Maria-sama ga Miteru:Volume13 Chapter6 4

Search for Takuya-kun! Part 4.

How long would that take?

As time went on, the people that the Takuya-kun candidates were waiting for arrived one by one and they left the fountain.

Despite this, Shimako-san and the leading Takuya-kun candidate remained standing there, making no progress whatsoever. But the fact that he remained there just strengthened Mami's belief that he was Takuya-kun.

The only thing left on the sandwich plate was the parsley garnish. Everything else had disappeared into the old man's stomach.

"You don't have to stay with me, uncle."

Mami opened her mouth.

"Huh?"

"I'll settle the bill, so feel free."

The "to go ahead and leave," was left implied. But the old man seemed to misunderstand something.

"Really? Don't mind if I do then. Excuse me, waitress, another cup of Blue Mountain coffee please."

He said, waving his arm in the air.

"Huh!?"

"Coming right up."

The waitress walked over and picked up the empty sandwich plate and docket for the table.

"Thank-you."

The old man held the traffic-light-colored flag in his fingers and spun it around.

"I told you didn't I? I'm here because I'm waiting for someone."

"…"

She couldn't tell if it was the truth or a lie. But it looked like the old man was going to stick around for at least another cup of coffee.

Feeling a light headache building, Mami concentrated on what was happening outside the glass window.

From here on, she was going to ignore the old man as much as possible. Paying for the sandwiches and the coffee hurt, but she could chalk that up as the price of the seat. She'd had to share tables with strangers in the past and there was no way she'd be able to get any info if she spent all her time attending to them.

"Sorry for keeping you waiting. One Blue Mountain coffee."

The coffee arrived. But Mami didn't turn her head away from the window.

She heard the sound of the saucer being placed on the wooden table.

She sensed the waitress bow and walk off.

Even though she hadn't seen it happen, Mami could picture it as vividly as if she had. In contrast, the scene beyond the glass, by the fountain, hadn't made much of an impression on her mind despite the fact that she'd been watching it.

But that was fine. Because just her attitude would convey to the old man that she was busy with what was happening beyond the glass.

"I wonder if there's something you'd like to order."

"I'm fine."

She responded to his question, but obviously she didn't turn her face towards him.

"But your soda's now just apple-scented ice, right?"

"…"

No response.

"How about the apricot frozen yoghurt sundae? The caramel, banana and chocolate parfait looks good too."

He waved the menu in front of her face annoyingly, saying, "Here, take a look."

"I told you, I don't want anything."

Fed up, Mami turned to look at him.

"– I guess not."

Then she spotted something in the old man's face that hadn't been there earlier and her anger died off completely.

"…"

Spot the difference. Now then, what had changed from before?

"You're finally looking at me."

The old man looked triumphant. As though he had completely missed his own blunder.

"I've been thinking about your goals for quite some time now."

"Okay?"

Calling a halt to her tactic of playing dumb, Mami looked straight at the old man. No matter how much she thought about it, it seemed odd. That thing spread across the center of his face.

"You've been lying."

"You're the one that's been lying, uncle."

Mami said, unable to remain silent.

"About what?"

The old man asked blankly.

"Then let me ask a question. Why are you wearing glasses?"

"I need my glasses to be able to read the fine print on the menu."

"On top of your contacts?"

"Ah, damn it."

At that point he finally seemed to catch on to the situation.

Earlier he'd put on a display of losing a contact lens, picking it up, washing it, then putting it back in his eye. But normally you wouldn't wear both contact lenses and glasses at the same time.

"Since you're wearing those glasses, you must have been lying about the contact lens, right?"

Thinking back, Mami hadn't actually seen the contact lens. Instead, she'd been convinced solely by his actions. Since contact lenses are small, thin and transparent.

"Stands to reason."

"So why did you pretend you'd lost a contact lens … "

"It's the same as you. It was a lie of convenience."

"Huh?"

"Back to our earlier conversation. I did indeed tell a lie. But so did you, so you're in no place to judge."

"What lie did I tell?"

She didn't know what he was talking about because there were too many to count.

"That young man. He's not your boyfriend."

"… Why do you say that?"

Mami asked and the old man smirked.

"Are you a boy?"

"No."

Mami wondered why he was asking such a wildly off-topic question. How could anyone mistake this cute young girl for a boy? That should have been obvious even without contact lenses or glasses.

"Is that so? Well, it would have been better if you were a boy."

"Huh?"

The old man shrugged his shoulders.

"Unfortunately, that young man went to an all-boys school for middle and high school. But you said you met him at high school."

He pointed out the window as he said this.

Unaware that his previous schools were the topic of discussion the young man in the traffic-light colored shirt kept checking the time.

"… No way."

"Oh? It's not a lie. I'll bet you 3,000 yen if you want."

"3,000 yen?"

It was a reasonable amount of money. The sort of money a female high school student would realistically have in her purse. If he'd suggested 300,000 yen then it obviously would have been hyperbole … which meant the old man was seriously planning on winning the bet.

"You don't believe me? Then run out of the store, over to the fountain and ask him. That is, if you can."

"…"

Since he was going that far, it meant his information was probably solid.

"So you know that guy over there?"

"Pretty much. That's why I was surprised when you said you were his girlfriend, but you didn't know anything about him. You probably randomly picked him as your boyfriend from among the young men you could see. Am I wrong?"

Bingo.

Although it may not have been as "randomly" as he believed. Since it was his shirt that clinched her decision.

The shirt?

Thinking about it further, Mami came to a sudden realization.

"When he passed by the window earlier, you had to suddenly hide yourself. That's why you pretended you'd dropped a contact lens."

"Bulls-eye. It'd have been a bit of a bother if he'd seen me here."

"A bother?"

Mami looked from the young man waiting in vain on the other side of the glass to the old man sitting in front of her sipping coffee.

"Don't tell me, the person you're waiting for is – "

Him.

Then no matter how long he waited, the person the young man was waiting for would not arrive.

Then, on top of that, she could conclude that he wasn't Takuya-kun. Because Takuya-kun was waiting for Nijou Noriko-chan. And since he wasn't waiting for Noriko-chan, he couldn't be Takuya-kun.

"No, that's not it. I'm not supposed to be meeting him."

The old man refuted her theory.

"Then why are you here?"

"For the same reason as you, in a sense. To watch from here. To survey the plaza, including his actions."

He smiled and looked out over the fountain. Then suddenly it all made sense to Mami.

"Don't tell me you're Kounoshin-san!?"

Then the old man spoke as he slowly turned towards Mami.

"How do you know that name … ?"

"You're Kounoshin-san, right? Takuya-kun's grandfather."

She asked again, looking right into his eyes.

"– You're wrong."

The old man looked away, breaking eye contact. Despite his denial he was clearly shaken. First of all, if it was unrelated then he wouldn't have reacted so strongly to hearing the name "Kounoshin."

"So why did you just ask me how I knew that name? It's because you already knew the name Kounoshin, right?"

Thinking this, she took another look at both of them and despite the age difference they did seem to share a resemblance.

When Mami first saw the young man she thought he'd looked like someone. It wasn't some kind of celebrity she saw on TV, but the senior in front of her.

"Ho ho."

The old man turned to look at Mami with an incredibly displeased look on his face. Was he going to turn defiant?

"Anyway, I've decided not to tell you about that name just yet, since you still haven't yet told me the truth."

"Kounoshin-san."

"So please, don't call me by that name."

Despite him saying he wasn't Kounoshin-san, all the circumstantial evidence certainly pointed that way.

But the image she had in her mind of Kounoshin-san was completely different to the reality. Given how poorly Takuya-kun had wrote of him, she'd expected someone far more dowdy. But surprise of surprises, he was actually a refined old gentleman.

"It doesn't matter if you're not Kounoshin-san."

Mami tried asking a slightly different question.

"Could you tell me whether that guy over there is Shimura Takuya-kun?"

"Well, I wonder. When you get older, you often forget people's names."

Again with the sudden senility. What kind of grandfather would forget his grandson's name? Suppose, for arguments sake, that he did have that level of dementia, then there's no way he'd be let out on his own.

Given this, Mami decided her only course of action was to tell him everything. Then ask for his co-operation. It was a risky gamble but the potential payoff was proportionately large.

She breathed in then out. Then she leaned forward across the table a little way and whispered, like she was letting him in on a secret.

"The truth is, I came to take a look at my friend Noriko-chan's boyfriend, Takuya-kun."

"Oh."

Hearing this, the old man looked at her in wonder.

"… In that case, wouldn't you be better off asking this Noriko-chan directly? Ask her to introduce you. Then you wouldn't have to be lurking in a place like this, trying to take a photo."

"That's true. But I don't want him introduced just to me, I want him introduced to everyone."

"To everyone?"

"I'm a member of the newspaper club at school."

"Ahh … so that's how it is?"

"That's how it is."

Even though she hadn't explained everything, he seemed to accept this. He caught on quick and seemed mostly fine with it.

"But still, an ambush by the newspaper club. Is this Noriko-chan really such a celebrity?"

"She is."

Also known as Rosa Gigantea en bouton.

"Hmm. Such a gap in my knowledge, I had no idea.

"She's only a celebrity within our school. No need to concern yourself."

"I see. So it would have been weird if I'd known that."

The old man laughed noisily.

"Perhaps Kounoshin-san came to see Takuya-kun's girlfriend too."

"It's possible."

"But Noriko-chan hasn't shown up yet."

"Right."

Perhaps he was relaxing, because the old man was no longer protesting each and every utterance of "Kounoshin-san" or "Takuya-kun." But more than that he seemed interested in Mami's talk of school as he actively peppered her with questions.

"About this young lady, Noriko-chan, that you say isn't here. In your scenario, she was the one that was going to introduce the two pen-friends, right?"

"Huh? Ah, yeah."

"Then who's that girl that you said your boyfriend was cheating with?"

The girl your boyfriend was cheating with. The old man was talking about Shimako-san.

"Um, she's Noriko-chan's onee-sama … ah, well, she's not actually her older sister, that's what we call an older student that we're especially close with."

Hearing Mami's response, the old man spoke decisively.

"I understand. You go to Lillian's Girls Academy, right?"

"Uh … "

"Of course I know about the soeur system that's unique to that place. That girls' school is steeped in tradition."

Never underestimate senior citizens. Lillian's Girls Academy was an old school, founded in the 34th year of the Meiji period. There was nothing unusual about old people being aware of it.

" … My apologies."

Mami admitted her mistake.

The soeur system only existed in the high school division. In other words, Mami had completely revealed herself as a member of the Lillian's Girls Academy High School newspaper club to this elderly gentleman. Mami focused her energies on not worsening her position.

"By the way, where did you hear the names "Takuya" and "Kounoshin?" Did that girl, Noriko-chan, tell you about them?"

"No, I found them on the internet."

"Ah, from "Takuya-kun's Buddhist Shrine?""

"You know about it?"

"Of course."

Which meant he must have checked "Kounoshin-san's Six Tatami Mat Room" too. Given the way it was written, what had he thought about it? Her reporter's instincts fired up and she instinctively asked him what his impressions of it were, to which he replied, "No comment."

What was he doing, putting on airs at this point? Mami couldn't really tell what he thought he was protecting.

"You could at least tell me something, since I've given you so much information."

Mami pleaded, after being rebuffed.

"You chose to tell me all that on your own. It's not like we had a deal."

The old man's lips were sealed.

"So you're just going to listen? Even though your comment of "You're not telling the truth," was what got me to start talking."

"Alright, alright. I'll tell you something very important. This is the national flag of Guinea. It's the reverse of Mali. They're quite similar, so it's easy to get them confused."

He was still dodging the issue, pretending not to understand. The sly old raccoon – although in terms of appearance he was closer to a deer.

"… You're quite the font of knowledge, aren't you."

Mami grinned, her words dripping with sarcasm. But her opponent didn't seem to be affected by this in the slightest.

"Every day of your life is a learning experience. I've already retired from work so I've got plenty of free time to challenge myself in various ways. To learn and for fun. Even the sort of things that young people do."

Understanding dawned on Mami – so that's why he was more interested in his grandson than strictly necessary. His grandson was the closest example of youth culture that the old man had.

"Hmm, it's already 11:30."

The old man said, looking at his watch.

"How about this? Why don't you go and get Noriko-chan's onee-san and bring her back to the cafe."

"Huh?"

"Even though she's wearing a hat, she must be about reaching her limit waiting out in this heat. If Noriko-chan arrives, she'll be able to see from here."

"You want me to go?"

"Well I can't."

He was probably at least somewhat worried about appearing to be flirting with a young girl by calling out to her. But the old man had another reason too.

There was one other person waiting in vain near the fountain. The old man didn't want to be seen by him.

"She'd be better off in here, cooling off and replenishing her moisture."

If moisture was the issue then there was a massive amount right beside Shimako-san, but it wasn't as though she could drink that – to say nothing of jumping in.

"Heatstroke can be a killer, especially to those with a weak constitution."

Despite the serious topic, the old man kept talking in a carefree manner.

"… Alright, I'll go and get her. That's what you want, right?"

It really would have left a bad aftertaste if someone had died because she hadn't done something. While she was desperate for some info about Rosa Gigantea, that sort of thing was far too much for a school newspaper to handle.

As Mami stood up from the chair, the old man said, "Hold on a minute." There was movement near the fountain.

"She's moving on her own."

"Ah, okay."

Had she given up on waiting for Noriko-chan? Shimako-san disappeared from the area they could see through the cafe window.

"What should I do?"

Chase after her, or not? As she was pondering this the old man said, "Well, let's wait a while and see what happens. She might be back before too long."

Just like he said, Shimako-san returned to her original position after two minutes. She was holding a can of Japanese green tea.

"She must have gone and bought that from a store near the train station … it's easy to see why."

"What should I do?"

"Let's see. How about we wait until she's finished drinking that?"

"Okay."

Mami questioned why she was asking the old man for instructions. Still, she believed his decision was the correct course of action – perhaps he possessed some sort of old-man's wisdom.

The clock reached 11:40am as Shimako-san prolonged drinking her green tea. The young man beside her in the showy shirt looked at the clock tower, looked at his watch, glanced at Shimako-san, then looked at his watch again.

"Take a look. He's going to make a move next."

The young man let out a sigh and shook his head. Then just as the old man predicted, he slowly walked away from the fountain. Less than a minute after the old man's prediction.

When Shimako-san had disappeared less than ten minutes ago she'd gone in the opposite direction. So he probably wasn't just heading off for a little while to buy something.

"I wonder if he's given up on waiting for Noriko-chan and gone ahead to the Buddhist statue exhibition."

Mami voiced her own deduction. However the old man shook his head.

"I don't think that's the case."

"Why not?"

"Oh, no reason."

She wasn't about to take his predictions lightly, so Mami thought, "Well if that's what he thinks it's probably true."

"Well then."

The old man stood up as soon as the young man's figure had disappeared completely from the window.

"I should be going now."

"Huh."

Mami was completely shocked when she heard the old man was about to leave. Or, rather, she was shocked by the fact that she was shocked.

Despite their shaky start, she'd started to feel a kinship with him as they watched the drama around the fountain unfold.

Mami had assumed that he would stay and watch it through to its conclusion.

But the reality was different.

The old man was only watching the guy in the traffic-light-colored shirt. So when he left, the old man no longer had any need for the fountain-view seat.

"How about you?"

"I'll stay here for a bit longer."

Mami answered. She didn't really feel like leaving with him.

"If Noriko-chan doesn't show up, the girl by the fountain will need somewhere cool to take refuge."

"Well alright, I'll be leaving then."

The old man picked up the bill from the table.

"Ah, I'll get that."

"No, it's okay. My shout, as payment for telling me such an interesting story."

"Uh … "

The old man smiled warmly and placed the Guinean flag in his breast pocket.

(Kounoshin-san, you're so cool … )

Mami almost blurted this out without thinking. He must have been popular with the ladies about fifty years ago, with his stylish looks and actions.

Mami thanked him for the food, then handed him the bag she'd moved from her seat.

"The person you were waiting for never showed up, huh."

"Well, actually, they've already arrived. I've kept them waiting for a little while now."

The old man smiled awkwardly, said, "See you," then turned to leave.

(They've already arrived … ? Where … ?)

Mami looked around. Since the old man knew they'd arrived, the person he was waiting for must have been visible from where he sat.

Where were they? Who was it that the old man was waiting for?

Mami switched over to the seat he'd been siting in and looked around some more. Then, after settling the bill, he suddenly returned.

"W-what's the matter?"

Mami was nervous, as though she'd been caught doing something she shouldn't.

"I forgot to tell you the info I'd been keeping in reserve."

"Which is?"

She asked, and the old man put his hand alongside his mouth like a partitioning screen, leaned in close to Mami's ear and whispered:

"You don't seem to know this, but Takuya-kun and Shimako-san know each other."

"They know each other … huh!?"

But those two had been standing there the whole time and neither had said a thing. If what the old man said was correct, then the guy in the traffic-light-colored shirt wasn't Takuya-kun.

"Uncle."

By the time she'd realized this and stood up, the old man was already out the door of the cafe.

"…"

Mami sat down and took a sip of water in an attempt to put her mind in order.

If that young guy wasn't Takuya-kun, then who on earth was the old man that she'd thought was Kounoshin-san?

At that point she suddenly remembered.

"I never said Shimako-san's name … !"

But despite this, how had the old man known the name of Noriko-chan's onee-sama?

Not only that. How had he known about Shimako-san's relationship with Takuya-kun, when she herself hadn't?

"What … how … "

Flustered, her mind still in confusion Mami looked out the window, and it was at that moment that Nijou Noriko-chan finally arrived at the fountain.

"You're late, Noriko-chan … "

As she muttered this, Mami took her camera out of her bag and readied it. She delayed thinking about everything else. She had to get a photo for the newspaper or the entire stakeout would have been for nothing.

The headline was, "A Midsummer Day with the White Rose Sisters."

Compared to Tsukiyama Minako-sama's, "He's Rosa Gigantea en Bouton's Boyfriend!" it was lacking a little, no, a lot of punch, but there was nothing she could do about that.

Just when she'd got them both in the frame and was about to click the shutter, something light green got in the way between the subjects and the camera (or more precisely, the cafe window).

"What's this?"

Mami lowered the camera to confirm what it was with the naked eye. The light green object was a suit colored like fresh leaves.

The mysterious old man from the cafe walked in a leisurely fashion.

"Uncle … ?"

Two young women stood in front of the fountain.

One looked like a western doll, the other a traditional Japanese doll.

They noticed the man in the summer suit, waved, and smiled as they made their way over to him.

"No way, that's absurd … "

Mami was so astounded by this that she completely forgot to take a photo.

– Even when Takuya-kun flashed her a peace sign behind his back as they walked away.