Editing Maria-sama ga Miteru:Volume6 Chapter3 4 (section)

===<noinclude>Main. </noinclude>Part 4.===

What am I doing? – Yoshino sighed as she watched the cars flow past underfoot.

When she left Minako-sama she went to a café to avoid running into anyone else she knew.

After going to the trouble and expense of getting the bus to K station, it would be a waste to return home having bought only a single paperback novel.

So she had decided she should make the most of her time here on her cherished day off. 

Unlike those who were having a cheap date with only 3000 yen for the two of them, she would enjoy a luxurious experience.

The temperature was low and the wind was blowing, but the weather wasn't bad. The sun had come out.

Sitting in the café, next to a window and with the sun shining on her, she had read her recently purchased paperback and sipped her Royal Milk tea. Soon enough she started to get hungry, so she ordered the most expensive of the three set lunches from the store, which was 1500 yen. This was something that Rei-chan and the others definitely wouldn't be able to do today. If they both ordered this, once you added sales tax, they would be over 3000 yen.

But by 2 o'clock she had regrettably finished her novel. At which time Yoshino left the café. It was usually a good store but today, for some reason, the flavor seemed watered down. Maybe they had changed the head chef.

If she were to wander aimlessly around here there was a chance that she would again run into someone she knew. She hadn't liked the idea of being seen while she was on her own today. So she didn't want to go somewhere like a bookstore, or a CD shop, where people would come and go. On the other hand, she didn't feel like going back to a café, or watching a movie either.

So, what should she do?

Yoshino went to a local zoo that was a few minutes' walk from the station. But as she watched the elephants alone, and watched the deer alone, and watched the rabbits alone she gradually became more and more depressed until finally she didn't feel like watching the monkeys alone and left to avoid overstaying her welcome. There were also carnival rides in the park, but going on one of those alone is just hollow. – Plus, on Sunday, there were an annoyingly large number of families about.

Should she return to the station, or should she take the main street south from the station and browse the small shops in that area? Yoshino was absentmindedly pondering this as she stood on the pedestrian bridge. 

She wasn't aware of the rate at which time was passing.

Time continued to flow along around her, with the second hand of her analogue watch ticking along and the cars driving beneath her.

What was she doing in a place like this?

For whatever reason, she was out of sorts wherever she went.

She had wanted a paperback, but she didn't have to get it at K station.

She had been hungry, but she hadn't needed a 1500 yen lunch.

She liked zoos, but she really hadn't liked being there alone.

(Who have I chatted with since I left home?)

A little bit with Minako-sama. And when she ordered and paid the bill at the café, and when she bought a ticket to enter the zoo.

(One student)

And after that, not a single word.

If Rei-chan were here now, her mood would be completely different. Yoshino felt a bit sad.

To live a bit more luxuriously, to stretch her legs a bit more than usual... she had done these things, but they had done nothing to fill the hole left by Rei-chan's absence.

If she was with Rei-chan, she would have been fine not going to K station. For lunch, she wouldn't have complained if they had toast and black tea at home. Even if it was just the two of them sitting at the table, not really talking to each other but doing their own thing, it would still have been an incredibly fulfilling way of passing the time.

(I'm an idiot)

Even if Rei-chan wasn't there, it would still be a decent way to pass the time. If she had done that, at the very least she wouldn't have this growing sense of futility.

(I'm going home)

The harvest she was bringing back from K Station was a single paperback, and she was fine with that. She took her hand off the bridge's railing and stood a little bit straighter. Just then, her eye was unintentionally drawn to a couple that were walking along the sidewalk of the main street.

(Rei-chan....!?)

They were quite a distance away, so at first she thought she was mistaken.

(No way)

She strained her eyes to see if it was actually Rei-chan. The couple, that at first glance looked like a man and woman, turned to walk down the street that ran underneath the footbridge. Because they were offset vertically, they wouldn't actually cross paths, but as they drew closer their figures grew larger and she was left in no doubt.

(… Watch out)

Yoshino squatted down. It wasn't due to shock, or dizziness. If she could see them, it meant that she was completely visible too. By squatting down, she could still keep an eye on everything by looking through the gap in the railing. 

(Wh.. What's going on!)

Suddenly, the very girly Tanuma Chisato clung to Rei-chan's arm like a spoiled brat. Furthermore, Rei-chan didn't shake her off. Not only that, but she smiled as though she was enjoying it.

(Get your hands off her!)

That's being way too familiar. There are limits to how impudent you can be.

(You're only someone who won a ticket for a half-day date in a treasure hunt!)

They probably wouldn't be able to hear her from this range, but it would be bad if they did. So she opened and closed her mouth, but didn't voice her abuse.

Really, Chisato-san wasn't in the wrong.

Yoshino understood this well enough, but even still, she couldn't let go of what had just happened. For now she was down and, literally, could not get back up.

Her spirit's decline had invited her body's decline.

(And Rei-chan too. What was she doing smiling so gently)

Yoshino kept heckling them like that in her mind. She kept this up for as long as she could see their shrinking figures continuing on their way towards the train station.

Her heckling turned to grumbling, and then nonsense unrelated to the original cause, and it was only when she had run out of insults that she finally started to feel better. She would have felt even better if she were to shout out loud, but she didn't want to go to that extent.

"Well then..."

She stood up and started walking.

It wasn't like her to be disheartened.

Who strikes first wins. Better to attack than defend. Always go, go, go.

That's who she was.

After all, she was 'Rei-chan's Yoshino.'