That Much Of A Luxury

After finishing my evening newspaper deliveries, I was on my way home. I took a slight detour and stopped by a cake shop.

It was a chain store located on the supermarket grounds, marked by its mascot girl with the oversized head. When it came to cake, this had always been the place.

Normally, I would never buy cake, but… just for today, it should be fine.

I looked through the display case, wondering which one to get. For the classics, there was strawberry shortcake, cheesecake, or maybe Mont Blanc. The matcha and sweet red bean cake looked pretty good too.

Honestly, I’d be fine with any of them, but which one would Yūha like?

I was buying two, so as long as one of them was a hit, that should be enough… What should I do?

I remembered Yūha’s preferences for the most part. But when it came to sweets, that was a different story.

Like most girls in the world, Yūha had a sweet tooth, and her range was absurdly broad: “If it’s sweet, I’ll probably like it.”

Basically, no matter which cake I picked from here, she’d be happy.

Which was exactly what made this difficult.

I’d heard that “Anything is fine” was the answer people hated most, and now I knew that was absolutely true.

Sorry, Yūha. For saying things like, “Anything’s fine,” when you asked what I wanted for dinner tonight. I genuinely regret it.

Seriously, though… what am I supposed to do here?

“Oh, Rokurō. What are you doing?”

“Ugh.”

“What’s with the ‘ugh’?”

The one who called out to me from behind was Yūha, on her way home from school. She wore a cool-looking short-sleeved summer shirt, a light skirt, and a wine-red ribbon. Her school bag hung from her shoulder, and she carried a bulging plastic shopping bag in one hand.

Apparently displeased with my reaction, she puffed out her cheeks and smacked me with the shopping bag.

Come to think of it, she’d said she was going shopping before coming home. This was the nearest supermarket, so running into her wasn’t all that strange.

“Are you buying cake?”

“There’s a high probability that I am.”

“What’s with that way of putting it?”

“The probability that I won’t buy any is infinitesimally close to zero.”

“You sound gross.”

“Hey! A girl your age shouldn’t casually call people ‘gross.’ Human life is fragile, you know.”

“What?”

Yūha pursed her lips, clearly having no idea what I was talking about.

“The person hurting someone is always the one who doesn’t realize they’re doing it.”

“That’s way too heavy. How did we get here from talking about cake?”

Her comment reminded me. Right, I’d been choosing a cake.

“That’s right, cake. Which one do you want, Yūha?”

“Umm… yeah. Anything’s fine.”

“Anything but that…”

I clutched my head at the nightmarish answer. This was an infinite loop. I hadn’t made a single bit of progress since I was thinking about it alone. Did the wisdom of three people really require all three before it kicked in?

Yūha watched me with amusement as I groaned and pressed between my eyebrows. Was this girl a demon, or was she my stepsister? Either way, one thing was certain: she had a rotten personality.

“Hehe. Then how about this? Rokurō picks my cake, and I’ll pick Rokurō’s. How’s that? Sounds fun, right?”

“Pain in the ass, pain in the ass, pain in the ass.”

“That’s why you’re not popular!”

“Hey, you can’t just say that!”

“When a girl goes out of her way to suggest something fun, your only choices are ‘Yes,’ ‘YES,’ or ‘Gladly!’”

“You’re insane.”

“Don’t call me insane!”

Yūha-san shook the shopping bag up and down, positively fuming. And this girl was eighteen years old. Was she really an adult?

“Haah… Fine. Let’s do that.”

“I guarantee it’ll be fun.”

“Really?”

From my perspective, the situation hadn’t changed by even a millimeter.

With the strangely confident Yūha now joining in, we turned back toward the display case.

Yūha stared seriously at the cakes. …And I tried to glean some information from where she was looking.

“Ah, Rokurō, you’re trying to cheat, aren’t you?”

“You caught me.”

She noticed in seconds. Weren’t you supposed to be concentrating on the cakes?

“Turn around.”

“What is this? What are we even doing?”

“It’s fun, right?”

“Not really.”

“It is fun.”

Yūha steamrolled right over me.

Defeated by strength worthy of a yokozuna, I turned around. In my head, I started considering which one to buy all over again.

Behind me, Yūha talked with the clerk. I’d planned on paying for hers, but apparently she’d gone ahead and bought it herself. Had that been her goal from the beginning?

No, I was probably overthinking it.

“Okay, your turn, Rokurō. I’ll wait outside.”

“Your bag. It’ll be dangerous if both your hands are full.”

I held out my left hand, telling her to give me one of them.

“It’s light anyway, though,”

Yūha said, but she happily handed me the plastic shopping bag. Just as she’d said, apparently she hadn’t bought much.

Yūha turned away and headed for the exit.

Feeling a little bad for the clerk, who had been looking puzzled the entire time, I pointed at the cake I’d finally decided on.

Just outside the automatic doors, Yūha was waiting with her bicycle ready.

“Did you decide?”

“Indeed. Let’s go home.”

I nodded slowly, and we started walking side by side.

The town was dyed orange by the sunset. Two long shadows stretched out before us. We walked through a scene that felt like something I’d seen once before, except now we were both just a little more grown up.

“What cake did you buy, Rokurō?”

“—”

“Wait! Let’s reveal them together, on three.”

“Such a—”

“Don’t say it’s a pain!”

“Ted—”

“And ‘tedious’ is banned too!”

“We’ve got a mind-reading master over here.”

Yūha rejected every one of my objections before I could even finish them. Having them shut down this perfectly was almost refreshing.

Normally, I wouldn’t indulge in such a childish game, but I supposed I had no choice but to play along. N-Not that I was enjoying myself or anything.

“Ready?”

“Yeah.”

“One, two!”

““Strawberry shortcake.””

Somehow, I had a feeling that would happen. Yūha must have expected it too, because she smiled contentedly and held out the box in her hand toward me.

“Here, Rokurō. Your cake.”

“Nothing changes if we swap them.”

“It does. This kind of thing is about the feeling behind it.”

“Is that how it works?”

Tilting my head, I exchanged boxes with her even though the contents were identical. Well, as long as Yūha was satisfied, I supposed it was fine.

After we’d walked for a while, Yūha suddenly asked me something.

“By the way, why did you decide to buy cake?”

“We’ve got to start working hard from today, right? Both me and you. So… I thought it’d be a way to get us fired up.”

“I see. Yeah, you’re right.”

Yūha nodded as though satisfied with the answer and looked straight at me.

“Let’s do our best, Rokurō.”

“Yeah.”

Maybe we’d buy cake every now and then, just like this.

Someday, I hoped the two of us could try every single cake that shop sold.

That was the kind of luxury I decided we should aim for.