Editing Rapid Fire King:Volume1 Chapter 2 (section)

===4===

“Eh?”

Takamura did not even need to turn around because a ponytail swayed near the seat to his right.

He turned toward the movement of air he felt just in time for the neighboring seat to scrape back and a girl to sit in it.

She placed a plate of curry on the table and gave him a downcast look.

“Iwa…”

His voice was a little weak. He did not even speak the full name given on her nametag: Iwata.

She gave a response of sorts after sitting down.

“–––––”

She continued the silent downcast look before sighing and bending back.

Her eyebrows were raised. Her swaying hair hit his right shoulder, but he said nothing. Then she grabbed the curry spoon and tapped it on the plate twice, but…

“You know.”

She started speaking while fully opening her eyes and giving him a sharp look.

She aimed the unused spoon toward his face.

“I would like to have a word with you.”

She leaned forward to give him an upturned look.

…''Oh, crap.

''She’s mad, isn’t she?'' he thought.

He knew why.

But she resumed speaking before he could think about that reason why.

Her low voice seemed to confirm his restless thoughts.

“So here’s a question.” She shoved the spoon even closer to his face. “Where did you go in Haijima last night?”

“W-well.”

“I waited at the ticket gate until the very last second, you know?”

“Yeah, but, um.”

“And you didn’t get off at Higashi-Akiru Station either.”

“Are you stalking me now?”

She reacted to that by pulling back a bit and looking more down at him while smiling thinly.

“Heh. Is that what this looks like to you?”

''Oops,'' he realized, but it was too late.

She reached into her blazer’s breast pocket and pulled out a notepad. It was an old-fashioned leather one and the title nametag said “Newspaper Club”.

She placed it on the table.

“I am getting profiles for all the baseball players. You are the only one I haven’t gotten yet.”

“You’re the one that said you could get it at any time since we live so close together.”

“I didn’t consider the possibility of you running away. Was it a mistake to tell you in advance I wanted to get it done on the train home?”

The phrase “running away” and the nuance of the following sentence told Takamura something.

…''Iwa doesn’t think I went to the arcade?

She said he had run away.

She considered telling him in advance a mistake because she thought that was why he had not met her at the agreed upon time.

And she did not think the arcade was his reason for running away.

…''She seems to think I don’t want her to get my profile for the newspaper club.

Once he realized that, he looked away and tried something else.

“I mean, can’t you just make up a profile for me?”

She blushed with eyebrows raised at that.

“Why do you want me to imagine your weight, height, hobbies, and fetishes, you pervert?”

“We went to the same elementary and middle school and we chat about stupid stuff on the train most mornings. Plus, my height only just passed yours, so you more or less know that.”

“Girls’ and men’s weights aren’t similar enough to guess like that.”

…''Why does she take the weirdest things so seriously?

''And why is she calling herself a “girl” while I’m a “man”? Besides, I was talking about height, not weight.

At any rate, it looked like Iwata was stubbornly insisting on getting this profile.

She refused to compromise at times like this.

That much had always been true.

“I wonder where she got that from,” had been the response from her father who ran a ramen restaurant, but Takamura’s theory was that she had inherited both her parents’ temperaments for a double dose of it.

Meanwhile, she was glaring down at him.

“Your team doesn’t even have a manager, so who do you think is giving you a scoresheet after every game?”

“That’s just a copy of the scoresheet. And you don’t need to add spectator opinions to the individual player records!”

“That’s an old tradition of the newspaper club’s baseball recordkeeper. Those midgame notes are important.”

“Sure, sure,” he said to brush it off.

At any rate, he was no longer worried about this. However…

…''She has always had really old-fashioned ideas about things.

He knew exactly what she would say if she learned he had gone to the arcade:

“Are you a little kid? You’re actually spending money on video games? Heh. You could use that on something useful, you know?”

After all…

…''I swear her brain has stepped straight out of the Showa era.

In other words, she was old-fashioned.

She thought video games were a pointless distraction for little kids. He also remembered what she had said one day when they passed by that arcade:

“That delinquent hangout is still around?”

As far as Takamura knew, the arcade was a nicer place than it had been in the past, but Iwata still had no interest in it.

What would happen if she learned he had been paying money to play games at that “delinquent hangout”?

…''She doesn’t know anything at all about video games.

Due to her household situation, she had not had many luxuries growing up. That may have been why she was always with him in his memories from elementary school, especially when he was playing baseball. He had often tried to hit the balls her way as if trying to hit her with them. Not that he was actually trying to hit her.

And starting around middle school, she had started helping out at the ramen restaurant whenever she had some free time.

At the time, most kids their age had at least one home video game console and had been interested in manga, TV, or entertainers, but when she got home, she would help out at the restaurant. Once she was done with that, she would eat dinner while watching the sports news, watching a baseball game, or reading the newspaper. She would also have a drink along with her parents.
As a result, she had turned into quite the middle-aged man of a girl.

And since she had been in middle school at the time, she had been a middle-aged man who attended middle school.

Now she was a middle-aged man who attended high school.

But she always had plenty to talk about, she said unbelievable things like that she did not watch the popular shows on TV, and she worked at her family’s business, so she had been extremely popular with their classmates even back then.

Takamura had known her for a long time since they lived close together.

He had no intention of damaging that relationship and he did not want to damage it.

So he changed the subject while giving her a warning.

“Y’know, Iwa. Being in the newspaper club doesn’t give you the right to monitor everything I do. Got that?”

“Then I’ll get everything I can out of you on the train home.”

“Are you even listening?”

“Hey, don’t treat me like a child.”

He started to say more, but she gave him a look with her eyebrows lowered.

“You really don’t want to do this?”

“Eh?”

The ends of her eyebrows and her shoulders both drooped.

She refused to compromise and she was always honest about her thoughts. With other people and with herself.

What she was feeling had always been written plainly on her face. This time, she shrugged as if to hide it a little bit.

“Am I pressuring you to do something you don’t want to do?”

If he said yes, she would say “I see”, give a weak smile, and never ask again. She would do the same with people other than him too.

That was just who she was.

He knew that from experience, so he did not hesitate to answer here.

“No, I don’t mind doing it.”

She had shrunk down a bit, but she straightened back up when she heard that.

Not all the strength had returned to her face, but she tilted her head and directed her opened eyes his way.

“Then,” she began. “If you don’t mind, why did you run away yesterday?”

“Well…”

''Crap, I walked right into that one,'' thought Takamura while sweating in his heart.

…''I’m so bad at this stuff.

When faced with something different from normal, he would say more than he should.

But this time, he began with an exaggerated sigh.

“I just need time to prepare myself.”

“Prepare yourself for what?”

“Well,” he said again while aware they were both reverting to their normal selves. “Y’know, a boy’s weight is different from a woman’s, right?”

She immediately raised her eyebrows and blushed again.

“Y-you…”

“Hey, now. People are watching. Don’t raise your voice.”

“In that case…”

“Oh, don’t slap me either.”

As soon as he said that, she slammed her left heel down on his right foot.

It made a really loud noise.

“––––––”

The shock more than the pain left him speechless, so she breathed in and spoke.

“That wasn’t a slap.”

She let out a long sigh and then started on her curry without considering the damage done to him.

And after taking a bite…

“It’s gone cold.”

“D-don’t blame me!”

“Shut up,” she said from the side. “Don’t you dare run away today, okay!? If you do, I’m going straight to your house. I’ll bring some of our gyoza to greet your parents and then I’ll ask them if ‘Kou-kun’ is there.”

He considered running away again just to get some free gyoza out of it, but he had to give up on that idea.

Why? Because when they got off at Haijima Station on the way home that day, she suggested they go to the bookstore.