Chapter 3
Paradise in a Closed-Off Garden
Mizuto Irido: From a Distant Place
“What do you think?” Yume asked, raising her sleeves, showing me in her yukata.
Last year, she’d worn a white yukata with pink flowers on it, which had been more on the cute side of things, but this year, she was wearing one with more muted colors, which seemed a little more mature. Madoka-san was right when she said that something like this would suit Yume more now, especially after all that’d happened over the past year to both her and me. I decided to give her my candid opinion.
“I think you look beautiful.”
“You...really think so?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“It feels kinda like a cheap compliment when you just say it so easily like that.”
“So it’s a problem if I’m too honest with my opinions now?” What do you even want me to do?
“Hmm...” Madoka-san let out a sound of admiration, causing Yume to turn to her.
“What’s wrong?” Yume asked cautiously.
“It’s like the two of you have really mellowed out. Last year it was like you were crazy teenagers, but now it’s like you’ve grown up.”
“Y-You think so?” Yume asked.
“It makes me rethink how I act. You know, a lot of my friends call me immature.”
“O-Oh, that’s not...uh...”
“See? Even you think so!”
In Yume’s defense, Madoka-san only seems mature on the outside.
“Well, anyway, I’m glad you’re getting along so well, but I wanted to see the two of you acting all lovey-dovey and touchy-feely.”
“Why would we ever show you that side of us?” Yume asked.
“In other words, you act that way when nobody’s looking?”
Yume paused for a bit before answering. “No comment.”
“Oh?!” Madoka-san’s breathing became frantic, kind of like Isana’s. Then she wrapped her arm around Yume’s shoulders and began whispering. “Then I guess I’ll make sure you two can be alone during the festival so that you can be as lovey-dovey as you want to be.”
“Huh? I-It’s okay...”
“Aw, don’t be so cold. Oh, I’ll teach you how to fix your yukata so that even if it gets messed up, it won’t be a problem.”
“Wh-Why?”
“You’re really gonna make me say it out loud?”
Though they were whispering, I could easily hear their conversation. But as a gentleman, I pretended not to be able to hear them and checked my phone for what might’ve been the umpteenth time today. After my phone call with Kawanami, I’d sent him a message because I was worried, but I didn’t get a reply—not even a read receipt.
There was nothing normal about the way he was acting. I couldn’t even imagine what was going on with him right now. How could he be so bent out of shape from something as simple as his friend putting moves on him?
“No response yet?” Yume asked with a worried look on her face after finally having freed herself from Madoka-san.
Because of everything yesterday, I’d told Yume about my call with Kawanami. “Yeah, nothing. He’s usually pretty quick to respond...”
“I tried reaching out to Akatsuki-san too, but she hasn’t even read my messages... She usually answers immediately.”
“So both of them are ignoring messages?” Is this a continuation of what happened yesterday?
“Maybe they’re both just out having fun?” Yume suggested.
“But they should both be at their middle school class reunion.”
“Maybe they left together.”
“Sounds like something that’d happen at a mixer.”
“How would you know? Have you been?”
“Just saying in general,” I chuckled lightly.
I used to be annoyed by her acting this way, but now I found it endearing. “But if they were just having fun together, I don’t think Kawanami would’ve sounded so backed into a corner. He didn’t seem to be enjoying the situation he was in either.”
“You mean his friend from middle school hitting on him? There are people like him who feel the same way.”
“Just saying in general,” Yume chuckled lightly.
We were able to joke like this now. “But there was something bugging me about his story,” I said, tilting my head.
Yume tilted her head slightly as well. “Like what?”
“It’s just, something doesn’t add up, but I can’t put my finger on it...”
It was the same feeling I’d had about what he told me happened yesterday morning.
I couldn’t help but feel like there was some kind of contradiction somewhere...
“If it’s bothering you that much, I’ll try looking into it too and sharing what I find. Even if they’re not talking to us, maybe they’re talking to other people. I’m in touch with more people at our school than you.”
“Just barely.”
“Still more than you.”
Either way, this was happening far away from us here in the countryside. There was nothing we could directly do from here anyway.
Kogure Kawanami: Running Away to Osaka Part 1
Minami pulled me by the hand and took me onto a train at Sanjo Station. We were taking the express train to Yodoyabashi. Because we were right in the middle of the Obon season, the train was packed when we first got on, but most of the passengers got off at the next station, Gion Shijo, which opened up a lot of seats. As the train moved, Minami watched through the window as we passed through the dark tunnel.
“How far are we going?” I asked.
“As far as we can, for now,” Minami replied, looking at me.
“So, Osaka?”
Objectively, it wasn’t extremely far away, but it felt far enough away since it was the last stop. It was the end of the line—as far as these train tracks ran, at least. It was the end of the world that we as high schoolers were allowed to explore.
“We’ve never been to Osaka together, have we?” she asked.
“We haven’t... I’ve been with other people, though.”
“Yeah, whenever there’s a concert or something happening, we usually have to go to Osaka for it. But I’ve never actually really explored it outside of field trips,” Minami said cheerfully.
The way she was acting now was different from how wild she’d been yesterday, and how reserved she’d acted earlier today. She was being almost too normal, as if she’d gone back in time...and I found myself comforted by this. Wait, really? Me? Comfortable with Akatsuki Minami of all people? This felt wrong, like gears being forced to spin against each other. But for how I felt right now, I needed to cling to this feeling of comfort to stay sane.
The train rattled along the tracks until we left the tunnel and there was an announcement saying that we’d arrived in Shichijo.
“Kawanami, we’re here.”
Suddenly, I woke up at my shoulders being gently shaken. We’d reached the last station, Yodoyabashi. We got off the train, walked past the turnstiles and made our way from there into the Osaka metro station. Its underground tunnel seemed to continue forever. Minami looked at it and the stairs that led outside before turning to me.
“Now what?” she asked.
“You’re asking me? You brought me here.”
“True enough. Hmm...” As Minami tilted her head, my stomach made a noise. “Hungry?”
“Yeah...”
After all, I’d thrown up everything I’d eaten at karaoke. I hadn’t been in any state to eat before we got on the train. I wasn’t sure if sleeping on the train had helped me feel better, but right now, I felt pretty hungry.
“Let’s go to Shinsaibashi, then. There’s a huge shopping district there, right?”
“Yeah... It’s near Dotonbori—near the Glico billboard, right?”
“Yeah, that’s it! Let’s get some takoyaki, yeah?”
Takoyaki... I suddenly remembered Makoto feeding me, and my face tightened.
“Didn’t you have any at karaoke?” I asked.
“Yeah, but this is where they come from! They’re completely different! Probably, at least...”
Her argument was very typical of Kansai natives like us. But either way, Minami took me by the hand and began leading me through the metro so that we could get on the subway and take it to Shinsaibashi.
It was a lot easier to navigate than the underground in Umeda. We carefully read the signs and were able to get from Yodoyabashi to Shinsaibashi without too much trouble. When we exited the station, we were met with a sight that really made it sink in that we weren’t in Kyoto anymore.
The buildings were huge and the roads were wide. The fancier areas of Kyoto had tall buildings too, but they had height restrictions. We also didn’t have eight-lane roads, maybe because of the kind of grid system that Kyoto had. This was enough to make me feel like I was seeing something new.
“Looks like it’s that way,” Minami said, looking at her phone and leading me.
We walked across the sidewalk, crossed a street, and finally reached a crowded shopping district, which made me feel much more at home thanks to the similarity to Kyoto’s sights. As Minami walked through the district’s arcade, she looked up.
“Y’know, I thought about this when we were in Okinawa too, but these kinds of shopping arcades have the same vibe no matter where. Even though they all have straight paths, they all feel really messy and chaotic.”
“Well, yeah, it reminds us of Teramachi Kyogoku. I’m sure people from here who go to Kyoto would think that it reminds them of Shinsaibashi.”
“True.”
As we walked with the crowd while casually glancing at the stores around us, we reached a point where if we kept walking, we’d reach the famous Dotonbori bridge, but we ended up making a right instead, making our way to a place called the American Village.
At first glance, there wasn’t anything American-looking about it. There were various stores, secondhand clothes shops, and the like. Overall, it just seemed a hangout place for the younger crowd, but not the more trendy kinds. The people here seemed more on the delinquent side.
“Oh, look at that building’s wall!” I said.
“Oh yeah, what’s that called. Gra... Gra...something.”
“Graf, uh... Graffiti?”
“Yeah, that’s it!”
“Really makes me feel like we’re in the city!”
Huge English letters had been sprayed onto the side of the building. This wasn’t something you ever really saw in Kyoto. Thanks to that, we were reacting like we’d hopped off the first train from the countryside.
There was a triangle-shaped park that was used in the American Village as a meeting spot, and around there were outdoor stalls like you’d see at a festival. There were all kinds of stalls lined up next to one another selling takoyaki, baby castella, and more. Among them there was one that was apparently famous, and it showed by the line that’d formed for it.
“Since we’re here, why not try the most famous one?”
And so we got in the back of the line. Though standing in a long line together was something that couples who’d just started dating would want to avoid no matter what, it was nothing at this point for Minami and me.
Mizuto Irido: I’m Not a Tsundere
We waited for the line to get shorter as the sun continued to sink into the horizon.
“I hear that couples who just started dating lose some feelings for each other when waiting in long lines,” I said as Yume looked at me, her face illuminated by the lantern light from the festival. “But do you think that’s because they test each other too much to see how good they are at small talk? Even among celebrities, there are some who aren’t good with it.”
“So in other words, you’re bored?”
“Yep.”
“Not even trying to be subtle, are you?”
We were lining up to get takoyaki. Though all of the food stalls seemed the same to me in terms of how interesting they were, I felt that since we were here, we might as well get in line for the takoyaki one. I looked at the price tag for these store-bought frozen takoyaki and couldn’t help but think they were way overpriced.
“Back then, I’m pretty sure I tried being considerate of you and figuring out how to keep you entertained. Sure, it was fun at first, but now that I’m used to doing that, I feel like I’m more prone to bringing up random topics.”
“‘Prone to’? You do jump from topic to topic way too much...”
“I’d like to think it shows how comfortable I am with you.”
“Well, I’d prefer if you sometimes were more careful and acted like we only just started dating.”
“True. I’m too careless sometimes.”
“‘Sometimes’?”
Worrying about whether the person you’re dating will like you or end up disliking you is a stage that we’d already passed. Yume was already much less selective with her words thanks to that. As a side note, Madoka-san and Chikuma were lined up at another stall. There shouldn’t have been any chance of our conversation being heard by them over the chatter of all those gathered here.
“But that being said, it’s not too bad having these kinds of conversations void of substance. It’s so much more fun than just scrolling on a phone.”
“Are you...complimenting me?” Yume asked. “Weren’t you the one who told me that you don’t expect me to be the type of person to keep a conversation going?”
“Well, that’s true. I have absolutely no hopes for you in that regard.”
“Seriously?”
“But I didn’t fall for you because of that.”
Hearing this, Yume frowned. “That’s unfair to say out of the blue like that.”
“If I don’t say something now, who knows how you’ll misinterpret things, and that scares me. You’re the type to overthink things.”
“I mean, I know I am, but...”
“Try to be more self-aware going forward. After all, you’re not a tsundere anymore.”
“When was I ever?!”
As we continued our pointless conversation, we finally reached the front of the line. I bought a tray of six takoyaki covered with sauce and aonori. The katsuoboshi on it danced in the heat. Yume put mayonnaise on hers.
After we got our food, we found a spot off to the side to stop and stand since eating these and walking was a little hard. Just as I was about to eat my second, Yume held one of hers out in front of me.
“Here...” Yume said, bringing it toward my mouth. “The flavors are different, you know? That’s why we should share, or something...”
“Didn’t take long to go back to your tsundere roots, huh?”
“Shut up,” Yume snapped, slightly pouting.
“Here comes the ‘dere’ part.”
But this was fine with me. I gladly accepted the mayonnaise-coated takoyaki as a token of her love.
“Hot!”
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