Episode Twenty-Three
So this is what stylish city people eat on a regular basis.
Pancakes made at home and the pancakes I’d just eaten were supposedly the same dish, and yet everything about them felt completely different. The texture, soft enough to melt the moment it touched my tongue, and a rich blueberry sauce that never once overpowered the main act. Just remembering it made my mouth water.
The chocolate one Fuuka shared with me had been just as wonderful. Feeding each other in front of all those people was deeply embarrassing, but I couldn’t turn down her selfish requests today. I decided to forget about the warmly amused looks the older women around us kept giving.
“Look at this. Isn’t this way too cute?”
She swung our joined hands happily as she held up her phone, the screen showing me with my mouth stuffed full of pancake.
It’s probably a good photo, but I don’t think it’s the kind of thing I’m meant to be looking at myself.
“If you’re going to say that, yours is pretty bad too.”
Not to be outdone, I held up my own shot — Fuuka’s face completely melted with delight. Past cute and somewhere closer to obscene. I’m sure the boys in our class would pay good money for it.
Without a care for who might be watching, we wandered laughing through an unfamiliar district together. Fuuka had me try on clothes from gyaru brands I’d never wear on my own, and we picked out souvenirs for her family at a trendy character goods shop.
I think I’d been smiling the whole time, no matter where we went — but a flash of something lonely on her face kept lodging itself in my head. Maybe she was worried about her younger siblings, left at home.
“My stomach hurts from laughing too much. So, what’s next?”
“Next is~… we’re buying matching things!”
“Hm?”
I tilted my head at the unusually vague destination.
“Remember when we used to buy matching pencil cases and keychains? I want the high school version of that.”
“Didn’t we already buy something like that?”
Pencil cases were back in primary school. Keychains were the school trip in middle school. High school… what did we get?
“We didn’t, actually. Oh — you still have the old ones, right? You didn’t throw them out?”
“Still got them.”
There’s no way I’d throw away something I bought with my only childhood friend, my best friend. If I ever die, I think I’d want them buried with me.
“I don’t have a ton of money, so anything expensive might be a stretch. That okay?”
I get enough allowance to manage outings with friends, but the pancakes alone weren’t cheap, so there wasn’t much room left. Proper purchases would have to wait until university, probably.
“Doesn’t matter how much it costs. The value of a thing isn’t the price tag, it’s the memory, Yuna-kun.”
“Wise words.”
Fuuka re-gripped our loosening hands more firmly and beamed.
At first I’d been hyper-aware of our fingers laced together, but I’d gotten used to it by now. Looking properly at the people around us, I noticed a few other girls walking hand in hand too — maybe we blended in better than I’d expected.
Fuuka led me to a famous variety shop where almost everything cost three hundred yen. I sometimes visit the one near our local station to look at kitchen things, but the sheer size of this one was overwhelming. The flagship store right in the centre of the city, clearly not to be underestimated.
“I love this place. Everything for three hundred yen — total heaven for broke students like us.”
“Same. Most of the stuff in my kitchen is from here.”
A little disoriented by the almost futuristic storefront, I stepped inside and nearly went dizzy at the crowd and the sheer density of products packed onto every shelf. I could probably spend half a day in here — might be worth bringing Ao next time.
“Hey hey, no housewife face. Today’s a date.”
“A date ‘rehearsal,’ you mean.”
“Details don’t matter~”
I let out a small breath and we wove our way slowly through the crowd.
“We’re here. What do you think of this?”
“Oh, nice. Not bad at all.”
Hair ties, hairpins, scrunchies, headbands — Fuuka pointed proudly at the shelf packed with hair accessories, chest puffed out.
“Right? I figured something we could actually afford suits us better, somehow.”
“The expensive stuff can wait for… whenever the occasion comes up.”
“Huh?”
Whatever Fuuka muttered next got swallowed by the noisy shop and didn’t quite reach me.
“Nothing. Forget I said it.”
She looked away from me, gazing at something distant.
Something about her really did feel off today. She kept up the cheerful energy, but every so often that flicker of sadness surfaced again.
“Right, let’s pick then. The colours have to match too.”
“Got it. Something other than a tie would help me out, probably.”
“You should grow it out sometime. It’s so soft and smooth, kind of a waste to keep it short, don’t you think?”
She said it, reaching up to lift a strand of hair hanging by my ear.
“Don’t think I’ll be growing it out anytime soon. Drying it would be such a pain.”
“Hmm. Wouldn’t mind seeing long-haired Yuna, but I guess this is fine too.”
I’m not great with my hands, so I can’t style it as nicely as Fuuka does — keeping it short is just easier. And besides, if I grew it out, I feel like the difference between me and Ao would only become more obvious standing side by side.
“Let’s go with hairpins, then. Be a waste to buy matching things and never actually use them.”
“That works better for me.”
Even narrowing it down to hairpins left a mountain of choices, and my chest gave an involuntary little flutter of excitement. I wish the shop back home was this big too.
We talked through option after option, and in the end what we settled on was the simplest design on the whole shelf.
“Shape’s decided, so now it’s just colour. You don’t really have a ‘this is my colour’ kind of colour, do you, Yuna?”
“True, actually. I always struggle when people ask me that.”
If someone asked what my favourite colour was, I don’t think I could answer well. I don’t have a colour I particularly like or dislike. I don’t even know what suits me, which is exactly why my wardrobe is a chaotic mess of colours with no unifying theme at all.
“Any plans to go back to black hair?”
“No plans for that. No plans to go lighter either.”
“Then let’s pick something that suits the colour you’ve got now. In that case…”
A safe black, a clear white. A vivid red or yellow. Too many options, more than I could choose between on my own. Better to leave it to Fuuka, who actually has a sense for this kind of thing.
What colour does Ao like, I wonder. Even being asked for her “image colour,” nothing comes to mind right away. I’ve been watching her for over a year now, and yet no particular colour comes attached to her. If I had to say something, maybe the camel cardigan she wore in winter — it suited her bright presence so well that I remember going out and buying the same colour for myself almost immediately.
“Hey, are you even listening?”
And then there’s the grey hoodie she wears as loungewear. Plain, no decoration at all, and yet on her it somehow looks like something off a runway. I want the same one too, but that would probably come across as a little unsettling.
“Hellooo. Yuna-saaan?”
“…Ao.”
“So, which one do you like better — blue?”
“Not that — oh, r-red!”
That’s bad. I’d completely zoned out.
The word that slipped out was about the worst possible one, but maybe, in context, it hadn’t seemed out of place.
“Red? Not bad, but isn’t that a bit childish?”
“Not that one — this one.”
I grabbed whichever hairpin happened to catch my eye and handed it to Fuuka.
“Something around this shade should look more grown-up, right? Not really your usual thing, but maybe that’s exactly why it’d work.”
What I’d handed her was a burgundy hairpin, red with the brightness pulled down. I think it was a pretty good choice, if I do say so myself.
“…You think it’ll suit me?”
Fuuka held the hairpin up against her hair, looking faintly embarrassed, eyes drifting somewhere else.
“It’s really good. Not very gyaru, though.”
“Right. Let’s go with this one, then.”
“Also, I’m not even that gyaru. Don’t just throw that out based on vibes.”
She seemed satisfied enough, and we paid and left the sprawling variety shop behind. Evening was creeping closer, but the sunlight outside showed no sign of weakening yet.
“Yuna, look this way.”
“Hm?”
I turned my gaze back from the endless crowd and found myself looking straight at Fuuka holding up her phone. The shutter sound went off — I’d honestly lost count of how many times today already.
“Okay, front camera next~”
On Fuuka’s phone screen: two childhood friends, matching hairpins in place, cheeks pressed together. It felt like a very us kind of photo.
We met back in primary school, and we’re still together now that we’re in high school. The day my mum was gone, the days I’ve struggled with my new family — she’s always been right there beside me. The one thing worth having in life, apparently, is a childhood friend who’s also your best friend… and also a cheerful gyaru.
Still apparently not done having fun, I let myself be pulled along by Fuuka, back into the crowd.