Two months had passed since moving up to second year, and early summer had arrived again.
It was the season when you break out in a faint sweat during the day, but feel a chill at night and wrap yourself up in your futon.
Sports festival time had come around again this year. Yukino had volunteered for the sports festival committee, so now, after school, while the other students were busy with clubs, part-time jobs, chatting and hanging out, she had to hurry off to a meeting.
“Good luck with the sports festival committee!”
“That’s the one with the pistol, right? Bang bang!”
The ones who called out as she was about to leave were two girls who sat next to each other, a couple of seats diagonally ahead of her.
They’d been in her class since last year, and in first year had dragged her into Old Maid a few times.
One was Iida Riko, small and charming with a black ponytail. The other was Watanabe Azusa, with flaxen shoulder-length hair and an always-sleepy smile. After talking with them a few times, Yukino had figured out that, for all their bright vibe and showy looks, these two were relatively good-natured even among people of that type. They weren’t the sort to tell lies that put others down.
Naturally, Yukino’s attitude softened a little around them too. Without meaning to, she relaxed her cheeks and smiled back.
“I’m planning to go to the shooting range today.”
“Eeeh⁉ You have to do stuff like that⁉”
“No, of course not. She’s joking. Good luck, though.”
Riko believed it right away, and Azusa sensibly set her straight. “Right,” Yukino said, bursting out laughing.
Incidentally, in Yukino’s synesthesia, “lies” and “jokes” were clearly distinct.
A voice is, at root, a vibration of the air, and emotion affects it. A lie spun with intent to deceive and a joke spun with intent to share a laugh, on the premise that the truth will be noticed, come from different emotions in the speaker.
“Geez… Oh, right!”
Riko, who had been sulking, remembered something and called after Yukino’s retreating back.
When Yukino turned around, Riko folded her arms, brows drawn together in mild worry, and tilted her head.
“Yukino-chan, have you seen my handkerchief?”
“Your handkerchief…? What does it look like?”
“Black, with a washed-out feel! Kind of stiff and scratchy, which is what I like about it! I lost it sometime at lunch.”
As she spoke, Riko patted down pocket after pocket.
Yukino turned her gaze to the empty air, pinched her chin, and seriously tried to retrace her memory. The window was lunch break through after school. If she’d found a dropped handkerchief, she would at least have taken it to the staff room. So she hadn’t seen a lost item. And if asked whether she’d seen anything similar that wasn’t a lost item, the answer was no.
Yukino shook her head side to side and bowed apologetically.
“I’m sorry, I can’t think of anything—”
She was in the middle of answering when a boy’s voice called from across the room.
“Oh, 【could it be】 this⁉”
As he spoke, the boy pulled a handkerchief out of his desk and waved it around.
When all three of them turned their eyes to it, it was without a doubt a black, washed-out handkerchief.
Riko ran over to check, then took it with shining eyes.
“Ahh! This is it! Thanks! Where’d you find it⁉”
Well, that was that. Yukino was about to quietly head off to the committee meeting.
But the boy’s reply to Riko stopped her in her tracks.
“【It was lying in the hallway in front of the bathroom, just a moment ago. I was wondering whose it was, and was about to take it to the staff room. Lucky for you, huh? Don’t drop it again, okay?】”
Bitter. Foul. Revolting. She felt sick. Her whole mouth filled with the taste of vomit.
Dizziness. Terrible. Her fingertips were cold, but her palms were sweating.
It hadn’t been “just a moment ago,” so it was “a little before that.” Maybe since around lunch break.
The place it was found was a lie too. The whole story of it having been lying around was probably a lie.
He had known whose it was, and had never meant to take it anywhere.
Had he stolen it at lunch? And never meant to return it? A strange sweat broke out on her.
The sourness was strong. He was probably feeling fear that he’d be found out.
“Wow! Sorry, and thanks, thanks a ton. You have to take care of your things.”
Riko thanked him cheerfully, unaware of any of this. The boy shrugged and said, “No problem.”
“You didn’t use it for anything weird, did you?”
“【Of course I didn’t. What a rude girl.】”
That lie was fatal for both of them. Yukino pressed her fingertips together in front of her face and bowed her head.
Her breathing was ragged with nausea and stomach acid was rising to the back of her throat, but she held it down and cut in.
“Maybe you used it right there in the bathroom.”
Her face was deathly pale, as if she were about to die, and in the backlit, unlit classroom it was dim and hard to make out.
At the question from the eerie Yukino, the boy flinched once and swallowed.
“【I-I didn’t use it, but…?】”
His eyes slid away and sweat beaded on him. The boy shrank back and fell silent.
After a one-beat pause to think, Yukino immediately put on a gentle smile and said, “I see.”
But when she looked him in the eye with the unspoken message I know, the boy’s face twitched in fear. Without proof she couldn’t press any further, but there wouldn’t be a next time.
She watched the boy’s back as he fled, trying to look natural. When she saw Riko and Azusa beginning to pack up to leave, Yukino walked over on legs that felt coated in mud.
“Yukino-chan?”
Riko looked up at her, standing beside her and looking down, and tilted her head in puzzlement.
She always looked pale, but now she looked even worse. Of course, there was nobody close enough to her to notice that. In the dim classroom, the two girls didn’t notice anything wrong with Yukino.
“Um… that handkerchief. I think you should throw it away.”
At the words Yukino barely managed to squeeze out, the two girls stared wide-eyed, looking back and forth between the handkerchief and Yukino.
“Huh⁉ What, what, what’s this all of a sudden⁉ It was just dropped!”
Yukino gave a vague, twitching smile, covered her mouth and looked away.
“Right, of course you’d think that… Um, then, is it something important to you?”
If she said yes, she’d find some way to bring out the truth. If she said no, Yukino would quietly dispose of it.
“Not at all? You can get them at the hundred-yen shop nearby! It’s a hundred yen!”
Not a lie. Yukino gave a faint nod of her heavy, creaking neck, and made her next proposal.
“Then, could you give that handkerchief to me? I’ll pay for it.”
As she said this and started to take out her meagre part-time wages, the two girls exchanged bewildered looks. Trying to come up with some answer that made sense of this twist, Azusa asked, with a cold sweat:
“Um… could it be that you like that boy (Takada) or something?”
Grateful that they had offered her a convenient path, Yukino nodded with a smile.
“【Well, something like that.】 Also, next time you lose anything, tell me. And please take good care of your belongings.”
*
Riko refused, saying it was fine for free, but Yukino pressed a hundred yen on her and took the handkerchief. She went to the bathroom, wrapped it in toilet paper, holding it between her fingertips, and dropped it into the trash can by the sink.
Then, to cover it up, she balled up several more sheets of paper and threw them on top, then washed her hands at the sink.
She lathered her hands with soap over and over, taking her time, as though to kill every germ.
There was some time before the committee meeting. A little wouldn’t hurt.
“Cough, hack… hack, hack! …Urp.”
As she washed her hands, the taste of vomit still faintly in her mouth, along with the discomfort and revulsion, triggered her nausea.
The toilet’s air freshener made the nausea even worse. Washing her hands under the running water, she kept her head down, coughing over and over, retching in between. Saliva kept filling her mouth, and she spat it out again and again.
Why do I have to go through this? The question came up.
Her eyes in the mirror held a glare, as if resenting someone, nobody in particular. It was an awful face.
Lies had every right to exist, but when asked whether every lie was justified, she had to answer no.
For example, there were lies that, if concealed, let you get along with people. But there were also self-serving lies like that boy’s, which were hard to prove. If you could just fail to notice, you could live easily, ignorant and unaware. But once you knew, you couldn’t help but reach out for someone who passed their days not knowing, seeing them as one of the possibilities you yourself might have been.
It wasn’t as though Yukino was doing this out of a sense of justice either. She just found herself moving.
If she could, she didn’t want to do this. It only wore down her spirit.
Incidentally, the bathroom Yukino used was the first-floor girls’ bathroom, which few people used.
So she’d let her guard down, but on a whim someone came in.
It was a girl. She didn’t know her name, but she recalled seeing her face a few times. She was in the same year.
Whether dyed or not, at this school, which was lax about hair, the girl’s hair was blonde. It was braided and left hanging down.
She wore a bright red hairpin on the right side, and her height wasn’t much different from Yukino’s. She had looked quite cool and detached until she came in, but when she saw Yukino at the sink retching with an awful face, her own face twitched.
“…You okay?”
“…………Yes… I’m fine. …I’ll be out of here soon.”
“No, I don’t mind. If you’re sick, stop by the nurse’s office, okay?”
Leaving it at that, tersely, the blonde second-year girl disappeared into a stall.
Yukino didn’t have the energy to see her off. She cupped her hand to catch water from the tap, took it into her mouth, rinsed the saliva mixed with stomach acid, and spat it out, feeling sorry for the next person to use the sink. She put hand soap on a paper towel, lightly washed the basin, washed her hands once more, and left the bathroom.
*
When she got to the assigned meeting place for the committee, roughly eighty percent of the sports festival committee had already gathered.
The committee was made up of one member from each class. When she’d volunteered, she had thought the number was oddly small, and sure enough, in actual operation, the student council officers and each class president would apparently double up on it.
In other words, Yukino’s partner was Miyazono Chiharu, and she was already there.
She waved lightly at Yukino. Yukino nodded back and, just in case, took the seat next to her.
“Good work today, Hasekura-san. I’m counting on you for lots of things this time.”
She greeted Yukino with a smile, and Yukino replied as if startled.
“Ah, yes. Um, you too, Miyazono-san. It must be hard, doing both.”
At her words of sympathy, Chiharu gave an ambiguous smile, shrugged, and let her gaze drift into the air.
“Well, it is hard, but 【I’ll just think of it as part of a class president’s duties.】”
A lie, with a slightly diluted taste. A social lie, spoken knowing it would be seen through.
Yukino smiled naturally so as not to let her cheeks twist, said “Let’s do our best,” and ended the conversation.
Chiharu looked at Yukino for a while, but then, without a word, turned her gaze back to the front.
Soon, the blonde, braided girl she’d met in the bathroom came in too. She seemed to be on the committee as well. She glanced briefly at Yukino, then looked at Chiharu. Just as Yukino wondered whether they knew each other, Chiharu raised one eyebrow and gave a light wave back.
After about three minutes of waiting, the committee advisor arrived, slightly late, and the explanation began.
“Sorry to keep you waiting. Right, let’s get straight to the explanation.”
Ahead of the sports festival, now close at hand, the basic duties were apparently scheduling coordination, preparing and managing documents, and running the schedule and guiding people on the day. First they would choose a committee chairperson, then, by tomorrow after school, prepare the documents and finish the tasks the advisor had divided up by class.
For now the meeting was dismissed, and Yukino and Chiharu faced each other with the papers they’d been handed.
“So, equipment management and poster display. What shall we do? Get it all done today?”
“Let’s see… I don’t have any plans, so if that’s fine with you, Miyazono-san.”
“Okay. Then let’s borrow some empty classroom around here and get started.”
Chiharu made a ring with her fingers to say yes, gathered her things and promptly stood.
Yukino hurried after her, looking at her back and thinking she was easier to talk to than expected.
To Yukino, Miyazono Chiharu was “a talented person who holds both the pure and the impure.” A sociable person with wide, deep friendships who could chat with anyone, while also not easily falling in line with others, maintaining her own stance, and seeking a way to cooperate while doing so. She wasn’t averse to lying to do it, and was smart enough to pull it off. On top of that, she was athletic.
She was a wonderfully superior person, on a different level from herself.
Having her as a partner was a stroke of luck for the committee, but that didn’t mean Yukino meant to rely on her ability and slack off. She intended to keep a suitable distance and work well together.
She didn’t much intend to get close to her, either. She wanted to avoid conversation increasing as much as possible.
After walking for a while, the two of them claimed an unlocked empty classroom on the second floor.
“So, then, how shall we divide the work?”
“I think the committee members should take the lead, so please let me handle more of it. I think filling out the equipment management sheet will take more work, so could you take the posters, Miyazono-san?”
It was a dim, empty classroom. Yukino put her bag three desks away from the seat where Chiharu had set hers.
Chiharu stared at where Yukino had sat in surprise, then switched her focus. She shook her head slightly, pinched her chin, and objected without hiding her dissatisfaction.
“I did say doing both is hard, but shouldn’t we divide the burden equally?”
Yukino couldn’t help but be amazed that there wasn’t a single lie in those words.
If it had been her, some sly desire to take it easy would have crept in. She had even offered a justification that would let it pass. But Chiharu was rejecting that, based on her own convictions.
She marvelled, and at the same time hesitated over what to do.
Obligation and guilt. After thinking for a moment, Yukino nodded with a completely serious face.
“To be honest, from where I stand, Miyazono-san is someone who’s extremely good at her work.”
She wasn’t good at difficult judgments, so she decided to outsource it to a high-performance CPU.
Chiharu, taken aback by Yukino’s frank confession, opened her eyes wide, pouted, and hugged her elbows with a “Ho.”
“That’s nice of you to say. And so? In that case, shouldn’t the split be the reverse?”
“No, I thought that unless I take on work this actively, I’d end up relying on you… so if you’re able to split the work evenly, it’s presumptuous of me, but I’d be happy if you could make the workload equal, and you may leave any remaining work to me and go home. I do know it would probably be faster for you to finish it yourself, Miyazono-san, but…”
Yukino had a hunch that Chiharu was the kind of person who, if it was faster overall to finish a task herself, would do just that. So when she confessed honestly, Chiharu groaned in surprise.
Then she stared at Yukino’s face. Yukino, embarrassed, leaned back and looked away.
After a while, Chiharu smiled and put up a finger. “Roger.”
“Then, since we don’t know the actual workload of each task, I think the plan should be to split each category in half rather than divide by task type. The notice boards are the same in number on floors one and two and floors three and four, and the equipment management is fair if we split it so the check items are halved. How’s that?”
There wasn’t a single deception in her words, so Chiharu was probably honestly splitting the workload.
In that case, Yukino had no debt or anything to feel bad about, and nodded with a smile, saying, “Then, let’s do that.”
Once she sat down, Chiharu’s gaze flew toward her from three seats away.
“You know, Hasekura-san, you’re… how should I put it, diligent.”
Before they got into chatting, she had been about to take out her wireless earphones, but she’d lost the chance.
Chiharu took out her papers and brought part of them over.
With the hand that had been reaching for the earphone case, Yukino took out her writing tools instead and cocked her head.
“Diligent…?”
“Yes. I mean, honestly, in these situations you’d usually want to take it easy, wouldn’t you?”
“That’s… true. Well, I do want to take it easy, and the temptation did cross my mind.”
“I wouldn’t have minded at all, though. So why go out of your way?”
The equipment management sheets, divided into roughly equal halves, were placed on her desk.
Chiharu stayed standing there for a moment, looking down at her as if waiting for her reply.
Diligent. She felt as though no one had said that to her in a long time.
Because Chiharu didn’t lie, Yukino went along with the small talk for a bit, sinking into thought.
“I don’t think I’m diligent. I think I’m high-strung. I hate feeling guilty.”
She wasn’t the type who could leave most of the work to Chiharu, go home early, and sleep soundly. That was all there was to it, and it wasn’t something to be described with a pretty word like “diligent.”
When she answered honestly, Chiharu’s eyes widened a little. Then she nodded a few times, as if chewing on it.
“Sorry, what’s your first name, Hasekura-san?”
I knew it, she hadn’t remembered. Yukino took it in stride.
But why ask? Thinking that, without feeling any particular disappointment, she answered.
“Y-Yukino.”
“Got it, thanks. I’ll remember it.”
Apparently she would remember it. What on earth was she planning?
Leaving Yukino to wonder, Chiharu returned to her seat and, ready to start right away, used her notebook as a binder, set out the check sheet and took up a pen.
“I’m going to go look over the equipment now, but can I say one last thing?”
Getting ready herself, Yukino returned her gaze and prompted, “What is it?”
“—I think you aren’t diligent or high-strung, Hasekura-san. I think you’re sincere.”
The empty classroom before evening, lit only by natural light.
With the faintly dim light at her back, Chiharu wore a smile so genuinely natural that it made Yukino instantly feel the smile she usually wore, which had seemed natural, had been a fake one.
As Yukino pressed her lips together and widened her eyes, Chiharu continued in a theatrical tone.
“This is a little bit bragging, but I’m able to do quite a lot of things. I’ve mostly been treated in a way that you could politely call ‘being relied on,’ so this felt fresh, and I was a little happy. That’s all.”
Chiharu smiled and waved lightly.
“Well then, we won’t be together long, but I look forward to working with you.”
Yukino watched her go in a daze, and came to her senses around the time Chiharu reached the door, and nodded.
“Ah, y-yes! Likewise. I look forward to working with you.”
Chiharu tilted her head slightly with a smile, then disappeared down the hall with light steps.
Phew. Yukino physically placed a hand on her chest in relief, then pressed down on her heart, which was beating a little fast.
There had been no lies in Chiharu’s words. She had recognised Chiharu as a person who lies to keep communication smooth, and from two months of observation that seemed to be true. Yet there was no doubt that the string of words that had clearly cheered Yukino up had all been sincere, with no falsehood, and Yukino had no idea how to take it.
For the first time since she’d begun to understand things, she had been praised plainly, without pretence and without calculation.
Don’t get full of yourself. She wanted to say that, and closing her eyes tightly she sought a reason to calm her elated feelings. But the words “I think you aren’t diligent or high-strung, Hasekura-san. I think you’re sincere” echoed pitifully in her head, her cheeks loosened a little, and she found herself in a good mood.
She slapped both cheeks, as if to hide her loosening face, and muttered through half-lidded eyes:
“Sh-she’s a good person.”
She was aware that she was a person with low self-esteem.
So she had fully accounted for the possibility that others’ evaluations of her might exceed her own.
But being praised as far as “sincere,” she was a little worried about whether it was all right to take that at face value. Covering her face and groaning for a few seconds as she thought it over, Yukino eventually let her gaze drift into the air, her expression bewildered.