Hello everyone, Kage here!
Back with another chapter. This chapter is actually apart from the 22-chapter plan I got, so since I posted this, this story's plan changes into 23-chapter plan. And I'm so sorry, but I can't help but update this chapter a bit slower. The reason's shown at the end of this chapter.
Thanks for Author Enilorac Eiram for the review! Don't worry, I don't mind for the late review, although honestly, I felt a little down since you're the only one actively reviewing my story, but it's okay, and glad you reviewed anyway!
Yeah, the way of Assassin is very lacking in terms of love, that really makes sense.
The anime rarely covers the GirlDeMo outside the singing practice (exception for Hisako and Yui since Hisako appears in the Mahjong game in Ep 6 while Yui takes part in Battlefront missions (or because she wanted to be close to Hinata?)), and only did when they wanted to call it quits, yeah so I'm doing my best to think of another idea for them.
Well, who knows? You're very perceptive there!
Thanks for the review!
Without further ado, here's the next chapter!
Chapter 14-A Memorable Choice
-GirlDeMo's Rehearsal Room-
-Sekine's PoV-
With Miyuki-chi being called by Yuri for something, that leaves only Hisako and me in the rehearsal room. Of course music training is even more out of the choice since not only our lead singer isn't here, but so do our drummer. It's getting a bit lonelier here without them or Nishida-san with us.
Come to think of it, the more I'm thinking about it, the more I'm curious about them. By them, I mean our cute drummer and that golden fearful-eyed "supposed-to-be-manager" of us.
It was very clear that Miyuki-chi might have feelings for Nishida-san, I'm really sure of it (I might even bet Hisako did think the same way)! I've known Miyuki-chi for so long that I know when she might had a crush on someone or not, and at this occasion, I can say that Nishida-san had struck deep inside her.
But something's still bothering me... Even if Miyuki-chi is that crushing to Nishida-san, it doesn't explain how she could know about that green onion stuff. If I remember correctly, we never had food together with Nishida-san before. So to find out that Miyuki-chi knows about Nishida's favorite thing to do, that's a bit...too familiar?
And second, Why didn't she tense up like that time when I teased her before the ball game? She's now much more, well, calmer everytime I set her up with Nishida-san, like it's not a big deal or something of some sort. Did I tease her so much that she's no longer embarrassed about it?
But all of it might suggest something a bit more nontrivial. It almost looks like Miyuki-chi and Nishida-san had met much longer than they look. I mean, it's almost their first meeting here in the Afterlife was not really their first time...
Whoops, Did I use an ambiguous word there? Sorry, I mean their first meeting here in the Afterlife feels more like: "Hello, we meet again..." or that sort of thing.
Should I ask Miyuki-chi about this? I'm getting more and more curious.
But if I do, what will happen to our best of friendship here? Will she hate me because of being nosy and intruding too much on her "life"...
No, I can't risk my friendship with her. No sir.
"Hey, Sekine, it's not like you to space out this time. Is something on your head?" I heard Hisako asked me a question.
"E...Eh. Nothing."
"Thinking of another prank for Irie and Nishida again?"
That words suddenly shook me from all my thoughts.
Pranks?
Well, it can't be helped. For too many times I teased Miyuki-chi and Nishida-san a bit too far that almost everyone saw them as pranks. I wonder if everyone had labeled me a prankster or something of some sort.
Well, Hisako's not an exception.
But, if I put another one in action this time, there's some chances that I could really deduce Miyuki-chi and Nishida-san's relationship.
If I remember correctly, I had thought that we GirlDeMo members haven't managed to go on a vacation together again since Iwasawa's disappearance. So, if I put one and one altogether, then...
"Well, Hisako, how about if we ..."
-Rooftop-
-3rd Person's PoV-
"R...Restoring Nishida's memories? M...Me? How?" Irie was shocked at Otonashi's request.
"Didn't you tell me before that you were childhood friends with Nishida in your previous life?" Otonashi pointed out.
"Y...Yes, I've told you before, but, what's the connection with restoring Nishida's memo...Oh..." Irie suddenly found a realization.
"Of course you know it. Since no one here except you had ever lived with Nishida before, no one could restore his memories since he even had no memories or connections with him. But you had lived together with him for far longer than us, and I could bet you've got some good memories with him which had been lost from Nishida's current memory. That might help really well in restoring Nishida's lost memories."
"Ah, now I get it." Irie stated. "H...How could I help?"
"Well, I have no real ideas, but why don't you try to make him remember? Like, you can give him stuffs he likes, or go out with him to a place he likes to go."
"Oh..."
"I noticed once back then after our Operation Tornado right after Kana...I mean Tenshi's downfall, you remember when you give the "leftover green onions" to Nishida?"
"Yes, I remember."
"You said your reason is because you take too much, if I'm not mistaken. However, I could guess that that's not the real reason, wasn't it?"
"Eh...you know?"
"Yappari..." Otonashi paused for a moment. "You're taking green onions for Yakisoba? I hardly ever heard on that one. But of course I heard one on Ramen."
Irie just kept silent.
"So, I came to a conclusion that you take it purposely for Nishida, ain't I right?"
"Well..."
"Alright, save the blushes for later. So tell me, does Nishida likes to put many green onions on his ramen when he was little?"
Irie's mind went to a certain memory. "He did, although we only had one together for only a few times. We've got not much money on us so we seldom have it together. But everytime we did, it always turned out like that, Nishida's taking a humongous amount of it from the condiment table." Irie replied, smiling as she reminisced it.
"O...kay, no comment with that." Otonashi let out a "Pfft" sound. "But here, you see, Irie-san, that action is actually one attempt to recover his memories, don't you think? So, what I suggest, is that you should try to do things you usually do with Nishida on your previous life, maybe it could trigger those memories to surface."
"Um...but...what about Nishida's duty in the Battlefront?"
"I'll be assigning Nishida to fully joining the Diversion Team instead of Diversion Spy for this time. I'll trust this task to you." Yuri said, answering Irie's problem, before a signal reached Yuri's HT.
"Yurippe, preparations are complete."
"Okay, I'll be going there." Yuri said. "So, Irie, Otonashi, I'll leave Nishida's case to both of you. I'll assign Nishida to Diversion team the next time we went on an operation. Good Luck..."
With that, Yuri exited the rooftop, leaving Otonashi and Irie behind.
"Irie-san, so, about the plan."
"Otonashi-san, I don't know, but I think I just can't..."
"W...What? Why?" Otonashi, of course, didn't expect Irie to turn down his idea.
"Because, I don't want to see him hurt."
"Huh?" Otonashi said. "W...What are you talking about?"
"I don't want to end up hurting him... I just can't."
Otonashi could see Irie's eyes now began to water. Another unexpected thing for the reddish-haired guy.
"You're not going to hurt him. I assure you. You only need to try restoring his memories, just the happy memories with you is fine. Trust me, he won't get hurt."
"But, if I restore only his happy memories with me, doesn't that make him only remembers part of me? If I have to restore his memory, that must include also the sad memories too, so he can remember all of me..."
Spontaneously, Irie didn't know that she had somehow confessed something important: her true feelings to Nishida. And it seems like she wasn't the only one to notice this.
"Irie-san, if you said all of that...did you mean you're in love with Nishida? I thought both of you only stayed as the best of friends until that horrible event..."
"I...I didn't say that I'm in love with him..."
"If so, then why did you want to be remembered wholly? Why did you insist on recovering not only the good, but also the bad memories?"
"I...I..."
"You don't have to deny if that's your pure feelings. You can't lie to yourself."
"I...can't love him...at least I can't here." Irie stammered, tears now dominated her cheeks' surface.
"Sorry, can you give me some moment to think about my decision?"
Irie then left the rooftop, leaving Otonashi in a confused state. However, we all know how cunning Otonashi is...
"If that's the problem...then I can't help it. Everything now rests on Irie's decision. I can only support for the best for the two of them."
-Corridor-
-Irie's PoV-
As I gently wiped my tears away, I slowly walked towards the training room, still thinking about the plan discussed with Otonashi.
I'm so glad and grateful to the reddish-haired guy of the Battlefront. He was concerned about Nishida's current partially-amnesiac state, and worked hard to help him recover the rest of the memories, some of those including Nishida's memories with me in our childhood days.
To think of it, Otonashi had also just recovered his memories, and I heard he had gone depressed because of it. But still, he didn't falter his concern to the purple-haired friend of his, and still tried his best.
He was that concerned that he could come up with this plan. As the closest friend Nishida used to have, even I don't doubt that Otonashi assumed that I could play the key role to the memory restoration plan. That goes without saying.
But, what really shook me restrained me from accepting this plan, was actually, although quite selfish of me, is because of myself.
I might've known Otonashi could deduce what might happen after I told him that words.
I can't love Nishida, at least I can't here.
If I said it like that, that can only mean I had been deeply in love with Nishida, but I just can't show it here. By here, I mean the Afterlife.
Yes, you can deduce it. If I confessed my love to Nishida, then I'll disappear, and I'll just reverse the role with the one back then in life, when Nishida just disappeared before my life.
It hurts for me when it happened, and I know how much it will hurt if his memories were restored and I just disappeared like that, because it was approximately the same.
"I'm sorry, Nishida-san..."
"Sorry for what?" I suddenly heard a very familiar voice from my left. I noticed that I was near the stairs and Nishida had just climbed them.
"Eh...nothing..."
"Oh well, I also didn't remember if you had done something wrong to me. It's all okay."
"A...Arigatou, Nishida-san." Irie said. "Anyway, where are you going?"
"Oh, I'm about to stop by GirlDeMo's rehearsal room. It seems like Yuri had appointed me to join the Diversion Team instead of the Battlefront this time, and I think Sekine and Hisako had been told by Yui, so I think I just stop and say hi again? Either way, what about you?"
"I'm going back to the rehearsal room too." Irie answered.
"Oh, why don't we go together and..." Nishida suddenly noticed that Irie's eyes were red. "Eh, is something wrong? You looked like you had just cried."
"Eh, it's nothing, I think my eyes had just caught some debris or something like that. Don't worry."
"I sure hope so...Why don't we go now? You didn't wait for anyone, did you?"
"Ah, no, of course not. Come on then." Irie replied as both of them walked towards the rehearsal room, unnoticed by both of them that they walked hand-in-hand.
-Rehearsal Room-
"Ah, there you are...Oh..." Hisako said, her face now showed a kind of surprised look.
"Eh, is something wrong, Hisako-san?"
"No, I just didn't realize both of you had been that close..." Hisako said as her gaze turned onto the spot where Nishida and Irie are connected.
"Eh, since when did we..."
"Ara...ara...These lovebirds had just tried to try finding a fake reason, I see..." Sekine chirped, of course with her usual naughty sneer.
"Hey, I really didn't intend to, I swear!" Nishida said, while Irie just kept silent as usual.
"Yeah...yeah...whatever you say..." Hisako looked unconvinced. "Anyway, Sekine here had some announcement for you."
"Alright, thanks Hisako." Sekine said. "Hisako and I was told by Yui that Nishida now belongs to the Diversion team, am I right?"
"Of course Yui would tell you all..."
"Now, since Iwasawa's disappearance, we haven't got time for any vacation, that means we haven't bonded up well with the post-Iwasawa-disappearance members like Yui and Nishida, so Hisako and I had come on a wonderful plan for all of us. Nishida, you're not an exception."
"Okay, I'm all ears, so what plans do you have?"
"We're going to have a vacation together, all Diversion Team members. And for this time's vacation, let's go swim in the river!"
A/N: Actually, I wanted to make this very short that it will be labeled: Chapter 13.5. But since I realized that this chapter hits 2000 words, then I have no choice but to label this chapter as a full chapter 14. And so the Monster Stream-setting chapter will be moved to chapter 15. But, if this chapter is too short, then I'm sorry for that!
Next chapter will cover the vacation, which takes about the same time as the Monster-Stream Operation. And (*spoiler alert*), the river where they will swim is actually the same river where the Monster Stream Operation took place, but of course I'll make some precautions regarding both of them. It will be posted a bit longer because, although I've got holidays, I still got my Thesis unfinished and now I've got some extra work to do: I'm attending driving course and planned to enrol on German Language course, since I've been planning to continue my studies to Germany, hope I could make it. And moreover, I've got four little cousins here at my home to take care of, and they always forced me to play some games with them, which took a lot of my time. But that doesn't mean I had no time for stories, especially this one since this is the only story where I have a lot of drafts ready, (I've got some for chapter 15,17, and 21). I'm going to do my best!
Please R&R! Constructive Reviews and Critics are appreciated while Flames are prohibited, Thank You and See you soon!
Kage