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Chapter 56 – Once Upon A Time
I continued to watch the aquatic animals while Arina kept an eye on the couple while eating something. There were a wide variety of interesting animals here, including various brightly colored fishes and long, thin animals that were peeking at me from inside their holes. I’m a high school student, but this sight excited me.
“Arina, look! This one looks exactly like you!”
I pointed at a fish called ‘bubble fish’. It looked like a regular goldfish, except for its cheeks, which swelled like balloons. It looked really dumb.
“How exactly does this little fella look like me?”
“You both look angry.”
“Oh my. Well, since it looks cute I’ll forgive you this time. By the way, you look like that guy over there.”
Arina pointed in a certain direction. But there was nothing in that direction. I expected octopi or something, but there really was nothing except a single shrimp crawling on the sand.
“Where are you pointing at?”
“That seaweed.”
I see. So I’m seaweed now. I can’t even retort to that, Arina-san.
*   *   *
After that, we continued with our operation.
“Look at that! They’re holding hands, LMAO!”
Arina started laughing next to me, who had been distracted by the view inside the huge aquarium.
“Where? Let me see!”
I took the monocular from Arina’s hands and pointed it in their direction. Woah, they really were holding hands. They even locked their fingers, amazing.
They looked so lovey-dovey to the point that it was painful to watch them. This actually made me afraid that the will of the world would make the aquarium explode to follow the karma law.
I felt like we would be hindrances if we were to keep staring at them like this. I’m exaggerating, but I was feeling like a parasite.
“Arina, come here.”
“W-Wait, stop pulling me! Why are you grabbing my hand anyway? You need a special license before you’re permitted to do that!”
“Yeah sure, I need a license to grab a piece of meat. Now, come.”
She was chewing a dried squid and refused to budge, so I pulled her away.
I decided to back away to the food corner and take a short break. All the excitement made me feel exhausted, besides, I wanted to give the couple some space. If Makoto ever needed me, I could run over there.
I ordered a neapolitan while Arina ordered cream pancakes.
After waiting, a huge pile of cream pancakes arrived. This girl looked so thin, but her appetite sure was something. She grabbed a knife and a fork and started munching them.
“Amazing. Something like this exists?”
“Yes. It’s tasty, so I’m gonna finish them all.”
“After watching you all day long, I came to the conclusion that, other than having a venomous tongue, the girl named Hiwa Arina is the embodiment of gluttony.”
“It’s called having a healthy appetite. Besides, girls who eat a lot are popular, no?”
“Right, since it’s a good opportunity, let’s talk about your popularity.”
“Sure. I’m going to hear something terrible coming out of your mouth, but sure.”
Arina’s popularity was so high to the point that her ‘fans’ started to worship her like cults. Her snappy attitude and her cruel nature gave her an unapproachable aura, but for some reason everyone was drawn to her and desperately trying to get close to her.
There was no end to the number of the people who confessed their love to her. I saw those things happen with my own two eyes. I’m going to tell her that story.
“By the way, how many people did you reject recently?”
“What’s with that question? The way you asked that made me feel like you’re calling me a cruel b***h.”
“That wasn’t my intention.”
“Is that so? Well, seven people, I think.”
“Woah, you really are something. Anyway, the story. So, this is a story back when our second year of high school started. Back then, there were a lot of talks about how cute Hiwa Arina was, and how it looked like she belonged to an idol group. In my class, there was a certain boy who was crazy about you, too. By the way, I’m not talking about Makoto.”
“Hm… Nom nom…”
“Wait, wait, it’ll get more interesting, I promise. So, one day, he finally made his resolve to confess to you. The whole class congratulated him and gave him a proper military send off. Then, since me and a few of us got curious, we decided to scout the battlefield, the bench in the courtyard, the place you used to hang around back when Rose Garden wasn’t a thing yet. By the way, we used this monocle to scout the area, though, it wasn’t enough to hear your conversations, but everyone knew that it was a suicide mission anyway, so they didn’t have much hope about it. Not me though, I gave him encouragement from afar.”
“I don’t remember any of this happening.”
I noticed that she almost finished the pancakes. This girl is really a glutton, jeez.
“Then he came back and we gave him some consolation, but the first thing he said was something we never expected would come out of his mouth.”
“Like ‘I want to die’?”
“No. He said, ‘She’s so beautiful, I can’t even talk to her’. Apparently the conversation between you two was one-sided because he was too absentminded to respond. Seriously, at that time I didn’t know whether he was an idiot or something else, but everyone else had a good laugh. ‘Seriously, we felt stupid being all worried about you, and here you are, coming back with this kind of story.’ they said. Do you wanna know what happened to him?”
“This pancake is tasty~”
“‘I want to paint. I want to try and appreciate art!’ he suddenly said. After that, he joined the art club and picked up the brush. Occasionally, he would show us his piece. That’s his story.”
“Eh? Is he the guy who made me a model back when we visited the art club?”
“Yeah. He became really good at painting, it almost made me laugh. Who knew that Hiwa Arina actually has the power to change a person’s life.”
Arina furrowed her brows and stuck her tongue out. She seemed annoyed.
After that, I started eating my Neapolitan and as I was about to take a bite, Arina started talking.
“Alright, now it’s my turn to tell you an interesting story.”
“Sure, go ahead.”
“This was back when I was in the first grade. We had just finished a class and were taking a short break. Before I knew it, a boy was standing beside me. I didn’t know who he was and assumed that he was from another class, so I ignored him. But he suddenly grabbed my wrist.”
“Woah, an actual pervert…”
“I was surprised, so I stared at his face. Then he suddenly said, ‘Will you go out with me? I promise to take care of you until we both get married’. I was stunned, that was the first time something like that ever happened to me. I immediately told him to let go of my hand, but he didn’t let go. I was about to kill him socially, when one of the boys came up to me and chased him away. Apparently, there were still decent people out there, I was impressed.”
“Woah, an actual hero…”
“Yep, but later, the same ‘hero’ confessed to me. I want to protect his honor, so I won’t tell you what exactly happened.”
“What the hell? …Well, that kind of thing happens, I guess…”
“Right. Well, saving me is fine and all, I’m thankful to that, but in the end, him trying to get involved with me made him unhappy.”
She tossed the rest of the pancakes into her mouth and smiled.
Arina and I stood up again and decided to return to our mission. The couple probably hadn’t left the aquarium yet, so we decided to wander around without any sense of urgency. Arina was walking beside me while chewing gum. Seriously, this girl really eats a lot.
But after we walked for a while, we failed to find the couple and we started panicking.
“We’ve completely lost them, haven’t we?”
“Cr*p. They probably left the aquarium already…”
“Try to call him.”
“I can’t. I’ll lose my credibility if he knows about this.”
“What are you? A salesman?”
Suddenly an email came.
“Makoto mailed me.”
“Wow, you guys are on the same wavelength.”
“Why must it be him? Why can’t I be on the same wavelength as a beautiful woman? …Let’s see… ‘Help’? What?”
“Is he gonna die?”
“No he is not! …Maybe… Well, I’ll ask him for his location.”
His reply came a few seconds later.
“Ah, that way…”
“So, what kind of help does he need?”
“‘Take some pictures of us’, he said.”
“It’s my fault to expect anything from him. He should just die.”
Why didn’t he ask people who passed by instead? …Well, I guess it would be hard to ask them since most of the guests were either families or couples.
“Let’s go. You should take the picture, with that outfit and sunglasses, they won’t notice you.”
“It’s a pain. I’ll consider doing that for 3 grand.”
“I’ll never pay you that much money.”
When he sent that message, I had a bad feeling, but in the end, nothing really happened. Good, because I didn’t want trouble to appear.