Interlude: Iroha and Otoi-san
“How do I be true to myself without hurting anyone?” I wailed, burying myself in Otoi-san’s motherly chest.
She was in loungewear, but I was in my brightly colored yukata. She’d been at home spending some quiet time by herself, while I’d been living it up at our town’s famous festival on the last day of August. Then I came bursting in here and crying. Talk about selfish. Talk about pathetic.
There were only two people I dared show this side of myself to. The first was Senpai, and the second was Otoi-san, who was holding me into her warmth and stroking my head gently. She was like a sister to me.
“What’s gotten into you all of a sudden? Y’don’t usually get like this. I bet it’s got somethin’ to do with Aki, yeah?”
I paused. Then, I nodded once. But a few seconds later, I shook my head twice.
“It’s got something to do with him, yeah, but it’s not his fault. It’s my fault.”
“Aw, don’t blame y’self. Take some time to calm down, and then tell me all about it.” Otoi-san’s voice was as soothing as a lullaby as she stroked my back.
“Okay...”
My rampaging emotions started to calm down. The shattered fragments of crystal started to come together again. My breathing steadied, and the tears flowing down my cheeks began to dry. I tightened my grip on Otoi-san and started to speak, letting out my emotions one by one.
“Mashiro-senpai loves Senpai so much. They went to the festival together today.” That image of the two of them resurfaced in my mind.
Senpai and Mashiro-senpai sitting together in that huge tree. Mashiro-senpai was all filthy from climbing it, and as a reward, Senpai showed her some giant fireworks. The way they were snuggled together to watch the colorful display in the sky made them look like a genuine couple no matter how you sliced it.
“Aki’s doin’ it ’cause of that contract, right? They’re not actually datin’.”
“No. Not right now.”
“Y’mean you’re worried they’ll become a real couple at some point?”
“Yeah! Have you seen how cute Mashiro-senpai is?! She’s clumsy, but she tries super hard. Seeing how much effort she puts in makes me feel really pathetic for being jealous of her.”
I wished Mashiro-senpai were horrible. If she had been, then I’d be able to loathe her from the bottom of my heart. I could shout at her not to take Senpai away from me.
It wasn’t fair that she was amazing. The effort she showed today made me look a hundred times worse than her, because I was the one going crazy with jealousy over it. And Mashiro-senpai was facing her feelings for Senpai head-on, and here I was calling that “unfair,” which only sent me into an endless maelstrom of even more self-loathing.
While Otoi-san stroked my head gently, my mind was caught in a loop it couldn’t get out of. Well, at least, it felt gentle to me; she probably wasn’t putting too much effort into it.
“I think it’s normal to be jealous,” Otoi-san said.
“But you don’t get jealous, do you?”
“I might.”
“Huh? You do?” I pulled away from her. “I never woulda guessed.”
“Whaddya think I am?” Otoi-san asked, her expression subdued and her tone indifferent. “I’m human too, y’know? ’Course I get jealous sometimes.”
“So when Senpai and I get along, you—”
“Nope.” Otoi-san quelled the spark of anxiety in my chest with an uncharacteristically sharp response. “Love and stuff’s a pain in the ass, so I don’t plan on catching feelings for anyone. I’m kinda impressed you guys handle it so well, to be honest.”
“I wish I could just be stoic about it like you are.”
But it wasn’t like I could go back in time. Clock hands never moved counterclockwise. I couldn’t go back to the carefree girl I used to be.
“But yeah, it’s impossible to stop yourself gettin’ jealous. And because it’s impossible, y’don’t hafta blame yourself either.”
“You mean I should forgive myself for getting jealous?”
“More like, accept that y’can’t do anythin’ about it.”
“Huh...”
“If you’re true to yourself here, someone’s gonna get hurt, and there’s nothin’ you can do. If everyone wants somethin’ different, that’s gonna lead to a fight. Everyone has experiences like that. Even adults. Like, they’ll argue about creative differences, cheat on each other, get into a fight over territory. Y’know.” “Territory?”
I didn’t expect her to give something so brutal-sounding as an example. It didn’t have anything to do with love or youth, but it was a strangely persuasive example, coming from Otoi-san. Fighting over a boy versus fighting over land still had the same sort of selfishness at its core.
“I think I’m pretty true to myself when it comes to Aki too. Like, I get him to buy fancy sweets for me,
or get mad at him for sayin’ stuff that triggers me even though I don’t tell him why.” “So you realize that’s kinda unreasonable of you?”
“Sure. I mean, I don’t wanna guess what you two think about it, but speaking objectively, I get that it’s kinda unreasonable.”
“Don’t you worry about hurting anyone?”
“You mean, do I worry about anyone hatin’ me?”
“Huh?” I stared. It felt like she’d plucked out the core of my true feelings without even trying. “Y’never know what’s gonna hurt someone. Aki hurt you, right, and we know he’d never wanna do that in a million years. You can’t control the reactions of people who aren’t you.”
I realized that she was completely right. I didn’t want to hurt anyone? That was just me prettying up and obscuring my true feelings on the whole thing.
The truth was that I just didn’t want Mashiro-senpai to hate me. I wanted to keep having fun with her like we always had.
“Just kiddin’.”
“What?”
“You’re really kind, Kohinata, so I know you care about Tsukinomori and Aki’s feelings. But that kindness is makin’ you suffer...right?”
I hesitated. “I think so.”
“You don’t wanna hurt anyone, but you also don’t want anyone to hate you. I think you gotta start by doing whatever’s gonna make you feel better most effectively.”
“All right.” I nodded obediently, like a grade schooler who just finished crying.
I didn’t want Mashiro-senpai to hate me. I waited for Otoi-san to continue, hoping she might be able to tell me how to do that, but I didn’t hold out much hope.
“This whole thing about bein’ hated... To be honest, I’ve never worried ’bout anythin’ like that.” The hope in my heart burst like a balloon.
“I’ve never tried to hide who I am just so I could get along with someone. The only reason we get along is ’cause you guys don’t mind that. If y’hated me for it, well, nothin’ I could do about it.” “Your mentality’s way too powerful.”
Forget the whole stoic thing; she was practically enlightened. It was like there was just no way I could ever get on her level. I’d always thought she was mature, but this just drove home exactly how mature she was. It got me thinking.
It didn’t matter if I hurt anyone or if anyone ended up hating me. If being true to myself meant other people wanted to stay away from me, then there was nothing I could do about it. I remembered Senpai saying something similar long ago.
Ozuma had been having a tough time at school, and Senpai decided to be his friend no matter what their classmates made of it. But now wasn’t the time to start thinking about junior high school. The point was, in some ways, Senpai and Otoi-san were two peas in a pod.
I wished I could be like them, but I didn’t quite have the courage to step forward to that point, because I’d been sensitive ever since I was small. It was too late for me to change now. Senpai was a warm, kind person who never got mad at anything. That was why I could be myself and annoy him. That was why I felt safe with him.
“But what if he actually hates the way you act around him? Is that what you’re thinking?” “You totally just read my mind with perfect accuracy! That’s actually terrifying!” “Nah, you’re just transparent.”
“Hmph. That makes so much sense, I can’t really argue with you.”
“But I do have one question. You’re worried about Aki being attracted to Tsukinomori, right?” “...Sí.”
“You’re also worried that he might try and keep his distance from you because you annoy him, yeah?” “Sí.”
“Your logic’s fulla holes there.”
“Sí. Wait, what?”
“All the girls around Aki are annoyin’ in some way or another, includin’ me.”
“No, they aren’t. They’re all cute.”
Mashiro-senpai was a given, but there was also Sumire-chan-sensei, Midori-san, Otoi-san, Canary-san, Tomosaka-san—wait, scratch that last one.
Anyway, the point is, they were all great people. The only really annoying one was (probably) me. “How ’bout you test that theory?”
“Test it?”
“You’ve got the actin’ talent for it, after all. You can get to the center of someone and understand ’em, right? Then you’ll see that, compared to all of them, you’re not especially whiny or annoying.” “I should pretend to be them?”
“Yeah. You might learn somethin’ too. Or maybe not, I dunno.”
Her advice was way too half-assed. I bet any stranger who heard her say that would think she was spouting nonsense. But Otoi-san knew about my acting ability. She was telling me to solve this problem in a way that only I could.
When acting, I am capable of changing my entire psyche to match whatever role I’m playing. Not only can I perfectly reproduce their voice, I’m able to touch the very core of their being. What if I could use that to understand my love rivals a little better? I might be able to find the
difference. The reason Senpai was trying to push me away when he was happy keeping all of them by his side.
I wiped the damp corners of my eyes with my yukata sleeve and did my best to smile. I wanted to show Otoi-san, the sister who’d saved me, that I was back in action.
“All right, Otoi-san. I’ll give it a try. I’ll become everyone, and see how Senpai reacts!” “Go for it. And lemme know how Aki reacts. Sounds entertainin’.”
“You got it! Aha ha! Senpai’s gonna wet himself when he realizes I’ve gone into acting overdrive and that I’m not gonna come down from it any time soon!”
“Good luck. But also, triggered.”
“What?!”
“I’m not gonna tell you what.”
She was going on about trigger words even when I was asking for her advice? What the heck triggered her anyway? It was unreasonable, like an online streaming platform whose rules were strict but annoyingly vague.
I was still grateful, though.
Thanks, Otoi-san.
The new school semester started tomorrow—and I was sure it was gonna be a special one for me.