TIPS: The True Nature Behind The Smile

There was a mysterious girl in my class.

She was incredibly smart. She always scored a perfect 100 on tests. I clearly remembered how she was always having some kind of intelligent conversation with adults and receiving awards in all sorts of fields. During the award ceremonies at school assemblies, her name was always being called, and as a child, I found myself jealous of her.

She was also very mature for her age. She rarely joined the rest of the class, instead reading thick, difficult-looking books alone or drawing pictures. Come to think of it, I think the only time I ever played with her was during one of the class recreation events.

I, Shirataka Gatari, have been fortunate since I was little. My parents ran a massive corporation influential enough to move Japan’s financial world, and I myself received all sorts of education. What people call an elite upbringing, I suppose. Etiquette, of course, but also horseback riding and violin—education that made me sound like some spoiled rich kid straight out of an anime.

By the time I reached fourth grade, I had already pulled ahead of the other children my age in many different areas. Saying that probably sounded obnoxious, but truthfully, there was no classmate who could really compete with me. Even so, I never wanted to look down on them over something so trivial, and playing the video games they owned or kicking a soccer ball around the schoolyard was genuinely fun…. Yet somewhere inside, I felt as though I alone did not truly belong to their age group, and that made me a little lonely.

When the classes were reshuffled and I entered my fifth-grade classroom, I met an incredibly, incredibly cute girl. I remembered that she had already been famous and popular for being cute. But that was all. We had been in different classes, so I had barely interacted with her. Aside from her appearance, I thought of her as an ordinary girl you could find anywhere. But after being placed together in Class 5, I was forced to revise that impression.

A cool girl who excelled both academically and physically, possessing both talent and beauty. Those titles sounded utterly inappropriate for an elementary school girl, yet somehow they suited her perfectly. Studying, drawing, calligraphy, athletics…. What impressed me most was kendo. There was not the slightest flaw in the path of her sword. Like a machine, she swung her bamboo sword with a blank, emotionless expression and swept aside her opponents. To my fifth-grade self, she looked incredibly beautiful.

At the same time, her somewhat cold nature stood out. As expected, she spoke to no one, and even when someone approached her, she would simply say, “I see….” and end the conversation there. Her former classmates from fourth grade received the same response. Acting as though she had no interest whatsoever in children her own age, she quickly became isolated.

I later heard from the classmates who had known her through fourth grade that her personality had apparently changed completely shortly before she entered fifth grade. Her classmates became afraid of her, and eventually even the teachers began finding her unsettling.

Even so, I could never stop thinking about her. One day in fifth grade, I spoke to her while she was basking in the sun.

“○○-san. What are you doing? Lunch break is almost over.”

She slowly looked toward me with vacant eyes. She was beautiful. There was something unmistakably fragile about her, as though she did not belong in this world and might disappear if I touched her—something impossible to properly describe. My heart skipped a beat, but I stared back at her while trying not to let her notice. Yet the words she spoke the next moment were more than enough to leave me stunned.

“We’re the same.”

“Huh?”

“The same as me. You look incredibly lonely.”

I was speechless. I had spent so long hiding it, living behind a smile so no one would notice…. None of my friends had ever realized it. Yet this girl…?

“Do you find people your own age boring? No, perhaps that’s not quite it. That feeling isn’t directed at others, but at yourself instead. You hate yourself for feeling lonely like that. Because you’re a good person, you hate the fact that you ended up just a little different from everyone else your age…. I see. Being a rich young master sounds troublesome.”

She had completely seen through my true nature. She said it in a chilling voice and manner of speech that were nothing like a child’s. She delivered it so smoothly that it almost sounded as though she were softly singing.

“H-how did you…?”

“Hmm, if I had to explain it, I suppose I’d say there are always people better at fake smiles. Completely preventing an emotion like loneliness from showing on your face is difficult, after all. In my case… well, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that emotion is dead.”

I didn’t understand. What was she talking about? While I was still wondering that, she slowly stood and spoke.

“Lunch break is almost over. Shall we go, Gatari-kun?”

Once she stood and our eyes were level, I noticed it. Her eyes were so beautiful that I felt as though I might be pulled into them if I stared too deeply. Yet there was no light within them.

After that, I began talking to her a little more often. Though only a little. She remained isolated, and our classmates continued to fear her. Even so, she continued excelling in all sorts of fields. So I worked even harder myself, refusing to lose to her.

It was probably during the winter of sixth grade, as graduation approached. One day, an incident occurred.

I didn’t know whether the girl had simply been irritated by her attitude or whether it was because they were rivals applying to the same famous private middle school, but one of the girls in our class began confronting her. That girl stood at the center of the girls in our class, and many of them sided with her.

“Hey, ○○-san. I’ve always hated those eyes of yours, like you don’t care about anything. Are you even listening to me?”

“…I see.”

“___! You—!”

Realizing that she was being ignored, the girl flew into a rage and grabbed her. Perhaps they had long resented how she never paid any attention to them, because the other girls around them—and eventually even the boys—began criticizing her as well. As for her, she simply continued staring expressionlessly out the window as always.

In the end, the teacher arrived and quickly resolved the incident, but it permanently destroyed whatever relationship had remained between her and our classmates. Even so, I liked that vaguely inhuman quality about her, and I respected her.

That was why I was so shocked when we entered middle school. The change in her was simply too extreme.

“Ah! Gatari-kun! Come to think of it, you’re the only person from my old class who came to the same school as me!! Thank goodness, there’s someone I know!”

WRONG…. Who the hell was this?

I felt as though my mind had gone completely blank. The girl standing before me, smiling in the cute blazer of our private middle school, was unquestionably that same ○○-san—the ○○-san rumored to have won a scholarship to attend this school… right?

“Hey!! ○○-san! Who’s that handsome guy!?”

“Ehehe, um! He’s Shirataka from my elementary school….”

What was this…? She was like a completely different person. Was she really ○○-san? No, her face was the same. She had become even cuter now that she was in middle school, which certainly made my heart waver, but a completely different emotion had taken control of me.

Suddenly, I remembered speaking to her on that day—the day of the incident. At the same place where she had once sat basking in the sun, she had spoken with a faintly sorrowful expression.

“I guess my way of doing things really wasn’t very good. I thought I was handling it fairly well myself. Hey, Gatari-kun. What do I look like to you?”

For some reason, I couldn’t remember what I had answered back then. But I probably had not reached the correct answer. If I were to return the words she had once spoken to me, then this was what I would say to her now—to the girl smiling with that strange, unnatural smile.

“There are always people better at fake smiles. But you’re still not very good at them. At least from what I can see, your loneliness is showing.”

The sunset dyed the middle school building orange. Even though the two of us were alone in the classroom, it seemed I still felt an intense sense of awe toward her. The smile she had kept plastered across her face suddenly vanished. In that instant, I fell under the illusion that I was standing before something so terrifying it sent a chill down my spine.

“I see. Huh. I see.”

The eyes with which she looked at me then—no, the eyes of Kushibiki Konoha—were horrifyingly cold.

I knew. She was kind, hardworking, and deeply cared for her friends, but at the same time—

“Selfish, calculating, and ruthless, maybe? Ah, but keep that between us, okay? Surprisingly enough, I actually like my current situation quite a bit. So….”

And I knew something else.

“Let’s continue getting along from now on, okay? Gatari-kun.”

She was also someone capable of smiling like that.