Maria-sama ga Miteru:Volume20 Chapter1.2
Maria-sama's Star
"So, when are you holding it?"
Sachiko-sama asked, as she curled her fingers around her neck.
"I'm thinking about next Saturday"
Answered Yoshino.
Rei-chan, who was acting like a human shield, caused Yumi-san to take a U-turn into the room, her face holding a sunken in countenance, as she meekly seated herself next to Sachiko-sama. Whether she had a mountain of things she wished to say, or whether she could not find anything to say, Yumi-san could not take any actions when her Onee-sama was in opposition to her inclinations.
"Well."
Sachiko-sama had whispered the words "Saturday after next," nuanced in a way to prompt Yoshino to answer whether it was too early or too late.
Saturday was the only day where Yoshino had more than ten minutes to spare after school. But the weekend after next there was a Kendo match, so she could not do it. But if the audition were to be held before then, it would be too sudden.
So one would think that any day after the Kendo match would be fine, but one look at Yoshino's schedule would show that such planning was simply naive. But she needed to hold an appropriate time for the auditions. Just as one needed to be on time to meet at a Kendo match, so Yoshino planned to have the soeur auditions to be on time with finding a soeur.
"What is this about?"
As soon as everyone had been seated, Sachiko-sama reopened the matter for discussion, when Rei-chan asked the question, knowing nothing about the exchanges that had preceded this. Shimako-san, who had arrived at the same time as Shimako-san, also inclined her head to wonder about what was going on.
"I wanted to find a soeur."
Yoshino said, in the same nonchalant tone as she had said "Saturday is okay."
"A soeur?!"
Rei-chan was the one who showed her surprise. The others were more dumbfounded than they looked, and could not interfere with the others' conversation in their shock. And so the Yellow Rose conversation continued.
"Whhhhhhhho is this person you want as soeur?!"
"I don't know."
"If you don't know, then I obviously know less!"
"That's why I'm holding an audition!"
"I never heard about this!"
"You haven't. But I was just talking about this!"
"Yoshinooo."
Rei-chan pushed herself up and struck the table, her face flushed in anger. She sat back down in a frenzy that felt as if it would break the chair, after which she began hitting her forehead upon the desk. Yoshino, who was being opposed in all of this, sat in her seat calmly with a genteel demeanor, and watched her Onee-sama's scene.
As Yumi watched the scene, (unlike Rei-chan) she found dry surprise when she confirmed the fact that Yoshino had probably not told Rei-chan about the audition.
"Yoshino.... Why so suddenly...."
"It's not suddenly. I had been thinking of it for a long time. What's wrong, do you not like the idea?"
"It's not that, I just wasn't mentally prepared...."
"Why do you talk about being mentally prepared now? Isn't it the quick news that you had wanted to hear? Just as you had hoped, I'll be able to show the person whom I bond with to you."
"That's, well if you put it that way it's... but...."
Rei-chan was flustered and fidgety.
Like a father whose daughter would marry. When looking at Rei-chan from afar, that is exactly how she seemed.
"Plus, you can't really find a perfect soeur at an audition."
"Oh really? Rei-chan understands these things, does she?"
Rei-chan herself understood that there was no concrete basis for all of this. So she couldn't really say anything else.
Rei-chan lapsed into silence in Yoshino-san's wake. As the dry silence dragged out into a sort of armistice, Shimako-san asked a question in a soft voice.
"But Yoshino-san. What if you cannot find a soeur with an appropriate fit at the audition?"
"That won't happen. Even if I'm a bit uneasy, I'll still choose."
Yoshino's brusque answer circulated whispers throughout the room. It won't happen? She'll choose in spite of being uneasy? This was all a very surprising turn of events.
"What happened, Yoshino-san?"
"Nothing."
"You're lying. Something is pushing you to hurry."
Good job Rei-chan, she had even phrased it as if she were praising Yoshino. One look at Yoshino showed that she was the one flustered and fidgety.
"I just want to hurry...."
Yoshino closed her eyes. This action alone confirmed that Yoshino had been telling a lie.
Yoshino promptly closed her mouth, and Rei-chan let out a large sigh.
"Fine, I understand. I'll agree with your audition. But do it next month. I have to practice for my Kendo meet, so when that is over, we can make a perfect plan on how to hold the audition. I'll help you with the work too of course."
"But then I won't make it on time."
From here on, Yoshino's war changed.
Any more persistance on Yoshino's part would have been pointless. That there was a time limit, and that if too much time passed by, the audition would become pointless could be seen in Yoshino's eyes. Approaching Rei-chan with these conditions and making Rei-chan her ally would be an effective plan for Yoshino.
"What's going on here?"
Rei-chan put her answer to Yoshino's last remark on hold and asked her about the incident. The words of the person responsible's name then came out of Yoshino's mouth.
"Yesterday, no actually from a long time back, I met with Eriko-sama."
"When is this?"
"Around the Athletic Festival."
"Eriko-sama was there?"
"Yeah."
Rei-chan turned towards Sachiko-sama with a face that asked "Did you know?". Sachiko-sama shook her head in a way that said that she was learning about this for the first time. Shimako-san too informed everyone that she had known nothing about this. Noriko-chan had of course never met Eriko-sama, and so she could not be asked. For some reason, the question stopped being asked after that, so Yumi-san was not asked. Yumi may be made to answer, thought Yoshino.
The way it had been said, it seemed as if Eriko-sama had only met Yoshino and then left.
Yoshino went on.
"I think Eriko-sama wasn't very happy when I met her. Eriko-sama told me to work hard and to show my soeur to Eriko-sama before I showed her to anyone else."
"And then?"
Rei-sama added.
"Eriko-sama had said that she would come to see the kendo match, so ... I ..."
That had been a summary, but with the small nuances that Yoshino gave, the truth was more than what Yoshino let on. It felt like some grand tale. Yumi-san understood the truth of the tale without any imagined dramatizations, and made different faces because of it, but Yoshino did not care.
Yoshino closed her eyes in a way that seemed to read "This experience had been deep in my heart, bit it seems I finally let it out."
"If I think about it, when Eriko-sama had come to give me some pastries, her face had seemed a bit tired. She had also told me 'Thank Yoshino well for me'. It was because she was thinking of the task she had given to Yoshino. But I, of course, hadn't paid it any thought."
Wrong. That was completely wrong. It was a piercing thought inside Yoshino that Rei-chan was wrong. Eriko-sama had simply come to put pressure upon Yoshino. But pure (simple) Rei-chan had believed that it was a simple conversation.
"If that's the case, then I see why you have to hurry. Alright, next Saturday. The Yamayurikai will host the event, and we'll get permission from the school."
Rei-chan neatly and quickly resolved.
So Sachiko-sama had watched the whole incident transpire from beginning to end, and as she watched the Yellow Rose battle come to an end, she laughed.
"Yoshino-chan, Yumi. There are several sheets of the poster paper we used during the School Festival, so you can use those."
Without hearing Yumi-san's opinion, she had been given parts of the work.
"I've heard that there is some audition thing going on?"
It was passing period between periods two and three. Mami Yamaguchi, who had gone to the bathroom or some place, returned to the classroom, approached Yumi's desk sneakily, and whispered.
"Where in the world did you..."
Yoshino had declared that she would hold an audition yesterday, after school. Not even a day had passed before the news had gotten out.
Wondering whether Yoshino-san was the one who spread the rumor, Yumi turned to look at her seat. Yoshino-san, however, was immersed in her English-Japanese dictionary, furiously looking for the word 'leader', and she did not turn her attention towards Yumi.
"It wasn't Yoshino-san. I heard it from Rosa Chinesis. She told me to make a huge advertisement in the Lilian Kawaraban. I also got permission from her to pattern the newspaper after the audition article."
"..."
Sachiko-sama was an incredibly fast worker. Before her petite soeur could find a good excuse to evade the audition with, she had already made moves to dig a moat around Yumi.
"But what a relief! This year there was no questionnaire made for the Mister Lillian contest, so after the school festival, this was the one period of the year lacking an event. With this, we can keep the pace up."
"If something like last year ever happened again, it was decided that it was better for the event to simply not take place. The members from last year aren't here though, so things are a bit more boring."
In other words, it's not that the faith in the vote was lost, but that it was obvious that most people would pick a member of the Rose family. However, even without collecting the questionairres, it was even more obvious that there would be no deliberation on picking Rei-sama again as this year's Mister Lillian.
"But I've thought about this audition. It really is like a ferry across bad waters. The Newspaper Club will cooperate with the Yamayurikai to the greatest extent possible. Today after school, the Newspaper Club was supposed to meet at the Rose Mansion ... huh?"
Mami-san abruptly stopped talking. She had probably noticed Yumi-san's demeanor.
"You don't want to do this?"
"Yoshino-san is the one who wants to do this."
"Mmmf."
Mami-san took one look at Yoshino-san and replied back to Yumi.
"So, can I hear the reason why Yumi-san does not want to participate?"
"Why?"
Yumi bowed her head onto the desk and let out a sigh.
Mami-san squatted next to the desk, and brought her face close to Yumi.
"Wouldn't you try to explain it for me? I'm not Sachiko-sama after all."
"I see. Of course."
After the two shared a laugh together, Mami-san began talking again.
"Well now. Do you oppose the concept of an audition? Or do you not want to choose your soeur in an audition?"
"I don't really know."
It wasn't as much the fact that she had been forced by her Onee-sama as much as that she simply was opposed to the audition.
"Let's try to analyze the situation. If you don't, then you can't form an effective counter strategy."
"What counter strategy? A way to escape from the audition?"
"To accept the audition, but to simply work against it. Even though the Newspaper Club is ecstatic that two boutons are holding an audition at the same time, as a friend, I don't want to see you forced into doing anything you don't want to."
The bell for third period rang, and Mami-san uttered "There'll be a one page special in the paper" as she found her way back to her seat.
"Analyze, huh."
If she thought about why she hated it so much, it seemed as if her best option was to write a one page paper on it. As she was thinking,the teacher who needed to know the word for 'leader' came in. A look at Yoshino-san made Yumi see that Yoshino-san had quickly found her word. Yoshino-san closed the dictionary, and put her self into a somewhat aggressive position.
Question: Do you agree with an audition? (Yes | No | I don't understand the question) Answer: "I don't understand the question" gives you zero points.
During third and fourth period, Yumi listened to only half of the lecture, and tried to used the remaining half of her brain, but could not.
As she walked towards the Rose Mansion with her lunch, she could do nothing but sigh. Today, everyone was talking about the soeur auditions. It's not as if she was invited to the Rose Mansion, or that there was much work for the Student Council to finihs. On the way, Yumi had seriously thought about just spending today in her classroom, eating lunch, but she did not make any U-Turns as she walked up to the Rose Mansion.
Yumi let out a yell of confidence, and opened the entrance to the Rosa Mansion. In front of her she could see the figure of a person hurriedly climbing up the stairs.
"Shimako-san."
"Uaa. You surprised me, Yumi-san."
The stairs were supposed to have been quiet during their ascent, but they had suddenly creaked, so they had surprised Shimako-san. Shimako-san gripped the handrail and turned backwards as her heart seemed to beat outward.
"What do you think, Shimako-san?"
Of course Shimako-san wasn't a superperson, nor was she even in the same class as Yumi, so perhaps she wouldn't even be thinking about the same things as the people in her class. That's why Shimako's response "About what?" was quite appropriate.
"About the audition. You didn't say whether you were opposed to it or whether you liked the idea, yesterday."
"Aaah..."
Shimako-san whispered and once again began walking up the stairs.
"I'm not really in a position where I can oppose or approve of the situaation."
Picking the soeur was the job of the older sister, was Shimako-san's idea of it. Yumi once again followed Shimako-san up.
"That's true. But my soeur will have to become a very good friend of Shimako-san's. Are you opposed to finding that sort of a friend at an audition?"
"That's true."
Shimako-san laughed as she crossed the last step on the stairs.
"Of course, if I say that I have no reservations about the idea, then I would be completely lying. But if the auditions do work out, then maybe there's a value in trying them out."
"Trying them out?"
Yumi-san asked, to which Shimako-san replied "Of course, I'm speaking assuming that I'm in your position."
"If I didn't have a soeur right? Then, then I would work together with Yoshino-san to look over some applicants."
Of course, Shimako-san had recently found her cute, boisterous soeur Noriko-chan, so she was using words like 'If I' or 'then I', which meant the conversation was meaningless for Shimako-san, in spite of which Yumi still wanted to listen to Shimako-san's thoughts. She wanted to sample and gather the thoughts of several people about the audition idea.
"But why wouldn't you completely oppose it?"
Shimako-san replied as she was turning the knob on the biscuit-like door.
"Because maybe, in that list of candidates, Noriko would be there."
When the door opened, a first year could be seen from across the room. In spite of it being autumn, this first year smiled in a way reminiscent of a spring breeze.
"Gokigenyou"
It was Noriko-chan.
"Oh, I see." Yumi-chan finally understood Shimako-san a bit. Shimako-san was sure that, even if she would not have met Noriko-chan during the spring, that she would find her some other time. It didn't matter how the next meeting would happen.
"It's better to start somewhere than nowhere at all? Is that it?"
"I wholeheartedly think so."
Shimako-san wholeheartedly wanted Noriko-chan by her side, so the method to acquire Noriko-chan was of no consequence.
Noriko-chan sat down and said "I've prepared green tea.". The steaming teacup was placed right in front of Yumi.
"How about you, Noriko-chan?"
"Huh?"
"How would you react to becoming Shimako-san's soeur in an audition?"
Noriko-chan mulled over her answer and tried to figure out a way to answer the point that Yumi was driving at, but instead, cleverly threw a question back at Yui.
"Yumi-sama, you wouldn't dislike having a petite soeur, would you?"
"Maybe."
Since Yumi became Sachiko-sama's petite soeur, she herself knew vaguely that she would have to have her own. The reason she still did not have a soeur by the second term was not because she was harshly rejecedt, but that she had simply missed out on chances to look for soeurs.
"So then, are you simply against the concept of the audition itself?"
"That may be the case. But if you look at it from the outside, it's just another way of finding a soeur."
"Then do you oppose it because it's Yoshino-san's plan?"
"Well if I had to plan it, we'd be thinking about some different plan."
"It probably would. I wonder why."
Noriko-chan and Yumi began to think deeply about the issue. Shimako-san, who had been silently listening, opened her mouth and began talking "Perhaps, Yumi-san"
"Perhaps, Yumi-san is opposed to the part about judging people."
"That's it."
Yumi said nothing, but wagged her finger in a way to show assent.
"How many worthy first-years there are who want to be Yumi-san's soeurs I do not know, but choosing just one person against the rest is a bit cruel. What's the qualification to choose against? Just what does the chosen soeur have that the others don't? A weird comparison would be a tournament. Amongst the competitors, what is my rank? Who is in the panel of judges? What kind of a person gets a better score than another? That's what Yumi-san is thinking, right?"
Right as Shimako-san finished her sentence.
"There is no 'kind of person' here."
The door opened with a thud, and in the doorway stood Yoshino-san.
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