STD Positive (cont.) II

Now that she wasn’t wearing a blazer, I couldn’t help but notice how athletic Sakura was. It might’ve just been the effect of the tracksuit, but her limbs appeared so long and so toned (okay, so maybe the second adjective is imagined in this particular situation, but trust me) it wouldn’t have surprised me if she were part zebra. Zebras run fast and have muscular legs, or something… right? Clearly I should be banned from the zoo.

Watanabe is not getting a description.

Anyway, this was my response to her question.

“I-it’s nice to see you too, Sakura-san. But um, you know, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. My friend and I over here are—”

“On a date,” Mari answered.

“Wait. Don’t be vague. Let’s not give Sakura-san the wrong idea.”

“Oh, sorry. A romantic date,” Mari clarified.

I gawked at my childhood friend. What the hell are you saying? Maybe if I stared at her hard enough she’d sense my italicised thoughts, or something.

Unfortunately, telepathy doesn’t exist—not even in a universe where high schools are ranking their students’ attractiveness.

“Oho, do you know her, Emi-chan?” asked Watanabe.

Gently, politely—Sakura shook her head in response. “No, this is the first time we’ve met.”

Then she extended a polite bow towards Mari.

“You’re Tsujimoto-san from Class 1-A, correct? It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Thanks. I have no idea who you are,” Mari shot back.

My brain completely ignored the rudeness of Mari’s remark and focused on Watanabe instead. Mari-chan? Emi-chan? Just how much of a smooth operator was this guy?

And only girls get honorifics, or what?

“I’m Sakura Emi from 1-F,” my classmate continued, apparently unfazed. “I’m a friend of Mizuhara-kun’s.”

“I see. I’m Kocchan’s close friend. Does that work as an introduction, since you already know my name?”

“Ahaha,” Sakura laughed, though there was nothing funny about Mari’s statement.

This probably goes without saying, but Sakura calling me a ‘friend’ really stretched the definition of the word. ‘Acquaintance’ was infinitesimally more accurate. Calling Sakura and I ‘friends’ would be the equivalent of using ‘literally’ to describe a figurative statement—though her calling me that did literally make me explode in joy. Okay, inner monologue interjection over.

“Since you already know Yousuke-kun and Mizuhara-kun, I hope we can be friends,” Sakura said.

“You think so?”

“Yes. I’d like to be friends with as many people as I can in this school, Tsujimoto-chan.”

“Is that so.” Bluntly, brusquely—without even acknowledging her statement, Mari began to engage in a staring contest with Sakura.

Pouts, smiles, and glares… all in the same scene.

Mood swings must be the in-thing nowadays.

“This isn’t going very well,” Watanabe said, his arm perched on my shoulder. “My dear roommate.”

“Thanks for the commentary.”

“Are you really on a date with Girl B? Why is she so aggressive? Did you make a pass at Girl C? What happened with Girl A in the end?”

“…...”

Wow.

So Watanabe’s natural instinct was to refer to girls by alphabetical code. That’s probably worse than creating a power ranking of your female classmates’ chests and dubbing the largest pair the League Champion… not that anyone’s ever done that.

“Okay, too many questions. I’ll rephrase it to just one—is Mari always like that when she meets other girls?”

Since he rectified his mistake, I indulged him.

“She used to be like that with everyone regardless of gender. Though Mari did mention that if she ever got a clean slate in a new school, she would try her best to be nice to everyone… which, well, makes me confused as to why she’s being like this.”

Mari had stated that as recently as just before spring break, so truthfully, I didn’t know what was going on.

Though I also knew she wasn’t the type to antagonise others for shallow reasons.

“...Weird,” my roommate concluded.

“Just about everything involving Mari is. It’s unrealistic to try and figure her out… Actually, just curious—how do you know Sakura?”

“Oh, just this and that, you know.”

He winked.

I had no idea what he was trying to say, but I was rather fond of Watanabe by that point so I pretended like I did.

“I totally get you.”

His suave attitude aside, he did help me by turning Mari away at the door—and apart from hogging the toilet every morning to style his hair, he was a good roommate. I couldn’t find many things to complain about.

Which reminds me… the door. There was something I was supposed to confront him about regarding that, right?

It can’t be that important if I’m forgetting it.

“Hey,” Mari called out. “Kocchan, I suddenly feel like you’ve been saying stupid things about me.”

“Urk.”

It looked like ‘athletic blue ponytail with no bangs’ and ‘cutesy brown shoulder-bob with straight bangs’ were done with their silent confrontation, so they were staring at us with vaguely accusatory expressions.

They were both seriously attractive. Watanabe too, to be honest.

“I… um… hawawa?”

“Uh, he’s trying to say that he didn’t,” Watanabe replied in my stead. “We were just talking about plans for furnishing our room. Speaking of plans, the two of us are sorry for interrupting yours, Mari-chan. (That is to say Emi and myself.)”

And just like that, the vague expression on Tsujimoto Mari’s face morphed into a beaming smile.

“Oh, don’t worry about it, Yousupon!”

……

Wait…

Wait.

Wait!

How did Watanabe use parentheses in dialogue?!

Nothing to see here, move along.

……

……

……

…So, Watanabe had implied he’d met Mari for the first time yesterday, right?

Yet she was already calling him by a nickname.

This girl.

Her mood swing counter sat at four by my count.

“Anyway,” Watanabe said, “Emi-chan and I have to get back to track club, so we’ll be taking our leave now. We only came in here to grab drinks. Right, Emi-chan?”

“It’s as he says. Practice starts at four, so we need to go soon.”

“Hold on, I said.”

I was so excited that I’d really said ‘I said’ out loud.

Something about their exchange had set off a warning siren in my brain.

I’ll give you this sentence to figure out what it was.

“…Track? Watanabe, you’re in track?”

“Uhh…”

“He is,” Sakura answered. “We joined the club at the same time, actually. Last Thursday, or thereabouts.”

“Yep, yep. Now if you’ll excuse me…”

Turning on his heels before I could ask about soccer, Watanabe brisk walked out of the café without a single bottle of Pocari Sweat to his name.

“Arara? He just rushed out and forgot about the drinks,” Sakura mused. “That’s not very like Yousuke-kun at all.”

“Aren’t you… going… to go after him? No, actually, please go after him,” Mari prodded.

Well, someone clearly wanted to get rid of Sakura. Apologies for telling and not showing.

“Ahaha, you’re right. Guess I’ll just have to grab two drinks, then. It was nice to meet you, Tsujimoto-chan. Please enjoy your date. And Mizuhara-kun, see you in class tomorrow!”

Giving both Mari and I a polite bow and a “goodbye”, Sakura picked up two bottles from the café’s fridge and left in that awkward jog-walk people do when they hurry. 

Free Pocari, huh?

The school really took the word ‘scholarship’ to an entirely different planet, offering drinks for free like that.

Think of all the plastic waste teenagers would generate unshackled by monetary constraints.

“Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.”

In the meantime, Mari let out a deep, deep, deeeeeeep exhale. It was so unbelievably long I was curious if the school would ever get to measuring our lung volumes.

“Must be tiring, huh? Being angry all the time.”

“Zip it, idiot.”

“Why do you even dislike Sakura-san so much? Have you met her before this?”

“Nope.”

“Then?”

Putting a hand to her forehead, and staring at her curry rice (which by now should’ve been room temperature), Mari gave me an explanation that was…

Surprisingly reasonable.