2

“My face looks terrible.”

Mio sighed dejectedly as she stared at her fake smile in the photograph. Her phone was showing a picture from the aquarium trip the day before.

She never did make it to the dolphin show. It took almost an hour after she separated from the group with Eita for them to get back together. They took a break at the aquarium’s café, browsing all the souvenirs at the gift shop.

The sun was setting by the time the group left the aquarium.

The annual Enoshima light shows happened to flick on around then, and they all ended up detouring to the beach for photos, even though nobody strictly said they should.

So now, during a study break in her room, Mio was looking at the picture they took.

Haruto was up front, his arms stretched towards the phone. The three girls took up the middle row. Hazuki looked a little uncomfortable, perhaps because she wasn’t much for picture-taking. Her expression was starkly contrasted by Yoriko’s beaming face right beside her. Mio had a skillfully practiced smile. Eita, meanwhile, was all the way in the back of the photo, his face blank. He wasn’t even looking at the camera.

Haruto had used his phone to take the picture, so the group of five had to squeeze in so tight that there was barely room in the photo showing the Enoshima light show that they had gone down to take photos with.

Mio was able to look at the photo because they had all exchanged LINE IDs to mix and match their aquarium photos. They impulsively made a group chat of all five of them while wandering around appreciating the light show.

A day later, and the group was still pretty lively, with most of the conversation coming from Haruto and Yoriko. They agreed that the group should go somewhere again, and began discussing the various ways and places they could have fun in. Hazuki concernedly added How is your exam prep going, Natsume-san? which sparked responses in the line of How about we meet for a new year’s shine visit? Sounds great, let’s pray for exam success! And so the plans were put in place.

It was hard to reject everyone’s thoughtfulness, and Mio did want to go pray for success anyway, so she responded with an OK! Stamp.

Eita had remained silent in the group chat the entire time, but every message had four read markers, so she knew he was checking.

“You were definitely playing dumb yesterday, Izumi.”

He had been the only person in middle school to notice her one-sided crush. Suddenly hit with the urge to make sure he knew his place, she tapped on Eita’s profile, wrote him a personal message, and tapped send. She even put another stamp with it.

The message was immediately read according to the app, but there was no reply as she waited for the next few seconds. About a minute later, her phone vibrated, but not for a LINE notification. It was a phone call, and not even from Eita. Her screen read, “Komiya Ena.”

Unsure of what the call could possibly be for, Mio put the phone up to her ear. “Yes?”

“Hey, Prez.” Ena’s bright voice made its way through the phone speaker.

“Yeah. What?”

“Do you know Souma-senpai’s LINE info?”

Ena’s casual voice spoke a name that Mio would never have expected to hear. Her heart skipped a beat as she straightened up in shock. “Wh-Why ask me, and where’s this coming from? How would I know?” Mio lied impulsively, feeling like Ena had looked right through her.

“Aw, I figured Prez would know if anybody would.”

“Why?” Mio had never discussed any romantic matters with Ena, and nobody other than Eita could have known about her years-long one-sided crush. Suspicion laced her tone.

“Huh? ‘Cause you’re in the same class, duh.”

But Ena didn’t have any special reasoning. Mio started to calm down, feeling like she could pull herself together. “That’s true, but that’s not a very good reason. What do you want with Souma, anyway?”

“I wanted to put a picture of those senpai in a photo competition, so I figured I would need permission. The future of the photography club is at stake! That picture could win the prize I need to turn the tables, so I gotta get it in!”

Ena’s pure, straightforward emotions were palpable even over the phone. Her honesty and ability to be so true to herself and her impulses seemed so bright and dazzling.

Mio wished she could look away somehow.

“…Yeah.”

“Oh, I bet you were studying, huh? Sorry ‘bout that, Prez. I’ll hang up now. Thanks.”

“No, wait, I actually-”

The call ended before Mio could finish. She was going to admit she did actually have his info. And after all that buzzing, her phone was now silent.

“Well, what was I supposed to do? She was so sudden about it.”

The timing was all so unfortunate.

Mio got up from her chair, collapsing face-down onto her bed.

She unlocked her phone, not moving from her position. It opened onto her LINE homescreen. She got ready to send a message to Haruto. Is now a good time?

But just as she got ready to press send, she hesitated. Maybe she was acting a little too casual, and she had just gotten his LINE info the day before, and she was really better off just deleting any of the attempts she put out there.

She ended up just tapping Eita’s name again.