Free Book Girl and the Captive Fool by Mizuki Nomura

I’d make Tohko eat all the cookies she couldn’t taste. It would only be what she deserved. Or…?
    I was still thinking it over when Kotobuki’s face turned suddenly indifferent.
    “So it was just flattery after all.”
    “Wha—no!”
    “That’s the kind of guy you are, Inoue. You’ll be nice and smiley for anyone, but deep inside they have no idea what you’re thinking.”
    I felt a chill, as if I’d been stabbed in the chest with an icicle.
    “Never mind. Jerk.”
    Kotobuki slung her bag (from which dangled a pink rabbit doll) over her shoulder, bit down hard on her lip, and hastily left the room.
    I’d made her mad… again. Why did things always go that way with her?
    The word
jerk
played on a loop in my mind, putting me into a sullen mood, when I heard a sigh.
    “Poor Nanase. I didn’t think you were that dense, Konoha.”
    Takeda stuck her head inside the door, and I thought my heart was going to stop. I thought she’d already left.
    She walked toward me, her face a carefree mask.
    “I forgot something, but things were looking pretty promising and I didn’t want to interrupt, so I stayed outside.”
    “You mean you spied on us.”
    “Or you could call it that.”
    She grinned toothily, then bent over the seats and picked up a binder she’d left there.
    “Nanase is
pretty
straightforward. Really, she puts up such a huge front it ticks me off and makes me want to tease her, but I wonder how come you can’t see it. Didn’t you see the pink rabbit on her bag?”
    I cocked my head to one side.
    “I saw the rabbit, but so what? Oh—you don’t think Kotobuki likes Akutagawa, do you?”
    Kotobuki had seemed pretty concerned about Tohko and him, so I thought it might be possible. But Takeda’s shoulders slumped magnificently and she sighed.
    “This is what I mean. This is why Nanase calls you a jerk. Whatever. Just act all flustered later. You’re cute when you do that.”
    “Wait, what? Can you be a little clearer?”
    “Nope. It’s a secret.”
    Takeda hugged the binder to her chest and giggled. There was a white angel’s wing stretching across the dandelion-colored plastic.
    I gasped. “That binder!”
    “Heh-heh, cute isn’t it? I bought it when the three of us went to that store. It’s called the angel series, and it’s really popular with girls. They had pink and sky blue and green ones, too. Nanase bought a green notebook from the same series. We match.”
    I recognized it.
    Miu had liked the series, too, and had sky blue notebooks and binders from it.
    The past teased at my insides like black waves.
    My throat tightened and it was getting harder to breathe; I struggled to drive the memory of Miu’s face from my mind.
    Somehow I forced out a few words without revealing my distress.
    “Well, I’m glad you had fun. You’ve changed, Takeda. You’re more exuberant than you used to be.”
    Takeda’s mask seemed to slip away, and her face emptied as a smile pulled at her lips.
    “I’m not having fun.”
    She looked at me with such a rational gaze that she seemed to be an entirely different person. The air suddenly grew cold.
    “Not even a little bit. I’m only pretending to, because I don’t want to destroy the mood.”
    Her voice was distant.
    The girl standing before me was not the Chia Takeda who was so innocently puppylike, but another, lonelier Takeda who couldn’t understand people’s emotions.
    I froze, speechless, and her childlike expression returned. She gave me an adorable smile.
    “It doesn’t take anything special to hide what you really think and put on an act. Everyone does it. And it’s not so terrible being with you and Tohko.”
    I felt like there was something caught in my throat, but I forced out a smile, too.
    “I see. I’m glad, then.”
    A smile that wasn’t a lie, but a smile that wasn’t true, either.
    Takeda and I needed smiles like that. In order to avoid disrupting the climate between us. In order to maintain the outward appearance of