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"We pledge! In accordance with the spirit of sportsmanship, we enter this sports festival..."
At last, the sports festival had begun.
"Red Team, fight!"
"White Team, win it!"
True to an event run by the popular crowd, a ridiculous heat was already rising all around me. I, of course, had slipped all the way to the back and was eating a yakisoba bun from the concession stand.
The cheer squad's routine was scheduled for after lunch, before the team events started. In other words, the morning was simple: sit quietly in the back by myself and let the time pass.
I didn't care who won. I just wanted it over already. Having to come to school on a Saturday was genuine hell. Someone might ask whether it was fine, since we got Monday off—but we'd only been dragged in on Saturday in the first place, so a Monday off was the bare minimum!
Nothing for it. Time to deploy the one ultimate technique available to a professional loner: burn the hours by spacing out inside a daydream.
"Haaah..."
I am a plant. A plant drinking in this warm sunlight and growing... Someday I'll become a baobab bigger than anyone and astonish the whole world...
"Kayano! What are you doing sitting here all by yourself?"
"Hngh..."
The one who shattered my ultimate technique was Tateyama, the most popular girl in our class.
"T-Tateyama..."
"Oh—are you the type who isn't really into events like sports day?"
"Yeah... I'm not, um, not really a fan of P.E...."
Sure, I was in dance training these days, so I moved better than I used to. At heart, though, I was an indoor person. I could never muster the kind of blazing passion the popular kids brought to something just because it was called a sports festival.
"What about your family?"
"Th-they couldn't... come."
"Got it. My parents were busy too, so they couldn't make it either."
Well, if I was being precise, I was the one who had told them they didn't need to come. Family showed up at a sports festival because they wanted to see their kid looking good, or keep a photo of it, right? And I had absolutely nothing to do out there. If they came anyway, wouldn't it just get awkward for everyone?
"Oh, earlier, right? Chi-chan and Satchin did the three-legged race, and halfway through their feet got all tangled and..."
Tateyama sat down beside me as if it were the most natural thing in the world and launched into a story I couldn't begin to follow. Chatting this easily with a classmate she wasn't even close to—yeah, she really was the top socialite of our class.
White Day had brought us a little nearer than before, I thought, but we still weren't at the level of sticking together and talking on an ordinary day. Even so, telling myself this was the sort of high school memory I might look back on later left me with a strange, unfamiliar feeling.
More than anything, there I was, not particularly panicking just because someone I wasn't close to was sitting next to me. Wasn't that enormous growth? Of course, I still couldn't be the one to start a conversation, and meeting someone's eyes was still hard. In the old days I would already have gotten dizzy, made up some weird excuse, and fled. Later I would absolutely brag about this to Koga and collect my praise.
"Ah, did I just talk way too much all by myself? Sorry. You probably wanted to sit quietly on your own, Kayano."
"I-it's fine..."
Thanks to Tateyama's talking, I could tell I'd grown another step.
Next event: the obstacle race. The obstacle race.
"My turn now. I'll get up first, Kayano. I'm definitely coming in first, so cheer for me!"
"Good luck."
With that, Tateyama stood, loosening up as she went, and started toward the field—then paused, glanced back, and looked at me.
"...Hey, Kayano. That cheer-squad thing. Is it really okay?"
"The cheer... squad? Oh, yeah. It's not like it'll be a, um, a problem or anything."
"Yeah, figures. You only took it because you thought you could handle it."
"Yeah..."
In the first place, all I had to do was sit in the back, so it wasn't even a question of whether I could or couldn't. What was I supposed to call it? Right—a role where I cheered for the cheer squad. That was what Hinoshita-senpai had told me. While everyone else was cheerleading, I just had to clap a few times from behind and tell them to hang in there. And something that small was enough to wipe out my obligation to actually compete. What an absurdly profitable deal.
"Okay. Got it. Then I'm really going. Hang in there, Kayano!"
"Y-you hang in there too, Tateyama...!"
Tateyama waved at me and took off across the field.
...Cheering me on and telling me to hang in there, when I wasn't going to do anything at all. Popular people really did have ridiculously good personalities. And just as she had declared to me, Tateyama took first in the obstacle race, proud as anything. The sight of her going at the dangling bread was insanely sexy. I was into it.
I was the type who brought a homemade bento to school. It made sense: Mom was busy, and my older sister had been living on her own since I was much younger. Of course, I had only started packing my own lunch in the second semester of my first year of middle school, so it wasn't as if the habit went back forever.
Even so, there were exactly two days a year when I didn't bring one: sports day, and the culture festival. On sports day I just got the urge to eat whatever bread the concession stand was selling, and at the culture festival there was already more food around than anyone could handle.
Couldn't I just eat the bread and the bento both? Sorry, but my stomach was incredibly small. I couldn't eat that much. People said girls had separate stomachs for the meal, the dessert, and the snacks. Not me. I could barely even finish a single hamburger.
Anyway, today was sports day, so I was heading for the concession stand at lunch the way I always did—when it happened.
"Mina."
"...M-Mom?"
Mom had appeared in front of me out of nowhere.
...Why?
"I thought you weren't coming."
"Say it properly. I was going to come, and you were the one who stopped me, weren't you?"
"That's true, but... I told you. All I'm doing today is the team events, so even if you came there wouldn't be anything to watch. And the cheer squad is just me sitting in the back the whole time..."
"Even so... it isn't often that Mom has a day this open."
...Put like that, I had nothing to say. I knew she quietly felt guilty about always being busy with business trips.
"Do you... not want Mom to have come?"
Anyone else looking at her now would have said it was the same blank face as always. I could tell for certain. Right now, Mom was terribly downcast.
"...The bento."
"Hm?"
"Did you bring a bento?"
"Yeah. I brought it."
"Let's sit over there and eat together."
"Ah... okay!"
It had been a long time since I'd spent a sports-festival lunch with Mom.
"Oh, sushi."
"I bought it on the way. All the kinds you like."
And sure enough, it was more fun than usual.
Around the time lunch was ending, a text like that arrived from senpai. I asked Mom to wait in the parents' seats, then headed straight for the Science Room.
"Ah, Kayano."
When I got there, Hinoshita-senpai was alone.
"Wh-where is everyone else...?"
"Hm? Oh, they already went out to get things ready. We've got a lot to do."
"Ahh..."
Well, yeah. I would be done once I sat in the back, but the seniors probably had plenty on their plates. They'd need to check over everything they'd practiced, too.
"And the reason I called you is this."
As she said it, senpai pointed to the hanger behind her. Hanging there was the gorgeous blue dress I had seen the day before yesterday—the one I was supposed to wear.
"I figured it was about time you changed. Oh, and once you're dressed, come back here."
"Understood..."
I took the hanger from her and headed for the changing room this time. Getting into it alone was a little inconvenient, but I had practiced the day before yesterday, so it wasn't a real problem.
...Senpai's dress hadn't been in the Science Room, though. Where had she put it?
Still turning that over, I changed into the dress and came back.
"Senpai. I'm d-done changing..."
"Ah, yeah. One second..."
And for some reason, Hinoshita-senpai was wearing a gakuran, a boys' school uniform.
...Huh?
"U-um, senpai...?"
"Just a second, Kayano. We'll talk while we move."
With that, she suddenly threw a big sheet that had been on the desk over me.
"Hiek?!"
"Sorry. Something seems a little off on the other side, so we need to move fast. Just follow my lead."
"A-ah... okay..."
She stepped in behind me, took hold of my shoulders, and slowly started guiding me along.
What was this? If we were in a hurry, couldn't we just go straight to wherever the cheer squad was? Had something actually gone wrong? Even then, there was no need to handle me like a kidnapping...
And besides...
"S-senpai. Why are you in a gakuran...?"
"Hm? What are you talking about?"
"A-aren't you, um, going to wear a dress?"
"...Hm? This dress was only ever meant for you, wasn't it?"
"...Eh?"
What was that supposed to mean? Before I could ask, senpai announced that we had arrived and pulled the sheet off me.
"All right, everyone, hurry and get ready. We don't have much time! What's this music problem from earlier?"
"Ah, it sounds like the audio's coming out broken. We swapped the file, but even then..."
The cheer-squad members I had seen in the Science Room on the first day were gathered around us, and for some reason every one of them was wearing a gakuran. And the thing that seized my attention hardest of all...
"U-um... what is th-this?"
It was the enormous throne I had seen on the field that morning. I hadn't been able to find it earlier and had wondered where they'd moved it. So it had been here. But why was it here at all...?
"Ah, Kayano. Want to go ahead and sit?"
"Wh-what are you even saying...?"
"Hm? I told you from the start. You just wear that dress and sit on this throne. Oh, and for the pose, rest your chin on your hand and cross your legs. It'll feel colder to everyone watching that way."
What kind of situation was this? My brain could not keep up! How had it turned out like this? I was sure what I had heard was—
...Huh?
...Ah.
...I—I'd been tricked.