A table clattered. Satoshi was half-rising to his feet, but I ignored it for the moment.
"Based on the craftsman's testimony, we were the only people who went up the stairs from the third floor. Based on Sawakiguchi's testimony, there are only three Astronomy Club members who could have stolen the chocolate."
"Oda-san, Nakayama-san and Yoshihara-san, right?"
"Let's assume that one of them came in and tried to steal the chocolate. But if you were the thief, how would you do it? Ibara's chocolate is pretty large."
Chitanda nodded, and spread her hands to show a size slightly smaller than her waist.
"It was about this big."
"There's no way you can hide something of that size. Since they didn't hide it in the toilet or throw it outside, they could have only brought it with them into Electives Room 5. However, Sawakiguchi said that no one came in a with a chocolate. The other members said so as well. It would be a different matter if the whole Astronomy Club was in one it, but it would be weird if that weren't the case."
I pointed at myself and Satoshi.
"It's impossible to hide that size of chocolate in a school uniform. They could hide the chocolate in a bag if they had one, and I could probably fit it in the pocket of my coat. However, none of the Astronomy Club members left to go home. They didn't leave the room with their bags or winter wear. Furthermore, the pants pockets are too small, and even if they hid it in their clothes, the bulky chocolate would cause their movements to be unnatural and make them noticeable."
Next, I pointed at Chitanda.
"However, it's possible with a sailor uniform. If the chocolate was attached to her thigh with tape, it could be hidden by the skirt... I have no idea what that Astronomy Club member, Nakayama, was thinking when she stole Ibara's chocolate. Perhaps both of them have some feud unknown to us. But putting aside the question of why, since Nakayama is the only one who could have hidden the chocolate, I can only think that she has it right now."
After a short pause, I spoke again.
"I'll pass Ibara's chocolate to Satoshi today. Although I have absolute confidence that it is right, you being there would trouble me. So don't worry, and just go home for today."
Chitanda looked into my eyes.
...I instantly averted my gaze, showing just how much of a pathetic guy I was.
But even so, a small part of Chitanda's smile returned to her face.
"It's rare for you to go so far as to say something like that."
"Is that so?"
Actually, I also thought so. It was pretty much asking the impossible from myself.
"I understand. I do not know what you plan on doing, but since you said that it's better this way, I'll take your word for it."
The tension drained from my body. My expression probably became more relaxed as well.
"Right. I'll call you if it succeeds."
Chitanda said that she would be waiting for my call, and bowed.
She left, leaving behind me and Satoshi.
Looking at the pitch-black exterior, I frowned at the fact that it was still snowing, and shouldered my bag.
"Well, let's go."
In response to those words, Satoshi got off from the desk he was sitting on.
"Yeah, let's go."
I made sure that I didn't forget to securely lock the door.
6
The road home at night. Headlights and tail lights flashed by. Snow fell on the front of my coat.
The wind was cold, so I buried my neck in my trench coat. Satoshi was walking next to me, with a drawstring bag on his arm and a backpack on his back. The only thing protecting from the cold was his vest.
"The Valentine chocolate was stolen by tying it to her leg, huh?"
I muttered the words I had said earlier, and burst into laughter.
"That's impossible, isn't it?"
"And I thought that stood to reason."
Satoshi said as he swung his drawstring bag around. I also laughed at that statement.
"No, it doesn't."
"Really?"
"The female student wouldn't have been able to learn that Ibara had decided to leave the chocolate in the club room. Even if she somehow did, Chitanda was looking after it, and she couldn't have predicted that Chitanda would go out and look for you."
"She could have, I think."
"Alright, let's assume that she knew everything. Even so, the chocolate would melt due to contact with human skin. When chocolate melts, it gives off a unique smell you can never hide. And more importantly..."
The pedestrian signal started to flicker as we got to the middle of the crossing. We jogged across the road, and Satoshi turned around.
"...I can't imagine an honest person stealing a Valentine chocolate."
Satoshi gave a cynical laugh.
"There's no guarantee that Nakayama's an honest person."
"Since an indecent person has been involved from the beginning, of course you would doubt her."
A thin layer of snow had accumulated on the walkway. A sharp squeaking sound could be heaerd with every step I took. Strong winds blew for a while. I resisted the wind by hugging my shoulders and waited for it to die down.
"I suppose I should fulfill the promise."
Satoshi was silent.
"...Pass me your bag."
I could hear a laugh coming from Satoshi's throat as he followed my request. I received the drawstring bag, and gave it a strong vertical swing. "Crrk". A sound was produced. It sounded like broken pieces rubbing against each other.
I returned the bag to Satoshi with a disagreeable politeness.
"That was amazing, Houtarou."
Satoshi may have smiled, but I could only see it as a mere habit or a bluff.
The person who stole the chocolate was Satoshi.
I had already concluded that Satoshi was the only possible culprit after Chitanda said that the chocolate had been stolen. Even without that prediction, Satoshi would still be the only suspect by the process of elimination. After striking out the Astronomy Club, the only person who could have stolen the chocolate was someone who went up from the third floor. According to the craftsman, three people used that route: Chitanda, Satoshi, and me. I'm obviously not the thief, and Chitanda is out of the question since she's the victim. Thus, this leaves only Satoshi.
Satoshi probably hid in the boys' toilet on the third floor after we parted and he told me that he was heading to the club room. The toilet is right next to the staircase, and the third floor toilet is for male students. Satoshi waited there for a while, knowing that Chitanda would leave the room to search for him sooner or later.
Confirming that Chitanda had passed the staircase, Satoshi headed for the fourth floor. On the way, Satoshi was seen by the craftsman. It's also possible that he was asked about the straightness of the poster. If my memory isn't mistaken, when the craftsman asked for our help earlier. Satoshi's reply was "It's too low." If he hadn't said something like "Move the right side down." earlier, he wouldn't have used those words.
In the empty club room, Satoshi appropriated Ibara's chocolate. But to his surprise, he found that it was enormous. He had planned to hide it in his drawstring bag, so he was at a loss. Satoshi's bag could barely fit a duodecimo-sized book. No matter how slim Chitanda's waist is, it's definitely bigger than a book.
If he just took the chocolate and ran, he might bump into Chitanda at the staircase, and that would be the end of the chocolate game. So what did Satoshi do?
The street lamps had already lit up. The road was reaching the bridge soon. it was a narrow bridge meant for pedestrian use. If two people were to walk side by side, they wouldn't be able to pass each other. With nothing to block the wind, the sound of the blowing wind grew even stronger.
"Did you hesitate at all when you were breaking it?"
My small voice was caught up in the wind, so Satoshi probably didn't manage to hear it. There was no reply.
Satoshi broke the chocolate. He probably did so by bringing his elbow down on the wrapping paper. If he had been aware that it was the heart-shaped chocolate that Ibara made, he might have folded it neatly. But the result is the same. The heart-shaped chocolate was made into a size that could fir inside the drawstring bag.
And then Satoshi left the club room. He met Chitanda on the landing, and probably gave some excuse like "Hey Chitanda, sorry for being late, I was too engrossed in something." Chitanda then brought Satoshi to the club room, only to discover that the chocolate was gone.
I wonder what Satoshi thought as he saw Chitanda become flustered?
We reached the middle of the bridge, and I stopped. Satoshi followed suit.
So that the wind wouldn't extinguish my voice again, I raised my voice quite a bit.
"Now we're even."
"Even?"
Satoshi answered with a faint laugh.
"For what favor? It's not that incident on New Year's Day, right? If I had to choose, I would say that I don't really care about this sort of thing."
"I'm talking about April last year. You created a story to help me escape from Chitanda[14]."
It took some time for Satoshi to remember. "Ah," he muttered.
"Oh yeah, that's right."
"At that time, you played along with my plan."
"Yeah, I suppose. I'm surprised that you actually remembered about that."
"Of course I would."
I clenched my teeth.
"That was a terrible thing to do. I did something stupid."
"Yeah, that's what I thought."
I'm sure of it now thanks to today's events. I've been made to clearly realize the meaning of deceiving others with cowardly tricks. Unexpectedly, or perhaps inevitably, the one who was deceived this time as well as last time was Chitanda.
"But that was a graceful story."
Satoshi said.
"When the energy-saver Houtarou realized his intentions, no one got hurt... except for Houtarou himself."
All of a sudden, the wind surged, causing the dancing snow to form eddies in the night sky. I adjusted the collar of my trench coat again. I cast my eyes down and asked,
"You could at least give an explanation, right?"
"An explanation, huh..."
I have no idea why Satoshi acted this way. But I thought that he would have a reason for doing so. You could say that I believed in him. That's why I came up with a fictitious deduction for Chitanda to accept, and acted to close the situation. On a day when I say something like "Because I felt doing it", it wouldn't be impossible for me to get mad. But because I wasn't asked, I kept silent. In the end, in order to convince Chitanda and get her to calm down, I had no choice but to make an absolutely unrelated student the scapegoat. There was probably a better method, but I couldn't find it. From now on, that girl will spend the rest of her school life with Chitanda's misunderstanding.
I did all that because I believed that Satoshi had a good reason for his actions. But what if...
"If you say you did it as a joke..."
"If I did?"
"Then I'll have to hit you. For Chitanda and Ibara as well. With my fist."
Satoshi shrugged in a exaggerated manner.
"I sure don't want to be hit."
"By the way, if you want to keep silent, you'll have to apologize to Chitanda, and while you're at it, tell her that it was your doing."
"That's even worse. I had no intention of getting Chitanda involved in the first place."
Satoshi looked up at the sky. A long breath escaped from his mouth.
After some silence, he slowly spoke.
"I really don't want to say it. It's not something I want to talk about. But I can't keep silent, can I?"
"I don't know what you were thinking. You didn't only think, but acted on it."
"That's right, it's exactly as you said. I don't regret it, I really don't, but..."
Satoshi's gaze fell from the heavens to the ground. As if he had resolved himself, he began speaking, albeit in a faltering tone. His voice wasn't very loud, but I could still hear him over the wind.
"Houtarou, do you think of me as the obsessive type?"
I thought for a while and answered.
"Yeah, I guess. You're also quite the hobbyist."
"That's where you're totally mistaken."
Satoshi leaned on the railing of the snow-filled bridge.
"Hobbyists and obsessive people devote themselves to something. They don't want to lose to anyone in their respective fields, and their daily lives entail study and discovery."
"Aren't you like that?"
"Nope. Have you forgotten the 'Empress' incident? I said that I couldn't be number one at anything, didn't I? But to be precise, I've given up on reaching the top.
"You played a game with me earlier."
He was talking about the match we had at the game center. I won with a set count of 2-1.
"Yeah."
"At that time, didn't you think that something was weird? I wasn't obsessed with winning.
"We used to play that game a lot two years ago, yeah? The me back then looks like a pretty deplorable guy now. I used to win for the sake of winning. If I lost, I would quibble and find fault with the rules. It wasn't limited to games. When there was a guy who was well-informed about Takeda Shingen, I fished around for books so that I would know even more than that expert. At one point I also hopped on the train mania bandwagon. I simply wanted to win.
"I was obsessed with so many things. I can't remember what exactly I was into, but it could be anything, like the arrangement of colors on clothes, or the correct stroke order of kanji. Even when I went to a conveyor belt sushi bar, I would be engrossed in the correct order of assembling the sushi toppings, and I wouldn't notice the delicious food right under my nose."
Satoshi laughed at himself in an extremely strange fashion.
"To put it plainly, it was boring. Since I wanted to win so much, it wasn't interesting even if I did win, and I couldn't bear that end result. At that time, I couldn't understand why I felt that way, so I thought about it a lot. I was such an idiot. Would things be fun if I didn't have a fun way of winning?
"So, one day, I grew tired of it. I gave up on being obsessed. No, that's not it. I became obsessed with not being obsessed. I've forgotten the exact cause.
"And after that, Houtarou, every day was truly entertaining. Today would be cycling, tomorrow would be handicrafts, and then I would read up on the US-Japan Security Treaty, postal life insurance, and classical music. With enough determination to spice it up but not so much as to be fixated on it, I dabbled in a variety of subjects. There was one time when you used the phrase 'shocking pink' to describe my lifestyle, right? That was a clever description."
Satoshi had already stopped directing his words at me. I caught his gaze, and continued his reminiscing monologue.
"But even in those comfortable days, one problem remained.
"I became obsessed with not being obsessed, and became at ease with this life. I don't have a clue how far your energy-saving belief supports your life, but my lack of obsession is quite a critical point for me. Without it, I would probably go back to being that pathetic guy.
"But then there's Mayaka."
I could sense Satoshi clenching his fists.
"Mayaka's great. You probably don't know how good she is, but she really is. There's no girl like her. If Mayaka said that she wanted to be with me, it would be like a dream.
"But then, would it be alright for me to be obsessed with Mayaka?
"I had decided to not be fixated on anything, but could Mayaka be an exception?
"I thought that it was a really simple thing. By doing whatever I wanted, I acquired my current level of comfort. And I really wanted to be with Mayaka, so I thought that I should perhaps just follow my wishes.
"But then, Houtarou, that was impossible. Absolutely impossible. Because I wanted, I didn't become obsessed with anything and because I wanted, I obsessed over Mayaka... Mayaka was a problem, but ignoring her would be a terrible policy. I should fix the situation, but how should I do it? Perhaps I'm mistaken in thinking that I can come up with the solution myself. With this Zen dialogue, I wonder if I've become a person who cannot hurt Mayaka.
"While I was still searching for the answer, last year's Valentine's Day came. Don't you think that the Valentine chocolate could be taken to be a sort of symbol? If I accepted Mayaka's chocolate, it would be like announcing that I would obsess over her. And I hadn't even found my answer yet."
"So that's why you didn't accept it?"
"Yeah. It's the same for this year.
"You can call me a blockhead. It's been a year, and I still can't give an answer!
"In that situation, I wondered if there was any way to refuse the chocolate that I couldn't accept, other than making it disappear. If there was... Yeah, I guess there would be some merit in giving me a punch."
Silence fell.
But that was supposed to have nothing to do with Chitanda.
"But you hurt Chitanda."
I said, and Satoshi responded with a sorrowful smile.
"... My plan didn't go as smoothly as yours, Houtarou. I had no idea it would turn out this way."
"Then how did you expect it to turn out?"
"We had an agreement. Mayaka would leave the chocolate in the club room. If I was ready to accept it, I would take it. If not, I would leave it there. With that promise, that was what I had planned to do. I'm not saying that Mayaka is at fault, but she didn't factor that into her calculations. That Chitanda, who helped her in making the chocolate, would want to see through the accepting of the chocolate..."
So it was a collaborative plan by Satoshi and Ibara?
"Then, have you told Mayaka all this?"
"Of course I have! Isn't it obvious? If not, I would be manipulating Mayaka under my own terms!
"... Hmm, actually, that's exactly how it is.
"Last year, after I rejected Mayaka's chocolate, we had a talk. It was one that lasted a few hours and was even more detailed than the one we're having now. That sure takes me back. It's already been a year since then. I was scolded pretty harshly back then. In the end, Mayaka didn't say that she understood my situation, but said that she would wait. The next Valentine's Day would be a test.
"Mayaka still stayed calm even after she learned that he chocolate had been stolen, right? That's because she probably understood that it was a sign that the thief still hadn't been able to find his answer. That's what I think, anyway."
Ibara realized that Satoshi was the one who stole the chocolate. That's what I had expected. But then I thought that Ibara would be enraged about it afterwards. Since this year's chocolate was rejected like last year's... I didn't even know if that would be a reason for her to be angry.
If that's the case, Ibara's Manga Research Club business would probably be a lie as well.
Satoshi spread his hands out wide. His uniform sleeves were stirred up by the wind and fluttered around.
"So, Houtarou, that's all I have to say. My actions weren't just a practical joke, and I didn't keep quiet about it. What are you going to do?"
... The snowfall increased in intensity.
I straightened the collar of my coat. It was too cold to stay on the top of the bridge. As I walked, my feet made crunching noises on the snow.
Satoshi followed behind.
"I can't tell this to Chitanda, can I?"
"Definitely not. I would rather get punched."
That's what I thought. Even if Satoshi did speak frankly to Ibara regarding this topic, this would still be guys' talk. Likewise, Chitanda and Ibara would probably be having some girls' talk too. Since the contents of their discussion has not been leaked to me, and Satoshi hasn't told me everything yet, I, too, shouldn't reveal everything to Satoshi.
No, I wonder about that.
My motto is "If I don't have to do it, don't do it. If I have to do it, make it quick." That's all. I don't have anything that needs to be disclosed. I suddenly recalled what I was thinking about at the library while I was looking at the photograph collection. An energy conserver cannot deal with a love affair. The same goes for Satoshi's motive for breaking the hand-made chocolate. But the two things are falsely similar. I definitely made a mistake. Satoshi hesitated because of Ibara.
As I crossed the river where the cold winds blew fiercely, I felt troubled. Although he was the one at fault from the beginning, I've made him say something that he probably didn't want to. Should I make it up to him? Should I say to him, "Sorry, I guess I didn't know much about Fukube Satoshi"?
With my back facing Satoshi, I gave a small, bitter smile.
Well, guess I can't say that.
The bridge wasn't that long. Right before we reached the other side, I asked,
"So, is there the prospect that you'll be able to answer?"
I turned back to a serious face that cannot be seen under normal circumstances. Satoshi nodded slightly.
"I'm almost there, just a bit more... I just can't put it into words yet."
I hit his shoulders.
"Sorry for making you say all this in the cold. I'll buy you a can of coffee."
With that, the usual smile returned to Satoshi's face. He swung his bag around, and I could hear the broken pieces of chocolate making cracking noises inside.
"All right. Since you're treating, I'll have a red tea, then."
Once I got home, I brewed some tea to warm up my cold body. After drinking half of it, I called Chitanda.
I told her that it ended uneventfully, that I handed the chocolate to Satoshi, and that any friction or future conflict had been completely cleared up. I wonder if Chitanda was happy with this. Not knowing how long her words of thanks would last, I forcefully stopped her and hung up.
I told a lie. Perhaps I've become defiant, but no one can blame me for what I've done.
I returned to my room, lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling.
Besides... it's not impossible for Chitanda to be lying to me. It's common knowledge today that there is more than one perspective to any topic. Anyhow, I don't totally understand Satoshi, who can be said to be an old friend of mine. Even if no one was lying, it's also possible that someone had a misunderstanding, or that the other person misconstrued their words.
In any case, it's impossible for Ibara to not realize that Chitanda would want to witness the accepting of the chocolate. Does Satoshi understand this? That Ibara might have used Chitanda as a strategy to get Satoshi to accept the chocolate? Or could I be looking to much into it?
I don't know. Not that I tried to find out. If that Astronomy Club member, Nakayama really stole the chocolate with the physical trick I mentioned earlier, I wouldn't be spending my time staring at the ceiling like this.
A bar of chocolate lay on the floor. That was the single piece of Valentine chocolate I received this year.
I picked up the chocolate that seemed like it was made overseas, tore off its cover and peeled off the foil. I bit into the black chocolate that appeared from under the foil.
The taste of chocolate spread in my mouth. It was intensely sweet, then bitter, as I had expected. The taste gradually faded and disappeared, leaving only its impression.