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Hyouka:Volume 5 Chapter 3-2

2018-02-17T12:58:52Z

172.68.255.155: /* 2. Past: 13 Days Ago */ minor (spelling)

=== 2. Past: 13 Days Ago ===

Ōhinata’s request had come very abruptly, but she had likely been thinking about it for a while, biding her time and waiting for a chance to ask it.

That Friday, I hadn’t intended on going to the clubroom. Because the inside of my wallet was barren and I had to consequently make do with a single butter roll and small milk carton for lunch, by the time after-school activities rolled around, I had become extremely hungry. Although I wasn’t normally one to snack in-between meals, I wanted to go home as fast as I could to grab a bite.

As I headed for the entrance however, something like a huge group of girls suddenly began to crowd the entire width of the hallway and prevented anything aside from a snail-paced departure. Trying to push my way through them would only prove to be a pain, so I turned back. Before I realized it, I was in the connecting corridor leading to the Classics Club’s classroom, so I headed over there, figuring I might as well show my face.

Speaking out of consideration for my ravaged stomach, that was the correct decision. When I entered the clubroom, I saw three girls standing around a table looking in on something. These girls, Chitanda, Ibara, and Ōhinata, all turned to look at me. Ibara started to speak.

“It’s almost like you came here targeting this.”

“Targeting what?”

To that, Ōhinata played around and answered.

“We’re about to open a box full of snacks.”

What an incredible emotion it was that raced through my head at that very moment. I spoke, blindly driven by my lust for food.

“I feel like I’m about to collapse I’m so hungry. Please share some with me.”

I ignored Ibara as she muttered, “it’s almost like he’s up to something, that was so straightforward,” and added myself to the circle around the table.

The snacks inside the box were potato chips. “Chips Satsuma” was written on the side, so I figured they must have been made from sweet potatoes rather than regular ones.<ref>Sweet potato in Japanese is satsuma-imo.</ref> It wasn’t the first time that snacks had been laid out like this in the Earth Sciences lecture room. Chitanda had often brought snacks left over from gifts given to her family over the course of the year. The potato chips this time, however, were clearly something unrelated.

“Who brought these?”

“I did,” said Ōhinata as she sheepishly raised her hand. “What? You can’t eat them if I was the one that brought them?”

Why on earth had she said something like that I wonder.

“It doesn’t matter whether a cat is white or black, if it brings you snacks it is a good cat.”<ref>Referencing a famous line by Chinese statesman Deng Xiaoping in 1961, “It doesn't matter whether a cat is white or black, if it catches mice it is a good cat.”</ref>

Ōhinata stared back with a puzzled face.

“Um, was that Zhou Enlai?”

“It was Lee Teng-hui, right?”

Ibara piped in from the side.

“Wasn’t it Chiang Kai-shek?”

As she listened to our back-and-forth, Chitanda showed an uneasy smile on her conflicted face.

“Umm, well, maybe it was Ho Chi Minh.”<ref>She mentioned a Vietnamese statesman instead of a Chinese one. Never change, Chitanda.</ref>

It felt like she was playing dumb on purpose. I had started something terrible. On the other hand, while it was true that I had actually forgotten the person behind the quote, I ended up remembering it during a discussion I had later on. It was Deng Xiaoping.

“Anyways, let’s just sit down.”

It was a sound suggestion. I went to grab a chair. Ōhinata took a cellphone out from her pocket and placed it on the table in front of her. I suppose if you were to leave it in your pocket while you sat down, it might get in the way.

The cover was removed from the box. And now, we feast.

Even though the chips were thick and had a consistency vaguely resembling polyethylene foam, it almost felt like eating a capsule fruit.<ref>A type of dry fruit that splits open to release seeds.</ref> There was a faint sweetness to it as well.

“It really permeates throughout the body, doesn’t it?”

As I said this, Ōhinata couldn’t help but comment.

“You look like an old man drinking alcohol after getting out of the bath when you say that.”

I really wanted to ask her whether or not she had actually seen a middle-aged man say something like that while drinking alcohol after a bath.

“Wow, this is good.”

Ibara had muttered this almost as if without thinking. After hearing that, Ōhinata let out a huge smile.

“That’s great. My family loves these, so we picked up some.”

“Really? From where?”

Chitanda was focused on the box’s cover as she asked this.

“It says ‘Kagoshima Artisan Sweets’ on the box. JA Kagoshima… Even though it’s not in season, it certainly is very delicious. I guess you can sell it like this too, huh?”

Chitanda looked at the package with appraising eyes. I didn’t know whether or not Chitanda’s family was growing sweet potatoes as well, but she might’ve been sizing up JA Kagoshima as a business rival.

“You said you got it from Kagoshima? Do you have a relative living over there?”

I also thought it was strange that Ōhinata had known about a regional confection from Kagoshima, but if she did have a relative there, it would’ve made sense if she had gone there once before. As I jumped to this hasty conclusion however, Ōhinata immediately began to shake her head.

“No, no. I went to a concert over there.”

“A concert? In Kagoshima?”

Looking embarrassed, she responded, “It was in Fukuoka. These snacks were at a shop in Fukuoka.”

For a Kagoshima regional specialty to be sold in Fukuoka, just how far were they reaching out? I had a feeling that for Chitanda, a market of that size would be an enviable thing indeed. As Ibara continued to stack several chips on top of each other and bring them to her mouth, she started to talk.

“What concert did you go to in Fukuoka?”

Ōhinata winked and held up her index finger to her mouth.

“That’s a secret.”

“Oh really now?”

No matter who she had gone to see, even if it was someone zealously singing about devil worship or something like that, I doubt any of us would have viewed her any differently. But if she wanted to keep it a secret, then there was no reason to pursue it.

“But Fukuoka’s pretty far. Was that the only option?”

“No, it was a nationwide tour. I followed the band, although as expected, going to every event was impossible.”

“It was nationwide?”

Chitanda was the one who asked this.

“From Hokkaido to Okinawa?”

Ōhinata responded in a confused manner, “Umm, from Sendai to Fukuoka.” She then added in a frustrated tone, “The only one I couldn’t go to was their important Tokyo performance because the tickets were sold out.”

It wasn’t like I didn’t listen to music, but there was no way I could do something like follow a band on their nationwide tour. I was honestly moved by her determination.

“You really did a good job following them, didn’t you?”

For some reason, as I said this, Ōhinata seemed to become a little docile.

“This is just something a friend told me, but love gives generously.”

“It never runs out?”

As she heard this, she tilted her head in thought and showed me a bitter smile.

“After I listened to their newest album this time around, I feel like the stockpiles might be starting to run low.”

Even while we were talking, the four of us continued to reach out for more sweet potato chips. Perhaps it was because of the light yet pervasive sweetness and the exquisite feel in your mouth when you ate it, but it was impossible to stop after one. Meanwhile, I completely forgot about my empty stomach.

When I came to my senses, I noticed there was only one chip left. Ibara and I moved at exactly the same time. Our fingers suddenly stopped above the chip. It was a situation that could’ve been seen as being romantic by some, but there wasn’t an ounce of warmth in the gazes that we exchanged at that moment, only cold hostility.

“I’m glad you guys liked it so much.”

Neither of us paying any attention to Ōhinata, Ibara and I slowly started to retract out hands at the same time. Thinking that the other person was conceding the fight, both of us, once again at the same time, shot our arms forward and met in the middle. It wasn’t like I wanted the last chip so much that I was planning on holding my ground as a result, but…

The silence around us was awkward. I hesitated to do anything with my outstretched arm, nor could find the resolve in me to look at what kind of face Ibara was making. Chitanda, who had been watching the situation unfold, was about to mutter a nervous “umm” when we all heard a sound come to her rescue. Someone opened the door to the Earth Sciences lecture room.

All four of us turned to look at him at once. Satoshi stood there with a relaxed smile that looked as if it might’ve been humming. Ibara then spoke.

“It’s almost like you came here targeting this.”

Of course, Satoshi should have had absolutely no idea what was going on. Confused, he asked, “Targeting what?”

Ōhinata responded.

“We’re about to finish off a box full of snacks.”

And with that, the entire Classics Club had unexpectedly gathered in one spot. As Satoshi finished off the final chip, Ōhinata gazed around at everyone and finally got around to the heart of the matter.

“Now then, because you ate the snacks, there’s something that I’d like my beloved upperclassmen to do for me.”

By the time I realized that this was all planned from the start to bribe us, it was already too late. In doing this, all of us had traded our Saturday plans for Ōhinata’s sweet potato chips.

The weather reports weren’t looking very good, so I constantly worried about the impending rain. Fortunately, when I left the house the clouds were still while, and it looked like they would stay that way for a while. I didn’t know what time I’d be returning, however, so I put a compact umbrella in my tote bag just in case, although normally, I didn’t even have a bag with me; I would only carry a wallet in my pocket.

We were told to wait in front of Kaburaya Middle School’s front gate. Certainly enough, it was a location that all of us knew. On the school grounds were the soccer and track clubs, and additionally what was probably the tennis club, as they practiced. I took a cursory glance around, but I didn’t see anyone I recognized.

I had predicted that if anyone was going to show up late to our 3:00 appointment, it would be Satoshi, however my guess was off. Five minutes before that time, everyone, both Satoshi and I and well as Ibara and Ōhinata, had gathered. Although it was denim, just the fact that Ibara wore a skirt was alone entirely unexpected. Because it was rapidly becoming summer, Ōhinata wore a short-sleeved shirt.

“Sorry about this, for asking something so strange.”

Considering she was apologizing, she looked unexpectedly happy. Ibara and Satoshi also looked as if they were having fun while they said things like:

“This kind of thing is really rare. I’m looking forward to it.”

“I’m a bit excited. Don’t expect too much out of this, okay?”

…and so on and so on as they smiled back and forth. I didn’t say anything, but even my interest was somewhat aroused.

“It’s close by. I’ll show you the way.”

Ōhinata walked in front.

Our destination was a coffee shop, and it hadn’t yet opened. It wasn’t that the store hadn’t opened for the day, but rather that the store hadn’t even had its opening day yet.

“So your uncle works over there?”

As Satoshi said this, Ōhinata shook her head with a bitter smile.

“Didn’t I explain it to you? He's my cousin. Even though our ages are pretty far apart.”

I had also thought he was her uncle. I guess he’s an old cousin. I’ll have to remember that.

At any rate, according to yesterday’s story, one of Ōhinata’s relatives was opening up a new coffee shop, so we were asked if we could go in before they officially opened as test-guests. Just like Satoshi had mentioned, being able to enter a shop before it opened was a rare opportunity indeed. As we were essentially the first customers, it felt like some sort of honor.

Had Chitanda been here, it would have probably exposed her curiosity even more, however she wasn’t. She had some inescapable business to attend to, and because she didn’t know how long it would take, she couldn’t make any promises. Yesterday, she had said, “I really want to go too, but… it’d probably be too late if we did it in the evening,” clearly displaying her lingering attachment.

Personally, I was really looking forward to the opening of a new coffee shop. The shop that I had frequented somewhat, Pineapple Sand, had ended up relocating, so as a result, there weren’t any shops nearby that a first-year in high school could really enter. Seeing that this shop looked like one that would be easy to walk in whenever really made me thankful.

“So what kind of shop is it?”

I said this while we were walking, but Ōhinata looked like she was deep in conversation with Ibara, so most likely she didn’t hear me. Oh well, I’ll be able to see it for myself in due time.

I ended up walking next to Satoshi.

He suddenly mentioned what had just been on my mind.

“This is pretty nostalgic, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

This was the route we had always taken to go to and from school. Because I had been essentially forced onto the Health Committee, there were times that I ended up leaving school late, and it was at times like those that we occasionally walked home together. It felt strangely unsettling to walk this path as a high school student in normal, weekend clothes.

“It almost feels like I’m doing something bad.”

As I said this, Satoshi quietly nodded.

“You’re right. I almost feel guilty.”

We had walked this route for three years, and in reality, this was the entire extent of our reach. Good things and bad things, our relationships with others and almost everything else has ended right here on this path. Kaburaya Middle School was a place that should’ve been filled with such warm familiarity, and yet, it felt strangely cold and distant. I felt out of place nearing the school I graduated from; I couldn’t help but feel like I was doing something taboo.

“Thinking back on it, I also remember not being able to get close to my elementary school after entering middle school.”

“Wasn’t it because of the uniforms?”

I wasn’t being serious of course. Satoshi also showed a bitter smile.

“Should we go pull out our middle school uniforms?”

I couldn’t even try to imagine doing that in an attempt to become reacquainted with the area. In the end, we no longer had a place in Kaburaya Middle School. If I absolutely wanted to be able to return, there was probably no other way than to get a job there.

As we seemingly became further and further separated from the school, and the voices from the school grounds could no longer reach us, Ōhinata finally stopped.

“Here we are.”

It was located in-between a soba shop and a private residence, and it faced a busy street.<ref>Soba is a type of Japanese noodle.</ref> The building wasn’t a new one; rather, I could tell it was actually quite old when looking up at all of the rust and discoloration on the sheet-iron roof. In saying that, however, the glass door didn’t have a single blemish, and the doorknob was polished to a shine.

“Wow, it looks pretty nice,” said Ibara as she faced the cream-colored walls. I, on the other hand, was paying more attention to the windows. When judging whether or not a shop is easy for someone to casually enter for the first time, windows are of key importance. If the windows were too small or don’t even exist in the first place, the shop might seem something like a relaxing secret base, but it would be much too imposing for a random passerby to enter. On the other hand, if the windows were too big, you would feel exposed while in the shop to the people outside, and it might be unnerving. This one, however, appeared to deftly avoid both of those possible problems. The windows were perfectly sized and had some small flower pots in them, containing blossoming red flowers. They were the kind you see often, but I couldn’t remember the name. I saw Satoshi facing them as well, so I asked him.

“Satoshi, what are those?”

“They’re flowers.”

I only received this condescending answer. I lightly glared at him and he shrugged his shoulders.

“I don’t know much about plants. Though Chitanda-san would probably know.”

“Oh, that’s right!”

Ibara was the one who raised her voice. She pulled a cellphone from her pocket.

“I suddenly remembered when you mentioned Chi-chan’s name. She might already be done with her business today.”

“Is that so? I really do want her to come,” muttered Ōhinata as she turned the doorknob. “At any rate, let’s just go in for now.”

There was no sound when the glass door was pushed open. I guess they hadn’t put something like a customer bell on it yet.

I took a step inside, and before I realized it, I couldn’t speak. It wasn’t that the interior decoration was bad or anything. It was the smell of new wood, the smell of some disinfectant, and to add onto that, the smell of freshly-ground coffee beans. I was instantly assaulted by all of these at once, and it felt like my breathing might suddenly cease. Wouldn’t something like this be generally considered a terrible smell? I wondered if it was really okay for the place to smell like this, but considering it was just renovated, I suppose it couldn’t be helped. As I rationalized it to myself like this, I resumed my shallow breathing.

“So you guys came. Welcome.”

I finally noticed the man standing behind the counter as he said this.

Although he was supposedly a relative, he didn’t look like Ōhinata in the slightest. I guess stuff like that happens though. When I compare my sister to myself, there certainly are aspects that are similar, but there’re also aspects that are entirely different. Anyways, that aside, he was surprisingly mellow. In addition to his voice being quiet, whenever our eyes met, he would end up looking away somewhat unnaturally. I wondered if that was any way to run a shop, but I suppose the owner of Pineapple Sand was also fairly emotionally distant. Thinking about it more, it was also possibly due to the fact that we were high school students and, as a result, not part of his intended targeted customer base that he skipped the warm reception.

“It has a bright atmosphere. I like it.”

As Ibara said this looking around at the also cream-colored shop interior, Satoshi spotted a painting on the wall and muttered to himself, “Oh hey, it’s Lautrec.”

I also turned to look at it.

There were seven seats at the counter and four tables. It was nice that there was a lot of room at them, but I couldn’t help but be disappointed at the fact that they were circular. When a table is round, I always end up feeling like everything will fall off from the very get-go.

The wall behind the shop owner at the counter was decorated with a relief. It looked like a heart lying flat on its side, but judging by the vine patterns surrounding it, it might have actually been a turnip instead. Inside that design were two rabbits facing each other. Although the owner seemed to be fairly emotionless, the relief was almost excessively sweet.

“Sorry there’s no music playing, it must make it feel kind of lonely around here. At any rate, please just relax for now and have a nice time.”

As he said this in a somewhat muffled voice, I couldn’t help but wonder if that was really necessary. I suppose that when this shop eventually opens, he plans on playing some kind of radio station or something. I prefer the quiet, although I feel like my opinion rests in the minority. I should’ve probably just been happy that a shop like this opened up near me in the first place.

“It’s almost ready, isn’t it? Just a little longer to go!”

Ōhinata spoke in a much more familial manner than I had heard her talk at school. Even if two people were relatives, that doesn’t say anything about how close they actually were. Not only were there siblings who were raised apart like strangers, but I’m sure there were also cases of cousins growing up together as well. Even though two of them looked quite far apart in terms of age, she seemed extremely attached to the shop owner. Ōhinata stood on her tiptoes and tried to look inside the kitchen.

“Ayumi-san isn’t here today? I was thinking it’d be good practice for you.”

When the show owner responded to Ōhinata, his expression didn’t change one bit. Rather than being particularly cold to us, I suppose that’s just what he was always like.

“We had business to take care of at the public office, so Ayumi is headed there at the moment. You can mention that next time you come.”

“The practice is important! It’d be bad if you called Ayumi-san something like Po-chan in front of the customers.”

Considering what Ōhinata said about us coming making for good practice, I could only assume that this “Ayumi-san” was to be the floor manager after the place opened. Was she the owner’s wife? Maybe a girlfriend at least. If she was just a waitress that he hired, I doubt he would have sent her to fill out paperwork at the public office.

Ōhinata turned around and then asked us a question that sounded like she was the waitress herself.

“What would you guys like? A table, or perhaps…”

Satoshi looked around the shop’s interior once more and then responded.

“It looks like all the tables are meant to fit four people. That might seem perfect right now, but we still don’t know if Chitanda is going to be coming later.”

“Oh, that’s right.”

Ōhinata nodded and then pulled out a stool from next to the counter before everyone else. We all followed in procession: Ōhinata, Ibara, Satoshi, then me, in that order. The stools were tall and weren’t fastened to the floor. They didn’t swivel however, so it didn’t feel unstable at all, and to add to that, there was something about the stool that just made it feel comfortable to sit on. Ibara began to stoke the brand-new counter with what resembled deep affection and then started to say rather uncharacteristically:

“I think this might be the first time I’ve ever sat at a counter like this. It’s almost like I’ve taken another step into adulthood.”

That adult must have had quite the low standards if something like that was a step to reach it. The owner lined up cups with water in them on the counter and started speaking to Ōhinata.

“I still can’t get rid of the paint thinner smell. I’m sure it will disappear in due time, though.”

“You better hope it does. The second I entered I knew there was a problem.”

Just like I had thought, I wasn’t the only one who was taken aback by the terrible stench. Strangely enough, however, I ended up already getting used to the smell. I didn’t really mind it at all.

“Apparently it’s because of the wallpaper adhesive… I give up. Oh, that’s right. I haven’t finished taking care of printing the menus yet.”

“That’s terrible though!”

As Ōhinata laughed while saying this, the shop owner finally broke out into a grin.

“It’s fine, I’ll just go over each thing one-by-one. I’d like for you guys to test the house blend though.”

“Is everyone okay with that?”

All of us lightly nodded in response to Ōhinata’s question, so she continued.

“Then we’ll have that and…”

Ōhinata leaned across the counter.

“Is there anything to eat?”

“Four house blends. If you’re looking for something light, I think I’d be able put out a couple different types of sandwiches.”

“Then I’ll sample them for you.”

That’s probably impossible, Ōhinata. Without thinking, I ended up muttering something in response.

“He probably doesn’t have any of the ingredients.”

“…Oh, maybe. Is that the case?”

The owner replied with a small “Pretty much” and then looked over towards me and did something like a compact nod. It might’ve been out of appreciation.

“I do have scones though. If you guys would like, I could get you some of those.”

Because he went out of his way, we took him up on that offer.

Perhaps he already had experience with this line of work or perhaps he was simply being deliberate with his actions this time around, but there wasn’t a single ounce of tension in his movements. Not only did he not appear restless in the slightest, but his every single action was performed carefully and without the slightest bit of unwarranted excess.

However, Ōhinata seemed to have a different impression.

“Come on, isn’t Ayumi-san’s belly going to get big before long? When that happens, will you really be able to do all of this by yourself?”

With this, I became certain that “Ayumi-san” was female. Thinking about it, I just realized the name could have potentially been a guy’s name as well.

As he lined up the saucers, the owner responded.

“It should be fine if we don’t have many customers, not that I’m hoping that that’ll be the case though…”

“Obviously. You shouldn’t stop until there are hordes of customers clawing at each other’s throats to get in.”

“I’ve never seen a café like that.”

That was to be expected.

“I guess you’re right. It’d be nice if you could work part-time here, Tomoko-chan.”

“Part-time, huh?”

Ōhinata sighed.

“I’m not even sure I’d be able to. I’ve never worked a part-time job before.”

“Everyone starts somewhere.”

“That’s not what I mean. You know what my dad’s like. He doesn’t allow it, even though he slashed my allowance.”

“Loans are rough. You should try to be more understanding.”

“He stupidly bought an expensive car and even affected me with his decision. And yet, he refuses to let me earn money on my own. It doesn’t make any sense at all.”

As she complained by herself, she suddenly looked like she realized that not only her cousin but her school seniors were present as well. She began to smile with embarrassment.

“You know how it is. There’s a lot going on.”

As the conversation came to a lull, I could hear the sound of a passing car outside. As she stared at a corner of the shop, Ibara slowly started to speak.

“The wooden shelving is nice. It doesn’t look cheap at all.”

I didn’t even notice it was there until Ibara had mentioned that.

The low-rising shelf wasn’t anything like a cheap, unpolished self-project. It was fashionable, for sure, but it didn’t look like it could carry much. All of the books on it were fairly small.<ref>Specifically 127mm x 188mm.</ref> There were several volumes, domestic works and international works being mixed together.

“I wonder if he reads a lot,” said Satoshi to Ōhinata instead of asking the owner himself. Ōhinata seemed to struggle with the answer, but the owner raised his hand to stop her and answered.

“Not that much. The books over there are just ones I chose because I thought they looked cool.”

“You mean you didn’t put them over there because you wanted your customers to rea…”

“That didn’t really cross my mind at all.”

Although it was simply decoration according to him, I felt like he was just being humble. There was a magazine rack on the edge of the counter, but it only had a single stack of normal-looking magazines and newspapers. Satoshi followed my line of sight and started to stare at the rack as well.

“Oh hey, they have Shinsou.”<ref>Literally translates to something like “the heart of the matter.”</ref>

He pointed out the weekly publication sitting in front. Even I had heard of Shinsou, but it wasn’t like it had particularly amazing journalism, nor was it even one of those tabloids that only covered sex and scandals. I imagined it as some half-assed attempt at a magazine. I thought it was strange that Satoshi would be so interested in the kind of magazine that you could find anywhere.

“Ōhinata-san, could you do me a favor and grab that for me?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Ōhinata was the closest to the rack at the end of the counter. She tried to yank it out, eventually needing to hold the rack down with one hand because everything was so tightly packed in it, and eventually pulled out the copy of Shinsou. As she handed it over to Satoshi and he flipped through the pages, Ibara asked him a question.

“What is it? Was there an article that caught your eye?”

“Yeah, something like that. It’s rare for this kind of magazine to cover something from this city.”

“Oh yeah? What’s it about?”

“The Suitou Co. incident, of course.”

Ibara responded with an “I see,” and Ōhinata didn’t act like anything particularly strange had happened. Everyone seemed to accept what Satoshi had said with some sort of mutual understanding and comprehension.

Essentially, I was the only one out of the loop.

“What’s that?”

As I said this, Satoshi stared at me blankly, almost as if on purpose.

“What are you talking about, Hōtarō. You’re joking, right?”

“I think I’ve heard the name before. If I remember correct, Suitou has something to do with picnics, right?”

Without even listening, Satoshi opened up the magazine to a certain page and showed it to me.

“It’s this.”

It was a small article. At around half a page, it resembled something like a small corner section devoted to random tidbits of domestic news. The headline, however, stood out quite a bit. This is what it said. “Big-name Corporate Extortionist Runs Out of Luck Earning Easy Pocket Money” I would have been fine reading it, but we were still waiting for the coffee, so Satoshi just summed it up for me.

“There’s a company in this city called Suitou Co., and they recently started recruiting a lot of new employees. Anyways, a lot of these recruits were sent notifications of appointment and given training, and then after they were told to show up at the office in four months for their new job. When the four months had passed and they showed up at the office, however, no one at the company knew who the new employees were and why they were there. Essentially, no one had actually employed them.”

It all seemed pretty straightforward.

“Wait, let me try to guess the ending. I bet all the new recruits had to pay something like a uniform fee and materials fee when they were first employed, right?”

“Exactly. Although I guess that’s really the only possible explanation for it.”

Ibara looked at me in amazement.

“It was a pretty big deal in the news, and yet you still didn’t know about it? Are you sure you’re properly paying attention to what happens in the world?”

Just because I didn’t know about a single incident didn’t mean there was a need to say that. As I was about to say that, however, I figured there was no reason to escalate things like that, so I stayed silent.

“That’s a pretty simple case of fraud. Did they catch the perpetrator?”

“It wasn’t really something you could pull off without a list of the test-takers. It appears they caught the culprit surprisingly easily. Interestingly enough, the perpetrator’s father was apparently an infamous corporate extortionist as well. Maybe them finding out about it led to the father’s arrest. It might be written in the article.”

That was probably false.

“Has a parent ever been arrested because the child was?”

However, it seemed like Satoshi knew all about that as well. He shrugged.

“Maybe that’s why it only has a small corner section in Shinsou.

I see.

Satoshi pulled the copy of Shinsou away from my reach and started to stare at the open page.

“When I think of fraud, I can only imagine it a being something that only affects old people in companies. Let’s think of something similar. Let’s say last year, we got a notice saying, “You passed the Kamiyama High School entrance exam. Please pay the new student entrance fee.” You probably wouldn’t assume you were being duped.”

“I could understand that,” said Ibara. “If you got a message saying your bid won at some on-site sale, you wouldn’t really doubt it.”

“On-site sale? You mean like a flea market?”

As I interjected with this, Ibara suddenly became quiet.

The owner then brought out the house blend coffees at the perfect time. Satoshi handed the copy of Shinsou back to Ōhinata and all of us turned to our coffee.

I suddenly felt like I somewhat understood the reason behind the rabbits on the decorative relief. On both the coffee cup’s handle and the spoon’s grip were little decorations of rabbits with pressed ears. Perhaps this meant that the shop owner or “Ayumi-san” liked them a lot. Maybe they were just born in the year of the rabbit.

Unfortunately, no matter how much I liked coffee, my sense of taste and smell were nowhere near capable of appreciating the exquisite intricacies of the house blend from a single cup. Saying “This is really good” was the most I could do; when I tried to think of a way to elaborate on that with some sort of comparison or detail, the words couldn’t come out. Almost as if he wasn’t even seeking those details in the first place, he changed the subject to something with seemingly more priority after hearing our praises.

“You add jam and cream to scones, but I have a couple kinds. There’s strawberry jam and marmalade, and as for cream, you can have either the straight kind or mascarpone. What would you like?”

All of us gave our honest preferences, and yet it turned out to be something quite bothersome.

I chose strawberry jam and plain cream.

Satoshi chose marmalade and mascarpone.

Ibara chose marmalade and plain cream.

Ōhinata chose strawberry jam and mascarpone.

We were perfectly divided. For a split-second, I noticed shop owner’s previously collected expression turn conflicted.

The jam and cream arrived before us, as well as two scones per person. Satoshi looked at all of us with a serious expression.

“Hōtarō, I have quite a lot of pride in my intimate knowledge of boring, random things.”

“You don’t have to tell me that. I’ll say it for you. You have intimate knowledge of many a boring, random thing.”

“It feels weird to hear someone else say it like that. Wait, that’s not the point. What I’m saying is that I know the correct method by which one eats scones in England. Jam first…”

“So you cover the scone with jam before the cream?”

“Wait, cream first…”

“Well? Which is it?”

Satoshi stared at the scone plate and didn’t respond. I guess he knew one of them was supposed to be used first, but he forgot which one that was.

Without waiting for the troubled Satoshi’s answer, the shop owner casually told us instead.

“You put the jam on first. If you put the cream first on a warm scone, it’ll easily melt. But in the end, it’s completely up to how you like it.”

I see. It certainly did make a lot of sense. Even though he told us we could do whatever we wanted, none of us started with the cream after hearing that. As all of us started to eat, I suddenly heard a low noise ringing from somewhere. A cellphone was vibrating.

“Oh, it’s Chi-chan.”

Ibara stood up with the phone in her hand and immediately left the shop. I didn’t know this because I didn’t have a cellphone, but apparently talking on one in a face-to-face environment like this was really considered bad manners. It seemed like quite a hassle to use one.

Ibara quickly returned.

“She said she’s coming right now.”

“Does Chitanda-san know how to get here?”

“I told her to follow the path from Kaburaya Middle School until she hits the soba shop next door. I didn’t tell her the name of the shop but it should be fine.”

The banner outside the shop really stood out, so there was probably no need for concern.

After that, we started talking about the weather to kill some time.

“They said it was going to start raining in the evening.”

Although I said this without thinking much of it, Satoshi and Ibara were quick to counter me.

“That’s tomorrow isn’t it?”

“They said that the date changed.”

Ōhinata grinned broadly from the sidelines without taking a side.

“I wonder which report is older.”

I wasn’t confident in my report being the most recent one, however I stuck by it because it was the report I had seen.

“That’s what it said in the morning news…”

“I also watched the morning news.”

“Me too.”

Two versus one. The arbiter, Ōhinata, then handed down her ruling.

“By majority rule, Oreki-senpai’s memory has been deemed to be incorrect.”

To think I would be forced to accept the opposition. I thought it might be nice to see them drenched in the rain, tears streaming down their faces as they thought with self-reflection, “Ah, Hōtarō Oreki was truly right that time.”

While unintended, all of us took turns going to the restroom, and as I returned as the last one to do so, I saw Chitanda standing near the counter. Not even ten minutes had passed since she had talked with Ibara on the phone. She arrived pretty quickly. As I dried my hands with my handkerchief, I called over to her.

“You’re already here?”

She responded with a happy grin.

“I was close by.”

Because Ōhinata sat at the furthest end of the counter, the only place Chitanda could sit was in the seat next to mine. We had decided to sit at the counter because the tables only had four seats, but having five people sit in a line was probably too long, and it was a somewhat uncomfortable situation to be in. I had just realized it, but because there were no other customers, we could have easily just taken a seat from a nearby table and sat with all five of us around the circle.

“So what were you doing today?” asked Ibara.

“It was one of my relative’s kiju celebration.<ref>This is a special birthday in Japan that happens when one is 77 years old.</ref> I say relative, but I don’t really know them too well. Anyways, I just had to give them my congratulations. After we greeted each other, they brought out the alcohol and I went to the kitchen to not cause any problems, but it ended up happening anyways.”

“Something happened?”

“Kind of. It wasn’t really much, but something did.”

Chitada showed a slightly troubled smile on her face.

“When I went to go borrow their phone, it suddenly started to ring. Because there was no one around, I decided to take their message, but it ended up being terrible. It was an old lady with a strong accent and quiet voice so couldn’t understand anything she was telling me. I didn’t know if I should try to take the message or see if I could transfer it somehow… Just getting her to tell me her name was a challenge in itself. Had I not had to deal with that, I would have been able to come much more quickly.”

“What?”

The one who raised her voice was Ōhinata. Even though there were three people in-between her and Chitanda, she leaned over the counter to get as close as she could to ask a question anyways.

“You said you were borrowing their phone? You mean at the house you were celebrating the birthday at, right? Is there really a place around here that doesn’t get any signals?”

“Signals? Um…”

Chitanda looked confused. She likely had no idea what Ōhinata had meant by that. I decided to butt in before things became more complicated.

“Chitanda doesn’t have a cellphone.”

“…What?”

As she was at a loss for words, I suddenly felt like I had awakened some terrible beast. Ōhinata leaned even further forwards.

“Wait, but then… How can you get by? Like when you need to contact your friends. Isn’t it bad when you can’t contact them?”

“I suppose…”

Chitanda had a soft grin on her face.

“I deal with it somehow.”

I also didn’t have a cellphone, but for some reason I could feel the societal pressure start to creep around us this time. Between me and Chitanda, I wonder which of us would end up getting one first.

“That aside, a kiju celebration, huh? I suppose Chitanda-san really does have it tough.”

As if to tease her, Satoshi began to talk.

“Really? This kind of thing happens to me once a year.”

“I have never been to a distant relative’s place to celebrate their birthday once in my entire life,” muttered Ōhinata to herself as she sat at the edge of the counter.

Anyways, how old was someone when they had their kiju again? I felt like it had something to do with the number seven, but I wasn’t sure. As I gave up on remembering, Chitanda began to speak with the shop owner.

“Would you also like the blend? If you’d like, I can heat up a scone for you as well.”

“I’m actually not very good with caffeine; I’m sorry you went out of your way to call me over like this. It's a very wonderful shop, however.”

Now that I think about it, I suppose that was the case, wasn’t it. Whenever Chitanda drank anything with a lot of caffeine in it, she’d always become something else. For now, she was probably just referring to it messing up her ability to sleep. Certainly.

“Thank you very much, but I see.”

After he mulled it over in his head for a little bit, he continued.

“Maybe it’d be best to have a non-caffeinated menu as well.”

No matter how you look at it, Chitanda was a rare case so there probably wasn’t any need to delve into that any further.

“At any rate, if that’s the case, I’m afraid to say there’s nothing I have that you could eat.”

“Don’t mind me. I’m sorry I arrived late in the first place anyways.”

And with that, Chitanda made do with a cup of water. As she started to drink it, however, she abruptly raised her head.

“This is… This isn’t tap water.”

She took another sip.

“Nor is it from a well or anything around that. It tastes like something from further upstream, most likely medium-hard water drawn from a spring higher up in the mountains. Am I right?”

The owner broke out into a smile and gave the tiniest of nods.

“It really is a shame I couldn’t have a customer like you try the blend.”

I also took some water and brought the cup to my lips.

“I see, it really is mellow.”

“Oh, I added lemon to that one, but it’s just tap water.”

What a world we live in.

As Chitanda held the cup with both hands, she peered around the shop.

“I'd be nice if I could drink the coffee as well. I'm glad that everything is going well at least.”

“Thank you very much.”

“What’s this café called?”

It was an obvious question.

And yet it opened the floodgates. Thinking about it now, it hadn’t been brought up even once in all of our discussions. I looked at Satoshi, he looked at Ōhinata, and she finally asked the owner in turn.

“What’s the name?”

However, even the shop owner clammed up with a “That’s, well…” Ōhinata pressed the question even further.

“No way. You can’t be telling me that you haven’t decided on it yet.”

“That’s not it. It’s just, well…”

The owner looked at Ōhinata with a pained expression.

“You’re going to laugh if I say it, Tomoko-chan, so I’m still keeping it secret.”

“It’s something that would make me laugh?”

He thought about it for a bit and then said, “I personally think it’s a good name. The second you see it, you’d know it belonged to a coffee shop.”

You’d think that in the time leading up to the shop’s opening, he would want to have the shop name already out there to publicize it. It felt a little strange to me that he was hiding it.

And, of course, Chitanda wouldn’t let that “strange feeling” pass her by.

“Um… Then is the reason this shop doesn’t have a signboard yet because you didn’t want Ōhinata-san to see it?”

Now that she had mentioned it, I suppose there really wasn’t a signboard in front of the shop, was there. If there was, we would have almost certainly noticed it. That said, it seemed highly unlikely that he put off the construction simply because he didn’t want his cousin to laugh at him. As expected, he shook his head.

“The font is pretty elaborate so it’s taking a long time to finish.”

“When you say font, do you mean you’re using the alphabet?”

“No, only kanji.”<ref>WARNING: From here on, there will be a lot of discussions involving kanji and its potential wordplay, so I’ll try to condense a quick crash course here for those who don’t know much about it. Kanji are characters in Japanese deriving from Chinese, and as a result, you can read them several ways, those ways usually stemming from traditional Japanese or Chinese readings. While each kanji usually has a distinct meaning associated with it, you can combine the Chinese readings to produce something that sounds like something else, while still maintaining the meaning associated with each individual kanji. The combination of kanji and unique readings associated with them form an important aspect of Japanese wordplay.</ref>

As she heard this, Ōhinata let out a howl of delight.

“Kanji, huh! You’re right, I might actually laugh. After all, you have a laughable sense for kanji!”

She then turned to face us with an expression full of happiness.

“This is the same guy that took the ai (love) from aizen-myouou (Rāgarāja) and ra (silk) from akki-rasetsu (Rakshasa), among others, to make ai ra-bu yuu (I love you).”<ref>Rāgarāja: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C4%81gar%C4%81ja, Rakshasa: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakshasa</ref>

Rāgarāja, huh? At any rate, the words she chose to demonstrate her point were beyond terrible. Ibara looked like she was torn between laughing and staying silent.

“What the heck’s up with those examples? Were you born to a Buddhist temple or something, Hina-chan?”

Was there really a first-year in high school that knew about things like Rāgarāja and Rakshasa? As I thought this, Ōhinata’s tanned cheeks started to turn red.

“No, I was just born to a lowly salaryman. I couldn’t think of any other words, so it doesn’t matter, does it?! I mean, what would you say if it were you, senpai?”

Ibara immediately responded.

“The ai from aichi-ken (Aichi Prefecture) and the ra from koura (shell).”

Wow. That was a pretty impression selection. All of us spoke up in admiration.

On the other hand, I could have sworn I heard the shop owner stealthily mutter something like, “You’re close.”

“So the shop’s name is still a secret? Hehehe, I’m curious!”

As least she was having fun.

“Kanji, huh?”

As he said this, Satoshi folded his arms.

“If we’re talking about kanji used in coffee shops you often see ‘to wait’ (tai) and ‘dream’ (mu) used in conjunction to make ‘Coffee Time’ (tai + mu).”

“I know what you mean.”

Ōhinata nodded, and the owner also said, “It’s along those lines.”

By saying his shop name was along the lines of that “tai+mu” wordplay, was he saying he used the same characters? I assumed that was the case, but Ibara had a different idea.

“When you say ‘used a lot’, do you mean like the jewel radical in ‘coffee shop’?”

“Jewel radical? Isn’t it the king radical?”

“Although it looks like king, it’s called a jewel radical,” replied Ōhinata to my question.<ref>Radicals refer to the various components that make up a kanji. ‘Coffee shop’ is written in kanji as such: 珈琲館 Notice the left parts of the first two characters. Ibara and Hōtarō were debating if that radical was either jewel (玉) or king (王), when Ōhinata mentioned that the king radical is actually confusingly called the jewel radical. See? Even Japanese people have trouble with kanji.</ref> Where did she even learn something like that. Without thinking, I turned to Satoshi, but he shook his head in the same confused manner, as if he were saying, “I had no idea either.”

Ibara’s knowledge might have been correct in that one instance, but the rest of her answer was off.

“That’s not it.”

Then, as if in amusement, the owner also added, “You’re correct about it being three characters though.”

“Then…”

As Satoshi said this however, Ōhinata quickly stopped him with her out stretched hand.

“That won’t do, senpai. Let me try to figure it out.”

“Well then, let’s make a competition out of it.”

However, Ōhinata was unexpectedly serious.

“This is just something a friend told me, but you only get three tries to guess a name as has been the case since ancient times.”

Was that so. If it was decided in ancient times, I guess there was nothing we could do about that. Satoshi started to tilt his head and wonder, “I would be able to understand if it was three days, but…” however he quickly gave up seeing Ōhinata’s resolve.

“So give us a hint! A hint!”

For the briefest of moments, I saw the owner look at the noisy Ōhinata with an incredibly kind expression on his face. It might’ve been a hasty deduction on my part, but I started to wonder if he had always played with Ōhinata in this pure, childlike manner ever since she was a small girl. Then, almost as if he wasn’t serious about wanting to keep the shop’s name a secret in the first place, he gave a hint.

“The name on the signboard is just like it is.”

“Signboard… What? Isn’t that obvious though?”

“Since you only get three tries, you should think carefully about it. If you end up getting it right, I’ll give you something nice.”

Ōhinata’s expression immediately exploded into brilliance.

“I’ll definitely get it right. Just you wait.”

She then ferociously pointed her index finger towards all of us.

“You heard me. I’ll definitely get it right, so none of you need to say anything from here on.”

For the first time since meeting her, I thought that this lively first-year in front of me was pretty childlike. I didn’t mean that like I suddenly saw some annoyingly juvenile side of her. If I had to choose, I would probably say that it was endearing. I might’ve even been smiling.

A clock was mounted on the wall, and even that had a rabbit on it. At some point, the hour hand had already reached five o’clock. We had been here for a surprisingly lengthy amount of time.

Perhaps because she was thinking, Ōhinata rarely opened her mouth as we talked. I had already finished off the coffee and didn’t even have the cup in front of me anymore. I assumed it was going to rain in the evening, so I wanted to leave before that happened. As everyone was slowly running out of things to say, I decided to take the opportunity to say it then.

“Well then, I think it’s about time.”

As I said that single line however, Ōhinata seemed to suddenly look nervous. She looked up at the clock and had an expression that seemed to ask where all the time had gone. She quickly reverted to her usual smile.

“Oh, by the way!” she exclaimed. “Do you guys have a sec? There was something I wanted to ask.”

Most likely this was just a ploy to give her more time to try and figure out the shop’s name. It appeared that I was the only one who noticed her earlier moment of panic. The other three didn’t seem to think that she had just pulled something quickly out of thin air to distract them.

“What is it?”

Ōhinata didn’t look at Ibara, the one who asked this, but rather at Chitanda.

“Chitanda-senpai, your face is big, isn’t it.”<ref>An expression meaning to know a lot of people from different walks of life.</ref>

“My face is…”

As Chitanda muttered this to herself, Ibara quickly interjected.

“It’s okay, that’s not what it means. You have a thin face, Chi-chan.”

“No, I understood what it meant. I was just really surprised.”

She rested her hand on her chest.

“Umm, I wouldn’t say I know that many people, but I do meet a lot of people through my family’s official business.”

“Then,” Ōhinata gulped and then nervously continued in a manner very unlike her, “would you know someone, like say, Agawa?”

“Agawa-san?”

Chitanda lowered her head slightly.

“Are you talking about the first-year, Sachi Agawa-san?”

“Ah, yes.”

Ōhinata’s body sank back like it was sapped of all its strength. Satoshi and Ibara sat between us so I couldn’t see what kind of expression she was making.

“Did something happen to Agawa-san?”

“No… I just wanted to know if you knew her.”

Chitanda, who sat on the other side of me, had a blatantly puzzled expression as well. But I thought that there might have been something off about her appearance; she didn’t say “Did something happen to Agawa-san? I’m curious.” Ōhinata remained silent, so the atmosphere became strained around us.

“Umm, well then,” I said once more as I saw what was happening to everyone around me at the counter, “shall we get going?”

Everything was on the house, apparently. I felt bad leaving it at that because business was just starting for him, but the owner told me that the register wasn’t working yet anyways, so the first customers would be able to enjoy tax free food because it was a pain to calculate it manually. I’m fairly certain it was all a façade, however. Satoshi and Ibara, as well as Ōhinata, were all close to the door. I was next to the cash register with the owner, and Chitanda stood next to me.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t drink the coffee even though you went through all this trouble to let us come in early.”

The owner only smiled as Chitanda lowered her head. I had thought he was an emotionless man, but I guess I was completely wrong about that. Maybe he was somewhat nervous because we were his first customers.

“Don’t worry. Coffee isn’t something you absolutely need to drink.”

“This…”

As she started to speak, Chitanda suddenly tripped over her words. It appeared she was about to say the name of the shop. However, the name wasn’t known to us, of course. She ended up saying, “Th… this shop… I hope it does well,” as well as other things of that nature.

Chitanda then suddenly turned to face me.

“Um, Oreki-san. I know we’ll be able to see it when the shop eventually opens, but I… well, you see… just a little, well… um… I’m curious.”

Ōhinata didn't want us to solve the mystery behind the name for her, but that didn’t necessarily mean that I had to wait. I didn’t understand anything about the unnatural things she had said and done prior, but at least I had a chance of solving this different issue at hand.

Fortunately, there were a notepad and ballpoint pen near the register.

“Can I borrow those?”

“Oh, sure.”

“Thanks. If I do it alone, it won’t count against her three tries I’m sure.”

I then started to scribble on the notepad. Chitanda peeked over my hand.”

“…What?”

There were three kanji lined up next to each other.

The first one meant “to walk.”

The next one meant “alongside.”

And the final one meant “rabbit.”

This shop’s name had several conditions.

“If Ōhinata heard it, she would laugh.”

“Anyone would be able to see it was a coffee shop just by looking at the name.”

“It was along the same line as ‘Coffee Time.’”

“It wasn’t ‘Coffee Shop.’”

“The shop name only consisted of three kanji.”

And finally was the hint given by the shop owner: “The name on the signboard is just like it is.”

What exactly was the signboard, then? So far, there was no physical representation of the signboard. So what was it? There were two possibilities.

The first was “the poster girl,” or in other words, “Ayumi-san.” It was possible to write her name using three kanji, but no matter which ones you used, no one would be able to tell it was a coffee shop.

The other option was for it to be a “menu sign.” If that were the case, it’d go without saying that the item he’d choose for it would be coffee. He didn’t seem very interested in the light meals, and it’s not like coffee shops tended to be famous for their scones or sandwiches in the first place. On top of that, it seems like he didn’t use the original kanji for coffee, either. In that case…

“You said the name of the shop was the name of the sign itself, didn’t you. And the poster item in this shop is the house blend, am I correct?”

“Oh, I see.”

Chitanda spoke up.

“I also noticed he said ‘it’s a shame you couldn’t try our blend’ instead of saying ‘our coffee.’”

I nodded. It seemed like he placed an unnatural emphasis on calling the coffee the house blend.

If that was the name of the shop, then how would you write it in kanji? The answer was similar to the earlier “Coffee Time” example. Just like I had thought when I heard it originally, there were specific characters used. When splitting up the word blend (burendo) into three parts, you can only really do so like this: bu-ren-do. It wouldn’t really work any other way.

My first thought was the kanji for rabbit, which can be read as do. There were pictures of rabbits everywhere in this shop, on the cups, on the spoons, and on the clock. Most importantly, there was even the large relief with the two rabbits on the wall behind the counter. I was almost certain there was a correlation between the amount of rabbits and the shop’s name having something to do with them.

My next guess was the kanji meaning “walking.” There weren’t many kanji that would be pronounced bu that also might have something to do with the coffee shop. He mostly likely wouldn’t have used the ones meaning “incorrect” or “to despise,” and the ones meaning “to stroke” and “absoluteness” were much too difficult to be in a name. I thought it might be the one meaning “to dance,” but even that seemed too splendid for a simple coffee shop. Thinking about it once more, I remembered “Ayumi-san.”

I was simply guessing at the characters in the apparently pregnant Ayumi-san’s name. Earlier, when talking to the owner, Ōhinata had mentioned, “It’d be bad if you called Ayumi-san something like Po-chan in front of the customers.” If her name was “Ayumi-san” but her nickname was “Po-chan” then her name most likely contained the kanji for “walking.” Whether or not it was the only character in her name, I had no idea. At any rate, the character was commonly read as bu, so there was no problem putting it on the sign.

That left the ren. This was the most difficult one.

The shop owner said that Ōhinata would laugh once she learned the name of the place. Would Ōhinata really laugh about putting Ayumi-san’s character in the title, when she herself wasn’t in a relationship? She might, I suppose, but I personally didn’t think it was that embarrassing. This meant he was probably talking about the ren as being the embarrassing point.

On the relief on the wall, there were two rabbits inside the heart.

“Ayumi-san” (bu) “alongside” (ren) the “rabbit” (do). Burendo, or “Blend.” The shop owner thought silently about it.

He looked down at the notepad and up at me, and then cracked a smile.

“That’s nice.”

“What do I get?”

However the shop owner simply laughed as he shook his head.

“You were close.”

I was off, huh?

It wasn’t a shock. I didn’t have a lot of confidence in it in the first place. I thought that the bu and the do were good choices, but I still felt unsure about the ren until the very end. Just as I expected, the owner took the ballpoint pen and underlined the ren.

I then looked at what he wrote next to it and suddenly realized what made it so embarrassing for him. The middle kanji in the new, upcoming coffee shop’s name was “to adore.” The rabbits adored by Ayumi. I had previously thought the owner was somewhat callous, but to think he was such a romantic. Had Ōhinata heard this, she would have most certainly smiled. It would have been a smile so bright it could have pierced through any depth.

However, Chitanda alone remained confused.

“Um, why is it the kanji for ‘walking?’”

That’s right, she wasn’t here when we were talking about “Ayumi-san.” I didn’t want to keep the others waiting too long, so I kept it brief.

“I’ll explain it to you on the way back.”

Chitanda replied quietly, “Please do.”

I went to make sure we didn’t leave any belongings on the counter, and I saw that only the cups, plates, and spoons remained. Before I left the shop, I suddenly realized something. The newspaper sitting in the front of the magazine rack was the evening edition. I quickly rushed over to it and picked it out with my index and middle finger. I looked at the weather report and saw that it said it would start raining in the evening. I handed it over to Satoshi and flashed a triumphant look.

“See? Look at that. It says it’s going to rain in the evening.”

“Are you still hung up on that? I didn’t know you held grudges like this, Hōtarō.”

That wasn’t what I had intended. Ibara, who had already been standing in front of the door, turned around.

“Even without that, you could tell just by looking outside. See?”

Looking outside the glass door, I could see rain drops beginning to fall.

Even though I had known the report ahead of time, I ended up not even being able to leave before I had to deal with it. At least the compact umbrella wasn’t going to be useless after all.

<noinclude>
==== Translator's Notes and References ====
<references/>

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Hyouka:Volume 5 Chapter 3-1

2018-02-17T12:26:12Z

172.68.255.155: /* 1. Present: 8.0km; 12.0km Remaining */ minor (spelling)

== Chapter 3 - A Very Wonderful Shop ==

=== 1. Present: 8.0km; 12.0km Remaining ===

That which you think is right and that which you think is wrong are both things you learn throughout your life from your education and experiences. You are praised for your good deeds and scolded for your bad ones. It's through this that you start drawing the distinctions between right and wrong. On the other hand, what you end up liking and not liking isn’t simply something that someone teaches you. If you were to go as far as call it innate, you would be implying that something like a baby disliking cheese in the future would have been decided from the very start, something like a small treatise on destiny. Rather, might something like someone’s preferences be akin to the various impulses that boil up from inside one’s self as they grow older? In the end, it’s inexorably linked with the ultimate question of what one treasures the most.

On that rainy day, Satoshi had told me this on the way home. He then started to smile in a seemingly condescending manner as he continued.

“Inside of you Hōtarō—you who has a wholly insufficient number of things you either like or dislike—is an impulse that you refuse to talk about. That's what Mayaka would say. I wouldn’t go that far, though.”

“If it were Ibara, she would probably say something like, ‘That’s what Fuku-chan would say. I wouldn’t go that far, though.’”

“Nope, Mayaka doesn’t talk like that at all. She says everything bluntly. Her choice of words would be much meaner.”

That was exactly the case. I was wrong.

When Satoshi and I would go home together, we would usually end up having ridiculous conversations like this while we walked. Sometimes, we would talk about even more ridiculous things like “the ultimate fate of the world,” and in even rarer moments, we might even bring up something mildly practical for a change, like “is B5 or A4 sized paper easier to use for notes.” What made that day unusual, however, was the audience listening in on our conversation, namely Ōhinata.

The rain was neither violent nor light as it continued to drip down endlessly. We had walked inside a shopping arcade, so our umbrellas were closed. Holding hers with both hands joined behind her back, Ōhinata peered into my face with a lovely gesture that didn’t suit her tomboyish appearance and smiled.

“Is Ibara-senpai really that sharp-tongued?”

It wasn’t like we had waited for her specifically, but rather, when Satoshi and I had left from the school’s front gate, we just happened to see her leaving as well. She had on a bitter smile, saying, “I haven’t really made any friends yet,” so the three of us ended up walking together. As one might expect from the fact that we all went to the same middle school, our routes home were basically the same.

To Ōhinata’s question I replied, “She is.” However Satoshi tilted his head in thought.

“It’s not like she’ll lash out at anyone. As a matter of fact, I haven’t seen her act harshly towards Chitanda-san even once.”

Thinking about it, that much was certainly true, but I felt like the comparison was a little unfair.

Ōhinata then spoke in a soft voice that sounded as if she had just figured out some terrible secret.

“Maybe that has something to do with the fact that Chitanda-senpai knows a whole lot of people.”

“Um, so are you basically saying that Chitanda-san knows all of Mayaka’s weaknesses and is able to keep her on a leash as a result?”

Satoshi couldn’t help but smile in disbelief. It was such a ridiculous idea that I lost all willpower to even respond. Ōhinata was quick to change the subject, as usual. She quickly smiled and said, “Well, I suppose now I understand that Oreki-senpai is someone that doesn’t treasure anything.”

“Now hold on...”

“What about you, Fukube-senpai? What do you treasure?"

I had voiced an exceedingly dissatisfied statement, but my plea for reassessment went unheard. Satoshi shrugged and readily responded.

“That which makes me unique, I guess.”

Ōhinata let out a disappointed "Is that so," and this time Satoshi posed the question.

“Well, because you keep asking others, what about you?”

“Me?”

She had an impish look about her as she started to speak more loosely.

“Well as a girl, I’d have to say to say I treasure love above all else.”

As this underclassman went on about love in front of me, I started feeling like I had just witnessed a koala in the flesh, in that it was an extremely well-known animal, one that I could easily identify by its appearance, but I had never actually seen one in real life.

“Is that so…”

Satoshi responded in the exact same way that Ōhinata had done so to his previous answer. Almost as if motivated entirely by obligation, he then asked, "Oh, so there's someone like that in your life?"

As she heard this, Ōhinata suddenly broke out into a huge grin.

"Nope, not at the moment. I guess because that's the case, what's really important to me would be…"

She suddenly dropped her gaze to stare at her feet and continued, only her voice still containing the enthusiasm she just had.

“…friends.”

I clearly understood why Satoshi had previously let out his disappointed “Is that so…” Although it wasn’t a very pleasant subject, I was still expecting her to respond with a more elaborate answer. “Love” wasn’t exactly a terrible one, but it was so clichéd.

On the other hand, I could also understand why Ōhinata had responded similarly as well. Although she had just entered high school, had a student heard something like, “That which I treasure most is my own unique nature,” they would most likely not be very moved.

I understood the vague meaning behind his words, however. Even though his face constantly looked as if he had never faced a single hardship in the world, he had many problems in his own way, and he tried to correct these to produce a better version of himself. There were many times when I could only think about how incredibly carefree I was compared to him. Even though his statement might have made an entirely ordinary impression, there was a determination in that answer that really defined who Satoshi was.

I started thinking from there.

First came love, but because there were no prospects there, her answer became her friends. This was what Ōhinata had said. That kind of answer was certainly uninteresting by itself, however, just as Satoshi had a unique determination that only he could have, the same had to be the case for Ōhinata. Had she simply said those words out of longing? Probably not.

After all, when Ōhinata had offered up “love” as her answer, she had been smiling, and yet, when she switched her answer to “friends,” her eyes were cast down.

I knew the answer rested in that behavior, but I couldn’t figure out the exact meaning behind it.

The reason I felt like I could understand at least a small portion of Satoshi’s inner workings was because of a certain incident. Last winter, after a series of complicated happenings, Satoshi opened up to a minuscule degree that which rested behind his façade and shared it with me.

Compared to that, I hadn't experienced anything similar with this underclassman girl, Ōhinata. After all, it hadn’t even been two months since I had met her. Could I even hope to understand her given the circumstances?

It might’ve been possible. The fact remained, however, that I hadn’t even tried.

While I ran, I tried to think of a way to reclaim that which I had lost by not looking at those in front of me head-on. It was idiotic of me. For example, if I didn’t listen to a lecture during class, I would have to buy a reference book before the test came around. It was like making the rope only after seeing the thief.<ref>A Japanese proverb. (盗人を見て縄を綯う) It refers to someone desperately starting preparations after it is already too late.</ref> At any rate, it was difficult for the energy-saver in me to say it, but I had only one option open to me. If a person resembled a bodhisattva on the outside, then they were like a yakṣa on the inside. A yakṣa. In other words, a demon.

There were three ways to interpret this.

The first way was to assume that Ibara’s memory was incorrect and that Ōhinata had actually said something entirely different. In the end, though, that was more along the lines of wishful thinking. Exactly what kind of misunderstanding would have had to take place for her to incorrectly hear the sentence, “She really does look like a bodhisattva, doesn’t she.”

The second way was to assume that Ōhinata had indeed said that exact line, but had meant it purely as a simple feeling or observation, without any hint of an ulterior meaning. This was also difficult to justify. Up until this point, I had never heard anyone use the phrase “That person is like a bodhisattva” to compliment someone else. Of course, you couldn’t say that there wasn’t anyone in this world that used strange phrases like that to praise others. Still overall, I had exchanged words with Ōhinata numerous times by this point, so I thought that it was safe for me to say that she didn’t fit that description.

This meant that I had to concede to the third possibility after all: Ōhinata had referred to Chitanda in a roundabout manner as being like a demon. It was a peculiar use of the language, but I could understand why she would do it. She wanted to criticize Chitanda, but naturally she couldn’t say anything like that out loud in front of Ibara, who was such good friends with her. She probably didn’t expect Ibara to catch onto that meaning alone.

If it did become a problem, Ōhinata could simply pretend that she didn’t know anything about lesser-known idioms, like “A person who resembles a bodhisattva on the outside is a yakṣa on the inside.” However, not only had Satoshi known the meaning behind the word, but I also clearly remembered some incriminating points as well. On the day of the New Recruit Festival, she had mentioned, “classical Chinese literature seems difficult, but I love Japanese studies,” and she was also able to quickly discern that the joke I told on my birthday was a line from one of Sakutarō Hagiwara’s poems. As I saw it, Ōhinata was quite skilled in this discipline.

And yet, in the end, I still wasn’t satisfied.

I couldn’t think of anything that might have gone poorly between Chitanda and Ōhinata.

I didn’t doubt that whatever had happened yesterday after school ended up being the deciding moment. I simply thought it was impossible for there to be absolutely nothing leading up to that moment. I suppose there was something I thought was strange. It happened on a Saturday if I remember correctly.

I ended up running a bit too much. I didn’t raise my head. So far, I hadn’t been sweating all too much.

I approached another hill in the road up ahead. The line of students around me was beginning to slow down, and all of a sudden, I felt like running alone.

<noinclude>
==== Translator's Notes and References ====
<references/>

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| Back to [[Hyouka:Volume_5_Chapter_2-3|Hyouka Volume 5 Chapter 2 - 3. Present: 6.9km; 13.1km Remaining]]
| Return to [[Hyouka|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Hyouka:Volume_5_Chapter_3-2|Hyouka Volume 5 Chapter 3 - 2. Past: 13 Days Ago]]
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</noinclude>

Hyouka:Volume 5 Chapter 2-2

2018-02-17T09:52:46Z

172.68.255.155: /* 2. Past: 27 Days Ago */ minor (grammar)

=== 2. Past: 27 Days Ago ===

It was a lazy morning.

I had stayed up fairly late the previous night. It wasn’t like I was doing anything in particular, but because I had no school the next day, I ended up aimlessly reading and watching TV for a long time.

I had sluggishly woken up late in the morning and saw that there was no one in the living room. I knew that my dad was away for work, but I had no idea what my sister was up to. She might be somewhere in the house, or she might be somewhere outside of Japan. As I unabashedly let out a big yawn, I plopped down onto the sofa.

The remote control was sitting on the low table in front of me. I figured I’d at least turn it on and see what was showing, but I couldn't find anything very interesting, even after changing the channel a couple times. I was still drowsy so the television actually ended up being a little annoying. I had brought the paperback I was reading from my room, so I sank into the couch and opened the pages.

Before reading even a single line, I looked up from the print and muttered to myself.

“It’s kind of dark.”

The curtains were closed. Naturally I would have preferred them to be open, but because I was so comfortably deep in the couch, getting up would be too troublesome. I put the book aside and reached for the remote once more. On top of the table was an ashtray and a lucky cat figure.<ref>See maneki-neko (招き猫): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneki-neko</ref>

This lucky cat was a strange little thing. I couldn’t tell if it was poorly made or if it was purposely designed like this, but the cat almost looked like it was grinning at you. It was holding a large coin like any other lucky cat would, except instead of the usual assortment of bold phrases that might be written on it, like “great happiness,” “fantastic fortune,” or “exceeding wealth,” it only contained a single word, “lucky.”<ref>「招福」, 「大大吉」, 「千万両」, and then 「吉」 respectively.</ref> Of course, the only person who would have bought something this half-assed was my sister, but even then, I wondered where she could have possibly bought it.

The inside was hollow, and its arm was spring-loaded so you could move it in an up-and-down beckoning motion. My sister had made some alterations to add onto that feature. She tried making it so that it would shoot an infrared beam. Even though you couldn’t see it in the first place, she had still purposely rigged it so that the beam would specifically come from the eyes.

“If a cat’s going to shoot lasers, then it has to be from the eyes.”

When she told me this, I was speechless, but thinking about it more rationally it’s not like it was all that strange. After all, the remote also used infrared beams. She had essentially just put a remote inside the lucky cat.

Its receiver was connected to the fluorescent light on the ceiling. When you moved its arm to invite good fortune, an infrared beam would fly from its eyes and either illuminate or darken the room. As a result, you could take the string off the ceiling lamp and rejoice over the newly spacious surroundings. Except now, as you had to constantly keep the lucky cat there instead of the string, it continued to get in the way regardless. At least have the common decency to use a cat that was actually lovable.

The lucky cat currently sat on the other end of the table, so I reached towards it. That was the reason I even picked up the remote in the first place. In lieu of a stick, I used it to try and move the lucky cat’s arm. It looked like I should have been able to reach it, but I couldn’t no matter how hard I tried. Had I lifted myself a bit I would have probably been able to reach it, but at that point I might as well be standing. As I tried my hardest to use only my arms while avoiding moving the rest of my body like the plague, a voice called out from behind me.

“Are you finally trying to fully master the art of laziness or something?”

The road to fully mastering energy-preservation was endless; I haven’t yet even seen the heights of its perfection. I turned around and saw my sister. It looked like she had taken an afternoon bath because of the bath towel tightly wrapped around the top of her head. She walked into the kitchen and asked, “Want some coffee?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, then pour me some as well while you’re at it.”

She wasn’t going to do it herself? Then why did she even go to the kitchen in the first place?

Because I had gotten so in the mood for coffee, all of the determination and effort that I had previously put into not standing up instantly fizzled away. I slapped my knees to give me the energy I needed to stand up and then went over to the kitchen to start boiling some water. My sister had her back to me as she stared into the refrigerator and eventually found a sandwich to eat. I had no idea why there was a sandwich in the fridge to begin with. Over the years, I had seen all sorts of things being cooled in that fridge, from bee larvae tsukudani to kangaroo burgers.<ref>Tsukudani is a cooking technique where you boil something in soy sauce to preserve and eat it.</ref> Compared to those, at least a sandwich wasn’t too far removed from normalcy.

“Either dry your hair or eat your food. Don’t do both.”

I said this bitterly towards her as she still had the towel wrapped around her head, but she ignored me. She took out a single egg and spun it in the sink like a top. The egg quickly lost its balance and toppled over.

“Oh come on, it’s raw?”

As she sighed, I figured she must have mistaken the raw egg for a hard-boiled one. It was true that I had made some the evening before, but I ended up eating them myself later that night. I thought it was strange that she even knew I made some in the first place, but who knows. Maybe she saw something like the leftover dishes after I had finished.

Nothing else in fridge must have stood out. She closed the door by pushing it with her lower back and then asked a question from behind me as I was readying some coffee cups.

“Oh yeah, your cold’s gone now, isn’t it.”

“My cold?”

“Wasn’t it pretty bad?”

I thought for a little bit and then responded.

“When was this?”

It was true; I had indeed caught a cold this month.

One day, Chitanda had contacted me, asking me for my help because the spring festival was understaffed. A lot of stuff happened, but long story short, I left to go help them and ended up having a pretty strange day. It was hard for even me to believe that all of that had happened within the span of a single day. I could still vividly recall that pretty scene, surrounded on all sides by the early-blooming cherry blossoms.

It was particularly chilly then, especially after the sun had set. Even though I had been saying it was cold, Chitanda continued to insist that it wasn’t because it was already spring at that point. I’m not saying I caught it because of that, but the very next day, I remained cooped up in my bed. Until my sister had returned later that night, I had been the only one in the house, so all of the chills, fevers, and hunger added up to make me a very miserable sight.

My sister was probably talking about that, but that had happened during spring break. I had all but recovered in around two days, so when I went to the opening ceremony I was completely normal.

“That was a month ago.”

“Really? To think already a month has passed. They grow up so fast.”

As she feigned ignorance, she lightly tapped my head. She started to toss around my hair and then said, “Fix your bedhead.”

I’ll do it later.

Someone had so graciously made coffee for her and yet she didn’t even so much as taste it. She suddenly said, “Oh, it’s time,” and returned to her room. I started to read the book I had left on the sofa, but after thirty minutes had passed, she came out of her room again.

“Hey, you aren’t going out today either, right?”

I didn’t have any plans, but I wasn’t too happy with how she said ‘either.’ I answered without looking away from the book.

“I’m not thinking of doing anything.”

“I wonder how much distance you’ve covered throughout your entire lifetime.”

“Siblings need to balance each other out.”

After I said this, she replied in a condescending tone.

“So you’re saying you’ve been resting up on my behalf. Aren’t you a kind one.”

My not leaving the house only compensated for her extravagant use of gasoline, airplane fuel, and other travel costs. As an energy-saving advocate, this was my apology to human civilization for the actions of my idiot sister.

“What a pitiful child.”

She had said something so cruel.

“Well at any rate, continue doing nothing until 2:30.”

“You want me to watch the house?”

“Yeah. If no one comes, you’re free to do whatever.”

I didn’t have any plans to go out in the first place, but just being told this made me feel uncomfortably restricted. As I continued reading the book, I spoke.

“Get me something.”

It looked like she was already putting her shoes on. Her voice rang from the house entrance.

“Then I’ll buy you some candles. You like those, right?”

Since when?

Because she had mentioned the candles, however, I knew that she hadn’t forgotten what today was. It didn’t look like she was intending on celebrating it, though…

Surely enough, when I was a kid, I loved to blow out the candles on cakes.

Today was my birthday.

What could she have possibly meant by telling me to watch the house until 2:30? I put my book aside part-way, and threw myself face down on the sofa to think. It was my sister. She was probably planning something unnecessary. She had told me to wait because something was probably coming, but what was it?

Having something celebratory arrive while I was here would be wonderfully considerate of her. Because it would be such a decent thing for her to do, I consequently knew that that wasn’t going to be the case. Tomoe Oreki wasn’t the kind of person who did things like that, and even if I was wrong, setting up the delivery time for 2:30 in the afternoon would be far too half-assed for her.

She had told me, “If no one comes, you’re free to do whatever.” That meant that most likely someone would be coming rather than something. Someone who would come on my birthday… Actually, it could be incorrect to assume my birthday played into it at all. It could simply be someone like a bill collector or neighborhood information distributor that was coming. Maybe it was wrong of me to assume that she was setting this all up. Maybe I'd been suspecting her too much.

Even as I said this to myself, however, I couldn’t get rid of the bad premonition lingering in my head. Because I was overly conscious of the time, it was only natural that the second hand seemed to move far too slowly.

I had lost the desire to eat, so I continued to wait without making myself lunch. I finally finished the book I had been reading, but I didn’t have enough time to get into a second one. I switched on the television and turned to a travel program. This was how I passed the time, watching complete strangers enjoying delicious-looking food in a first-class inn.

Thinking back on it, the way she had specifically stated “if they don’t come” meant that it didn’t necessarily mean that they were going to come at 2:30. She wasn’t indicating an arrival time, but rather an arrival period. For example, had I told Satoshi, using the same exact phrasing, “If I don’t come by 2:30, do whatever you want,” I would be saying something along the lines of, “I should actually be arriving earlier, but there’s a possibility that I’ll be late. If I’m not there by 2:30, just assume I won’t be coming.”

That was why, when I heard the doorbell chime at around 5 minutes to 2:00, I assumed that it wasn’t related to the guest that my sister was having me wait for. ‘I wonder if it's a demon. Perhaps it's a snake.’<ref>A Japanese proverb. (鬼が出るか蛇が出るか) It refers to the fear of the unknown.</ref> For some reason, that feeling started to well up inside of me. I put on a pair of slippers and stepped down into the entrance area, taking a peek through the door’s peephole.

It wasn’t a demon, nor was it a snake. Neither was it a bill collector or a neighborhood information distributor.

“Ah, shit. So that’s what it was.”

It slipped from my mouth before I realized it.

Four individuals stood outside: Satoshi, Chitanda, Ibara, and Ōhinata.

As if sensing my presence, Satoshi returned my gaze through the peephole. He showed me a revolting smile and then held up his hand. For all of the various problems she had caused me, there was one thing I was thankful to my sister for.

She had told me to fix my bedhead ahead of time.

There was no helping it. It wasn’t like I could send them away.

At any rate, I took them to the living room and had them sit around the low table. Chitanda and Ōhinata sat on the sofa while Satoshi and Ibara sat on floor cushions.

Satoshi wore a polo shirt and cargo pants. Ibara wore a gray parka and shorts. Chitanda had on a knitted peach-colored sweater and a skirt that reached below her knees. Ōhinata wore a graphic tee and jeans. Staring at this unfamiliarly dressed ensemble around me, I started to grumble.

“Gentlemen, what on earth is this goose before me?”<ref>This is a line from famous Taishō-era poet Sakutarō Hagiwara’s mysterious existential poem entitled “Death” 「死」, found in his collection, Howling at the Moon 『月に吠える』. Because the poem is short, I’ll translate it here so you can interpret it for yourself. (Source for those curious and able to read Japanese: http://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000067/files/859_21656.html)
<pre>From the depths of the land I gaze at,
Strange hands protrude,
Legs protrude,
A head intrudes,
Gentlemen,
What on earth,
Is this goose before me?
From the depths of the land I gaze at,
I make a foolish face,
Hands protrude,
Legs protrude,
A head intrudes.</pre></ref>

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Even as Ibara sat with such well-mannered form, her speech remained unsurprisingly foul. Neglecting Ōhinata as she responded with, “Oh, that’s Sakutarō,” Satoshi started to laugh.

“Are you perhaps wondering what foul wind could have possibly blown us your way?”

I nodded wordlessly.

There was no doubt that they came to celebrate my birthday. After all, Ōhinata was carrying a box tied with a ribbon and featuring the logo of a cake shop that even I knew on the side, so I couldn’t exactly ask them why they had come.

The thing was, however, Satoshi and I had known each other for three years now and not once had we celebrated each other’s birthday. Even had he decided to do this as some kind of joke, there’s no way he’d think to bring the rest of the Classics Club. We just weren’t that kind of group.

Sure we had come together once, purely on a collective whim, to write the anthology. But we weren’t so close as to randomly hang out at someone’s house to kill time. That’s what I had thought, and I was pretty sure the other members felt the same way. As if to suddenly close that distance, something perplexing ended up happening.

“I thought that we’d be a bother if we came so suddenly, but…”

Chitanda’s words were full of consideration. I wasn’t really bothered, but rather…

“I was surprised.”

“I figured you’d be.”

Satoshi shrugged his shoulders.

“I’m equally as surprised. Talking about it is one thing, but I never imagined this would actually happen in reality.”

There were two things I wanted to ask.

“How did you guys know about today, and whose idea was it to come here?”

“Well, it’s a long story…”

Chitanda tilted her head as if trying to decide where to start.

“When Ōhinata asked us if we had ever done something like a party with the entire club, I told her about the culture festival after-party, but then she asked me if we had done anything aside from that, and I told her that I couldn’t think of anything else really, so she…”

It did look like it was shaping up to be a long story. At that moment, however, Ibara cut in and swiftly said, “When I mentioned that your birthday was coming up, Ōhinata said that we should throw you a birthday party.”

“You knew when my birthday was?”

“Only that it was in April. That’s the kind of thing you’d normally remember about someone in your class.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“That’s because you’re an inconsiderate human being.”

Thinking about it, Ibara has had plenty of chances to learn my birthday up until now. We had been in the same class all throughout elementary and middle school, and especially in elementary school, they often had those “Who has a birthday this month?” posters. If she had remembered my birthday was in April, it’d be easy for her to check the old class anthologies to find my actual birthday.

Without the motive, however, she wouldn’t have done it. In other words, the culprit was Ōhinata.

“So you were the one that came up with it, huh?”

I stared holes into Ōhinata. Her eyes were darting around the living room, but when they finally met mine, she smiled without a hint of trepidation.

“Friends need to be celebrated.”

That motto’s correctness aside, there were ways to celebrate that involved being alone and undisturbed.

“And there’s no one that could be in a bad mood after having a party thrown for them.”

There wasn't a trace of self-doubt in her. And having said that, she planned on making me one of those happy individuals. Yay.

Unfortunately for her however, not a single person had said “Happy Birthday” to me yet.

“That aside, I’m surprised everyone is actually here.”

No matter how hard Ōhinata might’ve tried to push the idea of having a party, it was almost unbelievable that everyone would have gone along with it. Chitanda might have simply wanted to make the new recruit happy, but I couldn’t for the life of me imagine a scenario in which Ibara agreed. As if hearing what I was thinking, the girl in question spoke bluntly.

“I'm going to be watching a movie in the evening, so this is just to kill some time before then. Two hours is all I’ll spare for your celebration.”

Are you a mind-reader?

“We bought drinks so go get some cups.”

You should have bought paper cups too then… I saw Satoshi had brought a paper bag full of snacks. Instead of eating them from the bag, it would probably best if I brought out a tray to stick them on. If I remembered correctly, the wooden tray was in the cupboard. Also, if there was a cake in Ōhinata’s box, then I should pull out a knife and some plates for later. I wonder if we had enough plates to go around. Of course we’ll need spoons as well. Having forks might also not be a bad idea.

As I stood up from my chair and went to the kitchen to search for this and that, a doubt suddenly crossed my mind.

If this was a birthday celebration, then I had the main role.

And yet, why was I the only one up and moving around?

When I brought the utensils and dishes back to the living room, I noticed that the ashtray, the book I had finished reading, and the television remote had all been cleaned up and placed on top of the sideboard. Only the lucky cat had remained, still enshrined in its corner of the table, continuing to expose its unlovable grin.

The snacks that Satoshi had bought turned out to be some fairly fashionable biscuits.<ref>From here on, 'biscuits' will refer to confections like these: http://tosaichi.jp/millet/millet-600-7.jpg</ref> Chitanda had mentioned, “They look like they’d be good with jam,” so I also prepared a smaller plate in addition to the larger one for the snacks and brought out some summer mandarin jam from the refrigerator. Upon seeing the jar, Ōhinata exclaimed with joy.

“Oh! That’s ‘MilleFleur’ jam isn’t it!”

Looking at the label, I could see the word “MilleFleur” written on it. Had I not heard the correct way to say it, I probably would have pronounced it something like “Mile Flew.” Making sure I didn’t reveal this thought of mine, I responded, “Yeah,” with my chest puffed out.

“To think you would pull out something like ‘MilleFleur’ so casually, what a classy upperclassman you are, jeez.”

This smiling Ōhinata was a good, honest girl, but there also happened to be a not-so-honest girl in the vicinity. Clearly suspicious, Ibara started to question me.

“Do you even know what that is?”

“Nope, not at all.”

“Then why were you acting like it?!”

“I wanted to look cool. My bad.”

I apologized and asked Ōhinata from the start.

“What is it?”

After learning the truth about my childish vanity, Ōhinata looked at me with unbelievably cold eyes, but she recovered quickly enough and picked up the jar of jam.

“It’s a specialty jam shop. It’s really well-known. I once bought one myself a while back, and, as expected, the taste befits its high price.”

“So it’s expensive, huh?”

I muttered without thinking as I looked at the jar.

“Well, not really. Expensive as jams go, at least.”

I couldn’t imagine this tanned, lightly-dressed Ōhinata doing something like going to a specialty shop to buy jam. I knew it was wrong of me to judge a book by its cover, but still…

“I wonder if it’s a bit of a waste to eat good jam like this with simple biscuits.”

As Satoshi voiced his concerns, however, Chitanda responded with a small smile.

“It should be fine, right?”

And with that, it became fine.

Ōhinata mentioned that she had brought a lighter, so I could only assume it was to be used in lighting birthday candles for the cake. The preparations were ready, but cake would probably happen a little later on.

The drink that Ibara had prepared was carbonated white peach juice that not only resembled champagne, but came in a similar bottle as well.

“Now come on Hōtarō, certainly you have something a little more sophisticated than these.”

Spurred into the kitchen once more by Satoshi’s comment, I pulled out several unused glasses intended for guest-use that hadn’t even been taken out of the box they initially came in. They were short and had no stem. The design etched into it shined as if it were crystal.

“What were these called again?”

Ibara asked this while tilting her head in thought.

“It’s a cup,” I told her, but she wasn’t listening, as per usual.

“It’s not a tumbler glass, nor is it a goblet…”

“Is it a Kiriko glass?”<ref>A type of Japanese cut glass. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satsuma_Kiriko_cut_glass</ref>

Ōhinata had proposed this, but it appeared like that wasn’t the case.

“That’s just a decorative variety. No, that’s not it, what was this shape of glass called again?”

“It said whiskey glass on the box.”

A slight show of vexation appeared on Ibara’s face.

I had personally thought that glasses with long stems would be more fitting, but it couldn’t be helped that there weren’t any in the house. There actually might’ve been some laying around, but if that was the case, I didn’t know where they were. To make matters worse, I could only find four whisky glasses, which meant…

“Wait, is Oreki-san the only person with a normal cup?”

…something like that ended up happening. No matter how you looked at it, this was a terrible way to treat today’s main character.

As the juice was passed around, Ōhinata spoke.

“Well then, someone should propose a toast.”

Satoshi and Ibara exchanged glances with each other and then looked over towards Chitanda, almost as if they had planned on doing so ahead of time. Perhaps aware that she would be the one chosen, Chitanda picked up the glass without looking like she intended on refusing.

Wearing an ambiguous smile that suggested she had no idea how to go about this, Chitanda began her speech.

“Umm, today is Oreki-san’s birthday, so let’s celebrate it. I wish I could’ve given you a present, but because this was on such short notice, I have to apologize for not being able to bring one.”

“Your presence is present enough.”

The one who interjected with this statement wasn’t me. It was Satoshi. Hearing him fabricate people’s feelings for them was troubling.

“Hearing that makes me feel better.”

And hearing her feel better after hearing that fabrication was troubling as well.

“Out of all of us, you were the quickest to turn 17. So, umm… congratulations. Cheers.”

We held up the four whiskey glasses and one cup and lightly tapped them together. Although the birthday was supposedly being thrown for my sake, Ōhinata seemed to be the one who was exceptionally happy.

It was at this point that one of my worries had disappeared.

It wasn’t like I had specifically wanted to be told congratulations or anything, but rather, I was anxious that they might have only planned on eating and drinking, returning home immediately after. Now that they had completed the toast, my birthday had been properly celebrated after all.

There was one other thing that I couldn’t say didn’t bug me, however.

It was the lucky cat.

Why was it still on the table? While I was getting the plates and silverware, they had cleaned up the table for me. They had put everything that was on it onto the nearby sideboard, and yet, only the lucky cat had remained.

I wonder if it was a coincidence. No, out of everything on the table, that was easily the thing most likely to get in the way. Even though they were planning on spreading the food around the table, they had to do so now while specifically avoiding the lucky cat. Perhaps someone had been poking around at it to figure out why it had been sitting there?

I had already made a mistake. To think I had so thoughtlessly brought out this amazing summer mandarin jam without knowing just how truly impressive it actually was. Fortunately the conversation veered away from that at least.

I'd have to be careful from now on.

Satoshi’s biscuits were just the slightest bit salty, and as a result, the jam worked really well with it. I’d always thought that I preferred sweet things, but the tartness of the summer mandarin jam proved to be quite refreshing; it was—how should I put this—something like comparing the épée to the foil.<ref>Both weapons used in fencing, the épée is heavier and more rigid while the foil is much lighter and easier to use.</ref>

“Fukube-senpai, you’ve come here to hang out before, right?”

As Ōhinata asked this, Satoshi turned to me.

“I don’t think so.”

“Nope.”

“I’ve been nearby before, but it was just us meeting up at some park in the area. I think I was borrowing something from him.”

I twisted my head. Just like he said, I had made Satoshi wait in a nearby park a while back while I went there from my house. However…

“Are you sure? I have a vague recollection that you were actually returning something.”

It had only been two years or so and already I couldn’t remember it very well. Of course this vague memory wasn’t going to prove very trustworthy, but I couldn’t sit still while our views were diverging. Agreeing with that, Ōhinata then said, “Perhaps you came two times, once to borrow something and then once to return it.”

Of course, what a reasonable idea.

“Except you never once went all the way to his house, right?”

“I don’t think going to his house would impact our being able to do what we needed to do.”

Ōhinata muttered a dubious sound and brought the whiskey glass to her lips.

“That’s pretty straightforward of you. If it were me, I’d say something like ‘I’d only be a nuisance,’ but I guess it’s because you’re guys.”

Satoshi tilted his head in response.

“I wonder if that’s the case. I’m the type that keeps light acquaintance and is satisfied by that, so those kinds of general conceptions might not apply to me."<ref>This is a reference to a passage in the Zhuangzi: “Virtuous men keep acquaintances light as water, and narrow-minded men keep acquaintances sweet as rice wine.” For information on the Zhuangzi, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi_(book)</ref>

“Which kinds?”

“Every kind.”

I could agree with that.

“I see, I guess people like that exist.”

Ōhinata was deep in thought. Speaking as a guy, I personally didn’t think that Satoshi and I preferred ‘light acquaintance’ to any special degree. It was probably normal. If I had to name it, although Ōhinata was particularly tomboyish, it’s possible that there really weren’t any guys that could talk about these kinds of things easily.

Ōhinata tossed a biscuit into her mouth, and then raised her head to ask another question.

“Can I ask a question? What kind of room do you have?”

My room, huh? I started to brace myself.

“It’s pretty normal. There’s a bed, a desk, and a bookshelf.”

“Isn’t it decorated with anything?”

I don’t think I mentioned anything like that, but I’m sure there was at least something sticking on the wall. As I quietly tried to remember if there was, Ibara suddenly started saying some unnecessary things while petting the lucky cat’s head.

“You should just stop there, Hina-chan. Even this guy is entitled to his privacy.”

She then turned towards me and flashed a cold smile.

“Besides, it’s a guy’s room, so I’m sure you can already imagine what kinds of things are laying around.”

I wasn’t exactly sure what Ibara was imagining, but there was nothing in it that could justify the grin full of contempt directed at me. …Well, there wasn’t much at least.

“I can’t really imagine anything.”

As Ōhinata muttered this, Satoshi responded with a smile.

“Things like textbooks.”

I also contributed.

“Reference books as well.”

“Also dictionaries, right?”

“Of course.”

Ibara had an amazed look on her face.

“Are you guys dumb or what?”

The number of biscuits on the snack dish in front of us became progressively fewer. I hadn’t actually thought that they would all be eaten, but if they were, the cake would naturally come next. As I reached for another one, it suddenly dawned on me that I hadn’t eaten anything for lunch. I then had a thought.

“By the way, did you guys have lunch?”

The responses were varied.

Chitanda responded, “A light one.”

Ōhinata responded, “I did.”

Ibara responded, “I had a late breakfast, so not yet.”

Satoshi responded, “I haven’t.”

As I was at the same time today’s main character and host, it was probably my job to suggest something.

“If that’s the case, we can get some pizza.”

“Eh?! But I’d feel terrible if you treated us.”

Chitanda was trying to be thoughtful, but there was no way in hell I was going to treat them.

“We’d obviously split the tab.”

“O… oh, that makes sense.”

At that moment, Satoshi also interjected.

“I agree, at first I was also thinking it might be nice to get pizza. After all, it’d be a perfect idea if there were a lot of people going to be eating. But I forgot about something.”

“Was the pizza place closed?”

“If the pizza place was closed on Saturday would they ever get any business? No, it was, well…”

He glanced at Ibara. Compared to the hesitating Satoshi, Ibara spoke as bluntly as she always had.

“I can’t do cheese. Sorry.”

“…Oh, I see. I didn’t know.”

“I’d be more surprised if you did know my preferences.”

There was occasionally cheese in the school lunches, so It wouldn’t be too strange if I did know, and yet, even then, I didn’t. She told me this earlier, but I guess I was pretty inconsiderate.

“You're also bad with cheese?”

As Ōhinata thrusted a magnificent amount of jam onto the biscuit and then tossed it into her mouth in a similarly magnificent fashion, she suddenly jerked her body forward in curiosity.

“Yeah, a little bit. It’s not like I’m allergic to it, but I just can’t seem to eat it.”

“Is it the taste?”

“It’s probably how it smells. If it’s something like chilled, thin-sliced cheese, it doesn’t really smell, so that’s fine, but I can’t bring myself to even get near it if it’s cooked. You also don’t like it, Hina-chan?”

Upon hearing this, Ōhinata flashed a huge smile.

“This is just something a friend told me, but people should really throw away rotten mandarin oranges and milk.”

I wonder if Ōhinata had a habit of dragging her friends into the mix when she couldn’t think of a good way to word something. As expected, Ibara returned a forced smile.

“It’s be nice to have that kind of resolution, but it still kind of bugs me that that it’s become something like a weak point of mine. I’ll have to get used to it by the time I become an adult.”

If Ibara were to become a hermit in the Pyrenees Mountains and force herself to eat cheese three times every day, I’m sure she would overcome it somehow.<ref>A range of mountains on the border between France and Spain.</ref> She might even have a cheese-related epiphany on the way down. The legends surrounding Ibara Dairy Manufacturers and how they took the world of cheese production by storm would begin then and there. Maybe.

If she simply didn’t like the taste, then it would be fine as long as she didn’t eat it, but as the problem was her not liking the smell, even ordering the pizza would be problematic. Judging by all the pizza shop fliers that were constantly shoved in our mailbox, it’s possible that there were pizzas that didn’t use cheese, but I didn’t necessarily want pizza so bad that I would beg for that possibility. Besides, the biscuits were surprisingly filling.

“Anyways, Oreki-senpai, you really don’t know anything at all about Ibara-senpai, do you. Even though you were in elementary school together?”

“Pretty much.”

“Why’re you bragging about it?” cut in Ibara.

That’s not what I had intended.

Ōhinata, who had been speedily reaching for the snack plate, suddenly stopped. She started to eye up Ibara with a dubious expession.

“Could that mean what I think it means? Have you never been to this house before either, Ibara-senpai?”

“No way in hell. Just because we were in the same school district doesn’t mean that our houses were close.”

“Really? Wait, but…”

Ōhinata looked at Chitanda sitting next to her on the sofa, and then at Satoshi and Ibara. She tilted her head somewhat in confusion.

“We all arrived here without getting even a little lost. I thought one of us had been here before.”

It felt like time had briefly stopped.

So it had come to this.

It had moved from a conversation about my room, and hadn’t even come close to being a discussion about the meaning behind the lucky cat. To think it would end up going in that direction after I had brought up something like getting pizza, it was completely unexpected.

Because I didn’t know something like Ibara’s food preferences, that meant there wasn’t a very strong bond between the two of us, so consequently, she mostly likely had never been to my house before, huh? I see; it did follow logically. This meant, however, that I had already dug my own grave.

Was it still possible for me to change the subject?

No, it was probably too late for that. The conversation had already reached the point of no return. If I desperately tried to interrupt the flow of the conversation, they would only wonder why I was trying to change the topic and become more unnecessarily curious as a result. Ōhinata’s question was dangerously close to revealing the secret that the lucky cat was hinting at. However, things were still only ‘close.’ It wasn’t a direct hit yet.

It was painful, but the only thing I could do was retreat from the conversation while praying for them to quickly start talking about something else on their own.

If only she understood this as well.

Ibara looked at Satoshi.

“That’s, well, you know. Fuku-chan showed us through the streets, right?”

Satoshi showed a look of confusion, and responded, “I was only remembering the map. This neighborhood is a bit confusing, but I‘m pretty skilled when it comes to memorizing things. As for where I got the map, though…”

“I prepared it,” interjected Chitanda.

“That’s right. I got it from Chitanda.”

He pulled out the map from his pocket to show everyone. It wasn’t one of those extremely fancy maps that showed a lot of details about all the residents, but rather a simple one of the district used by the city. My house’s location was marked on it with a red pen.

“Oh, that’s right. That’s because Chi-chan’s been here once before.”

Upon hearing that, Chitanda stiffened her body.

“Remember? That thing last year. When Irisu-senpai came to us over summer break to ask us for our opinions on her video, Chitanda came here to come get him, didn’t she?”

“Ah, no, that was…”

She had a good memory. Certainly enough, Chitanda had come to get me after hearing from Satoshi that I was planning on skipping it, however that time…

“I had gotten close thanks to Fukube-san’s directions, but I never actually ended up finding the house.”

I had received a phone call that day: “I came to get you, but I seem to have become lost, so please come and get me.” I had quickly managed to find her, but it’s like not like she even saw the front of the house that day.

“I knew the address, however, so as long as I had a map, I’d be able to find it.”

“So that’s all it was.”

Ōhinata started to smile brightly again as if she were satisfied by that explanation.

“You'd be able to figure it out if you knew the address, wouldn’t you. For example, let’s see… like something like that.”

As she said that, her face began to darken.

“Something? What would something be, exactly?”

It seemed this first-year was hung up on something strange. There wasn’t a single similarity between the two, but somehow, seeing Ōhinata and Chitanda lined up like that on the couch reminded me of a patch of roots.

“Oh! New Year’s cards!”

As Ōhinata said this, her face instantly lighting up, Satoshi responded with an unnecessary comment.

“Even so, Hōtarō doesn’t do tiring things like that.”

That was incorrect. I had actually tried to send some in the past, but I ran into the same problem. I didn’t know any of their addresses.

“Is that so?”

Temporarily forgetting her attempts at politeness, she looked at me with a distrusting expression.

“It’s obvious people should send New Year’s cards to their friends at least.”

“It’s fine. We all saw each other in person at the end of the year anyways. New Year’s cards are just a substitute for the people you aren’t going to be able to see.”

“That might be the case, but wasn’t the only reason we were able to greet Oreki-san because I had called him on the phone myself?” said Chitanda without realizing it.

Satoshi put the biscuit he was gnawing at back down and started to smile.

“Ah, this New Year’s was really interesting, wasn’t it? After all, Mayaka even…” Satoshi stopped as he felt Ibara’s piercing glare. Even though it probably wasn’t like she had been forced to do it, Ibara’s part-time job as a miko at the shrine had embarrassed her to no end.<ref>Shrine maiden.</ref> Of course, Ōhinata had no idea what they were talking about.

“What about Ibara-senpai?”

“Never mind that. We were talking about Oreki’s address, right?”

She forcefully returned the conversation to its previous track. I might’ve been able to bury the subject for good had I continued to talk about what had happened over New Year’s, but if I did do that, Ibara would certainly despise me. That didn’t sound like a very appealing outcome either.

As I stressed over this, Ibara suddenly had a blank look on her face that seemed to wonder why she hadn’t realized something so simple up to this point.

“What about the graduate anthology? If I remember correctly, it’s written there.”

“Oh, I see. That makes a lot of sense,” nodded Ōhinata, and then she titled her head once more.

“But Chitanda-senpai didn’t go to Kaburaya Middle School.”

“No, what she said was correct.”

Chitanda had finally said it.

“Oreki-san had a friend from middle school named Sōda-san. I’ve been to Sōda-san’s house plenty of times now, so I asked him if I could see the graduate anthology.”

With this, Ibara and Satoshi raised their voices at the same time.

“So that’s what it was. You should’ve told us.”

“Is that so? You should’ve told us.”

As she was scolded by these two, Chitanda uncharacteristically shrunk back, looking ashamed.

“I thought about asking you two, but I kept passing you by, and I had forgotten all about it in the clubroom… And then all of a sudden, I had business to take care of at Sōda-san’s house.”

“Now that I think about it, Sōda was in our class, wasn't he? Although, he doesn’t really strike me as the type of guy that would be connected with Oreki.”

Certainly, it wasn’t anything exactly like that. Even though he was the type to space out a lot, he was really good at soccer. There was a long history of lending and borrowing books between the two of us.

“Aren’t his parents kind of famous?”

“They’re on the city council. They don’t act self-important at all, though.”

Puffing out his cheeks for show, Satoshi shook his head in an exaggerated manner.

“That’s Chitanda-san for you. I knew you were incredible, but to think you’d even know one of Hōtarō’s middle school friends. You truly inspire awe.”

“No, it really was just a coincidence.”

“Perhaps you have already heard the rumors surrounding my dark and mysterious past as well.”

As if to get back at Satoshi for ignoring her, Chitanda gracefully placed the palms of her hands on top of her thighs and showed a smile.

“I see. For example, something like a rumor concerning how you began to sing a song after forgetting to turn the mic switch off in the broadcasting room? Nope, I haven’t heard anything like that.”

After a couple seconds, Ibara let out a laugh.

“Hahaha, that’s right! Something like that happened.”

That had happened in the fall of our third year in middle school. It was both an amusing and a sorrowful tale.

“Chi-chan, I’m surprised you know so much about that kind of stuff. I didn't even remember that until you mentioned it.”

Satoshi, who had repeatedly prodded at the grove to be greeted by a snake, sat without saying a single word, his face still frozen in its previously teasing smile.<ref>A Japanese proverb. (藪をつついて蛇を出す) It means to have something bad happen to you while doing unnecessary things.</ref> Satoshi was able to tolerate the vast majority of the jokes aimed at him, but as expected, it seemed that incident remained his sole Achilles heel.

I apologized to Satoshi on the inside. After all, the one who told Chitanda about this particular episode was me.

That said, even I didn’t have the callous heart necessary to finish him off by telling Chitanda that what he in fact sang at that moment was some terrible attempt at hip-hop.

However, as Chitanda humbly continued to deny Ibara’s praise, I found it strange that Ōhinata, on the other hand, sat there with her eyes wide-open in shock, her mouth gaping.

As the time for cake quickly approached, I started cleaning up the snack tray and smaller plates for the jam. After I completed my round-trip between the living room and kitchen, only the lucky cat remained on the table. It was only natural that some jam would be spilled no matter how carefully everyone ate, so I brought a kitchen cloth. As I was wiping, I casually muttered, “This is in the way, isn’t it,” and proceeded to move the lucky cat to the side board.

I felt like sighing in relief. As long as I could remove that from the table, I could rest easy. The danger had finally passed by.

I brought out a plate for the cake as well as a knife and forks. The grape juice probably wouldn’t go with the cake very well. I was told that something like coffee or café au lait would work nicely, so I went to the kitchen once more and waited there for the water to boil.<ref>French coffee with milk.</ref>

One cannot see the kinds of faces they naturally make, so as a result, I had no way of knowing whether or not I had a good poker-face. I didn’t think that mine was very easy to read. When Satoshi and Ibara, and especially Ōhinata, had been talking about my address, I wondered if they had noticed me feeling like I was walking on dangerously thin ice.

I had already prepared the coffee cups. Instant coffee wasn’t exactly the most suitable way with which to treat a respected guest of honor, but as it was their fault for coming so suddenly, I couldn’t be bothered. I continued to watch the silent kettle, waiting for it to whistle. In my experience, the human gaze undeniably inhibited the heating of water. As long as I continued to watch the kettle, the water inside would never boil. If I were to avert my eyes for even a second, that would be the instant, without fail, at which the the kettle would start to whistle. Of course, from an energy-conserving standpoint, it would be best to simply look away then, but there wasn’t anything else to look at.

“Oreki-san, the wipe cloth.”

As I turned around, I saw Chitanda holding the kitchen cloth.

“Oh, can you put it over there on the edge of the sink for me?”

I returned to watch the kettle. I assumed Chitanda was still there, so I started talking.

“You stayed silent about it, huh.”

Following a short silence, I heard a response that seemed like it would be drowned out by the noise coming from the ventilation fan.

“Yes. …I suppose the chance slipped me by.”

Previously, Chitanda said that she had learned my address by checking the graduate anthology from my middle school. That she had been told it by a friend of mine, Sōda. It was certainly true that I had had a classmate named Sōda. I had no idea what high school he had gone to after that, but it was definitely not Kamiyama High School. It was most likely true that Chitanda had gotten Sōda to show her the anthology. After all, what she said sounded pretty accurate, and Chitanda wasn’t very good at ad-lib, period.

However, it wasn’t the entire truth.

Satoshi had never been to my house before. Of course, Ibara was the same.

That last summer break, Chitanda had managed to get near my house but didn’t make it all the way was also not a lie.

However, no one said anything about her coming only once. Chitanda had previously come to this house before. Chitanda had handed a map to Satoshi, but even had she not done that, she would have been easily able to find her way through these streets herself.

I heard a slightly dissatisfied voice.

“But you ended up not saying anything either.”

“I suppose the chance slipped me by.”

It was something that had happened this month.

The festival that Chitanda had participated in was running low on participants, and because the clothing would fit me, I had been roped in to help out. The festival had ended without an hitch, but it was cold that day. I ended up catching a cold.

Of course Chitanda, being the one that enlisted my help, couldn’t sit still after hearing I was bedridden. When she had called my house in the morning and heard about my situation from my sister, she immediately came over to visit. Her get-well gift was summer mandarin jam. She told me that mixing a little bit with black tea was good for you when you had a cold. I didn’t really drink black tea, however, so afterwards I got a small bowl and simply licked it like that.

It felt awkward to have Chitanda come into my room, so I put up with the cold and met with her in the living room. When you're in a lot of pain, it really isn’t easy to receive a guest. Chitanda understood this of course and returned home several minutes after handing me the get-well jam. It was only for a little while, sure, but she had come regardless.

“This is difficult… I feel bad for Mayaka-san and the others, but they won’t know if we don’t say anything.”

I didn’t respond as I continued to watch the kettle.

That wasn't how it worked at all, so I became nervous.

She said that they wouldn’t know as long as we didn't tell them, but in reality, Chitanda was simply going to be using her actions rather than her words to declare that she had come to this living room before.

The party was beginning to near its climax. It would soon be time for the cake to make its grand entrance. At that moment, some candles would be stuck into it and be thusly lit. Ōhinata had brought the lighter.

Chitanda had probably thought of the arrangements at this point. It’d be more atmospheric if all the lights were to be turned off while the candles were lit. That was her plan, right?

That’s why the lucky cat remained on the table.

Even though the ashtray, the paperback, and the television remote had all been moved to the side board, only the lucky cat remained. That was something that only someone who knew about its ability to turn off the overhead light would do. In other words, it would point out the single person among all four of them who had come to this house once before.

In reality, when Chitanda had come to this living room before, it was dark inside so I had pressed the lucky cat’s arm to turn on the light. Chitanda would not have forgotten that.

What would actually happen if Chitanda were to use the lucky cat’s arm to turn off the lights? Ibara, or perhaps Ōhinata, would probably say something like this:

“Oh my, so the lucky cat functions as a remote, does it? No wonder it was left on the table. But wait a sec, how did you know this was a remote? Now then, Eru Chitanda, not only did you come to this house, to this very living room, but you additionally saw the lucky cat being used as a light switch, didn't you?!”

Had Chitanda remained silent about it when coming with the rest of them to my house, surely she should have moved the lucky cat to the side board as well.

At the moment, however, I couldn’t say any of that. The candles were going to be coming up soon, which meant so was the lucky cat. If I pointed out her mistake and she started to act suspiciously as a result of that, things could get difficult. …As I was thinking this, I realized that my keeping quiet about the get-well visit wasn’t because “the chance slipped me by." It wasn’t like what we did was really all that shady, after all… It was all so absurd.

As I thought this, I couldn’t help but let out a small smile. As if noticing this, Chitanda asked me.

“What is it?”

“Well…”

As I considered telling her that it was nothing at all, I mentioned something that had suddenly entered my mind.

“It’s possible that Ōhinata didn’t buy your earlier story.”

“Wha…”

I turned around and tried showing her the meanest smile I could muster, but I couldn’t see my face so I didn’t know how well it turned out.

“Doesn’t saying ‘I asked Sōda’ sound like you might've sewed a lie?”

Chitanda tried to force a smile despite her troubled face.

The kettle’s whistle began to scream its high-pitched scream.

<noinclude>
==== Translator's Notes and References ====
<references/>

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</noinclude>

Hyouka:Volume 5 Chapter 2-2

2018-02-17T09:32:26Z

172.68.255.155: /* 2. Past: 27 Days Ago */ minor (spelling)

=== 2. Past: 27 Days Ago ===

It was a lazy morning.

I had stayed up fairly late the previous night. It wasn’t like I was doing anything in particular, but because I had no school the next day, I ended up aimlessly reading and watching TV for a long time.

I had sluggishly woken up late in the morning and saw that there was no one in the living room. I knew that my dad was away for work, but I had no idea what my sister was up to. She might be somewhere in the house, or she might be somewhere outside of Japan. As I unabashedly let out a big yawn, I plopped down onto the sofa.

The remote control was sitting on the low table in front of me. I figured I’d at least turn it on and see what was showing, but I couldn't find anything very interesting, even after changing the channel a couple times. I was still drowsy so the television actually ended up being a little annoying. I had brought the paperback I was reading from my room, so I sank into the couch and opened the pages.

Before reading even a single line, I looked up from the print and muttered to myself.

“It’s kind of dark.”

The curtains were closed. Naturally I would have preferred them to be open, but because I was so comfortably deep in the couch, getting up would be too troublesome. I put the book aside and reached for the remote once more. On top of the table was an ashtray and a lucky cat figure.<ref>See maneki-neko (招き猫): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneki-neko</ref>

This lucky cat was a strange little thing. I couldn’t tell if it was poorly made or if it was purposely designed like this, but the cat almost looked like it was grinning at you. It was holding a large coin like any other lucky cat would, except instead of the usual assortment of bold phrases that might be written on it, like “great happiness,” “fantastic fortune,” or “exceeding wealth,” it only contained a single word, “lucky.”<ref>「招福」, 「大大吉」, 「千万両」, and then 「吉」 respectively.</ref> Of course, the only person who would have bought something this half-assed was my sister, but even then, I wondered where she could have possibly bought it.

The inside was hollow, and its arm was spring-loaded so you could move it in an up-and-down beckoning motion. My sister had made some alterations to add onto that feature. She tried making it so that it would shoot an infrared beam. Even though you couldn’t see it in the first place, she had still purposely rigged it so that the beam would specifically come from the eyes.

“If a cat’s going to shoot lasers, then it has to be from the eyes.”

When she told me this, I was speechless, but thinking about it more rationally it’s not like it was all that strange. After all, the remote also used infrared beams. She had essentially just put a remote inside the lucky cat.

Its receiver was connected to the fluorescent light on the ceiling. When you moved its arm to invite good fortune, an infrared beam would fly from its eyes and either illuminate or darken the room. As a result, you could take the string off the ceiling lamp and rejoice over the newly spacious surroundings. Except now, as you had to constantly keep the lucky cat there instead of the string, it continued to get in the way regardless. At least have the common decency to use a cat that was actually lovable.

The lucky cat currently sat on the other end of the table, so I reached towards it. That was the reason I even picked up the remote in the first place. In lieu of a stick, I used it to try and move the lucky cat’s arm. It looked like I should have been able to reach it, but I couldn’t no matter how hard I tried. Had I lifted myself a bit I would have probably been able to reach it, but at that point I might as well be standing. As I tried my hardest to use only my arms while avoiding moving the rest of my body like the plague, a voice called out from behind me.

“Are you finally trying to fully master the art of laziness or something?”

The road to fully mastering energy-preservation was endless; I haven’t yet even seen the heights of its perfection. I turned around and saw my sister. It looked like she had taken an afternoon bath because of the bath towel tightly wrapped around the top of her head. She walked into the kitchen and asked, “Want some coffee?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, then pour me some as well while you’re at it.”

She wasn’t going to do it herself? Then why did she even go to the kitchen in the first place?

Because I had gotten so in the mood for coffee, all of the determination and effort that I had previously put into not standing up instantly fizzled away. I slapped my knees to give me the energy I needed to stand up and then went over to the kitchen to start boiling some water. My sister had her back to me as she stared into the refrigerator and eventually found a sandwich to eat. I had no idea why there was a sandwich in the fridge to begin with. Over the years, I had seen all sorts of things being cooled in that fridge, from bee larvae tsukudani to kangaroo burgers.<ref>Tsukudani is a cooking technique where you boil something in soy sauce to preserve and eat it.</ref> Compared to those, at least a sandwich wasn’t too far removed from normalcy.

“Either dry your hair or eat your food. Don’t do both.”

I said this bitterly towards her as she still had the towel wrapped around her head, but she ignored me. She took out a single egg and spun it in the sink like a top. The egg quickly lost its balance and toppled over.

“Oh come on, it’s raw?”

As she sighed, I figured she must have mistaken the raw egg for a hard-boiled one. It was true that I had made some the evening before, but I ended up eating them myself later that night. I thought it was strange that she even knew I made some in the first place, but who knows. Maybe she saw something like the leftover dishes after I had finished.

Nothing else in fridge must have stood out. She closed the door by pushing it with her lower back and then asked a question from behind me as I was readying some coffee cups.

“Oh yeah, you’re cold’s gone now, isn’t it.”

“My cold?”

“Wasn’t it pretty bad?”

I thought for a little bit and then responded.

“When was this?”

It was true; I had indeed caught a cold this month.

One day, Chitanda had contacted me, asking me for my help because the spring festival was understaffed. A lot of stuff happened, but long story short, I left to go help them and ended up having a pretty strange day. It was hard for even me to believe that all of that had happened within the span of a single day. I could still vividly recall that pretty scene, surrounded on all sides by the early-blooming cherry blossoms.

It was particularly chilly then, especially after the sun had set. Even though I had been saying it was cold, Chitanda continued to insist that it wasn’t because it was already spring at that point. I’m not saying I caught it because of that, but the very next day, I remained cooped up in my bed. Until my sister had returned later that night, I had been the only one in the house, so all of the chills, fevers, and hunger added up to make me a very miserable sight.

My sister was probably talking about that, but that had happened during spring break. I had all but recovered in around two days, so when I went to the opening ceremony I was completely normal.

“That was a month ago.”

“Really? To think already a month has passed. They grow up so fast.”

As she feigned ignorance, she lightly tapped my head. She started to toss around my hair and then said, “Fix your bedhead.”

I’ll do it later.

Someone had so graciously made coffee for her and yet she didn’t even so much as taste it. She suddenly said, “Oh, it’s time,” and returned to her room. I started to read the book I had left on the sofa, but after thirty minutes had passed, she came out of her room again.

“Hey, you aren’t going out today either, right?”

I didn’t have any plans, but I wasn’t too happy with how she said ‘either.’ I answered without looking away from the book.

“I’m not thinking of doing anything.”

“I wonder how much distance you’ve covered throughout your entire lifetime.”

“Siblings need to balance each other out.”

After I said this, she replied in a condescending tone.

“So you’re saying you’ve been resting up on my behalf. Aren’t you a kind one.”

My not leaving the house only compensated for her extravagant use of gasoline, airplane fuel, and other travel costs. As an energy-saving advocate, this was my apology to human civilization for the actions of my idiot sister.

“What a pitiful child.”

She had said something so cruel.

“Well at any rate, continue doing nothing until 2:30.”

“You want me to watch the house?”

“Yeah. If no one comes, you’re free to do whatever.”

I didn’t have any plans to go out in the first place, but just being told this made me feel uncomfortably restricted. As I continued reading the book, I spoke.

“Get me something.”

It looked like she was already putting her shoes on. Her voice rang from the house entrance.

“Then I’ll buy you some candles. You like those, right?”

Since when?

Because she had mentioned the candles, however, I knew that she hadn’t forgotten what today was. It didn’t look like she was intending on celebrating it, though…

Surely enough, when I was a kid, I loved to blow out the candles on cakes.

Today was my birthday.

What could she have possibly meant by telling me to watch the house until 2:30? I put my book aside part-way, and threw myself face down on the sofa to think. It was my sister. She was probably planning something unnecessary. She had told me to wait because something was probably coming, but what was it?

Having something celebratory arrive while I was here would be wonderfully considerate of her. Because it would be such a decent thing for her to do, I consequently knew that that wasn’t going to be the case. Tomoe Oreki wasn’t the kind of person who did things like that, and even if I was wrong, setting up the delivery time for 2:30 in the afternoon would be far too half-assed for her.

She had told me, “If no one comes, you’re free to do whatever.” That meant that most likely someone would be coming rather than something. Someone who would come on my birthday… Actually, it could be incorrect to assume my birthday played into it at all. It could simply be someone like a bill collector or neighborhood information distributor that was coming. Maybe it was wrong of me to assume that she was setting this all up. Maybe I'd been suspecting her too much.

Even as I said this to myself, however, I couldn’t get rid of the bad premonition lingering in my head. Because I was overly conscious of the time, it was only natural that the second hand seemed to move far too slowly.

I had lost the desire to eat, so I continued to wait without making myself lunch. I finally finished the book I had been reading, but I didn’t have enough time to get into a second one. I switched on the television and turned to a travel program. This was how I passed the time, watching complete strangers enjoying delicious-looking food in a first-class inn.

Thinking back on it, the way she had specifically stated “if they don’t come” meant that it didn’t necessarily mean that they were going to come at 2:30. She wasn’t indicating an arrival time, but rather an arrival period. For example, had I told Satoshi, using the same exact phrasing, “If I don’t come by 2:30, do whatever you want,” I would be saying something along the lines of, “I should actually be arriving earlier, but there’s a possibility that I’ll be late. If I’m not there by 2:30, just assume I won’t be coming.”

That was why, when I heard the doorbell chime at around 5 minutes to 2:00, I assumed that it wasn’t related to the guest that my sister was having me wait for. ‘I wonder if it's a demon. Perhaps it's a snake.’<ref>A Japanese proverb. (鬼が出るか蛇が出るか) It refers to the fear of the unknown.</ref> For some reason, that feeling started to well up inside of me. I put on a pair of slippers and stepped down into the entrance area, taking a peek through the door’s peephole.

It wasn’t a demon, nor was it a snake. Neither was it a bill collector or a neighborhood information distributor.

“Ah, shit. So that’s what it was.”

It slipped from my mouth before I realized it.

Four individuals stood outside: Satoshi, Chitanda, Ibara, and Ōhinata.

As if sensing my presence, Satoshi returned my gaze through the peephole. He showed me a revolting smile and then held up his hand. For all of the various problems she had caused me, there was one thing I was thankful to my sister for.

She had told me to fix my bedhead ahead of time.

There was no helping it. It wasn’t like I could send them away.

At any rate, I took them to the living room and had them sit around the low table. Chitanda and Ōhinata sat on the sofa while Satoshi and Ibara sat on floor cushions.

Satoshi wore a polo shirt and cargo pants. Ibara wore a gray parka and shorts. Chitanda had on a knitted peach-colored sweater and a skirt that reached below her knees. Ōhinata wore a graphic tee and jeans. Staring at this unfamiliarly dressed ensemble around me, I started to grumble.

“Gentlemen, what on earth is this goose before me?”<ref>This is a line from famous Taishō-era poet Sakutarō Hagiwara’s mysterious existential poem entitled “Death” 「死」, found in his collection, Howling at the Moon 『月に吠える』. Because the poem is short, I’ll translate it here so you can interpret it for yourself. (Source for those curious and able to read Japanese: http://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000067/files/859_21656.html)
<pre>From the depths of the land I gaze at,
Strange hands protrude,
Legs protrude,
A head intrudes,
Gentlemen,
What on earth,
Is this goose before me?
From the depths of the land I gaze at,
I make a foolish face,
Hands protrude,
Legs protrude,
A head intrudes.</pre></ref>

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Even as Ibara sat with such well-mannered form, her speech remained unsurprisingly foul. Neglecting Ōhinata as she responded with, “Oh, that’s Sakutarō,” Satoshi started to laugh.

“Are you perhaps wondering what foul wind could have possibly blown us your way?”

I nodded wordlessly.

There was no doubt that they came to celebrate my birthday. After all, Ōhinata was carrying a box tied with a ribbon and featuring the logo of a cake shop that even I knew on the side, so I couldn’t exactly ask them why they had come.

The thing was, however, Satoshi and I had known each other for three years now and not once had we celebrated each other’s birthday. Even had he decided to do this as some kind of joke, there’s no way he’d think to bring the rest of the Classics Club. We just weren’t that kind of group.

Sure we had come together once, purely on a collective whim, to write the anthology. But we weren’t so close as to randomly hang out at someone’s house to kill time. That’s what I had thought, and I was pretty sure the other members felt the same way. As if to suddenly close that distance, something perplexing ended up happening.

“I thought that we’d be a bother if we came so suddenly, but…”

Chitanda’s words were full of consideration. I wasn’t really bothered, but rather…

“I was surprised.”

“I figured you’d be.”

Satoshi shrugged his shoulders.

“I’m equally as surprised. Talking about it is one thing, but I never imagined this would actually happen in reality.”

There were two things I wanted to ask.

“How did you guys know about today, and whose idea was it to come here?”

“Well, it’s a long story…”

Chitanda tilted her head as if trying to decide where to start.

“When Ōhinata asked us if we had ever done something like a party with the entire club, I told her about the culture festival after-party, but then she asked me if we had done anything aside from that, and I told her that I couldn’t think of anything else really, so she…”

It did look like it was shaping up to be a long story. At that moment, however, Ibara cut in and swiftly said, “When I mentioned that your birthday was coming up, Ōhinata said that we should throw you a birthday party.”

“You knew when my birthday was?”

“Only that it was in April. That’s the kind of thing you’d normally remember about someone in your class.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“That’s because you’re an inconsiderate human being.”

Thinking about it, Ibara has had plenty of chances to learn my birthday up until now. We had been in the same class all throughout elementary and middle school, and especially in elementary school, they often had those “Who has a birthday this month?” posters. If she had remembered my birthday was in April, it’d be easy for her to check the old class anthologies to find my actual birthday.

Without the motive, however, she wouldn’t have done it. In other words, the culprit was Ōhinata.

“So you were the one that came up with it, huh?”

I stared holes into Ōhinata. Her eyes were darting around the living room, but when they finally met mine, she smiled without a hint of trepidation.

“Friends need to be celebrated.”

That motto’s correctness aside, there were ways to celebrate that involved being alone and undisturbed.

“And there’s no one that could be in a bad mood after having a party thrown for them.”

There wasn't a trace of self-doubt in her. And having said that, she planned on making me one of those happy individuals. Yay.

Unfortunately for her however, not a single person had said “Happy Birthday” to me yet.

“That aside, I’m surprised everyone is actually here.”

No matter how hard Ōhinata might’ve tried to push the idea of having a party, it was almost unbelievable that everyone would have gone along with it. Chitanda might have simply wanted to make the new recruit happy, but I couldn’t for the life of me imagine a scenario in which Ibara agreed. As if hearing what I was thinking, the girl in question spoke bluntly.

“I'm going to be watching a movie in the evening, so this is just to kill some time before then. Two hours is all I’ll spare for your celebration.”

Are you a mind-reader?

“We bought drinks so go get some cups.”

You should have bought paper cups too then… I saw Satoshi had brought a paper bag full of snacks. Instead of eating them from the bag, it would probably best if I brought out a tray to stick them on. If I remembered correctly, the wooden tray was in the cupboard. Also, if there was a cake in Ōhinata’s box, then I should pull out a knife and some plates for later. I wonder if we had enough plates to go around. Of course we’ll need spoons as well. Having forks might also not be a bad idea.

As I stood up from my chair and went to the kitchen to search for this and that, a doubt suddenly crossed my mind.

If this was a birthday celebration, then I had the main role.

And yet, why was I the only one up and moving around?

When I brought the utensils and dishes back to the living room, I noticed that the ashtray, the book I had finished reading, and the television remote had all been cleaned up and placed on top of the sideboard. Only the lucky cat had remained, still enshrined in its corner of the table, continuing to expose its unlovable grin.

The snacks that Satoshi had bought turned out to be some fairly fashionable biscuits.<ref>From here on, 'biscuits' will refer to confections like these: http://tosaichi.jp/millet/millet-600-7.jpg</ref> Chitanda had mentioned, “They look like they’d be good with jam,” so I also prepared a smaller plate in addition to the larger one for the snacks and brought out some summer mandarin jam from the refrigerator. Upon seeing the jar, Ōhinata exclaimed with joy.

“Oh! That’s ‘MilleFleur’ jam isn’t it!”

Looking at the label, I could see the word “MilleFleur” written on it. Had I not heard the correct way to say it, I probably would have pronounced it something like “Mile Flew.” Making sure I didn’t reveal this thought of mine, I responded, “Yeah,” with my chest puffed out.

“To think you would pull out something like ‘MilleFleur’ so casually, what a classy upperclassman you are, jeez.”

This smiling Ōhinata was a good, honest girl, but there also happened to be a not-so-honest girl in the vicinity. Clearly suspicious, Ibara started to question me.

“Do you even know what that is?”

“Nope, not at all.”

“Then why were you acting like it?!”

“I wanted to look cool. My bad.”

I apologized and asked Ōhinata from the start.

“What is it?”

After learning the truth about my childish vanity, Ōhinata looked at me with unbelievably cold eyes, but she recovered quickly enough and picked up the jar of jam.

“It’s a specialty jam shop. It’s really well-known. I once bought one myself a while back, and, as expected, the taste befits its high price.”

“So it’s expensive, huh?”

I muttered without thinking as I looked at the jar.

“Well, not really. Expensive as jams go, at least.”

I couldn’t imagine this tanned, lightly-dressed Ōhinata doing something like going to a specialty shop to buy jam. I knew it was wrong of me to judge a book by its cover, but still…

“I wonder if it’s a bit of a waste to eat good jam like this with simple biscuits.”

As Satoshi voiced his concerns, however, Chitanda responded with a small smile.

“It should be fine, right?”

And with that, it became fine.

Ōhinata mentioned that she had brought a lighter, so I could only assume it was to be used in lighting birthday candles for the cake. The preparations were ready, but cake would probably happen a little later on.

The drink that Ibara had prepared was carbonated white peach juice that not only resembled champagne, but came in a similar bottle as well.

“Now come on Hōtarō, certainly you have something a little more sophisticated than these.”

Spurred into the kitchen once more by Satoshi’s comment, I pulled out several unused glasses intended for guest-use that hadn’t even been taken out of the box they initially came in. They were short and had no stem. The design etched into it shined as if it were crystal.

“What were these called again?”

Ibara asked this while tilting her head in thought.

“It’s a cup,” I told her, but she wasn’t listening, as per usual.

“It’s not a tumbler glass, nor is it a goblet…”

“Is it a Kiriko glass?”<ref>A type of Japanese cut glass. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satsuma_Kiriko_cut_glass</ref>

Ōhinata had proposed this, but it appeared like that wasn’t the case.

“That’s just a decorative variety. No, that’s not it, what was this shape of glass called again?”

“It said whiskey glass on the box.”

A slight show of vexation appeared on Ibara’s face.

I had personally thought that glasses with long stems would be more fitting, but it couldn’t be helped that there weren’t any in the house. There actually might’ve been some laying around, but if that was the case, I didn’t know where they were. To make matters worse, I could only find four whisky glasses, which meant…

“Wait, is Oreki-san the only person with a normal cup?”

…something like that ended up happening. No matter how you looked at it, this was a terrible way to treat today’s main character.

As the juice was passed around, Ōhinata spoke.

“Well then, someone should propose a toast.”

Satoshi and Ibara exchanged glances with each other and then looked over towards Chitanda, almost as if they had planned on doing so ahead of time. Perhaps aware that she would be the one chosen, Chitanda picked up the glass without looking like she intended on refusing.

Wearing an ambiguous smile that suggested she had no idea how to go about this, Chitanda began her speech.

“Umm, today is Oreki-san’s birthday, so let’s celebrate it. I wish I could’ve given you a present, but because this was on such short notice, I have to apologize for not being able to bring one.”

“Your presence is present enough.”

The one who interjected with this statement wasn’t me. It was Satoshi. Hearing him fabricate people’s feelings for them was troubling.

“Hearing that makes me feel better.”

And hearing her feel better after hearing that fabrication was troubling as well.

“Out of all of us, you were the quickest to turn 17. So, umm… congratulations. Cheers.”

We held up the four whiskey glasses and one cup and lightly tapped them together. Although the birthday was supposedly being thrown for my sake, Ōhinata seemed to be the one who was exceptionally happy.

It was at this point that one of my worries had disappeared.

It wasn’t like I had specifically wanted to be told congratulations or anything, but rather, I was anxious that they might have only planned on eating and drinking, returning home immediately after. Now that they had completed the toast, my birthday had been properly celebrated after all.

There was one other thing that I couldn’t say didn’t bug me, however.

It was the lucky cat.

Why was it still on the table? While I was getting the plates and silverware, they had cleaned up the table for me. They had put everything that was on it onto the nearby sideboard, and yet, only the lucky cat had remained.

I wonder if it was a coincidence. No, out of everything on the table, that was easily the thing most likely to get in the way. Even though they were planning on spreading the food around the table, they had to do so now while specifically avoiding the lucky cat. Perhaps someone had been poking around at it to figure out why it had been sitting there?

I had already made a mistake. To think I had so thoughtlessly brought out this amazing summer mandarin jam without knowing just how truly impressive it actually was. Fortunately the conversation veered away from that at least.

I'd have to be careful from now on.

Satoshi’s biscuits were just the slightest bit salty, and as a result, the jam worked really well with it. I’d always thought that I preferred sweet things, but the tartness of the summer mandarin jam proved to be quite refreshing; it was—how should I put this—something like comparing the épée to the foil.<ref>Both weapons used in fencing, the épée is heavier and more rigid while the foil is much lighter and easier to use.</ref>

“Fukube-senpai, you’ve come here to hang out before, right?”

As Ōhinata asked this, Satoshi turned to me.

“I don’t think so.”

“Nope.”

“I’ve been nearby before, but it was just us meeting up at some park in the area. I think I was borrowing something from him.”

I twisted my head. Just like he said, I had made Satoshi wait in a nearby park a while back while I went there from my house. However…

“Are you sure? I have a vague recollection that you were actually returning something.”

It had only been two years or so and already I couldn’t remember it very well. Of course this vague memory wasn’t going to prove very trustworthy, but I couldn’t sit still while our views were diverging. Agreeing with that, Ōhinata then said, “Perhaps you came two times, once to borrow something and then once to return it.”

Of course, what a reasonable idea.

“Except you never once went all the way to his house, right?”

“I don’t think going to his house would impact our being able to do what we needed to do.”

Ōhinata muttered a dubious sound and brought the whiskey glass to her lips.

“That’s pretty straightforward of you. If it were me, I’d say something like ‘I’d only be a nuisance,’ but I guess it’s because you’re guys.”

Satoshi tilted his head in response.

“I wonder if that’s the case. I’m the type that keeps light acquaintance and is satisfied by that, so those kinds of general conceptions might not apply to me."<ref>This is a reference to a passage in the Zhuangzi: “Virtuous men keep acquaintances light as water, and narrow-minded men keep acquaintances sweet as rice wine.” For information on the Zhuangzi, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi_(book)</ref>

“Which kinds?”

“Every kind.”

I could agree with that.

“I see, I guess people like that exist.”

Ōhinata was deep in thought. Speaking as a guy, I personally didn’t think that Satoshi and I preferred ‘light acquaintance’ to any special degree. It was probably normal. If I had to name it, although Ōhinata was particularly tomboyish, it’s possible that there really weren’t any guys that could talk about these kinds of things easily.

Ōhinata tossed a biscuit into her mouth, and then raised her head to ask another question.

“Can I ask a question? What kind of room do you have?”

My room, huh? I started to brace myself.

“It’s pretty normal. There’s a bed, a desk, and a bookshelf.”

“Isn’t it decorated with anything?”

I don’t think I mentioned anything like that, but I’m sure there was at least something sticking on the wall. As I quietly tried to remember if there was, Ibara suddenly started saying some unnecessary things while petting the lucky cat’s head.

“You should just stop there, Hina-chan. Even this guy is entitled to his privacy.”

She then turned towards me and flashed a cold smile.

“Besides, it’s a guy’s room, so I’m sure you can already imagine what kinds of things are laying around.”

I wasn’t exactly sure what Ibara was imagining, but there was nothing in it that could justify the grin full of contempt directed at me. …Well, there wasn’t much at least.

“I can’t really imagine anything.”

As Ōhinata muttered this, Satoshi responded with a smile.

“Things like textbooks.”

I also contributed.

“Reference books as well.”

“Also dictionaries, right?”

“Of course.”

Ibara had an amazed look on her face.

“Are you guys dumb or what?”

The number of biscuits on the snack dish in front of us became progressively fewer. I hadn’t actually thought that they would all be eaten, but if they were, the cake would naturally come next. As I reached for another one, it suddenly dawned on me that I hadn’t eaten anything for lunch. I then had a thought.

“By the way, did you guys have lunch?”

The responses were varied.

Chitanda responded, “A light one.”

Ōhinata responded, “I did.”

Ibara responded, “I had a late breakfast, so not yet.”

Satoshi responded, “I haven’t.”

As I was at the same time today’s main character and host, it was probably my job to suggest something.

“If that’s the case, we can get some pizza.”

“Eh?! But I’d feel terrible if you treated us.”

Chitanda was trying to be thoughtful, but there was no way in hell I was going to treat them.

“We’d obviously split the tab.”

“O… oh, that makes sense.”

At that moment, Satoshi also interjected.

“I agree, at first I was also thinking it might be nice to get pizza. After all, it’d be a perfect idea if there were a lot of people going to be eating. But I forgot about something.”

“Was the pizza place closed?”

“If the pizza place was closed on Saturday would they ever get any business? No, it was, well…”

He glanced at Ibara. Compared to the hesitating Satoshi, Ibara spoke as bluntly as she always had.

“I can’t do cheese. Sorry.”

“…Oh, I see. I didn’t know.”

“I’d be more surprised if you did know my preferences.”

There was occasionally cheese in the school lunches, so It wouldn’t be too strange if I did know, and yet, even then, I didn’t. She told me this earlier, but I guess I was pretty inconsiderate.

“You're also bad with cheese?”

As Ōhinata thrusted a magnificent amount of jam onto the biscuit and then tossed it into her mouth in a similarly magnificent fashion, she suddenly jerked her body forward in curiosity.

“Yeah, a little bit. It’s not like I’m allergic to it, but I just can’t seem to eat it.”

“Is it the taste?”

“It’s probably how it smells. If it’s something like chilled, thin-sliced cheese, it doesn’t really smell, so that’s fine, but I can’t bring myself to even get near it if it’s cooked. You also don’t like it, Hina-chan?”

Upon hearing this, Ōhinata flashed a huge smile.

“This is just something a friend told me, but people should really throw away rotten mandarin oranges and milk.”

I wonder if Ōhinata had a habit of dragging her friends into the mix when she couldn’t think of a good way to word something. As expected, Ibara returned a forced smile.

“It’s be nice to have that kind of resolution, but it still kind of bugs me that that it’s become something like a weak point of mine. I’ll have to get used to it by the time I become an adult.”

If Ibara were to become a hermit in the Pyrenees Mountains and force herself to eat cheese three times every day, I’m sure she would overcome it somehow.<ref>A range of mountains on the border between France and Spain.</ref> She might even have a cheese-related epiphany on the way down. The legends surrounding Ibara Dairy Manufacturers and how they took the world of cheese production by storm would begin then and there. Maybe.

If she simply didn’t like the taste, then it would be fine as long as she didn’t eat it, but as the problem was her not liking the smell, even ordering the pizza would be problematic. Judging by all the pizza shop fliers that were constantly shoved in our mailbox, it’s possible that there were pizzas that didn’t use cheese, but I didn’t necessarily want pizza so bad that I would beg for that possibility. Besides, the biscuits were surprisingly filling.

“Anyways, Oreki-senpai, you really don’t know anything at all about Ibara-senpai, do you. Even though you were in elementary school together?”

“Pretty much.”

“Why’re you bragging about it?” cut in Ibara.

That’s not what I had intended.

Ōhinata, who had been speedily reaching for the snack plate, suddenly stopped. She started to eye up Ibara with a dubious expession.

“Could that mean what I think it means? Have you never been to this house before either, Ibara-senpai?”

“No way in hell. Just because we were in the same school district doesn’t mean that our houses were close.”

“Really? Wait, but…”

Ōhinata looked at Chitanda sitting next to her on the sofa, and then at Satoshi and Ibara. She tilted her head somewhat in confusion.

“We all arrived here without getting even a little lost. I thought one of us had been here before.”

It felt like time had briefly stopped.

So it had come to this.

It had moved from a conversation about my room, and hadn’t even come close to being a discussion about the meaning behind the lucky cat. To think it would end up going in that direction after I had brought up something like getting pizza, it was completely unexpected.

Because I didn’t know something like Ibara’s food preferences, that meant there wasn’t a very strong bond between the two of us, so consequently, she mostly likely had never been to my house before, huh? I see; it did follow logically. This meant, however, that I had already dug my own grave.

Was it still possible for me to change the subject?

No, it was probably too late for that. The conversation had already reached the point of no return. If I desperately tried to interrupt the flow of the conversation, they would only wonder why I was trying to change the topic and become more unnecessarily curious as a result. Ōhinata’s question was dangerously close to revealing the secret that the lucky cat was hinting at. However, things were still only ‘close.’ It wasn’t a direct hit yet.

It was painful, but the only thing I could do was retreat from the conversation while praying for them to quickly start talking about something else on their own.

If only she understood this as well.

Ibara looked at Satoshi.

“That’s, well, you know. Fuku-chan showed us through the streets, right?”

Satoshi showed a look of confusion, and responded, “I was only remembering the map. This neighborhood is a bit confusing, but I‘m pretty skilled when it comes to memorizing things. As for where I got the map, though…”

“I prepared it,” interjected Chitanda.

“That’s right. I got it from Chitanda.”

He pulled out the map from his pocket to show everyone. It wasn’t one of those extremely fancy maps that showed a lot of details about all the residents, but rather a simple one of the district used by the city. My house’s location was marked on it with a red pen.

“Oh, that’s right. That’s because Chi-chan’s been here once before.”

Upon hearing that, Chitanda stiffened her body.

“Remember? That thing last year. When Irisu-senpai came to us over summer break to ask us for our opinions on her video, Chitanda came here to come get him, didn’t she?”

“Ah, no, that was…”

She had a good memory. Certainly enough, Chitanda had come to get me after hearing from Satoshi that I was planning on skipping it, however that time…

“I had gotten close thanks to Fukube-san’s directions, but I never actually ended up finding the house.”

I had received a phone call that day: “I came to get you, but I seem to have become lost, so please come and get me.” I had quickly managed to find her, but it’s like not like she even saw the front of the house that day.

“I knew the address, however, so as long as I had a map, I’d be able to find it.”

“So that’s all it was.”

Ōhinata started to smile brightly again as if she were satisfied by that explanation.

“You'd be able to figure it out if you knew the address, wouldn’t you. For example, let’s see… like something like that.”

As she said that, her face began to darken.

“Something? What would something be, exactly?”

It seemed this first-year was hung up on something strange. There wasn’t a single similarity between the two, but somehow, seeing Ōhinata and Chitanda lined up like that on the couch reminded me of a patch of roots.

“Oh! New Year’s cards!”

As Ōhinata said this, her face instantly lighting up, Satoshi responded with an unnecessary comment.

“Even so, Hōtarō doesn’t do tiring things like that.”

That was incorrect. I had actually tried to send some in the past, but I ran into the same problem. I didn’t know any of their addresses.

“Is that so?”

Temporarily forgetting her attempts at politeness, she looked at me with a distrusting expression.

“It’s obvious people should send New Year’s cards to their friends at least.”

“It’s fine. We all saw each other in person at the end of the year anyways. New Year’s cards are just a substitute for the people you aren’t going to be able to see.”

“That might be the case, but wasn’t the only reason we were able to greet Oreki-san because I had called him on the phone myself?” said Chitanda without realizing it.

Satoshi put the biscuit he was gnawing at back down and started to smile.

“Ah, this New Year’s was really interesting, wasn’t it? After all, Mayaka even…” Satoshi stopped as he felt Ibara’s piercing glare. Even though it probably wasn’t like she had been forced to do it, Ibara’s part-time job as a miko at the shrine had embarrassed her to no end.<ref>Shrine maiden.</ref> Of course, Ōhinata had no idea what they were talking about.

“What about Ibara-senpai?”

“Never mind that. We were talking about Oreki’s address, right?”

She forcefully returned the conversation to its previous track. I might’ve been able to bury the subject for good had I continued to talk about what had happened over New Year’s, but if I did do that, Ibara would certainly despise me. That didn’t sound like a very appealing outcome either.

As I stressed over this, Ibara suddenly had a blank look on her face that seemed to wonder why she hadn’t realized something so simple up to this point.

“What about the graduate anthology? If I remember correctly, it’s written there.”

“Oh, I see. That makes a lot of sense,” nodded Ōhinata, and then she titled her head once more.

“But Chitanda-senpai didn’t go to Kaburaya Middle School.”

“No, what she said was correct.”

Chitanda had finally said it.

“Oreki-san had a friend from middle school named Sōda-san. I’ve been to Sōda-san’s house plenty of times now, so I asked him if I could see the graduate anthology.”

With this, Ibara and Satoshi raised their voices at the same time.

“So that’s what it was. You should’ve told us.”

“Is that so? You should’ve told us.”

As she was scolded by these two, Chitanda uncharacteristically shrunk back, looking ashamed.

“I thought about asking you two, but I kept passing you by, and I had forgotten all about it in the clubroom… And then all of a sudden, I had business to take care of at Sōda-san’s house.”

“Now that I think about it, Sōda was in our class, wasn't he? Although, he doesn’t really strike me as the type of guy that would be connected with Oreki.”

Certainly, it wasn’t anything exactly like that. Even though he was the type to space out a lot, he was really good at soccer. There was a long history of lending and borrowing books between the two of us.

“Aren’t his parents kind of famous?”

“They’re on the city council. They don’t act self-important at all, though.”

Puffing out his cheeks for show, Satoshi shook his head in an exaggerated manner.

“That’s Chitanda-san for you. I knew you were incredible, but to think you’d even know one of Hōtarō’s middle school friends. You truly inspire awe.”

“No, it really was just a coincidence.”

“Perhaps you have already heard the rumors surrounding my dark and mysterious past as well.”

As if to get back at Satoshi for ignoring her, Chitanda gracefully placed the palms of her hands on top of her thighs and showed a smile.

“I see. For example, something like a rumor concerning how you began to sing a song after forgetting to turn the mic switch off in the broadcasting room? Nope, I haven’t heard anything like that.”

After a couple seconds, Ibara let out a laugh.

“Hahaha, that’s right! Something like that happened.”

That had happened in the fall of our third year in middle school. It was both an amusing and a sorrowful tale.

“Chi-chan, I’m surprised you know so much about that kind of stuff. I didn't even remember that until you mentioned it.”

Satoshi, who had repeatedly prodded at the grove to be greeted by a snake, sat without saying a single word, his face still frozen in its previously teasing smile.<ref>A Japanese proverb. (藪をつついて蛇を出す) It means to have something bad happen to you while doing unnecessary things.</ref> Satoshi was able to tolerate the vast majority of the jokes aimed at him, but as expected, it seemed that incident remained his sole Achilles heel.

I apologized to Satoshi on the inside. After all, the one who told Chitanda about this particular episode was me.

That said, even I didn’t have the callous heart necessary to finish him off by telling Chitanda that what he in fact sang at that moment was some terrible attempt at hip-hop.

However, as Chitanda humbly continued to deny Ibara’s praise, I found it strange that Ōhinata, on the other hand, sat there with her eyes wide-open in shock, her mouth gaping.

As the time for cake quickly approached, I started cleaning up the snack tray and smaller plates for the jam. After I completed my round-trip between the living room and kitchen, only the lucky cat remained on the table. It was only natural that some jam would be spilled no matter how carefully everyone ate, so I brought a kitchen cloth. As I was wiping, I casually muttered, “This is in the way, isn’t it,” and proceeded to move the lucky cat to the side board.

I felt like sighing in relief. As long as I could remove that from the table, I could rest easy. The danger had finally passed by.

I brought out a plate for the cake as well as a knife and forks. The grape juice probably wouldn’t go with the cake very well. I was told that something like coffee or café au lait would work nicely, so I went to the kitchen once more and waited there for the water to boil.<ref>French coffee with milk.</ref>

One cannot see the kinds of faces they naturally make, so as a result, I had no way of knowing whether or not I had a good poker-face. I didn’t think that mine was very easy to read. When Satoshi and Ibara, and especially Ōhinata, had been talking about my address, I wondered if they had noticed me feeling like I was walking on dangerously thin ice.

I had already prepared the coffee cups. Instant coffee wasn’t exactly the most suitable way with which to treat a respected guest of honor, but as it was their fault for coming so suddenly, I couldn’t be bothered. I continued to watch the silent kettle, waiting for it to whistle. In my experience, the human gaze undeniably inhibited the heating of water. As long as I continued to watch the kettle, the water inside would never boil. If I were to avert my eyes for even a second, that would be the instant, without fail, at which the the kettle would start to whistle. Of course, from an energy-conserving standpoint, it would be best to simply look away then, but there wasn’t anything else to look at.

“Oreki-san, the wipe cloth.”

As I turned around, I saw Chitanda holding the kitchen cloth.

“Oh, can you put it over there on the edge of the sink for me?”

I returned to watch the kettle. I assumed Chitanda was still there, so I started talking.

“You stayed silent about it, huh.”

Following a short silence, I heard a response that seemed like it would be drowned out by the noise coming from the ventilation fan.

“Yes. …I suppose the chance slipped me by.”

Previously, Chitanda said that she had learned my address by checking the graduate anthology from my middle school. That she had been told it by a friend of mine, Sōda. It was certainly true that I had had a classmate named Sōda. I had no idea what high school he had gone to after that, but it was definitely not Kamiyama High School. It was most likely true that Chitanda had gotten Sōda to show her the anthology. After all, what she said sounded pretty accurate, and Chitanda wasn’t very good at ad-lib, period.

However, it wasn’t the entire truth.

Satoshi had never been to my house before. Of course, Ibara was the same.

That last summer break, Chitanda had managed to get near my house but didn’t make it all the way was also not a lie.

However, no one said anything about her coming only once. Chitanda had previously come to this house before. Chitanda had handed a map to Satoshi, but even had she not done that, she would have been easily able to find her way through these streets herself.

I heard a slightly dissatisfied voice.

“But you ended up not saying anything either.”

“I suppose the chance slipped me by.”

It was something that had happened this month.

The festival that Chitanda had participated in was running low on participants, and because the clothing would fit me, I had been roped in to help out. The festival had ended without an hitch, but it was cold that day. I ended up catching a cold.

Of course Chitanda, being the one that enlisted my help, couldn’t sit still after hearing I was bedridden. When she had called my house in the morning and heard about my situation from my sister, she immediately came over to visit. Her get-well gift was summer mandarin jam. She told me that mixing a little bit with black tea was good for you when you had a cold. I didn’t really drink black tea, however, so afterwards I got a small bowl and simply licked it like that.

It felt awkward to have Chitanda come into my room, so I put up with the cold and met with her in the living room. When you're in a lot of pain, it really isn’t easy to receive a guest. Chitanda understood this of course and returned home several minutes after handing me the get-well jam. It was only for a little while, sure, but she had come regardless.

“This is difficult… I feel bad for Mayaka-san and the others, but they won’t know if we don’t say anything.”

I didn’t respond as I continued to watch the kettle.

That wasn't how it worked at all, so I became nervous.

She said that they wouldn’t know as long as we didn't tell them, but in reality, Chitanda was simply going to be using her actions rather than her words to declare that she had come to this living room before.

The party was beginning to near its climax. It would soon be time for the cake to make its grand entrance. At that moment, some candles would be stuck into it and be thusly lit. Ōhinata had brought the lighter.

Chitanda had probably thought of the arrangements at this point. It’d be more atmospheric if all the lights were to be turned off while the candles were lit. That was her plan, right?

That’s why the lucky cat remained on the table.

Even though the ashtray, the paperback, and the television remote had all been moved to the side board, only the lucky cat remained. That was something that only someone who knew about its ability to turn off the overhead light would do. In other words, it would point out the single person among all four of them who had come to this house once before.

In reality, when Chitanda had come to this living room before, it was dark inside so I had pressed the lucky cat’s arm to turn on the light. Chitanda would not have forgotten that.

What would actually happen if Chitanda were to use the lucky cat’s arm to turn off the lights? Ibara, or perhaps Ōhinata, would probably say something like this:

“Oh my, so the lucky cat functions as a remote, does it? No wonder it was left on the table. But wait a sec, how did you know this was a remote? Now then, Eru Chitanda, not only did you come to this house, to this very living room, but you additionally saw the lucky cat being used as a light switch, didn't you?!”

Had Chitanda remained silent about it when coming with the rest of them to my house, surely she should have moved the lucky cat to the side board as well.

At the moment, however, I couldn’t say any of that. The candles were going to be coming up soon, which meant so was the lucky cat. If I pointed out her mistake and she started to act suspiciously as a result of that, things could get difficult. …As I was thinking this, I realized that my keeping quiet about the get-well visit wasn’t because “the chance slipped me by." It wasn’t like what we did was really all that shady, after all… It was all so absurd.

As I thought this, I couldn’t help but let out a small smile. As if noticing this, Chitanda asked me.

“What is it?”

“Well…”

As I considered telling her that it was nothing at all, I mentioned something that had suddenly entered my mind.

“It’s possible that Ōhinata didn’t buy your earlier story.”

“Wha…”

I turned around and tried showing her the meanest smile I could muster, but I couldn’t see my face so I didn’t know how well it turned out.

“Doesn’t saying ‘I asked Sōda’ sound like you might've sewed a lie?”

Chitanda tried to force a smile despite her troubled face.

The kettle’s whistle began to scream its high-pitched scream.

<noinclude>
==== Translator's Notes and References ====
<references/>

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