“She is? Yay!”
As the police officer dragged them away, Sakuta took comfort in the fact that at least the lost child problem was solved.
But even that small respite was immediately ruined when the officer muttered, “Are kids these days into pain?”
The police officer finally let them leave a good hour and a half after they reached the police station. Sakuta looked at the clock as they left and was horrified to see it pointing at four. Would someone please invent a time machine?
“Ugh, that sucked,” the girl grumbled. She looked exhausted.
“That’s my line, stupid.”
“Who you calling stupid? You being all suspicious was the start of this whole mess!”
“And you got it all wrong, so you shoulder the bulk of the blame.”
“Excuses are so not cool.”
“Not excuses. Just the truth. And it’s totally your fault the lecture lasted that long, Koga.”
Her shoulders twitched.
“…How do you know my name?!”
“Tomoe Koga. It’s a pretty cute name!”
“You know the whole thing?!”
Had she forgotten identifying herself to the policeman? He even knew her school. She was actually a student at Minegahara High, like Sakuta. A year below him. Technically, he was her senpai.
“I know everything about you.”
“That’s just dumb.”
“You’re from Fukuoka, right?”
“How in the heck?!” Her accent popped out again.
“……”
“Ack!” Tomoe Koga slapped both hands over her mouth.
“You slipped into your accent earlier, too.”
“I—I did not!”
She refused to look at him. Seemed like she wanted to keep this a secret for some reason. A little late to try to hide it now, though.
“Well, point is, this is your fault, Koga.”
“Tell me your name! Not fair only you know.”
“Ichiro Sato.”
No reason he should tell her the truth, so he went with an obvious lie, figuring anyone would know that was a fake name.
“Right, Sato. How is this my fault?” Tomoe insisted, accepting the alias at face value.
Clearly, she wasn’t prone to suspicion. She might be genuinely nice. Admitting this was a fake name now seemed likely to cause problems, so Sakuta decided he’d better keep quiet.
“If you don’t know, I’m happy to explain. In the first thirty minutes, we managed to convince the officer it was all a misunderstanding. The rest was all because you were so obsessed with your phone that you never looked up from it and clearly weren’t listening to him.”
The entire last hour of the lecture had been about not fiddling with your phone when people were talking. Sakuta didn’t even own a phone, so this felt extremely unjustified.
“That’s true…but you don’t need to spell it out like that!” she sulked.
“Have you no remorse?”
“I mean, I kept getting texts! I had no choice.”
“So what? Ignore them.”
“If I don’t answer quick, I’ll lose all my friends,” Tomoe admitted, hanging her head.
“That’s why you were so desperate to answer?”
“Otherwise, even I’d leave it alone while someone’s yelling at me.”
She puffed out her cheeks, glaring up at him.
“Ah-ha.”
“What’s that attitude? You’re being mean, right?”
“Not at all.”
“I know you’re thinking, ‘If you’d lose them that easily, they were never your friends at all.’”
Had someone told her as much before? It sounded like she was doing an imitation of someone.
“You clearly think so yourself,” Sakuta said.
“Sh-shut up!”
Sakuta put a hand on her head, messing up her hair.
“Augh! Dumbass! I spent a lot of time on that!”
She brushed his hand off and hastily started fixing it.
“Good luck, young girl.”
“Are you making fun of me?”
“You’re doing your best to survive those dumb friendship rules, right? So no, I’m not making fun of you. I just think it’s dumb.”
Whether e-mail or texts, he had no idea who would want rules like that in the first place or who benefited from their creation. Maybe they’d originally been put in place to keep things cordial, and before anyone realized it, they’d become restrictive rules that made everyone suffer.
But once everyone decided to follow those rules, they were stuck with them. Not adhering meant getting expelled from the group. You could easily lose your friends. And once out of the group, there was no way back in. Sakuta knew that only too well. He knew how much Kaede had suffered because of it.
Restrictions like that were exhausting. Yet people couldn’t feel safe unless they made rules, binding them, connecting them, creating a place where they belonged. Each e-mail or text sent was a way of checking on each other. “Are you okay?” “I’m okay.” It was difficult for many people to give themselves affirmation, so they needed it from others. This give-and-take was shared, synchronized. That was how people made safe places for themselves.
Junior high or high school, schools were societies. They were worlds unto themselves. And everyone was desperate to fit in.
Sakuta only began to understand how these worlds ticked when he started high school and got a job where he spent more time interacting with college students and grown-up staff members. He began to grasp what schools looked like from an outside perspective. Only then did he realize everyone just wanted to belong.
“So you’re making fun of me.”
“You seem nice, Koga, so I’ll drop it.”
“Nice?”
“It takes guts to step in and save a kid from a creep. I respect that. Maybe next time just call for help instead, though? If you’d been up against a real creep, you might have been in big trouble. You are pretty cute.”
“D-don’t call me cute!”
Tomoe turned bright red. Did she somehow not get called that?
“Keep justice in your heart! Keep fighting the good fight!”
“Uh, sure. Thanks.”
He hadn’t expected her to accept it and actually say thanks. Maybe she genuinely was nice. Or blindingly pure of heart.
A phone rang. Sakuta didn’t have one, so it was definitely Tomoe’s.
“Oh crap! I promised I’d be there! Bye!”
Tomoe raced off. At that speed in a skirt as short as hers, Sakuta definitely got an eyeful, but yelling a warning after her would just draw attention to it, so he simply watched her go in silence.
“White, huh?” he remarked.
Once Tomoe was completely out of sight, Sakuta turned to go home.
He took maybe three steps, then stopped.
He felt like he was forgetting something important.
“……Ah!”
Mai’s face had flicked across the back of his mind. Naturally, she was not exactly smiling pleasantly. Or even sulking adorably. This was definitely the face she’d made the one time he’d really made her mad.
“Craaap…”
Almost tripping over his own feet, Sakuta burst into a headlong sprint toward their agreed meeting place.
2
Sakuta came running into the Enoden Fujisawa Station. Same place he came every day on the way to school. He stopped in front of the ticket gates.
This was where Mai had said they should meet.
Trying to catch his breath, he looked right, then left. The entire set of gates was only six or seven yards wide. It didn’t take long to do a thorough search.
“……”
Unfortunately, there was no sign of Mai.
“Y-yeah, of course…”
Mai Sakurajima would never wait an hour and a half.
“Yiiikes…I really blew it.”
A wave of regret washed over him. But there was no way he co
uld have ignored the lost little girl or any way he could have predicted the mess the schoolgirl of justice had caused. He stood by his choices.
But in this precise moment, he really regretted not owning a phone. He could at least have told her what was going on. Even if he had, she would probably have said, “So this is more important than a date with me?” and canceled their plans, so…
He would just have to figure out a way to get her to forgive him. Once she realized he wasn’t coming, Mai would have been furious and either gone home or somewhere alone. It wouldn’t be easy to get back on her good side.
As he slumped, dejected, he heard footsteps coming up behind him. They sounded familiar. But there was a distinct note of irritation in the rhythm.
“You had the gall to keep me waiting for ninety-eight minutes.”
“……”
He turned around, unable to believe his ears. There was Mai. In street clothes.
“Why do you look like you just saw a ghost?”
“I never took you for the sort of girl who’d wait earnestly and adorably for an hour and a half! You must be an imposter!”
Her eyes narrowed. He was sure the temperature in the air lowered a few degrees.
“Clearly, we’re learning what you think of me.”
He mostly thought she was sexy. Did she know?!
“Uh, you took that as an insult?”
“How else would I take it, dear?”
Mai seemed to intend this last word as an insult, but it felt more like a reward. But if he told her that, she might never say it again, so Sakuta kept his mouth shut.
“What are you grinning about?”
“Nothing.”
He forced himself to look serious. He finally managed to register her outfit. A long-sleeve blouse with a cute knit hooded vest over it. Her skirt went to her knees. It flared out a bit at the hem, very mature-looking. Meanwhile, her boots came all the way up to just below the knees. The whole thing was classy and elegant, but not too polished—all perfectly balanced. A good fit for Mai’s grown-up vibe.
“……”
But there was no skin anywhere. Maybe just the bit around her knees.
A sigh escaped him.
“That was rude!”
“Mai, are you sure about this?”
“Wh-what?” she asked, bracing herself.
“Date outfits are all about miniskirts and bare legs!”
“I will punch you,” Mai said, making a fist.
“Sigh.”
“Don’t look so disappointed!”
“I was looking forward to it, though.”
“Real ballsy when you’re this late.”
“You always wear black tights with your uniform.”
“W-well, I put a lot of thought into this…,” she muttered, eyes wavering.
“And you look absolutely adorable!”
“……”
Mai turned her eyes toward him, demanding another helping.
“You’re super cute, Mai!”
“Much better.”
“My heart’s beating so fast, I want to take you home with me! Decorate my walls with you!”
“Okay, now you’re just being creepy. Knock it off.”
“Then let’s get going.”
He gestured toward the gates.
“Wait. We’re not done here.”
“What else is there?”
He’d been hoping to wriggle out of this, so he played dumb.
“Drop the act.”
“I would never dare to do such a thing in your presence.”
“Let’s hear your excuse. You will then sincerely beg my forgiveness.”
Mai seemed to be enjoying this. Her expression was lively.
“If it’s not good enough, I’m going home.”
Had Mai waited the full ninety-eight minutes just to torture him? That theory was starting to sound convincing.
“On the way here, I found a lost child by the park.”
“Bye.”
“I know it sounds fake, but it’s the truth!”
“There are no parks between your job and here,” she pointed out.
“I went home first.”
“Why?”
“I had time to spare and figured I’d better shower and change my underwear, just in case.”
“……Gross.”
She seemed genuinely appalled.
“But I’ll assume it was the useless flailing of a singularly pathetic younger boy and move on.”
“Thank you.”
“But I won’t allow you within three yards of me the rest of the day.”
That could hardly be called a date. Anyone would assume Sakuta was stalking her.
“Go on, finish your lie.”
“I really did take a lost kid to the police station.”
“Was this kid a girl?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve got a lot of nerve making me wait while you spent time with another girl.”
“You’re counting four-year-olds?!”
“I am,” she said emphatically.
It seemed risky to confess the whole story. If he admitted he’d been with a cute high school girl like Tomoe Koga—she was legitimately cute—there was no telling what scorn would be heaped upon him.
“But the police station’s right over there.”
Mai pointed to the small station right outside Fujisawa Station.
“Once I got involved, I had to stick around until we found her parents. She was crying!”
“Hmm.” She gave him a look of deep suspicion. “I hate lies.”
“What a coincidence! So do I.”
“If you’re lying, I’ll make you eat Pocky through your nose.”
“Just one?”
“The whole box.”
This form of torture seemed almost feasible, and the vivid imagery it conjured was definitely not pleasant.
“I don’t think you should play with your food.”
“You will be eating it, so that won’t be a problem.”
“……”
“……”
Mai moved closer, studying his face. She was trying to pressure him into spilling the whole story. He could feel her breath on his cheek. She smelled good.
“You’re so stubborn.”
“……”
Now he really couldn’t tell the truth. Not without getting Pocky in his nose.
“Well, fine. You’re not off the hook, but let’s get this date started.”
Should he be happy?
“Thank you,” he said, relief washing over—
“Oh! It’s the pedo guy!”
That voice sounded familiar…
He looked toward the connecting passage to the JR and Odakyu stations and saw Tomoe Koga again. There were three other girls with her, presumably the friends she’d promised to meet. They were a lovely group and seemed pretty close. Probably the most popular girls in their class.
“The Hakata woman!” Sakuta said.
Tomoe hurriedly ran over to him, clapping her hands over his mouth.
“Don’t call me that!” she hissed.
“Hakata woman?” one of her friends echoed, baffled.
“Uh, you know, the famous Fukuoka souvenir! The one where they put red bean paste in Baumkuchen. It has the picture of a woman on it, but it’s supposed to be called something different.”
“Oh, I’ve had that! It’s good!”
“Whoa, Tomoe!” Another friend grabbed her arm, pulling her away from Sakuta.
“Wh-what?”
“That’s the hospitalization guy,” the friend whispered. He could totally hear her.
“Huh? But that’s Ichiro Sato?” Tomoe said, confused.
“What? Where’d you get that name? And she’s…you know.”
All four of them glanced at Mai. Apparently, they could all see her.
“Come on, let’s go.”
Her friends led her off through the gates. They were soon out of sight.
Watchi
ng them go, Sakuta realized he’d made a terrible mistake. He should never have responded to Tomoe’s voice at all. He should have pretended not to know her. That would have been so much better.
He glanced at Mai. Her face was terrifyingly devoid of expression.
“Sakuta.”
“You’ve got the wrong idea.”
“Her name’s Tomoe?”
“G-guess so.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not leaving.” She put her arms around his. “Let’s go buy some Pocky!”
“Would you let me off with just the skinny ones?”
“Noooope.”
He was way past enjoying the mischief in her voice. Or savoring what he felt pressing against his arm.
“Mercy?”
“No can do, pedo.”
And so Sakuta and Mai’s first date began with a detour to the nearest convenience store.
3
There was a snap as a stick of Pocky broke.
Sakuta and Mai were on the Enoden train. They were sitting side by side on seats facing the ocean.
There was another snap. Mai was eating the Pocky she’d bought one stick at a time. The sight of her lips parting was awfully cute, and Sakuta couldn’t get enough of it. Mai wasn’t doing this consciously, but the way she gently nibbled on the tip of the Pocky before biting down was bewitching.
But he was unable to devote himself to the enjoyment of the sight. There was no telling when she might try to jam a stick up his nose, so he remained on guard.
The moment came even faster than he’d feared.
Mai held a Pocky in his direction.
“Here,” she said.
“I’m so full!”
“I’ve got to watch my weight. You eat the rest.”
“Eat them with what?”
“You may eat them normally,” she sighed, giving him a little side-eye.
“Then thanks.”
He took the box from her.
“You didn’t think I’d really make you eat them through your nose, did you?”
“You sure seemed to mean it.”
“That’s called acting.”
“But of course!”
“You could have tried eating one that way, though.”
“You’re a demon!”
“Your lack of repentance is making me reconsider.”
“Sorry! I’m kidding! You’re the beautiful Mai Sakurajima! Please show mercy!”
“You don’t sound at all convincing.”
Mai turned her eyes back to the window, looking bored. They were only three stops out of Fujisawa Station, not even to the ocean view yet. Almost to the part where the train ran between rows of houses.
Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai, Volume 1 Page 9