Maria-sama ga Miteru:Volume3 Chapter2 6

The White Rose. Part 6.

"Was there coffee?"

Rosa Gigantea's greeting to Yumi and Yoshino-san, who'd arrived back at the Rose Mansion, was not "welcome back" but "was there coffee?" Somewhat disappointing, because it sounded like she was more interested in the coffee than her cute juniors.

"… Yes."

Rosa Gigantea jumped out of her seat like a little child chanting "coffee, coffee," so Yumi handed her the requested coffee and the purse.

"If you wanted to drink coffee that much, you could have made instant coffee."

"I wasn't feeling like instant coffee. Actually if I had things my way I'd be ordering blue mountain coffee at a coffee shop."

She pulled back the can's pull-top, gulped down the coffee, and sighed. It was a small can, so she probably drank half of it in one gulp.

"Instant coffee < canned coffee < fresh-made coffee?"

"Yup. How about you, Yoshino-chan?"

"In my opinion, it's more about the amount of milk, rather than type. Oh, and temperature."

"The mild faction. You're the same as Yumi-chan."

"I'm not as much of sweet-tooth as Yumi-san, though."

Yoshino-san waved her can of café au lait, with scaled-back sweetness next to her face, said "gochisousama" and laughed.

"What did Yumi-chan get-?"

After being called a sweet-tooth, it became awkward to show it. And amused by Yumi's reaction, Rosa Gigantea chased her around, "Come on, show it."

"I wonder who bought you that drink?"

Gosh, sponsors are powerful. Rosa Gigantea pinned Yumi from behind and grabbed the can.

Three, two, one.

"Bwahahahah."

As expected, after three seconds, Rosa Gigantea's hearty laugh echoed through the second floor of the Rose Mansion.

"What is this? Canned sweet red-bean soup!? These things exist!? And they're sold at a university vending machine, so there's even a demand for them!?"

"… Probably. Even the reserve forces, a high school girl, just bought one."

She'd become used to this massive laughter, so Yumi turned defiant and answered. Yes, she's a sweet-tooth. What's wrong with being a sweet-tooth… that sort of attitude.

"I see. Hmm…"

Rosa Gigantea admired the can, mumbling, "I guess that's how things are." It seemed like she seriously didn't know canned sweet red-bean soup existed before, so when Yumi told her there were even canned sweet half sake, she became delighted, again.

The two of them pulled up chairs alongside the chair Rosa Gigantea was sitting in by the window, and they sat down facing each other. The sunlight shining through the glass window, while just a bit, felt warm.

The canned drinks, which were hot and thus difficult to carry back, had finally cooled and become drinkable.

"Well, I read the novel."

Rosa Gigantea jumped straight into the topic, without any preface.

"A novel in an hour."

When they praised her for her concentration, she calmly replied, "Because it was in Japanese." Yumi wondered if Rosa Gigantea was the type to read straight through original documents, but she didn't ask. If the person next to her was superhuman, she'd feel a bit down.

"When I realized Suga was Sugar, I totally laughed by myself. I mean, Satou and Sugar, that's quite a stretch isn't it? But I wonder who thought of Suga Sei being Satou Sei, first."

Tossing her graded hair, Rosa Gigantea laughed listlessly, and she seemed a bit different from usual. It was hard to explain, but the difference must have been as subtle as removing a single, thin cardigan. Of course, maybe this was closer to the real Rosa Gigantea, that sort of thought was Yumi's own convenient thought. Rosa Gigantea was always Rosa Gigantea, and there could only be one of her, of course.

After drinking the rest of the canned coffee, Rosa Gigantea properly washed the can out at the sink, then tossed in the can recycling bin. There's your student government president, never letting up even for disposing waste.

"But they had good instincts."

"Huh…?"

"Who" Yoshino-san asked. Like Yumi, she was filled with question marks, not knowing how this related to Rosa Gigantea.

"The person who thought I might have written it." Rosa Gigantea laughed, came close, grabbed Yumi's canned sweet red-bean soup, and gulped.

"Ahh!"

"Oh it's just one sip, tightwad."

The can came back considerably lighter. Well, she couldn't complain, because she was the one being treated, but Rosa Gigantea's "sip" seemed to be quite large.

"But, you didn't, right?"

After waiting for this sibling argument-like skirmish to end, Yoshino-san returned the conversation to the topic. Yoshino-san was calm, she thought.

"Of course I didn't write it. As I said earlier. I'm not mentally strong enough to write about something that happened last year and show it to people."

"But you said they had good instincts?"

Rosa Gigantea nodded at Yoshino-san's words.

"Because she's similar. To me."

A fastball.

It wasn't a particularly super meaningful phrase, but it felt like she threw a fastball with impeccable timing and speed.

Nothing more, nothing less, people often say. And that answer fit perfectly, so that sort of thing does happen, after all.

Because she's similar. To me. –Rosa Gigantea's words simply meant what they said. Similar was such a vague thing to say, but the phrase simply told one truth. Is what Yumi absent-mindedly thought.

At the same time, Rosa Gigantea's words were so powerful they couldn't find anything to say.

Then they heard her say, "You can ask." Rosa Gigantea said that to the speechless Yoshino-san and Yumi.

"Both of you were worried about it, right? Because both of you knew it wasn't just the name that made people think I wrote it."

"…"

Because it was the truth, they couldn't make a retort.

They definitely wanted to know about Rosa Gigantea's past. But at the same time, that was intruding on Rosa Gigantea's privacy, so the fact that their desire had been so blatantly obvious to Rosa Gigantea made them feel guilty. Even though they didn't intend to look so greedy.

"I didn't say that to make you two look like that…"

Rosa Gigantea sat back into her chair and raised both of their chins with her fingertips. She usually never felt anything from Rosa Gigantea's close-up, but this time she felt her heart race.

"I won't talk about what I don't want to talk about, but if that's alright, I'm willing to tell you what happened."

"Why-"

"Because, if you two are the only ones that don't know, it's a bit unfair, don't you think?"

"…"

Leaving aside whether that reasoning was flawed or not, that Rosa Gigantea could say such a thing was incredible.

"Then was borrowing 'Forest of Thorns' just a way of keeping us here?"

"Of course not. After all, I did need to read 'Forest of Thorns' as soon as possible. Even if it's not true, rumors about me are spreading, so I needed to know why that was the case."

That said, the reason why she sent everyone else home was so remove any intrusions. If Sachiko-sama were here, she would have definitely stopped Yumi from asking about Rosa Gigantea's past. Given her actions the past few days, that much was clear.

"The reason why the second and third-year students won't explain anything is because they're worried about me. Last year, I was really severe about people touching on that subject, and they know about that."

I'm probably still not completely over it, said Rosa Gigantea. She understood how people were worried about her.

"I had a really good friend. More important than parents or siblings, and I liked her enough that I didn't need anything else."

Yumi remembered Sei and Kahori from "Forest of Thorns." The image fit perfectly with Rosa Gigantea, who mentioned they were similar.

"She was pure-hearted girl who intended to become a sister in the future. But she vanished last Christmas."

"Eh!?"

Yumi and Yoshino-san shouted at once.

"But that's the exact same!"

Having the same name was already astonishing, but the fact that the other person was also a sister, and vanished during Christmas. Was it possible to have this much overlap? Because not everyone experienced the same thing as Sei did.

But Rosa Gigantea did have a similar experience as "Forest of Thorns," after all. That was dreadful. Yumi understood why Sachiko-sama and others didn't want to touch on the subject.

"Not exactly. That's why it'd be troublesome if you took everything from that book and called it my truth. I never went on a journey with that friend, and there was no romantic experience like taking sleeping pills together."

And "Forest of Thorns" implied that Kahori didn't pass away, either, but Rosa Gigantea's friend ended up transferring.

"Then she's alive? Kahori-san."

"What, are you disappointed she's alive?"

Rosa Gigantea flicked Yumi's forehead with her index finger. Well, it was a good thing to find out she was still alive, but for a person who ended up crying over "Forest of Thorns," it was a bit of a let-down. –And that was because she hadn't fully gotten over the knowledge that Rosa Gigantea wasn't the writer or main character of "Forest of Thorns."

"And Yumi-chan, she's not Kahori. Her name was Kubo Shiori."

That sort of revision was another nail-in-the-coffin for the Rosa Gigantea being Sei theory.

But Yoshino-san was sharp.

"Rosa Gigantea, do you think someone used you as a model and wrote the novel?"

Yumi was so surprised she wasn't even thinking of that sort of possibility, but in retrospect, that sort of thing did seem possible.

"I don't know."

Rosa Gigantea laughed.

"Some places are drastically different, but some places frighteningly overlap."

But because it was an autobiographical novel, rather than an autobiography, it was possible the author employed some fictional aspects.

"Autobiographical novel."

That's a complex thing. "Autobiography" meant it was the writer's own life story, and "ical" made it "based on." And "novel" implied more of a "fictional" story. Autobiography, plus fictional, but that wasn't any more clear.

"But wait a second. This is supposed to be an autobiographical novel, so that would be wrong."

Yoshino-san realized something, and drew closer to Rosa Gigantea.

"Wha- what?"

Yumi interjected, trying to keep up.

"If someone used Rosa Gigantea as a model, it wouldn't be an autobiography anymore."

"Oh, yeah." If "Forest of Thorns" were written with Sei as Rosa Gigantea, then Suga Sei had to be Rosa Gigantea. But Rosa Gigantea completely refuted that. Then… then… then what?

"Well, a similar thing could have happened by chance."

Rosa Gigantea mumbled. But Yoshino-san pressed on.

"It could have been a lie, though."

"A lie." And they began talking back and forth, like a ping pong rally. Yumi couldn't slide herself into the conversation, so she just looked left and right and followed Yoshino-san and Rosa Gigantea.

"For a chance occurrence, the school was far too similar to Lillian Girls' Academy. One of our students had to have written it."

"But Yoshino-chan, publishers don't lie."

"But if the author said they wrote about themselves, the publisher would have to believe it, wouldn't they? This is Suga Sei's debut work, and she has no profiling, so she might simply be thinking there's no way she'd be caught."

"I see."

"'I see.' Aren't you frustrated? That someone wrote about you, then you got mistaken for the author, and then got called to the guidance office?"

"Not really. It wasn't the first time I went there."

"That's not what I'm saying."

Yoshino-san was getting angry in Rosa Gigantea's stead. Well, Yumi could sympathize. Rosa Gigantea was acting very apathetic.

"Even if someone were to, as Yoshino-chan said, have used me as a model and wrote a novel, it doesn't mean anything."

"What?"

"Do you want to sell the story to the newspaper club after catching Suga Sei? Or are you going to ask for royalties on the book as a reference fee?"

That's true, Yumi thought. It was already published, so there was no way to erase it from everyone's memory. Plus, if Rosa Gigantea acted, it'd just become an even bigger deal.

"I just can't stand the thought of Rosa Gigantea being hurt by this."

"But I'm not hurt at all? I mean, I was called to the guidance office, but they just asked me about it, and that was that. No problems."

"But-"

Yoshino-san stopped, at a loss for words.

Yumi could understand the speechless Yoshino-san's feelings. Yoshino-san was about to say Rosa Gigantea was clearly being hurt. Even if it were proven that there was no basis for the rumors, the past she'd buried had been dug up. To say she'd taken no damage would be a lie.

But she couldn't say that, Yoshino-san thought, so she stopped.

Rosa Gigantea's pride was the stance of "I don't care if you found out about my past."

"You know. I don't need everyone in the world to understand me. As long as people precious to me understand, that's enough. Understand?"

Rosa Gigantea slacked in her chair and spoke. Her legs, poking out from the pleats, were straight and white and cool.

"That's why I wanted Yumi-chan and Yoshino-chan to hear me. Because I didn't want you two to have the wrong idea."

"Rosa Gigantea…"

Her heart skipped. Because Rosa Gigantea just called them precious to her.

Rosa Gigantea said she didn't care about the outfield, but Yumi wondered if she simply wanted to drop the topic.

Of course.

A tragic past wasn't something you wanted to dwell on. Bereavement or transfer, Rosa Gigantea was hurt by the person vanishing to a place where they would never see each other again, so there was no difference there.

Other people have no way of understanding the weight in other peoples' hearts. After all, Rosa Gigantea probably needed that person more than anyone else.

She asked if anyone had questions, so Yumi raised her hand. If the question was taboo, she was confident Rosa Gigantea would simply say so.

"Your friend, what's she doing now?"

"I don't know… I wonder what she's doing."

Rosa Gigantea looked out the window. They hadn't met after splitting up, she mumbled.

"Do you want to see her?"

This time Yoshino-san asked. But the answer wasn't "I want to see her" or "I don't want to see her."

"I don't think we ought to meet."

Peoples' relationships weren't quite that simple, after all.

She didn't know what happened between Rosa Gigantea and that person, but it was clear Rosa Gigantea still liked her. She liked her, but she mustn't be with her. Yumi found out for the first time that such a relationship existed.

Rosa Gigantea's true character might be as violent as flames. Is what Yumi thought, all of a sudden. So she distanced herself from the person she loved, to spare her from being burnt.

Being able to see the person you like as much as you want was actually incredibly good fortune.

Yumi suddenly wanted to see Sachiko-sama.

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