Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de - Volume 3 - Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Cookie Comes Calling

“...and that’s pretty much the whole story. Talk about a disaster, right?”

The next day after school, I explained everything that had happened to the other members of the literary club. Chifuyu had yet to make an appearance, so we took the opportunity to have a high-schoolers-only meeting in our club room. A strategy council, as it were.

“There’s just one thing I’d like to say to you above all else, Andou,” Sayumi sighed after I finished my explanation. “Love in the Afternoon is not an erotic film.”

“Crap! Why’d I go and tell you about that part?!” I had the good sense to omit the bit where I put on a sweet and sour pork act, but apparently, there were a couple other parts I should’ve kept my mouth shut about!

“It’s a well-known movie starring Audrey Hepburn, an extremely famous actress, and it was filmed over fifty years ago—in black and white, at that. I seriously doubt it has any scenes of the sort you were hoping for,” elucidated Sayumi with a cold, expressionless stare. Tomoyo and Hatoko were giving me the same sort of look, and they were starting to make me extremely uncomfortable.

C-Come on, give me a break! High school guys can’t help but get interested in that sorta stuff! Secretly recording spicy late-night TV shows behind our parents’ backs is a perfectly natural compulsion! Blame puberty, not me!

“And that’s not even starting on the part about how you prance around singing your own original songs when you’re at home alone,” added Tomoyo with a scornful glance.

“L-Lay off, okay?! Everyone does that every once in a while, right?! When you’re home alone, the whole house is your own personal stage! Of course you have to belt out a song or two!”

“Hmm... I mean, I have to admit—” began Tomoyo.

“Huh? No, I’ve never done that,” said Hatoko, cutting her off. “I guess I hum my favorite songs sometimes, though!”

“Agreed,” added Sayumi. “Normal people most definitely do nothing of the sort.”

“R-Right! You’re the only moron who’d ever do something that stupid!” shouted Tomoyo, stabbing me in the back and twisting the knife.

Oh, you little jerk! I know you were about to agree with me before the others started talking!

“In any case, it would seem this issue has taken an extremely troublesome turn. I must admit, I never considered the possibility that spending time with us would drive a wedge between Chifuyu and her friends,” said Sayumi before turning to shoot me a glare. “And thanks to Andou’s incredibly well-considered and not at all brain-dead decisions, it’s going to be significantly harder to resolve the problem than it had to be.”

All I could do was hang my head in shame. She was right, and I knew it. I’d done my best to explain myself to Kuki, but the fact that I couldn’t reveal the truth about our powers made it more or less impossible to come up with a convincing excuse.

“From Kuki’s perspective, I’m just some dude who went over to an elementary school-aged girl’s house, stripped down to his undies for some reason, and barged into her room,” I summarized.

“In other words, a dangerous freak,” said Tomoyo with a roll of her eyes.

Yup. Gotta admit, there’s no way to argue my way out of that conclusion this time.

“What sort of person is this Kuki, Andou?” asked Sayumi.

“If I had to describe her in a word...I’d say she’s a very demonetized sort of kid.”

Sayumi sighed. “For the record, Andou, ‘demonetize’ isn’t a fancy synonym for ‘demonic.’ It means ‘causing something to stop making or functioning as money.’”

“Wait, seriously?! It’s not, like, robotize but for demons?!” Well, that sure was a humiliating misunderstanding! Good on Sayumi for immediately picking up on the connection between demons and Kuki’s name, though. “I mean, uhh... Basically, Kuki’s just your totally average cute little elementary school kid. Kinda on the overly diligent side and maybe just a little high-strung, though.”

“I see,” said Sayumi with a pensive nod. “I suspect, then, that Kuki might feel that we’ve been trying to steal Chifuyu away from her.”

“To steal Chifuyu?” I repeated incredulously.

“Kuki mentioned that Chifuyu talks about us all the time, didn’t she? I don’t think it’s uncommon for people to have mixed feelings when their friends tell them about how much fun it is to spend time with their other friends.”

“Ah, yeah, I get it now,” said Tomoyo in a somewhat self-deprecating tone as I nodded in understanding. “When you put it that way, I was sort of like that when I was that age too. You know, all weirdly possessive—like, I just had to be somebody’s best friend.”

I had to admit, I understood where she was coming from. I’d gone through a pretty similar phase when I was a kid too. Seeing somebody who I thought was my best friend getting along with some other kid just as well—or worse, better—than they got along with me made me feel empty, and frustrated, and just weirdly irritable overall. I don’t know if I should call it jealousy, or possessiveness, or maybe just a manifestation of the youthful desire to be in total control of everything, but the point is that I could empathize with her.

“It’s tough seeing a kid you like being better friends with someone else than they are with you, isn’t it?” Hatoko quietly muttered. She looked a little downcast.

“This raises a lot of questions, though, doesn’t it?” said Tomoyo. “Like, we don’t really know how Chifuyu’s school life looks at all. It’s sort of a mystery.”

“From what I’ve heard, Kuki pretty much takes care of her all the time. I guess the other kids even call her Chifuyu’s...mom...” Oh, right. I should probably tell them about all that stuff too, shouldn’t I? “Actually, while we’re on the subject of Chifuyu’s school life...”

I gave everyone a quick summary of what had happened the other morning, up to and including the part where Chifuyu decided to drop out of school.

“Are you serious, Andou?” asked Tomoyo, furrowing her brow.

“Yeah,” I confirmed with a nod. “I thought she was just acting on a whim, and I didn’t really make much out of it... Looking back on it, though, I can’t help but feel like it might’ve been some sorta sign.”

“Now that you mention it, Chifuyu didn’t go to school on the day we did all that cosplay stuff, right?” added Hatoko with a worried frown. “She said she was sick, but it didn’t seem like that was true...”

The four of us fell into a gloomy silence.

“This is purely hypothetical, of course, but...it’s possible that our powers have something to do with all of this,” Sayumi finally said. “Considering how young Chifuyu is, awakening to an inexplicable power for seemingly no reason may have had an effect on her that we couldn’t appreciate, especially given that she has to keep her power entirely hidden in her day-to-day life and doesn’t have anyone at school to share her secret with. It’s possible that the stress of the situation is spilling out to impact her social life.”

Obtaining our powers was a shock too big to handle even for us high schoolers. Wouldn’t it follow, then, that it was an even bigger shock for a girl as young as Chifuyu? She always acted so dispassionate about everything, so it was hard to say for sure, but for all we knew, behind that perpetually sleepy expression of hers lurked depths of fear and anxiety beyond our wildest imaginations.

“Of course, that’s nothing more than a guess,” said Sayumi, clapping her hands and guiding us all off that demoralizing train of thought. “Now then! I don’t think we should be depressing ourselves with baseless speculation. Let’s turn our minds in a productive direction and come up with a plan to deal with the Kuki affair.”

In the end, the plan we chose to execute was just about as direct as strategies could get: we’d try to get Kuki to develop an understanding with the literary club! We reasoned that as long as we could convince her that high schoolers are nothing to be afraid of, we’d be able to do away with her distorted view of our organization.

That said, between her swimming classes and piano lessons, Kuki was a pretty darn busy kid. It took two days for her schedule to be clear, but she finally found the time to pay our club room a visit with Chifuyu after school.

“I brought Cookie.”

“Th-Thanks for having me...”

Chifuyu strolled in and plopped down in her usual chair without missing a beat. She was so relaxed you’d almost think this was her own personal room. In striking contrast to her nonchalance, meanwhile, Kuki was glancing about the room so restlessly, it almost looked like she was shivering.

Looks like it’s time for Andou the gentleman to step up to the plate and put her at ease! “Hey, Kuki,” I said with a friendly wave. “Long time no—”

“Don’t talk to me,” Kuki snapped, shutting me down with an ice-cold glare. “I will pull this if you try anything,” she added, laying a hand on the personal alarm strapped to her backpack.

Okay, jeez. You don’t have to treat me like that dangerous of a criminal, do you? We’d only just started, and I was already on the brink of keeling over with a broken heart.

Thankfully, Sayumi was there to step up to the plate and greet her in my stead. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Takanashi Sayumi, and I currently serve as president of the literary club. Thank you for coming all this way to meet with us today.”

“N-Nice to meet you!” squeaked Kuki. “My name’s Kuki Madoka.”

“No need to be so nervous! Please, have a seat,” said Sayumi with a perfectly genial smile, pulling out a chair for our guest.

Hatoko was quick to follow her lead, presenting Kuki with a cup of tea. “Here you go! We have fruit juice too if you don’t like tea. Just let me know!”

“Th-Thank you! Tea is fine.”

The plan was off to a solid start. Our next objective: have Sayumi explain what the literary club was really all about to her!

“Our literary club,” she began, “was established forty years ago. You might say that we’re a longstanding institution within this school. Our typical activities include writing short stories, drafting scripts for plays or audio dramas, reading and discussing literary masterpieces, putting out a club magazine for the student body to appreciate, and more. As president, I’ve chosen to allow our members a great deal of autonomy in their actions—we have no quotas and are free to learn and produce at a rate that suits each of us as individuals.”

The amazing part was that nothing she’d said was technically a lie. Sayumi simply described our club in the most stunningly convenient terms possible, leaving out every detail that would come across as even remotely incriminating. I guess if you really had to pick holes in her story, the bit about reading the classics and writing plays was something previous generations of our club did that we’d never really touched. All things considered, we were pretty laid-back.

“W-Wow, that’s kind of incredible,” Kuki said in wide-eyed astonishment. “Isn’t it, Chii?” she asked, turning to look at Chifuyu, who was sitting next to her.

Chifuyu cocked her head. “When did we do any of that stuff?”

Chifuyuuu! You can’t just come out and say things like that! Again! Oh, wait—gah! Crap! We totally forgot to tell Chifuyu the plan!

“Huh...? Wh-What do you mean? Was she...lying to me?” said Kuki, a twinge of suspicion now coloring her gaze.

Chifuyu, on the other hand, finally caught on to her mistake and frantically tried to right the course. “Ah... N-No, she wasn’t. It’s true. We really do all that. We do tons of serious stuff,” she explained, but Kuki looked as doubtful as ever. “I learned all about Dazai Osamu the other day.”

Ooh, nice follow-up, Chifuyu! That’s technically not even a lie!

“Really?” asked Kuki, arching an eyebrow.

“Really,” said Chifuyu. “I know everything about him.”

“Okay, then name one of Dazai’s stories. And not Run, Melos! We learned about that in class, so it doesn’t count.”

Chifuyu clearly didn’t see this little interrogation coming and froze in place. She crossed her arms, spent a few seconds in thought, then mumbled an answer in the least confident tone I’d ever heard from her.

“C-Category Error...?”

Oof, so close! That’s one of the ones I came up with! I guess she must’ve mixed up the pastiches with the real thing?

“That’s not one of Dazai’s stories at all!” shouted Kuki.

“But Andou said it was,” protested Chifuyu.

Agh, no! You’re adding fuel to the fire, Chifuyu!

Naturally, Kuki turned her accusatory glare upon me next. “Have you been teaching Chifuyu lies, Andou?”

“It wasn’t a lie, exactly... It’s, uh, well... Basically, I decided that as a gesture of respect for Dazai Osamu’s passing, I’d come up with a super cool title, which is where Category Error: No Longer Human came—”

“A title? What do you mean, a title?”

Whoops! You sure you wanna go there, little miss? Because I’ll absolutely answer that question! I’ll talk your ear off! I’ll keep you here all night—hell, I’ll keep you up all night listening to all twenty-four verses of my sermon on the awesomeness of personal titles, starting from verse one: The Storied History of Personal Titles in the Warring States Era!

“Well, you may have heard of how Oda Nobunaga was referred to as the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven, or how Date Masamune was called the One-Eyed Dragon. This is undeniable proof that title culture has existed in Japan since at least the Warring States era! Titles and epithets served as symbols of pride, as a very way of life for the valiant men who all but lived on the battlefield, and—”

“They’re like this,” said Chifuyu, cutting me off to produce a sheet of paper from who knows where. A sheet of paper with Sweet and Sour Pineapple written on it. “This is a title.”

Kuki blinked, and I nearly choked. “No! A real title’s more like...” I grabbed the sheet of paper and scrawled “The King of the Cosmic Apocalyptia” on it. “...this! This is a title!”

“Huh?”

“Cut it out, you two! Can’t you see she has no clue what to make of all this?!” shouted Tomoyo. She was right too. The look on Kuki’s face told me that to her, everything we’d been saying was just so much incomprehensible gibberish.

A moment later, though, Kuki took the sheet of paper from my hands and gave it a close inspection. “So, this is a title...?”

“Mwa ha ha! Indeed, though really, it’s but one of the nigh countless epithets I have to my name! How long has it been since the people around me began calling me by that moniker? Five years, perhaps?”

“What do you mean, ‘apocalyptia’?” Kuki asked, gesturing at the word.

“Huh? It, err... I mean, umm... It’s like, I mean, you know! Like...the world when the world itself ceases to be, or, like... Man, really wish you’d just learn to sorta feel these things out... Okay, right! It’s a word for the world after everything’s fallen to ruin!”

“If everything’s fallen to ruin, then why does the world need a king?”

“That, umm... A-A real king can rule over any world, ruined or not...”

“Okay, then where does the ‘cosmic’ come into all this?”

“That’s, umm, just a filler word, basically. Like, when you’re making up a title or a power name or whatever, putting in words that just make it sound better’s standard practice... And, like, ‘cosmic’ sorta means space or something, so throwing it in makes the whole thing way grander, if I may say so my—”

“Why would you throw in a whole extra word just to make it sound bigger? Doesn’t that totally change the whole title’s meaning?”

“A-All I can say is that’s just how it goes with these things, sometimes... It’s like how they still throw in gratuitous English to sound cool in stories that’re set in English-speaking countries, so all the characters should really be speaking English already, and—”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

For just a moment, I faltered. “Mwa ha ha ha haaa! Well, if I must put it in the most exceedingly simple terms possible such that even the likes of you could understand, every one of your questions can be answered by one simple phrase: because it’s cooler that way!”

“Huh? You think this is cool?” Kuki asked in a complete deadpan.

“Uh. Yes.”

“What on earth is cool about it?”

“U-Umm... Like, the whole thing, sorta, well, on the whole? I just, y’know, personally speaking, think it’s, well, pretty cool. Yeah.”

The sheer pressure of that all too serious look on her face reduced me to a babbling mess. As I stammered out my strained excuse, Kuki gave me a little nod. She looked like she was barely holding back a fit of laughter.

“Oh, okay. I understand. Andou, you...how to put it... You really like childish things, don’t you? Even though you’re a high schooler.”

“H-Hatoko! Hatokooo,” I sobbed. “Kuki’s... Kuki’s bullying meee! I can’t take that kiiid!”

“There, there! It must’ve been hard, but you did your best to stand up to her, Juu!”

“Childish... She said I’m childish... Couldn’t she have been a little nicer about it? You can’t just write me off with one word like that...”

“Yeah, I understand!”

“She’s definitely gonna grow up to be the sort of person who’s all, ‘Huh? You still watch Kamen Rider? You know that show’s for kids, right?’ I just know it! Those people always act so snobby about Kamen Rider, then they turn around and drool over the actors who star in it when they get cast in a movie or TV drama or whatever! And they don’t even know they’re late to the party! We real fans always notice them ages before they get popular!”

“Yup, you sure do!”

I was facedown on the table and blubbering pathetically as Hatoko consoled me with the kindness and understanding of a natural-born caretaker. My heart had been crushed to pieces, and my days as a fearless warrior had come to an end. Truly tragic though it was, I would have to leave the rest of the fight to my comrades.

“Hey, Chii—does this club really do any actual club activities?” asked Kuki.

Chifuyu hesitated for a moment. “Probably,” she finally replied. She seemed to be losing confidence as well.

“It kind of feels like you all just sort of do whatever to me. You said you write stories, but I bet you’re just writing nonsense for fun, right?”

“Th-That’s not true!” declared Chifuyu with sudden newfound energy, pointing across the table at Tomoyo. “Tomoyo writes seriously. She sends in her stories to contests.”

Tomoyo, caught off guard by her sudden entry into the conversation, stiffened up. Chifuyu, you can’t just say stuff like... Y’know, actually, it’s probably fine to say that here. It’s not like Kuki finding out about Tomoyo’s writing could cause us any problems.

“To contests...? Like, the ones for the Naoki Prize, or the Akutagawa Prize?” asked Kuki, betraying an all too common biased perspective as far as literary awards went. People without any interest in novels or literature always seemed to jump straight to those two prizes whenever they thought about literary contests, presumably since they were the two largest ones in Japan.

Chifuyu shook her head and smiled confidently. “Tomoyo doesn’t bother with those. She’s on a totally different level.”

Okay... That is technically true, I guess, but the way you said it makes it sound like Tomoyo’s some sort of insanely influential writer, you know?

Just as I feared, Kuki’s eyes widened. “O-Oh, wow,” she whispered, gazing up at Tomoyo with a look of awe and respect on her face.

“N-No,” stammered Tomoyo, “I’m not really, like, not yet—”

“That’s right. Tomoyo’s amazing!” Chifuyu boasted, her eyes practically sparkling with pride as she overruled Tomoyo’s frantic protests.

I knew that look. It was the sort of look that kids get in their eyes when they say stuff like “Well, my daddy’s a pilot!”

“Tomoyo’s so good at writing, popular books look like trash to her! She always reads them and says she has no idea why they sell so well!”

Tomoyo averted her gaze.

“And she’s so good at analyzing books! She always picks out every little thing that makes the popular ones bad!”

Tomoyo buried her face in her hands.

“And she has so many ideas, she always starts writing a new story before she’s even finished with the one she’s already working on!”

It sort of looked like Tomoyo had started faintly vibrating.

“And she’s so persistent, she reuses all the ideas in her stories that get rejected over and over again!”

Tomoyo teetered on her chair. She looked seconds away from collapsing in agony.

“She’s not a pro, but she always talks about deadlines anyway! She has a pro mindset!”

Tomoyo relocated to a corner of the room, curled up into a ball, and clutched at her head.

“Plenty of people say they want to be authors without ever submitting any stories, so Tomoyo’s way closer to being a pro than they are! Or that’s what she said, at least!”

Tomoyo started banging her head against the floorboards.

Stop, Chifuyu! Just stop! Can’t you see she’s already dead?!

“Hatokooo... I didn’t... I didn’t mean anything bad by any of it... It’s just, sometimes things just aren’t going your way, and you can’t resist taking it out on someone who’s doing better than you...”

“Yeah, I understand! You’ve been working really hard, Tomoyo!”

Tomoyo had joined me as a resident of getting-consoled-by-Hatoko land.

“Really, you two. You let an elementary schooler reduce you to this state? Pathetic,” sighed Sayumi. Then she straightened her posture and turned to face the duo of little girls. I didn’t like to admit it, but our only choice was to leave it all to her.

You’ve got this, Sayumi! Avenge us!

“Let’s get back on topic, shall we? Let me think—how much have we already covered...?” said Sayumi, trying to steer the conversation back toward the literary club’s activities.

Kuki, however, leaned over and whispered into Chifuyu’s ear. “Hey, Chii? I’ve been wondering something this whole time...”

“Hmm? What?”

“Is she really a high schooler?”

One shot, one kill! Sayumi’s smile froze solid, and a tremor rushed through her body.

“Did you bring in one of the teachers to pretend to be the president and convince me for you? Did you force her to wear that uniform?”

“No. Sayumi really is the president.”

“Oh. Huh...”

“Cookie, Sayumi’s sensitive about looking like an old lady. You shouldn’t say things like that to her.”

“Ah! I-I’m sorry! I should’ve been more considerate!”

Sayumi didn’t reply. In fact, she seemed kind of broken. Or maybe petrified would be a better way of putting it? The elementary schoolers’ perfectly innocent yet perfectly brutal words slammed into her with the force of an instant-death spell.

“Hatokooo,” Sayumi sobbed. “I-I’m still... I’m still a third-year, I swear... I’m a genuine high schooler, through and through! Who cares if I look bad in gym bloomers?!”

“There, there! It’s okay, Sayumi! You’re really cute, I promise!”

Even Sayumi had been reduced to blubbering on Hatoko’s shoulder. A thousand curses! Our last bastion of defense has crumbled!

“I knew it! Chii, this isn’t a decent club at all! So stop coming here, okay? Please?” begged Kuki, tugging at Chifuyu’s sleeve. It did seem that we’d more or less cured her of the impression that high schoolers are scary, but in exchange, we’d given her the impression that high schoolers are all a bunch of unhinged weirdos.

As I watched her do everything she possibly could to convince Chifuyu to get the heck away from us, though, all I could think was Man, this girl really is putting her all into this. I could tell that she didn’t mean anything bad by it at all—she was just really, honestly worried about her friend. That was part of what made the whole issue so hard to deal with, of course.

“Okay, Chii?”

“...No,” said Chifuyu, sulking as she squeezed Squirrely with all her might. She wasn’t about to move an inch, which just made Kuki even more worked up than ever.

“But, why?! Why not, Chii?!”

“No means no!”

The two girls glared at each other. Neither was making any effort to hide their anger.

“What’s wrong with you, Chii...? Why won’t you listen to me? Do you like being with these people more than being with me?”

“No... I like being with you, Cookie. But...”

“But what?!”

“I have to be here. There’s a good reason... They’re the only ones who can understand...”

Oh, crap. Chifuyu, no! You can’t say it like that, you’re going to make this even—

“A good reason? Well, what is it? Tell me!” demanded Kuki.

Chifuyu hesitated. “I c-can’t.”

“You...can’t?” repeated Kuki incredulously. “Why not? Do you not want to tell me? Or is something keeping you from saying it?”

“I can’t because I can’t!”

“Tell me!”

“No! I’m never, ever telling you, Cookie!”

Chifuyu’s outright rejection hit Kuki like a truck. She stood there for a moment, clenching her teeth.

“Well...fine,” she finally said as the light faded from her eyes. “I get it... You like being with the literary club people more than me, right? And here I thought we were friends... I thought I was your best friend,” she muttered, her trembling voice growing weaker and weaker with every word.

Then, she picked up her bag, turned back for just long enough to say a feeble but final “Bye-bye,” and fled from the club room. Chifuyu didn’t try to stop her, nor did she try to chase after her. She just stood there, stunned, and watched her go.

And so, the literary club’s master plan to get Kuki to understand us ended in catastrophic failure.