Maria-sama ga Miteru:Volume13 Chapter6 2

Search for Takuya-kun! Part 2.

"Can you see?"

"Mm, well enough."

After the waitress left, Mami surveyed the view through the window.

As she'd expected, this spot gave the best view of the plaza.

There were about twenty people near the fountain, some standing and some sitting, each looked to be waiting for someone that hadn't arrived yet.

She hadn't spotted Noriko-chan.

"Is your boyfriend there?"

"Um … "

Not good.

Mami didn't know what Takuya-kun looked like.

But in order to get a photo of Takuya-kun and Noriko-chan together, she'd have to smoke out Takuya-kun and identify him as her boyfriend.

(However.)

This was a thorny problem. Just which one of them was Takuya-kun?

The middle of the day on Saturday.

On top of that, it was summer vacation too.

At a quick count, there looked to be five or six guys aged around twenty in front of the station plaza fountain. If she took into account the possibility that he was baby-faced then that number rose to about ten.

If someone pointed at any of those guys and said that he was Takuya-kun then she would have nodded and accepted it without comment. But because of that, there was no conclusive evidence for any of them.

Honestly, it would have been so much better if he'd put a photo of himself on the introduction page of his website. – Mami wanted to lodge this selfish complaint with the as-yet unseen Takuya-kun.

"Maybe he hasn't arrived yet."

Mami prayed desperately to Maria-sama that Noriko-chan would arrive soon. She must have been delayed by the accident on the JR line after all. Without Noriko-chan here to show her, Mami had absolutely no idea which one was Takuya-kun.

"What time were they meeting?"

"I think it was 11."

"That's right now."

"Yeah, I know … he's late."

Upbeat chimes accompanied Mami's forced smile. The clock tower beside the fountain let everyone in the plaza know that it was 11 o'clock.

Almost simultaneously, the Takuya-kun candidates all looked at the clock tower. Others turned towards the source of the sound too.

Just then.

"Ah."

Mami called out, unthinkingly.

"What's the matter? Has he arrived?"

Uncle put his face up to the glass and looked outside.

"No, not yet."

Mami's attention was still elsewhere as she attempted to smooth things over with this answer.

Question: Why was that?

Answer: Because she'd seen someone completely unexpected.

Mami thought she'd been there for a while now.

That white dress with the navy blue floral pattern had been in the corner of her vision a couple of times recently. But Mami hadn't noticed her because she'd only been thinking about Takuya-kun and Noriko-chan. It was also hard to make out her face because of the large hat she wore low over her eyes.

(That's Rosa Gigantea, Toudou Shimako-san … !)

Mami didn't question why she was here. Shimako-san's petit soeur was supposed to be meeting Takuya-kun here, so it was obviously because of that.

(Is Noriko-chan going to introduce him to her onee-sama?)

This was getting more and more interesting. A completely unexpected development. Tsukiyama Minako-sama would be crying tears of joy if she knew.

– The headline was undoubtedly, "Onee-sama, I'd like you to meet my boyfriend."

"Is there something about that girl over there?"

Uncle asked, following Mami's line of sight.

"That's the girl I'm looking for."

The end result being that Shimako-san was rather unfairly labeled as the "girl her boyfriend was cheating with." Since she'd only come up with the scenario as a way to get the old man to give up his table, she was already half desperate.

"What a pretty girl. … Ah, pardon me."

"Huh?"

Initially she was confused as to why he was excusing himself, but on second thought complimenting the girl that her boyfriend was cheating with probably wouldn't go over well with most women. Mami contemplated whether she would have been better off showing immediate irritation. It was important to get immersed in a role.

"Sorry for the wait. One apple soda."

"Ah, here."

Mami replied to the waitress and the drink was placed in front of her.

"The mixed sandwiches go over here."

Even though the old man had ordered them, the waitress had placed the large plate with the sandwiches in the middle of the table, probably assuming that they were going to share them.

"What have they got inside them? … Tomato and cucumber, egg, and avocado, huh."

The old man looked pleased as he wiped his hands on a handtowel. Mami shot a glance at him, but more than the contents of the sandwiches, her gaze was drawn to the small flag stuck in them.

"I wonder what country's flag that is … red, yellow and green."

A small flag stuck to a toothpick. Obviously not the outline of the sun from the Japanese flag.

"They just picked one at random, don't you think? I saw the stars and stripes in a pilaf some time ago."

Just as he was saying this, Mami saw something in the same red, yellow and green of the flag cross her vision on the other side of the glass.

Just as Mami was turning her head to look at it, she was brought back by the old man's sudden shout of "Ah!"

"W-what happened?"

Surprised, she turned back to the old man's seat but he wasn't there.

"Uncle?"

" … One of my contacts fell out."

He'd dived under the table.

"You lost a contact? That's bad."

Mami was about to help him search for it, but he said, "Don't move." Mami concentrated her efforts doing as he said and not lifting her shoes.

"Ah, here it is. Sorry for the bother."

Uncle emerged from the table holding the contact between his thumb and index finger, then gave it a quick rinse in the glass of water before saying, "Excuse me a moment," and turning around. Probably putting the contact lens back in his eye.

Feeling relieved, she turned back to the fountain and saw that a new Takuya-kun candidate had appeared.

"Ah!"

This time Mami let out the cry and stood up.

"W-What is it?"

Uncle asked in return.

"Ah, nothing. – He's."

Mami muttered, dumbfounded.

"Him?"

"Uh … yeah."

Her heart was beating fast, like after some hard exercise. Mami tried as hard as she could to steady her heart.

The shirt of the newly arrived Takuya-kun candidate.

The shirt was traffic light colored – red, yellow and green.

It matched exactly with the shirt of Takuya-kun's that Kounoshin-san had cheekily borrowed.

She had no idea how many of those shirts had been sold throughout Japan, but what were the odds of two young men owning that shirt and just happening to be meeting someone on the same day at the same time in the same small area? It was probably incredibly small.

Therefore, she'd reached her conclusion.

"He's finally arrived."

Mami said, pointing at the new Takuya-kun candidate.

No, not the Takuya-kun candidate.

(Found you.)

He was the true Shimura Takuya.