Izu, Here We Go! (Part 2)

◆ Yukiteru

I click off the phone call. Good, very good. I have achieved reasonable results.

It could have been anyone. But since it was Enomoto who planned the trip, and he’s got quite the reputation for being… well… careless, it was him.

What matters is that, now, Aishi has built a solid image of me in her brain as the sole nice person in both the second and third years. A stellar development to the project.

Objective: discover what does emotion mean.

Method: approach Subject Aishi T. and use her as my test subject.

Variables to consider: Subject Nishimura (Friend 1), Subject Takemoto (Friend 2) and Subject Enomoto. Must analyze behaviors and actions to achieve best result.

Protocol for failure: …?

What?

Protocol for failure download failed.

I… have no idea of what to do if I fail.

This is troublesome. If I have no backup failure protocol, then I cannot save myself from the fallout. It is an issue that cannot be overlooked.

My phone buzzes. Enomoto.

A voice call.

I pick up. “Enomoto?” I say.

“Hey, Yukki!” Enomoto says. “How are you doing? Getting ready for our beach paradise?”

“Enomoto, if you keep saying things like that, the girls will think you’re a creep,” I sigh.

“But it’s true!” He exclaims, sounding offended. “It IS a beach paradise in all senses of the word! The sun, the ocean, the girls in cute bikinis! Don’t you get excited by the prospect of seeing your cute Aishi-chan in a bikini, Yukki?”

I stop for a moment and think. Usually, boys my age would kill for an opportunity to see their crushes in bathing suits. But I…

Wait.

He called her… Aishi-chan just now?

“Enomoto, how close are you to Aishi-san again?” I ask. “Suddenly you’re calling her Aishi-chan… What is the meaning of this?”

“Uh oh… we have Shittodere Yukki coming up here!” Enomoto squeaks. “Jealous, jealous!”

Shittodere? What is a shittodere? Why is he calling me that? And why is he… deliberately deviating… the subject… of the conversation.

“That’s not what I said,” I say, my anger rising. “You’re calling her Aishi-chan. Since when are you two so close?”

“Well, SHE insisted on that,” Enomoto defends himself. “She said that senpais should refer to their female kouhais as -chan. So, well… I took her up on that. You should, too, Yukki!”

“Start calling Aishi-san… Aishi-chan?” I have a very clear feeling of knotting in my stomach. My hands are trembling and I nearly drop the phone on the ground. “Isn’t that… improper of me as a senpai?”

“She ASKED for that, Yukki! C’mon, don’t be so shy,” he teases. “You gotta let yourself go with the flow sometimes, you know.”

Let myself go with the flow?

Hello, who do you think you’re talking to?

“Okay, say I do that,” I begin. “Then you do what?”

“Well… I get you to admit you want to see her in a bikini, duh!” Enomoto exclaims.

I should have expected that.

“Let me think for a moment.” I say, and then press the phone to my chest to block all sound. I inhale sharply as I think.

Do I want to see Aishi in a swimsuit?

My heart rate skyrockets. My face temperature rises, and I have to grab a pack of ice and nearly smash it to my face to lower it.

Apparently, my hormonal system says yes.

My first impulse is to start on a round of calculations. But, for the first time, it’s irrelevant.

Because I will gather better data when I see Aishi in person.

And what scientist sacrifices such an opportunity?

Yes, this is the best point.

“Hey, Enomoto,” I say, slowly, into the phone, as I put up my best flustered-schoolboy tone. “Say I want to. What do I do… to… get… that?”

A laugh. “Hell yeah, that’s the spirit, Yukki!” He screams. “Alright, meet up at my place to go buy some hot swimming trunks!”

“To go buy what?”

But he’s already clicked off.

Alright, let’s do this.

***

When I arrive at Enomoto’s house, he’s waiting for me with a huge grin on his face. “Hey, Yukki!” He exclaims. “Ready for the spree?”

“What are we buying again?” I ask. He grins.

“We’re going to the Ships shop and buy some cute swimming trunks to blow the girls off!” He states proudly. “All for a reasonable price, of course!”

“Because you’ve got a hole in your wallet.”

“Ouch, that was harsh, Yukki!”

Enomoto’s younger brother, Yuuma, appears on the door. “Nii-san, where are you going?”

“I’m gonna buy some swimming trunks for me and Yukki, Yuuma!” Enomoto replies. “We’re going to the shopping mall.”

“Can I go?” Yuuma asks. Enomoto sighs.

“Sorry, Yuuma, but it’s a men’s trip. You’re in elementary school, so you aren’t allowed.”

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” Yuuma asks in English. “I am legally male, therefore I am allowed.”

Yuuma is fluent in English and every time someone puts up using dubious rules or anything like that, he switches to English and negotiates terms like a tiny diplomat. Even though Enomoto sometimes gets annoyed by this, I know he’s really proud of his little brother.

“Sorry, Yuuma, no is no. You can stay with Mom and Dad.”

“Changing the subject,” Yuuma says, back in Japanese, “is it true you’re taking some of your kouhais to the beach, nii-san?”

“Yep! Three cute girls. You’d like to meet them, Yuuma,” Enomoto digs his own grave. “There’s that beautiful blonde gyaru, for example… Oh my god. Lightning strikes every time she moves.”

“Don’t quote Rihanna, nii-san,” Yuuma chastises him. “It’s not appropriate for someone your age.”

“Oh? And who should I quote, my biblically accurate younger brother?”

“BLACKPINK. They’re better.”

“Oooh, so you listen to BLACKPINK!” Enomoto exclaims. “Didn’t know you listened to girl group K-pop. J-pop is better, in my humble opinion.”

“Unless you’re talking Aimer, LiSA, YOASOBI and Hitsujibungaku… no can do about your affirmation.”

I sigh. Both Enomoto siblings are huge fans of pop music, in the languages Enomoto calls ‘the holy trinity of linguistics’, that is, English, Japanese, and Korean. So, when they get caught up in it, there’s no stopping them.

“What about you, Yukki?” Enomoto asks suddenly. “Who are your favorite singers?”

I ponder the question for a moment. As of now, the singers whose songs have caused a reaction within my system aren’t many, but…

“…I think I like Ed Sheeran, LiSA, and Aimer. That’s… about it.” I say.

“Okay, that’s fine,” Enomoto says. “If you’d said Plastic Tree then Yuuma would murder you.”

“Everyone says they’re good but they sing like moaning ghosts!” Yuuma shrieks. “It’s eardrum murder to my ears!”

I chuckle softly. “Same here. I just don’t have the thing to enjoy visual kei bands.”

Nor buying swimming trunks. Hello, Enomoto, are you mentally okay?

“Okay, Yukki, we gotta go,” Enomoto says, checking his watch. “We gotta spend Thursday packing up, so today is the final day for buying. See you later, Yuuma!”

“Bye, nii-san, Yukki-san!” Yuuma calls as we walk away to catch a taxi.

***

When we arrive at the shopping mall after what feels like a million years of Enomoto monologue, he immediately drags me to the Ships shop. And suddenly I’m surrounded by the largest gathering of swimsuits I’ve ever seen.

“Okay, Yukki, I’m gonna get that one for now, and you get… this one,” Enomoto starts talking so fast I can barely distinguish one word from the other. “Go to the changing room, which is over there. Hurry!”

When I begin to open my mouth to ask why, I see the silhouette of a man entering the shop. By his features, unevenly distributed bicep mass and that horrifyingly tropical pair of sunglasses on his face, there’s no doubt that he is Dr. Gorou Enomoto, Enomoto’s father.

And I know that if he saw us here, Enomoto would get split, quite literally.

Because Dr. Gorou doesn’t like the designs of what he calls ‘obscure fabric products’, aka modern male swimwear. And if he saw his son, his own flesh and blood, fraternizing with the enemy, then things wouldn’t end very well.

I obey Enomoto’s desperate plea and hide in the changing room with a pile of swim shorts and sun protection beach shirts. Shutting the door behind me, I stare at myself in the mirror.

Black hair. Brown eyes. Slender build.

That’s me.

But an overly logical brain who could be compared to Light Yagami?

Despite protests, that’s also me.

***

After a careful choice process, measuring what chance of drawing attention (among other categories) would be if I took each of them, I decide to buy a simple black pair of trunks and a beach shirt of the same color. When I walk out, Dr. Gorou has vanished, so Enomoto walks out as well.

“Man, that was close,” he whispers. “If he saw me in here…” and he shudders. “My eyes would no longer fall upon the divine figure of that beautiful blonde, but instead upon the endless darkness of death.”

“Enomoto, stop trying to make it sound poetic,” I hiss. “Let’s get out of here, now.”

He nods. “When we get home, please don’t mention to Dad that we’ve been here, ‘kay?”

“Okay. Now let’s leave.”

“You get it, Yukki.”

***

The moment we get to Enomoto’s house Yuuma is already waiting for us. He starts battering us with questions, most of them involving our trip to the shop, but Enomoto immediately shushes him upon seeing Dr. Gorou enter the house again.

“Hello, Koushi, Yuuma,” he says, smiling at his sons before turning to look at me. “And Haibara-kun, I see. Where were you off to?”

“Uh, at the shopping mall,” Enomoto starts, then regrets it. His father eyes him suspiciously.

“Doing what?”

“Enomoto here wanted to see if he could pick up some girls out there,” I lie calmly. “He dragged me along because he doesn’t want me to have the rep of eternally girlfriend-less ladykiller.”

Dr. Gorou smiles. “Sounds like Koushi all right,” he says. “Koushi, watch yourself. There was one time, when I was young and innocent, my heart was robbed by a tanned gyaru in Hawaii…”

“Okay, okay, stop, Dad!” Enomoto shrieks. Every time he mentions the word ‘girls’ in front of his father, the latter goes on about one tale from when he was our age and met a pretty woman in Hawaii. He fell for her instantly and asked to go out with her, but after a one-night stand she just ran out on him. Feeling terrible, he wandered drunk into the street, collapsed, and would have been run over had not the lady driving the Vespa noticed him on time. The lady on the Vespa was, of course, the woman who would become Enomoto and Yuuma’s mother, Yoshiko Enomoto.

“Well well, if you say so.” Dr. Gorou sighs. “But be careful. Don’t turn your friend into a playboy, Koushi. Or else… you will be in so much trouble young man,” he adds, with his infamous dad voice—the thing that’s kept two unruly kids on the line for sixteen years.

“You got it, Dad!” Enomoto shrieks, doing his best to hide our shopping bags behind his back.

My phone rings. I pull it out of my pocket and the name on the screen surprises me.

Aishi?

“Excuse me, I’ve got a call,” I say, then run off to an isolated corner and answer the phone.

“Aishi-san, what is it?” I ask. I can hear music blaring on the background—it sounds vaguely like a Hitsujibungaku anime ending song.

“Um, Senpai, I’ve got something to ask you.” The inconsistency between her normally timid wording and cold tone catch me by surprise. “Is… Is there any girl you have your eye on?”

Excuse me?

“No, why the question?” I ask. Immediately her tone changes to an infectious cheerfulness.

“Just to check!” She says excitedly. “I can’t wait for the trip on Friday! Bye, Senpai!”

And she clicks off without saying as much as an explanation.

Huh. Strange.

***

The days fly by before I realize it, and Friday soon arrives to the doorstep. When I open the door of my house, carrying a suitcase with enough clothes to last the weekend, Enomoto is there—at the wheel of a visually unattractive gray Volkswagen van.

“Hey, Yukki!” He calls. “Come here, I’ve got the wheel!”

“Enomoto, how come are you allowed to drive?” I shout over the noise of the van’s music player, which is currently starring the voice of LiSA singing ‘Catch the Moment’. By the lyrics, it’s almost halfway through the song.

“I’m not, that’s the point!” He shrieks back. “Just get in and let’s pick up our girls!”

The whole situation is abhorrently vulgar, but I just throw the bag in the trunk and climb on the passenger’s seat. Enomoto starts the engine again and we are on the move.

When the playlist moves on to Hitsujibungaku’s ‘Mild Days’, I finally turn down the volume to 4 out of 20 and ask:

“Enomoto, I’m sorry, but where in the everloving hell did you get this van?”

“It’s Dad’s. He bought it back in his golden youth at Hawaii. It used to be pretty colorful, but Dad painted it gray a few years ago to go on that strike.”

“That’s not the point. How do you know how to drive it?”

“My sensei asked me not to reveal their name if someone asked me. Sorry, not telling you who taught me.”

“Yuuma.”

“…Okay, you win. It was Yuuma.”

“How does a nine-year-old teach someone how to drive?”

“Dad gave him a book about cars when he was seven or eight. I seriously can’t fathom how, but the kid learned to drive just reading it.” Enomoto pushes his hair out of his face and leans backwards against the seat. “Man, my little brother may be the next Einstein at this rate.”

Suddenly he catches something with the corner of his eye and slams the brakes. “We’ve arrived, Yukki. Now where’s the window-down button again?”

I press the button and the window goes down. As it does, I finally see what he’s seen.

Three girls standing in front of a house, the same house we’ve just stopped next to the sidewalk. It’s Aishi and her friends, all of them in fluttering long skirts, beach tops and hats, carrying with them their own suitcases. Her face lights up when she sees the van—and our eyes meet.

Suddenly my heart starts beating faster than normal. My ears register an abnormal increase in temperature as well, and I just barely have time to pinch my leg and sink into my seat before Enomoto notices me. He grins and then waves to the girls, unlocking the door of the backseat.

“Come on in, young ladies!” He exclaims. “Let’s go to Izu!”

Nishimura, Aishi, and Takemoto enter the van, sitting in a neat line with Aishi in the middle. Takemoto closes the door, and Enomoto steps on the accelerator, making the automobile lunge forward at a reasonable speed.

The girls are chatting behind me, laughing and building expectations. But all that comes to my mind is the color of Aishi’s eyes when she looked at me.

Pink.

Pink, like sugar and cotton candy.

The color you get if you mix red and white.

A normal color at best.

So… why does it strike me so much?