All things being equal, even if the specifics and scale were totally different, Sakuta thought the doctor’s general theory was right on the money.
“So?”
“I believe Kaede’s injuries were caused by the strength of her feelings.”
“That much I get. But you think this applies to me, too?”
“I mean, look how you are at school. You act like you’re part of the air.”
“……”
Mai’s expression didn’t change. She seemed mildly interested in what he had to say, but her eyes were mostly saying “So?” and silently urging him to continue. This struck him as a feat that would have been beyond anyone but her.
“Uh, like I was saying,” he said, breaking eye contact. “I think the best way to avoid making things worse would be for you to go back to work.”
He deliberately kept his tone light. There was no reason to grapple with her directly. He’d never win on her turf.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“If you’re all over our TV screens, no matter how good you are at pretending you’re not there, the people around you won’t leave you alone. It’ll be like before you started this hiatus.”
“Hmph.”
“Besides, Mai…you’ve got goals of your own,” he said, keeping a close eye on her reaction.
“……”
Her eyebrows definitely twitched. Ever so slightly. If he hadn’t been watching for it, Sakuta might not have noticed.
“What goals?” Her voice betrayed no emotions.
“You want to go back to work.”
“When did I say that?” she asked, sighing dramatically. Sakuta thought this was another performance.
“If you’re not interested, then why were you staring enviously at that movie poster on the train?”
He immediately pressed the attack.
“I liked the novel it’s based on! I’m just curious how it turned out.”
“You sure you didn’t want to play the heroine yourself?”
“You’re really pushing it, Sakuta.”
She smiled confidently. Her mask wasn’t coming off this easily.
Sakuta wasn’t giving up, either.
“I think you should do what you want, Mai. You’ve got the skills and the résumé. Plus a manager who wants you back at work! What’s the problem?”
“…To hell with her.”
Mai didn’t raise her voice. But the emotions underpinning her words were volcanic. Her brows had snapped shut, and she was glaring at him.
“Mind your own business.”
He’d clearly stepped on a land mine.
“……”
Mai silently rose to her feet.
“Toilet’s down the hall on the right.”
“I’m leaving!” she snapped. She grabbed her schoolbag and flung the door open.
“Eep!”
Kaede was right outside, holding a tray with some tea. She’d also changed from her pajamas into a white blouse and a skirt with suspenders.
“Er, uh…I made tea,” Kaede stammered, clearly bowled over by Mai’s ferocious expression.
“Thanks,” Mai said, flashing her a smile. She grabbed a cup and downed it in a single gulp. “That was lovely.”
She placed the cup politely back on the tray and headed for the front door.
“Uh, wait, Mai!” Sakuta called, scrambling to follow.
“What?” she spat, putting her shoes on.
“You forgot this!” he said, holding out the bag with the bunny-girl outfit.
“Keep it!”
“Then at least let me walk you—”
“No.” She cut him off, clearly irritated. “I live close by.”
And with that, she was gone.
Sakuta was about to follow, but…
“Don’t! You’ll get arrested!” Kaede yelped.
She pointed at his clothes, or lack thereof, and he was forced to abandon the idea.
The two of them stood awkwardly in the hall.
“……”
“……”
After a few seconds of silence, they both looked down at the bag.
And the bunny-girl outfit inside it.
“What’s that for?” Kaede asked.
“Well, for now…”
He took out the ears, and since Kaede was still holding a tray and unable to resist, he stuck them on her head.
“I-I’m not wearing it!”
She scurried back into the living room, careful not to spill anything.
It would never do to force her, so he abandoned the idea for the moment. He put the outfit away in his closet, certain the day would come when he could enjoy it again.
“That’s fine.”
Things with Mai were not so fine. He’d really pissed her off.
“Guess I’ll have to apologize tomorrow…”
1
Unfortunately, the day after he pissed Mai off came and went without Sakuta finding a chance to apologize.
He’d hoped they might end up on the same train that morning, but no such luck. Not wanting to waste time, the moment first period ended, he went straight to Class 3-1 (her class), but she was nowhere to be found.
He tried asking a girl near the classroom door, but she just looked annoyed. “Sakurajima? I dunno, is she even here today?” she said before immediately turning back to her friends. “So yesterday…”
“……”
He scanned the Mai-less room. Boys laughing like idiots, girls squealing at each other’s stories—the room was filled with noise. Classrooms between periods were the same no matter what year the students were in. He imagined Mai sitting alone, surrounded by this commotion, and felt a pang in his chest.
“Where’s she sit?”
“Huh? Oh, over there.”
The girl pointed at the back seat in the row second from the windows. After confirming that there was a schoolbag hanging from it, Sakuta returned to his own classroom.
He visited her class during every break after that, but Mai was never there. Her bag always was, and the textbook for her next subject was out on the desk, so she was clearly here—but his efforts to find her were in vain.
His final chance was after school. Sakuta made a beeline for the exit the instant homeroom ended. He kept a close eye on his surroundings, searching for Mai. He waited like that for twenty minutes.
When it became clear he’d missed her, he left the gates behind, checking along the road on the way to the station. No sign of her. Mai wasn’t waiting on the platform in Shichirigahama Station, either.
Not only had he been unable to make up with her, he hadn’t even caught a glimpse of her.
When this continued for three more days, even an idiot would realize she was intentionally avoiding him.
And unfortunately, she clearly had no plans to stop.
Two weeks passed like this. Mai was still avoiding Sakuta completely.
The day before, he’d stood in the station for an hour hoping to catch her, but that got nowhere. She must have walked all the way to the next station.
This was a tough nut to crack.
Perhaps she’d mastered these techniques avoiding paparazzi. It was like she could turn to mist.
“That land mine I stepped on was even worse than I thought.”
Mai’s evident determination was making that fact clearer by the day.
Urging her to go back to work had made her angry, but the trigger had almost certainly been the word manager.
Was this the reason she’d gone on hiatus and why she was hesitant to go back to work despite harboring a clear desire to do so?
Sakuta used a school computer in an attempt to ascertain why Mai Sakurajima had taken a break from acting, but all he found was uninformed speculation and malicious rumors. Overworked? Gotta be something to do with a producer. Man problems. Nothing worth reading.
His only option was to ask her directly, but that wasn’t possible as long as she kept avoiding him. He was at an impasse.<
br />
Certain that chasing her was getting him nowhere, Sakuta decided one day that he needed a change of pace. He was on cleaning duty, but once he wrapped that up, he headed for the science lab.
To see his other friend.
He knocked on the door and opened it without waiting for an answer.
“Hope I’m not interrupting,” he said, shutting the door behind him.
“You are. Go away.” A curt response.
There was only one student in the rather large lab. She was at the desk the teacher used during classes, in front of the blackboard. On the desk were an alcohol burner and a beaker. She didn’t bother looking in Sakuta’s direction.
She was only slightly over five feet tall, on the small side, and wore glasses. The white lab coat over her uniform certainly drew the eye. She had unusually good posture, which added to the “cool” vibe she gave off.
Her name was Rio Futaba. A second-year student here at Minegahara High. She’d been in the same class as Sakuta and Yuuma the year before. She was the sole member of the Science Club. The experiments she did there had caused the school’s power to fail and started a small fire, so she had a reputation for being weird. Her signature white lab coat only made things worse.
Sakuta pulled a nearby chair over, sitting down across the desk from Rio.
“How you been?”
“Nothing’s happened worth reporting to you.”
“Tell me something fun!”
“You sound like a typical bored high school student. Don’t waste my time with that nonsense.”
She looked up long enough to glare. Maybe he really was interrupting.
“I’m a student, and I’m bored, so you’re right on the money.”
Rio ignored his attempt to keep the conversation going and used a match to light the alcohol burner. Then she filled the beaker with water and placed it on the flame. Some sort of experiment?
“What’s gotten into you, Azusagawa?”
“I’ve got nothing to report, either.”
“Liar. You’re obsessed with a former child actress.”
There was no need to puzzle out who she meant. That could only be Mai.
“She escaped that label a long time ago. She’s a real actress now.”
But since she was on hiatus, perhaps that term didn’t quite apply, either.
“Who told you that anyway?”
“Stupid question.”
“Right, it would have to be Kunimi.”
Yuuma was the only one who knew what was going on with him. And the only people in school who would talk to the weirdo in the white lab coat were Yuuma and Sakuta. QED.
“He’s worried about you. You’re getting yourself mixed up in trouble again.”
“Hey, what do you mean by again?”
“Can’t even imagine what it would take to worry about someone like you. Kunimi is too pure for this world.”
“If you ever figure out how he does it, you’ll have to tell me.”
The phrase great personality was coined for Yuuma specifically. Sakuta believed this wholeheartedly.
Last year, when talk of the hospitalization incident was flooding the school, Yuuma was the only one who kept treating Sakuta the same way. Not only did he not believe the rumors, but when they were paired together in gym class, he’d directly asked if they were true.
“Of course they aren’t.”
“I figured.” Yuuma had grinned.
“…You’ll take my word for it?”
Sakuta had been taken aback. The bulk of the class had immediately believed the gossip, distancing themselves without even bothering to ask.
“I mean, it’s not true, right?”
“No, but…”
“I’ll take the word of the person in front of me over some anonymous Internet source any day.”
“You’re the worst, Kunimi.”
“Huh? Where’d that come from?”
“Between your face and your personality, you’re the enemy of all men.”
“Riiiight.”
That had been about a year ago. He and Yuuma were still thick as thieves.
As Sakuta stared vacantly at the burner flame, thoughts still abuzz…
“The world just isn’t fair,” Rio said, pity evident in the gaze she leveled on him. “To think that people could turn out so differently.”
“I’d rather not be compared to Kunimi.”
“I only do it out of spite. Pay no mind.”
“How could I not? But, well, guys like him in particular always have freakish fetishes they keep under wraps. That’s how the world maintains balance in the distribution of amazing personalities.”
“You’re at rock bottom today, Azusagawa,” Rio sighed.
“How so?”
“You’ve got a friend seriously worried about you, and here you are talking about him behind his back.”
He couldn’t very well argue with that.
“…The gap between me and Kunimi overwhelms me sometimes.”
“That, and…” Rio allowed a meaningful pause.
“What?”
The water in the beaker was starting to boil.
“You finally got over Makinohara.”
“…Kunimi said the same thing. Why bring her up?”
“You should know the answer to that better than anyone.”
Rio killed the flame on the burner and poured the hot water into a mug. Then she added instant coffee. Apparently, she was not doing an experiment.
“Can I get a cup?”
“I’m afraid I only have the one mug. You could use this mixing cylinder?”
The long, thin glass tube was a foot tall. Rio seemed to think this was a viable option.
“If I tried to drink coffee out of that thing, it would all pour out at once, and I’d burn myself.”
“We should do an experiment to see if your hypothesis is correct. Besides, that is the only other available container.”
“Why not use the beaker you boiled the water in?”
“That would be boring,” she grumbled. But she nevertheless added some instant coffee to the remaining water in the beaker.
“Any sugar?”
“I don’t use it.”
Rio pulled a plastic bottle out of a drawer and placed it in front of him. The label read MANGANESE DIOXIDE.
“You sure this is safe?”
“That’s probably sugar inside. It’s white anyway.”
“There are countless other white powders. Even I know that.”
But he also knew that manganese dioxide was black.
“Best to try only a little bit at a time to make sure,” Rio suggested.
Sakuta elected to take his coffee black instead.
Rio looked vaguely disappointed. She lit the alcohol burner again. He wondered if it was for an experiment this time, but the answer became apparent when she put a grill over it and began toasting a dried squid. Its legs curled up on the heat.
“Can I have some?”
He wasn’t sure if it would go well with coffee, but the fragrant smell was making him hungry.
Rio tore off a single squid leg and gave it to him.
Munching on that, Sakuta finally broached his main topic.
“Futaba…is it possible to just stop being able to see a person?”
“If you’re worried about your eyes, see an optometrist.”
“That’s not what I meant… Like, what if they’re definitely there, but people can’t see them. Like they’re invisible.”
In Mai’s case, not only did people not see her, they couldn’t hear her voice, either, so invisible wasn’t quite right…but might as well start there.
“Is this for when you sneak into the girls’ toilets?”
“I’m not into scat, so at least make it the locker rooms when you bad-mouth me.”
“You’re a rascal and always will be.”
Rio reached into her bag and pulled out her phone.
“Who are you calling?”
�
�The police.”
“They can’t take action until a crime has taken place.”
“Good point.”
She put the phone away.
“But for your original question, the process of sight is covered in our science textbook. Read the sections on light and lenses.”
She produced the book in question and slid it across the desk toward him.
“I’m asking you because that sounds like too much work.”
Sakuta sent the book back.
Rio took a bite of squid, unconcerned.
“Light is the key. Light strikes objects, and the light reflecting off them enters our eyes, allowing us to perceive colors and shapes. In darkness, without light, we can’t see a thing.”
“Reflections…”
“If that isn’t making sense, think of sound instead. Like how dolphins communicate with sound waves.”
“You mean…how they measure distance by judging how sound waves reflect off things?”
“Yes. They can even tell the shape of objects. Just like a ship’s sonar. It can be hard to picture with light because we’re only really conscious of light hitting our eyes when it’s really bright.”
“Huh.”
“But glass is translucent and doesn’t reflect light, so it’s harder to see.”
“Ohhh, yeah. That’s true.”
Did that mean light wasn’t reaching Mai for some reason? For a movie star on hiatus, that phrasing just sounded spiteful.
Sakuta wondered if he should consider the idea that, like colorless, translucent glass, Mai’s body wasn’t reflecting light. Sadly, even if that were the case, it still left a lot of things unexplained.
Like people not hearing her voice. Or how some could see her while others couldn’t. Her situation seemed much more complicated.
“Well, I think that helped.”
“Really?” Rio asked, deeply suspicious.
“Futaba, you think I’m an idiot, right?”
“No.”
“Then you think I’m a mega idiot?”
“You know exactly what I’m trying to say, but you waste time asking anyway. It’s obnoxious.”
“So harsh.”
“I think you can take a hint, but you’re obnoxious enough to pretend you can’t.”
“Okay, I’m sorry! Please, no more barbs!”
“The way you wriggle out of it like that is even worse.”
Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai, Volume 1 Page 5