Maria-sama ga Miteru:Volume10 Chapter8 2

Sweets. Part 2

The rain was closing in.

Monday.

She was still feeling depressed from the day before, plus her frizzy hair wasn't doing what it was supposed to which put her in a terrible mood right from the start of the day.

Heading into school, she saw Yoshino-san attacking her indoor shoes. Yumi didn't know what happened, but maybe it would be better if she could release her anger in small amounts like that. But, if such a thing were possible, no-one would ever have any problems.

During lunchtime, the girl with the familiar vertical hair rolls appeared at the entrance to the Rose Mansion.

"Gokigenyou, Yumi-sama."

"… Gokigenyou. If you have some business in the Rose Mansion, why don't you come inside?"

In comparison to the amicable, smiling Touko-chan, Yumi's words were perhaps a bit standoffish. Although, the only one who noticed this was probably Yumi herself.

"That's okay. I'm going to have lunch with my classmates in the courtyard, but before that I thought I might meet her here."

Touko-chan omitted who it was that she was going to meet, but Yumi didn't need to ask. Both the speaker and the listener understood that it was Sachiko-sama, so the sentence was properly formed.

Whether for good or for bad, the person herself arrived at that point.

"Oh, Touko-chan?"

Well, that answered the question of who she was going to greet first. For today especially, those sorts of small gestures were on Yumi's mind.

"Rosa Chinensis. Here."

Touko-chan took a step forward and held something out to her.

"Ah, you came all the way here just to give me this? Thank-you."

"I paid a visit to your classroom during the break, but you weren't there."

"I would have been at my elective class."

Sachiko-sama plucked the golden object from Touko-chan's hand and wrapped it around her left wrist. It was the watch that she usually wore.

(How did onee-sama's watch end up in Touko-chan's hands – )

Yumi had definitely seen that watch on Sachiko-sama's wrist on Saturday morning.

So then, as they were leaving school, had Sachiko-sama loaned it to Touko-chan for some reason?

(But, in that case, why would she say, "You came all the way here?")

That was the sort of thing you said when someone brought you something you'd left behind.

Left behind.

What, when, where – ? An excess of thoughts floated through Yumi's mind and disappeared.

Then Touko-chan too disappeared from that place. She returned to the group of girls spreading out plastic sheets on the grass.

When Touko-chan left, Sachiko-sama finally addressed Yumi.

"Yumi, I'm sorry about yesterday."

"… Yeah."

Sachiko-sama was surely the one in the wrong, but Yumi looked away first. At that point Yoshino-san arrived, late, and they all went inside together leaving matters as they were.

The Rose Mansion was unusually quiet that day. Yoshino-san and Rei-sama were silent, apparently fighting, and Yumi seemed to be in the same boat.

If the usually quiet Shimako-san had been there, then she would have stirred some conversation, but she was nowhere to be seen, perhaps off seeing Noriko-chan. Everything was stretched to the limit.

Yumi and Yoshino-san started to do some light cleaning once they'd finished their lunches. After school, Noriko-chan was going to accompany Shimako-san to the Rose Mansion.

Since they were going to meet once all the classes had done their allocated cleaning after homeroom, it didn't look like they'd have time to clean the Rose Mansion before greeting their guest.

The two Roses were looking over some paperwork for the school festival that was spread out on the table.

From time to time, Yumi felt Sachiko-sama's gaze upon her, but she ignored it, pretending to be caught up in cleaning.

Perhaps she'd meant it as payback for yesterday. At any rate, Sachiko-sama's kind words were starting to feel heartrending to Yumi.

When she thought about it further, Sachiko-sama's words recently hadn't been kind, but sweet. Like putting a sugar coated pastry in her mouth, they left her with a bit of a good feeling. And imagining what was inside made her happy.

But, that was all. Nothing appeared from within, no chocolate, nuts, or splash of liqueur. Sachiko-sama's words were hollow, as empty as their promise was large. And because she understood that, if possible, Yumi wanted to avoid putting them in her mouth. Such were her true feelings.

She wanted words with more substance to them, even if they were spicy or bitter. But that may just have been selfish thinking on her part.

The tragedy of spending time with her onee-sama.

(It's tough, Minako-sama.)

Even though she'd been advised to not just silently endure it.

The inept petit soeur couldn't return the rosary, but in order to avoid being hated, she couldn't do anything other than silently endure it either.