My Childhood Friend And The Bus Ride

According to my childhood friend, “wherever you’re going, a big group outing is fun one way or another,” apparently.

This time, the group outing was my first field trip since starting high school. The trip itself packed us off to a nature park up in the mountains for a day of activities, the sort of program that by rights should have landed flat with jaded modern kids like us. But somehow or other, it hadn’t been half bad. That was the kind of day it turned out to be.

Now, about that childhood friend of mine. She was the reason my day turned out to be a fun one. The cause of it, I suppose I should say, galling as that is to admit. One Sakura Ayuri…

“~♪”

Right now, we’re on the bus home with the field trip behind us. Ayu had ended up in the seat beside Hina, and now, having been half-dragged into it, she was in the middle of a duet with her in front of the whole class.

Ayu had put up a fierce show of reluctance, but a few things had worn her down. On the way there, everyone from the other classes had been happily singing along with Hina. Then Hina pressed her hard, bargaining and pleading with a duet as her one condition. And somewhere in the middle of the coaxing came the clincher: ‘This class is packed with kids from our old middle school, so we’re all basically family~.’ Those three things did her in, apparently, and the two of them launched into a merry duet. That’s the gist of it.

It’s not as though Ayu dislikes singing itself; she just hates doing it in front of a crowd of strangers. All through elementary and middle school she went to karaoke constantly, and not only with Hina and me, so there’s a fair number of kids out there who’ve fallen prey to Ayu’s singing.

And the result of all that was…

“Woooaaah!!”
“Th-they’re incredible, huh, everyone…”
“…They sure are.”

There you have it. What is this, some idol’s live concert? Not that I’ve ever been to one.

As I’ve touched on before, Ayu’s singing has this quality where her own mood and energy bleed straight into whoever’s listening. Going way back, the deeper she sank into the groove, the more ridiculous the excitement around her would get. This time the crowd’s mostly from her old middle school, and it’s the first they’ve heard her sing in ages, so that’s probably part of what’s got them so weirdly wound up.

“Hinaaa! Ayuuu! You’re so cool!”
“…”

Honestly. Take Saeki, who was gushing just the other day about how she’d ‘landed a boyfriend’; she’s suddenly gone so hyper that the poor guy beside her looks a little put off. Seriously, is there some kind of weird signal buried in this girl’s singing?

“Oh, it’s over.”
“Waaaaah!!”

So loud…

What is with this excitement? Even Sumire right beside me feels the gap — the kids from that middle school are on a completely different wavelength than everyone else. Can one class really split into two moods like this?

“Phew… okay, who’s up next~? I’ll pass the mic along no—”
“A-ah, hold onto it, Ayu, okay~? Next we’re having you sing with Nonomiya~”
“…Huh?”
“It’s been forever since karaoke with Ayu!” “I’m next, got it—?”
“And after that, me—”
“…Wait, huh—?”

Good for you, Ayu. For a former man, being this big a hit with real, live high-school girls has to be nothing but a thrill, right? Though in reality she’s probably mired in her usual tangle of complicated feelings.

“Has Ayuri always been like this?”
“Yeah, pretty much. Singing’s the one thing that girl’s actually good at.”
“Huh…”

While we were talking, the next song started up. Judging by how the songs Ayu clearly loves kept getting queued one after another, Hina and the others had obviously been scheming behind the scenes. Ayu herself went “Ahh~! Come on!” and started right back in singing anyway.

“Ayuri’s such an amusi— …such a curious person, isn’t she.”
“You don’t have to rephrase it. I’ve been telling her to her face she’s weird since forever.”
“You actually tell her that…”

I mean, she really is a weird one. Singing aside, she does exactly as she pleases and yet hates standing out in the oddest ways, and there’s no telling whether she’s actually being considerate of the people around her or not. Still, I’ll admit her “I have memories of a past life” declaration did catch me off guard.

“For example… I think it was around third grade. It was time for that year’s last swimming class, and beforehand we’d been told, ‘For the last lesson, we’ll make it free-swim time for everyone’…”
“Mm-hm, mm-hm.”
“That girl brought a water gun and a swim ring and got thoroughly chewed out. ‘I said you could swim freely — I didn’t say you could bring toys,’ they told her.”
“Huhh…”

I still remember how Ayu got made to kneel formally there at the edge of the pool. The way she kept sneaking glances my way while she got her lecture still earns a slow chuckle out of me even now.

“Then there was… I think it was the overnight trip in fifth grade…”

◆◆◆

“…and so Ayu, all innocent, goes ‘Gin, that’s amazing!’ with these sparkling eyes — I mean, with a threefold gap in our scores, you’d think even she would’ve clued in that I was cheating…”
“…Hey, Gin! What are you talking about?!”
“Gah.”
“Oh, Ayuri.”

By the time we were well into cheerfully swapping old stories, Ayu, who must have finished her turn at some point, had twisted around to peer back at us over the seat in front. She’d plainly caught a snatch of it, her face all but screaming, ‘I am angry.’

“Done with the singing already?”
“Obviously I’m wiped out after that many in a row! I made it all the way around, so I handed the mic off to someone else!”
“Good work, Ayuri.”
“Thanks… So, Gin, what were you talking about? You weren’t telling some embarrassing story about me, were you?!”

…Such a pain.

If I were honest enough to blurt out ‘I was just showing off dumb old stories about Ayu,’ she’d obviously kick up a fuss all over again. But fudging it with ‘oh, we were talking about the old days’ wouldn’t get me anywhere either, seeing as every last one of those old days is about Ayu. Which left me exactly one move.

“Sorry, Sumire — could you deal with the idi— …with Ayu for me?”
“You just said ‘idiot,’ didn’t you?!”
“I don’t mind, but…”
“I’m going to sleep. Ayu — I’ll have earplugs in, but if you make a racket or pull anything weird, I’ll be mad.”
“Ah, yes ma’am.”
“Good. So, Sumire — keep Ayu company, and… while you’re at it, keep watch so she doesn’t try anything weird on me.”
“Mm.”

Ignoring the “I won’t!” that came flying back, I worked in my earplugs, draped a towel over my face, and settled into sleeping position. And the instant I did, it seemed the field trip had worn me out more than I’d realized; drowsiness came welling up slow from somewhere deep inside, like I might drop off any second now.

Well, I’ll leave the rest to the me that wakes up later.

Ayu and Sumire were probably chatting away beside me. Feeling a little bit sorry for having dumped the job of minding her onto Sumire, I let myself slip away into a dream.