My Childhood Friend And Maiden's Heart

According to my childhood friend, “You know that saying, ‘a maiden’s heart and the autumn sky’? But the girls around me — put kindly, they’re devoted; put unkindly, they’re stubborn — I feel like a whole lot of ’em are that type, huh.”

…or so she says. Shouldn’t that be “a woman’s heart,” not “a maiden’s”? Whether she’s genuinely got it wrong, or whether that’s just how they say it in her past life… the trouble with this girl is you can never tell which.

And beyond that, mistake aside, from her point of view, just who was she talking about? That’s got me a little curious too.

Anyway. As for that childhood friend of mine, the very picture of stubbornness (whether she’s “devoted,” I couldn’t say), one Sakura Ayuri, and what she’d gotten up to this time…

“Good morning!”
“Morning. You’re chipper for this early.”

Ayu was already out front, and I stepped out the door for school straight into that big cheery voice of hers. Lately it had been Ayu waiting on me more often than not, which was a bit of a surprise.

“I’ve been super energetic lately, y’know — I just pop right awake early in the morning!”
“For all that, you look ready to nod off during afternoon classes, though.”
“That’s ‘cause I run out of energy. Can’t be helped.”
“What are you, a baby?”

These days had turned cool enough that we’d started slipping our arms into our uniform blazers. Our days were as peaceful and uneventful as ever, but lately Ayu had taken to being full of beans in the morning and drowsy come afternoon.

“Uh… y’know, it’s that — the weather’s gotten nicer to sleep in lately, right? So I’ve been sleeping like a log at night, and I guess that’s part of why I wake up early…”
“What are you, an old-timer?”
“Soul-wise I’d be a grandpa… no, a grandma? …Either way, even going by the soul alone, I’m not that far over the hill. Probably.”

A baby one minute, a geezer the next. Busy as ever, this one.

“~♫”
“…”

Now then, speaking of Ayu’s recent changes, besides this mysterious early rising, there was one more. And that was…

…something smells nice… I think.

This right here. Putting it like this makes me sound like some kind of creep, which I hate, but… right around when Ayu started acting this peppy in the mornings… I’d started catching a faint, pleasant whiff of something, just for an instant. …I think. If it were just a nice smell, I could write it off as her having discovered perfume and leave it at that, but…

‘…Ayu, are you wearing perfume or something?’
‘Huh? I’m not, though. Why?’
‘Then I guess it’s just my imagination…’

When I’d first asked, she’d flatly denied it. From her manner at the time she didn’t seem to be lying, and besides, the smell was all but gone by the time we reached school, so it really didn’t seem to be perfume or anything like that.

But it happens pretty often, though…

Still… it wasn’t every day, sure, but when she was giving off some scent this frequently, I couldn’t help getting curious. Not that it was a bad smell or anything.

I feel like I’ve caught it somewhere before, too… when was it?

And there was a faint nostalgia to it, besides… a smell right on the tip of my memory, teasing the very edge of recall but never quite surfacing, which only made me more curious.

Say, during class.

I could figure it out right now if I just looked it up on my phone… but pulling out my phone in class is a no-go… but I really wanna know…!

It was maybe close to that feeling.

Just ask and it’s solved in an instant, but asking felt like a loss somehow, so I had no choice but to remember it myself, except it was right there and I couldn’t quite grab it, so it was driving me nuts… yeah, that was me right now.

Hmm…

“Gin? Something up?”
“Hm? Nah, it’s nothing major, but…”
“Morning, you two!”
“Oh, morning, Hotaru!”
“…Good morning.”

…Come to think of it, I felt like we’d been walking to school with Hotaru more often lately. There used to be plenty of days she wasn’t around, yet these days she was there almost every morning. And on top of that, if anyone would be even quicker than me to notice a change in Ayu, it’d be this senior, so the fact that she hadn’t so much as remarked on it struck me as pretty odd.

“Hotaru, there’s something I wanted to ask.”
“Hmm? What is it, Ginko?”
“Ooh? What’s up, Gin?”
“Ayu, go wait over there a sec.”
“Eh…? O-okay…”

…Maybe I’d put that a little harshly. Well, I could smooth it over later. Once I’d made sure Ayu had stepped away, I lowered my voice like I was sharing a secret and put the question to Hotaru.

“What is it, what is it? Are you asking me for Ayu’s hand? Even coming from you, Ginko, I don’t think I can grant that one~”
“As if that’s what this is… I mean, it is about Ayu, sure, but…”
“Hmm~… what kind of talk, then?”
“It’s about Ayu lately… hasn’t she changed somehow?”
“Hmm~…”

The senior hesitated at my question. …Now that I’d asked, though: sure, it was hard to ask Ayu directly, but was sniffing around like this really the way to go about it? Besides, my reason for finding it hard to ask wasn’t even that big a deal.

“Why not just ask her yourself? You’re probably the one best placed to ask, Ginko~”

And what made her so sure of a thing like that, anyway? Sometimes it’s precisely because you know a lot that a thing gets hard to ask.

“How do I put it… look, when a quiz has a question that’s right on the tip of your tongue, you want to keep working it out on your own until the answer clicks, right? So I just wanted a hint — the tiniest little nudge.”
“Me, I get any normal quiz right away, so I hardly ever have that — can’t really relate~”
“…”
“Kidding, kidding. Hmm~… a change in Ayu, huh… I’m pretty sure it’s that thing, but…”
“Huh?”

From the way she said it, did she actually know? When I didn’t…? No. Sure, I might be the only person alive who knew Ayu’s secret, but that didn’t mean I got told every last thing.

“…Well, it’s not like it’s some big secret, so if a hint’s all you want, I can manage that much.”
“Oh — yes, please.”
“The hint is… if I had to put it in a word, Ayu’s maiden’s heart… I’d say~!”

Having said that much, the senior let out a little “Kyaa!” and worked herself into a lather all on her own. I was left in the dust.

A maiden’s heart… huh.

Ayu claimed she’d made her peace with being a girl, but from the outside it honestly felt more like she was just a hopeless jumble, male and female mashed together past all telling apart. Being told a person like that had a “maiden’s heart” didn’t quite land for me… though I supposed if someone argued a maiden’s heart has nothing to do with gender, well, that’d be that.

◆◆◆

“Hey, Hina…”
“…Whoa-oa~… what’s up~, Gin?”

In the end, afternoon PE had rolled around. I’d spent it idly turning the mystery smell over in my head, but I still had no answer. Getting nowhere, I decided to try sounding out Hina too, who was currently rocking away on top of a balance ball.

“A maiden’s heart… what even is that, you think?”
“Where’d that come from all of a sudden~?”

Incidentally, the Ayu in question was off playing table tennis with Sumire. Sumire had apparently been taught table tennis by a friend back in middle school, so every time ball sports came up, Ayu would get thoroughly trounced by her while learning the ropes.

“Well~… if you’re coming to me about it like this~… it’s probably something to do with Ayu, I’d bet~”
“It’s not necessarily…”
“Is that so~? Whenever you’ve come to me for advice before, Gin, if it wasn’t about schoolwork it was pretty much always about Ayu, y’know~”
“…Was it, now?”

…Well, thinking it over calmly, it was true that going way back, whenever I’d had something to talk over, I’d mostly asked Ayu or Hotaru. It wasn’t that those two were special, exactly; more that I’d settled early on that stewing over it alone gets you nowhere, and just asked the two who lived close by… and even that had dwindled year by year.

“Well… it is about Ayu — hasn’t she changed lately, somehow?”
“Ayu, lately?”
“How do I say it… for someone so peppy in the mornings, she’s been nodding off more later on… and she suddenly started a part-time job…”
“Maybe she’s been staying up late~? Our Ayu’s growing up too, huh~”
“Well… yeah, that’s the natural read, I guess.”

From the outside, sure, that’s how it’d look. From where I stood, having heard that on the inside she was long since an adult, I couldn’t help thinking there was no growing-up left for her to do, mentally speaking.

“And so~?”
“And so what?”
“I’m just wondering~ how a question like that leads to a word like ‘maiden’s heart’~”
“This morning I asked Senior Hotaru something similar, and that’s the hint she gave me.”
“Ahh~… then it’s probably that thing~”
“Huh?”

What was with that reaction? First the senior, now Hina too, both of them acting like they knew something.

“Do you know, Hina?”
“I dunno if it matches the exact thing you’re wondering about… but it’s probably connected to what I know, yeah~… wanna hear it?”
“…Nah, I’m good.”
“Right~? If you were just gonna ask, you’d have asked the senior back when you had the chance.”

…Put that way, it kind of made me sound like I was unconsciously ranking my friends, which felt a little off. Maybe from now on I ought to be more like Ayu, and just chatter about any dumb little thing, whatever it was.

“‘Course, this is all if my guess is right~ — and if it is, it’s not like Ayu’s keeping it secret, so I think you could just ask her straight…”
“Nah… the whole point is that it’s right there and I can’t get it… and when I’m this close to the answer, I kinda wanna crack it myself…”

Though even I had to admit: after begging hints off two separate people this far, who was I to talk?

◆◆◆

“~♪”
“…Ayu, pardon me a sec.”
“Huh, what is it, Gi— whoa-whoa-whoa?! What’s this all of a sudden?!”

The morning smell’s gone, obviously…

After school, our usual time, just the two of us. Today was a work day for me, so I had to hurry home first. It’d be a disaster if some weird little puzzle wrecked my focus and I botched something at work. So, on the off chance it’d be my last clue, I went right ahead and took a direct sniff of Ayu.

“Wha?!? What?! Seriously, what?!”

She got away…

Guess I’d been too abrupt; she just plain bolted, and I only got a split-second whiff. I thought maybe I should’ve said something first, but picturing myself telling Ayu, ‘Let me get a whiff of you,’ I talked myself into believing I’d been right not to.

All I got was deodorant… well, we had PE today, so no surprise there.

…Honestly, thinking about it soberly, wasn’t I being kind of unhinged today? Sniffing around after my childhood friend in both senses of the word, I had to look from the outside like nothing but a creep who’d suddenly developed a scent fetish.

“…”
“…A-are you… okay…?”
“…What do you mean?”
“I mean, like… in the head, maybe?”

Ha ha ha, why you little… no, this once I couldn’t really deny it; from Ayu’s side, it could only have looked like sheer lunacy. And sure, she’d said it in a joking sort of way, but those eyes were the eyes of someone genuinely worried.

“There’s no weird intent behind it… I just figured maybe you’d switched deodorants, and got a whiff wondering what the scent was, that’s all…”
“Couldn’t you just… ask, normally…?”
“’Cause I felt like I could just barely figure it out without asking…”
“O-oh… okay…”

Even I knew it was a flimsy excuse. Way too flimsy. Ayu didn’t seem to quite buy it either; she was still keeping a bit more distance than before I’d sniffed her.

“You’re curious about it?”
“A little, I guess?”
“Why the question mark? …Well, whatever. I’ll snap a photo and send it to you later.”
“Thanks.”

…Well, if I’d managed to smooth it over, good enough, though I got the feeling she was still just a touch on guard. With that faintly widened gap still lingering, the two of us walked the road home. A slightly awkward air seemed to hang between us, and as the one who’d caused it I supposed I ought to be the one to clear it… but I felt like any clumsy word would only deepen the creep suspicion, so I couldn’t say a thing.

“Still, you gave me such a fright! You come up close outta nowhere, and just as I’m wondering what’s up, you start sniffing me — I thought maybe I smelled weird right now… I don’t, right?”
“Nope. You smelled like deodorant.”
“Oh, thank goodness… honestly, please, cut it out — of all times, right after PE… no wait, if it’s the deodorant you’re curious about, then you wouldn’t sniff on days without PE… but then again…”
“…Sorry, I guess.”

Ayu had launched into muttering to herself.

Yeah, fair enough. A scent she’d put on deliberately, like perfume, would be one thing, but getting abruptly sniffed right after PE? Anyone would hate that. Even if it was Ayu, a reincarnator who used to be a man, sure, but a girl now all the same. That had been way too careless of me, no two ways about it… and just as I thought it, the question I’d been chewing on all this while began, quietly, to unravel, like mist clearing.

…PE… deodorant… a maiden’s heart… could it be…

“G-Giiin?”
“Ahh… Ayu, hey — could it be that lately you’ve been…”

This ought to put my question to rest. And on top of that, I was a little curious why she’d started doing such a thing in the first place… so I figured I’d play along a while myself.

Whether my guess was actually right, the answer was all but clear to me right there and then… but the confirmation would have to wait for the morning after next.