"Saki Hideki, senpai," she bolted from her seat and bowed deeply.
"Ah, yes," Aria smiled, bowing slightly in return. "Haven't I seen you on the roof sometimes?" Saki's head tilted slightly.
"I don't think so, senpai. I don't usually go to the roof."
"Is that so?" Aria pulled a seat up and wedged it tightly between Saki's and mine. "I could have sworn I'd seen you there. Weird, huh? You should try it sometimes; the view is astonishing. You can see the ocean on a clear day, you know." Could you? Honestly, I can't say I'd ever actually used the roof of the school as a sightseeing location before. My eyes were almost always glued to my phone. Maybe my mom was right, maybe the cell phone was taking over my life and eventually I'd just be a myopic slave of modern technology. A consumer of modern convenience, never producing anything of interest. Pfft. Like I cared.
"I see," Saki took her seat, ignoring Aria's position next to her. "The ocean frightens me a bit, but I don't mind looking at it from a distance."
"Seems odd to live in a seaside town and be scared of the ocean," Aria chuckled.
"Ah, well. Everyone's afraid of something, I guess."
"True," Aria replied, "so what's everyone doing all hunched over their phones?"
"A-chan! Emi glanced up and smiled broadly, as if noticing Aria's presence for the first time. "We're playing this game that Kasumin and Saki-chan got me hooked on! You should play, too! We can all get in the clan and enslave the population together!"
"You still can't enslave…you know what…never mind," I muttered, it simply wasn't worth it.
"You need to talk to Kasumin, A-chan," Emi continued without giving Aria a chance to reply to her previous statement. "She is refusing to stay the night on Saturday! Can you believe that?"
"I told you I have to work all weekend," I muttered. Emi waved her hand dismissively.
"We need to make it a whole weekend! Friday, Karaoke! We'll sleep over Friday night and then Saturday and won't end the party until late Sunday! Three days of fun!"
"Isn't that two days?" Yuto pointed out.
"You're not involved in this, meatball," I snapped, though he was, technically, correct.
"I-I don't know if I can do that…" Saki trailed off, wringing her hands miserably.
"This is getting way too complex," Mizuki shook her head.
"I've gotta agree," Aria said to a pouting Emi.
"Why not just do Karaoke early Saturday afternoon and then have the sleepover after?" Mizuki suggested.
"We'll be too tired from Karaoke to read my smut book!" Emi's cheeks puffed out in displeasure.
"We could drink lots of coffee Saturday night," Aria suggested. Emi eyed her suspiciously.
"I've never had coffee," she finally admitted. "What if I don't like it?"
"Then we'll have tea!" Mizuki enthused, finally breaking her silence. Et tu, Brute? I scowled at her. I disliked being railroaded into things and this certainly felt like the express train to me.
"I'm sorry, I still have work. I'll go to Karaoke but…" I trailed off meaningfully.
"You're a teenager!" Emi protested. "This is the best time of your life! Why do you think so many manga and anime are based around high school?"
"Eh?" Emi's ability to shift directions in a conversation were the stuff of legend. The worst part is I wasn't sure if this was intentional or something she simply did without realizing. Either way, it was impressive, though rather concerning.
"It's because when you become an adult your life sucks, that's why," Emi declared as if uncovering some great societal secret. "You work all the time; you have to give money to ungrateful wretches like us just to keep us out of your hair. You job sucks, your bosses don't like you, your co-workers are plotting against you and your only reprieve is alcohol and the knowledge that, eventually, your miserable existence will come to an ignominious halt."
"Jesus," Aria muttered. "What the hell kind of life do your parents have?"
"That is the most depressing thing I've ever heard," Mizuki muttered. Even I felt sorry for my parents, which took more than a little convincing. Saki looked as if she were about to cry.
"That's why we have to have fun, now!" Emi's small fists clenched at her side. "If we don't have fun before it's too late, we'll look back on these fragile, formative years with regret. Do you want to regret, Kasumin? Do you want to poison your soul with what ifs and never dids?"
"What the hell?" I muttered. "Have you been taking a guilt-tripping class from my mom?"
"No joke," Mizuki agreed, nodding her head emphatically. The express train had pulled into the station with me as its sole passenger.
"Fine, fine," I finally sighed. "We can do it Saturday and I'll call out. I feel sorry for whoever you marry. Seriously."
"Yatta!" Emi thrust her arms skyward victoriously, completely oblivious to the pall her diatribe had cast over the rest of us.
"So, all of us and puppy are set for Saturday? That's good!" Aria finally broke the awkward silence with a smile.
"Puppy?" Emi cocked her head to the side, looking something like a puppy if the truth was told. Aria glanced meaningfully at Saki who blushed fiercely. I wasn't sure if it was a joyful blush or an angry one as her face remained an inscrutable, neutral mask.
"We all have nicknames, don't we?" Aria asked in reply. I couldn't help but smirk at Yuto who hung his head dejectedly. "She's adorable, right? She's like a puppy!"
"I don't think that's something she likes being called," I protested as Saki's big brown eyes looked everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
"Aww! She doesn't mind! Right?" Aria draped her arm familiarly over the smaller girl's slender shoulders and bunted her head lightly while booping her nose with her free hand.
"I, uh, I guess…" Saki trailed off. It seemed to me that Saki was not overly enthused about either the nickname or being the center of attention.
"Well, if she doesn't mind, I guess it doesn't matter," I finally shrugged. "But I'm not calling her that. I'll call her Saki-chan, thanks." A look passed over Saki's face that looked suspiciously like relief.
"We could call Kasumin Puppy," Emi suggested with a grin.
"And we could call you an ambulance," I shot back meaningfully.
"But I'm not an ambulance," Emi scowled. "Is my nose red?"
"What?"
"I don't get it," Emi shook her head. How she'd gone from the harbinger of adult life doom to "I don't get it" I had no idea. In my heart I really did fear for anyone she married. They were in for a long, mind-snapping journey.
"Thank you, Senpai."
The message popped up across the top of my game screen as I lounged in my room later that evening, laying waste to the hordes of barbarians infesting the wasted lands with a ridiculously OP Astrid. Plainly the nickname didn't sit well with Saki-chan.
"Ain't no thing, Saki-chan."
I typed back quickly as yet another barbarian fell beneath the insanely large axe, I doubt even someone as thick as Astrid could wield properly.
"It meant a lot to me. I don't think Aria-senpai likes me very much, I'm afraid. Hahaha."
"What makes you say that?"
I cocked my head to the side before realizing I was pretty much doing the same thing my mom did to the TV. The same thing I'd given her crap for doing for years. She always did that. She'd argue with the TV, yell at it, get confused and sad and angry at it and it made no sense. I mean, I sort of understood what she was going for, but, really, the TV didn't care. Nor did the writers or actors or directors of any of the shows that caused her so much emotional strife. Why put yourself through that sort of thing while looking like an idiot? It was madness. Yet, here I was, head cocked curiously to the side while staring at a screen. God, please, oh, please, don't let me start becoming my mother, I prayed silently.
"Nothing, really. I'm just fairly good at reading people sometimes and it seems like she might not care for me hanging around, I guess."
The words flashed across my screen and I pursed my lips. Honestly, Aria played it off like she was playing but she did have that "pissed off" vibe to her, I suppose. For some reason I felt I had to be careful what I said here. She was a sweet girl with a kind aura to her (great, now I was talking about auras like my aunt. Eventually I'd be a Frankenstein's monster of all my family's quirks. Except Jun. Screw him.) and I didn't want to hurt her feelings or anything. I also didn't want to speak for Aria. She could speak for herself.
"Don't worry. Emi and I want you around and I'm sure Mizuki does, too. No one cares about Yuto so don't worry about him."
There was a long pause as if she were digesting what I'd said. It was so long, in fact, I'd gone back to wreaking havoc on the barbarians of the wastes. Finally, her reply flashed across my chat bar on the top of my screen.
"Do you mean it, Senpai?"
"Of course, I do."
I replied quickly as Astrid carved a path of digital destruction through a particularly nasty group of half men half reindeer creatures.
"Then I won't worry about it! Thank you, Senpai!"
The relief in her two-dimensional text was palpable and I smiled. I didn't have many friends and, though I hardly knew Saki, she seemed like a sweet girl and I didn't want her to feel uncomfortable around us. Not, of course, that Emi would allow people to feel uncomfortable. Suddenly her weird tirade against the evils being an adult brought to people came to mind and I was forced to amend my thought to say Emi would usually not allow people to feel uncomfortable. Of course, she also now had her new smut book. Now that I thought of it, Emi was, herself, a source of discomfort. What the hell?
The days passed in the normal way and Saki was slowly integrated into our group, like a lost puppy being warily welcomed into a new pack. Honestly, though, it was mostly Aria who seemed to keep the new girl at a distance. Oh, she seemed friendly and gregarious, but it was clearly an act. We spoke on the phone each day and she never brought Saki up, but her presence was plainly weighing on the American's thoughts.
The others showed no sign of discomfort. Soon Emi and Mizuki were chatting away with Saki like they'd been friends forever. Yuto was, of course, a waste of DNA and beneath contemplation. Still, in the background was this strange sort of power play between Aria and Saki. It was possible, I suppose, I was simply imagining things, though it didn't feel like it. There was a tension there, confirmed by Emi during an in-game chat Friday evening.
"I gotta know Kasumin, what's up with Aria and Emi???"
Not that I particularly needed any sort of validation other than my own instincts and observations, but it felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I wasn't alone in sensing the awkwardness.
"You noticed also, huh? Saki mentioned it to me on Monday. What's the issue with Aria?"
"Sounds to me like someone's jealous!!!"
Emi's natural inclination was to add far more punctuation marks than was necessary. When she was particularly excited or agitated most of the conversations with her consisted of long strings of exclamation points and question marks interspersed with a few words here and there. I remember in first year she discovered the glory of the semicolon and spent fully a week sending hundreds of texts filled with them.
"What do I have to be jealous about?"
"Not you!!! Aria!!!!!1"
"No 1." She hurriedly added to address the 1.
"What's Aria jealous of?"
I caught myself typing multiple question marks and hurriedly erased them. It was too easy to get caught up in the strong current of the river of Emi's conversations. That current led to over-excitement and insane suggestions.
"Are you really that dense??????????"
"I'm not dense!"
"Aria's jealous of Saki and you!!!!!!!"
"What the hell are you on about? What about Saki and I? We're friends!"
I gritted my teeth to keep from adding more punctuation. Seriously, though, what was Emi talking about? Saki and I? What did that even mean?
"Aria likes you likes you and thinks Saki likes you likes you. It's a low-key catfight over you!!!! DENSE!!!! OMG!!!! Date them both and get a harem!!!! There's this whole group section in the book!!!!"
"Wait, hold on…I'm calling you! Answer it!"
There was a reason you didn't confide your deepest secrets in Emi. Emi would never betray your trust, per se, she would simply forget she had your trust in the first place and before you knew it she'd told one of her hundreds of "friends" and then everyone in Tottori knew whatever you'd told her. I'd, of course, told her nothing, but the last thing I wanted was her to tell anyone about whatever 'shipping' had gone on in her head.
"Kasuminnnnn!" Emi crowed into the phone. It was odd, but I could almost hear the exclamation points.
"What are you talking about, Emi and have you told anyone else about these delusions?"
"Why…whatever could you mean?" Emi's feigned innocence was not subtle. "Who doesn't want a little harem action? I mean, come on! It's right here in the book. Page 263. 'Group sex between consenting females as shown in pictures 263.1, 263.2…"
"Stop! Seriously! What are you talking about with Saki and Aria?" Why this was important to know I had no idea. It certainly shouldn't have been. Things like dating and romance eluded me for the most part.
"So, which is it?" Emi sighed. "Keep going or stop? I'm very confused, now, Kasumin."
"What are you talking about?" I was remarkably close to whining and I didn't care for it.
"Now, now, I know much that is hidden and suspect much that is unknown, but I don't want to ruin anything for anyone, so mum is the word from Emi! You'll just have to stumble through as well as you're able with me as moral support. If you ever need any help, you can borrow my book! I've learned so much from it! Have you ever heard of tribadism?"
"I figured as much," I sighed. Emi knew nothing, she was just trying to get me riled up and I didn't need the added stress. My boss was already pissed at me anyway, so I had that on my mind on top of everything else. "Yes, I saw the pictures and, no, I don't want to know more."
"It's awesome! It's when you rub you…"
"I said I already saw the pictures in the book! And I don't want you telling anyone any of your bizarre theories. I know how you are."
"Pfft, I won't tell anyone. It's much more fun to watch from the sidelines. Anyway! About tribadism! There's lots more pictures! It's also called sciss- "
"I'm hanging up, now, Emi. Good night." I interrupted before she got up another head of steam.
"Ah, ok, Kasumin! I'll show you pictures after karaoke tomorrow! They're amazing! Extremely high production values!" I hung up. Emi required a certain amount of patience that most people simply didn't have the stamina for. I loved Emi to death, but she was immediately frustrating.
"Those look different than the ones in the book…" I whispered staring at the photos a search of tribadism dug up on the internet. My fingers soon found their way under my panties as I gave up trying to control my baser urges.