by Ao Jyumonji
He was unsteady on his feet.
Even so, his body had to keep moving.
Downwards.
To the first floor.
They were dead.
Volunteer soldiers.
So many of them.
There was a large number of corpses.
There were orcs. Why? Where had these guys come from? It was more than just one or two. There were a ton of them.
In the middle, there was one orc bigger than all the others. The orc wore a deep, venomously deep, red suit of armor and helm, with hair dyed black and gold spilling out from underneath it. What was more, he used a two-sword style. He was built incredibly tough, carrying two scimitars that screamed danger, one in each hand, of course.
Zoran.
Zoran Zesh.
There was no doubt about it. He matched every distinguishing trait Bri-chan had told them. This was Keeper Zoran, the head of the Zesh Clan, who had a one hundred gold coin bounty on his head.
Zoran was using his scimitars to cut people down.
That’s Mr. Pleasant, Haruhiro realized, recognizing one of them. From Choco’s party.
Mr. Pleasant might have been trying to block Zoran’s scimitar with his sword. However, he didn’t make it in time.
“Ahh!” Mr. Pleasant let out a scream that sounded a little stupid. Both his arms were severed at the same time.
Then, without any delay, his head.
Mr. Pleasant’s head went flying.
It happened so easily.
What is this?
What’s going on?
Where’s Laughing Man? Mr. Priest? Ms. Short Hair, the mage? They’re not here.
No, there they were.
They had fallen.
All of them, chopped to pieces.
Mr. Tall was just barely holding on, fighting with his back to the wall against an orc who wasn’t Zoran. Next to him, Choco.
Choco was here.
Mr. Tall was trying to protect Choco. However, he was clearly taking a beating, and he couldn’t fully protect her.
Strong. Those orcs were strong. They were nothing like the orcs they’d gone against so far.
It wasn’t their equipment—it was something about the way they were built, or even the air about them. They were totally different. These were the keeper and his close associates.
There were a number of unarmored orcs with pots of some sort hanging from their hips that looked like mages. No, not mages—they were called sorcerers, right?
Team Renji was already attacking the orcs. However, there were more than ten of them, probably around twenty, and the first floor was wide and open. Needlessly so.
How were Mr. Tall and Choco?
“—Urkh!” Mr. Tall had locked blades with one of the keeper’s associates, but he must have been kicked in the belly or something, because he had doubled over.
Hey.
No.
You can’t do that.
You can’t be doing that.
Choco had her dagger in a fighting stance. With both hands on the hilt, she had the blade pointed towards the orc.
The blade’s tip quivered. She was terrified.
No. That isn’t going to be good enough.
“Choco!” Haruhiro screamed, starting to run.
In that moment, it felt like Choco looked at him. Probably, she did try to look.
The orc’s sword sank into Choco’s shoulder. It went in really deep.
The orc kicked her to the ground, tearing his sword free and immediately swinging it down at her.
“Sto—”
Once.
Twice.
Three times, the orc swung his sword down.
Choco.
Ahh!
Choco.
How? Why? This can’t...
No.
Haruhiro clutched his head. A voice came out on its own. He didn’t know what was going on, he really didn’t know himself what the voice was. He didn’t know.
What the hell was this?
Chapter 14: Not Saying, or Unable to Say
That vending machine was right next my house. It was really just a minute or two’s walk away, and if I walked a bit further there was a convenience store, too, but no matter what time of the day it was, if I went that far I’d run into people I knew, and I kind of didn’t want to, so that vending machine was like my refuge... I mean, I say refuge, but it’s not like I really wanted to run away, or wanted to escape, not all the time, it’s just, well, when I kinda wanted to run away, sort of, like I couldn’t take it anymore, I would get out of the house and kill time near that vending machine.
When did I start doing it?
Was it in elementary school?
Well, around fifth grade or so? Maybe.
I didn’t have a room to myself, and my older brother was there, and I couldn’t relax, so I wanted to be alone, I guess. Though, if I said that, I’m sure my brother would tell me not to be a cheeky brat, and he’d kick me, but, yeah, I’m sure there were times I wanted to be alone.
So, I would go to the vending machine and buy juice, or not buy juice, and drink it, or not drink it.
As I was staring off into space, I’d start to feel like maybe it was time to head home, and then I’d just sort of do it.
That was what it was like at first, but one time, when I was in sixth grade, it was hot outside, it was summer, I think, and when I went to where the vending machine was, someone came along and I thought maybe I should hide, but that felt kind of awkward, so I thought maybe I’d just pretend not to notice them, but it was someone I knew, Choco, who lived nearby.
Choco had her hair cut like a kappa. A bob cut, I think it’s called. Like, seriously, she’d had it like that ever since she was little, and if I ever looked up bobbed hair, I wouldn’t be surprised to find a picture of Choco, that’s how strong the connection between the two was.
She wasn’t sociable at all, and you could never tell quite what she was thinking. At school and places like that, she was the type who always seemed a little bit out of place. But, well, only a little bit.
It wasn’t like she had no friends, or anything like that. But rather than being really close friends with anyone, she just hung out with a group of people, sort of.
I dunno why, but from the time we were in preschool, I had been interested in Choco. Like, “Y’know, there’s something kind of different about her.” To be honest, I just couldn’t get her out of my head, because, well, I guess you could say I loved her.
Actually, Choco was the first person I’d ever fallen in love with, and I’d been in love with her ever since. I mean, we’d been together since preschool, after all, and we’d been in the same class a number of times, and our houses were close, and we talked, too, because we were pretty close, but I’d never confessed my love to her, or anything like that.
Well, it wasn’t like I could have.
I think it happened in third grade. There were rumors going around that Choco liked Kawabe-kun, and when we were alone together after school I asked her if they were true, just like that, as subtly as I could, and she thought for a little while and then answered “Yeah”...
That. That was a shock.
A pretty major one.
Kawabe-kun was slender, not really athletic or anything, but he was learning piano. He came from, I guess you could say, a good upbringing...
Ah, so that’s what Choco’s into, I thought. I see.
So that’s it.
Is that it?
Nah, it can’t be, I thought.
Kawabe-kun had all these things I didn’t, but, actually, once in a while we would play together, and Kawabe-kun was a really good guy. I had no complaints about him. He was pretty high up on my friends list, you could say, and I had a good impression of him, so it was like, “Oh, Choco likes Kawabe-kun, huh...”
Like, “Well, Kawabe-kun is a good guy, after all.”
Like, “You know, I don’t really know what to do, but I’ve gotta be supportive.”
That was what I thought, so I made a suggestion. “Hey, Choco, why don’t you give him, like, a letter, or something? Kawabe-kun, his house is pretty strict, so he doesn’t have a cellphone, but a letter, yeah, I think Kawabe-kun would read it. I think he’d give you a response, too. I mean, it’s Kawabe-kun. How about it?”
Choco said she didn’t need to. That she was fine without it. She had no intention of doing anything like that.
Oh, okay. I see. Hmm.
She just liked him, that was all.
That was Choco’s answer. She just liked him.
Still, you know, I tried a lot of things. Like finding ways for Choco to talk to Kawabe-kun as much as possible. Or setting it up so Choco and Kawabe-kun could be alone together. When I look back at it now, it was all pretty blatant and awkward, but I was frantically doing everything I could back then. I mean, Kawabe-kun, he was a good guy, and Choco... I loved Choco.
Anyway, during the summer that I was in sixth grade, Choco came to the vending machine, and when she called out to me to ask what I was doing, I answered, “Oh, nothing, I’m just sort hanging out here,” and Choco, she was feeling hot, so she wanted a cold can of soda, but there weren’t any in the refrigerator at home, so she had come here to buy one, so, well, we talked there for, like, ten, fifteen minutes, and after that, when I would go to the vending machine, sometimes Choco would be there.
Choco would buy a cold soda, or, when it was cold, a warm can of corn potage.
Choco would complain that soda bothered her throat, but then still drink it, or call corn potage “conpotage,” or say “Hot, hot,” and blow on it to cool it down, and I really did love her for all of that, but, I dunno, it wasn’t that I loved her so much it was unbearable, it was a natural love, you know, it was just there, like the air, like, “Well, yeah, of course I love her,” and it had always been like that.
Choco was the type to fall for boys pretty often. She didn’t let it show, though.
According to her, she would just vaguely start thinking, “Hey, he’s nice,” and then she’d find herself thinking about that guy all the time, so then she’d realize, “I’m in love, huh,” and as long as she could keep thinking that, she would stay in love.
Didn’t she want to go out with them?
When I asked her that, she answered that she wasn’t completely uninterested in that, but that she didn’t feel strongly about it. I guess that was just how it was.
Since I loved Choco, I did think I’d want to go out with her if I could, but Choco was in love with someone, some other guy, and when I couldn’t help but ask her who it was that she liked now, she would always tell me honestly. Then I’d think, “Well, you know, even if she doesn’t intend to do anything about it, I hope they can be friends, or that they can get to know each other better”... and somehow, I’d end up trying to make that happen.
Even though Choco never asked me to, I did it on my own.
It’s not that I didn’t think, “Why am I even doing this?”
I mean, I thought that a lot. And that I was being an idiot, too.
Choco was unsociable, and she was kind of expressionless, but when she was talking to a guy she liked she would get excited, and when they were done talking she would stare off into space, or her face would turn a little red.
When I thought “Ah, Choco’s happy,” it made me happy, too.
I don’t know how to say it, but even though I had known Choco a long time, think about it as hard as I might, I didn’t really know how to make Choco happy.
Choco was pretty mysterious. She didn’t read, she didn’t listen to music, she barely watched TV, and when, once in a while, she found something like a hobby, she tired of it in no time.
When I asked her, “Is there nothing you really, really like?” she immediately responded, “Yeah, there’s nothing.”
She was hard to grasp, which was why she interested me, and I wanted to make her happy, wanted to see her smile, but I just couldn’t figure out how.
That was what Choco was like.
So, no matter what it took, I wanted to make Choco happy.
Though, yeah, it was a little painful.
That night, too, as I was sitting in front of the vending machine, Choco came along.
I kinda had a vague feeling she would, but often when I got that feeling, she wouldn’t end up coming. But that night, Choco actually came, and, in my mind, I wanted to shout out “Yes!” and pump my arm, but I held back.
With feigned calmness, I greeted her with a “Yo,” and Choco raised her right hand in response, saying “Yo” herself.
The way she spoke and her little gestures, they were super adorable, and I thought, “Yeah, that’s it,” reconfirming for myself that I loved Choco, but right now Choco loved this guy in our class who had an uncommon name, Hidemasa... This Hidemasa, he was a good guy, and he looked good, too, so I thought Choco had good taste in guys.
How should I put it?
He was one of those guys who weren’t super popular with the girls or anything, but when you looked at them as another guy, you thought, “But he’s a good guy, you know? Why don’t girls see that?” But no, they did see it, and there was always one, or two, or maybe a few girls who were secretly crushing on them. That type. Choco always fell for guys like that.
Like, “Yeah, even I can totally see why.”
Like, “Well, if it’s him, I can’t complain.”
Of course I’d want to support her, and I did. I mean, I was no match for guys like that. I’d start getting ahead of myself, thinking things like, “He could make Choco happy.”
Choco bought herself a soda. One of those lemon-lime drinks. She opened it with the pull-tab, then took a sip. She grimaced just a little, letting out a groan.
“My throat hurts.”
“Hey,” I said.
“Hm?”
“If it hurts, why drink soda?” I asked.
“Because I want to drink it.”
“Of course.”
“But, you know, drinking it too often is probably bad for my health,” she added.
“Could be. Athletes aren’t supposed to drink it, I hear. Soda.”
“Oh, I see,” she said. “Not that I’m athletic at all.”
“Well, maybe it’s okay, then,” I said.
“It’s only once in a while.”
“You say that, but don’t you drink it pretty often?” I asked.
“I only really drink it here,” she said.
“I see.”
I tried telling her about how I’d gone to karaoke with Hidemasa recently. Choco didn’t seem interested. She also seemed like she might be feigning disinterest, but listening closely.
I figured that, yeah, she had to be listening, so I told her about the songs Hidemasa sang. Like how it was mostly pop idol songs that were popular a little while ago, and he seemed to be trying to match everyone else’s tastes. But since they were songs everyone knew, everyone really got into it.
I talked about how Hidemasa could be like that sometimes. When I was feeling a little exhausted and went quiet, Hidemasa struck up a conversation with me because he was concerned. I talked about what a great guy Hidemasa could be.
“Me,” Choco said, speaking up suddenly. “I can’t be considerate, and I can’t look out for other people, so maybe I like people who can do that.”
“Oh,” I said. “That makes sense. Like looking to find what you, yourself lack in others?”
“Do you think I lack consideration for others, too, Hiro?” she asked.
“No, that’s not it. You don’t do things that make people feel uncomfortable, do you?”
“Maybe I don’t.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“You don’t either, Hiro.”
I was surprised. “Really? Huh? Am I managing to be considerate?”
“Like you are to me?”
“Hmm. Well, we’ve known each other a long time, after all.”
“Don’t you have one, Hiro?” she asked.
“Huh? One what?”
“A person you love, or a girl you’re interested in.”
I was at a loss for what to say, and I thought hard, my brain racing like crazy, and I did think this might be my big chance to tell her, but then I thought, no, it wasn’t my chance, how could it possibly be, and thought better of it.
I love Choco, but it’s not quite like that, I thought.
It was like that, but it wasn’t.
What was it?
It felt like it had already gone past that point. Like it had transcended it.
I didn’t care about myself, and I was happy as long as Choco was happy. It seemed stupid, and if you asked me whether I really felt that way—I wonder about that.
Things are fine the way they are. That’s what I might have been thinking.
If I kept the same distance from her that I always had, we could talk like this sometimes. If Choco got herself a boyfriend someday, that might change, though. If it happened, it happened. That would be fine in its own way, I felt.
I mean, Choco had always loved someone else, and I had always watched her, so painful as that would be, I was used to it.
I did love Choco, though.
“I don’t,” I said. “If I did, I’d tell you.”
“Not that I really want to know,” she said.
“Wow. You’re awful. After all the times I’ve listened to you talk about yours.”
“You weak-willed wussy,” she said.
“...Did you say something?”
“Yeah. I said something.”
“I heard you...”
I wondered what that insult was supposed to mean.
Though, maybe, Choco might have realized. That I was in love with her.
Would she have been able to figure out that much? She would, huh.
Choco crouched down next to me. Her shoulder was next to mine. Choco was looking downwards.
“Someday, Hiro, if you find a person you love...”
“...Yeah?”
“...tell me.”
“I thought you didn’t want to know.”
“Not really,” she said. “But tell me.”
