered with the details, of course—the way I framed it to her, I’d bumped into Kazuki mid-chase and ended up letting the old creeper escape as a result, but all that running cleared my head and I ended up getting over the whole debacle when all was said and done.
Kiryu looked more than a touch skeptical. “Really? You’re telling the truth?”
“Yeah, and I know, it’s hard to believe. I barely even believe it myself, and I was there.” It ranked so low on the plausibility scale, even I had to admit it. If going for a run to clear your head was enough to heal that sort of emotional damage, all the therapists of the world would’ve been better off going into sports instruction instead.
“By the way, who is this ‘Kazuki’ person?”
“You don’t know her? First-year, genius runner, ace of the track team?”
“I don’t know any of the first-years. I mean, except for Ayase-kun’s sister. She’s the only one I ever come into contact with.”
“Huh, weird. Thought she was pretty famous...” You didn’t have to be tuned in to the rumor mill to have heard about how she figuratively kicked the crap out of the rest of the track team right after she started at our school. All the more so considering her looks! On the other hand, it wasn’t all that surprising that somebody like Kiryu wouldn’t know about her if she didn’t have any specific, personal connection with her.
“So then,” Kiryu continued, “you decided that our concern about you was less important than spending quality time with this beautiful track star?”
“I mean, if you’re trying to make it sound nasty, I guess you could say that.”
“Of course I am.”
I hesitated. “Are you, uhh, angry?”
“Angry? Why should I have to be angry with the likes of you?” Yup, she’s angry all right. That’s the sort of roundabout phrasing people only use when they’re genuinely pissed. She sighed, then continued. “You’re unbelievable, really. I don’t know why I bothered worrying in the first place.”
“Sorry about that.”
“I ended up wasting the better part of a day and half a sandwich on top of that.”
“Sorry about that too.” Time is money, and grudges over food can get pretty scary. I was in an incredibly disadvantageous position.
“You’ll have to compensate me appropriately, of course.”
“Sorry about...huh?”
“I don’t like leaving debts unclaimed. Y-You have to pay back at least as much as you borrow, right?” She was talking noticeably faster than usual and avoiding eye contact to boot. She sounded like a clerk at a national bank or something. Not that I’ve ever talked with one of those. “S-So I’ll give you the chance to pay me back someday soon! You’ll be treating me to a meal, of course.”
“O-Okaaay? Sure...” I wasn’t totally sold on her logic—hell, I’m not even totally sure I understood it—but her face lit up at my response, so it looked like she wasn’t angry anymore, at least.
“I’ll look forward to it, then!”
“G-Great.”
At that point she jumped up off the bench, apparently having said her piece. She almost looked like she was skipping as she left the courtyard. If I didn’t know better, I’d have probably gotten the wrong idea... But before I could follow that train of thought any further, it was blown from my mind as I heard Yuuta start yelping behind me.
“Ahh! Oh jeez, we’re in trouble, Hikari-chan! Our fifth-period class is in a different room than usual! We gotta move all our stuff!”
“I moved my things already, actually...”
“You what?! Traitor!”
“Oh, come on, really?”
“Anyway, we’ve gotta get back to the classroom! C’mon, hurry, hurry!”
“Wait, don’t run! You’re going to trip!” They almost sounded like a mother and her tragically dim, misbehaving child. A moment later, Yuuta sprinted right past me. Thanks to the back of my head being thoroughly nondescript, she didn’t notice me at all and ran off on her way without even pausing to look.
“Really, that girl...” Ayase followed along after her. Needless to say, she didn’t take note of me either. She couldn’t, in any case—her memories of me were dead and gone, so even if she happened to turn around and look at me, she wouldn’t pay me any mind.
And then, at just the right moment, a sudden gust blew through the courtyard. It wasn’t one of those mischievous bursts that come up from below and flip skirts, though. Just a perfectly normal, unremarkable gust. More of a breeze, even—a pleasant, refreshing wind to relieve us of the summer heat for the slightest of moments.
And yet that pleasant breeze caused Ayase to stop in her tracks. It had been just enough of a disturbance to make her drop the little case she kept her chopsticks in. She crouched down to grab it, glanced up, and, by pure coincidence, our eyes met.
“Ah...”
Seeing her head-on, from right up close, I found that she looked exactly the same as she had the night before last. And, I mean, duh, it was just two days ago. Even boys in puberty need at least a day or two more than that to change so much you wouldn’t recognize them. Of course she’d basically look the same.
Weirdly enough, though, I felt something as I looked her in the eye. She brought someone to mind, but I couldn’t put my finger on who. All that I knew was that they were someone really important to me—someone I hadn’t seen in a long, long time.
Ayase, meanwhile, was frozen in place, still reaching down for her chopstick case, her eyes locked onto mine. A chill ran down my spine as I worried that she might’ve remembered me, somehow, but it quickly became apparent that wasn’t the case. If she’d remembered me, she surely would’ve said my name or gotten mad about what I’d done to her a few nights back.
It wasn’t an “I remember you” sort of look—more of an “I swear I’ve met you somewhere before, but I can’t quite put my finger on it” one. Like how people look when they’re mid-déjà vu. I was simultaneously glad and disappointed that she didn’t know who I was. Really conflicted, all around.
She was still frozen in place, probably on account of the fact that I was staring a hole in her face. If just one of us broke eye contact, our weird little moment would end in an instant, and the flow of time would resume once more. For some reason I still can’t explain, though, neither of us did.
Of course, in reality, time never stopped flowing in the first place. The bell rang, signaling that we had five minutes to wrap up lunch and get to class. That snapped us back to reality.
“A-Ah...” stammered Ayase. “E-Excuse me!” She grabbed her chopstick case and jogged off. I, in contrast, stayed frozen.
She’d gone through the whole déjà vu process when she saw my face—I knew that for sure from her expression. There was also that time when I went to my old hometown—Shusen City—with Kiryu and remembered the nickname that the old me used to call her. It seemed reasonable to conclude that my power to erase memories didn’t completely wipe the slate clean.
But what about me? Why did I feel that incredibly powerful sense of nostalgia as I looked at her? I certainly couldn’t recall erasing any of my own memories about her. Even presuming I’d met her when I was a kid, the same was true of Kiryu, and I never felt anything of the sort when I looked at her. It didn’t feel like a plausible explanation.
I hadn’t forgotten anything. I hadn’t, and yet somehow, I was still on the verge of remembering someone. I just didn’t know who, and the more I thought about it, the more a painful, suffocating sensation built up within my chest. A gradually growing pressure, intense enough to make some warm, unidentifiable liquid build up in the corners of my eyes...
Even after the rest of the students returned to the courtyard, even after the bell rang again to signal the start of classes, I stayed parked on the bench, not moving a muscle.
