If I do say so myself, I think I might have a knack for this. I was on a winning streak. By the end of one game, I had racked up 18,000 points. Adding that to my initial score, I had a grand total of 43,000. This had to be a win, right?
“Your turn?”
I smugly relinquished my seat. She inserted some coins and started playing. As I watched, the screen flickered.
‘Self-draw. Heavenly Hand, Big Three Dragons, Four Concealed Triplets’
A series of cheerful jingles played as the CPU’s score plummeted. In the blink of an eye, it went into the negatives, and Komaki’s score soared past a hundred thousand.
No way.
No, no, no way.
Was this the power of a girl blessed by the heavens? It was a little beyond my capabilities, or rather, I just wanted to go home right now. Komaki stood up and smiled sweetly.
“Game over.”
I couldn’t even manage a wry smile. I understood that her hand was complete from the start, and she had won. But the score was incomprehensible. Could it be a glitch?
“Is the game broken?”
“Nope. Wakaba, do you not know any of the winning hands?”
Did Komaki actually know them?
It wouldn’t be surprising, considering it was Komaki.
“That’s another one, then.”
Komaki wore an innocent smile. It wouldn’t be long before she put a collar on me and ordered me to bark. I felt my cheek twitch.
Wouldn’t it just solve everything if I ran away until my third year, and then disappeared completely when I went to university?
The thought flashed through my mind, but I immediately dismissed it as impossible. If I tried to escape like that, Komaki would definitely chase after me. My parents liked Komaki, so they would surely tell her where I went to college.
In that case, wouldn’t it be impossible to escape even after graduation?
Even in middle school, I chose a school a little further from home, hoping to go to a different high school than her. But on the day of the entrance ceremony, Komaki was standing on the train platform, wearing the same uniform as me.
I’ll never forget the shock and terror of that moment.
I probably wouldn’t be able to escape unless I won. To get away from Komaki, I had to beat her.
A way to beat her, the lucky genius who could do anything. I had no idea how to do that right now.
“I’m not saying right this second, though. Come on, let’s continue our date.”
There was no way I could enjoy a date in this mood. But I couldn’t bring myself to say it. So, without a word, I took the hand she offered.
“I’m hungry. Let’s go get something to eat.”
I glanced at the clock on a nearby wall. It was eleven-thirty in the morning. Still early for lunch, but I had skipped breakfast, so I was definitely hungry.
Had Komaki skipped breakfast too, I wondered.
Thinking about that, I let her lead me away.
Komaki chose a chain Italian restaurant in the mall. She has tomato pasta, I got carbonara, and we also ordered a pizza to share.
Just like at the karaoke place, we ordered two drinks from the drink bar, and went to get them together. I thought one of us should stay behind to watch our things, but when she forcefully pulled my hand, there was no way I could resist.
I mixed white grape juice and Calpis in a cup and handed it to her. Ignoring her furrowed brow, I filled my own cup with melon soda.
“You don’t have to drink it if you don’t like it.”
I took a straw out of its wrapper and put it in her cup. Ever since I heard her say she liked the taste of things becoming disgusting when mixed, I had wanted to refute that idea.
I returned to our table without saying anything more. She followed slowly behind me, the cup I had prepared clutched in her hand.
I rested my cheek on my hand and drank my melon soda.
Despite bringing it with her, she didn’t try to drink it. Was it her way of resisting me, I wondered, but I didn’t bother asking.
Soon, the waiter brought our food, and I put my hands together and said,” itadakimasu” – a polite phrase before eating- before digging into my pasta.
“…Ngh?”
Just then, I heard a strange noise. I instinctively looked up and saw Komaki with a slightly tearful expression. Her fork was stabbed into her pasta.
That alone was enough for me to understand. I disliked that part of myself a little.
“…Here, eat this.”
I offered her my carbonara, fork and all. Without waiting for a reply, I snatched her tomato pasta and took a bite. My tongue tingled slightly. It seemed to be the kind of pasta with chili peppers.
I sighed and called the waiter over, asking for a new fork.
I exchanged the fork I had used with the new one and urged her to eat. Komaki stared at the new fork with a subtle expression.
“No one goes on a date and doesn’t eat the food, right?”
I muttered to myself. I cut a slice of pizza and casually slid the plate towards her.
Even though I disliked Komaki so much, why was I doing this? I felt foolish myself.
But.
Even though I absolutely hated her, I didn’t want to see her suffer. Her smiles often irritated me, and I didn’t want to see them. But seeing her cry was even worse.
I stroked the stuffed animal sitting next to me and twirled my pasta.
“Give it back.”
Komaki said that and tried to snatch my plate. I poured a generous amount of spicy olive oil from the table all over my pasta. Her hand flinched almost imperceptibly and retreated.
“Should I give it back?”
Her eyebrows furrowed, and she glared at me.
“I don’t want it.”
“Alright then. The carbonara’s good, so you should eat it.”
She hesitated for a moment, then skillfully twirled some carbonara onto her fork and began to eat. She didn’t say it was delicious, but her eyebrow twitched slightly, so it probably was.
The way she ate her food with her small mouth, looking like a doll, was kind of cute. If I took a picture, the boys in our class would probably be thrilled.
But the fact that she was good-looking was already a given, not something worth photographing.
If I were to take a picture, I’d want to capture a more unflattering expression. That would seem more… human.
“Trying to score points? Even if you do that, I won’t stop.”
Komaki said something incomprehensible. For a moment, I genuinely didn’t understand what she meant. But after a little thought, I arrived at the intention behind her words.
“Like I would ever think, ‘Oh, I should be considerate of Komaki-chan and raise my likeability!’ There’s no way.”
This was just a habit, or rather, unconscious. The deepest part of my heart was telling me not to let Komaki look sad.
Even though I was the one constantly being made to feel bad and sad by her. My own heart was being unreasonable towards me.
Maybe it was Komaki’s heart all along, I thought. My core had long been stolen by Komaki, and like a parasite taking over its host, it was trying to make me act for Komaki’s sake. Though, that was probably overthinking it.
“You’re so self-conscious, Umezono.”
I ate my pasta. A tablespoon of olive oil wasn’t enough to break Komaki’s stubbornness. So, my pasta was unbelievably spicy and oily.
It was still edible, so I supposed it was fine. I kept chewing, trying to ignore the burning sensation on my tongue, and drank my melon soda.
I could probably easily beat her if I challenged her to an eating contest with spicy food or something. But that wouldn’t mean anything. That wouldn’t be a real win. Even if I won the contest, my heart wouldn’t have won.
Her weakness for spicy food was one of her few flaws. But exploiting that felt unfair.
I had several such lines drawn within myself. You could call them strange fixations, but they were important to me. I wanted to challenge her head-on, in a fair fight, and utterly defeat her.
That’s why I would look down at her and say it.
Komaki… Umezono wasn’t as perfect as she thought she was.
“Let me have some of that.”
Komaki, who had apparently finished her carbonara without me noticing, pointed at my plate. The tomato sauce, now yellowed with oil, was clearly something she couldn’t handle.
However, her face was serious. She was looking intently at my plate, as if her life depended on eating it.
Suspicious, I averted my gaze and noticed her untouched drink. Unlike my melon soda, which was more than half gone, the liquid in her cup looked a little lonely.
“Don’t. You’ll get a stomachache.”
I thought it was good to challenge things you weren’t good at. But no good came from challenging spicy food. Whether you were strong or weak against spiciness was something you were born with, so I didn’t think you needed to push yourself there.
I watched as her lips, which had turned red like she’d applied lipstick after just a bite of slightly spicy pasta, slowly parted.
Seeing the shape of her mouth, as if she was about to say “so,” I twisted a small amount of pasta onto my fork and shoved it into her mouth.
Stubborn thing.
“…Gah, cough, ugh.”
Her face turned redder and redder. I told her not to.
Komaki’s eyes welled up with tears as she touched her cup as if it were a fragile object and put the straw to her lips. The liquid, which hadn’t decreased at all until just now, vanished in an instant, ending with a loud “slurp.”
The roughly placed cup looked somewhat triumphant.
I let out a breath filled with complicated emotions.
Did she try to eat the pasta just so she’d have a reason to drink? If so, Komaki was an idiot. And still hopelessly stubborn.
“Delicious… it really is different.”
She muttered that and snatched my cup. She drank all of my melon soda and stuck out her tongue slightly. A faint green. No white to be seen.
“Liking something like this is such a kid’s palate,” she said, as if making excuses for herself.
“I’m a kid, so a kid’s palate is fine, isn’t it? Mind your own business.”
Komaki’s lips were even redder than before.
What were we even doing? Both Komaki and I.
“Why don’t you order something to cleanse your palate?”
“No. I’ll eat pizza.”
“The pizza might be spicy too, you know.”
“…Gelato. What about you, Wakaba?”
“Affogato.”
“Trying to act like an adult is embarrassing, you know.”
Everyone around us was enjoying their meals, while we were the only ones arguing and doing nonsensical things. How long were we going to continue this stubborn battle of wills? The peaceful atmosphere of the restaurant seemed to be telling us just that.
“Thinking that ordering an affogato is trying to act like an adult is stupid, but… please order it.”
I called the waiter over with the bell and placed our order, then took a bite of the pizza. The slightly cooled pizza tasted overwhelmingly sweet after the spicy pasta. I wondered if I even needed a palate-cleansing dessert.
As if noticing my reaction, Komaki also took a slice of pizza and put it in her mouth.
“Delicious.”
Saying that, Komaki showed the first genuine smile she had all day.
I was a little dumbfounded and delivered a light chop to her forehead.
