"You are going on a date with who?!".
This is the third time I hear the exact same sentence this morning and, despite the reaction being exactly what I hoped for, I can't suppress a flicker of annoyance.
"With whom."
"What?" Miura is thrown off-track, but she glares at me just in case. Behind her, hanging at the edges of the group, as always, Hachiman grins.
"With whom, not with who, Miura-senpai. And the answer remains the same. I will go out with Azuma Torio. At eleven tonight. He will meet me at Tsuga Station." Which is not really that far from here.
"You know he has a certain… unsavoury reputation," Miura is leading the charge now, with other three hanging back after previous failures. She cut her meetings short to come here when Hachiman called. Which is their relationship in a nutshell, really. But she is formidable in her business suit, and all her original fierceness that never faded away is now directed at me.
Yuigahama nods in support. "Azuma is a delinquent. He keeps dating girls, breaking up and dating new ones. Often forgetting to do the middle step. He was two years younger than us at the university, and I've never heard a good thing said about him."
"I asked around," Miura takes over smoothly. "He has been involved in more than a few fistfights with other students over girls, but it has been hushed up. Azuma is bad news all around."
"Boys are often misunderstood. You call them delinquents or creeps but when you get to know them you often discover they are quite likeable," I say dismissively, but Miura flinches hard. I must watch my tongue. I am starting to slip.
"Often they only just need a good woman to set them straight," I smile widely and guilelessly. I hope.
"How long have you known each other?" Yukinoshita has been holding back the whole morning. She watches me carefully and barely comments at all. Either she is actually glad I am interested in somebody outside this room or she suspects something. Knowing her, it is probably both.
"We talked yesterday for the first time." Yuigahama inhales sharply, but the Ice Queen doesn't look surprised at all.
"You must understand that he is hardly interested in your personality or taste in culture," she says. "The world is full of men who only see you for the beauty you are. Who defile you in their minds from the moment they set their eyes on you." Don't project your crazy on me, Yukinoshita.
"Y-yeah," Miura looks a bit uncomfortable but ploughs on. "He approached you just because you are already known for being the prettiest freshman. Azuma wants another trophy."
"That is all very flattering, but you are missing the point," I raise my eyes. It is Hachiman's reaction I am interested in but looking at him right now would be a bad mistake. "I am the one who asked Azuma out on a date."
Suddenly I can hear children playing outside quite clearly.
I pass a group of senior students, and I notice the echo of their steps slowing down behind me. It is not often that a junior year student comes to this part of the building. Azuma is ahead, leaning against the wall, and I head straight for him. He looks just like on social networks photos, handsome in a roguish sort of way, slightly too old to still be a student, but clinging on to the lie that is youth. Stop whispering in my ear, Hachiman. There is too much of you in my head as it is.
Azuma notices me approaching and gives me an open, appraising glance, his eyes sliding up my legs, stopping on my waist, breasts and, finally, my face. He finds something there that wipes his practised leer away.
"Azuma-san. Can I have a minute of your time?"
"Of course, Tsurumi-chan. Whole days, if you want." He smiles again, but the easy confidence is not there anymore. We are different years, different buildings, different worlds. Yet Azuma knows my name, for some reason.
I wait, watching him calmly until he begins to fidget. He is tall, but so am I, and I hold his gaze until he looks away.
"Can I help you, Tsurumi-san?" That's better.
"Are you busy tomorrow night?"
"N-no. I have no plans."
"Good. I would like to have a date with you. The Tsuga Station main entrance, eleven o'clock, tomorrow evening. Please don't be late. I can't abide people being late." Not true. There is a person whose tardiness I find endearing. But that is one of the many things you don't need to know, Azuma-san.
I turn to leave. There is nothing to this dating stuff. I don't understand why people fret over it so much.
"What?! Wait!" I stop.
"I am sorry. Was that too much information for you? I can repeat it more slowly." Being nice to your date is important. Even if they are apparently intellectually challenged.
"I… no! No! Got it. Tsuga Station, eleven tomorrow. But…"
"Excellent. I knew I was making the right choice, Azuma-san." He looks at me slack-jawed. I encourage him with what I am sure is a warm and kind smile before walking away.
The silence stretches on.
"You asked him out?" Miura's voice is incredulous. Me asking a guy out is not a miracle, you know? I am nineteen. If anything it is long overdue.
"It is the twenty-first century. A girl can approach a guy first," I retort. For some reason, Miura blushes at this, and I see both Yukinoshita and Yuigahama glance at her and then at Hachiman with what can charitably be described as hard-eyed suspicion.
"You inviting him is fine, Rumi," the main boss finally appears behind his minions. "We are not worried about that. But Azuma doesn't sound like the best choice for your first date. Or anybody's first date." Hachiman's eyes are kind and worried. A warm feeling tingles through me, but I ignore it. This is the last act of four years of obsessive effort, and I must not make a mistake now.
"Sounds to me like you are just not happy with me finding a boyfriend. I never took you for an emotional hoarder, Hachiman, but it seems you have a problem letting go of women in your life. You should really have somebody look into that." There is a series of gasps around the room, and Hachiman's face goes white with shock.
The accusation is so spectacularly unfair and cruel that my chest hurts too much to draw a breath. He has never shown any possessiveness, and I think he finds the very idea repulsive and alien. If we are being honest, Hachiman is really a victim of us four harpies, and of our terrible love. What he is guilty of is just caring for us too much to hurt us by action or word.
But I have to do this. I have to be callous to him in a way that nobody who loves him ever would or could. I've spent years proving that I don't care for him in that way and Yukinoshita's hard eyes are proof enough that I haven't been entirely successful. This is no time for weakness.
The colour comes back to Hachiman's face, but not all the way. He looks old, not like the unchanging high-school Hachiman of my mind at all. His eyes are deader than I've ever seen them. And this time it is nobody's fault but mine.
I coolly hold his gaze.
"Fine, Tsurumi," he says tiredly. He hasn't called me that in six years. "Do what you want. Just…" his eyes close, then open so devoid of expression that I can't stand it anymore and look away. "Just don't expect us to pick up the pieces." Don't expect me to catch you when you fall.
"Hey, no hard feelings, old man, ok?" I jump nimbly to my feet, a wide smile firmly plastered on my face. "I will tell you everything tomorrow!" I wave to the room at large, and leave, perhaps a shade too quickly. Nobody says a word.
I jog down the stairs, run when I reach the street and am at a full-out sprint by the first corner. There are two perfectly rational reasons for this unseemly haste. One, I am almost certain that there is a law of physics that says that, if you run fast enough, memories of what has just happened will not be able to catch up with you. Also, if I keep on running I might be able to reach some place private before the tears I somehow still hold back start to fall.
I am the first to leave the café. It is almost midnight, and I use the opportunity to shed a bit of frustration by rolling my eyes.
The voice drones on behind me. "I have this Suzuki SV650, see, parked right there, which is a nice motorcycle and good enough for most men, but back home I have a GSX-R1000, and it is a real beast only I can tame. You need to ride it like a woman, you see…" Azuma stops, and you can almost hear him bite his tongue.
"I thank you, Azuma-san, for the drink and for the most enlightening conversation about motorcycles I have ever had." I even bow slightly.
His face alternates between suspicion and a smile and settles on the latter. "I didn't know you liked motorcycles. Another thing we have in common! I would be happy to show you how my Suzuki handles if you let me take you home!"
"I will be happy to, but a brief walk might help clear my head first. This evening is too pleasant to end just yet."
Azuma's hesitant smile looks out of place on his confident face. "I… enjoyed the evening, too. I must admit that it was unlike any of the dates I've ever had."
"I bet you say that to all the girls." I deliver a perfect sweet smile to accompany that saccharine statement. It must be less than perfect, though, since he just stares at me, mouth slack.
"It was the best date I ever had," I add, and this works better. He is back to smiling, and his arm creeps around my shoulder. I suppress a shudder and steer him gently towards the Kasorikaizuka Park.
The streets are almost empty, barring a few single figures, but the park is just plain empty, and that is what I need.
Azuma looks strangely hesitant, stealing a few sideway glances at me, but ultimately follows my lead and we pass under the trees. There is little light and plenty of shadows here, and it takes me a few minutes to find the perfect spot, a slightly neglected ginkgo tree with a wide trunk, a few fallen branches scattered about.
Azuma follows me as I walk to the tree, slowly turn around, lean on the trunk and look him straight in the eye. Again that hesitation that looks so unnatural in him, but my gaze does not waver, and he leans slowly into me.
I give him the gentlest of smiles and scream.
He recoils violently, almost falling down, eyes wide as saucers. I scream again and grab my shirt, pulling hard at the sides. It rips, together with the bra, precisely along the lines I perforated at home, almost down to my navel. It is, it was one of my best shirts, but clothes are really just a means to an end. Everything is these days.
Azuma looks at me in total shock, takes a step forward, sees my exposed breasts and takes a stumbling step back. I hear somebody approaching at a run, but I think Azuma is far past noticing such minor things.
A figure barrels into his back, takes him cleanly off the ground and they land together a few meters away. The man recovers first, sits on Azuma's chests, pummeling him clumsily, once, twice, three times. It doesn't last long, as Azuma recovers quickly and strikes back with far more effect. The man grunts and falls to the side, and it is Azuma now pinning him down.
I take an involuntary step forward, every fibre of my being screaming to help, but I know I can't. Not yet.
Azuma's fist connects with that precious face, and the pain he feels can never be a fraction of what I feel. But I wait. Azuma hits again. And again.
I step closer and swing a heavy tree branch, hitting Azuma cleanly in the back of his head. Hard enough to stun, and he rolls over, stands up and looks at me, eyes glazed with confusion, and violence, and fear.
"I suggest you run, Azuma-san," I say, not unkindly. And he does.
I turn around, breathing heavily, gripping the heavy branch for all I am worth. Hachiman is still down, his cloth rumpled and torn, soft light and shadow playing over his pale, sweaty face. Blood is trickling down his chin, and he looks up in a daze as I approach. My nakedness is unexpectedly embarrassing, but at some deeper level, I understand this is how it should be, how it is supposed to be. The only way.
Hachiman looks at me, and I look back and, for the first time in what feels like forever, he doesn't avert his eyes.