After submitting the paperwork and reporting to the teacher supervising the Sports Festival Committee, who was still in the staff room, the two headed straight for the shoe lockers. Carried along by the sheer relief of being finished, Chiharu stretched her back as far as it would go.
“Mmm…! Right! Now we’re finally, completely done!”
“Good work,” Yukino said with a smile, reluctant to let their time together end.
And then it happened.
“Ah, Miyazono-senpai! Perfect timing! Please, you’ve got to help us!”
Just as the two reached the shoe lockers, two female students came down the stairs.
They appeared to be underclassmen, and they seemed to know Chiharu. Yukino had never met them herself, though she vaguely remembered seeing them at a Sports Festival Committee meeting. Was the help they needed related to that, too?
Chiharu, who had been just about to head home, stopped and let out a weary sigh, accompanied by a wry smile.
“What happened? For starters, tell me where you stabbed them and what condition the body’s in.”
“I’m not the one at fault! She’s trying to steal my boyfriend! …Wait, that’s not what I meant!”
Of the two girls, the more cheerful-looking one, with curly brown hair, delivered the retort with a playful grin.
The quieter-looking girl, whose hair was tied back in a ponytail, gave an awkward little laugh.
The lively girl snatched the paperwork from her companion’s hands and thrust it towards Chiharu.
“We’re on the Sports Festival Committee! We don’t know how to fill in the equipment management sheet! It’s due today!”
Just as Yukino had suspected, they were members of the Sports Festival Committee and had come looking for help with a related task.
However, the problem itself was remarkably basic. It was the sort of thing most of the committees had already dealt with without a fuss. As Yukino stood there dumbfounded, Chiharu responded in an exasperated voice.
“How to fill it in? Just follow the instructions we were given. There’s nothing more to it than that.”
“But I’m asking because I don’t understand those instructions!”
“I’m sorry, senpai. I wasn’t paying proper attention, and there are quite a few things I’m still unsure about…”
The quieter girl spoke apologetically, following up on her lively companion’s cheeky retort.
Chiharu couldn’t very well continue an argument on such hostile terms. She folded her arms, lowered the outer corners of her eyebrows in distress, pursed her lips and let her gaze wander from side to side. After a few seconds, she sighed, closed her eyes and scratched her head.
“Ahhh… Ahh… Well, let’s see…”
Yukino immediately understood why Chiharu was struggling.
Chiharu had admitted herself that she had a bad habit of stepping in to help whenever someone was in trouble, one way or another. But considering her earlier lie, [I don’t have anything particularly important planned after this, anyway.], she must have something so tightly scheduled that she could scarcely spare the time, even though she wanted to help.
“[Didn’t you say you had plans, Miyazono-san?] Will you be all right?”
Despite the bitterness that instinctively rose in her mouth, Yukino offered a helping hand in the form of a lie.
“Eh?! Really?!”
The lively girl pouted in displeasure, but Chiharu’s eyes were fixed solely on Yukino.
Her expression was difficult to interpret. Surprised, perhaps, or suspicious.
It was as if she were asking why Yukino knew the truth when Chiharu had said she had no plans.
“Well… I did say that… I mean, I do have plans. But I can’t exactly leave them in the lurch…”
Even so, the immediate problem was the one facing the two underclassmen, and Chiharu set her mind to finding a solution.
She gazed into empty space, searching for a compromise that would work.
Realising that Chiharu was trying to resolve the problem within the limits of what she could manage herself, Yukino watched her intently. When Chiharu noticed her gaze, she looked back at Yukino with gentle eyes.
Their gazes met for less than a second.
Yukino clasped her hands behind her back and waited expectantly, her lips relaxing into a small smile. Her expression said more than words could. Chiharu parted her lips slightly, letting out a faint breath, then looked away again, as though considering the possibility.
Hearing people’s voices makes me feel sick.
Chiharu closed her eyes as if turning those words over in her mind. Then she opened them a fraction and asked carefully,
“…Are you sure, Hasekura-san? Given your… condition.”
The two underclassmen, who had been listening, tilted their heads in unison, question marks practically floating above them.
Yukino, however, needed no time to work out what Chiharu meant. She smiled wryly and answered honestly.
“Well… if it were that unbearable, I wouldn’t even be coming to school. It’s more that I’d rather not.”
“Then you do mind.”
“That’s true. But…” Yukino paused. “My friend is in trouble.”
At those words, Chiharu’s half-lidded eyes widened, and her slightly relaxed mouth closed in astonishment.
Chiharu had asked her, Can I be your friend?
Yukino had answered, Yes.
Perhaps that exchange had simply been Chiharu’s way of checking where the boundaries lay, of making sure she wasn’t barging uninvited into someone else’s heart. But for Yukino, those words were far too significant to be merely another page in the album of her youth. They weren’t just a memory to treasure, or a keepsake to look back on. They had become part of her very being. A bond, as strong as a chain, that had given a definite shape to a relationship that had previously been ambiguous.
That was why, even when she would rather not, Yukino wanted to do what she could for Chiharu, as her friend.
Chiharu was Yukino’s first friend. Perhaps Yukino was clumsy when it came to friendship, but she wanted to try.
And, as it happened, Chiharu had never had a friend who approached her in quite this way, either. To Chiharu, friendship meant helping and supporting one another. Perhaps that was why it took her a moment to find the words.
“Then… can I rely on you?”
A slightly bashful smile, tinged with vulnerability.
Seeing this side of Chiharu for the first time, Yukino smiled softly.
“Gladly.”
Miyazono Chiharu told lies. And Yukino hated the taste of lies.
By that logic, she ought to dislike talking with Chiharu, too.
Yet Yukino had found their time together so comfortable that she was reluctant to see it end. Perhaps it was because there was so much she could learn from Chiharu, and because Chiharu had shown her the kindness of carefully considering the distance between them rather than forcing her way closer.
So this was repayment. And it was something Yukino wanted to do not merely for Chiharu’s sake, but for her own, too.
“Anyway, sorry, you two! I can’t help you myself! But Yukino will teach you!”
With that, the matter settled, Chiharu seemed to shake off her earlier indecision. She clasped her hands together in apology to the two underclassmen, then pointed at Yukino.
She had just called her Yukino, without an honorific, as naturally as breathing. With other people present, Yukino couldn’t afford to let her composure crumble, so she managed to maintain her smile, even as her heart fluttered in private.
The two underclassmen responded to Chiharu’s apology in turn.
“I don’t mind either way, really… Though I suppose that sounds rather presumptuous of me, sorry…”
“[I don’t mind either way, as long as someone teaches me!]”
Bitterness, sourness, and a sticky, complicated flavour. There was sweetness mixed in, too. And a little heat.
Yukino sensed the taste of vomit in the cheerful brown-haired girl’s words, and did her utmost to keep her face from twitching.
It felt as though someone were prodding the back of her throat with a rod made of solidified vomit, while simultaneously kneading her stomach with their bare hands. The complicated taste filling her mouth revealed the girl’s irritation at having Yukino, rather than Chiharu, take on the role of instructor.
Yukino pinched the back of her hand, which was still clasped behind her, and bowed with a smile.
“I’m Hasekura Yukino, Miyazono-san’s classmate and a member of the Sports Festival Committee. I’ve been filling in the equipment management sheet myself, so if you don’t mind, I can explain a few things.”
“Okay! [Thank you so much!]”
The brown-haired girl was still smiling, but her words had a flavour more complicated than Yukino had tasted in a long time.
Even when it came to lies, their flavour could vary enormously depending on the emotions involved and the degree of falsehood.
This was a lie told with absolute sincerity, one that concealed the speaker’s true feelings from the person she disliked.
The girl had probably wanted Chiharu to teach her, rather than Yukino. It wasn’t that she particularly objected to Yukino; she simply would have preferred Chiharu.
And the source of the sweetness mingling with that unpleasant, vomit-like flavour, rich and faintly burnt like dark brown sugar, was probably the girl’s affection for Chiharu.
“Thank you very much!”
By contrast, the quieter girl’s voice sounded sincere, but…
It felt as though, while Yukino was in the middle of vomiting, someone had forced cold water down her throat.
Her vision warped. The diluted unpleasantness only made her feel worse, and she nearly retched aloud.
“Urgh…”
She kept smiling, desperately trying not to gag, and repeatedly coughed to cover it up.
“Cough, cough…! …Sorry. It’s not something you can catch.”
Seeing Yukino’s pale face, faintly beaded with sweat, Chiharu’s eyes widened slightly. She understood now what Yukino’s aversion actually meant. After a moment’s hesitation, concern flickering in her eyes, she carefully forced out a few words.
“Yukino…”
But Yukino had made this offer to Chiharu fully aware of what it would entail.
“Please leave the rest to me.”
Yukino fixed her familiar smile in place. Seeing the suffering behind it, Chiharu frowned.
Yet when she reminded herself that Yukino had made the offer knowing full well what she was taking on, Chiharu gave her an apologetic smile.
“I’ll definitely make it up to you next time.”
There’s no need, Yukino ought to have said.
But even with the Sports Festival Committee’s work finished, the prospect of having another reason to talk with Chiharu was something she welcomed more than anything.
If it means we’ll have another chance to spend time together…
With that calculation in mind, Yukino replied, “I’ll look forward to it.”
A slightly more natural smile appeared on her face.