As she walked along the hall leading to the shoe boxes, Touko spotted someone coming the other way that had also finished their preparations to leave for the day.

"Oh?"

It was her normal voice, so this was neither a dream nor a phantom. She walked over to the motionless Touko, smiled and said, "Gokigenyou."

In this way, f.u.kuzawa Yumi-sama came to a stop in front of Touko, like a miracle.

(What is this?)

Touko smiled bitterly.

She thought she"d finally rid herself of that ghost chasing after her, but now they"d run into each other here. It caught her off guard.

But, thinking back, Noriko had left her with the hint that there was no meeting at the Rose Mansion today. Although, even with that hint, she couldn"t have predicted this exact outcome.

Yumi-sama was by herself. Neither her onee-sama, Sachiko-sama, nor her cla.s.smate Shimazu Yoshino-sama were with her. She"d just randomly decided to head home on her own.

"Gokigenyou."

Touko smiled sweetly. That sort of expression was her specialty.

"Are you heading home now, Touko-chan?"

"Yeah."

Touko thought that was a rather idiotic question to ask someone wearing their coat and holding their schoolbag. But, in truth, Touko was the idiotic one.

"Then let"s go together."

Yumi-sama said.

" &h.e.l.lip; Uh."

They were right next to the shoe lockers and she"d said she was heading home. At this point it was too late to make some excuse about why they"d be leaving at different times, like she had to go to the library, or there was something she had to buy from the school shop.

The first- and second-year lockers were in different locations, so if she made a run for it after changing shoes there was a chance she"d get away.

But what would happen if she did that? It would just be compounding her idiocy.

The image of her frantically sprinting down the path past the library was too ridiculous.

Touko resigned herself to her fate and started walking.

She waited at the entrance doorway until Yumi-sama finally arrived.

"Sorry for keeping you waiting."

Indeed, she"d been kept waiting. For a lot longer than it would typically take to change one"s shoes.

"Let"s go."

"Okay."

Touko looked back in the direction from which Yumi-sama had come. She couldn"t see anyone that Yumi-sama could have been talking to.

"You know."

Walking half a step ahead, Yumi-sama mumbled.

"I wanted a chance to talk to you alone, Touko-chan. But I didn"t know how you would feel about that. I"ve been holding back from visiting the first-year camellia cla.s.sroom because it might cause problems for you."

Yumi-sama looked back over her shoulder at Touko.

"So, I"m overjoyed that we ran into each other just now."

At that moment, a thought crossed Touko"s mind - Yumi-sama had taken her time just to give Touko a chance to run away.

Touko eyed the path they were walking along. Running as hard as she could, it would take her about this long to cover the distance from the entrance way to the corner of the library.

So this girl would have been fine if Touko had run off. Probably.

(Or maybe she"d have preferred I ran.)

That wasn"t right.

The smile she"d had when she said she was overjoyed they met had not been fake.

First of all, if she hadn"t wanted to walk home with Touko, she wouldn"t have asked when they"d met. There was no need for something so circuitous.

No matter how she much she thought about it, she wouldn"t get an answer. Touko gave up and asked a question:

"What did you intend to say to me when we met?"

It was the first time they"d been alone together since last Christmas.

Back then, Touko had been agitated by the sudden offer of the rosary and harshly rejected Yumi-sama.

Touko had resigned herself to hearing a couple of complaints about this now that there was no-one else around.

However.

"What indeed? I don"t know. There wasn"t anything I explicitly wanted to say, it was just a vague feeling. It"s like, there"s so many boxes to open, I don"t know where to start."

Yumi-sama"s answer was as vague as she"d described, containing nothing even slightly relevant.

"Anyway, you know how you call out to your friends, even if you have nothing specific to talk about? It"s like, well, since you"re here, but then you try and think about why you want them to stay, and you don"t know."

She didn"t know?

A short time ago, Touko had succ.u.mbed to that same emotion when she called out to Noriko.

So did that mean that Yumi-sama was feeling the same way towards Touko that Touko had felt earlier?

They turned the corner past the library.

"Touko-chan."

Yumi-sama opened a box and presented the words inside to Touko.

"My bad for putting you on the spot."

But Touko had no idea what she was being put on the spot about.

What had Yumi-sama done to her that warranted an apology? Shouldn"t Touko have been the one saying "My bad." Of course, with Lillian"s strict seniority system, she wouldn"t say something as informal as "my bad" to a senior.

"I didn"t think about it. I offered you my rosary before even thinking about it. There were a lot of things I should have thought about - your feelings, whether it was the right circ.u.mstances, all sorts of things - before I asked. But I got carried away by my own emotions. So it"s only natural that you were shocked."

So that was what led Yumi-sama to say, "My bad." But, if those were her true feelings, then she couldn"t be said to have made any progress at all.

Because, right now, Yumi-sama was driving the conversation without considering Touko at all. If she had thought about it, she would know that Touko would rather not have this conversation.

"So, this has been an apology. Next I"m going to make a proposal - can we return our relationship to how it was prior to Christmas?"

"Huh!?"

"I hate this awkward relationship we have now. Ah, but don"t worry, I"m not going to force my rosary on you. But, like, could we greet each other warmly if we pa.s.sed in the corridor? Or stop and have a pointless chat in the hallway? Ah, right. Could you come and visit us at the Rose Mansion again - "

"I don"t understand what you"re thinking."

Touko cut in, unable to stand this optimistic "proposal."

"Why are you so indulgent of an undercla.s.sman who rejected you?"

"Indulgent? That"s not it."

Seeing those blank eyes looking back at her, Touko momentarily doubted her grasp of the j.a.panese language. Why was it that conversations would go like this when they shared the same language?

"First of all, why would you even consider making this fool your pet.i.t soeur?"

That was what Touko had wanted to ask when she was offered the rosary. But she"d been afraid of the answer, so she"d swallowed the question.

"Can you stop demeaning yourself like that?"

Yumi-sama"s expression hardened slightly.

""This fool" is just fine for this fool."

"You said it again."

"It"s got nothing to do with you, right? I"m just talking about myself."

"It does have something to do with me. You"re the one I chose as my pet.i.t soeur. I don"t want you to be arbitrarily devaluing yourself."

But that meant she didn"t have that value originally. Why couldn"t Yumi-sama understand that?

"I interpreted Yumi-sama"s offer of her rosary at that time as a fantasy. And I accepted it as such. So all this talk of soeurs should be over. So why do you still care about me?"

Touko glared at Yumi-sama.

"You don"t know?"

Yumi-sama stopped walking and looked calmly at Touko as she asked this. As though to say, "You really don"t know?"

She didn"t know.

She was afraid of knowing.

At this moment, Yumi-sama was looking straight at Touko alone. Like she was drawing her in.

In truth, Touko knew.

For whatever reason, she knew the answer Yumi-sama had prepared.

But Touko just couldn"t believe it. That was why she couldn"t take the offered hand. She couldn"t leap into those outspread arms.

"You know, ever since you turned me down, I"ve been thinking about it."

Yumi-sama resumed walking. Touko followed along after her.

"Wondering what would happen between me and Touko-chan."

They walked along the path lined with ginkgo trees, just half a step separating them.

"But then I thought I should think about what I wanted to happen between us, rather than wonder about what would happen. Since then, that"s what I"ve been thinking about."

Touko had no obligation to follow her like this. She didn"t have to silently listen to her talk. She could just say, "That"s enough," and stop walking.

But Touko followed her. She had to confirm her suspicious about where Yumi-sama"s speech was going.

"Ultimately, I"ll be happy as long as Touko-chan is Touko-chan."

Yumi-sama stopped walking before Touko did. They had arrived at the statue of Maria-sama.

"As long as I"m me."

This phrase didn"t exactly make Touko feel happy. But Yumi-sama didn"t notice Touko-chan"s subtle shift in expression, because she had her head bowed in prayer.

"So while I"d be delighted to be your soeur, it seems like you don"t value that, perhaps seeing it as a prison."

Yumi-sama opened her eyes and turned around. Touko had forgotten to pray, repeating a single phrase over and over.

"You said, "As long as I"m me - ""

Her hands were shaking. She knew she shouldn"t dig too deeply into this topic. But now that the lid had been opened, she just had to look inside. There was no way she couldn"t.

"That"s right. So no matter what you do, my feelings won"t change. If you don"t want to tell me the real reason you ran in the student council election, I won"t force it out of you. If that"s the conclusion you came to after careful deliberation, then it must have been important to you. Same with why you ran away from home. And other things, like what sort of people your parents are, what kind of childhood you had, what your relationship with them is like now - all those are completely separate to the feelings I have for you, Touko-chan."

As she listened to Yumi spout her pet theory, Touko"s temper flared.

Parents, childhood, relationship. How could this person talk so innocently to Touko about these things?

"So that"s it?"

Ah, she knew it.

"So that"s how it is?"

"Huh?"

"As long as I"m me? It has nothing to do with my parents? I knew it had to be something like that."

Still silent, her eyes glistened. She hadn"t realized her own mistake yet.

"I don"t know how long you"ve known, but I knew it had to be pity that made you offer me your rosary at that moment. You just wanted to pay a visit to Sara[1] on Christmas Eve. Oh how happy you must have felt when you held out your rosary."

Even so, for a moment she"d wanted to believe, like an idiot.

On that Christmas Eve.

It had been here, right in front of Maria-sama.

"I thought it was strange. There was no way Yumi-sama would want this fool as her pet.i.t soeur. But, finally, the mystery is solved."

"I don"t know what you"re talking about."

"If you"re not willing to admit it, it"s going to make it hard to move forwards."

"Hey, isn"t this some sort of misunderstanding?"

Yumi-sama took a step towards Touko.

"Stay away from me!"

Touko screamed with all her might.

"Don"t come any closer!"

"Touko-chan."

"I don"t want to hear any of your excuses."

Maintaining a distance of about a metre between them, they looked at each other.

"Alright."

Eventually, Yumi-sama started to speak.

"It looks like your blood"s boiling, so no matter what I say you won"t hear."

With that, Yumi-sama turned her back and walked away from Touko. One metre became two, then when she was about three metres away, she looked back over her shoulder like she"d forgotten something and said:

"Touko-chan. Stay there and count to 100. No moving until you"re done."

Then she kept walking.

Without knowing why, Touko followed those directions and counted, "One, two." Even as she wondered why she should follow the orders of someone she was rebelling against, she followed them because of the power of those words.

Her blood was indeed boiling. And her mind was rattled. She couldn"t think about things properly. She didn"t know what would mess things up, or what was the right thing to do.

In that unsettled state of mind, it was easier to follow someone else"s instructions. Even if they came from someone who was tricking her into doing something she found unpleasant. Although, obviously, counting to 100 was a simple and harmless task, so she had no qualms there.

"Twenty-three, twenty-four."

She hadn"t been told to close her eyes, but at some point her eyelids had fastened shut. Now, Touko was "it" in a game of hide-and-seek.

"Forty-nine, fifty."

Part way through her legs became unsteady, so she crouched down.

"Seventy-six, seventy-seven, seventy-eight."

The numbers were born and then disappeared. In the beginning, there were all these malevolent thoughts wrapped around her mind as the numbers visited one by one. But now, there was only the numbers there. The numbers flowed in an orderly fashion.

"Ninety-one, ninety-two."

Her boiling blood had cooled considerably.

"One hundred."

Touko opened her eyes.

She looked around, but couldn"t see Yumi-sama anywhere.