Episode 21: I’m Going to Try My Best!
“Hey, Ruri. About your friend who came to the shop today.”
Sora-san brought up Maria once we’d both finished our ice cream.
“Has she always been like that?”
“Like that, meaning…?”
“I get that she’s caring, but it comes off a little forceful. …I mean, she’s your friend, so I’m not trying to talk badly about her. It just didn’t feel like she sees you as an equal, is all.”
I could tell she was choosing her words carefully. “Not trying to talk badly about her” — I think that part was genuinely true.
“…Maybe that’s fair. That girl who came today, her name’s Maria — she’s my childhood friend. She’s looked out for me in all kinds of ways since we were little. I mean, there’s a lot I can’t do, and I’m an introvert with bad social skills, and I was always the odd one out for PE partner assignments, and I couldn’t even join in on class activities without Maria there, and honestly I’d just end up completely isolated otherwise…”
If I’d never met Maria, I think my life would have gone a lot worse than it has.
I probably would’ve dropped out of school early, ended up a total shut-in, even less capable of talking to people than I am now — there’s no way I’d have ever thought, hey, let’s get a part-time job! the way I did.
The fact that I’ve even been able to try this hard now is probably thanks to Maria, in a lot of ways.
“So I think that’s probably why Maria worries about me, and feels like she has to take care of me.”
“…I see.”
“But I don’t think it can keep being like that forever, and… right now feels like a chance for things to change, like I want to change, but— but it’s not that I want to stay in a fight with her either, or anything like that…”
I might have hurt Maria. Just remembering that fact makes my chest hurt enough that I could cry.
But I can’t hand her the answer she wants, not right now.
“I know there’s not much point overthinking it, since my own answer’s already decided, but…”
I’ve made up my mind to keep working hard at Sweet Stella. That resolve isn’t going to change no matter what Maria says to me.
But deciding that doesn’t automatically make me strong enough to just brush the rest of it off.
“Sorry. I mean, it’s not like there’s some solution you can offer or anything, and I still went ahead and dumped all this on you…”
“Isn’t that just what friends are for?”
“Huh?”
“Sometimes you already know the answer, or you know there’s nothing to be done about it, but you still want to say it out loud to someone. Isn’t that exactly the kind of thing you’re supposed to be able to talk about with a friend?”
“…I—I see…”
I’d never really talked through a problem with anyone before, so that idea had never even occurred to me.
Maria was always the one offering solutions, always the one who ended up solving the problem for me.
“Also, listening to all that… isn’t it that you want Maria to actually approve of you? Working at Sweet Stella, trying hard at it — you really want her to accept it, and cheer you on, right?”
“Y-yeah, maybe that’s it…”
Maria matters to me. She’s a precious childhood friend.
That’s exactly why I want her to approve of my choice, and cheer me on from close by.
“Then make her approve of you. Get results, do it properly, and put her in a position where she has no choice but to accept it — why not just do that?”
“Sora-san, that’s really cool of you…”
“Not really. I just want to live like that myself. Winning at the thing I decided I wanted to do, and forcing people to accept it — that’s just how I want to be.”
Standing up, Sora-san smiled a fierce, confident smile. Her big eyes flashed with something sharp.
Inside that small frame of hers, there’s probably a real fighting spirit burning.
“I—I’m going to try my best! To make Maria properly accept me — no, to make it impossible for her not to…!”
The reason Maria’s against my job at Sweet Stella is probably because I’ve always seemed so unreliable.
If I can show her I’m actually capable of doing this properly, as a maid, surely she’ll come around.
“Sora-san! Thank you so much. Talking to you like this — I feel like it actually cleared my head.”
“…I’ll listen anytime. Just talking’s fine too.”
Time to head back, Sora-san said, pointing toward the front door. She pulled her key out of her bag and let us in.
—Inside the house, the two adults had apparently woken up at some point and started up a late-night drinking party of their own.