"I don't understand a word you're saying, Maki!"

Tohko stood up, her face bright red.

"Besides which, Konoha is my underclassman, so I'd appreciate it if the president of the orchestra didn't take him around with her wherever she pleases."

Maki grinned slyly.

"Oh no, are you jealous?"

"No! As his president, I have a responsibility to protect Konoha so bad people don't reel him in and lead him into immoral conduct. Konoha's mother even asked me to keep him out of trouble!"

My mother asked her to...? That was just something people said to their kids' friends!

And "lead him into immoral conduct"? What decade did she think this was that I was an at-risk youth?

Hearing the contentious voices, the people in the mansion began to gather and listen in. This was more embarrassment than I could stand. And being glared at by Uotani's cold eyes made me uncomfortable.

"You were sound asleep, so I didn't tell you. Besides, just going to town for a little bit isn't immoral conduct."

Tohko pulled her mouth into a frown and looked at me unhappily.

Maki took the opening.

"That's right, Konoha. We had SUCH fun. We should go on another date."

She even gave me a saucy wink to provoke Tohko.

Tohko stamped her foot.

"Oh, I see! I'm so glad you had fun! I got the chance to read at the front door with some quiet, too, and it was so, so, SO pleasant and cool and SO MUCH FUN!"

Exactly how long had she been in the doorway?

After Tohko had lashed out like a little kid, she whirled around, turning her back on us, and stomped off.

Beside me, Maki was holding her sides and laughing.

As I passed by her, Uotani launched a shot at me-"You're foul"-and I snuck back to my room.

While I worried over whether something in my fortune said I would have trouble with women, I wrote an improv story on a piece of lined paper and took it with me to Tohko's room.

I knocked on the door and called, "Tohko, it's me."

There was no answer. Nearly an hour had gone by since it all happened, but I guess she was still mad.

"I'm coming in."

When I turned the handle and opened the door, I saw her long braids and small back.

It looked like she was sitting on an antique chair with her knees pulled up to her chest, reading. The book resting on her knees had an old and yellowed binding. She'd probably taken it from the shelves.

As proof that she'd heard my voice, the instant I stepped in, her shoulders twitched slightly.

But she continued her stubborn silence.

"That's from the library, right?"

When I spoke over her shoulder, she twitched again.

I caaaaarefully looked at her bent profile and saw that she wasn't pouting.

In place of the expression of rage, her eyebrows hung down slightly, her mouth was pressed into a frown, and she wore a dejected, embarrassed, troubled look.

She probably regretted losing her temper and ranting in front of everyone. She might have wanted to make up but couldn't come up with a good opening to say so.

Sometimes Maika would hug her knees with this same look.

Geez...and Tohko was way older than Maika, too.

Compared to Maki or Kotobuki, Tohko was easy to understand.

And, I thought, because of that I was able to be with her even though she'd jerked me around like crazy and caused me all kinds of problems up till now.

Because she was someone who could easily say, "I'm sorry" or "Thank you."

I peeked down at the page from behind her and read it out loud.

"...I carry one secret in my heart, you see. Rumors have it that anesthesia makes one speak deliriously, and so I fear the consequences."

"Eek!"

Tohko jumped and turned around. When our eyes met, she turned visibly redder.

"Old writing really is tough to read. What book is that?"

Her face still red, Tohko answered, fidgeting, "'The Surgery Room,' by Kyka. It's a short story that was published in 1895-the twenty-eighth year of the Meiji emperor's reign-and it got good reviews and introduced Kyka to the world."

Leaving my hands on the back of the chair, I moved beside Tohko and listened. She still seemed a little embarrassed, but her voice told the story without hesitation. The air that enfolded us changed to a gentle golden color.

"The doctor, Takamine, is put in the position of performing surgery on a beautiful countess. But she refuses to use anesthesia and asks him to simply cut into her. She tells him that she has a secret and since she's so consumed by it, if she becomes disoriented with anesthesia, she's sure that she'll talk about it. Takamine listens to her request and presses his scalpel into the countess's chest..."

Tohko suddenly lowered her eyelashes and bowed her head.

Her face reminded me of the sad look I'd seen at dawn and my heart skipped.

"What happens to her?"

"...She grabs onto Takamine's arm, lays her hand on the scalpel, and slits her own chest open. Appealing to him, 'You will not know me.'

"That instant, Takamine says, 'I'll never forget you.'"

Tohko's lips trembled slightly.

Her fingers tightened on the book and the tips of her nails turned white.

A sharp impact ran through me, as if I, too, had been stabbed in the chest with a scalpel.

"You will not know me."

"A contented, innocent smile came over the countess's face and she breathed her last.

"In fact, nine years earlier the two had encountered each other only once-without ever exchanging a word for only the briefest of moments. And in that one moment, they were drawn to each other... They fell in love and kept their feelings secret in their hearts.

"Though probably neither one of them ever considered that the other knew of them...

"They were both unable to forget that time like a momentary dream.

"It's like a well-chilled pear wine... The words and the story are crystalline and ephemeral...

"The faint fragrance of flowers stays in my mouth a long time, and it's so melancholy that I end up reading the same part over and over."

Tohko's eyes were still lowered dejectedly.

The feeling of the story had probably transferred to her more than usual.

But it could just be that the book belonged to someone else and was past its expiration date, so she felt bad that she couldn't eat it.

I dangled the improv story I'd just written in front of her.

"How about some dinner? Unfortunately it doesn't taste like pears, though."

Tohko's eyes went wide.

With the Kyka book still resting on her knees, she touched the edges of the paper with both hands, then turned her face to me and smiled like a flower blooming.

"Thank you, Konoha. I will! And I'm sorry I got angry before."

My heart grew warm as if a flower had bloomed there, too.

With the words thank you, I had become happy, and with the words I'm sorry, I had forgiven her unavoidably.

It had always been that way.

While Tohko was telling me, "I haven't had anything to eat since I binged on the leftovers of Tonio Kroger for lunch, so I'm starving," she happily ripped the lined paper up and started eating it crnch-crnch, flp-flp.

"Oooh, it tastes like lettuce and salmon fried rice! Everyone works together to make a movie for the culture fair. What were your prompts?"

"'Culture fair,' 'film,' and 'applause.'"

"Oh, it's got such youth; it's so virtuous. Ohhh, the lettuce has such nice texture; it's so juicy and delicious. The fried rice is crispy, too, and was cooked really well. And even though the salmon is salty, it has some sweetness, and the salmon roe sprinkled on top pops on your tongue, pop! pop!"

Tohko kept eating all the way to the second page euphorically, saying how delicious it was, but when she got to the third page, her face grew progressively tenser.

"Um...why does a hand suddenly come out of the screen? And a bunch of them at that, all wriggling around. Urgggh, it had a refreshing taste like soy sauce before, but now it suddenly tastes as if the rice was cooked in pepper. Ack, the lettuce turned into watermelooooon! The salmon turned into fried octopuuuuus! The salmon roe turned into cherry jaaaaam! It's all stickyyyyy! The audience shook hands with the hands that came out of the screen and got all their life sucked oooooout."

She finished eating the last bite with a snuffle, and resting her face on the back of the chair, she fell limp.

Well, you could call it fair payback. My neck still hurt from Tohko kicking it that morning. But since I'd done it after she'd thanked me so joyously, my chest hurt just a little bit.

"You're awful-awful!-Konoha! It tasted so good at the beginning. Going out with Maki really did make you turn bad!" Tohko declared outright, glowering at me tearfully.

"I've only been writing stories without problems in them lately, so isn't it nice to get some stimulation? Plus, this has nothing to do with Maki. She just forced me to be her bodyguard today."

"Oh! What an awful girl."

"How can you say that?"

I was frustrated because it was the same thing she always did, but Tohko leaned over the back of the chair and brought her pouting face close to mine.

"What did you talk about with Maki? Where did you go? What did you do? What did she do to you? I won't get angry, so tell your honored president without holding anything back!"

"Your eyes already look pretty terrifying."

"...Well, you can't have a girlfriend that I haven't met and approved of! I'm going to be thorough and hold a first interview, a second interview, a third interview, and a final interview! Maki doesn't pass the document check. If you date a girl like that, she'll suck the life out of you and you'll turn into a doddering old man before you know it," she declared, rattling the chair.

"If you do interviews like that, I'll quit letting you be my president!"

I just wished she would calm down. I fought back a headache and talked about the afternoon's events.

About the office, about Maki's grandfather, about her birthmark, about Shirayuki.

About how sad she'd seemed when I mentioned Amemiya.

When I'd finished telling her everything, Tohko pulled her face into a frown and complained.

"Urgh...she's definitely planning something, that blackguard. Argggggh...I mean, she never tells you the most important things and she uses people and it drives me crazy."

She stood up and started grumbling as she paced around.

"If I have a request, don't use a loan as grounds to chain me into something or flash meaningful puzzles at me! I wish I could just ask her nicely to help me out. But all she does is hide things, and she never lets on about the important stuff, so all I can do is look for it on my own.

"Otherwise, I don't know what Maki is hoping I'll be able to imagine. This is so inefficient!"

Tohko...you always avoid Maki and bad-mouth her, but really you worry about her.

"That's what you meant about digging up dirt, huh?"

"N-no! I just want to innocently get some dirt on Maki and for her to feel her lifelong indebtedness and call me queen. Even while you left me behind to go out with a girl like Maki, I was advancing the investigation. I wasn't just waiting at the door for you to come back, okay? I swear," she declared fervently.