My Childhood Friend And The Love Letter (Part 2)

“This is Violet. No movement from the target. Over?”
“This is Peaaach~. Nothing’s changed on my end either~. Oo~ver~?”
“…”
“Silver, no response. Did something happen? Over?”
“I mean — we’re all watching the same thing from the same spot. Is there even any point in reporting in?”

It was after school, the day after all the fuss over the mystery envelope, and the three of us (me, Hina, and Sumire) were keeping watch from a distance on Ayu, who stood just outside the entrance hall, waiting for whoever had sent it.

“By the way, in anime and stuff they tack ‘over?’ onto the end when they talk over a radio — what’s that even about?”
“A radio’s not like a phone~ — it splits into the side that sends and the side that can only listen~. So when you’re done sending, apparently ‘over’ means ‘okay, your turn to talk now’~.”
“Aren’t you well-informed, Hina.”
“It was on Chiebukuro~.”

However she got there, honestly, the impressive part is that she thought to look it up at all.

Now then. Why exactly are the three of us doing this? For that, we have to go back to yesterday’s lunch break.

◇◇◇

“…Mm—?”
“What’s up?”
“I dunno… how do I put it… you guys have a look too.”
“Oh, so it’s something we’re allowed to see~? Let’s see, let’s see~.”

The text written on it went like this.

Dear Miss Sakura Ayuri,

How do you do.

You may well be startled to receive a letter out of the blue. There is something I simply must tell you, and something I wish to give you as well, and so I have taken up my pen.

When I heard you sing at the culture festival, my heart trembled. The path that led you to sing, the emotion poured into your voice, and, though you dislike singing in front of others, the courage and the very sight of you singing your heart out so proudly: all of it is everything I aspire to.

By rights I ought to come and speak with you in person, but I am hopelessly shy, and I cannot bring myself to stand before you, who have so many friends. Nor do I have the courage to pour out all that I feel in front of those friends of yours.

And so, on any one day within the coming week, whichever day happens to be convenient for you, I would be enormously grateful if you would wait for me after school, in front of the entrance hall.

I know this is a rude and abrupt request, but I sincerely beg your kindness. If you find it unsettling, please throw this letter away and forget the whole thing. Sincerely.

…What even is this?

“…”
“…”
“…What do you think?”
“What do I even…”
“I’ll toss it~.”
“Wait — hold on?!”
“You’re quick to decide, Hina…”

Ayu caught Hina by the arm as she headed for the trash can, letter in hand. Honestly, I was maybe seventy percent in favor of just chucking it too; even the sender says as much.

“I really do think it’s fine to toss~. Even the person who wrote it says you can throw it out~.”
“Right.”
“If anything, Ayu — did none of this even faze you~?”
“Well… if I choose my words carefully… it’s more of a ‘who IS this person’ kind of feeling.”
“You’re choosing them, all right~.”
“…Is it really that bad? I-I have my doubts too, but…”

Even I think we can just toss it, honestly, but Sumire’s clearly put off by our reactions. Well, a love letter isn’t exactly a realistic thing these days; if it’s the first one you’ve ever seen in the flesh, I get why you’d imagine some nice bittersweet romance around it.

“Okay, so — to make it clear for Sumire — let’s each lay out what we thought about this love letter, going off Hina’s experience with them. Me first…”
“Mm-hm.”
“It acts all considerate about the day and time, but the reason it’s calling her out is one-hundred-percent self-serving from top to bottom — that’s rough.”
“It won’t write a single word about what it actually wants to say, and yet it wants to pour its heart out in person? Trying to squeeze out a little sincerity like that rubs me the wrong way.”
“Knowing full well it comes off as creepy, and still not writing one thing about who they even are — that’s just out of the question~.”
“Man, you’ve beaten it black and blue…”

I mean, it IS rough.

It’s not something I’d ever say in front of Ayu, who knows her past life was a man, but this is just way too spineless, honestly. Even if the sender were a girl, as a love letter I’d still call it pretty questionable.

“Well, if I had to find something~… the handwriting’s really neat, and the stationery’s the kind of design Ayu would like — those get a thumbs-up~.”
“Oh, true, the writing might be pretty.”

They must have really put their all into it; the characters were shaky here and there, but on the whole it was written in a clean hand. Still, as long as the contents don’t clear the bare minimum for a love letter, that’s a separate matter entirely.

“So we can toss it, right~?”
“Mmm, but still…”
“Ayu?”

Just when I thought it was a unanimous trip to the trash can, for some reason Ayu was dragging her feet. What reason is there to hesitate over this?

“I mean, come on — the stationery’s got this seasonal, stylish feel to it… and the writing’s a little shaky but it’s neat… and, like, I thought this back when Hina got hers too, but a love letter in this day and age is kind of interesting…”
“If you go walking straight into some weirdo because it’s ‘interesting,’ there’s no helping you.”
“And besides — this person writes that they’ve got no courage, but they made it a letter, right? They’d have thought about the chance it gets passed around before it ever reaches you, and even so… I feel like, in their own way, this person worked up their courage.”
“Working hard or screwing up your courage doesn’t make committing a crime okay, though? Ayu.”
“You’re taking it that far…?”
“Oh come on~, it’s just a figure of speech~.”

For a figure of speech, her eyes didn’t look like they were quite laughing, though.

Hina, clearly out to toss it; me, leaning toward tossing; Ayu, put off but not quite at the toss-it point; and Sumire, probably leaning toward keeping it. At a glance it looks like a nice two-against-two split, but since the recipient, Ayu, leans toward not tossing, our odds of winning are slim.

But still… as the childhood-friend faction, I don’t want to let her go meet some weird guy. Though, given what’s inside her, I couldn’t entirely deny that Ayu herself has a bit of a weird-guy side.

“Okay, here’s what we’ll do! Let’s have Hotaru take a look first and hear what she thinks!”
“Right now?”
“Nope — I’m seeing her at work today, so then!”
“If you’ve got work, then either way there’s no meeting this person today~.”

◇◇◇

“Honestly, I didn’t think Senior Hotaru would agree to it just like that…”
“I was surprised too~. At first I thought Ayu was just making it up, so I went and asked her about it~.”
“And what’d she say?”
“‘Of course I said it’s fine for her to meet them. Why don’t you trust Ayu a little more?’… is what she said~…”
“She really doesn’t hold back either, that senior…”

It’s less that she doesn’t trust Ayu and more that the senior’s own everyday conduct is the problem, if you ask me. Come to think of it, Hina and the senior both like Ayu the same way, I suppose, but their stances are pretty different, I sometimes think.

…As for me… look, sure, I do think of Ayu as a precious childhood friend, my best friend, but not as much as these two do. That’s all.

“I mean, come on~ — even if the senior’s the type to forgive that whole summer-break business, there’s no way she’d let Ayu go meet some shady person who sends a creepy love letter like this, right~?”
“Well, with that senior, yeah…”
“Maybe she read it and found some reason to decide it’s fine — not that I’d know.”
“I mean, sure, the senior’s got us beat on experience and brains~…”

Hina grumbled out her complaints about the senior. Well, she probably signed off on making the senior the final judge precisely because she figured the senior would put a stop to it. Her bet missed, so she’s sulking, and being needled on top of it left her a little riled, hence the bad mood.

“…Ah, someone’s coming!”
“Oh, they showed up~. Now then, let’s see what sort of nobody this is…”
“…Hm? Isn’t that…”

At Sumire’s voice, the three of us fixed our gazes on Ayu at the entrance hall. Sure enough, there was someone talking to her as she waited for the sender. Except… that’s…

“…Isn’t that a girl?”
“It’s a girl~.”

The person talking to Ayu right now was, from any angle, a female student in our year, her uniform skirt swaying. …Wait. Ayu got sent a love letter by a girl?

“…She’s getting handed something…”
“She sure is~.”

The girl talking with Ayu kept bowing over and over as they spoke, and pressed something into Ayu’s hands. …Ah, and now they’re shaking hands too.

“They’re waving bye-bye… ah, she ran off.”
“And here comes Ayu back too~.”

The whole encounter lasted maybe five minutes, maybe not even. But the moment the conversation ended, Ayu headed straight for us, which meant that girl from just now really had been the sender of the love letter(?) after all.

“Sorry to keep you~.”
“So what was that about?”
“Could it be the whole ‘yuri’ thing~?”

Yuri… I’m pretty sure that’s what they call it when girls like each other or go out, but in this one’s case, does going out with a girl even count as yuri…? Well, on the surface I suppose it would.

“Mmm… how do I put it…”
“…Um, before that — could I say something first?”
“Hm? What’s up, Sumire?”

◆◆◆

“Huh?! YOU put that envelope in there, Sumire?!”
“I’m sorry!”
“Ahh… so that’s why she was loitering by the shoe lockers this morning, going on about how ‘something interesting might happen’…”
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!! It was just a spur-of-the-moment thing!”

Sumire apologized over and over as we walked home. According to her, the girl who’d turned up at the entrance hall is a member of the same literature club as her, and ever since the culture festival she’d apparently become a fan of Ayu, or something to that effect. In short, that summons letter was less a love letter and more a kind of fan letter, and the thing Ayu had just been handed was the real fan letter, the one the girl had wanted to deliver in person.

“So why’d you go and call it a love letter~?”
“Eep?! In Hina’s case, you jumped to that on your own—”
“Well, me and Gin never even came up as suspects until you said something~.”
“So — why’d you do it, Sumire?”
“I thought it’d be funny if you all took it that way…”
“Oh my, what a naughty little imp she is~.”

Somehow it feels like ages since I last saw this side of her. Just when I’d started thinking she’d been well-behaved lately, she pulls this; you really can’t let your guard down for a second.

“I was shocked too, you know?! Hagino — ah, that’s the surname of the girl from before — right up to the shoe-locker stage it was supposed to be a fan letter, but when I opened it, it was this shady summons note!”
“Ah, so that’s what happened.”
“When I grilled her about it, she goes, ‘When it came right down to the wire, I ended up wanting to hand it over in person after all…’ — so I was like, then say so back when you handed it off to me!”

So a little gotcha had ballooned into some grand operation that dragged over into the next day.

That girl from earlier has quite the personality on her too. Is the literature club just… like that, surprisingly?

“Anyway~, setting my own part in this aside~… what’ll it be, Presiding Judge Ayu?”
“Eh, me?”
“Well — just because none of us happened to fall for it doesn’t mean deliberately steering us to think that way isn’t kind of nasty, I guess.”
“Uu… I’m sorry…”

The verdict falls to Ayu. Well, setting aside Hina, who charged ahead on the assumption it was a love letter… depending on how you look at it, you could read this as a confession-prank, and if we’re calling it nasty, then I suppose it’s nasty. Personally I don’t really mind, and, to put it uncharitably, we may as well leave this to Ayu, the victim here.

“Hmm… she’s cute, so I’ll let it slide.”
“That was fast.”
“…It’s not really my place to say this, but… are you sure about that, Ayuri?”
“Well, I can tell there was no real malice to it — you just got a little carried away by curiosity. As long as you’re careful from here on, I think it’s fine.”
“Ayuri…!”
“Besides, if I got mad over this, I’d have to give a whole stern lecture to Gin, who forces her lunch’s cherry tomatoes onto me every single time.”
“Yeah, then you’ve absolutely got to forgive her.”
“Gin, could you please just eat them yourself already?”
“Nope.”

Well, I figured it’d end up like this anyway. Ayu’s always been a total pushover for anyone she’s decided is one of her own… though I do think lumping my cherry tomatoes in with all this is a bit much.

“Hina, are you okay with that too?”
“Totally fine~. If anything, right now I’m more mad at Senior Hotaru for needling me about the whole Ayu business~.”
“Ohh, great — now Sumire’s gone and lit a brand-new fire.”
“I’m sorry!”
“I’m kidding~… ah, but — but — there’s a little something I’d like to talk about, just the two of us, me and Sumire~.”
“Y-yes!”

◆◆◆

“Hello there~, Hagino.”
“…Eh, ah, you’re…”
“I’ve got a teeeny bit of information you might want to hear~. Not interested~?”

According to a certain rumor, behind the scenes at this school there secretly exists something called the “Ayu Fan Club.” The president is a certain second-year girl, and the only way in is to be scouted by her or the club’s No. 2, the sole criterion being, apparently, “whether you can keep a secret.” Since the whole thing is only a rumor to begin with, there’s no telling how much is true, but by one account they gather to listen to audio of Ayu’s singing, obtained from who-knows-where, murmuring “Ohh, this is GOOD…” What an eerie little group.

Incidentally, it’s apparently girls-only.

And Ayu’s reaction, when she got wind of the rumor?

‘My fan cluuub…? There’s no way something like that exists, bwahaha! …There isn’t, right? A group off doing weird stuff like that.’

…or something to that effect.