Chapter 25
When Yukimura said that from today onwards, there would really be less than half of my high school life left, I was in a daze.
Just then, a breeze picked up in the evening. A few of us stood on the beach in Kenting, quietly watching the sunset gradually disappear below the horizon. A casual remark struck me like a bell, and I found myself counting down the days until graduation in March. Renwang gave me the answer in advance, even turning to ask if I needed to know how many minutes and seconds were left in the countdown.
"That sounds like..." I paused, ""that you have to become an adult the moment the countdown reaches zero."
"Speaking of which, do those moments really exist?" Niou raised an eyebrow and glanced at me again. "Weren't you born an adult?"
"I don't think this is a nice thing to say," I said, leaning out at Yagyu. "He's probably insulting me. Control your partner."
"You have both an iron fist and an iron wrist," Yagyu gestured for him to begin, "I'm handing it all over to you."
"Then you overestimate me," I gently grabbed Sanada's arm, who had been silent all along, and lifted it up. "The iron fist is here, and so is the iron wrist."
Sanada clearly hadn't caught up with our seemingly comedic exchange. He frowned slightly, showing a hint of confusion at my actions, before asking in a serious tone, "What's wrong?"
"It's nothing," I nodded several times with a serious expression, "We're praising Genichiro, praising you for being an adult."
Upon hearing my words, Yukimura, who was standing on the far side, turned his head and smiled, as if seeing Sanada like this was a pleasant thing for him.
Although the group was leisurely chatting and watching the sunset, it wasn't long before Liu Sheng realized that the last bus to Kaohsiung was leaving in twenty minutes. Fortunately, everyone's status as a member of a sports club gave them an advantage, and they even caught up with the bus, which had already driven several hundred meters away. They lined up and apologized to the driver in broken Chinese, then squeezed together into the last row of the bus.
As I was catching my breath, I buried my head and couldn't help but laugh. It seemed like Liu Sheng was infected too, and the two of us were laughing so hard our shoulders were shaking. I don't know how long we laughed before he remembered to ask me why.
I pointed at them and then at myself, explaining, "I just thought that a child born on the shores of Shonan almost missed the last bus because he was looking at the sea."
"It seems a little embarrassing to say this out loud," Yukimura chimed in.
The next second, as Sanada spoke, the four of us sat up straight, put on serious expressions, and said in unison, "Too lax!"
Completely caught off guard by this move, Sanada froze, glancing at me and Yagyu on his left, then at Niou and Yukimura on his right, and could only respond to the teasing with silence.
After taking a bus and then transferring to the High Speed Rail, it was already late at night when we got back to our hotel in downtown Taipei*. There was a night market nearby, and Marui had eaten at more than a dozen stalls yesterday, each one looking very tempting. However, Sanada, who had already indulged us in our recklessness all day, refused to compromise any further and demanded that we stay at the hotel obediently until we met at the airport at 8 a.m. the next morning, or he would write our names down in the conduct book without hesitation.
Okay, so I pretended to be helpless and shrugged. The four of them shared a room, but I was staying in a girls' room. How could Sanada have a chance to trip me up? But who would have thought that this guy would just stand guard in the lobby on the first floor? The two girls in my room who wanted to go out to find food with me almost got into trouble. I quickly waved for them to go back. When they successfully slipped back to the elevator, I heard Sanada's voice behind me.
"Okada".
Thankfully, he didn't call me by my name directly. I turned around stiffly, and Sanada looked at me with a smug and confident expression. Perhaps I was overinterpreting it, but that was all I could read at the time.
"Team Leader Sanada wouldn't even care if I went to 7-Eleven, would he?" I preemptively opened the glass door.
"It's too late, it's not safe," Sanada said, walking beside me. "I'll go with you."
"Me?" I countered. "You mean it's not safe to run into bad guys like me?"
"Anyway, if you're alone," Sanada said firmly, "you can't."
I counted the remaining NT dollars in my wallet, took out two boxes of somewhat expensive ice cream from the freezer, paid the bill, and sat down by the roadside. While tearing open the plastic packaging of the spoon with my mouth, I turned around and handed the other box towards Sanada.
He initially stood still without reaching out, but seeing the "you'd better not refuse me" look in my eyes, he obediently bent down and took it. After a few seconds, he probably felt it was inappropriate for him to be standing while I was sitting, so he sat down on the roadside like I did. The low curb was naturally quite awkward for the tall Sanada, but since he had already stopped me from going to the night market, I figured I should just endure this little inconvenience.
After only a few bites, I slowed down my spooning, for reasons I don't even know myself. In short, I don't like vanilla-flavored desserts.
"Want to switch with me?" Just as I was forcing myself to take another bite, Sanada offered me his orange-flavored drink. When I didn't reply, he added, "I remember you don't like vanilla."
"You remember this too?" I breathed a sigh of relief as I switched the ice cream box back and scooped a big spoonful into my mouth, trying to mask the vanilla flavor with the orange essence.
"We've known each other for a long time," Sanada replied to my surprise with a perfectly correct yet utterly meaningless statement.
After all, he wouldn't openly admit that he knew I always reluctantly drank the vanilla milk in my Wednesday school lunch when I was in elementary school, and he certainly wouldn't say that it was me, not an older student, who wrote the anonymous letter to the teacher suggesting that the school lunch shouldn't contain any non-pure dairy products with added flavors.
His words had a certain magic, creating a brief truce for us. This summer night, spent eating ice cream side by side, was quiet and peaceful, but unfortunately, it also became the prelude to our first and last head-on confrontation in high school.
After several autumn rains, Fujisawa welcomed the cold air of early winter. The uncomfortable chill stimulated every inch of skin. The day the temperature dropped happened to be the student council's weekly meeting. The office window was always left with a crack, and the wind made my shoulders ache.
After the meeting ended, the chairman called Sanada, Yagyu, and I, along with Katakura, behind and kept us alone. He pushed several election manuals in front of us.
"The teacher reminded us a couple of days ago that the student council president and members need to be elected before Christmas. There's still more than a month left starting today, so you guys can rely on your own abilities."
Before he could finish speaking, Kataoka yawned and waved his hand, "I'm forfeiting. Don't count me this time; I'm not cut out for it."
Yagyu quickly followed suit, saying, "You don't need to count me either. I'm Okada-san's running mate."
The president naturally didn't give me a chance to speak. He seemed to know from the beginning who the players of the game would be, so he directly pulled out two manuals, handed them to me and Sanada, and pointed to the first page to remind us: "There will be two speeches and one public debate before the voting deadline. The first speech will be at the morning meeting next Monday. You can start writing your speech now."
Before we returned to the classroom, the president added, "By the way, there are quite a few activities to organize this month, and I definitely can't do them all by myself. Sanada, if you don't have a partner to choose from, everyone in the office can lend a hand if you need any help."
"You can't be so blatantly biased, Chairman." I put the chair back in its place and looked at him. "Your office is full of elites."
"Stop it," the president looked at me and Yagyu with a slightly disdainful gaze. "I didn't even mention that you two are always together in the student council. Now that you're partners, Okada-kun, be more discreet."
"You can't say that, senior. One thing is one thing," Liu Sheng chimed in, understanding my situation perfectly.
"See?" The chairman gently patted Sanada and said, "They really can't keep a low profile."
Unwilling to refute such baseless accusations, I looked up and met Sanada's gaze, raised an eyebrow and smiled. I knew I had to win.
After parting ways with Sanada in the corridor, Yagyu and I went upstairs to the left. As we walked, I briefly discussed my thoughts, while Yagyu habitually took out a notepad from his pocket and quickly arranged the scattered points logically.
When I suddenly got stuck, he offered a few suggestions to connect the whole solution. I thanked him, and he politely said it was his pleasure.
This conversation was a bit awkward for us, given our already close relationship that went far beyond that of ordinary classmates. The moment I realized this, I burst out laughing.
He turned his head and smiled, then said, "We will win."
"I know." I nodded, took the note he had written, and opened the back door of the classroom.
Liu Sheng stood there for a while, and only turned around after seeing me sit down in my seat through the window.
Perhaps it will be a long time before I understand that not becoming the president does not mean I am inferior to others. But at seventeen, I did not understand. I made sacrifices and plans for this, and all I wanted was a satisfactory ending. I believed in this law of equality, and I mistakenly thought that the reason why my path from the past to the present has been so smooth was due to this law.
Thinking about it carefully, if I had lost to Sanada at that moment, would I have made excuses for myself, would I have sincerely congratulated him, would I have acknowledged his excellence? I can't guess my choice, but if it really happened, I might have let go of my obsession with the law of equality sooner.
Who told Tezuka, who once laughed at me and said "effort is a scam," to overthink things? He sighed softly on the other end of the phone, "Sanae, that's why I envy you."
"What do you envy about me? Revising your campaign speech three times in the middle of the night?" I didn't take his words to heart at all.
"Do you need my help?" Tezuka asked proactively, abandoning the previous topic.
"Don't you need to train?" I asked back.
"You still have some free time." I heard Tezuka pull out a chair.
"Then I'll read it once first, and you listen to it for me." I cleared my throat, stood up and walked to the balcony. The moonlight on the sea was hazy, shrouded in a thin mist. I slowly began to speak.
*Aside from flights, there is no direct transportation from Kenting to Taipei. The usual way is to take a bus to Kaohsiung Zuoying High Speed Rail Station, where the last bus departs at 7:00 PM. From there, you can take the High Speed Rail back to Taipei, which operates until midnight.
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