The Long and Winding Road

The first day of the Gogatsusai Festival seemed to end in a whimper. At least to Tani.

After the break ended and the entire club was reunited, he noticed a palpable energy shift. It was as though everyone was going through the motions with only a fraction of the vigor they started the day with.

Every time he pried, hoping to sneak an answer, or even a mere hint for that matter, he was shut down with reassurances that everything was just fine.

Not wanting to distract his coworkers, he didn’t press on, and the entire club just went about business until closing time. Everyone but Shirai and Emilia had left the booth without much fanfare, which only confirmed Tani’s suspicions that something was up.

Despite the clear success of their booth, Tani is left feeling uneasy about the first day. The heavy atmosphere he is currently being crushed under in the back seat of Anita's luxury car makes what he went through as Shirai’s 'boyfriend' feel almost insignificant now.

The sun has just about completely gone down, and he’s sitting in the middle again with Anita sat comfortably to his left. This time however, Ume is not in the adjacent seat to his right; she had politely declined a ride home and instead took the train alongside Emilia.

It all has seemed too weird to him, and it still does now. Especially considering that Anita hasn’t spoken so much as a word to him the entire drive back towards his flat.

“....”

The silence is as overbearing as the world on Atlas’s shoulders.

He is desperate to find a way out from under it.

“S-So then, how did you like working at our booth? You did such a good job today, it’s a shame that no patron won the Grand Cannoli though.”

Anita’s shoulders jump upon hearing his voice, and although Tani is focusing on the road ahead to avoid car sickness, he could catch a glimpse of it in his peripheral vision.

“...Thanks.” she replies.

Having thrown out multiple topics on which to build upon, her Emila-like response is registered as sharp as a sword slice.

“....”

He awkwardly grabs at his pant leg, and the stomach cramp that reaction has induced begins to trigger a dreadful nausea.

Viktor seems to notice his struggle and swiftly hands Tani an unopened water bottle. Obliging in a snap, Tani takes a sip and dares a turn to catch a glance at her expression.

Anita is looking out of the window and zoning out on the many lights of the twilit Tokyo streets streaking by. She is clearly lost in thought on something that has nothing to do with whatever he just said.

“Are you alright?” Tani asks.

She’s silent for a brief moment, then her eyes catch Tani's reflection in the car window as he looks at her. Snapping out of her daze, she turns to him and asks, "Um… What?"

“What??” Tani asks in a huff. “Since when did you become the aloof type? I’ve been getting crickets out of you all afternoon!”

“Ah, sorry about that. I was having a sheep.”

“Hmph!” Tani puffs. “Obviously.”

“What were you saying?”

“What I’m saying isn’t important.”

“I see…”

“But what you’re feeling is. What’s on your mind?”

Tani has to revert back to looking directly forward, both for his nausea and in preparation for the pending answer to his question.

Anita stares holes into his temple, unable to decide just what kind of reply she’s allowed to give him. She’s had multiple bombshells land atop her head today, the most pressing of which is Ume’s feelings for him, along with the fact that her position at his side serves to get in the way of that.

She’s been torn on whether or not she is supposed to keep her distance from him now that she knows about Ume. The thought of either path pulls at very peculiar strings inside her heart.

The only thing she knows for sure is that she wouldn’t dare tell him about what’s actually bothering her.

Next on the list is this new friend of Emilia’s, another secret that Ume has begged her to keep for the time being. All of these things are burdens a bit too much for her to bear as someone not quite equipped on the social etiquette needed to be in this type of situation.

Her heart wants her to discuss everything with him, her mind on the other hand, knows that would lead to disaster. This longing itself, and the underlying reason for it, has created a significant struggle within her.

“...It’s nothing.”

Tani pauses for a moment and replies, “...Alright.”

Anita notices an immediate change in his body language, he almost sinks into his seat. She’s certain that he knows she just lied straight to his face.

She hides her face from him and bites her bottom lip.

“Want to know something interesting that happened to me today?” Tani asks.

The sudden change in subject corresponds with a notable shift of his tone, which catches her off guard and draws her attention.

“Something interesting?"

Tani clears his throat and sits upright in his seat before saying, “I got rejected by Shirai-sensei during our break.”

“.....”

There is no way Anita can process that properly. It was simply too far from what she could have imagined he’d say, so she freezes in place for a second to allow her mind to catch up to the words she just heard.

“You got what???” she exclaims.

“I’ve been wanting to tell you about it ever since it happened.”

“Um…” She shuffles in her chair and says,“I never would've guessed that you liked our teacher like that.”

“Oh, I don’t like her like that, actually.”

“But if you got rejected, that means that you confessed your feelings to her, right?” she cautiously asks.

“That’s where the story gets long.” Tani settles himself in to explain. “When I started the Languages club, I needed a club sponsor. So I kind of bribed her into doing it by giving her those treats every day.”

“Bribed??”

“Hmm, maybe ‘exploited’ is a better word for it.”

“Both of those sound bad!”

“I know I know, I’m going somewhere with this. Patience, Anita!”

As he speaks, his energy returns, and the color floods back into his once-white face. Revealing this information seems to have stabilized every ailment he might have suffered while in the back seat, making him almost giddy to continue explaining.

“Long story short, she misinterpreted my gesture of making those treats as romantic feelings for her. In fact, she had thought that way for a while before I even met you, she even rejected me right before you and I first met.”

“You never told her that it wasn’t the case?”

“That’s just the thing, I told her exactly that, but she ran off with the idea and ceaselessly teased me over these fabricated feelings all the way to today.”

Anita is trying her best to understand how any of this can lead to him getting rejected, so she remains silent as he continues to elaborate.

“The funny thing is, I didn’t have to make them for her once she became our sponsor, but I continued to do it anyway. I guess I enjoyed the routine, maybe even the teasing too. So, she continued to think that I liked her because of that, and today she finally told me to stop for good.”

“That doesn’t sound like a rejection though. You never actually confessed.”

“It’s true that I didn’t actually confess. But I did something crazy nonetheless.”

“Crazy?”

“Want to know?”

“Ahhh,” Anita shrinks away from him and blocks her face with her hands. “I’m nervous..!”

“Ha! You shouldn't worry that someone might share embarrassing details with you, the person sharing is the only one taking the hit.”

“I’d still get second hand embarrassment. Depending on what you say next could do me a lot of damage.”

Tani folds his arms and smiles, “Then prepare yourself for a finishing move.”

“..!!”

“Today is her birthday, and as a present she asked that I be her boyfriend for one hour. I felt like it was the crescendo to her teasing and I played along, she really went all out on me this time. Right from the start she was delivering her very best stuff, and I got swept up in it… So at the very end there, I got carried away… and I almost kissed her.”

“Ehhh!?!? There’s no way!”

“I swear on my life goals that this actually happened.”

“So she rejected you when you tried to kiss her??”

“Nope.” Tani looks towards her and says, “She was gonna let me do it.”

Anita playfully pushes him away. “Liar!”

“I’m many things, a liar isn't one of them!”

“Then how?”

Tani holds his finger up and says, “I stopped myself at the last second.”

Anita dissects his expression with the scrutiny of a brain surgeon, hoping to find a scrap of dishonesty. Immediately, she sees that he’s telling the truth, yet she still finds herself unable to believe it. She had no idea this was going on behind the scenes in his life, she had no idea he was even remotely capable of such an action, and she has no idea why he’s deciding to tell her about such a thing.

Ume was already concerned that she knew so much about him, so adding such a big event to that list adds to her guilt over that fact.

“...Why?” she asks softly.

“Why did I stop? Cause deep down I knew that it wasn’t what my heart truly wanted. Whatever was in there kept me from going any further.”

If it were possible for Anita to look close enough, she’d notice that what Tani just said isn’t entirely honest. He stopped because he saw someone within his mind and heard her voice calling out to him. If not for that person, there was no way he would have stopped.

And who was that person?

Well, that’s a secret he’s not going to disclose just yet.

“...Why?” she repeats.

“Uh… Why what?”

“Why are you telling me this?”

Tani scratches his head and looks towards the front of the car. “For the same reason that I’m sat back here with you instead of sitting comfortably in the front seat where I wouldn’t run the risk of car sickness.”

“...?” She looks at him quizzically.

Tani scratches his head even harder. “For someone who says they get bad secondhand embarrassment, you sure are trying to inflict maximum damage to your hp bar.”

“I.. I just don’t get it.”

“There’s nothing to get… Anita,” Tani turns and looks straight into her eyes with a smile, “I told you this because I wanted to.”

The two get trapped in a brief, but endless second. No more words from Tani are needed for Anita to sense what he’s feeling and hoping to communicate to her.

She can understand him by simply looking into his eyes, and she’s positive that she feels the exact same way. Ever since they’ve been able to fully communicate with each other in their mix of Japanese and Norwegian, she’s found herself wanting to talk to him about even the most mundane things she would see throughout the day.

Whether it be a giant Jorō spider she saw creeping in a bush, a tasty vending machine item she tried for the first time, an interesting run in with a classmate or a funny game show she saw on TV, the first person she thinks to tell about all of it, is Tani.

His mutual feelings are a source of both happiness and pain. She would eagerly listen to anything he had to say, even something as outrageous as almost kissing their teacher. Yet, despite her intense desire to reciprocate, she is unable to share the same kind of confidences with him.

And the very source of that desire is what hurts the most.

“T-Thank you for telling me, Tani.”

“Thank you for listening. I hope you don’t think anything less of me now that I’ve revealed my debaucherous side.”

“You know I wouldn’t, otherwise you never would have brought it up.”

“Ha, that’s right.”

The car comes to a stop, with Viktor finally breaks his silence by pointing out, “We’re here.”

Tani had almost forgotten about Viktor up to this point, but he’s certain that at least half of the stuff he was talking to Anita about wouldn’t have been understood by the tall brooding man, so he pays no mind to the eavesdropper.

“Thanks for the ride, Viktor.”

“My pleasure.” he replies, unbuckling his seatbelt and getting ready to open the door for Tani before he is shooed away from doing so.

Tani opens the door himself and leans in to give Anita a couple parting words.

“I might be flipping the script of our dynamic here… But just know that you don’t have to feel bad about not wanting to tell me something. You’re your own person after all.” Tani looks behind him towards the dark windows of his flat on the second floor of a four story unit, and then looks back towards her. ”Besides, I have plenty of my own secrets too.”

“...Tani.”

He gives her a reassuring smile.

“Plus, you can always be certain that if I’m meant to find out, eventually I will.”

That pulls a little laugh out of her, with a relieved kant of her head she says, “Of course.”

“I’ll be seeing you bright and early, and I’ll need you at your best again cause those bastards from TIU never showed up today. I expect them to be there at some point tomorrow, so get a good night’s rest!”

He softly shuts the door and begins walking towards his apartment complex. The sound of the car door opening turns him back towards the road, where he finds Anita rushing up to him with something in her hand.

“?”

“I almost forgot, I have something to give you.”

She hands him the fancy pen, and he’s drawn to it right away.

“Oh wow, this is nice. You're really just going to give it to me?”

If he wasn’t too busy analyzing the details of the pen, he’d certainly notice how conflicted Anita’s face is looking right this very second.

"Yeah." she replies.

“Where did you get this? It had to have been pretty expensive.” he asks.

“I… I didn’t get it.”

“Huh?”

Now Tani glances her way, but not soon enough. The conflicted face she once wore is replaced by something he’d read nothing into. She has stowed it away and managed to present something warm and soft.

“Ume and I played the Shateki game, and she won this prize. She wanted me to give it to you.”

“Oh cool, though she could’ve given it to me herself instead of having you do the dirty work.”

“There’s nothing dirty about this pen.”

Tani’s narrows his eyes and replies, “I would hope this pen isn’t dirty.”

“Will you use it?”

“Definitely, this is way better than anything else I have. As for which pen in my collection I’ll be benching, I’ll have to give it some thought.”

Anita spins herself around. “Hehe, okay good.”

“See you tomorrow, Anita.”

“See you!” Anita says with a friendly wave and gets in her car.

From inside, she watches Tani’s frame get smaller as they drive off. Once he’s out of sight, she lets loose a sigh that adds enough gravity to the cabin that it could flatten the entire vehicle into the ground.

Hearing that, Viktor doesn’t dare look in his rearview mirror to investigate. Instead, he simply grabs a little bag of tissues he keeps in the door and holds it over his shoulder.

Anita takes it from him and says, “You sure have a lot of stuff handy up there.”

“Of course, milady, I am always prepared for anything that might happen in this car.”

“I guess I should be grateful that at least one of us is…”

Tears start falling from her eyes, and she lets her face fall into her hands as she cries.

“Because I’m not prepared for this at all…”

To Be Continued!