Chapter 234: Stand Up

The November wind blew all the way from the edge of the sea, sweeping across the long campus path of Advanced Nurturing High School, carrying the chill of late autumn.

The ginkgo trees lining both sides of the path had shed their thick summer shade, leaving only crowns of gold. Whenever the wind stirred, it peeled away flakes of gold foil, rustling as they scattered across the ground.

Crunch—crunch—

Two sets of hurried footsteps landed on the path covered in dead leaves, producing faint, crisp sounds.

"Wait, slow down a little, Fuyuji-kun. There's no need to walk this fast."

Pulled forward firmly by Fuyuji Mikage, Ichinose Honami stumbled along behind him, her fair, slightly plump thighs taking small, quick steps. Her golden-pink hair, tousled by the wind, clung to her damp forehead. Every so often, she glanced back hastily, trying to catch a glimpse of the direction where Sakayanagi Arisu's figure had long since vanished.

"I told you, there's no need to worry about that woman. She's got nothing better to do than stir up trouble every day!" Fuyuji kept walking forward without turning his head.

"But her face..." Ichinose's voice was as faint as a mosquito's buzz, tinged with hesitation.

"It's just a slap. She probably never got hit at home before, which is why her eyes were somewhere they didn't belong. Serves as a good wake-up call for her."

A mere chairman for a father? If he dares to come, I'll take him down too!

If it comes to that, I can always go back and cling to my senpai's black-stockinged long legs and live off Morishita-sama's generosity. Of course, a spot in Shiraishi-mama's embrace isn't a bad choice either.

Mulling it over, Fuyuji's initially irritated mood somehow lifted for no apparent reason.

"But... Sakayanagi-san just now seemed..." Ichinose murmured hesitantly.

"You must have seen wrong, Ichinose," Fuyuji cut her off decisively, his tone certain. "Alright, let's stop talking about her." He squeezed her palm gently, reassuring this overly kind girl.

"Oh..."

Ichinose responded briefly, lowering her head. Her sky-blue eyes reflected the image of her wrist held firmly in his grasp, and a shy flush gradually crept onto her earlobes.

They walked a little further. The shadows of the roadside trees stretched longer as the sun continued its descent westward.

Ichinose, who had been in a daze as if her mind had been completely blanked out, finally seemed to be awakened by the cool evening breeze. She lifted her head, a few strands of pale golden hair blown against her slightly flushed cheeks, and called out weakly, "Fuyuji-kun."

"Yeah?" Fuyuji instinctively slowed his pace.

"I told you this afternoon that I was already fine. I even specifically asked you to hang out together on the weekend. There shouldn't have been any flaws in my act. Why could you guess right away that I was going to see Sakayanagi-san?"

"With those little tricks of yours, Ichinose, you thought you could fool me?" Fuyuji grinned. "Come on. You, who's always afraid of troubling others—since when do you proactively invite someone out? And to the amusement park on the top floor of Keyaki Mall, no less? I saw through your lie at a single glance!"

"..."

Ichinose's lips quivered. She managed a somewhat embarrassed smile, her gaze drifting away shiftily.

Fuyuji-kun, you say that... but is it possible... that I was actually telling the truth...

"Did Fuyuji-kun arrive there long before then?"

"I followed right behind you." Fuyuji declared smugly. "You were acting way too strange, so I had to keep an eye on you. But it looks like my worry was unnecessary. You did great—a complete counterattack on that scrap of a loli, Sakayanagi."

"Ahh!" Ichinose's face instantly flushed crimson. Instinctively ignoring the second half of his comment, she clapped a hand over her skirt.

Her white pleated skirt covered her perfectly rounded, pert buttocks. Even so, the way the fabric draped hinted unmistakably at the graceful, alluring curves of her figure.

The two of them took a few more steps, turning onto the secluded path beside the main school building. The light here was dimmer. Since classes had ended, students rarely chose this route.

Fuyuji, walking ahead with his back to her, naturally didn't see the heart-racing blush on the girl's face. He continued forward on his own, making casual conversation with Ichinose as he walked.

"Speaking of which, I just got a message. Kanzaki-san came to Class A, apparently planning to discuss this matter with me. Hey... what do you think? If I told him I'm with you right now, would his stone-cold poker face let out a shrill screech?"

"And that Shiramami-san who's always following you—she actually added me as a friend this afternoon. How about you play along later so I can tease her a bit, Ichinose?"

"As for those rumors and stuff, you don't have to worry about them, Ichinose. That loli Sakayanagi won't keep—"

Before he could finish speaking, Fuyuji felt the palm of his hand empty. The warmth he had been holding onto tightly abruptly vanished.

Startled, he turned his head.

Ichinose had stumbled to a halt, rooted to the spot. Only her thumb and index finger still stubbornly pinched the hem of his clothes, refusing to let go.

The girl's head hung low. Her slender shoulders rose and fell slightly. The blush that had colored her cheeks moments ago had now drained away completely, leaving her face as pale as paper. Fine, cold sweat beaded on her forehead. Her legs trembled visibly, unable to take another step.

"Ichinose?" Fuyuji instantly spun around and closed the distance to her in one swift stride, leaning down to look at her face.

"Sorry, Fuyuji-kun..." Forcing a faint smile onto her pale face, she spoke in broken fragments. "I seem... to have no strength left..."

Before Fuyuji could even react, her body gave way uncontrollably. Clinging to his arm for support, she slumped down heavily onto the concrete ground.

When external pressure suddenly vanishes, long-suppressed emotions can burst their dams instead.

"..."

Fuyuji froze for an instant. He looked down at the girl before him, her breathing shallow and ragged, her sky-blue eyes misted with a thin film of tears.

He let out a sigh, then sat down beside Ichinose. Bracing his hands on the concrete, he gazed up at the setting sun beginning its descent below the horizon.

"I told you so. Dealing with your classmates every single day, never saying no to anyone, even putting other people's problems above your own—there's no way you could actually be 'fine' like you claimed."

Cha-Cha only had to deal with those quasi-human creatures in Class D each day. She didn't manage any class affairs, and she'd occasionally come to him to vent steam. Even then, she was ferociously irritable behind the scenes.

Ichinose, on the other hand, opened her eyes each morning to her class of model students clamoring for attention in Class B, with a homeroom teacher who was an unreliable drunkard to boot. She shouldered virtually all the class's affairs. Yet despite all that, she maintained that energetic, cheerful front every single day.

She was probably running on some kind of emotional fuel. Now that the fuel line was cut, the consequences were only to be expected.

Ichinose shifted slightly, adjusting her posture. She drew her legs together on the ground, trying to prop herself up with her hands, striving not to look so miserable. With a voice that seemed ready to scatter on the autumn wind the very next second, she laughed weakly and said:

"I'm sorry..."

"What use is saying sorry to me?" Fuyuji shook his head helplessly, his gaze resting on her bowed head. "You don't owe me anything, Ichinose. It's yourself you should be saying sorry to."

A momentary silence fell over the campus path. Only the wind rustled the ginkgo leaves like scattered gold foil, making a fine, soft whispering sound.

Finally, the strained smile faded away completely.

Ichinose, that girl universally acknowledged as perfect by the whole school, slowly turned her head as if mustering every last ounce of strength. Her sky-blue eyes looked directly at Fuyuji.

Fuyuji turned his head too, silently meeting her gaze.

The lingering sunlight filtered through the sparse branches, casting mottled, shifting patterns of light and shadow over them. It illuminated the lowered profile of Ichinose so that she seemed almost translucent, her skin glowing faintly like sunlit porcelain.

Slowly, as if scorched by the setting sun, the rims of Ichinose's eyes rapidly reddened. Tears welled up in her eyes, silently accumulating, gathering, on the verge of spilling over...

"Fuyuji-kun, may I... say it out loud?" The girl bit her lip desperately, struggling to keep any sobs from leaking out.

"You can, Ichinose."

Fuyuji slowly shifted his body two steps closer to Ichinose, guiding her head to rest on his shoulder. He comforted her softly.

"You've already done so well. So," he turned his head sideways, his lips close to her hair, "you don't need to hold back anymore."

In that instant, tears silently overflowed from Ichinose's eyes. They slid down her cheeks and dampened his shoulder.

...

Leaning against that not particularly broad shoulder, Ichinose drew a deep breath. It was as if she was trying to inhale all the gloom that had been accumulating in her chest for far too long, only to exhale it slowly along with her words.

Her voice was very soft, carrying a tremor, blending into the cool breeze of that autumn evening.

"My family is a single-parent household. It's just my mom, my little sister who's two years younger than me, and me, the three of us." Ichinose's gaze drifted out of focus, past the low shrubs lining the campus path, towards the school buildings dyed gold by the twilight. "We weren't well off, but I never thought of myself as unfortunate. My mom worked so hard and still had to raise the two of us. She always looked so tired... So back then, I thought, I'll just go to work after junior high. High school costs so much money..."

A single golden ginkgo leaf spiraled down and landed on her closed knees.

"But Mom opposed it. She opposed it very firmly. I understood, just as I wished from the bottom of my heart for my sister's happiness, Mom surely wished for both me and my sister to be happy too. So I studied desperately, thinking that as long as I worked hard enough, I just needed to get a special scholarship..."

There was no pride in her voice, just a weary calm.

Fuyuji didn't interrupt. He simply listened quietly. Through the fabric on his shoulder, he could clearly feel her subtle breathing and the slight vibrations as she spoke.

"But in the summer of my third year," her voice choked abruptly, "Mom collapsed."

The wind seemed to freeze for a moment. Only the faint sound of dead leaves scraping against the ground remained on the path.

"My sister's birthday was coming up." Ichinose's voice dropped even lower, thick with a nasal tone. "My sister had always been very thoughtful since she was little. She never fussed for things. If she liked some clothes, she wouldn't buy them. If friends asked her out, she'd endure it and stay home. She was always holding back, at such a young age. But that time, for the first time, she had something she wanted..."

She paused, as if gathering courage, before continuing. "I think Mom must have taken on extra shifts to buy her that hairpin... and that's why..."

Tears slid down silently again, dripping onto Fuyuji's shoulder, where they spread into a small, darker stain.

"I still remember how Mom looked in the hospital room, apologizing while crying. And I remember my sister shouting those hurtful words at her. But I can't blame my sister. That was the one and only time she asked for a present..."

Her shoulders began to tremble slightly, uncontrollably. The weight of her body leaning on him for support seemed to increase.

"As the older sister, I had to do something to make my sister smile again. I must have thought that at the time. So after school, I went to the department store..."

She closed her eyes, her long eyelashes wet with tears.

"That hairpin was expensive, costing over ten thousand yen. I took it out of the department store. My first time stealing... my first crime..." Her words were laden with immense shame and anguish. "Luckily, no one noticed. I ran home and gave it to my sister, with no wrapping, a very crude gift. But my sister smiled so happily, and seeing her smile, I felt a little relieved..."

"But it was wrong!" She shook her head forcefully, her hair brushing against the side of Fuyuji's neck.

"Mom... there's no way she couldn't have noticed her daughter had done something bad..." Ichinose's voice trembled violently. "And then, I saw Mom get angry like never before. She hit me hard and took the hairpin away from my sister by force..."

"In the end, Mom, still hospitalized, took me back to that store." She was practically mouthing the words with her breath. "We prostrated ourselves... and begged for forgiveness..."

"The store didn't call the police. But I shut myself away. I spent almost the entire second half of my third year in my room..."

Ichinose seemed to have exhausted all her strength. Her voice grew fainter and fainter, leaving only broken sobs.

A brief silence enveloped them both.

It was past five in the afternoon. The rays of the setting sun angled further, stretching their silhouettes as they leaned on each other, casting them long upon the concrete path covered in golden leaves. In the distance, the faint sound of a basketball bouncing could be heard.

"Later on," Ichinose spoke again, her voice carrying a hoarse quality, like that of a survivor, "it was my homeroom teacher who told me about this school. Room and board, tuition all free. After graduation, you could freely choose your career path. I wanted... to start over..."

"So I came to Advanced Nurturing High School. I met everyone, and I met you..."

"Even now, I think I'm truly, incredibly lucky to have met everyone in Class B..."

"And even more importantly... to have met you, Fuyuji-kun... It really was something wonderful."

Next to him, Ichinose's voice was brimming over with a joy that felt almost ready to overflow.

"That day I was able to go shopping at the supermarket... I might very well have used up a lifetime's worth of luck."

The secret she had kept buried deep in the bottom of her heart was finally, in this moment, on this campus path strewn with autumn's gold, poured out to this seemingly unreliable boy beside her.

Ichinose didn't speak anymore. She just leaned against his shoulder more deeply.

"That's not right, Ichinose." Fuyuji spoke softly.

"What's not right?"

"If you hadn't chosen to help me pick out kitchenware back then, I wouldn't have bothered with you afterward. So,"

He lifted the hand that wasn't pinned down by her and gently placed it on her soft hair, stroking it over and over.

"It's enough now. It's already enough. You've been kneeling there for a whole year. There's no need to kneel anymore."

"Right now, Ichinose, you can stand up."

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