Chapter 3: Days Continued

I watch the classroom from where I’m standing, half-hidden behind the door, timing my entrance. I used my smartphone’s GPS to get here, and even then, I got incredibly lost. By the time I found the school, the lunch bell was already chiming away.

Still, this school— Glass windows that take up entire walls, bare concrete, colorful iron doors with round windows... It’s so abnormally fancy, I have to wonder whether it’s a World Expo venue or something. This Taki Tachibana guy, a boy my age, lives in a world like this? I think of his name, which I found in his student handbook, and his smug expression on his ID photo. They annoy me a little.

“Taaaki!”

Somebody abruptly throws an arm around my shoulders from behind, and I give a wordless yelp. When I look, a bespectacled CEO-type (only neat and sophisticated) is smiling at me, close enough that our bangs are almost touching. Eeeeeek! ’Scuse me, mister—this is the closest I’ve ever been to a guy in my life!

“Look at you, showing up at noon. Let’s go eat.”

With that, the kid with glasses sets off down the hall, still hugging my shoulders. No, seriously, you’re way too close!

“Ignore my text, will you?” he accuses, but he doesn’t sound mad. Then I figure it out.

“.. .Excuse me... Wait, Tsukasa?”

“Ha-ha, ‘excuse me’? Do I detect a note of contrition?”

I don’t know how to respond to that, so for the moment, I quietly extricate myself from his arm.

“...Yougot lost?”

Takagi—a big, good-natured guy—shouts, not bothering to hide his astonishment.

“How the heck did you manage to get lost on the way to school?”

“Um...” I falter. The three of us are sitting in a corner of the wide rooftop. It’s supposed to be lunchtime right now, but there aren’t many people around. Maybe they’re avoiding the summer sun.

“Oh, um, ’scuse me—

‘“’Scuseme’?”

Takagi and Tsukasa eye each other dubiously. Oops, that’s right: I’m Taki Tachibana now.

“Uh, I mean, um... Oh. Pardon me...?”

“Hunh?”

“Sorry.”

“Say what?”

“.Whatever?”

Uh-huh, they nod, still looking bewildered. I see, so he’s the “whatever” type. Got it!

“I was just enjoyin’ myself a little. Tokyo’s kinda like a festival. Real lively.”

“.. .What’s with the accent?” asks Takagi.

“Huh?!” I have an accent? I turn red.

“Taki, where’s your lunch?” Tsukasa prods.

“Huh?!!” I didn’t bring one!

As I hunt through my school bag, sweating bullets, they laugh. “Do you have a fever or something?”

“Tsukasa, you got anything?”

“Egg sandwich. Let’s stick that croquette of yours in here.”

Here. The two of them hand me the improvised egg-croquette sandwich. Their kindness touches my heart.

“Thank you...”

They both grin at me wordlessly. To think boys could be so stylish and kind...! No, Mitsuha, don’t do it! Don’t fall for both of them at once! —Well, no, I’m not falling for anybody, but Tokyo is fantastic, anyway!

“So listen, after class today, wanna go to that cafe again?” Takagi asks, and without thinking, I stare at him as he takes a bite of rice.

“Yeah, good idea,” Tsukasa replies. Taking a swig of water out of a plastic bottle, his throat works smoothly. Huh? What? Where did he say we were going?

“What about you, Taki? You’re coming, right?”

“Huh?!”

“To the cafe.”

“C-c-cafeeeee?!”

The furrows between their eyebrows deepen, but I ignore it. My mood is soaring, and I can’t repress my excitement. This is it! Who’s laughing now, bus stop cafe?!

Two tiny dogs dressed in pop idol-style outfits are sitting on a wicker chair, watching me with eyes like candy drops and wagging their tails so hard they seem liable to come off. There’s an incredible amount of space between each table, and fully half the customers are foreign. A third are wearing sunglasses, three-fifths are wearing hats, and not one is wearing a suit. There’s no telling what any of them do for a living.

What is this place? Adults go to cafes with their little dogs on weekdays, in broad daylight?!

“I like the timberwork on the ceiling.”

“Yeah. They put serious effort into that.”

Tsukasa and Takagi don’t seem the least bit intimidated by this supremely trendy space. They’re smiling and discussing their impressions of the interior. Apparently, these boys are touring different cafes because they’re interested in architecture. What kind of hobby is that?! Aren’t high school guys into magazines like MU7

“Taki, do you know what you want?”

Prompted by Tsukasa, I stop dissecting the cafe and let my eyes fall to the heavy, leather-bound menu.

..! I—I could live for a month on how much these pancakes cost!”

“What era are you from, again?” Takagi laughs.

“Umm...”

I stress about it for a little while and then remember: Oh. Right. This is a dream. Well, in that case, why not? It’s Taki Tachibana’s money anyway. I’ll just eat whatever I want.

Ahhhh, what a great dream...

The pancakes are the heavyweight kind, a fortress solidly flanked by things like mango and blueberries. After finishing them, I sip cinnamon coffee, deeply satisfied.

Tweedle.

The smartphone in my pocket chirps... Huh. There are an awful lot of angry-vein symbols in this text.

.. Agh! What’ll I do? It says I’m late for work! Somebody who’s probably my boss is mad at me!”

“Wait, you had a shift today?” asks Takagi.

“You better hurry and go, then,” says Tsukasa.

“Right!” I hastily stand. Oh, but...

“What’s up?”

“Umm... Where do I work again?”

“.Say what?”

The two boys have soared past disgust. They seem about ready to snap. Gimme a break. I know absolutely nothing about this guy!

“Excuse me—isn’t our order ready yet?”

“Taki! Go take table twelve’s order!”

“This isn’t what I asked for.”

“Taki! I told you, we’re out of the truffles!”

“Is our check ready yet?”

“Taki, you’re in the way! Move!”

“Taki, you idiot, do your job!”

“Taki!”

The place is a dauntingly ritzy Italian restaurant.

It’s a two-story building that’s open all the way up, atrium-style. The ceiling is hung with sparkling chandeliers, and there are big propellers up there, too, spinning slowly. I’ve seen something like them in a movie. Taki Tachibana is a bow tie-wearing waiter, and at dinnertime, the restaurant is hellishly busy.

I’m being swept this way and that by a muddy torrent of confusion, getting orders wrong, serving them wrong, getting tske d at by customers and yelled at by the chefs. Come on, people, I’ve never worked here before! Actually, I’ve never worked a part-time job before, period! This is a total nightmare! Waaaah, seriously, when am I gonna wake up?! This is all your fault, stupid Taki Tachibana!

“—’Scuse me. You. Boy.”

“Huh? Uh, yes?!”

I’ve already gone a little ways past the customer who flagged me down, and I turn back hastily. How am I supposed to know to respond to “boy,” huh?

Wow. The man’s an obvious thug, complete with open-collared shirt, gold chain, and lots of clunky rings. Still, if you go to the next city over from my town, there are a lot of guys like him hanging out in front of the station. His type feels a little more familiar to me than the celebrity-esque luster of the other customers. When he speaks, there’s a thin smarm in his voice:

“Listen. There was a toothpick in my pizza.”

“Huh?”

Mr. Thug picks up the very last slice of basil pizza with his fingertips. There’s a toothpick sticking out of the edge where it was sliced, basically screaming that someone jabbed it in there after the fact. Maybe he’s joking around with me. I’m bewildered, unsure how to respond, and Mr. Thug continues with a seemingly fixed smile.

“It woulda been bad if I’d eaten that, right? We’re just lucky I noticed it. What’re you gonna do?”

“Huh...?”

I get the feeling I really can’t afford to say, You really stuck that in there yourself right, sir? I give a noncommittal smile instead... Conversely, his fades.

“I’m asking you what you’re gonna do about it?!”

Crash! All of a sudden, he kicks the table up with his knee and starts yelling. Instantly, the murmur of conversation freezes. I tense up, too.

“—Sir! Is something the matter?”

A woman appears and pushes me out of the way. She glances at me and whispers, “I’ve got this!”

Someone else grabs my arm from behind and drags me away—a waiter who’s probably worked there longer than me. “You’re acting pretty weird today,” he says, looking concerned.

“I’m terribly sorry about that, sir!” Out of the corner of my eye, I see the woman bowing deeply to the thug.

The background hum returns, as if someone’s twisted the volume backup.

I’m pushing an industrial vacuum cleaner that’s as big as a lawn mower over the floor. The restaurant’s finally closed. The lights in the chandeliers have dimmed, and all the tables have been stripped. One employee polishes

glasses, another checks the stock in the refrigerator, and somebody else is doing something with the computers at the cashier counter.

The woman who rescued me is wiping down the tables one by one. For a little while now, Fve been trying—and failing—to find an opportunity to speak to her. Her long hair has a soft wave to it. From the side, it hides her eyes, and I can’t read her expression. Still, her lustrous, glossy lips are curved into a gentle smile. Her arms and legs are slender, and her waist is very small—and yet she’s got big boobs. She’s just incredibly cool somehow. Passing her, I catch a glimpse of the name tag on that proud bosom. It reads Okudera. Perfect!

“Miss Okudera?”

Just as I take the plunge and speak, somebody pokes me in the back of the head.

“That’s senpai to you!” The guy who poked me sounds like he’s joking. He goes back into the kitchen, a stack of menus in one hand. I see, so she’s got seniority on me. Okay!

“Um, Okudera-senpai! That was really...”

“Taki. You had a rough day today, didn’t you?”

As she speaks, she turns and looks me right in the eye. Her long eyelashes curve toward the ceiling, her perfectly shaped almond eyes are the epitome of beauty, and her sexy voice sends a tickle down my back. I instinctively feel compelled to tell her I love you! My cheeks flush a little, and I hastily look down.

“Uh, no, it wasn’t really ‘rough,’ just...”

“That guy was totally full of it. I handled it according to the manual and let him have his food for free, but...”

She doesn’t seem all that angry. She flips the rag over and starts wiping down another table. Just as I’m about to try to prolong the conversation...

“Eek! Okudera-senpai!”

Another waitress cries out.

“Your skirt!”

“Hmm?”

Miss Okudera twists to inspect her rear, and her face rapidly flushes. Now that I’m looking, I can see a rough, horizontal slash just above her thigh. With a shocked little shriek, she pulls her apron around to hide the tear.

“Are you hurt?”

“Geez! Nasty. Was it that one dude?”

“I think something like that’s happened before...”

“Was someone harassing you?”

“Do you remember the guy’s face?”

Several staff members gather around Okudera-senpai, chattering worriedly. Eyes downcast, she’s gone very still. I stand motionless, like an idiot, with the words I’d prepared still on my tongue. Her shoulders tremble slightly. I think I see little tears welling up at the corners of her eyes.

This time, I need to rescue her.

The thought seems to burst inside me, and before I know what I’m doing, I’ve grabbed Okudera-senpai’s hand and started walking. I hear voices at my back (“Hey! Taki, you little...”), but I ignore them.

The green can be a field. The orange is flowers and butterflies. I want at least one more design element. The brown is— Sure, it’ll be a hedgehog. The cream is for its nose.

Pinching the edges of the tear in the skirt, I deftly whipstitch it together. For some reason, there were several colors of embroidery thread in the changing room sewing kit, so I’m taking the opportunity to make this a bit of an elaborate repair job. Gran trained me in needlework, and it’s something I’m particularly good at.

“All done!”

I hand the skirt to Miss Okudera. It’s only taken me about five minutes to finish.

“...Huh? This is...”

The dubious expression she’s worn since I dragged her to the dressing room quickly shifts to surprise.

“This is amazing! Taki, wow! It’s even cuter than it was before!”

The tear in the skirt was a straight, horizontal line about six inches long, so as I stitched it together, I turned it into a scene of a hedgehog playing in a field. The skirt is dark brown, so the little decoration acts as an accent, my thought being a cute motif would look especially good on a sophisticated beauty like Okudera-senpai. She has an even-featured, gorgeous, magazine-model face, but when she smiles, she’s more approachable, like an older girl from the neighborhood.

“You really saved me today. Thank you very much.”

I finally managed to say it.

“Heh-heh!” Okudera-senpai’s large eyes narrow softly when she smiles. “To tell you the truth, I was a little worried back there. You’re weak, Taki, but you’re always so quick to fight.”

As she speaks, her slim fingers lightly tap her left cheek. Oh. Vaguely, I grasp the reason for the bandage on Taki Tachibana’s face.

“I like this version of you better,” Okudera-senpai says, a bit mischievously. “You’re surprisingly in touch with your feminine side, Taki.”

My heart leaps with a bo-yo-yoing. Her smile is absolutely unbeatable. It makes me want to give her everything I have for free. I think it’s the most precious thing I’ve seen in Tokyo today.

The yellow train I take to get home is empty.

By now, I’ve realized that Tokyo is filled with all sorts of scents. Convenience stores, family restaurants, the people I pass, the edge of the park, construction sites, the station at night, the inside of the train... Almost every ten steps, the aromas change. I never knew human beings had such pronounced smells when gathered in one place.

And for every lighted window that skims past my vision, there’s a person living in this city. My heart is strangely stirred by the ranks of buildings that stretch as far as the eye can see, by their dizzying numbers and the overwhelming weight of them, almost like a mountain range.

Taki Tachibana is one of the residents here, too. Softly, I extend a hand toward the boy reflected in the train window. His face annoyed me a little, but I guess I don’t hate it. I’m starting to feel a sense of camaraderie with this guy, as if he’s a fellow soldier who endured this rough day with me. But you know

“Y’know, this is a really impressive dream, if I do say so myself.”

Back at his house, I throw myself onto the bed where I woke up this morning.

I’ll tell Tesshi and Saya about all this tomorrow: Listen to this dream 1 had! Isn’t that amazin ’? Aren’t you awed by my fantastic imagination?! It s like I actually went to Tokyo! I bet I’m gonna be a manga artist—or no, wait, I’m not so great at art, but I bet writin’ novels would be a cakewalk. I’ll probably make a ton of money! You wanna be my roommates in Tokyo?

Fantasizing about this and grinning to myself, I roll over onto my back, pick up Taki Tachibana’s smartphone, and start skimming through it with my fingertip. Oh look, he keeps a diary.

[9/7 Ate at KFC with Tsukasa and Co.] [9/6 Movie in Hibiya] [8/31 Architecture Tour— Bayside Edition] [8/25 Payday!]

As I scroll backward through the headers, I’m impressed in spite of myself. “He’s real thorough.” Then I tap the photo app. Most of the pictures are landscapes. After those, the majority are of him with Tsukasa and Takagi. Eating ramen together, going to the park together... They sure are close. A beet bowl place, a soba shop at the station, a trendy hamburger joint. The road home from school. Sunset through the gaps between the buildings. His friends’ backs. Jet contrails in the sky overhead.

“Lucky him, livin’ in Tokyo...”

As I murmur, a yawn slips out. Starting to get sleepy, I go to the next photo.

“Oh, it’s Okudera-senpai.”

The picture is of her back as she’s cleaning the restaurant window, and it feels like a candid shot. In the next, she’s noticed and turned to face the camera, beaming and flashing a peace sign.

...Maybe he likes Okudera-senpai , I think out of nowhere. It’s bound to be unrequited, though. She’s in college. To her, high school guys are still just kids.

I sit up on the bed and create an entry in his diary app. Then I start typing in everything I experienced today. About how I made a lot of mistakes but connected with Okudera-senpai at the end. About how, on the way home from work, we walked from the restaurant to the station together. I capture all of it in the entry, wanting to report it—or brag about it—to Taki Tachibana. Once I’m done, I yawn again. Then, out of nowhere...

Who Are You?

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