Stranger Danger!

“And you just let a random guy come and snatch her up like that??” Ume asks incredulously upon hearing the explanation from Mariko.

A little taken aback by Ume’s agitation, Mariko scratches her cheek and replies, “I mean, by the time I got back from the toilet she was already walking off with him.”

“And where were you, Charl??”

Charl’s shoulders jump. “I pretended that I wasn’t with her, although I was mere feet from her, he promptly ignored my presence.. You see, it was there that I saw an opportunity for some note taking. I’ve never seen a young man so boldly court a girl before, so I gave them space.”

“You’re supposed to protect your lady friends, they aren’t specimens to be studied!”

“I’m sorry,” Charl says, but he’s still quite confused as to why Ume is reacting this way. “If you don’t mind, can I ask just what it is that Emilia needs protecting from? I don’t see why she shouldn’t talk to people other than us.”

“....”

Ume bits her cheek and looks away.

“Yeah!” Mariko piles on, “We were impressed that she was able to talk to a stranger like that, we didn’t wanna ruin her mojo. Plus, we’ve been following them this whole time and she seems to be having a blast.”

“Do you not want her to have fun?” Charl asks.

“It’s not that I don’t want her to have fun. It’s… it’s--!” Ume struggles to finish her sentence, and pauses, abandoning it completely.

This allows ample time for Mariko to press, “Then what’s the big deal? We can’t help if we don’t know what the problem is.”

Watching this all unfold in silence is Anita, yet she can still sense the tension brewing, and can plainly see how much Ume is struggling to articulate her feelings. When Ume had first seen the boy that Emilia is currently with, she hid behind her and told her that he is ‘no good’. Harkening back to that reaction, Anita chooses to softly place her hand onto Ume’s shoulder.

The sensation that greets her hand is as hard as a rock.

“You’re okay,” Anita says, her words softening the shoulder caressed into her palm. “It’s okay to speak your mind.”

Ume understands where Anita is coming from, and reasons that she should no longer be keeping the truth from them, even if bringing it up is a difficult task for her.

“Alright… the truth is that I know him. Tani does too. He was our closest friend in middle school.”

“Oh?” Charl tilts his head curiously.

“Wait,” Mariko holds her hand in front of her, as though she were attempting to push away a profound revelation. “Tani had friends in middle school!?”

“That’s what you’re getting out of this!?”

“Nggyah my bad my bad, that just really caught me off guard.”

Ume squints at her.

“A-Anyways, continue please!”

“His name is Tairabayashi Kaede, he goes to Adachi high school. Tani and I call him Taira, though.”

“That’s great n’all, but I still don’t see what the issue is here.”

Ume takes in a deep breath before expelling a drawn out gale. This serves to pump herself up to admit something that everyone around her, including Tani, has no idea about. She looks toward Anita as if wishing to draw strength from her golden eyes.

And what she sees does just enough.

She draws in everyone's undivided attention and declares,

“Taira is best friends with my ex boyfriend…”

-------------------------

“C’moooon I just bought you ice cream, is that really not enough to get you to take off your glasses so I can see what you really look like? I mean, they’re like wrapped around the side of your face. If I didn’t know any better I’d think you’re blind!”

“You simply gave me what you initially offered when we met. I hardly think this is enough to get that out of me.”

“Ugggh~~”

The boy named Taira feigns devastation and slumps over.

Emilia ignores his dismay by simply looking straight ahead and avoiding the crowd while taking sporadic licks of an ice cream cone held in her hand. She wouldn’t dare take off these glasses no matter how much he begs, the amount of strength she’s receiving from having them on is the only reason why she can converse with him in the first place.

“Besides,” she says, her tone not so delicately masking a tease. “You haven’t even told me your name yet.”

“I told you why I can’t though.” he replies.

“I know, it’s because you’re famous or something.”

“No not me, my best friend is. If I give you my name, a simple google search and ‘poof!’, you’d ditch me like a fart in the wind just to get a shot at him. It literally happens every time!”

“I don’t know what kind of person you take me for.”

“As of right now I take you for someone I’m very curious about. So I don't wanna blow it so soon.”

Emilia shrugs her shoulders and passively says, “Whatever floats your boat.”

“How about this?” Taira says, clapping his hands and playfully walking backwards in front of her. “Let’s pry some info out of each other piece by piece.”

“And will this get me to your name?”

“Only if it gets me to your face.”

“........”

“Uaah that sounded horrible, forget I said that, please!”

“........”

“If you can’t forget it, at least say something!”

“........”

Taira squirms and hides his face in his hands.

“Anything!?”

“I’m only kidding.” Emilia says, a little puff escaping her nose while the edges of her lips rise a smidge.

“Fuaah thank goodness, I wasn’t trying to be smooth there, I just blurted that out without thinking.”

“That’s fine.”

“Emi-chi, I can’t tell if you’re still joking or not!”

“Weren’t you going to ask me a question? You’re veering off track.”

“Right! So, I’m gonna guess by your accent that you’re not from around here, are you?”

“I’m not.”

“Okay, hmmm.” Taira holds his chin and asks, “Are you from Utsunomiya, maybe?”

Emilia doesn’t know why he pulled that city out of his hat, so she bluntly replies,

“No.”

And then follows that with an awkward silence.

Thinking that she was going to elaborate and provide him with where she’s actually from after he threw out a random guess, Taira is left scrambling internally.

“O-Okay, would you like to ask something about me?”

“Hmmm.”

Emilia looks like she genuinely has to figure out something she’d be interested in learning about him. The delay feels like his entire body has been put inside an active microwave.

“Is this really that hard??” 

“Do you want me to honestly answer that?”

“Actually, I don’t!”

“Okay.”

“Let me keep asking you things then.” By now, Taira has ceased his playful backwards walk and is now walking at her side, trying to sneak peeks through the little gap in her big dark sunglasses. “When did you start attending Tokyo U?”

“Oh, I’m still in high school.”

“That so??”

“Yes.”

Again, she doesn’t elaborate after her answer.

Taira decides to press this time around, “And which high school do you go to? And what year?”

“I am a second year at Kokusai high.”

“Kokusai!?” Taira exclaims, stopping in his tracks with his shoulders raised stiff by his ears.

“Is that a problem?”

“N-No not really, I actually have an old friend who goes to your school. You’re the first person I’ve ever met who’s enrolled there. I wonder if maybe you know him?”

“I don’t know many people, to be honest.”

“It’s all good, he’s not the type of guy you’d wanna know anyways. He’s a two-faced bastard.”

“I see.”

“Anyways, what’s a Kokusai girl doing here at the U?”

Emilia, despite being Italian, isn’t very animated when she talks. The glasses have done and continue to do wonders for her in regards to speaking with strangers, and barring some minor difficulties, she is doing more than a good enough job speaking to this boy. Yet still, her arms lay stiff at her side when she replies,

“My club has a booth here.”

“Really?” Taira asks with an almost exaggerated interest.

“Yes.” Emilia pulls out her phone and checks the time, “In fact, I should be heading back now. My break is just about over.”

“Whaaa you’ll leave me just like that? Can I at least come and check it out?”

“If you want to.”

“I’d be glad to!”

“Follow me then.”

The two make their way through the crowd. Emilia is smoothly walking in a straight line while people part around her, while Taira is chaotically dodging the bodies of passersby. The two stand in stark contrast with one another, yet in an odd way it suits the pair.

It doesn’t take long for them to arrive at the booth, where they come upon Shirai already there, sitting on a fold-out chair. She's cheerfully nibbling on a convenience store sandwich, with Tani's eyeglasses perched on her head like a makeshift headband, pulling her hair back and showing off her forehead. A napkin neatly spread across her crossed legs gives her the composed appearance of someone posing for a portrait.

The sight of her stops Taira in his tracks, and he can’t help but blurt out under his breath,

“Holy hell, what a babe.”

“What?” Emilia asks.

“O-Oh nothing, so this is a classmate of yours, huh? How about you introduce me?”

“She’s our faculty sponsor, actually.”

“Hold up, you're telling me that she’s a teacher??”

“Also, I can’t introduce you to her since you currently have to name. You’ll have to do that yourself.”

Emilia makes her way to the front of the podium and makes her presence known, prompting a wave from Shirai. Shortly after, she catches sight of the boy her student is with and just about drops her lunch before stowing it away underneath her chair.

“Oh my, and who might this be?” Shirai asks, standing to her feet and presenting herself at the podium.

“Sensei, this is a guy that bought me ice cream. He wanted to see our booth.”

The boy quickly averts his gaze from Shirai, whose intense scrutiny feels as targeted as heat-seeking missiles.

“And does this guy have a name?”

Taira runs his fingers through his hair and strikes a pose before replying. “I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

Though obviously a statement made in jest, the joke lands like melted ice cream on the ground.

Shirai stands still with a silent smile, but it’s quite obvious she’s desperately trying to quell a cringe, her eyebrow is even twitching.

“......”

“I-I didn't actually mean that!”

Shirai brushes him off with a wave in front of her face and an awkward smile before saying, “Alrighty then, No-name-kun.”

“T-Thanks.”

Shirai gestures towards the rest of the booth and says, “Unfortunately there isn’t much to see here, we’re all just coming off our break, so we’re not fully set up.”

Taira investigates the booth, and is initially impressed by the flag-laden podiums and the individual LED screens behind them. “Hey Emi-chi, just what kind of club is this anyways?”

“We are Kokusai’s Languages club.”

“That so?” he ponders aloud while checking out the display bar filled with sweets. He can’t help but try and figure out what any of this stuff presented in the booth has to do with Languages, and he’s about to ask that very question before he’s interrupted by the zinging sound of an electrical appliance turning on.

“Wuah! I think I got it!” a hidden voice excitedly exclaims.

The LED screens all go live simultaneously, flooding the area underneath the tent with light, and a large, see-through refrigerator lights up brightly before tapering back to a cooler tint.

“About time, geez!” Shirai says, “I’m sure you would’ve gotten it done sooner had you been wearing your glasses, Tan--- ahem I mean, Akihiro-kun.”

“!!??” Taira’s body convulses upon hearing that.

Tucked down towards the ground behind the display bar and hidden from sight, Tani is heard replying, “I have committed to no glasses while I’m in the booth, I knew I'd be able to pull this off without them. Faulty wiring be damned! I’m just that glad we came back when we did, this fridge just barely remained cold enough to salvage our Grand Cannoli. I think I ought to lodge a complaint with the University organizers, I bet they outsourced this Festival's entire infrastructure project to some shoddy low budget labor company.”

Taira takes a startled step back. Not because of all the sudden lights flickering on at once, but because of the familiar voice that just reached his ears and struck him like a lightning bolt.

He freezes in place, and watches Tani stand to his feet and triumphantly puff his chest out.

“Not only am I an academic genius, apparently I’m an incredible handyman.” he says, and then awaits positive reaffirmation from Shirai.

To which she eagerly obliges.

“Not only are you handsome, you are also handy!”

“Ha! That I am!”

“Excuse me.” Emilia says, raising her little hand and interrupting his celebration. “We have a guest.”

“Ohh already??” Tani replies, snapping head from left to right and looking around. “The others aren’t here yet though, we can’t have them play our game just yet.”

Taira remains deathly silent, sweat pouring down his temples communicating his dreadful discomfort. He can’t find it within himself to flee however, it’s as though he were a possum playing dead after running into a much larger predator.

“He’s not here to play, just to pop in.”

Tani fires a twisted face her way, completely disinterested in the prospect of entertaining this person. Yet still, he manages to shake it off and ask, “And where is this person?”

“He’s right in front of you, Tani-senpai.”

Only now does Tani turn to face Taira. An immediate, volatile charge, sizzles between them like opposing battery terminals plunged into water.

Tani squints at Taira, and Taira clenches his teeth in rejection of that stare.

“Pardon our booth’s lack of festivities, you see, the other members of our club are running a bit late.”

Tani’s squint turns into a friendly smile, and it both disarms Taira and sends him into a whirlwind of confusion.

(Does he really not recognize me?) he thinks to himself, (Or is he purposely pretending not to know who I am just to be a dick??)

Taira agonizes over the short pause, not knowing that because Tani isn’t wearing his glasses, he can’t see the detail of anything more than a foot or two in front of his face. Tani has no idea that he’s standing right in front of a middle school friend of his.

Even though he isn't sure what the answer is, Taira plays along by heightening the pitch of his voice when he replies, “Oh it’s no problem. It looks really cool though, maybe I’ll come back later today, or tomorrow, or something.”

“That’d be great.” Tani graciously says while leaning up against the podium draped with the Japanese flag. “Feel free to bring some friends next time, the more the merrier.”

(He flat out doesn’t recognize me! I know I’ve changed my hair and pierced my ears since then, but c’mon man. This is a joke!)

“You know what?” Taira says, shaking off his disbelief. “That sounds like a great idea! In fact, I can bring a friend that’ll draw in a huge crowd if you’re interested?”

Tani is a little perturbed as to why this random person would offer something like that, so he’s instantly suspicious. It’s not the kind of suspicion that he’d broadcast however, instead he’ll just pretend that he appreciates the ingratiating offer to mirror the manufactured kindness sent his way.

“I’m very interested, it’d do our club a great favor if you can pull that off.”

(This’ll work out way more in my favor, though.) he thinks to himself before saying out loud, “Cool cool, let’s plan on that then. Now that I think about it, tomorrow would work best for us.”

Emilia has patiently stood to the side and watched them converse, although initially confused by Taira’s voice change, she’s still feeling a little left out, so she walks in between the two and asks, “Are you talking about your famous friend?”

“Sure am! He’s actually a student here at Tokyo U, by the way.”

“Then that means you can finally introduce yourself properly.”

Emilia's blunt tone strikes Taira like a physical blow, yet he concedes her point and relents.

“I’ll tell you what, until tomorrow, you can just call me Tai.”

“Tai-san… hmm.” Emilia hides a tiny smile. “Nice to meet you.”

“The pleasure’s all mine, Emi-chi.”

“Tai-san, is it?” Tani says politely, drawing his attention away. “My name is Akihiro Tani, and I am the president of Kokusai high school's Languages club. Nice to meet you as well.”

Tani can’t see it, but a devilish smile is hidden underneath Taira’s friendly face when he replies, “It’s very nice to meet you, Aki-ku---” He stops himself and feigns a cough before finishing, “Akihiro-san. I’ll see you guys tomorrow, I gotta get going now.”

He waves goodbye to the three Languages club members and walks off into the crowd. Now alone, he can finally let the wicked smile run rampant with the features of his face. “I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it! Aki-kun in the flesh after all this time!”

Taira pulls out his cellphone and brings it up to his face, illuminating cruel twist of his lips and the cunning glint in his eyes. He scrolls to and opens the Facebook app, then selects one of the two profiles he has the option to access:

'Akihiro Tani'

Navigating to the message feature, he reads the texts Ume had sent Tani while trying to reach him about their date the previous month.

When Ume had last used this app to text who she thought was Tani, Taira had her texts left on ‘Read’ at the time, hoping that at the very least it would mess up their planned day together.

“Me jacking Aki-kun’s Facebook continues to pay dividends. And now that I’ve run into him in person, that means I’ll be able to figure out where Kimura has been hiding too. I always knew you two would eventually start meeting up again... You really are a two-faced bastard after all, Aki-kun.”

Clutching his phone, Taira lets out a sinister chuckle and quickly moves deeper into the throngs of the festival crowd.

“Kuahaha, ‘he’s’ going to be so stoked to hear about Kimura… I can’t wait to bring you the good news about your girlfriend, Hagi-senpai!”

To Be Continued!!