Pastel Princess

Thursday afternoon. Nothing really happened these past two days, I did my duty as a student to a perfect degree. Yeah, I told myself that I will improve, but it hasn’t really happened as quickly as I wanted. If this was the old me, I would’ve given up by now, but as this is a new leaf, I will quit in like a week instead. Nothing can stop me! My foundation is quite literally irony, humour, and philosophical ramblings with a bit of science knowledge. But since I'm 16, they're not really wise or even remotely unique.

And on that note, we had chemistry today.

Chemistry was a simple learning of equilibrium. I’m sure you guys don’t care about the specifics. Neither did most of Class 2-B apparently. I saw Mai stare into the clock like she was suffering from combat stress. I noticed Tatsuya and Saeka talking about some random seasonal anime, which is surprising since Sayako, self-proclaimed Queen Otaku, said she wasn’t really watching anything at the moment. On the other hand, my seatmate Saeka swapped with Yusuke. I like Saeka but this is a substantial upgrade. A Range Rover to a Mercedes G Wagon. My foreign car knowledge is on point. We both just did the work quickly, two twinned automated robots in a car factory. There must be a red string of fate bound to us.

Suddenly, Mai turned up her ditzy cutesy aura by 100x. She is the physical manifestation of a hyperpop song. Especially one where the lyrics are from the perspective of a yandere. Why did I describe her like this? Because she keeps on continually going up to me like I’m her prey. Mai claims it’s because she’s struggling with the work, but I swear she’s like top 5 in our class. My guess is that she’s just trying to make convo with me. She keeps teasing me a lot. Seriously, almost to a point where I feel like the tides will turn and I will embarrass her or something. If I wanted a rom-com situation, I’d rather have it with Shibuya or Nishi. Thanks in advance.

“Hey, Honzo. Do you know how to calculate the direction of the equilibrium when it’s these conditions? I know the result of the chemical equation is exothermic, but I’m not sure whether it’s actually entropic?”

Hey. I just consume pop science and I can talk about random terms. I have no idea about the actual in-depth information or the nitty-gritty. Plus, I don’t like chemistry, sadly I’m not like my sister in this field. You can ask her Mai.

“Sorry Mai, I don’t really get equilibria. You know Gibbs free energy and lattices, I don’t actually get that.” I had to respond to her.

“Don’t worry Honzo! It’ll all be fine! I just need you to text your sister or search for it on Google. I gave my phone to Shibuya because she left her phone at home.”

Yusuke chimed in, “You can have my phone here, Mai-san.”

Nice work. You’ve defeated her plans.

Mai questioned Yusuke if he had my sister on his contracts. He said no. Fun fact, Yusuke’s only ever seen my sister like seven times, and I’ve known him for nearly five years. It would be a whole other story if he suddenly had my sister on his phone.

“Ahh… then I want Honzo’s phone.”

What a sly bunny. To be fair she did say she wanted to text my sister, so I guess that was easy to counter. Come to think of it, Yumi-nee loved Mai to death. Called her Mai-chan, the cutest or something. I remember the title actually! ‘The Greatest Cute Neighbour A Girl Could Ask For.’ That would be a funny yuri light novel title, right? Maybe I should drop this self-improvement and become a novelist.

In a tone, attempting to be funny, I said “Look, Mai. Do you have a crush on my sister? You could’ve just used his phone instead.”

Mai gave a mischievous smile. I think it’s over for me.

“Yeah, I do now, hand me the phone, please! Come on Honzo… or should I call you bad wind, like the old school days?”

Professional comedian, eh? Even got Yusuke giving a giggle. Come on Yusuke. We’re 16, not 13. That joke is played out. Then again, it has been a while since someone mentioned that. Yes. My family name does genuinely mean ‘bad wind’. It could also mean 'no wind' or whatever, but that's the definition that stuck out in school. Yumi isn’t the butt of the jokes, but for some reason, I am. What type of cursed name is Honzo Fukaze? I don’t curse anyone but the person who decided our family should be named that. Why couldn’t my name be Hanzo Fukase? That sounds normal. Can’t win them all, however.

I stared at Mai, trying to give the impression I didn’t care. “Look, Mai. You want to go through my stuff? Here.” I passed it to her.

“Thank you, Honzo!”

She said it in a high-pitched tone to piss me off. I know it. At least we’re regularly talking now.

I gave an eyebrow raise to Yusuke. Time to crack on with the work. There’s nothing particularly embarrassing on that phone. I’m not active on social media. The most embarrassing thing she would see is if she went on my YouTube or something.

Wait.

No.

Can’t be.

I’m pretty sure I deleted the tab, right?

I turned around. Mai gave the biggest smile I have ever seen. You can’t overstate it. Maybe it was the anxiety getting to me, but wow. That was quite the grin. It was over. I knew what she had seen.

“So Fukaze Honzo. You like onee-sans? This girl looks a lot like Shibuya-chan too. You like her?”

From that, I have a few courses of action. I admit I like onee-sans and I like Shibuya-chan. The second one is I like onee-sans but the girl looking like Shibuya is a coincidence. The worst and funniest one being I don’t actually like onee-sans but rather Shibuya only. Maybe I should pick that one?

“Love onee-sans. That girl looking like Shibuya is a coincidence.”

I think I handled it well?

“For someone who’s pretty cold to their actual onee-san, you like having a lot of big sister surrogates. I’m not going to tell anyone, anyways. Not even Shibuya. Next time you should delete the tab straight away.” Mai retorted to me and Yusuke. I think that warning was to him too.

“Yes, Princess. I’m ever so sorry. Seriously. Please don’t tell anyone.”

I’m genuinely serious. My self-improvement would implode on me. The end of a reformation.

“Princess! Haha, fair enough Honzo.”

“Should I call you Pastel Princess instead?”

Mai became a rose again. I’m surprised she didn’t do that seeing what was on my phone, but she blushed at me calling her a cute nickname? Is that what she wanted? Her goal. Good game, Mai.

“You know Honzo, if you just asked, I could’ve probably made you two talk together or something. Shibuya needs some help talking to others anyways.”

I told Mai, “What would we even talk about?”

“Eh. Nothing much, I guess. Still worth trying.”

She’s right. Plus, this is a clear invite from her to talk to Shibuya. There will never be a better chance. But I’ll wait for another chance. Kinda don’t actually want to speak to Shibuya, I’m too tired to communicate right now. I’ve always assumed she’s as introverted as much, if not, more than me. That conversation would probably be dry if I’m not charged up.

An annoying buzz struck the collective eardrums. Guess it’s time to walk home. But I was actually greeted by someone I didn’t want to talk to. Minoru-san. He told me he wanted to talk after school at a nearby cafe. I agreed. It’s better to improve yourself by communicating with people you’re not on good terms with. Also, the onus is on him, it’s genuinely his fault that it ended that way. Who says they don’t like someone without not trying to be confrontational? It’s stupid. Maybe he has weaker social skills than me? Or lacks empathy? I’m not so sure.

Minoru looked up at me and said “Hey. I’ll explain everything in full detail. Since tomorrow is our meeting, it’s best to agree on some things, right? Let’s just enjoy it over a few hot beverages.”

I nodded at him. Not willing to even share the sound of my voice, let alone the words.

Both Mai and Yusuke seemed confused. I told them that it’s fine and I won’t be walking home with either of them. I gave them a wave off and headed towards the skinny corridors to the entrance. It was overcrowded. Barely a space enough for a rodent to eat, let alone move. This time, our classes were located in the maze of concrete. Surrounded by walls that seemed like they were closing. Honestly, this was dangerous. No wonder why they were closing and rebuilding. Staff had started shouting loudly, but their voices were getting drowned out by the crowd. The other members of the class got the message. Stay indoors and wait for it to dissipate.

I looked at Minoru, who seemed like he was undergoing a big fight-or-flight response. I tried to comfort him, but it seemed weird to do so. Even when trying to help someone or do a selfless action, I’m still either insecure or always self-doubting. My self-worth really needs to pick up. Whatever. I did actually attempt to comfort him by having my hands on his shoulder. At least he didn’t hate it? Even if we didn’t like each other, I’m sure it’s easy to recognize we needed help.

Luckily, or perhaps really inevitably, we got to our destination. The big lobby full of lockers outside to the streets. I told Minoru “Are you okay? You seemed to not look good? Was it related to your trauma?”

He dismissed it. Told me, “It’s all fine man. Let’s just get to the cafe.”

Me? I conceded and just went along. No point pushing deep when he’s going to tell me in his own time.