For the first time since she joined, Pep actually stayed all the way through a club meeting. Not only did she seem to be enjoying herself, she actually seemed to be taking the challenge relatively seriously.
Of course, I was under no delusion that she cared about me settling my petty grudge. There’s only one thing that made Pep get this serious about anything: when she was crushing on someone and wanted to impress them.
In other words, she was listening to Sai because she wanted to make out with her.
“Sai-chan is suuuuuch a good teacher. Why couldn’t you have been that nice and patient with me before?” Pep teased. She and I lived on the same street so it was only natural that we’d walk home together on the rare occasions we left at the same time. Sai had left us quite a ways back.
“Man, how long are you gonna hold a grudge about that? It’s been thirteen years, and you weren’t exactly the most patient child yourself y’know.”
“Hehe, I’m just messing with you, Kabucchi,” she said, turning to face me and leaning forward with a wink. I was surprised her clumsy ass didn’t fall over trying to walk backwards. “You know I love ya really.”
“That’s… kinda the problem…” I muttered to myself.
“Hmm? You say something?” She asked.
“I… Pep, I think you and I should put some distance between ourselves. At least at school.”
It was difficult for me to say, but I knew I had to rip the bandage off quick and clean. If there was one thing I could not stand to be, it was a burden.
“Huh? What’re you talking about, Kabucchi?” She said. She stopped walking, and though she tried to keep smiling, I saw the corners of her mouth twitch slightly. “I know you’ve known me for a long time but I didn’t think you’d get bored of me so soon.”
“I’m not bored of you. Not at all. I just…” I hesitated, unsure how exactly to say what I meant.
“…it’s because of Sai-chan, isn’t it?” Pep asked, her smile faltering a little as she spoke.
“…yeah. I spoke to her at lunch and she seemed to be under the impression that you and I had some sort of unspoken romantic tension between us. I know that’s not true, and you know that’s not true, but nobody else seems to get it. I don’t want it to cause problems in the future, so I think it’s best if we distance ourselves a bit to avoid that misunderstanding.”
Speaking the words made me realise just how much I hated the idea, but I had long ago decided that I would never get in the way of Pep’s love life if I could help it. If it meant seeing her less or not getting to talk to her at school, I could accept that. Humans were selfish creatures, that’s one of the things I loathed about the most. I would not be the hypocrite that put my own happiness above that of someone I loved.
…someone I loved? My own happiness? Just how much had I come to emotionally depend on her? What was the pit in my stomach that made me feel more and more with every word like I was making some irreparable mistake?
I knew I cared deeply for Peppi, almost as if we were family, but had I ever doubted my own resolve and feelings so much before? My logical mind insisted that this was the best path to take, while my emotional core pushed back with everything it had.
Why was I so uncertain?
“I see… I suppose I should have seen this coming.” Pep gave a forced chuckle as she said that, but she hid her face as she did so. “A guy and a girl as close as we are, of course people would get the wrong idea… of course that would cause problems…”
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“So you get what I mean? Why I’m saying this?”
“I get it. Of course I get it. How could I not?” Pep’s voice cracked with every word. She looked up at me, and though she maintained a trembling smile, tears streamed down her face. “I guess this was inevitable… I was stupid to ever think otherwise…”
“No, don’t be silly. I’m the stupid one. I clung to you for support all these years, I let you be my emotional backbone, and I never minded the consequences. I was stupid and selfish. If the blame falls on anyone, it’s me.” I couldn’t meet her eye any more. Seeing her cry carved a hole in my heart. I hadn’t realised just how much of an emotional weak spot I had for her.
“I was stupid… so stupid…” she sniffled as she spoke, starting to break down into outright sobs. “I guess… you were lying… when you said… you wouldn’t mind… if I dated her then…”
“What? Are you an idiot? Why do you think I’m doing this in the first place.”
“Wh-what?” She still sobbed lightly as she spoke, but her tone now seemed confused.
“What do you mean ‘what?’ You only started learning chess because you wanted to date Sai, right? I’m saying I’ll distance myself from you so she doesn’t get the wrong idea, that way you’ll have a better shot. What did you think I meant?”
I looked back at Pep, and her sobbing began to slow. As if the cogs in her head were finally starting to spin, her expression slowly began to change, and her sobs turned to giggles.
“Hehe…”
“Pep?”
“Hehehe…”
“Pep? What’s up with you all of a sudden?”
“Hehehe… heh… hehehehehe… ahahahaha! Oh god, Kabucchi, you idiot…” she wiped her eyes with her hands and broke out into a fit of hysterics. I was utterly confused.
“What? What are you laughing about? Why are you calling me an idiot? What’s wrong with you all of a sudden?”
“Numpty… you really know how to play with a girl’s heart…”
***
“You thought I wanted to date Sai?!” I asked, incredulous.
“Of course I did! After what you said, who wouldn’t think that’s what you meant?”
Pep and I had stopped to sit down at a nearby bench as she tried to clear up the misunderstanding. Thinking back on what I said, I suppose I could see how what I said was too ambiguous, but come on, me falling for Sai of all people? How could she have thought that was the case. Only a bad light novel by an author with no legitimate social experience could come up a misunderstanding that contrived.
“You fool… I always told you that I’d do what I could to make sure I don’t get in the way of your romantic life, you should have known that’s what I meant.”
“And I told you to stop worrying about that so much. You’re an important part of my life, if whomever I date has a problem with that then it’s not meant to be in the first place. You’re my best friend, not my burden. Special case.”
“Best friend… right…” I had always thought of Pep as my best friend, but I was never sure if she thought of me as the same. To hear her say it out loud was nice. “Still, I don’t like the idea of getting in your way like this. You mean a lot to me, and I don’t wanna be the reason you can’t find happiness.”
“‘You mean a lot to me,’ huh…” she smiled as she repeated my words back to me, but there was a sort of melancholy to her smile. “Been a while someone said that to me…”
“Of course you mean a lot to me. Even if I don’t say it often, you are my best friend. Hell, you’re my only friend, really. If I didn’t have you, I’d…” I stopped taking, not sure I wanted to know how my own sentence ended.
“But… that’s also my fault… you wouldn’t have so few friends if not for me…” her smile faltered again, and this time she made no attempt to hide it.
“Hey, no, that’s not true. I’ve told you to stop thinking that way. You… you can’t be blamed for that…”
“But it was my f-“
“No, it wasn’t.”
I snapped and cut her off, which I immediately regretted. It was a topic I tried to avoid whenever possible, especially around Pep. It… wasn’t an enjoyable thing to recall. For either of us.
“Sorry… you’re right… I was being stupid…” she said, after an uncomfortable silence.
“Well, I guess that makes two of us, heh.”
“Hehe, I guess it does.” She moved closer to me on the bench leaned on my shoulder. It was a chilly day, but she was still warm to the touch. “Just… never try to distance yourself from me for my sake again. Please. I don’t want you to forget how important you are to me.”
“You should be careful,” I said, trying to hide my flushed face, “with moves and lines like that, a lesser man would get the wrong idea.”
“Can there be a lesser man than you?”
“Heh… I guess not…”
Peppi chuckled and leaned further into my body, and I wrapped my arm around her shoulder. It was warm, comfortable. The same as it had always been between us.
So why did something deep in my gut tell me it was a lie?