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  "Of everyone in this group, it's only you guys left to finish this." Okamoto was clouding my senses. I'd say she was only 10 centimeters away from my face. "Don't be late turning it in. If you are, then both the teacher and myself will be angry with you. Please turn it in this time."

  Even though the topic is very serious, she says it in such a coquettish tone. Suddenly she quickly leaves us behind.

  That was quite the shock. Really, if you were to come over here you should also talk to Sasaki about that. Well, I guess I do have a habit of procrastinating on important documents.

  "I suppose" began Sasaki who also hadn't say anything, "that your path will be quite difficult."

  "Yeah, Yeah." I was slowly starting to catch my breath,

  "Please think about it more. If you go somewhere close, it may not be the best choice for you."

  "If it's a public school, then it'd be in the city. Do private institutions have their own grounds?"

  "I don't think that's the case. You're still young though. From your records, I'd think you'd likely get into a good prep school, right?" Sasaki slightly bends her head as in doubt. "That's still somewhat within your capabilities. If I recall, Kunikida-kun decided on his first choice of schools a long time ago."

  Good. With the size of that guy's memory, I'm sure he'd head to a prestigious high school.

  "I don't remember the name but he thought it'd suit his goals. Certainly I'd say the people attending that school do as well."

  I think Kunikida's goals are a step above the rest of us. Or at least what appears to be my route. My mother wishes for me to go to a local private institution as she's told me, but I can't attend if the tuition fee is too high; mostly due to the living expenses at my house. While Sasaki is at scholar level, my only problem would be using private/public schooling to prevent me from sliding down the hill of life. That's the difference between us.

  Sasaki once again sees victory in sight. "An inner city public school would be easy for you to get into, Kyon. Your improvement on the next test results will show the hard work we've put in going to cram school."

  Already my boredom had set in after summer vacation finished. Already half the year has gone past and now worries have come in to cloud up my mood. Why couldn't we just stay at the side of the pool gazing up into the blue sky?

  "I'd like to do that too, Kyon." Sasaki said with a graceful smile towards me. "Unfortunately, time doesn't stop. We can't reverse the flow. We have to constantly change ourselves in order to keep up with it. Forever staying a middle school student isn't good for you. You have to keep moving after your dream just like a pawn in chess can only move forward."

  A dream, huh. I wonder what dreams Sasaki has for the future.

  "Kyon, fulfilling dreams are only one part of what I want to do. I don't think you can just talk to people about them. Maybe if I get to the bitter end and haven't come across my dreams or hopes I might consider talking about them with someone."

  I remember Sasaki suddenly smiled after that.

  I remember seeing that smiling face. In the same third year classroom, it was like mixing a full color anime still cel with a sepia image. That's the impact it made on me. It was only for an instant, but why do I still remember that time?

  And yet, I somehow forgot about it until that meeting before spring vacation in my second year of high school.

  After classes, Sasaki accompanied me as we left the school. Since spring, it had become our habit that I would take Sasaki along to cram school on the back of my bike. First we had to stop by my house and pick up the bicycle first.

  It just happened that my house was en route from the middle school.

  As I was taking out my ladies bicycle from the porch I could hear the pitter-patter of steps coming from inside. There at the entrance appeared my little sister.

  "Welcome home Kyon-kun!" At that time my sister was in her fourth year of elementary school. My nine-year old sister had a soy sauce bag in one hand and a half eaten rice cookie in the other. Her eyes grew like a cat's when she saw who was behind me.

  "Ah! Sasaki-oneechan! Have you come to play?"

  "Unfortunately not," said Sasaki with a cheerful smile. "We're off to study after school. Maybe someday I can come back and join you."

  "Shucks." My sister's innocent eyes were pointed straight at Sasaki until she turned towards me. "Kyon-kun, would you like a rice cracker?"

  Not now. It's in-between meals, but maybe I'll get one when I come back. My sister immediately stopped negotiations. "How about one, Sasaki-oneechan?"

  Take out that rice cracker before you speak. Hey! There better not be any teethmarks on the rest of those in the house.

  "Sure, I'll take one." The smiling Sasaki took one and quickly put it in her mouth. My sister delightfully laughed as Sasaki's crunching made a tune. I shrugged my shoulders at these two's style of communication. When I went closer to the doorframe, I found another set of colorful childrens' shoes.

  "Do we have a guest?"

  "Miyokichi," said my sister. "She came over to play with me in Kyon-kun's room."

  Play in the living room, not my room!

  “Can I borrow a game then? I’ve done that before and you didn’t mind.”

  That’s reasonable. While sometimes my skills as a tactician, or so I think, may drop down to level 0, there’s times like this where I feel touched.

  That's as much as I remember about the game. After that I dragged out my usual bicycle and tossed Sasaki's and my bags in the front basket. I quickly straddled the bike and sat down. Following that, Sasaki got onto the back of the bike. Isn't this a violation of the Road Traffic Act? Oh well, I'll just stick to back roads as best I can to be safe.

  "Bye-Bye!" yelled my sister. "I won't go into your room except to get the game! Miyokichi won't either!"

  "Good."

  My sister was thoughtlessly waving her hand to send us off. "See you soon Sasaki-oneechan!" Sasaki gave a silent nod from behind me. Without waving back I stepped on the pedals and we left. I could still hear the crunching of the rice cracker from my passenger.

  And so we were off. The weather had turned very odd. Grey clouds were steadily approaching us from one side. While we still had sunlight on us, the ominous color was awaiting us.

  And just as I thought a few minutes later it started to rain. Not only did it start to rain, but it was pouring down as if it were a tropical squall. The asphalt was soon becoming soaked and began to give off that rain soaked scent we all know.

  Thinking it would be over shortly, I kept pedaling. That optimistic forecast was surely too good to be true. As soon as we left my house we were soaked. Even Sasaki, who was behind me, was as bad as I was.

  "This isn't good, Kyon." This more or less amused voice from behind me spoke. "If we keep going all of our clothes will be soaked. Find somewhere to stop."

  You make it sound so easy. While the rain kept hitting my face, I started to hunt for some awnings that were placed outside a building or a convenience store, as my bicycle kept moving forward. Finally we found a place that would protect us from nature's threat.

  It was some type of overhang for a store. I can't remember if it was for a grocery or a cleaning store though. Regardless, I stopped my bike immediately and, with Sasaki, took cover underneath the covered overhang.

  Though one could call it an awning, it wasn't that big. While it was enough to cover Sasaki and myself, the overhang wasn't big enough to block out all of the rain and the associated odor. We took a direct hit from the squall. It was bad enough that even our underwear was soaked.

  "That's it for me." That was Sasaki, who mumbled across from me. "You didn't purposely bring this rain down, did you? I don't remember it raining during the last time we went to cram school. It doesn't rain often, so I'm not quite sure your spirit didn't wish for it to rain this time."

  Wouldn't your theory be mistaken if two people had the identical chances of being soaked like this in the rain?

  "Regrettably, my supe
rnatural powers appear to be in a drought. We could go to the area convenience store to stock up though."

  "No thank you. I remember those cruel folktales about people dying when meeting kappa after they wished for rain.” Sasaki was one head shorter than myself. Not to mention she was sloped downwards so naturally I had to look diagonally down to see her.

  As if she was concerned about her bust, Sasaki kept pulling her blouse away from her. When it got wet it had the tendency to cling to her body. Also from what I could see, almost all of her top was becoming transparent.

  "While I do prefer things like rainy weather, I can't say that I like sudden downpours washing over me like this. I was already feeling soaked from our swimming lesson earlier today. Today's been one unlucky day. I wonder if it's the Sanrinbou[2] or the Day of Heavenly Death."

  Usually black, her hair had taken on a somewhat greenish tint and became awfully glossy when it got wet. Her bangs were listlessly hanging over her brow.

  "Oh yeah, Kyon."

  I somewhat raised my eyes to glance at hers.

  "If you'd please look away for a while, I'd appreciate it."

  Why?

  "……..yare yare."

  Sasaki shook her head as if admitting defeat. "Kyon, even though you forget at times, I'm 100% a girl. When I'm like this…. you should understand that I'd prefer not to have my underwear showing. I'm not self-absorbed enough to have my body shown to the shameless eyes of the public."

  "Ah, sorry." I turned around, panicked.

  Yeah, I'd have to agree with her. It's my fault that sometimes I forget and treat her as if she's somehow transcended gender lines. I guess it's how she always talks like a boy. I wonder why I've never asked her what caused her to begin speaking like that.

  But it's alright. That's just purely Sasaki's way of being a girl. From what I was able to see, she definitely doesn't look like a boy. There's nothing weird about her acting differently from other girls. Well, if pressed about her, I'd have to say "Sasaki is Sasaki," at that time. Perhaps stranger, there's no other way to describe her. The past me didn't have any doubts about her at all. It's not strange now that I think about it.

  She was only my friend who accompanied me in the same class and cram school. How is that bad? While the present me would be very serious, it was difficult for that me to become so as Sasaki was able to see through me like one can easily see the skies during winter.

  Sasaki, who was still worried about her bust, spoke, "You didn't get a chance to look closely at my pitiful chest did you? Do you prefer Okamoto-san's? Honestly, yare yare Kyon. Not just from the rain, but from me too."

  I didn't understand the significance of the second half of those words at that time. Now I know that our conversation was quickly smoothed over. I meaninglessly looked up at the blank sky.

  Despite the fact that I could feel her body heat, I turned away. In this situation, it seems the only thing that I could do was to stare out as the rain hit the streets and highways.

  Perhaps unconsciously I muttered, "Summer has ended."

  Sasaki curiously looked up and then added to my statement, "My clothes will quickly dry."

  Looking back, I think those words were trivial. Was there not enough wit to come up with something better? Thankfully Sasaki didn't give a rebuttal to what I said. Perhaps she felt it wasn't worth it to try. We stood in silence watching the downpour cover the streets for a little while.

  Then Sasaki spoke, downtroddenly, "It looks like it's not going to stop soon."

  "Yeah."

  "We're going to be really late."

  "Yeah."

  During my halfhearted replies, I glanced over and saw Sasaki looking up and for some reason admiring as the clouds darkened. There was a single drop of rain extending from her bangs as if she had just come from the pool when it suddenly overlapped with Sasaki's figure.

  "What?"

  Sasaki looked over with a sideways glance. Crap. This is bad. Not being able to think of a suitable reply to her question, I too turned my gaze back to the sky to see that nothing had changed. The squall hadn't weakened a bit right now. Even though I could sense the body heat next to me, I couldn't turn my head to look at her. Ordinarily, I wouldn't look at the street and the sky like I'm doing, but it couldn't be helped in this case.

  Then, perhaps unconsciously I muttered, "Yare yare."

  Oh how I wish I could use a time machine to go back and instruct that me to improve his vocabulary and perhaps choose a better set of words. Even now they haven't improved much since then. But that's just how it goes.

  As for the rest of that day, we finally made it to cram school, though I don't remember how late we were. They could plainly see that the rain was the cause of our lateness, or perhaps our truancy if I'm not remembering correctly. I've buried that memory deep in the back of my head. I think Sasaki would probably know though.

  And just now I realized it.

  Since I've entered North High and rendezvoused with Haruhi, I seem to mutter those words constantly thanks to you. It's a certain phrase that I've borrowed from Sasaki to this day and time. An innocent phrasing from Sasaki that's four syllables long and is one portion of my vocabulary now.

  I should easily remember my middle school days but those memories have become a bit unreliable, like a toddler jumbling the insides of a toy box into pieces. But that was the starting point of when I started to say "Yare yare."

  That much I know for sure.

  * * *

  [1] Japanese students are required to attend schooling until they graduate from middle school (the equivalent of 9th grade/year). High schools are optional, but 98% of students go on to attend one.

  [2] A very unlucky day in Japanese folklore.