Chapter 71: The Meeting
“Ah—the summer vacation dates have finally been set!”
“Yeah, July 4th! Just five more days until we’re finally free!”
The moment the official summer vacation dates were announced, a restless, almost feverish energy, a palpable thrum of anticipation, began to fill every corner of Suzaku High.
Nakamori Manatsu and Yomikawa Tsuko were in their classroom, discussing the upcoming holiday. It was clear that even the usually timid Nakamori Manatsu was quite excited about the approaching break; the pitch of her voice was noticeably higher, more animated, than usual.
“So, Tsuko-chan,” Manatsu said, suddenly leaning in close, an interested expression on her face, “do you have any special plans for the vacation?” Yomikawa’s family was famously well-off; that was a fact well-known to all the students, and Nakamori Manatsu was no exception.
“Vacation…” Yomikawa mused, her voice a careful blend of casualness and enthusiasm. “I’ll probably be traveling. With the others from the club, actually. We already discussed it yesterday. May be we'll go to Mie Island to have some fun, and while we’re there, perhaps do a little… investigation… into some of the local culture and legends.”
“You’re even doing club activities during the summer vacation? You’re so incredibly dedicated to your hobby, Tsuko-chan. But since it’s an island, there must be beaches and places like that, right? That sounds so nice. I’d love to see you in a swimsuit, Tsuko-chan.”
Unlike the others in the club, when Nakamori Manatsu said this, it seemed to be just a conventional, almost obligatory pleasantry. Yomikawa didn’t get the sense that she was being particularly sincere.
And sure enough, the topic immediately, and with a practiced smoothness, shifted to a more somber direction. She asked, her voice dropping slightly, “It’s been a while since Kimura-kun from the ‘Sleepwalker’ incident went missing, hasn’t it? It seems he still hasn’t been found. Everyone at school is saying he’s been ‘spirited away’ by the gods. Weren’t you guys in the club investigating that? Did you find anything out in the end?”
“Well, the police haven’t found anything. What could we possibly know that they don’t?”
“Hmm, that’s true,” Nakamori Manatsu said, pursing her lips. “I just… I feel like our society is getting more and more unsafe these days. It’s one thing for adults, but even high school students like us are often in danger. Really scary when you think about it.”
Hearing her say this, Yomikawa Tsuko suddenly turned her head and smiled, a strange light lingering in her eyes. “We’re just living our normal, everyday lives. It should be fine, right? Speaking of which, Manatsu-san, you’re as timid as ever. I remember that time someone was following me, you were trembling with fear then too, weren’t you?”
“Th-that time…” Nakamori Manatsu let out a forced, brittle laugh. “But you were so brave and calm then, Tsuko-chan. So, so cool. You even had a small knife with you, for protection right?”
“I didn’t realize you were so frightened at the time. I’m terribly sorry. I just thought you were… nervous, or something. I was overthinking things,” Yomikawa Tsuko said with a light, easy laugh, but her eyes were cold, sharp, and carefully observing Nakamori Manatsu’s every reaction.
“Nervous? Of course, I was nervous too! After all, you were holding a knife, Tsuko-chan. The way you looked, it was so fierce… that man seemed more like the victim than the perpetrator. If the mall security had seen us, who knows what would have happened,” Nakamori Manatsu said, as if she had been transported back to the tension of that day’s scene, a look of genuine, lingering fear on her face.
Yomikawa watched her for a long, silent moment, but couldn’t detect anything amiss, no hint of deception. She then, with a seemingly impulsive warmth, extended an invitation. “Manatsu-san, do you have any plans for the summer vacation? Would you like to come to Mie Island with us? I hear the local culture there is very interesting, and the scenery is absolutely beautiful. If we stay in a guest house, it should be quite cheap.”
“Eh? Eh-eh-eh? Tsuko-chan, are you… are you asking me to go with you and your club?” The invitation clearly caught Nakamori Manatsu completely by surprise. For a moment, she didn’t know whether to refuse. “But… but I don’t know everyone in your club…”
“What does that matter? It’s not like it’s a super formal, serious club activity. We can just treat it as a vacation trip, can’t we? Besides, I’ll be the only upperclassman there, looking after those younger ones. It’s a bit much for me to handle on my own. How about you come and help me out, Manatsu-san?”
From a purely etiquette standpoint, to extend such an invitation without first inquiring about the other person’s pre-existing vacation plans was undoubtedly putting them on the spot, a rather forceful social maneuver. But if the target was Nakamori Manatsu, with her timid, people-pleasing personality, it was a different matter. Yomikawa had read through many of their previous chat logs. She knew that if she pressed the issue, if she was insistent enough, Nakamori Manatsu was highly unlikely to refuse.
“W-well, that’s true, but… but…”
“Please, Manatsu-san? For me?”
“W-well… I’ll… I’ll think about it.”
In the end, although Yomikawa Tsuko didn’t achieve her goal directly, if Nakamori Manatsu said she would “think about it,” then with a little more carefully applied pressure later on, the outcome was all but certain.
“You’re the best, Manatsu-san! I love you!” After forcing out these words with a voice so sweet, so cloying, that it made her feel physically ill, Yomikawa Tsuko smoothly, gracefully, stood up. “It’s about time. I have to go to the club now. See you tomorrow, Manatsu-san!”
Nakamori Manatsu looked up at her, her expression almost pitiful, and weakly raised a hand to wave goodbye, as if she had just been thoroughly, and irrevocably, bullied into submission.
Going to the club was, of course, just an excuse. She only made a brief, perfunctory appearance, and then, without organizing any club activities, she hurried home to work on her most important, and most time-sensitive, task: fabricating the diary.
She had already told Kishida Masayoshi that she would give him the next portion of the diary over the weekend. But Yomikawa Tsuko, ever the meticulous planner, had decided to move up the timeline, to take care of it after school on Friday.
The reason was simple, and deeply unsettling.
The time for the sixth wish to be fulfilled was fast approaching.
She had swapped faces with Senpai on June 9th.
Hanako’s sixth wish, according to the legend, was to be enacted on the twenty-first day after the face-swap.
Which was June 29th.
And that day… was a Friday.
The legend recorded that Hanako’s sixth wish was to be able to bear an outstanding child with Natsuhime’s bloodline.
But the reality, her own lived, and deeply traumatic, experience, was that this exchange, this fundamental alteration of her being, had already been realized on the fourteenth day, as the fifth wish. It had happened a full week earlier than the legend had foretold.
And so, the terrifying and currently unanswerable question arose: what, then, was the true sixth wish?
Yomikawa Tsuko had no way of knowing, and no way of guessing.
If it were some minor, insignificant change, like the previous ones with her hair or skin, it would be of little consequence. It wouldn’t affect her plans at all.
But if it was a significant, fundamental change, like the one that had cursed her with these new, chaotic emotions, it was very possible that on the day after the exchange, she would be unable to act according to her original plan. Like when she had gained the capacity for fear, for grief. If it hadn’t been raining on that fateful day, if she had gone out directly with the others from the club… she would have likely been exposed immediately.
Therefore, as a simple, logical precaution, it was better to give the diary to Kishida Masayoshi on Friday. To get it out of the way before the next unknown and potentially catastrophic transformation.
......
A day passed in the blink of an eye. After school on Friday, Yomikawa Tsuko, dressed in her crisp, clean school uniform, her school bag held neatly in her hands behind her back, her slender legs clad in their customary black over-the-knee socks, walked into the café where she had arranged to meet him.
She spotted him immediately, the man with the severe, premature graying, sitting in a secluded corner, a look of anxious anticipation on his face. She walked over, her steps light, almost soundless, her greeting a carefully calibrated mixture of teasing and pure, unadulterated sarcasm. “Good afternoon, Officer Kishida. Enjoying your leisure time?”
Most of the times Kishida Masayoshi had seen her, she had been wearing casual, civilian clothes. Seeing her suddenly, and without warning, in her youthful, vibrant school uniform, he couldn’t help but scratch his head, a gesture of profound awkwardness, as he struggled to control his gaze, to keep his eyes from wandering. “Hey there, Miss Yomikawa. It’s been a while. What would you like to drink? It’s my treat.”
He remembered, all too clearly and with a fresh wave of humiliation, that this girl, while appearing not to care, was actually preternaturally sensitive to people’s gazes. The excruciating embarrassment of being caught staring at a high school girl’s legs was a mistake he had no intention of repeating.
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