The day began without grandeur, as if the sun itself had no ambition other than to exist—an ordinary sky stretched overhead, pale blue and yawning. Kaoru thought it suited the outing. "Field trip," Takeshi had called it, as though they were schoolchildren rather than a strange gathering of half-baked creatives and accidental friends.
"Real-life references, Kaoru. Inspiration is like air—you don't realize you're suffocating until you step outside." Takeshi's voice carried conviction that sounded borrowed, as though he had stolen the line from a pretentious book.
"Yeah, yeah." Kaoru shoved his hands in his pockets, trailing behind as Kaede marched ahead like a general leading troops into a carnival instead of a battlefield. He wasn't sure what counted as research about goldfish scooping or overpriced takoyaki stands, but he supposed Takeshi could write an essay on it if pressed.
The small local festival was alive with chatter and color, red lanterns swinging gently above the streets. The smell of grilled squid drifted through the crowd, mingling with the faint smoke of cheap fireworks. It was the kind of place where reality loosened its grip—where the ordinary wove itself into something faintly surreal, as if every laugh might be hiding a whisper, every prize booth concealing some forgotten tale.
Naoki adjusted his glasses and muttered, "You know, for research, this feels a lot like you just wanted to waste money on festival food."
Kaede spun around, her eyes gleaming with dangerous competitiveness. "Don't underestimate the spirit of the hunt, Naoki. Festival games are a battlefield of honor. Look—goldfish scooping. I'll win more than anyone here."
Kaoru sighed, sensing impending disaster.
The first scoop cracked within seconds. Kaede's triumphant declaration was replaced by a guttural wail of betrayal. Paper nets tore apart, goldfish darted gleefully away from her grasp. She went again, jaw clenched, muttering as though invoking divine wrath. By her fourth attempt, even the stall owner looked guilty for taking her money.
"You could've just bought a goldfish outright…" Kaoru muttered, earning a glare sharp enough to slice air.
Takeshi scribbled in a small notebook, nodding solemnly. "The struggle of man against fragile paper. A metaphor for the futility of grasping at dreams."
"You're insufferable," Kaoru shot back.
By the time Kaede abandoned her quest with empty hands and scorched pride, the group was herded toward the karaoke tent. The neon lights inside painted everyone in ridiculous shades—Kaoru's skin an alien green, Naoki's glasses glowing like eerie lanterns.
"Absolutely not," Kaoru said, backing away from the microphone like it was cursed.
"You'll sing." Takeshi shoved it into his hands with the inevitability of fate. "It's for research. Dialogue rhythm, tonal variety. The cadence of suffering."
Before Kaoru could escape, Naoki—quiet, bookish Naoki—took the mic instead. What emerged was not the shy mumble Kaoru expected, but a voice sharp and startlingly smooth, carrying an old anime theme song with disarming confidence. The crowd, small as it was, erupted in cheers. Even Kaede, licking her wounds from goldfish defeat, clapped along.
"Traitor," Kaoru muttered under his breath.
Aya, seated on a plastic chair by the corner, didn't clap or sing. She simply watched. Her expression, as ever, was unreadable—but Kaoru noticed something off-kilter. A faint curve at her lips. Not quite a smile, but dangerously close to becoming one.
For some reason, that unsettled him more than Kaede's demonic energy or Takeshi's philosopher-act.
When Kaoru was finally forced to sing—after losing a rigged rock-paper-scissors round against Kaede—he chose the most bizarre option available: a heavy rock version of a children's anime opening. His voice cracked halfway through, and the background video inexplicably shifted to stock footage of running horses. The absurdity of it all drew laughs, tears, and a half-choked sound from Aya that might've been a suppressed laugh.
The night deepened, lanterns glowing brighter against the dark. The group wandered aimlessly, pockets lighter, spirits heavier with fried food. Takeshi insisted on jotting down overheard snippets of conversation from strangers—"raw authenticity," he said, eyes gleaming with imagined brilliance. Kaede challenged random children to yo-yo contests. Naoki, for reasons beyond comprehension, had acquired a plastic sword and swung it with measured precision, as if dueling unseen foes.
And Kaoru… Kaoru played the fool, tripping over uneven stones, misjudging the weight of a takoyaki skewer and nearly launching it into the night sky, making offhand comments that earned him groans or laughter. His role was not deliberate—it simply unfolded. And yet, through his own self-inflicted chaos, he felt the strange glue of their group tighten.
It was between moments, however, that Kaoru caught Aya again. Standing beneath the lantern light, her arms loosely crossed, gaze unfocused. She wasn't frowning. She wasn't tense. If anything, she seemed… softer. As though the weight she carried had slipped, just for an instant.
Kaoru didn't speak of it. He wouldn't. But the image clung to him, like the faint aftertaste of smoke long after fireworks had burned away.
The festival wound down. Stalls shuttered. Music faded into scattered chatter. Their group trudged away from the lights, laughter still echoing in fragments. Takeshi argued with Kaede about "artistic merit" in goldfish scooping. Naoki quietly hummed the song he'd belted earlier. Aya walked at the rear, silent but no longer entirely cold.
Kaoru stretched his arms above his head, yawning exaggeratedly. "So… did we find inspiration?"
"No," Takeshi said with certainty. "We lived it."
Kaoru snorted. "That's the most pretentious thing you've said all night."
Yet, for reasons he couldn't define, the words stuck.
The afternoon drifted lazily into evening, the park lights beginning to flicker awake as the group began splitting into smaller orbits of their own gravity. It was Emi who first tugged Aya's sleeve, eyes shining with the unmistakable hunger of someone who had smelled fried food from three stalls away. Kaede, naturally, bounced along behind them, her competitive fire now redirected from carnival games to hunting for the perfect taiyaki.
"I'm telling you," Kaede said with the seriousness of a scholar presenting her thesis, "red bean is superior. Custard is a coward's choice."
Emi puffed her cheeks. "Custard is happiness condensed into cream form. If anything, you lack courage for not admitting it."
Aya—cool, steady Aya—was caught in the middle, a slight crease on her brow. She stared down at the stall's options like she was contemplating an eldritch puzzle that, if answered incorrectly, would doom humanity. In the end, she muttered, "I'll take… both," with the faintest curve of a smile.
That alone was enough to stun Kaoru.
He stood a few paces away, hands shoved in his pockets, watching the trio drift into their own easy camaraderie. Their laughter rose above the chatter of festival-goers, bright and unrestrained. Aya's usually composed demeanor loosened under the lantern light, almost girlish in her amusement as Kaede overdramatically tried to juggle three taiyaki at once and dropped one on Emi's sandal.
Kaoru exhaled, feeling the weight of being the odd one out.
It wasn't that he was unwelcome. The others would wave him over if he so much as raised a hand. But standing there, he felt strangely… narrative. Like one of those secondary characters in a donghua—the kind that lingers in the background, sighing dramatically while the heroes eat dumplings and quarrel like siblings. A fool with melancholy lines that the audience would skip through, waiting for the real plot to resume.
"…Damn it," Kaoru muttered to himself, half-laughing, half-groaning. "I am that fool."
No one heard him, thankfully. Except perhaps the universe, which always seemed to enjoy making note of such things.
While the girls indulged in food diplomacy, Takeshi had been eyeing the other side of the street with an expression Kaoru didn't like. That mischievous tilt of his head meant trouble. Sure enough, he clapped Naoki on the back.
"hey, Naoki. let's go grab a drink."
Naoki looked up from his phone, startled. "Eh? But the stalls—"
"Not here," Takeshi cut in, grinning like a man about to commit arson but call it 'research.' "There's a maid café nearby. Just opened. Good 'real-life reference,' yeah?"
Naoki paled slightly. His history with public humiliation was not exactly short. Yet under Takeshi's relentless shove, he stumbled along, muttering curses. Kaoru, distracted by the girls' antics, didn't notice them leave.
The café door chimed softly when they pushed inside, the air immediately drenched in saccharine sweetness. Frills, lace, and the smell of overbrewed coffee clung to every inch of the place. Maids in pastel uniforms flitted between tables, their voices high and mechanical in practiced cheer.
Naoki froze in the doorway. His palms sweated.
Memories. Cruel words, laughter that had cut sharper than any blade. Fatty, piggy, pervert, youdon't belong here.
Takeshi, oblivious—or perhaps uncaring—just whistled low. "Well, this is something."
And then, like a twist of fate or the hand of some mocking deity, she appeared.
One of the maids turned toward them, her smile bright but practiced. The ribbons in her hair framed a face that Naoki recognized instantly, even beneath the forced cuteness. The years hadn't dulled it. If anything, the polished uniform only sharpened the sting of memory.
It was someone Naoki knew back then.
One of the girls who had once cornered him behind the gym, words like daggers, laughter like a chorus of executioners. The ones who had branded him with shame long before he'd ever met Takeshi, Kaoru, or the others.
Naoki's breath caught. His heart hammered so loudly he was sure Takeshi heard it.
She curtsied politely, tilting her head just so. "Welcome home, Masters."
Her voice was sweet. Deceptively so. But Naoki heard the phantom echoes beneath it, the cruel undertones of the past.
The café bustled around them, unaware. To the rest of the patrons, she was just another maid, faceless and replaceable in the grand theater of cosplay and customer service. But to Naoki, she was a specter wrapped in cotton and lace.
And her name remained unsaid.
For now.
—
End of Chapter Thirty-seven.