Chapter 5 – I am, after all, a girl that gets invites.
Part 1
Along came Saturday again.
However, this wasn’t just any ordinary Saturday. This Saturday was special, as it falls on the end of April. It’s what society calls the start of the Golden Week holidays.
“Good morning, Aki-kun…ahhhhh.”
Katou was about three minutes late again when she arrived at our meeting spot, which was, this time round, at the front of the train station. Although she managed to show up, the way in which she arrived didn’t present much of an opportunity to take a verbal jab at her.
“You look sorta sleepy.”
“That’s because I only slept two hours….”
“Hey, don’t go boasting about your lack of sleep to me, Katou. That’s annoying.”
There was nothing in her expression to suggest any sort of excitement or eagerness for this day.
“Well, let’s go buy our tickets. Where are we going again?”
“Wagou City.”(1)
“That’s in the next prefecture, isn’t it? Ah, the tickets are so expensive.”(2)
“I warned you yesterday that we’d be heading out pretty far.”
“Well, for the two of us to be heading out on an hour-long train ride like this, it kinda feels like a date, doesn’t it?”
“Not at all, Katou.”
“Well, I guess you have a point there.”
And so, with those dull words, any remaining fantasy of a date was flatly pushed aside.
Besides, the lack of interest she was showing pretty much meant that we were in agreement anyway.
It was an…idealistic friendship, in that sense.
Or you could say that we’re a couple entering that ‘We’re getting tired of each other’ period…even though we haven’t started dating yet.
“There’s still some time left until the train arrives, so I’ll just be over at the convenience store for a bit.”
“You should go the toilet as well, Katou. After all, it’s going to be a long trip.”
“That’s a bit crass of you, Aki-kun. You’d think that going to the convenience store would also involve that.”
“If you consider that crass, then you better not ever spoil anything….”
With that final exchange, Katou turned towards the convenience store. Instead of quickening her pace as though she were running away from something, she ambled along as usual.
As she walked, I gazed at her rear figure. She was wearing a bright grey hoodie on top of a white tank top. The length of her legs, which was exposed beneath the fluttering fabric of her culotte’s, were covered up by skin-coloured stockings.
It seems like her fashion for today was different as well.
She really does have a lot of clothes.
Hmm, while I do acknowledge that she’s got a good fashion sense, it’s not something that would translate well into the 2-D world. Characters who frequently change what they wear are rarely memorable. Plus, you’d also have to draw a lot more art.
That’s why I think if a super-serious girl had dared to come here dressed in her school uniform, and had said with a serious look on her face that ‘Coming here dressed in my school uniform on an outing during the holidays is only common sense, isn’t it?’, it’d be high point, user and developer-wise. At least, I wonder if it’d be a high point.
…Katou, it might be better if you didn’t associate yourself with a game otaku who thinks like this.
“Oh, so you read it all the way through, huh?”
“Yeah, that’s why I’m so sleepy, Aki-kun. After all, you lent me five books in total.”
“You sure are a good sport, Katou.”
“Ehehe, if you say so. The books were such an interesting read, I ended up not getting any sleep at all. Thanks for the recommendation though.”
“Ah, I see…!”
As the train continued on to Wagou City, Katou gave me a sleepy-looking smile.
In her hand was the first volume of ‘A Metronome in Love’.
It was kind of a holiday assignment reading that I gave to her during yesterday’s circle activities.
“I used to think that Light Novels were a genre specifically aimed at male audiences, but this book is something that even girls can cry over.”
“I know, right! It’s definitely a tear-jerker!”
“I think it’s the same for current dating sims. It’s inappropriate to be judging things without trying them…although I guess it’d be helpful if they made them easier to pick up just by looking at things like their front cover.”
“K-Katou, people like you honestly….”
Katou’s response to these books was well beyond anything I had predicted. For someone like me who had, up until today, just wanted her to read a volume or so of this series to understand its worth, this response was simply perfect.
“Sorry, Aki-kun, but would it be alright if I returned the books after Golden Week ends? I’d like to read them again, only more slowly.”
“Oh yes, yes! In fact, I’d be fine with you keeping them, since the books I gave you were my conversion set anyway. I still have two sets at home, my reading set and my collection set.”
“O-oh? Well, if you don’t have to buy another set, I guess I should be thankful then?”
“No, of course I’ll be buying another set. After all, it’s only natural to restock your conversion set after giving it away, right?”
“Um, okay…thanks.”
As she said that, a bit of a shocked, stiff smile came to her face.
It seems like she’s yet to understand the feelings of the faithful during a successful conversion.
“So, which parts did you find good? You can also tell me about any negative impressions you had, Katou.”
“Ah, um, err, let me see, ah, where should I start?”
“Quickly now! Your raw, impassioned views right after reading something are the most important! Come, spill it to me, Katou!
“A-Aki-kun…?
When one compares the happiness of having more friends to talk to about the things they love to the expenditure of at most few thousand yen, such expense is indeed, an insignificant thing….
“Ah! We’ve arrived at Wagou City. That sure was fast.”
“…Well, it might’ve been for you, Aki-kun.”
An expression that appeared even more tiresome than the one she had earlier this morning crossed her face as she stepped off the train with that last word.
It really does look as though the lack of sleep is getting to her. It might also be motion sickness from the train ride.
Not to mention that her face was also a bit pale.
“Anyway, let’s change the subject. Ah, the fallout from the confession scene in the third volume! That’s what you call a work of God right there!”
“Are we still discussing this? …Wait, you haven’t changed the subject at all, Aki-kun.”
“But you wouldn’t have thought it was possible, would you? I mean, for that girl to be thrust into a love triangle.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t have thought it was possible…for this subject to go on for an hour.”
“Nah, whenever I want to discuss something, I can go on for at least three days and three nights.”
“Even if I spent my whole life trying, I don’t think I’d ever be able to become an otaku like you, Aki-kun.”
She must be exhausted, considering the feebleness of her responses.
“Come on, Katou. Stop saying that depressing stuff and lift that spirit up. I mean, we’re about to tour the so-called holy lands!”
Yes, that’s right. At times like these, it’s the man who needs to be pulling the rope.
That small amount of consideration I showed Katou may be the key to a ‘Riajuu’ life. Maybe….
“Holy lands you say…, now that you mention it, Aki-kun….”
“Oh, you just realised it now, have you?”
As we stepped out of the station exit and looked up at the scenery around us, Katou let out a small gasp of surprise.
For first time visitors, this would’ve been a place of little familiarity, just a mere, common image of a business district situated outside the station.
But for readers of ‘A Metronome in Love’, it was a place which held a strong emotional significance.
“So, this is the place….”
It is this location here, that is featured on the colour frontispiece of the first volume, the far-reaching scenery that readers first see when they open the book….
“See that bench in the park in front of the station, Katou? That’s the spot where the final kiss scene takes place.”
“Ah, you’re right. I can see the similarities from here.”
Katou glanced back and forth between the illustration on the 211th page of the fifth volume that I had opened up and the scene at hand, comparing the two.
“And over there, see that burger shop? That’s the place where the two heroines meet for the first time in the second volume.”
“I don’t think I can make this one out from just looking at the picture alone….”
“That’s true, I guess, but it’s not as though all the features on the location are pictured in the illustration.”
“So you mean….”
“Do you remember? After that scene, the two of them go across the pedestrian section and then stop at the train station right after. So, basically, that shop there in the area between the road and the station, is the only shop that would fit the description in the passage!”
“…You really do keep track of even the smallest details, don’t you?”
Without so much as a proper glance, Katou mumbled to herself the passage on the 148th page of the second volume that I had opened up.
Oi, you better be reading that thoroughly, Katou.
“Anyway, the main agenda for today starts here…see that bookstore over there? You can see it straight ahead, right on that street.”
“Oh, I see…that’s, that’s from the first volume, isn’t it?”
“Yep, you got it, Katou. That’s the Joubundo bookstore where the protagonist and the main heroine have their fated encounter…and it’s also our destination for today!”
As I said that, I flipped over to the 48th page of the first volume and showed Katou the page with two tickets that had been wedged in earlier.
This would definitely be today’s final and most important objective….
“But the protagonist left her in the end, didn’t he?”
“…Well, yeah.”
From the second volume onwards, another heroine appears who the protagonist chooses. This was a shocking development, so to speak, and when the final volume went on sale, there were quite a bit of heated discussions on the net about it, to say the least….
“What…Aki-kun, you should have told me that there was going to be a signing today.”
We were standing in line on the third floor of the Joubundou bookstore, a floor which was used for events. Katou had been glancing over the ticket I gave to her, examining it for details.
There were some letters printed out across the floor, highlighting the details of today’s agenda. Together they spelled out ‘A Metronome in Love – Final Volume Release Commemoration, Kasumi Utako-sensei Signing’. The printout looked as though it had been done in an hour using a word processor, resulting in a simple, yet appropriate design for the setting.
In all honesty, though, it’s just a simple patch-job done by a smallish-medium sized bookstore with little experience in holding events.
“Ah, I honestly didn’t think you’d be so into the series, so I thought you would’ve refused to….”
“So is that the reasoning behind your ‘I’m going to take you out without telling you the aim behind it’ logic?”
“No, not really, but don’t you think it’s just faster to do things that way, rather than having to explain it all?”
“Aki-kun, I wish you’d treat 3-D girls with the same level of importance as you do with 2-D ones….”
“U-um.”
For some reason she seems rather moody. But this really shouldn’t be the case.
I have to wonder, though, how things might be if I were to start blushing and turning my face away while murmuring something along the lines of ‘I’m treating you like this just because it’s you!’.
…Hmm, no. If she was something like a childhood friend or a frenemy, this could be a potential flag, but to say this to an associate whom you haven’t even known for a month yet would just mean that she’d never break the mould of being a mere sub-character.
Well, it is Katou that I’m thinking of here, so….
“I have to say though, you did a nice job on getting these tickets, Aki-kun. And to think you got two of them, as well.”
“Well, it did cost me two people’s worth of train fares and lunch money. Not to mention the three-hour round trip.”
“It’s my first time ever attending something like this and you really do feel excited to meet the author behind the work that you enjoyed. Thanks for this, Aki-kun.”
“Yeah!”
She’s such a nice, empathetic person…, but honestly speaking, she’s too lax all the time.
“Oh, Aki-kun, what kind of person is Kasumi Utako-sensei? Would you know?”
“Ah, aaah…let’s just say that there was also a signing here back when the second volume was released.”
“Judging from her name, I’m guessing she’s female?”
“…Yeah. You’ll find out soon enough, anyway.”
“After I finished reading, I looked up Kasumi Utako on the internet. The first result was a personal fansite, but it doesn’t look as though she has a blog or uses Twitter or anything like that.”
“…Really.”
“What’s wrong, Aki-kun? You look a bit flushed.”
“No, I’m not, well…it’s all going to come to light soon, anyway, so it’ll be fine I guess.”
“Hmm? Aki-kun?”
While mumbling those words, I quickly turned my blushing face away. Katou looked up at me with a dubious face.
Well, if a filthy 3-D otaku suddenly woke up to their inner tsundere, there’s really no other way to describe it but disgusting.
“…Katou, it’s about to start.”
“Ah, you’re right.”
During the middle of our conversation, several middle-aged women who appeared to be store staff had shown up on the floor. It was likely that it was already after 11:30, the scheduled start time for the event.
The store staff, with their apparent lack of experience in managing events, droned on for about five minutes, explaining several tedious matters of importance. After they finished their explanations, the interior section of the floor was opened and out came Kasumi Utako-sensei to a round of applause.
And so, standing there now was….
“…I can’t see her at all, Aki-kun.”
It seems like Katou had yet to catch a glimpse of the author, having been blocked from seeing her by a wall of my own kind (read, filthy otakus).
“It’s fine, you’ll be able to meet her face-to-face when she signs something for you.”
I could already make out the figure of the author, given my height advantage over Katou, however I had chosen not to give away any of the details regarding her figure.
This is something I would like Katou to see with her own eyes….
After all, this is today’s most important objective and the final trigger.
In other words….
“…Ethics-kun?”
“Huh?”
“Greetings, it’s been awhile since we’ve last met in this place…also, I’ve said this countless times already, but could you stop using that nickname?”
“Kasumigaoka…senpai?”
“No, this is Kasumi Utako-sensei…well, in this place anyway.”
And so came my turn in line….
And for the briefest of moments, the world between these two girls, came crashing to a halt.
Translation Notes and References
1. A rough guess of the location this fictional city refers to is Wakou City in the Saitama prefecture of Japan. A lot of landscapes in the anime have origins from areas around this region. A bit of digging should reveal the real life locations.
2. A prefecture is geographical region similar to states in the USA. Each prefecture has its own government and governor. Travelling to another prefecture is usually a long trip as you can imagine.