Maria-sama ga Miteru:Volume23 Chapter3 1

Stopping in Along the Way. Part 1

The second of January arrived.

Yumi left home with her shoulder bag stuffed with sleeping clothes, her toothbrush, and other such things on her right shoulder, and a paper bag containing a Maple Parlor tin of assorted cookies in her left hand.

In her usual clothes, jeans and a sweater with a duffel coat over the top. Her mother said she should take the opportunity to wear a kimono, but she was staying overnight. She wasn't qualified to wear anything that she couldn't put on by herself the following morning. Casual clothing was the highest priority.

9:30am.

She was heading out a bit early but there was a reason for that. She thought she'd stop in at a couple of places on the way to Sachiko-sama's house.

She took the bus to M Station where she transferred buses. Getting on the loop bus leaving from the south entrance that she usually took to school.

But she wasn't going to Lillian's Girls Academy today. She got off before there, at the bus stop in front of a Shinto shrine. It was the same route she'd taken with Satou Sei-sama on the second of January last year.

It wasn't like she'd become all sentimental about the graduated Sei-sama. And since Yumi didn't have her driver's license, obviously she hadn't parked her beloved car at the back of the shrine.

The reason for this?

A hatsumoude visit? Or to get a fortune?

No, no. She'd completed her hatsumoude visit at the shrine to Inari in her neighborhood, and she'd get discouraged if she drew "bad luck" as her fortune, so she passed on both.

"Let's do this."

After firing herself up, Yumi threw herself into the crowd of people in front of the food stalls. Calamari, okonomiyaki pancakes, octopus dumplings, grilled corn. She bought two servings of each and put them in a supermarket shopping bag she'd brought from home. In her mind, Yumi mocked herself for being an eco-friendly housewife.

She wanted to buy even more but unlike last year she didn't have a car to carry her straight to her destination. She'd reached the limit of what she could carry by herself. Additionally, it had been a bit more expensive than she'd expected, so it was a good place to stop. She'd spend all her New Year's money if she kept buying thoughtlessly.

Right. Her goal had been festival food. She could have bought some at her neighborhood shrine, but she thought it was better to get the same as Sei-sama had bought last year, so she'd made the trip out here. Basically, Yumi just wanted to see Sayako-oba-sama looking delighted.

She returned once more to M Station and this time she switched to a train. The carriage was surprisingly empty, so Yumi plopped down on a seat near the door, put half of her luggage on her lap and the other half in front of her shoes and let out a large sigh of relief.

The she finally looked forwards and spotted someone she knew sitting opposite her.

"Noriko-chan?"

"Ah, Yumi-sama."

Noriko-chan must have boarded the train ahead of her, and she picked up her belongings and moved to the seat next to Yumi. A jumper skirt showed beneath her short beige down coat, with a cute pair of charcoal gray tights peeking out beneath that.

"Gokigenyou. Oh, and happy new year."

"Yeah. Happy new year."

It would be foolish to ask something like, "Where are you going?" or "How come you're on this train?" There were both attending the Ogasawara's New Year's Party. They'd actually arranged to meet at the train station closest to Sachiko-sama's house but they'd run into each other a bit early.

"That's a lot of luggage you've got, Yumi-sama."

"Hahaha. The invitation said to bring your own, and I got a bit carried away."

Noriko-chan was traveling surprisingly lightly, perhaps because she was accustomed to taking small trips to view Buddhist statues. She had a bag one size smaller than Yumi's and a department store paper bag that looked like it contained pastries.

"I brought chocolates. They have something like marron glace inside. My gourmand great-aunt recommended them."

"Sounds good."

"They are!"

Noriko-chan agreed, full of confidence.

They didn't just sound tasty, they also sounded expensive. Whether consciously or not, they'd definitely raised the bar on the sort of gifts they were bringing to the Ogasawara family.

"I thought you and Shimako-san might have met up earlier, Noriko-chan."

"Ah, right. I went home for New Year's."

Yumi nodded, understanding. Noriko-chan's family lived a bit too far away for her to commute to Lillian's every day, so she stayed with her great-aunt.

The train moved onward accompanied by a gentle click-clack vibration. But she couldn't relax completely because she felt like she had to keep a tight grip on the handle of the plastic bag by her feet so that the calamari and grilled corn inside didn't come spilling out.

Click-clack. Whenever the train shook, the smell of scorched soy sauce came wafting out of the bag. Some distance away, an older lady in her Sunday best turned their way, saying, "I wonder what that smell is."

"Yumi-sama, um."

Click.

"Mm?"

Yumi was surprised by Noriko-chan's tone, which was completely different to her earlier, "They are!" so she looked to her side and saw Noriko-chan looking serious.

"Wh-what's the matter!?"

"I feel like I owe you a massive apology, Yumi-sama."

What? What?

Despite being a first-year, Noriko-chan was level headed. She rarely made a careless mistake. And yet Noriko-chan felt like she owed her an apology. A massive one at that.

"Did you do something to me?"

Since Yumi couldn't remember anything, all she could do was ask. They still had a bit of time left on the train. So this would be a detour on the way.

"Although I'm also sorry to be bringing this up again."

With that, Yumi immediately understood.

"Is this about Touko-chan?"

Noriko-chan nodded in agreement. There was only one thing that came to mind that she would be "sorry" for "bringing up again". The thing that Sachiko-sama had told her to "leave alone."

"But you didn't really have anything to do with what happened with Touko-chan – "

Noriko-chan shouldn't have felt responsible for Touko-chan's words and actions just because they were close friends. But Noriko-chan shook her head, indicating that she wasn't apologizing in Touko-chan's stead.

"I've always thought it would be good if Touko was your petit soeur – no, that's not right, I thought it would be good if you were Touko's onee-sama. But you never seemed to think much of her. Or rather, you were never conscious of her as a petit soeur. So I hated it when you innocently meddled in her affairs. … I'm sorry."

"I see."

That would have been why Noriko-chan flared up unexpectedly when they asked her to invite Touko-chan and Kanako-chan to the Christmas party.

"But you were giving serious consideration to her. And yet, that Touko."

"Having the offer of soeurship turned down is neither a good thing nor a bad thing."

Although it had been quite a shock when she was rejected. But that was unavoidable. There was no blame, like a school that didn't admit students who failed their entrance exam, or a company that canceled a contract when their terms weren't met, or a lover who turned down a proposal. It was like that.

"But."

Noriko-chan mumbled.

"I don't think it's good to hide your own feelings."

There was an unshakeable self-belief there. As a result, Yumi felt a little bit braver.

"So you're saying that you don't think Touko-chan hates me?"

"Yes."

Of course. It was kind of reassuring.

"Then I must have made some kind of mistake."

Yumi said, as though to herself.

"A mistake?"

"Like with the timing, or the location, or her feelings, or how I asked her … that sort of thing."

She looked out the window to see where they were, but the glass had clouded over so she could only faintly make out the scenery outside.