Weakness

After returning to Fuzuki-san’s house, I ate dinner, took a bath, and went back to my room.

From there, it was the same as always: wrestling with English. The foreign guests Fuzuki-san had mentioned were supposed to arrive tomorrow. I wanted to see just how useful my English would actually be.

Still, I figured studying alone probably wasn’t enough in the end.

There were even conversational English classes for adults these days, after all. There was a limit to what you could learn from words on a page.

In that sense, I wanted to make the next few days count.

I had also been asked to show them around as a tour guide, so dealing with the kids would have to wait in the meantime.

While I was reading an English-language newspaper with a dictionary in one hand, someone knocked at the entrance. It wasn’t coming from Yūha’s room. From the silhouette cast onto the sliding paper door, I could tell it was Kagari.

“Roku-kun, can we talk now?”

“Give me a little longer. I’ll come when I reach a good stopping point.”

“Okey-dokey. I’ll be waiting in the living room. Can Yūha-chi come too?”

“Yes. That’s fine.”

Since it was nighttime, even Kagari’s energy was somewhat subdued. If she were always like this, I felt like I might actually get along with her a little better.

Not that I wanted us to get any closer than we already were, so whatever.

I finished reading the article about politics, at least technically, then stood up.

Even being generous, I had understood maybe forty percent of it. There were far too many parts you simply couldn’t follow without some basic knowledge of what was going on over there.

I supposed I’d need that kind of knowledge too if I ever wanted to get work using English.

“There’s not enough time…”

There was a mountain of things I needed to learn, yet the amount I could make progress on in a single day was tiny. There was nothing I could do about that. I knew that, but I was still impatient.

I sighed, left the room, and headed for the living room.

Yūha and Kagari were sitting across from each other around the low table.

“And then, Riichi-san, you know…”

Kagari was enthusiastically talking about the man she loved. Maybe other girls were like that too, but Kagari was especially intense whenever she talked about romance. They weren’t even dating, yet she could gush about him forever. For me, three minutes of that high-calorie conversation would be enough to reach my limit.

Yūha was a girl too, though, so maybe she had some tolerance for it—or empathy, or whatever. She nodded along seriously, listening to everything Kagari said.

And then I walked into the middle of that. Slightly awkward.

“I’m done, so I came over. Bad timing?”

“Not at all. I wanted to ask you too, Roku-kun. Don’t you think Riichi-san’s hair makes your heart skip more when he wears it down?”

“I’ve never had my heart skip over a guy, so I wouldn’t know.”

Apparently I’d been an idiot for trying to be considerate. I sat down cross-legged in a spot that divided the space evenly between the three of us.

“Then how about me? Do you prefer my hair tied up or not?”

“Couldn’t care less.”

“You always shut your heart like that! The world is smiling at you!”

“Quit making me sound like some gloomy bastard.”

I was simply telling someone I wasn’t interested in that I wasn’t interested. There was no deeper meaning.

“Then what hairstyle do you think would look good on Yūha-chi?”

“Yūha…?”

With both of us looking at her, the girl immediately straightened her back. She pressed her lips together tightly too, looking a little nervous.

“Come to think of it, you don’t tie your hair up anymore.”

Ever since we had met again after so long, I hadn’t seen Yūha change her hairstyle. Recently, it had grown a little longer, somewhere between medium-length and long. It looked good as it was, but maybe there had been some kind of change in how she felt.

“Since we’ve got the chance, let’s play around with Yūha-chi’s hair!”

“Um, didn’t you have something you wanted to talk about…?”

“Kagari’s right. Hey, go grab every ribbon and hair clip you have.”

“Roger-roger-saurus!”

“Wait, you too, Rokurō?”

Kagari bolted out of the living room while Yūha stared at me in surprise. What was with that face? Like she had just discovered the person she thought was the sensible one was actually a weirdo too.

Admittedly, based on how I normally acted, she probably never would have expected this. But this was a good opportunity.

“I want it for future reference. Just let Kagari use you as her toy for a bit.”

“Reference for what?”

“I can’t tell you because it’d hurt my feelings.”

“That’s the flimsiest excuse ever!”

When necessary, I was perfectly willing to use flimsy tactics like this. Man, I really was the worst.

The truth was, it was partly for when I picked out a present for Yūha.

When I really thought about it, she was an adult now. I had been thinking for a while that I wanted to celebrate that much for her.

There was no reason not to use this chance to do a little advance research.

Kagari came sprinting back down the hall.

“This is everything I’ve got!”

A pile of hair clips, scrunchies, plain hair ties, and a bunch of other things landed on the table with a thud. As a guy, I couldn’t picture what half of them would look like when worn just from seeing them.

“If they’re not ones Riichi-san gave me, I can give you a few.”

“Oh, he gave you some of these? Sounds like you’ve actually got a decent chance.”

“Heh heh heh. I started pressuring him six months before Christmas.”

“You’re gonna crush whatever chance you had.”

Why couldn’t she act coy at a time like that? Keep your feelings hidden. Show some maidenly embarrassment.

“Rokurō, are you going to give me a present too?”

Yūha blinked several times and tilted her head. Crap. She figured it out.

“…………”

“Staaare. Ah, that face means I hit the mark. I know that look, Roku-kun. That’s totally the face you make when you’ve been caught.”

“Shut up, shut up. Nobody said anything like that.”

“Hehehe. You don’t have to be so embarrassed. You could just admit it.”

“That laugh is disgusting. What are you, some kind of nerd?”

“Heeheehee.”

“You’re a damn monster.”

I moved away from Kagari, who was laughing like some mountain witch, only to find Yūha sitting on the opposite side. She busily tied up her hair and showed me.

She had gathered it behind her and draped the tied section over her left shoulder. It was a stylish hairstyle that made her look like she might work at a café.

“How is it?”

“Like I said, I never actually said I was going to buy you something like that…”

“You’re not?”

Yūha’s expression instantly turned incredibly sad.

I panicked and waved both hands frantically in denial.

“No, I am. I’ll buy you something. This is seriously really helpful right now.”

“Does it suit me?”

“Yeah. It suits you. You should wear your hair like that sometimes.”

“I see. Okay, I’ll try it.”

She lowered her gaze with a shy smile and gently stroked her hair as though it were something precious. Her cheeks were faintly red. I had no idea why, but apparently she was extremely happy.

I had gotten so flustered that I said something I normally never would have. What the hell was I doing? And of course, Kagari was wearing the biggest grin imaginable.

“Ohhh, so Roku-kun is this weak when it comes to Yūha-chi. I learned something useful today.”

“If you get any more full of yourself, I’m going to feed Riichi-san a mix of truth and lies until your reputation hits rock bottom.”

“That wouldn’t work on me and Riichi-san! Don’t underestimate the red string of fate!”

“The red… string… of fate? Like hell that exists. Give the fairy-tale crap a rest. Otherwise you’re gonna turn into a psycho girlfriend before long.”

“Ahh, there it is. Another episode of ‘Look How Clever I Am.’ You get carried away so fast and start talking like you understand everything. This world is filled with beautiful dreams and love and peace, thank you very much.”

“Playing with elementary school kids turned your brain into an elementary schooler’s too, huh? No wonder talking to you is impossible.”

“Grrrgh!”

“Ggggh!”

Yūha thrust both hands between us as our argument smoothly escalated into another fight.

“Stop! Both of you, calm down!”

Pathetic as we were, we once again let someone younger than us break up the fight and settled down.

Seriously, what the hell was it about this girl that always made me want to argue with her? Were we horribly incompatible, or way too compatible? Even shōjo manga barely did this kind of thing anymore.

“Rokurō, stay quiet for a while! Misuzu-san, please get to what you wanted to talk about!”

“That’s right! That’s why we gathered here in the first place.”

“Kagari was the one who started saying weird stuff.”

“Rokurō!”

“…Yes, ma’am.”

Once she sharply scolded me, I had no choice but to shut up. Kagari burst into laughter again when she saw me like that. It pissed me off immensely, but I was an adult, so I would graciously let it go. Yes. I was an adult.

There was no need for me to lower myself to the same level as this brat.

I quietly folded my arms and stayed silent. Kagari shifted into a formal kneeling position and straightened her back.

Her expression was so serious that it was hard to believe we had been arguing only moments earlier.

“Roku-kun, Yūha-chi. Would you two like to try being on the side that makes the festival happen?”