Maria-sama ga Miteru:Volume31 Chapter6

Buying Florentine Senbei

It was the beginning of September, just after summer holidays, and Katou-san was talking about going on vacation during the midterm break.

"A vacation? That sounds nice – "

I interrupted my friend's speech, as I continued to eat my jelly in the cafeteria.

"Then why don't you come with me?"

"I'll go, I'll go."

Anywhere, anytime.

"Satou-san. At least ask the destination before replying."

I'd been far too glib, and Katou-san temporarily suspended her topic of conversation to chastise me.

"Ah, right. So where are we going?"

I asked, but the destination didn't really matter to me. A short break, sounds nice. I hadn't really cut loose during the summer vacation, and I'd saved up a bit of money from my part-time job.

" … To Italy."

Katou-san said softly.

"Italy!?"

"See, that got you interested."

"Ah, is that it? An overseas trip. And not just to Asia, but to Europe. That's great, Italy."

Apparently, Katou-san's parents (her father and new mother) had been there for a honeymoon over summer, and were so happy they'd given her some money to go too. Katou-san's father was still suffering complications from his collapse, and his rehabilitation was on-going, but he was well enough to travel.

According to Katou-san.

"I think they'd feel awkward if it was just the two of them that had fun."

Katou-san had delayed starting university by a year when her father collapsed, so this was probably meant as both an apology and a show of gratitude. So, to please her father, Katou-san had decided to spend the money.

"It's not a tour, so there'll be some costs. I can cover the hotel room, but we'll split things like transportation and meals, what do you say?"

Katou-san took out her calculator and started totting up about how much money I'd need for the trip, then showed me the result and said, "About this much." Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of yen … Between my savings and the pay from my job, it looked like I'd have enough. I gave her the thumbs up.

"Oh, right, Satou-san, do you have a passport?"

"I do. I used it two years ago, for my school trip."

Katou-san was taken aback by my reply.

"Oh wow. Just what you'd expect from the students of Lillian's Girls Academy. Truly, they are classy ladies. Your school trip was overseas!? Where did you go?"

"Rome, Florence, Venice."

It goes without saying, these are all Italian cities.

" … It looks like I'll have to invite someone else."

I grabbed Katou-san's arm as she stood up to leave. After putting the spoon I was using to eat the jelly back in its cup, obviously.

"I said I'll go. I'll go, I'll go."

"But you just went there two years ago. It's even the same route I was planning on taking. For the same money, you could go to Egypt or Morocco with someone else."

"Ah, Egypt would be nice. I'd like to go to Morocco too."

"See."

"But this time around, I'm going to Italy with Kei-san."

Right, right. When I talked to her, sometimes I'd call her Katou-san, and sometimes I'd call her Kei-san. Similarly, sometimes she'd call me Satou-san and sometimes she'd call me Sei-san.

"Don't force yourself. Back in high school, I went to the toilet by myself during breaks."

"Ah, me too."

But what did that have to do with the vacation?

"I'm not looking for a dirty weekend."

So that was it. I concurred. But that didn't mean I was about to say so long, farewell.

"Well, let's see. Despite what I may have said, I'm not the type of person to accept an invitation unless I'm interested."

"So you're interested then?"

"Yep."

"Why?"

Katou-san had a curious look on her face as she once again sat down facing me.

"My memories, my recollections of that trip are all kind of hazy."

"What, did you get a fever on the trip or something?"

"Before I left the country, actually."

Back then, regardless of what I was doing, thoughts of Shiori filled my head. Shiori was a student at Lillian's Girls Academy, one year below me. I'm still not sure what to call my relationship with her – we were part kindred spirits, part best friends and part lovers.

In truth, I hadn't wanted to go on the school trip, but to get out of it I would have had to tell my parents and teachers the reason why. Reluctantly, I boarded the plane. So I wasn't lying when I said that I'd come down with a fever.

"Anyway, we're getting off track. That's why I want to redo that vacation."

"Hmmm."

The only memories I had from that school trip felt like I was watching some dull travel program. But I thought that it would be more enjoyable for the person I am now.

That's when I had a flash of inspiration.

"We'll have to search for Florentine senbei."

The first I learned that our vacation was scheduled for the same dates as the Lillian Girl's Academy school trip was on the day we left the country.

"Oooh, that's not good."

When I arrived at Narita Airport, the place was crawling with that familiar uniform. I'd think nothing of this if I was within the school grounds, but seeing so many of them squirming in a public place left me with a somewhat eery feeling. Well, I'd been a part of that a few years ago.

"It's the second years that go on the trip, so this would be Yumi-chan's grade."

Which meant that Shimako was among them.

I'd been hiding myself from the group of dark uniforms as best I could, but upon envisaging Shimako's face I zipped my coat fully closed and left the area.

Toudou Shimako was the girl who became my soeur during my time in high school at Lillian's Girls Academy.

What was up with that? If it had been Yumi-chan or Yoshino-chan, I'd have wandered over and casually called out, "Yo." But I couldn't do that to Shimako. Of course, it wasn't because I hated her, in fact it was quite the opposite.

I can't really explain it well, but I love the Shimako that's there when I'm not around. I don't want her former "onee-sama" to intrude on her current pleasant memories.

Nonetheless, it was now far too late to cancel my trip. But even if we were going on the same plane, our seats would probably be a fair distance apart. And if I could just make it through that, we probably wouldn't see each other at all. Italy's big. Even if we did accidentally end up in the same city at the same time, there wasn't much to worry about.

There was something more important that I had to concentrate on just then.

"Katou Kei."

What to do? The place I'd arranged to meet Katou-san was right in the middle of where the Lillian's students were lining up for their school trip. If her bus hadn't arrived, then I could have waited near the bus stop and met her there, but I'd just caught a glimpse of her on the far side of those dark school uniforms. She probably thought I hadn't arrived yet as she was reading a book, and not noticing the feverish glances I was throwing her way. She'd look up if I started yelling and waving, but I was bound to be spotted by the nearby girls from Lillian's first.

I don't mean to boast, but I'm fairly well known at that school. If they realized I was here, there'd be an uproar. Or at least a minor fuss. That wouldn't really bother me, but it would be troublesome if Shimako noticed.

Unfortunately, Katou-san didn't have a cell phone.

With no other options, I decided to go to the information desk and ask them to call her over.

I only remembered the similarity of my name to Katou-san's full name after the announcement had been made. Despite the announcer's perfect pronunciation I found myself instinctively wanting to answer, "Here," when I heard "Katou Kei."

Before too long, Katou-san made her way over to the information desk. She didn't seem to have noticed, but she was obviously being followed by a number of little lambs with ivory sailor collars and black dresses. If I were spotted now, then all my hard work would be for naught.

I told the information desk attendant to have Katou Kei wait there when she arrived, and left. The excuse I gave was, "I've got to go to the toilet," but in truth I'd been in such a rush that there was an air of authenticity to it.

After being called over to the information counter, and then made to wait for ten minutes, Katou-san was really mad.

I didn't encounter all that many more Lillian's uniforms after arriving in Rome.

On the first day, it was evening by the time we arrived at our hotel. Our second day was spent touring the Vatican, but we (perhaps fortunately) got off to a late start because both myself and Katou-san overslept, probably due to the long flight. We were staying at a different hotel to the Lillian girls too, but, well, that was as expected.

I saw a small group of them wandering freely around Borghese park, but it was nighttime and fairly dark, so even if they saw my Asian figure they wouldn't have known that I was Japanese, let alone a recently graduated senior of theirs.

"I guess there's nowhere we can buy Roman manju."

Katou-san grimaced at my mumbling.

"Satou-san, you're weird."

Really? Thank-you.

After Rome came Florence.

Naturally, they didn't sell Florentine senbei at the train station, in the sweets shops, or at the bars. Roman manjuu and Florentine senbei were original designs that I had concocted in my imagination.

It started last year, when I said to Sachiko and Rei, "Bring back some Roman manju or Florentine senbei as a souvenir." Sachiko had looked at me with an icy glare, and Rei had brushed it off, saying, "If I see any, I'll buy them for you." If I see any. Not only did she know they didn't exist, she handled it like an adult.

If that had been Yumi-chan, I probably would have got a much more interesting reaction.

Ohh, they have that kind of thing, huh? I'll get some to take home too. Where do they sell it? It wouldn't be written in Japanese, so how would they spell it in Italian? – etcetera, etcetera.

Ahh, I can just picture it. It'd be good to reach out to Yumi-chan, just to confirm this. An assortment of Yumi-chan and Florentine senbei would go brilliantly together.

"Buon giorno signorina."

On the north bank of the river Arno, in an unnamed jumbled alley of shops, a voice called out to me. Well, "signorina" was Italian for "lady" so they could have been calling out to someone other than me. At any rate, a guy calling out, "Hey, lady," as I walked down the street probably thought he was flirting or something. But it had been said with such exquisite timing that it caused me to stop.

"Buon giorno signore, or is it signorina?"

I stood still, and called back in response.

"Signore, signore."

The guy who looked like he owned the store smiled at me in response. I was flirting with a large parrakeet, in a cage hanging outside the store. It may have been an actual parrot.

"Say gokigenyou for me. Gokigenyou."

My mischievous side came gushing out. The parrot tilted its head in confusion at hearing these words for the first time.

"Gokigenyou."

But after repeatedly saying this a number of times, soon enough the parrot responded with, "Gokigenyou."

"That's enough, Satou-san."

Katou-san tugged at my sleeve after patiently waiting for me to teach the parrot this one phrase.

"Wait, just a bit more."

"I want to get some soap from that chemist. Then after that, how about that marbled paper shop?"

"Welcome to Florence."

"Satou-san."

I was tenacious. It was fun, and I was completely absorbed in it.

"Florentine senbei, Florentine senbei."

The shopkeeper jolted back in surprise. At this Asian woman who was taking no notice of the bags on sale, instead engrossed in teaching new words to the parrot. Please don't think all Japanese women are like this. At the very least, Shimako probably wouldn't do this kind of thing.

"Florence is a nice place, come and have a look."

When the parrot had mastered these phrases, Katou-san called out to me from behind.

"Give it a rest, Satou-san."

Hanging from Katou-san's hand was a paper bag from the chemist that she'd said she wanted to go to. Inside were about ten bars of soap.

"You went there alone?"

"Yep. You were just wasting time."

It had taken Katou-san roughly thirty minutes to go to the chemist, choose the soap, pay, and then return.

I'd spent that thirty minutes amusing myself with the parrot.

"Give it a rest, Satou-san."

The parrot reproduced the phrase that Katou-san had said just once.

"Give it a rest, Satou-san."

Yes, I'll stop. With that, Katou-san and I headed back to the alleyway.

The parrot was still calling out.

"Florentine senbei, Florentine senbei."

It amused me that some Japanese tourist would hear that parrot and go searching for Florentine senbei.

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