The history of my battles with Komaki stretches back roughly twelve years. It boils down to this: I didn’t like how ridiculously cute and good at everything – running, other games, you name it – Komaki was, so I challenged her. End of story.
And I’ve been losing ever since, right up to today.
The words “childhood friend” carry this lovely, bittersweet resonance, like some kind of sweet romance is just waiting to blossom.
In reality, of course, no such romance ever blooms. Komaki and I are far from liking each other; in fact, we actively dislike each other, and sparks are always flying between us.
Well, maybe it’s just me constantly throwing sparks her way.
“Sorry, did you wait long?”
A line straight out of a first date scenario. I felt a shiver crawl across my skin. To put it bluntly, it was creepy. Komaki probably knew it too, yet she was all smiles. Well, not just smiles, but sickeningly sweet, nico-nico smiles.
“I waited. I waited plenty. And it’s hot, so it’s the worst.”
The waiting part was true. I hate being late for meetups. The person waiting must feel anxious about whether the other person will even show up, and they’re just left twiddling their thumbs.
I try to avoid making people feel that way, so I always make an effort to arrive early.
That doesn’t change even when the other person is Komaki. I dislike her, but I don’t intentionally want to make her feel bad.
Sure, I’ll sling insults, and I definitely have a burning desire to wipe the floor with her in a competition. But going against my own principles just to make her uncomfortable feels wrong.
Talk about having weird priorities, right? Though Komaki probably isn’t delicate enough to actually feel bad about being kept waiting.
“Oh dear, oh dear. Poor you.”
She chuckled, dabbing my forehead with a handkerchief.
“Well then, shall we go?”
With that, she looped her arm through mine. Honestly, it was unsettling. Scary, even. But this was all part of some twisted punishment game, so making me feel this way was probably the whole point.
The reason for all this? Losing that karaoke battle the other day.
After that, she declared that I would have to offer her my first “date.” Apparently, my first real date was also something I held dear.
All those daydreams I’d had about a heart-fluttering first date with my first boyfriend, maybe even a kiss at the end… all meaningless now.
“Where are we going?”
“Somewhere, I think Wakaba-chan will like~”
Komaki purred in a saccharine voice. Gross.
“… “
“We’re on a date, remember? Try to look a little more excited?”
Her voice snapped back to normal. I found her natural voice much better than that forced sweetness. Clear and transparent like a tropical sea, yet with a certain dryness to it. I hated it, yet… I liked it.
“If I don’t, you’ll start going on about my dignity again, right? I know. …Koooomakiii! Where exactly is this ‘somewhere I’ll like’?”
I put on a brave face, forcing a smile while trying to ignore the twitching in my cheek. I tightened my grip on her arm. Komaki stared back at me, her expression blank.
“…What?”
“Komaki.”
Komaki just looked at me. Her brown eyes, the same color as her hair, reflected my image vaguely.
“It’s been a while since I’ve been called that.”
Now that she mentioned it, it had probably been two years. Back in my second year of middle school, something happened that made me definitely hate Komaki, and along with that, I started calling her Umezono.
For a while, I resented her so much that I didn’t even want to look at her face. But as time passed, that intense resentment faded, returning to a simple, pure dislike, just like in the old days. Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, I couldn’t say.
But after that incident, I started to dislike not just her, but myself a little too.
“It’s weird to use last names on a date. That’s all.”
“…I think there are couples who call each other by their last names, though.”
“Then go ahead and call me that. Yoshizawaaa.”
“Wakaba.”
I knew there was no way she’d actually listen to me, so I didn’t say anything more.
I was pulled along, starting to walk. Komaki never bothered to adjust her pace for us mere mortals, so I had to walk a little faster.
The difference in our heights was impossible to ignore.
She used to be so much smaller than me, but at some point, she’d grown to be much taller. Our relationship had also changed a bit from the old days, now revolving around stealing each other’s dignity. That was definitely a bad thing.
I don’t know what to think.
Seeing her all grown up, standing tall with her back straight, looking forward… it made me feel, just a little, a tiny bit…
…good for you.
Was it because I was still hung up on the past?
It had been almost ten years now.
For a fleeting moment, the face of a young Komaki flickered in my mind.
“Here.”
Komaki stopped in front of a certain establishment. We had met up at the shopping mall and walked through it to get here.
The place was loud and filled with pointlessly colorful machines, the kind of space that felt like pure, vacuum-sealed fun – a game center, without a doubt.
“Hmm…”
I didn’t dislike it. This space, packed with nothing but the feeling of fun, preserved like a vacuum-sealed Ziploc bag, was certainly something I could appreciate. But there were other places I liked more. Why did Komaki think this was my favorite?
It wasn’t a deliberate act of malice. If she truly wanted to be malicious, she would resort to far worse tactics. I knew that all too well.
So, that meant she genuinely thought this was a place I liked and brought me here. But…
“Why?”
Why here?
As the question escaped my lips, Komaki smiled.
An angelic smile. The urge to shatter it stemmed from animosity, or perhaps…
“You come here often with your classmates, right? …We used to come here a lot together too, a long time ago.”
Komaki and I were in different classes, so how did she know that? But more surprising than that question was the fact that she remembered us coming here together in the past.
“That was when we were in lower elementary school, wasn’t it? You remember that well.”
“I have a good memory. Unlike you, Wakaba.”
“The ‘unlike you’ was unnecessary.”
Did she have some kind of disease where she had to insult me every other sentence? I let out a small sigh.
The sigh was swallowed by the din of the game center, losing its meaning.
“But still, we were pretty spoiled kids, weren’t we? Playing at the arcade after school all the time.”
I smoothly slipped my arm out of Komaki’s and walked towards the crane games. We used to come here a lot when we were younger. Once we got to upper elementary, we found other things to do, and naturally, we stopped coming.
It hadn’t changed much. The overall layout might have shifted a bit, but the atmosphere and the grime on the floor were just as they were back then.
We used to stand side-by-side like this, Komaki and I, playing the crane games.
Several stuffed animals that she had won for me back then were still sleeping in my room. Komaki probably threw hers away ages ago, though.
“The crane games at the place I usually go with my friends have weak arms. They’re those ‘probability machines,’ right? What about here?”
I inserted a hundred-yen coin and moved the arm. Flashing lights and some voice saying “Do your best!” or something equally cheap filled the air. The ridiculously low-quality audio made me smile involuntarily.
I tried to grab some unknown character with the claw, but it just nudged it without properly lifting it. Komaki watched my struggle with amusement.
Yep, definitely bad personality.
“What about you, Umezono? Do you still come to the arcade?”
Komaki leaned close to me and snatched the button. The claw scratched at the stuffed animal, making it fall into the prize chute with a soft thud.
She immediately retrieved it.
“Who knows? What do you think?”
Komaki tossed the stuffed animal up and down like a ball. I felt a pang of unease and snatched it from her.
“Whatever, but stop it, it’s sad.”
“Sad for the stuffed animal? Are you stupid?”
“Maybe I am.”
I stroked the plushie of some vaguely familiar character. It didn’t smile back, but I felt a little satisfied.
“…Hey.”
Komaki’s hands were lightly clenched. A gesture she made when she was in a bad mood. As I wondered what was wrong, she suddenly grabbed my arm and pulled me close.
This was that kind of situation, I thought, and instinctively turned my face away. But she followed my movement and pressed a kiss to my lips.
The noise of the game center faded into the distance.
Komaki’s heat, scent, and touch assaulted me, enveloping my entire being, making me almost forget how to breathe. Was it because she knew this was the most effective way to hurt my dignity that she kissed me almost every day recently?
“Kisses are something you do with someone you like,” I’d said to Komaki once, a long time ago.
I couldn’t even remember how that conversation had come about. Komaki-sama, with her superior intellect compared to a lowly being like me, probably remembered.
“So predictable.”
I said it as a small act of defiance. The sight of the tall Komaki deliberately bending down to kiss me was a little funny.
I hoped she’d get even taller, so bending down to kiss me would become even more of a pain.
As I chuckled to myself, Komaki seemed to take offense and tried to lift my shirt.
“Whoa, hey…”
“Shall I show you pattern number two?”
Trying to undress someone in broad daylight outside was insane. It wasn’t like there weren’t people around or cameras; the crane games even had cameras attached. We could get into serious trouble. Komaki probably knew that, yet she showed no signs of stopping.
My stomach peeked out, feeling a little cold, and then her hand went higher.
I shouted.
“I’ll challenge you! To a match!”
Komaki’s movements stopped abruptly. Was she planning to make me say that from the start? I had been completely led on, and I had uttered the forbidden words.
“At what?”
“Umm… well…”
I looked around. It was obvious I couldn’t win at the crane games. Medal games were out of the question too. Racing games, air hockey, absolutely impossible.
Just as I was about to despair, an unusual game caught my eye.
“That!”
“…Mahjong?”
What I had instinctively pointed at was an old-fashioned mahjong game. It didn’t look like it was for competitive play, but at this point, I didn’t care. I didn’t know the rules well, but I remembered my dad once shouting to his friends while playing, “Mahjong is ninety percent luck!”
My dad had been in last place that time. But if it was about luck, then maybe, just maybe, I had a chance to win.
“We each play once, and whoever gets the higher score wins! How about it?”
“Fine by me.”
Even Komaki probably didn’t know the rules of mahjong. This time, I had to win and stop Komaki from doing whatever she pleased.
If my dignity continued to be stolen like this, I might end up needing the police someday.
And that, I would definitely find troubling.
