Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de - Volume 8 - Chapter 7

Scene 7. throh-THEH-law

Two days passed by, and the weekend arrived. Under normal circumstances, the school would be abandoned on Saturdays, but this being the day before the cultural festival began, the halls were packed with students who were working away to finish off their projects and run through rehearsals. We of the literary club were no exception, arriving at school the same time we would on a weekday to move all of our props and set pieces over to the music room.

Thanks to some help from the cultural festival’s organizational committee, we managed to get everything carted over before lunchtime. Our original plan had been to use the afternoon to stage a final rehearsal in the same location we’d be putting on our actual performance in, double-checking that everything would work out as anticipated, but that plan had been abruptly put on ice, on account of the fact that our Juliet was AWOL.

“Well, this certainly leaves us in a predicament,” said Sayumi, her expression grim.

We’d returned to the club room for our lunch break. Now that all of the materials for the play had been relocated, the room felt more spacious than it had in weeks, but that did little to dispel the aura of gloom that hung over us. Nobody had much of an appetite, and our food remained by and large untouched. As to what had us in such a subdued state of mind...well, I think that probably goes without saying.

“I’m sorry. This is all my fault,” I muttered.

“N-No, it isn’t,” said Tomoyo. “None of this would’ve happened if I hadn’t gone overboard teasing you like that.”

“That wasn’t just you, though,” Hatoko said with a shake of her head. “I just couldn’t stop myself from bullying Juu a little, and it all went wrong.”

“No... This really is my fault,” I insisted. “If it weren’t for me, Chifuyu would still be—”

“I don’t believe that arguing over who can claim responsibility for this issue is going to accomplish anything productive,” said Sayumi. The three of us second-years had been stewing in regret for two days now, and our president had finally decided to put her foot down and drag us out of our funk. “This isn’t exclusively any one person’s fault. All of us are responsible—me included.”

“But, wait... You didn’t do anything wrong at all,” I said.

“I’m afraid that’s not true, Andou. I do indeed share responsibility for this predicament. Forcing you to choose who would play Juliet unilaterally was, clearly, a mistake,” said Sayumi. “You selected Chifuyu for the role in an effort to ensure that no one’s feelings would be hurt, and I approved of that decision, believing it to be the most amicable way of settling the matter. In retrospect, I was viewing things in far too optimistic of a light.”

Sayumi sounded deeply remorseful, and the look in her eyes told me that she was feeling the same sort of regret that I was. I’d thought that this was the choice that would hurt the fewest feelings. Chifuyu would be happy about getting to play Juliet, and since she was a grade schooler, everyone else would be able to accept the outcome without feeling any real hostility or jealousy. I figured it was the best possible choice—a choice that would leave no one unhappy.

What the hell was I thinking? “Leave no one unhappy”? As if! “The best possible choice,” my ass!

The answer to “What was I thinking?” was obvious, really: I’d been thinking about myself and no one else. The only reason I’d chosen to muddy the waters was because I didn’t want anyone to get mad at me. Sure, it’d looked like I’d had their best interests at heart on a superficial level, but the truth was that I hadn’t really been considerate toward any of them at all. I’d been so focused on acting like a big, mature adult and so set on avoiding any and all drama that I’d lost sight of what was actually important.

The truth was that, without ever meaning to and without realizing what I’d even been doing...I’d used Chifuyu. I’d been so terrified of making an actual, intentional choice that instead, I’d exploited her presence in the equation, deceiving her and toying with her young, innocent heart in the process. The fact that I hadn’t done it on purpose didn’t make it any better. If anything, it made it worse. I hadn’t resolved myself to see the deception through or to make sure it never got out, and when it’d done just that, Chifuyu had been hurt as a result.

“What’ll we do if Chifuyu doesn’t come tomorrow? We can’t do the play without her, can we...?” Hatoko somewhat anxiously muttered.

Tomoyo, who was sitting beside her, turned to Sayumi. “Hypothetically, if she really doesn’t show up...what will we do? What’ll happen to all our plans?”

“It’s far too late for us to cancel the play entirely, so we’ll have no choice but to have someone fill in as her understudy,” Sayumi explained. “That said, there’s nowhere near enough time for someone who hasn’t participated in our rehearsals to memorize our script and stage directions, so one of us will have to assume the role. I believe the most realistic solution would be to cut Rosaline, who has the fewest appearances out of all the characters we’ve included. That would leave Hatoko free to take over my narration duties, and I in turn could play the role of Juliet. Considering that I am, I believe, the only one of us who has committed Juliet’s lines and blocking to memory, that would likely be our best option.”

Sayumi’s suggestion certainly did strike me as a realistic option. She’d been acting as our director, and she had provided guidance for all of our performances. I had no doubts that she could step into the role of Juliet and play it to perfection.

“However...on a personal level, I have no intention whatsoever of serving as Chifuyu’s understudy,” Sayumi added, her voice clear and unwavering. “I have no desire to play the role of the main heroine as the result of an unexpected setback.” She turned to me next. “As I said a moment ago, I believe that this incident is everyone’s responsibility. That being said, you bear the most responsibility out of all of us, Andou. Your naive kindness has hurt Chifuyu, and hurt her deeply, at that,” she said, judging me—condemning me—in a truly severe tone.

“Wh-Whoa, Sayumi!” said Tomoyo. “I mean, like...you don’t have to say it like that!”

“That’s right! Juu was just trying to make all of us happy,” said Hatoko, jumping to my defense as well.

Sayumi, however, was unmoved. She glared at me, the glint in her eye as pointed as ever.

“Do you understand what you did wrong, Andou?” she asked.

“Yeah...I do. I’m really sorry,” I replied, then bowed deeply in apology.

Sayumi shook her head. “Unbelievable. Clearly, you don’t understand the first thing about your own mistake. Tell me, Andou—are we the people you should be apologizing to right now?”

I gasped and looked up at her with a start.

“There’s precious little time left until tomorrow’s performance. Considering that, I believe there’s only one thing you should be doing right now. Do you follow?”

I gritted my teeth and clenched my fists. Damn it all... Just how stupid am I?

“If the five of us are not united in our purpose, then there’s no point in the literary club participating in the cultural festival. Wouldn’t you agree, Andou?” Sayumi said. Her voice was as severe as ever, but I knew her words were coming from a place of kindness, and they resonated with me on a deep level. I’d fallen into a pathetic, depressive state of inaction, but she hadn’t tried to console me. She’d been as strict as ever and scolded me in exactly the way I needed her to. Her harshness carried a sense of pride and dignity that healed my heart, chided me for my failures...and spurred me to action.

Thank you, Sayumi. I really am blessed to have an upperclassman like you watching over me.

“I’m stepping out for a little,” I said, then hurriedly packed up my lunch, stood up, and looked over at our club president. “Let me promise you this, Sayumi: I’m going to make your last cultural festival the best one you’ve ever been in!”

Sayumi gave me a satisfied smile. “I expect great things from you...Guiltia Sin Jurai.”

“Yes, Your Majesty!”

“Hello hello! Shizumu of the Sagamis speaking.”

“Hey.”

“What’s going on, Andou? It’s not every day that you call me.”

“Nothing important, really.”

“If it’s not important, I really wish you wouldn’t call at all. Everyone’s pretty busy right about now, you know?”

“Wait, were you in the middle of something?”

“Hmm. Well, okay—I guess I’m not busy with anything really important either... Ah. Hey, can you give me just a second? I should put some underwear on.”

“...”

Never before had I so cursed my own powers of imagination and intuition.

“Okay, thanks for waiting! So, what’s up?”

“Do you remember what you said the other day, Sagami? About my casting choice not being fair? I want to know what you meant,” I said.

“Oh, do you? That’s certainly a belated question. Did something happen?”

I didn’t answer him. In fact, I didn’t say a word. Sagami, however, seemed to read into that fact, and he began talking as if he’d already guessed exactly what was going on.

“Now, if a man gets turned on by elementary schoolers or little girls specifically because of their age, I suppose that makes him an irredeemable degenerate. But you know, Andou...wouldn’t a man who doesn’t take elementary schoolers or little girls seriously specifically because of their age be just plain prejudiced?”

“...”

“You couldn’t choose any of the other three, but you could choose Chifuyu. Why? It’s simple: because you weren’t taking her seriously. Because you didn’t view her as a potential romantic partner. Because you didn’t see her as a heroine,” Sagami said indifferently. “You treated her like a little sister...or, actually, maybe I should say you treated her like a niece? Most people would be willing to get in fights with their little sister, at least, but with a niece, that’s off the table. Instead, you spoil them. You coddle them. If your niece tells you that she loves you, you say ‘I love you’ right back, and that’s the end of it. It’s as tepid as a close relationship can get.”

I treated her like my niece. Something about that assertion struck me as oddly apt. The way I felt about Chifuyu was somewhat close to paternal, and somewhat close to fraternal...but at the same time, it was by no means familial. “Like a niece” summed up my feelings for her almost perfectly.

“That’s the sort of presence she is in your mind, no matter how she might feel about it,” Sagami said.

“And...that’s why the choice I made wasn’t fair?”

“Right. Oh, but don’t get me wrong—I’m not trying to condemn you at all! When I said you weren’t being fair, I didn’t mean it in a bad way.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, and a moment later, Sagami carried on.

“Show me a guy who would treat any girl as a target of romantic interest, sharing his affection fairly regardless of whether or not she’s underage, and I’ll show you a plain old pedophile. Treating people in different ways depending on their age like you did is perfectly normal, and letting an age gap influence your relationship with someone is only appropriate. However,” Sagami added, “the problem in this particular case is that Chifuyu perceives herself as your equal. She isn’t taking the age gap into account at all when it comes to how she treats you. It’s almost like she doesn’t understand it in the first place, considering how she pays no attention to seniority and gives her elders no respect or deference whatsoever. I can’t say whether that’s on account of her being a pure and genuine person or simply the arrogance of youth. Maybe she’s just plain rude. Who knows?”

Himeki Chifuyu was fair to an extreme. Unlike me, she saw the world—and she saw me—through eyes untainted by bias or prejudice. That was probably why it had never crossed her mind that she might’ve been given preferential treatment on account of her age when she got the role of Juliet. She’d just been happy about getting the part, plain and simple. I’d realized that, on some level—I’d just refused to acknowledge it. I’d just smiled and cheered her on, treating her with all the seriousness I’d treat a naive little girl who’d just announced that she wanted to be a Precure when she grew up. I’d made a show of partiality toward her, when in truth, I was just brushing her off.

“You made a reasonable decision based on common sense, and she was incapable of understanding it. It’s pretty hard for me to say whether either of you is in the wrong, but...hmm...if I had to pick a side, I’d say I’m with Chifuyu this time. Cute little girls are always in the right, after all, and if I’m being honest, I just can’t stomach how you thought you could get away with finding an option that wouldn’t hurt anyone’s feelings in the end,” said Sagami. “This is just my opinion, of course, but when people say that they don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, that usually means that all they really want is for their own feelings to not get hurt.”

“...”

“Anyway, why did you even bother calling me in the first place, Andou? You figured all this crap out on your own ages ago, didn’t you?”

“No real reason. I was just killing time en route,” I replied. “Also, I just felt like letting you go off on one of your rambles and getting in a terrible mood.” I’d been trying to act the adult, full of myself and my own supposed maturity, and I’d hoped that Sagami would smack me back down to earth with one of his prejudiced, arbitrary, hypersubjective, and hopelessly self-indulgent personal critiques.

“I really wish you wouldn’t use talking to me as a form of self-flagellation,” Sagami said. He hung up soon after, which worked out well, seeing as I’d just reached my destination.

I was in a corner of a residential neighborhood, standing before a rather large house with a garden out front. The property was surrounded by a fairly tall wall, and a nameplate by the front gate had “Himeki” written on it.

I gulped. Although I hadn’t used Dark and Dark recently, beads of sweat were still trickling down my back. This was far from the first time I’d been to Chifuyu’s home, but this time, I felt like a soldier charging toward an enemy fortress with no idea what defenses lay in wait to stop me.

I kicked things off with the obvious option: walking up to the front door and pressing the doorbell. It wasn’t long before I heard the distinctive sound of slipper-clad feet pattering down a staircase and approaching the door from inside. The footsteps reached the entryway, paused, and then I heard the sound of something—a chair, I assumed—getting dragged across the floor. A few seconds of silence passed before I heard the dragging sound again, followed by the footsteps retreating from the entryway once more.

“...”

Chifuyu... You’re awful at pretending to not be home. Do you realize how obvious it is that you just looked out the peephole and decided to ignore me? You couldn’t quite reach it on your own and had to bring a chair or something over for a boost, right?

In any case, I could feel comfortably certain that Chifuyu was, at least, home. Given that it was Saturday, I’d thought there was a chance that her family would open the door for me, but since they hadn’t answered the doorbell, it seemed more likely than not that she was home alone.

“Well, what now?” I muttered to myself. I could’ve kept ringing the doorbell, but I knew it’d be pointless—Chifuyu would just keep pretending to be out. I knew her home phone number, but considering how she’d reacted so far, I figured she’d just hang up the instant she realized it was me. Sticking it out until her parents came home was an option, but it was one that I wanted to save as my absolute last resort. This was Chifuyu and my problem, and if possible, I wanted to solve it by talking things through, just the two of us...not to mention that I was terrified to meet her parents under our current circumstances.

“Guess that means I only have one choice.” I took a deep breath, stepped back from the door, steeled my resolve...then stepped into the garden. “Sorry for intruding,” I said under my breath.

This was straight-up trespassing now, no matter how you sliced it. If any of Chifuyu’s neighbors noticed me, they’d definitely report me, but this was an emergency, and I didn’t have the luxury of being picky about my methods. I tiptoed through the well-kept garden, making my way over to a stack of tires piled up deep inside, from which I proceeded to clamber up and hop onto the garden wall. It was very narrow, and my footing was awful, but I flung out my arms and somehow managed to keep my balance.

It’s fine! I’m a cat! Cats do this all the time! I told myself as I advanced along the wall. I was now fully visible from the street out front, and I couldn’t have possibly looked like anything other than a burglar, but still I moved forward, step by wobbly step. I was walking a dangerous path in both a physical and social sense, but that didn’t stop me. Anything to get just a little bit closer to Chifuyu’s room. I knew where it was from the last time I’d been to her house: up on the second floor, by a corner, with an animal-print curtain hung up on her window.

“Heh,” I chuckled to myself as I inched along. I was very aware that a guy my age using a garden wall as a balancing beam while laughing to himself would definitely look like a dangerous lunatic, but I just couldn’t stop myself from laughing. “Feels like I’ve become Romeo for real this time.”

Romeo fell for Juliet at first sight and sneaked into the Capulets’ estate in order to see her again. Considering the state of their houses’ relations, he’d literally put his life on the line to do it. If one of the Capulets had caught the only son of the Montagues skulking around their estate, there’s no telling what they might’ve done to him. Still, though, he just couldn’t keep himself away—he couldn’t miss his chance to meet the girl he loved. For that, and that alone, he risked it all...

“Wait...huh? Oh, for the— Really?”

I somehow managed to make my way next to Chifuyu’s window without falling, only to discover that the distance from the top of the wall to the first-floor roof was a lot farther than I’d initially estimated. My plan had been to jump from the wall to the roof, climb onto her balcony, then slip my way into Chifuyu’s room from there, but there was just no way I could clear a distance like the one I was dealing with unless I got a running start first.

Oh, wait. Duh. The people who designed this house did that on purpose. They wouldn’t have made it that easy to get into the second floor from the wall.

With plan A down the drain, all I could do was move right along to plan B. It was most definitely not a plan I wanted to go with, but I’d been prepared for the worst the moment I climbed onto the wall.

“Chifuyu!” I shouted. It was broad daylight on a Saturday, in the middle of a residential area, but I still shouted at the top of my lungs. I used all the skills I’d mastered through our acting drills, speaking from my core and projecting my voice as far as I could make it go. “Chifuyu! You’re in there, aren’t you?! Come out, please!”

For just an instant, I caught the barest flash of movement from within the room as the animal-patterned curtains were pulled closed. Chifuyu was probably trying to make sure I wouldn’t be able to see her, and she probably hadn’t considered that doing so proved that she was in there beyond a shadow of a doubt.

I took a deep breath. “All right,” I said. “If you don’t want to see me face-to-face, then you can stay inside. I’m gonna talk to you from out here, though, so please listen.”

And then...I bowed, as deeply as I could.

“I’m sorry!” I shouted. Bowing while balanced on a narrow wall was pretty darn dangerous, but I was desperate enough to go for it anyway as a gesture of my sincerity.

“I get it now. I thought that I was being considerate, but the truth is, I wasn’t even thinking about you at all! I acted like I had everyone’s best interests in mind, but really, I was only thinking about myself! I’m so sorry!” A painful lump was working its way up my throat, but I did my best to endure it as I confessed my sins. “The truth is...I chose you to play Juliet for me, not for you. I just thought that nobody would complain about it if I picked you. It wasn’t about whether or not you were the right person to play her—I wasn’t thinking about any of that at all. But, things are different now! Right now, I do think you’re the best choice to play Juliet out of all of us!”

I wasn’t trying to talk her up, and I wasn’t making excuses. I really, honestly meant it.

“I’ve seen how hard you worked this past month. I watched you up close, every step of the way, so I know for sure now: you’re our Juliet! Nobody else could play the role like you, I’m sure of it! Our version of Romeo and Juliet wouldn’t even work without you! So please...”

So far, Chifuyu hadn’t offered the slightest hint of a response. I didn’t stop there, though. I kept going, speaking directly from my heart.

“Please play your part, at least in tomorrow’s play,” I pleaded. “I get that you might not want to perform with me anymore, and that’s totally fair...but still, please! I don’t want everything we’ve done this past month to go to waste over something like this!”

Maybe I was making a mountain out of a molehill. The play represented a month’s worth of work for us, sure, but that was the work that a bunch of amateurs could put in between their classes, which wasn’t really all that much. From an outside perspective, our play would probably look like a slapdash farce that a bunch of students had thrown together in their spare time. Even so, I wanted it to be a success. I wanted it to be a real, proper play, one way or another. All of us had come together to make it happen, after all, and that’s not even starting on the fact that this would be Sayumi’s last cultural festival. And, above all else...

“You don’t want your work to go to waste either, do you?! Wouldn’t it be a shame to never even perform after you tried so hard? I’m sure everyone’s excited to see you onstage—your friends, your parents...everyone! They’ll all be coming to see you! Isn’t that why you—”

“Nuh-uh, pal!”

An awkwardly accented voice rang out from Chifuyu’s window. I’d been too focused on shouting to notice, but somewhere along the way she’d drawn back her curtains and opened the window just a little—enough for a child to pass through. There, on the edge of the balcony’s wall, stood Squirrely...though strictly speaking, he wasn’t standing on his own. I could see a little hand holding the stuffed animal upright from below.

Squirrely stared right at me. His stuffed-animal eyes were as adorably big and round as ever, and by all rights, it shouldn’t have been possible for his expression to change, but somehow, it still felt like he was glaring at me.

“Ya don’t get it! Ya don’t get a gosh-darn thing, pal!” said Squirrely.

It had been quite a while since I’d gotten to witness Chifuyu’s ventriloquist act, and honestly, it hadn’t improved much. She was still awful at it, really, and her accent was still laughably phony...but even so, I could very clearly understand the emotion packed into her words.

“Chifuyu hasn’t been workin’ hard just ’cause her papa and mama or her friends’re gonna come see her! That’s true too, but it ain’t the big reason!” Squirrely shouted. “Y’know why she has been workin’ hard? ’Cause she was happy that you chose her! She even practiced at home ’cause she was so happy you picked her to be Juliet! She gave up sleepin’ time to memorize that script!”

I gasped. Chifuyu...cut back on sleep for us? But...But that would be like torture for her! She really went that far, just for our play?

“And then you go talkin’ ’bout all that process-of-elimination junk...? Nuts to that, ya big dum-dum!”

It felt like Squirrely’s roaring had pierced me right through the heart. “I’m sorry,” I said. I couldn’t think of anything else I could say. I’d screwed up in a way I couldn’t take back, dangling the joy of being chosen in front of a little girl’s nose before pulling it away at the last second and letting her plummet into a pit of despair. Then, as I stood on the wall, unable to take action...

“Hey, you! What’re you doing up there?!”

“Shaddup, kid!”

...a series of furious shouts rang out from behind me. I looked over my shoulder and found that I’d attracted the attention of a few passersby and some of Chifuyu’s neighbors. They all looked very suspicious of me, and they were all looking right at me.

“Crap!” I yelped. I was about to leap off the wall—but before I did, I turned to face Squirrely one last time. “Look, Squirrely, I know I have no right to say this, but I want you to pass a message on to Chifuyu anyway,” I said. “Tell her I’ll be waiting for her tomorrow!”

Then I jumped down from the wall and hightailed it the hell out of there as fast as my legs could carry me.