When I awoke to a knocking at the door, it was already past eight o'clock.
I brushed the hair out of my face with both hands and rose to my feet.
"Uhhh."
I opened the door to find Mikoko-chan. Her usual hyper greeting had been replaced with a shy look of apologetic embarrassment.
"Did I wake you?" she asked meekly.
"Eh. It was time to wake up anyway," I answered as I stretched out. "Morning, Mikoko-chan."
"Good morning, Ikkun. Um... I'm sorry about yesterday. I sort of, er... It looks like I fell asleep."
"Eh, forget about it. Just be sure to thank Miiko-san."
"Ah, right." She nodded after a moment of ambiguous hesitation.
"Isn't she a good person?"
"Well, yeah, she is, huh? Kind of cool, I guess you could say. So is she the 'swordswoman freeloader' you were talking about?"
"Does she look like a thirteen-year-old little sister?"
"No, I guess not." She awkwardly broke eye contact with me and gave a brief pause. "I don't know if it's because she practices sword fighting, but her clothes were kind of weird. Sort of Japanese-y, but like the kind of thing you'd wear to a festival."
"You mean her jinbei?"
"A djembe? What's that?" Evidently, Mikoko-chan had never heard of it. "Oh, you mean like a jinbei shark?"
"Uhh, well, yeah. Have you ever seen the pattern on the back of a jinbei shark? It's just like they're wearing that same type of clothing. So we ended up naming that kind of Japanese clothing jinbei, after the shark."
"Ahh. You sure know a lot, Ikkun," she said. "I'll have to teach that to Tomo-chan and the others."
Yep. And if Tomo-chan and the others weren't as cruel as me, they would probably teach her the truth. Why did I tell such meaningless lies? Perhaps it was time I gave that some serious thought.
"So anyway," Mikoko-chan said, changing the subject. "Are you and that girl — Asano-san — are you two close?"
"She's saved me from starvation a few times. But then I saved her from being crushed under a pile of antiques, so we're even Steven. Those yatsuhashi you had yesterday were from her too."
"Huh," she said with a complicated expression. "You know, I don't really like yatsuhashi."
"Huh? Oh, you don't say."
"Too sweet."
"Huh. Miiko-san likes sweet stuff."
"Well, I don't."
For some reason, she was getting a little serious. I scratched my head at her, not sure where she was going with this.
"Well, that's fine. So what are you going to do now?" I asked.
"Oh, er, I've got this," she said, pulling a pink, wrapped present from her purse. "It's Tomo-chan's birthday present. Forgot to give it to her. Big mistake, huh? I should've given it to her before we all got drunk. I got carried away trying to get things going."
"Hmm. Well, why not go give it to her now? She should be at home."
"Yup, that's the plan." At last, she showed her trademark smile. "Well, thank you. Let's get together again."
"We'll see."
"Why do you say stuff like that?! Let's do something!"
"Just kidding. Fine by me. If I've got time, I'll spend as much of it with you as you want, so please invite me again," I said.
I only said it to be polite, but seeing Mikoko-chan's face light up, the guilt kicked in. Thinking she'd probably burst into tears or rage if I said "just kidding" again, I just said, "See you next time," instead.
She gave a big, energetic nod and spun on her heels.
Something came to mind. "Hey, Mikoko-chan. Let me just say one more thing."
"Hmm? What is it?"
"Call a Vespa a Vespa. Calling it a scoot is just offensive, so knock it off."
"Wow, Ikkun giving an order?! It's like a first-rate school where you can wear your own clothes, but all the students show up in uniforms anyway!"
"You got it or not?"
"Wow, you're as scary as Muimi-chan..."
She seemed to seriously be a little scared. But I had to say it firmly or she wouldn't get it.
"Okay," she said. "I'll be careful from now on." She made her way down the hall. When she reached the comer, she turned back around. "Hey! I've got something I want to say to you too!"
"Huh? What?"
She took a big breath. "My last name is Aoii! Not Aoi! I told you not to forget!"
I wanted to tell her I knew that, but then I realized that I had introduced her to Miiko-san as "Aoi Mikoko." Miiko-san was the kind of person who was hard to correct once certain information had entered her brain (thanks to me, she still believed Shakespeare was a flavor of a McDonald's McShake), so she had probably spent the morning calling her "Aoi" over and over. Well, maybe not that many times.
To me it didn't seem like the difference between Aoi and Aoii was such a big deal, but I decided that was probably fairly rude. Japanese are as proud of their last names as Italians.
"Okay. I won't forget again. I promise."
"Okay then. Also..." She turned halfway back around. "I don't have a boyfriend," she said softly, then quickly made her way down the stairs as if trying to escape.
"Huh?" I probably looked more than a little confused.
Er...
What was that about?
She had probably heard that from Miiko-san as well. I did seem to remember having that kind of conversation with her. Something about Mikoko-chan not being able to stay in my room because she had a boyfriend. But Miiko-san, she...
"I don't go around regurgitating every little detail like that."
Whoa. At some point, she had appeared in front of me.
"Looks like we've got a couple of people yelling in this dilapidated apartment. Never mind that everyone can hear you from their rooms; if you shout like that, the whole building's gonna come down."
"Heh..."
"Now then, I have to go to work. Let's hope that classmate of yours learns to mind her p's and q's," she said and shuffled her way down the hall. There was something frightening about the fact that Rage was written on the back of her blue jinbei. Maybe she and Mikoko-chan hadn't gotten along so well. Their names were sort of similar and all.
But in that case, the name thing seemed kind of dubious.
"Maybe she was actually awake last night..."
Sleeping while standing up is one thing, but walking around while asleep isn't all that easy. The power of the human race pushed to its absolute limit isn't something you see every day. Maybe Mikoko-chan had actually been awake, how lucid she may or may not have been at the time notwithstanding. Maybe that was why she knew I had mistaken her name and said she had a boyfriend.
She probably just didn't want to bother with making the trip home. But then, she could've just said so without pretending she was asleep. Some people sure do strange things, I thought as I went back inside.