The Love Coach

(Shin's PoV)

—

After waving at Akane and Daiki had finished his public relations, we left through the gate and headed toward the shop he wanted to go to.

"Ah damn... that was the longest history lesson of my life," Daiki complained.

"I thought you were asleep, to be honest," I said.

"Well, Kinda." He adjusted his bag. "Tanaka-sensei read the same page for forty minutes. Forty! I counted the ceiling tiles to keep myself entertained. A hundred and twelve, by the way. One's cracked."

"Which one?"

"Third row, near the window. The crack looks like a river." He sighed. "This school must be fixed, for real."

"I'll speak with Sora about that. She'll be happy that you're being useful." I smirked. "Maybe she'll put a good word with Takaneda-sensei. 

"Oh. Please do." He said it with a particularly pleading voice. "She'll surely listen to you."

I laughed.

Then we continued down the road as the afternoon traffic began to thicken. Bicycles slipped between pedestrians, delivery vans waited at the crossing, and a woman pushed a stroller with a bag of leeks swinging from its handle.

Daiki had both hands in his pockets, and that was unusual enough for me to notice.

I'd known him for years, and the guy was almost physically incapable of staying still. Usually he'd be drumming on his bag, tapping a railing, or inventing some rhythm on the nearest available surface.

Today, he just walked.

His shoulders were relaxed, but his eyes stayed on the road ahead, and every now and then he looked as if he wanted to say something but changed his mind.

Then, at the first crossing, he glanced over. "So... you're really coming with me."

"Of course. I told you." I smiled.

"Good, very good!"

"What were you planning to buy, anyway? You just said that you had some stuff on hold."

"Very serious stuff, I swear."

"Uhm..." I scratched the back of my head. "How serious?"

"One week's worth of serious." A faint grin appeared. "Don't worry. If you get bored, I'll leave you outside."

"Wow... How... considerate." I sighed.

"I know. I'm an excellent friend." He gave me a thumbs-up. "This way."

He took the lead, guiding me beneath the railway bridge and into the covered shopping street.

Several shops were already closing for the evening. Metal shutters rattled down, and the smell of warm sugar drifted from a nearby taiyaki stand.

Daiki knew the route well enough that he barely looked where he was going.

I followed him, still thinking about something he'd almost said earlier, and halfway down the path to the Video Game Shop, I finally brought it up.

"Hey, Daiki."

"Mm?"

"This morning, when I mentioned Akane had plans with Sora, you started saying something about the president and then stopped." A small pause. "Well, I've been thinking about it way too much. What did you want to say?"

He glanced at me, and then he stopped walking.

A cyclist had to steer around us, and a shopkeeper lowering his shutters gave us a rather unfriendly look.

Daiki ignored both and turned toward me with the same expression he wore whenever he was about to explain a ridiculously complicated final-boss strategy. "Are you sure you want to know?"

"Uh... yes?"

"Fine..." He sighed. "Akane's right. 100%."

"Uhm..." I scratched the back of my head. "About what?"

"You're too damn stupid to notice when a girl is attracted to you, Shin."

I blinked. Waited. Surely there was supposed to be more to that sentence.

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

Daiki closed his eyes. "See? Stupid." He sighed.

"Daiki..."

"Okay, listen. I've been reading romantic comedies since I was old enough to hold a controller, and my sixth sense has been screaming at me for some time." He pointed at me. "The president is in love with you."

My brain stopped working.

"WHAT?!" My voice bounced off the nearby shutters, and a woman behind a shop counter looked up.

I immediately lowered my volume.

"W-Wait! What? Excuse me?" I leaned closer to him.

"There it is." Daiki nodded with satisfaction. "That's exactly the reaction I expected."

"That's impossible! We're friends! She's the student council president, and I'm her assistant! Besides, Akane—"

"Akane noticed ages ago, probably."

I stared at him, and all he did was shrug.

"She hasn't done anything because she cares about Sora too. My romance anime expertise level is high enough to know that." He crossed his arms. 

"Daiki, come on. Don't joke about something like that. Akane is the type of girl who would skin a girl alive if she even glances at me!!"

"I'm not joking, you idiot. Have you seriously never noticed how she looks at you?" He held out one hand, palm up, as though he were presenting evidence in court. "That girl is gone, Shin. Completely gone. How the hell did you miss it?"

I opened my mouth, and then closed it, because, unfortunately, my brain had started digging through the past.

Sora standing in the corridor on Tuesday, gripping her folders so tightly that her knuckles had turned pale.

'Don't call me by my name here, please.'

Then, barely a minute later, the way she'd whispered 'Shin' when I put my hand on her shoulder... How quickly she'd pulled away... I'd felt her trembling beneath my palm. At the time, I'd tried not to think too much about it.

Then there was Tsubame's paper. Now that I think about it, Sora had probably signed it without even reading what was written on it because she teased us so much.

And then I also realized that whenever Akane climbed into my lap on the rooftop, Sora suddenly became very interested in looking elsewhere.

Oh. Oh, no.

"If that's true..." I muttered, "it would explain a lot of the strange behavior."

"Good morning, sunshine." Daiki smiled.

"Don't." I sighed. "It's—"

"I'm just welcoming you back to the land of the living, Shin. And trust me, I'm telling you this for a very good reason that you should've already figured out." Daiki then started walking again, and I hurried after him. "Finding this out at five in the afternoon must be quite the experience, huh?"

"It's a shock, okay?" I rubbed the back of my neck. "But I haven't done anything! Seriously, nothing! I've only helped her with the stall maps, carried some folders, helped with reports..."

"Exactly." Daiki pointed.

"...Exactly what?" I blinked.

"That's the problem, Shin..."

I stared at him. "Me helping with folders is a problem?"

"No, you moron. You being yourself is the problem." His voice sharpened a little.

"How is that a problem?"

He sighed as if he were explaining elementary mathematics to a particularly slow child.

"Look. Ever since you and Akane got together, you've changed. You've gotten more confident, you actually take care of how you look, and apparently half the girls at school have started noticing." He moved his gaze to my ears. "Especially after those two earrings. Damn, I might become gay for you, man."

I giggled. "That's an exaggeration."

"Is it? I've heard at least two second-years talking about confessing to you."

My eyes widened. "What?"

"Yeah. Meanwhile, I've spent three years being loud, charming, and absolutely magnificent, and I've received exactly one confession." He held up a finger. "And it was because she had lost a bet. Thank God I said no out of panic."

"One." I tried not to laugh. "You? Charming?"

"S-Shut up! The point is, you somehow got the most popular girl in school interested in you just by doing absolutely nothing."

"That's not how..."

"Actually, never mind. I get why you didn't notice." His voice softened,

"Oh, really?" I asked. "Please enlighten me."

"Simple." Daiki looked at me. "You only have eyes for Akane."

I fell quiet.

"Everybody else might as well be invisible when she's around. And the worst part is that you're genuinely nice to everyone. You treat Sora with the same kindness you'd show anybody else, without realizing that sometimes people take those little gestures to heart." He scratched his cheek. "That's probably how you melted our scary student council president."

I considered that as we walked. A bicycle bell rang somewhere ahead of us.

"You might be right," I admitted.

Daiki glanced at me.

"I mean... I really do think about Akane all the time, don't I?" My lips automatically curved into a smile.

"Pretty much. And I mean it in the best possible way, you know?" He 'gently' slapped my back.

I sighed. "And now I don't know how I'm supposed to act around Sora."

"It's actually pretty easy." He raised one finger. "Don't."

"...Don't what, exactly?" I asked.

"Don't start acting like the idiot protagonist in ninety percent of the romcoms I watch." He gave me a serious look. "Treat her exactly the same as always. Talk to her normally. Help her with the folders. Don't start avoiding her just because you've finally figured something out. Ah, be sincere, always."

I nodded slowly.

"And honestly, knowing Akane, she's probably already dealing with it in her own way."

"Ah." The thought hit me half a second later.

'Girls' night. Sora and Hoshiko. Don't ask.'

I suddenly remembered those words.

I hadn't asked, but now I was starting to understand why.

She and Sora were probably on their way to Hoshiko's studio right now.

I remembered how calm Akane had looked that afternoon when she mentioned borrowing Sora for the evening. Was that what they'd planned to discuss?

I reached for my phone, pulled it halfway out of my pocket, and then put it back.

'No.' Akane knew what she was doing. At least, I hoped she did.

"By the way, Daiki," I said.

"Mmh? What now?" He replied. 

"You're a fantastic love coach, you know? Damn." I laughed. "How did you know all these things?"

"Well..." He sighed, looking at his shoes for an instant with an unreadable expression. "It's the same concept of the virgin guy who knows everything about sex without having ever touched a girl. I am just a good observer and can give good advice, but when it comes to me, I'm a complete idiot because my heart always makes the final decision. Otherwise I would've spoken with Izumi as soon as I saw the first red flag." A small, bitter laugh escaped from his lips. "Hah. I still have a lot to learn, you know?" His hand gripped his school bag tightly.

"Whatever happens, Daiki, just remember that you're not alone. You have friends like me, and if you're my friend, Akane is also your friend. Don't think that I don't have things to learn, too. I'm still too immature, especially after chasing a girl who had never seen me for seven years. I was just lucky, but you have potential. You just have to wait." 

He looked up at me. "Well, I guess you're right..." He smiled.

And then, we walked for a while without talking.

It was a little awkward now, but Daiki seemed content to let me think.

We passed an umbrella shop, another store whose merchandise I couldn't even identify, and a man washing the pavement outside a fish stall.

Eventually, Daiki broke the silence. "You're a total idiot, you know that?"

"Thanks, buddy. I appreciate it."

"And that's why you're my friend." He gave my shoulder a light punch. "But seriously. Teach me someday, okay?"

I blinked. "Teach you what?"

"Well... all of it. Especially how to make girls fall for me without doing anything." He gestured vaguely at all of me. "You know. That."

I stared at him, and then started laughing.

I couldn't help it.

The more I tried to stop, the worse it got.

Daiki rolled his eyes, but eventually he started laughing too. Quietly, at first, then properly.

"I don't even know what to say to that," I managed.

"Yeah, I know. That's the problem." He sighed. "Come on. Before I decide to punch you for being this dense."

"You hit like a baby ram. It won't hurt me anyway." I teased.

"Careful. I work out." He 'menacingly' cracked his knuckles.

"Since when?"

"Since I decided to become a better person."

"So yesterday?"

"Shin, I swear to God that I'll kill you."

I laughed again while he tried to 'friendly' strangle me, and then we kept walking.

By the time we reached the Video Game Shop, Daiki seemed a little more like himself.

The store was just ahead, tucked between a bank and a bookshop overlooking a small square.

A narrow little place with a hand-painted sign above the entrance.

RETRO CRATE

Its window was packed with old cartridges, secondhand consoles and faded game boxes that looked like they'd been sitting there since before either of us was born.

Daiki immediately picked up his pace. Of course he did.

One week of waiting—maybe more than he wanted to admit—and apparently the man was about to reunite with his long-lost children.

I followed him toward the entrance, and then he stopped. So abruptly that I nearly walked straight into his shoulder.

"Daiki, what..." He didn't answer. His eyes were fixed on something beside the store.

I followed his gaze and saw that the bookshop next door had a long display window filled with newly released manga. Several volumes stood beneath the spotlights, their covers facing the street.

A girl was standing in front of them. Same school uniform as ours.

Short brown hair, a sketchbook bag hanging from one shoulder, held close against her side.

I recognized her before she turned around.

Izumi Yamashiro.

She hadn't noticed us. She was staring at one of the manga covers, murmuring to herself.

"Mmm... this one might be good for him..."

Her voice was quiet, but the street was quiet enough for us to hear.

"Yes... he mentioned this manga last week. The one with the lighthouse..." She lifted a finger toward the glass, tracing the outline of the cover without quite touching it. "He said the ending was supposed to be sad. He wanted to read it..." She hesitated. "I could buy it... Maybe leave it at his door..." Her hand stopped.

Beside me, Daiki hadn't moved.

I looked at him. His face had lost whatever little color it had regained during our walk. He was staring at Izumi with the same expression I'd seen that morning, when he'd realized what the photographs on the bulletin board meant.

I didn't know what to say, and for once, neither did Daiki.

"I have to make it up to him," Izumi whispered, but her voice was shaking.

She lowered her hand and hugged the sketchbook bag tightly against her chest, bending her head toward it. "I have to..."

She stopped and, for a moment, stood there staring at the manga.

Then... she slowly turned her head. Her eyes moved across the street, past the vending machine and the bicycle rack, until they found us.

Daiki and I. And the moment she recognized him, her eyes widened...