5.1
It took just under half an hour for me to contact Sakura. How would she react to Kushida’s invitation, I wondered? She probably wouldn’t take this with equanimity. I, on the other hand, was on standby at the agreed-upon spot, waiting for Sakura to arrive.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. I answered it.
“Hello?”
“H-how’s it going? Can you see Sakura yet?” Yamauchi asked.
“Nope. I mean, she’s probably not going to show up until about ten minutes beforehand, right?”
“I-I see. Damn, I’m so nervous!”
Yamauchi waved from where he stood, some distance away. Even though he didn’t want to be seen, he’d probably gotten curious, and come closer to have a look.
“Hey, Yamauchi. Should I really hand the letter over for you? I think it would be better if you gave Sakura this yourself.”
“Th-that’s impossible, dude. Whenever I’m really nervous, my hands start to shake. I’ve carried that trauma ever since I was a little kid.”
Most people probably shook under extreme stress, though.
“I understand that you don’t want to mess up, but think about it. Does an indirect love letter really have any value?”
“You know when a cute girl asks you to meet her after school, but when you go, a completely different girl from the one you expected shows up, and it’s this plain Jane confessing to you instead? This plan is sort of the reverse. I asked Kushida not to tell Sakura that I’m the one asking her to meet. In other words, when Sakura realizes you’re waiting for her, she’ll be disappointed. But once she learns that it’s really me confessing, my chances will be a lot better when she compares us, you know? So, when you hand over the letter, don’t mention me at all. It’s better for Sakura to think you’re the one confessing,” he said.
Yamauchi didn’t seem to care that he was completely trash-talking me. I had no room to criticize his goals, but he really needed to consider Sakura’s feelings.
“Look, I just think getting a confession of love from someone you can’t see is scary,” I replied.
“Th-that’s—”
I wanted to get him to change his mind. With a confession of love, you had one shot. I figured that even Yamauchi shouldn’t do it in a way that might leave him with regrets.
“There’s still time. I think you should reconsider. That’s why you wrote this letter, right?”
“Yeah, I suppose, but… Ugh, should I confess to Sakura in person?” Finally, the proper conclusion seemed to form inside Yamauchi’s head.
“Ayanokouji-kun?” Just then, I heard the faint sound of footsteps, and a voice called out to me.
“It’s Sakura! I’m leaving the rest to you!” whispered Yamauchi. Panicked, he hung up.
Well, there probably wasn’t much else I could do at this point. All that was left was to hand over Yamauchi’s letter.
“This is a coincidence, right?” Sakura asked.
“Kushida called you here, right?”
“Y-yes. She said that she needed to talk to me about something. She said it was important,” Sakura replied meekly. She looked around, but of course, she could see no one but me.
“To tell you the truth, I asked Kushida for a favor. She called you out here for me,” I said. Strictly speaking, that wasn’t true, but I couldn’t help it if Sakura got confused.
“You, Ayanokouji-kun? I-I see. That’s a relief. I don’t normally talk to Kushida-san, so I was worried I did something to make her angry.” Sakura put her hand to her chest and sighed in relief. She no longer seemed anxious. I decided to be direct.
“Even so, you’re pretty early. It’s still about half an hour before we were supposed to meet,” I said.
“I was feeling anxious, so I came early.” Sakura still looked flustered. “But it was you, after all, Ayanokouji-kun. I’m really relieved.”
When she patted her chest, her expression became calmer.
“But why get Kushida’s help, Ayanokouji-kun? If you want something, you could just ask me directly.”
“Oh, um. About that. It’s a complicated situation.”
“A complicated situation?”
How would I explain? I knew quite enough about the biological differences between men and women through my studies, but I had no practical knowledge whatsoever of romance. Also, the issue wasn’t just our different genders. I had to factor in Sakura’s personality and feelings, too. Even in our modern, effective, intelligent society, this little dance remained a complicated mystery.
Time passed while I considered what to do. The longer I stayed silent, the more guarded Sakura would become.
“The truth is, I had Kushida call you here because I wanted to give you this.” I offered her Yamauchi’s letter.
“What’s this?”
“If you read the contents, you’ll understand well enough,” I said.
“O-okay.”
Feeling something akin to guilt, I averted my eyes. Sakura looked back and forth between me and the letter, as if trying to grasp the situation.
“A l-letter…behind the school… A boy…” she whispered. Whoa! She thought that I was confessing my love. This was bad.
“Someone who wants to stay anonymous asked me to give you this. He said that, if you read it, you’d understand. He has bad handwriting, but he really poured his heart and soul into this letter,” I said.
“Ah, ahhh. Th-this is… Oh my. Oh my. Ahhh!”
Sakura’s composure was gone. She stared into space as if looking into the future. I was apprehensive about her reaction if she opened the envelope and read the letter, so I decided it was best that I skedaddled.
“Okay, well. I’ve handed the letter over. All that’s left is for you to decide how to respond. You can text or call me if answering directly is too hard,” I said.
This being Sakura, she might have trouble saying yes or no. I should help her if I could.
“I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I—!” she stammered. “I-I just, well…I can’t! I mean, th-this is a l-love—”
“Yeah, a love letter.”
“Eek!”
“Whoa!” I rushed to support Sakura as she came dangerously close to toppling over. “Are you all right?”
I could tell she was too warm just by touching her back. This must’ve been really unexpected for her. She was probably trying to figure out who sent the letter.
“Um, um, um!”
Sakura’s eyes shot open. She stiffened and stood up straight. Once I was sure she was steady, I let go of her.
“What about…Horikita-san?! Do you think she’ll be angry?!”
“Huh? Horikita?”
Why should Horikita get angry? If she saw me deliver a letter in Yamauchi’s place, she’d probably just sigh in exasperation, and say something like, “Oh my, how difficult it must be for you not to get involved in something idiotic.” It certainly wouldn’t make her angry.
Did Sakura still think I was confessing? I had made sure to say that I was only the messenger.
“Umm.. Ahh…” Sakura’s face continued to redden. She looked as though she might pass out. I couldn’t imagine that the letter was the only thing making her react that way.
If she did still think I wrote the letter, I understood why she’d brought up Horikita.
“Sakura. Just to repeat myself, this letter is from another guy. Do you understand?”
Sakura’s shoulders trembled.
“Eh? I-It’s not from you, Ayanokouji-kun?” she stammered.
“I already told you that I’m the messenger, didn’t I?”
“I-I see. Of course that’s what… B-b-b-but, what do I do with this letter?!” she cried.
“Just read it and answer.”
I tried to walk away, but Sakura grabbed my sleeve. “But I can’t…I can’t do it! I can’t…”
“Has no one ever confessed their feelings to you before?”
“Never!” Sakura replied instantly.
HHuh. I would’ve thought she’d been confessed to countless times, given how cute she was. Then again, that was how she was now. It might not always have been that way.
“This letter… Will you read it with me? Together?”
Together? Well, Yamauchi had actually written the thing with my help. However, if Sakura didn’t have the courage to read the letter alone, I couldn’t really help her. Yamauchi probably wouldn’t like that.
“Can you try to read it by yourself? As the messenger, it’s my job to ask you that. I hope you understand.”
“Okay…”
Sakura didn’t seem even slightly happy about that.
“Maybe the letter’s from someone you like,” I said.
“That’s not possible now,” she said sadly.
“Huh?”
“Ah, no! That’s just, well, that’s because I don’t like anyone! I mean, I-I’ll try reading it!” she stammered.
Sakura hung her head, looking a little depressed as she turned and headed back to the dorms. She would probably read Yamauchi’s letter in her room.
Yamauchi rushed over as soon as Sakura had safely left the area. “H-how’d it go?! How’d she react?! Did she look happy?!” he asked nervously. I understood his sense of urgency, but really, it indicated that he should have been the one to deliver the letter.
“She hasn’t read it yet. We’ll just wait for judgment,” I replied.
“D-don’t use a scary word like ‘judgment’! I believe it’ll absolutely be fine!” Yamauchi responded, frantic.
“Out of curiosity, what’s your basis for that belief?”
“How she acts when she talks to me, I guess,” he answered sheepishly.
“How she acts?”
“You know, how she looks away, all embarrassed. She can’t look me in the face because she’s really aware of me, don’t you think?”
Actually, I thought that was probably because Sakura lacked people skills.
“That’s not all. Whenever she talks to me, she always kind of sighs heavily afterward. Isn’t that a sigh of love? You know, when you think about the person you like, and then you sigh, like ‘Ahh!’ It’s like a sign, dude,” said Yamauchi.
Sakura probably sighed from exhaustion after dealing with someone as high-energy as Yamauchi. People were naturally oblivious to reality and logic when it came to the girls they liked, though.
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