Gray Life (Eight)

"Hold an umbrella for me for half a day."

"That's all?"

"Yeah, that's all."

"...I don't believe you."

Oreki shook his head.

The risks didn't add up.

What she wanted was...

And Sakayanagi herself had agreed.

So there was no way that "helping her hold an umbrella for half a day" was as simple as it sounded.

"Really."

Sakayanagi took out a planner.

It said...

"March 30: dress as the emperor and take part in the Hina Festival...?"

(Like an ancient emperor's procession)

"Yeah."

"Why are you so calm about this?"

"What's there to be surprised about?"

"Emperors are generally..."

"There have been female emperors throughout history."

"Uh, that's true..."

"Any other questions?"

"No..."

Sakayanagi was right.

It was rare, but there had been empresses.

"Sorry... we still have to get through the lunar-calendar Doll Festival."

Oreki lounged lazily on the sofa.

What a coincidence this year.

The lunar-calendar Doll Festival fell on the same day as the Cherry Blossom Festival.

Surely the cherry blossoms would be dancing through the air on the day of the Hina Festival.

Who would play the empress?

"Do you want to know?"

"...Not particularly."

"Then I won't tell you."

"...Is it the daughter of the Shiina Family?"

"Oh? You seem to know a lot about that."

"I just guessed."

"And you happened to guess another girl?"

"No. Isn't the Shiina Family the closest to the Sakayanagi Family?"

"That's true."

Oreki recalled what had happened before the school year began.

His older sister had warned him that although this Japanese school had a high rate of students going on to higher education...

That was because it monopolized the best students.

Every year, plenty of geniuses came to this school.

Still, there weren't enough of them to fill an entire grade.

So some students with poor grades could get in, too.

To be precise...

They bought their way in.

Their families were wealthy, so they didn't care much.

Besides, they were just here to get a diploma.

But ordinary Japanese parents didn't know any of this.

They thought that getting into this school meant everything would be fine.

They could sit back and wait for their children to make something of themselves and lift the whole family into a higher social class.

The dream was beautiful, but reality was cruel.

They didn't even have the money to throw around.

Let alone enough to send their children to this school.

Still, that didn't stop them from putting pressure on their kids.

Lack of money wasn't the problem.

Stupidity was.

"All right, back to the point."

Sakayanagi tapped the table.

She had shuffled the cards and laid them out.

"..."

Oreki reluctantly sat up.

He picked a card at random.

It was the king of hearts.

The second round was the ace of spades.

After that...

Uh, he didn't seem to have anything to do?

"?"

As Sakayanagi played one card after another,

Oreki couldn't believe his eyes.

What was going on?

Had she memorized the positions of all the cards?

How was that possible?

No matter how much of a genius she was, she couldn't do that.

Memorizing the positions of dozens of cards in just a few seconds...

Just because you're not caught doesn't mean you're not cheating.

Don't be ridiculous.

She had to be using some kind of trick.

—But where?

Oreki frowned.

He watched Sakayanagi's movements.

Every time she picked a card, she seemed to do it quickly, but she still took a little time to think.

If she had memorized them all, she wouldn't need to think.

Because if you knew, you knew.

If you didn't, you didn't.

No amount of thinking would give you the answer.

Unless...

—She tampered with the cards.

Oreki had an idea.

He focused on the cards.

There were only a few left.

"Stop!"

"Hm?"

"Cheating at this game is against the rules."

"Is it?"

"Then how do you explain this?"

Oreki held up the card in his hand.

Then he turned it over.

The back of the card had a design resembling a clock.

At first, Oreki hadn't thought much of it.

But looking closer...

The hands were in different positions on the backs of the cards.

A normal clock had twelve positions.

This one had more than twelve.

Good.

If the hand pointed to one, it meant "A."

If it pointed to two, it meant "2."

And so on...

"You lose."

Oreki put the card down.

If you got caught doing something like this, it counted as a loss.

"Hmm..."

Sakayanagi admitted it without fuss.

There was nothing she could do now that she'd been caught.

She'd used this trick to beat her father many times. She hadn't expected Oreki to figure it out so quickly.

It was just a small mistake.

But it didn't matter.

Sakayanagi had a plan for either outcome.

"Would you like to ___?"

"!"

Oreki even wondered if he'd heard her wrong.

What had Sakayanagi just said?

Touch her ___.

He had to admit, that was tempting.

But...

If she was that flat, what was the difference between that and a washboard ___?

He should wait until she developed a little more.

"I'll leave that for later."

"Hm?"

"Let's wait a while longer..."

"I don't understand what you mean."

"Uh... do I really have to spell it out?"

"No need."

Sakayanagi understood what Oreki meant.

He really was lewd.

Still, it was a good sign. It proved she had some appeal to Oreki.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have made that decision.

"It's getting late. Let's go to sleep."

Oreki yawned.

He was about to nod off.

"Where are you going?"

"Obviously, I'll find an empty room. There are plenty of them here, aren't there?"

"That's true. But..."

"But what?"

"Tonight, you're sleeping in my room."

"!!!"

Oreki backed away again and again.

What had she meant by that just now?

Sleeping in Sakayanagi's room?

That didn't seem like a good idea.

Wait...

Could she have lost on purpose?

But that frustrated look on her face didn't seem fake...

Was I the prey?

Fine, prey it was.

He, Oreki, wanted to see how this would play out.

Was she going to pounce on him or something?

"What are you thinking? There are two beds in my room."

"...You could've said that sooner."

"Hehe."

"Hehe..."

Oreki listlessly opened the door.

It was his first time in a girl's room.

His older sister's didn't count.

It was messy, with absolutely no girlish charm.

Though she wasn't a girl anymore anyway.

Soon, Sakayanagi changed into a nightgown.

After all the lights had been turned off.

Oreki lay in bed, staring absentmindedly at the ceiling.

He couldn't sleep.

Even though he'd been tired just a moment ago.

Without thinking, he glanced to his left.

And saw...

The night breeze stirred the gauzy curtains.

Moonlight hanging at the window spilled across the pine floorboards, then crept up the white skirt draped over the edge of the bed.

Several delicate folds flowed along the curve of Sakayanagi's waist.

Her collarbones held half a cup of moonlight.

The gauzy camisole straps slipped to the edges of her shoulder blades.

Beautiful.

Oreki didn't know what words to use to describe it.

Perhaps putting it into words would itself be a desecration of beauty.

"Are you still awake?"

"...Yeah."

"Hey..."

"What is it?"

"Oreki, do you like rose-colored things?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because when people talk about school life, they call it rose-colored; and when they talk about rose-colored things, they mean school life."

"Oh..."

"That's a perfectly natural way of putting it. After all, school life is always considered rose-colored."

"Is it?"

"Even so, I don't think every student looks forward to that rose-colored life. For example, aren't there people who have little interest in their studies, sports, romance, and so on? In other words, students who prefer a gray life."

"You're silly..."

To be continued...