Chapter 2: My Friend’s Little Sister Is Being Cold to Me!
“Congratulations on two million downloads! Cheers!!!”
It was the evening after the first day of the new semester. In the middle of a peaceful residential area sat an apartment building with pretty affordable rent, and we were there on its fifth floor. Thanks to the flawless soundproofing, this was the perfect place to get a little rowdy without disturbing the neighbors above, below, to the left, and even to the right of us.
The excited toast was led by Kageishi Sumire (technically a teacher) aka Murasaki Shikibu-sensei (technically an illustrator). She was so loud that the toast reverberated through the air. Ozu laughed. “She sure is stoked. Cheers.”
“Yeah. If I lived anywhere else, the neighbors’d be complaining. Cheers.”
“Let’s let her off the hook for today. It’s a special day after all. Cheers!” Makigai Namako’s digitally empowered voice said.
“Cheers...”
“What’s in this highball?! It’s way too good!”
Our teacher had gulped down her entire first drink without paying any attention to the words of Ozu, Makigai Namako-sensei, or me.
She seriously tested my patience sometimes.
“I just realized Tsukinomori-san isn’t here,” Ozu said, looking around the room.
“Right. I invited her, but she turned me down.”
“That’s not like her. Considering Iroha’s here, I’d thought she would wanna spend her every waking second with you.”
“Maybe she’s being considerate. Not that she needed to be.”
I had first asked her over LIME, which was when Mashiro rejected me. Not to be discouraged, I went up to her room about an hour ago when she’d come back from school and buzzed her interphone so I could invite her directly.
Mashiro opened the door.
“I really want you to celebrate with us. I’m being genuine. This is only for Alliance members and long standing allies like you.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not trying to be unsociable. I’ll prove it by being an overly clingy girlfriend when we’re at school. That includes when I help you with directing Iroha-chan.”
It was clear that she was determined to sit this one out.
Her refusal wasn’t like when she had just transferred. She had tried to turn me down that time so she could hide herself away in her shell. This time she turned me down with a gentle, angelic smile. It was simply a result of Mashiro’s kindness.
It was impossible for her to suddenly become one of the Alliance’s founding members, so she couldn’t exactly share in the same memories with us. That was probably why she held back; to give us a chance to reminisce together. So I couldn’t—no, I shouldn’t—push it, I decided.
“She refused you, huh? I can’t imagine Tsukinomori-san turning you down so gracefully back when she was so shy and withdrawn.”
“People can change a lot in a month. You did.”
“Ah, I gotcha. You worked your magic on Tsukinomori-san too, right Aki?”
“Don’t phrase it like that, or—”
“Wee ooh wee ooh! This is the yaoi police! Whazzat about working magic on men?! No way I’m letting such a beautiful sentiment pass!”
We were suddenly joined by a drunk. The needless phrasing and the way she whistled through her fingers were enough to make her seem a real policewoman.
“Don’t just drink your juice and pretend nothing’s happened!” the drunk continued. “Wholesome yaoi is all about the situation! Do it once more, with feeling! Come on!”
“Sh-Shut up, quit pushing, and stay back so I don’t have to smell the alcoholic stink on your breath!” I pushed away the drunken face of Murasaki Shikibu-sensei; Kageishi Sumire-sensei was long gone. “Aww, c’mon. We got two million downloads! Two million! You know how much work I put in? Gimme my reward!”
“Your reward’s gonna be a bonus...paid out in gift cards so that there’s no conflict with your teacher’s income.”
“I don’t want gift cards! Show me the forbidden fruit!”
“Ugh! You’re starting to piss me off. Go back to horny jail and stay there!”
The fact she looked so happy while she drank only annoyed me more. Though I guess I didn’t really have a right to complain. Half the point of this party was for her to have fun. The other half, I was thinking it was about time to announce. My face twisted into a grin, like a host showing his true colors (but then maybe I was prejudiced).
“You’re right, Murasaki Shikibu-sensei. You have put in a lot of work.”
“Aw, coming out with the truth all of a sudden? You’re gonna make me blush!”
“Hey, don’t get carried away. I do a lot for this team too...”
“I know you do, Makigai-sensei,” I said. “You, Ozu—everyone here has done so much.”
But.
“Murasaki Shikibu-sensei, you have your job as a teacher. You’d be in real trouble if they found out you’re an Alliance member. I’m really grateful that you’ve stuck with us despite the risk.” “W-Wait, Aki? Don’t just croon into my ear like that...”
“Where’s that smugness gone? When the real praise starts pouring in, you don’t know what to do, do you? That’s pretty cute...”
“W-W— D-Don’t pull those pick-up lines on me. Flirt with, uh, Mashiro-chan, or Iroha-chan instead.” “I couldn’t do that. You’re the only one for me.”
“You know I only steer the ships! I don’t participate!” Sumire’s voice cracked.
There was an abrupt commotion from the others, who’d been watching me use the deeper tones of my voice to whisper into her ear.
“Hey. You’re getting a bit too close.” Makigai Namako-sensei sounded uncomfortable. Of course he did. To him, it looked like I’d suddenly started flirting with Murasaki Shikibu-sensei.

I obviously wasn’t doing this because I’d suddenly developed a crush on her and wanted to take things to the next level. There was no real feeling to it; I’d just strung together some standard pick-up lines I found online.
It seemed Ozu had already figured out what I was up to, and he turned to the laptop. “Don’t sweat it, Makigai-sensei. I think Aki’s just...” He lowered his voice and finished his explanation. “Oh, I get it. Nice one, Aki. Keep it up.” Far from being uncomfortable, Makigai Namako-sensei was now actively encouraging my behavior.
I knew my best friend and Alliancemate would catch on quickly.
“To thank you for your hard work, I prepared a special bottle of Dom Pérignon for you. Would you like some?”
“Y-Yes!”
The pick-up lines and the temptation of alcohol were a killer combo. She was immediately putty in my hands, and her cheeks were flushed as she stared at the liquid pouring out of the sparkling bottle before her.
“You even got me such high-class liquor. I didn’t know you cared, Aki,” she said between sobs. “That’s right. I wouldn’t do this for anyone else. Go ahead and drink. Take a nice, big gulp.” “Thanks!” Sumire immediately followed my instructions and gasped once she’d swallowed the liquid down. “Those bubbles are intense, but it’s great!”
In a flash, the champagne that had sloshed around in the glass had disappeared into her stomach. The way she drank was true to expectations. She was a heavy drinker, not a heavy thinker. Too bad that sugary words were often laced with poison.
“You drank it?”
“Hm?”
“You drank the most expensive alcohol I’ve got?”
“What’s the matter? Um. You were being so nice to me before. How come you look like you wanna kill me now?”
“Murasaki Shikibu-sensei. I’ve got a favor to ask. And since I’ve been so nice to you, I know you won’t say no.”
“Depends what it is, but I’ll definitely totally consider it!”
“Good. Now...” I placed a hand on her shoulder and gave a smile brighter than all the sparkling stars of nighttime Kabukicho. “You can give me the artwork celebrating two million downloads by the end of the day tomorrow then.”
“AAAAAAAAAAAARGH!”
It was normal for mobile games to celebrate certain events with special illustrations. Though it didn’t apply to Koyagi—a game without a proper advertising policy which the Alliance worked on in our spare time—apparently it rarely happened in the industry that a game’s downloads would come so thick and fast that the developers would miss the milestone.
If we promoted the occasion on the app and social networks just right, it could get people talking, and spread awareness about our game. I was prepared to do anything to get a new illustration out of Murasaki Shikibu-sensei for that very reason!
“You tricked me!”
“Don’t make it sound so serious. Besides, you enjoyed it, didn’t you?”
“That’s exactly what a con man would say!”
“Okay, and? Are you gonna draw me the illustration or not?”
“Ungh... This is so unfair. I don’t have any choice but to say yes, do I?”
“Yes it is, then. Is there a problem?”
“Well, by the end of the day tomorrow? It’s already past nine now, and I’m drunk!” “Right, so you’ve got twenty-seven hours. Plenty of time.”
“I wanna spend those twenty-seven hours doing stuff that isn’t drawing!” Murasaki Shikibu shot back in a whine.
“Everyone’s waiting to see what you come up with, Murasaki Shikibu-sensei.”
“Gngh.”
“Are you gonna let the fans down?”
“Gnnngh.”
“An illustration for two million downloads. Will you do it?”
“I’ll do it!” Tears gathered in her eyes, her teeth were clenched hard together, and her voice came out like I had my hands around her neck. Sumire downed her second glass of champagne. “Don’t drink and cry. Honestly...” I scratched the back of my head with a sigh, at which point Ozu came up to me bearing the laptop.
On the screen was the icon of Makigai Namako, the 05th Floor Alliance’s prestigious writer who had been with us since the very beginning.
“She’s chugging that stuff down even while crying.”
“She complains now, but once she starts drawing, she’ll get super into it. That’s just what she’s like. That’s why Aki knew he could ask that of her, even if it seems kinda unreasonable.” “I get it, yeah. Because you’ve known her for a long time, you know what makes her tick.” I could hear the sigh in Makigai Namako-sensei’s voice, but then his tone got serious again. “Oh, by the way—I’ve been meaning to ask this for a while, actually—is it just me, or has your sister been acting weird, Ozu?” “You noticed, huh?”
You could probably see the ellipses dotted across my face.
I hadn’t mentioned anything about her yet, but there was one more important person attending the Alliance’s party tonight. A girl who made just as much of a ruckus as Murasaki Shikibu-sensei, and who poured our illustrator new drinks whenever she wanted them, just like a perfect little kouhai should. She was Kohinata Ozuma’s little sister, which made her my friend’s little sister.
None of the others knew this, but she was the one who used her voice to breathe life into every character of Koyagi: When They Cry, an All-in-One and One-in-All voice actress.
Kohinata Iroha, my kouhai who had it in for me and me alone.
You may be wondering why, if she was attending the party, she hadn’t featured anywhere yet, but she actually did have a spoken line a little bit ago. She said, “Cheers.” After that, she said nothing at all, and instead sat hugging her knees in the corner and sipping her tomato juice and hiding behind her golden hair. I swear to you it was her, even if her actions were totally contradicting her usual personality right now.
“What?” Having sensed our glares, Iroha was now glaring at us with suspicion.
I gulped. “I just thought, it’s rare for you to be in a bad mood like this, huh?”
“I’m not in a bad mood.”
“Actions speak louder than words. You’re usually bright and sociable, but I can see the dark aura coming off of you. What’s up?”
“Shut up. Leave me alone and let me drink in peace.”
I could feel the spurt of blood as her sharp words pierced my heart. Sharp and cold. So cold. Usually she clung to me way past the point of being annoying. Why was she being so mean today? And why was it oddly familiar?
“There’s something wrong with Iroha. She’s totally acting like Mashiro...”
“That’s it!” I was just coming back from having my heart torn to shreds by Iroha when Makigai Namako-sensei’s comment hit the nail on the head. Iroha was acting exactly like Mashiro. “Mashiro’s been so much sweeter lately that I didn’t make the connection at first. I’m surprised you figured it out before me, since you don’t interact with her that often.”
“Huh?! Oh, well, of course I’d notice. Writers need to be good at observing people.” “Ah, makes sense.”
That aside, Iroha’s weird behavior had me genuinely worried. Especially after Ozu had brought it up at school. If something was upsetting her, I wanted to cheer her up, but I didn’t know what it was, which made talking to her when she was already gloomy a risk. If only I had a little more information, I thought, when—
“Hey, hey, hey, hey! You’re looking a little down in the dumps, Iroha-chan!”
Oh my God, Murasaki Shikibu-sensei, no!
Totally illiterate when it came to reading social situations, Sumire crashed backwards through the walls Iroha had put up around herself, plumped down next to her, and began nuzzling her with a cheek. “You reek of alcohol. Stay away. Or I’ll snap.”
“Aww! You’re being so cold, Iroha-chan! That sounds like stuff Mashiro-chan would say!” “Hmph.”
“Hey! Hey, hey, hey! Look at meee!”
But Iroha had stopped reacting altogether.
I understood how annoying Shikibu could be more than anyone, but to totally shut down was so unlike Iroha—yet completely like Mashiro.
“Aki!” Sumire wailed. “Iroha-chan’s bullying me! Lemme cry on your shoulder!”
“Yeah, yeah, poor you.”
“Poor me! She said I reeked of alcohol! That’s slander! Poor, poor me!”
“Actually, it has to be false to be slander.”
“Stop being so logical! My feelings hurt so bad! Can I get an extension on my deadline?!” “That reminds me, I learned about a new pressure point the other day. Want me to show you?” “I was kidding sorry I’ll draw the illustration just please don’t go after my pressure points!” Sumire wept, pressing her forehead into the floor as she bowed before me.
It may have seemed like a weird apology, but it was normal for her, so there wasn’t much for me to comment on. Iroha was the one who wasn’t being normal right now, and she was the one I was worried about.
“Hey, Iroha—”
“How many times do I need to tell you to leave me alone before you’ll actually do it? Do you have slugs for brains?”
“Apologies. I’ll stop now.”
No matter how I tried to address her, this was what she’d come back with. Fortunately, everyone at the party was used to Mashiro, so having somebody prickly around wasn’t disturbing the mood at all. Ozu, Sumire, Makigai Namako-sensei, and I all knew that that sort of attitude was just an individual thing, so we didn’t take it personally. No one was getting mad at her mysterious coldness. We were simply worried because it was out of character for her.
“Maybe she’s playing Tsukinomori-san. Y’know, like a character in a play?” Ozu said. “Huh? But what for?”
“Dunno. Maybe she’s mourning her absence.”
“I...guess it could be. Rest in peace, Mashiro. But I mean, what would be the point? And at a party of
all places?”
“That’s where my theory falls apart, huh?”
Not even her own brother was able to work out what was going on.
In the end, Iroha spent the entire party in that unsociable mood, even when everyone was leaving. The anxious question marks were still floating above my head by the time I was alone and in bed. Please let Iroha be back to her normal self tomorrow...
***
I don’t know how long I actually slept for, but it felt like days. There was just so much information that needed sifting through in my head that my consciousness seemed to sink to the deepest depths of its dreams. Only when I started feeling a strange shaking sensation did it start to return, like bubbles rising to the surface.
Shake, shake.
The sensation began around my stomach, like waves rippling through it. Was this how it felt to be a dad sleeping on his day off when his kid started shaking him and pestering him to play? But I couldn’t imagine a future where I was married with kids.
Shake, shake.
I didn’t even know any girls who would want to marry me.
Shake, shake.
Wait, I guess there was Mashiro—she liked me. If I married her, though, I’d be spending all my mental capacity on trying to avoid upsetting her every day.
Shake, shake.
There were other girls I knew too. Sumire, Midori, Otoi-san... But with their strong “personalities,” I couldn’t imagine ending up with any of them.
Shake, shake.
Then there was Iroha, but—
Shake, shake.
—marrying her would completely change our current relationship, so—
Grind, grind.
—Wait, what was this weird pressing sensation on my body?
“Ack!”
My consciousness was switched back on just like that.
I opened my eyes to the sunlight streaming in through the window, but its brightness made me squeeze them shut again.
“You’re so lazy, honestly. How long are you planning to sleep for, exactly?”
“Hnrgh?”
I could feel a strange weight on my abdomen. I tried to lift my neck to see its source. My sight was still blurry with sleep, and I struggled to distinguish between shapes. As the seconds passed, my regular vision returned, and I was gradually able to make out a face.
“It takes bears literal seconds to be woken up by their zookeepers. Looks like you’re even lower than one of them.” Those words had all the stringent toxicity of a cruel queen. “If you can’t even wake up by yourself, you’re going to crash and burn when you enter society.”
“You’re overreacting,” I mumbled.
“Talking back, are we? You know I’m in a position to crush your organs under my foot, don’t you?” Unperturbed by my remark, she pushed harder on my stomach with what was apparently her foot.

This girl seemed to be sadistic enough to step on a guy while he was asleep. Her voice was identical to that mature tone I never normally heard outside of the classroom.
I’d expected to be met with a disgusted gaze from a purple-haired teacher in a stylish suit and dark tights, a sight that any hardcore masochist would thirst for. But the female in front of me wasn’t the woman from two doors down coming in for a sexy night-visit. The first clue was that she wasn’t wearing dark tights; she was bare-legged.
“What are you spacing out over? Say something. Oink, pig.”
“What are you doing, Iroha?”
It was my friend’s little sister from next door, dressed in her uniform and, as usual, without socks. She was the one stepping on me. She looked disgusted, and the fact that it was a high schooler and not a teacher probably wouldn’t change the joy felt by any masochist in my situation.
Iroha didn’t usually do stuff like this, and more than concerned for my organs, I was confused. Was she trying to annoy me in a fresh new way?
She wasn’t saying anything.
“Iroha?”
She was just looking down at me in silence. The coldness in her eyes was just like Kageishi Sumire’s when she was in her Venomous Queen mode.
Because I knew Sumire’s true nature, that look never scared me. It actually exasperated me because I had full knowledge of the trash that lay within. Now that Iroha was perfectly recreating that gaze, I realized just how terrifying it could actually be. This was the pressure the rest of the class felt on a daily basis.
So I, the pig, stared back at the queen in silence for a few moments.
“Nothing to say?”
“Huh?”
“You answer perfectly well to Sumire-sensei, don’t you? You get mad at her, and turn the tables by going after her pressure points. Why not try it out now, Ooboshi-kun?”
“Sorry, I seriously can’t keep up with— Wait.”
A light bulb suddenly sprang to life in my head.
Yesterday she was Mashiro. Today she was Sumire. What if she was totally becoming every girl who was close to me, speech quirks and all? Given Iroha’s personality, there was only one reason she’d do that.
“I get it! This is all acting practice!”
“What?”
“When you act, you imagine the entire life of that character. The better your imagination, the stronger your acting skills.”
“Huuuh?”
“Koyagi’s two million downloads has made you want to develop your acting skills even further.” “Um. No.”
The enthusiasm from the voice actor under my direction warmed my heart so much that tears welled up in my eyes.
“So it’s true. Geniuses can’t just sit on their talents. Even a genius keeps working hard to develop their talents.”
“Um. Sure.”
“God, you had me worried. You should’ve just told me this was all training to bring you to new heights.”
Iroha stayed silent.
“But yeah, it all makes sense now. Okay. I’ll help you out with your practice.” As a passionate fire burned in my chest, I shot her a thumbs-up. “Let’s get you to the peak of your voice-acting potential together!”
“There’s nothing more pathetic than getting stepped on, yet you’re spouting cool lines with your thumb in the air. Also, you’ve got it totally wrong.”
“You could’ve said that several lines ago.”
She let me get all excited over nothing and pushed me way past the peak of embarrassment. And as she’d just pointed out to me, she was still stepping on me.
“That wasn’t right...” Iroha sighed, took her foot away, and jumped off the bed. Something about my reaction seemed to have disappointed her. “It’s not gonna work properly if he doesn’t respond like he would to Sumire-chan-sensei...”
“What are you muttering about?”
“Hm? Nothing.”
“It’s definitely something. You’ve been weird since yesterday.”
“Girls have a lot of complicated troubles. Not that a virgin like you’d understand.” Iroha sighed. “Must take some talent to bully me while sounding so depressed.”
The bullying was normal, but it was without its usual snappiness. Iroha didn’t respond to my quip. Instead, she left the bedroom while still muttering to herself.
What the hell was going on with her? I didn’t have a single clue.
There had been times when she acted strange in the past, but this time her actions seemed completely chaotic. She seemed seriously upset about something, but that wouldn’t make normal people barge into someone else’s room and pretend to be Sumire, all while stepping on them in the process.
If she had come in here and giggled, claiming she was treating me like a pig because she was depressed, I would naturally have punched her in the stomach. It would’ve at least fit her personality to a T, and then I wouldn’t feel so worried.
What on earth had happened to her?
***
“Hey, Ozu! Iroha isn’t being annoying enough! You know, that annoying side of her that’s also cute?! I need more of it!”
“Wait a second, Aki, I’m the one who’s supposed to speak on behalf of the reader...”
Interlude: Kohinata and Tomosaka-san
I left the apartment building and headed for school alone. I felt kinda bad leaving Senpai behind without an explanation, but I really didn’t feel like spending too much time with him right now. Sorry, Senpai.
It was still a little early. The roads were quiet. I walked along the quaint pathways—mostly free of people and the sounds of car engines—my head filled with thought.
I don’t get it.
I’d followed Otoi-san’s advice. Yesterday I had been Mashiro-senpai, and this morning I was Sumire chan-sensei, but things weren’t working out like I’d hoped. I thought that, by becoming the other girls, I could experience how Senpai treated them for myself. But even when I treated him as cold as Mashiro senpai did, I still didn’t understand how he felt about her.
This morning, I waited for him to react to me like he usually did to Sumire-chan-sensei, but that never happened.
I guess it didn’t matter how good my acting was. Senpai would only see me for me. It made sense. I still looked like me, and I couldn’t do anything about that. Since it had come from Otoi-san, who was super mature, I thought it’d be a good idea, but in hindsight, I might’ve been acting like an idiot this entire time.
Okay, that’s it! It’s time to stop thinking!
It was Senpai himself who taught me that steady effort was the key to everything. I’d never get anywhere if I gave up just because things weren’t going as great as I’d hoped. I could kinda already sense that this was probably gonna end in failure, but I had plenty of time to decide later. After I’d tried becoming the girls closest to him.
Besides, this was about more than just knowing how Senpai saw those girls. These were the girls who the guy I liked had influenced positively. It was important to get a deeper understanding of their personalities; then I could face my own feelings and decide what I wanted to do with them. “Who should I go for next?”
“That’s a weird thing to mutter to yourself.”
“Ah!”
A sudden voice right by my ear had my vocal cords practically flying out of my mouth. When I was done jumping, I turned and saw the girl who annoyed me to the very depths of my soul. Her brown hair was brought together in a stylish side ponytail. Her uniform looked messy at first glance, but on closer inspection, you could see that effort had been put in to strike a perfect balance between messy and acceptable.
It was Tomosaka Sasara from my class. “Tomosaka-san” to her face, but just “Tomosaka Sasara” in my mind.
“Tomosaka-san! What a surprise to see you here on the way to school.” I gave her my sweetest honor student smile.
Honestly, I didn’t know how to deal with her.
At school, I tried to be nice to everyone. I tried to avoid any fighting, but I also kept a polite distance from others. I was basically trying to be a true neutral honor student, but she always tried to break down my facade, all without a semblance of guilt.
I never wanted to compete with anyone in the classroom, but she always challenged me without taking no for an answer. I’m also human, and even I get frustrated and annoyed. She used that to draw out my competitive side. It was so, so, so annoying, the way she always tried to make me look bad, and how she’d push me inches from going off at her.
My cheeks were actually twitching a little this very moment.
“Your timing was so perfect, I’d almost think you were stalking me,” I said. “That’s sort of creepy.” “You’re making it sound so bad! I just happened to see you on my way to school, so I decided to come talk to you.”
“You live around here?”
“Other side of the station.”
“Wait, you really are a stalker?” I was a little taken aback. I knew she’d taken notice of me, but I didn’t realize it went this far.
“I’m not a stalker!” Tears welled up in Tomosaka Sasara’s eyes. “This route just has a nice view; that’s all! There’s the way the morning sun shines through here, and how there’s no one else around!” “A nice view?”
“What’s wrong with that?! I use Pinsta like everyone else, y’know! Look.”
“Oh.”
Pinsta. Or Pinstagram. A social network where you could take photos with your phone, edit them to look all nice, and then upload them to get likes and followers. I’d never touched it myself, but it seemed to be all the rage with girls these days.
The photo on her phone’s screen showed the morning light shining through a backstreet. If I remembered right, there was a road nearby with lots of night business on it, including a bar Sumire-chan-sensei liked to visit. The pink signage stood out at night and looked anything but
respectable. But in Tomosaka Sasara’s photo, it actually looked pretty. I found myself sighing. There were tons of thumbnails with different photos on her homepage. This wasn’t an account she’d just started yesterday or this morning.
“That’s a lot of photos you’ve got there. And—wait. A million followers?!” I was so shocked at the number I raised my voice.
Tomosaka Sasara’s eyes glistened like a cat’s. “Oh, whoops! You saw that, huh? I’m actually a super famous influencer on Pinstagram and I don’t wanna get doxxed, so I’ve been keeping it a secret, but now you’ve seen it. Oh no!”
Her acting skills could use some real work. I was on the path to becoming an actor myself (even if I was taking the long way round), so I thought about saying something. Because there was no point to it, I decided against it.
“So you’re a popular Pinstagrammer. That’s cool!”
“Oh, stop! ‘Super popular’? Aww, I’m blushing! Heh heh!”
Both the way she wore a carefree smile while she gushed about why she was so great, and the way she shamelessly exaggerated the praise I gave her set me on edge. I found it so hard to deal with her on a very instinctual level.
“Hey, Kohinata. You should get a Pinsta account.”
“I need to go this way. I’ll see you later!”
“Wait! Why are you ignoring me?! And whaddya mean ‘this way’?! We go to the same school!” I clicked my tongue quietly so she wouldn’t hear. She got me. I didn’t want to go all the way to school with her, but being too obvious about shaking her off would be out of character for honor student Iroha. I’d need to play it safe.
“Sorry! I was just kidding.”
“Well, I’m not laughing! Y’know, I think you’re secretly a big meanie, Kohinata.”
“What? That’s not a very nice thing to say.” I smiled at her. I was pretty good at brushing things off like that when people were getting too close to the truth.
If she thought I was that mean, then why couldn’t she just leave me alone? Why was she walking next to me? I seriously couldn’t understand how her brain worked.
“Whatever. Anyway, Pinsta. You should join!”
“Hmm. I don’t really have any photos I’d want to upload.”
“You could just put up some selfies. Just snap some quick when you’re all dressed up and ready to go out on the weekend or something.”
“I don’t really ‘go out.’”
I spent most weekends hanging around Senpai’s place in loungewear. I had clothes for going out, but I didn’t put too much effort into being fashionable. I know teenage girls are supposed to be into that kind of thing, but I wasn’t. I don’t really know what else to tell you.
“Now you’re nitpicking. If you start Pinsta, we can compete with each other! We could see who’d win: you, or me and my million followers.”
“It wouldn’t be a competition. You just want to get one up on me...”
“So?”
“At least deny it.”
I wasn’t sure I’d ever met anyone who was so eager and open about asserting dominance over me. It might be interesting to see who could win if we went head to head on equal footing, but that didn’t make her any less annoying.
“If you don’t want to start because you don’t really get it, I can teach you.”
“No, I’m not really—”
—interested, I was going to say, but the reply stuck in my throat. Tomosaka Sasara’s eyes were sparkling like a dog who wanted me to throw a Frisbee, and I could almost see an invisible tail wagging wildly back and forth like a metronome.
She really wants to talk about Pinsta, huh? Badly.
If I brushed the subject away, she’d get upset. That thought was enough to make me want to show some interest to appease her—which was strange, because I didn’t really like her all that much. If Senpai could read my thoughts right now, I was sure he’d criticize me for my inefficiency. “A million followers is an incredible number. How did you get that many?”
“Well!” There was a real bounce to her voice. She must’ve really wanted to tell me, because the second I asked my question, she came back with a reply faster than a fish getting snapped up by a shark. “I joined in junior high and just uploaded now and again. It was kinda frustrating at first because I got no views at all, but then the more I took, the more I got a sense for what kinda photos were gonna get me the most likes!”
“You kept going out of frustration? Hm, that’s not a bad attitude to have.”
I was genuinely impressed. I’d spent a lot of time close to someone who worried daily about how to get his game more downloads, and I could kind of see how the two situations overlapped. “Now I’m one of the biggest influencers out there. My fashion, photos, food, all of it just screams charisma! It’s all stuff that I get from just being out on the go.”
All I could do was let out a dry laugh. It was almost refreshing to see someone so capable of talking big about themselves. I was even a little jealous, to be honest. She was totally free to express herself to this extent. The way she shone without anything holding her back made her like a jewel in a locked showcase to me.
“I didn’t know any of this about you. If everyone in our class knew you were this famous, you’d probably get really popular.”
Then she could get all the validation she needed for that massive ego of hers and stop harassing me over random things. A strange expression crossed her face then, one that was hard to describe. “What?” I asked. “What’s that weird look for?”
“Oh, I was just thinking that you’re totally right. Ha ha. Aha ha ha!”
“Hm?”
“I’d love for everyone to know. I would! But I use a pseudonym, so no one’s ever figured it out. And I bet they wouldn’t believe me.”
“Oh, I see.” I looked at the phone she held out to me. “‘SARA.’ Right.”
Her username was just a distorted version of her real name. The use of romanized letters reminded me of those people who worship all things American and think New York is a paradise. I then remembered her brother. I think his name was Chatarou-kun. She’d called him “Charo,” with an American intonation and everything. Poor kid, having to put up with his sister’s weird interests. Namu Amida Butsu. May Buddha look after your soul.
“Huh?”
During my silent prayer, I suddenly noticed something odd about SARA’s page. Her profile picture was a close-up of her face and her hand shooting a peace sign, but there was just...something weird about it. It just looked different from the Tomosaka Sasara standing in front of me, different enough to remind me of the tagline of a horror movie I watched at Senpai’s house once.
I might not have been on social media, but I was still a girl. Even I could figure out why the photo didn’t match reality.
“This photo’s edited so much, it looks like a completely different person.”
“What? How?” She looked genuinely confused. It was almost scary how much self-awareness she was lacking. Maybe she thought that was how she actually looked in real life.
It was probably that app, SMOW. It was the most popular photo-editing app among girls right now, and boasted that it could make even a sumo wrestler look skinny. It was only natural for her to use something like that to make herself look prettier, and I wasn’t mean enough to step in and crush her dreams.
Still, with this, it was no surprise no one in our class realized it was her. Her name was different and her face was edited; at best they might think it looked like her. Again, I wasn’t mean enough to point it out.
“Why don’t you tell your friends about your account if you want them to know? You don’t need to just sit around and wait for them to notice.”
“No way. That’d make it look like I wanted them to find it, which is just cringe.”
“But you do.”
“Well, yeah! But I want them to find it because I’m so super charismatic that I can’t hide it, not because I just told them!”
Oh my God, who even cares this much?
“You probably shouldn’t have told me then.”
“You don’t count. I told you ’cause I wanna compete with you, not ’cause I want you to drown me in attention.”
“I kind of get it, but also don’t. The way social media enthusiasts think is way too complex for me.” I paused. “Wait.”
I smiled thinly, trying to make it sound like I was complimenting her at least. It was a little mean spirited even for me, but as I spoke, a single face suddenly popped into my head. A small girl with a cute face, who liked to dress in lolita fashion. The super idol-slash-editor from UZA Bunko, who worked with both Mashiro-senpai and Makigai Namako-sensei: seventeen-year-old Kiraboshi Canary. Thinking about it, she was also a female with a deep connection to Senpai.
We’d only met her this summer, but she was a talented director, the same as Senpai. She had assigned him a task to overcome like he was her student, and I’d bet she took up just as much of his thoughts as the rest of the Alliance—if not more.
What was more, she had an intense personality. That would make it difficult to understand her thought process, so if I was going to be her in front of Senpai, I’d need to get some practice in first. As luck would have it, here was someone with a strong social media presence right in front of me. “Tomosaka-san. Will you teach me about Pinsta?”
“Oh! You’re interested now?” She laughed. “Good. Good! I’ll show you just how much better I am at it than you!”
“Ha ha. Thanks.”
As I gave my answer, I was already inwardly preparing myself for becoming Kiraboshi Canary. All I needed was to absorb some social media knowledge from Tomosaka Sasara, and I’d probably be able to pull off a pretty accurate representation. I let myself fall deep, deep into my own consciousness on a journey to search for this new role that I knew was hiding in there somewhere.