"She needs help with carving her starfish," Ryou explained as we made our way to her place. Kyou had some kind of activity after school, so she couldn't join us. "Her body is at the hospital in the next town, but somehow her spirit's able to do all this."
"Her spirit..." I mused; for some reason, I wasn't surprised. "Wouldn't this be right up your alley, cutie? I mean, you do fortunes, and that's occult stuff, right? Isn't this connected to that somehow?"
"B-But I'm not into the occult!" she declared passionately. "I just do fortune-telling for fun, not to try to c-contact anything s-spiritual!"
"Okay, sorry, sorry," I replied. "I didn't mean to set you off like that."
"I-I'm okay," she said. "I'm sorry for blowing up at you like that."
"You're fine," I replied, starting to feel like we were going in circles.
We were quiet for several minutes until I felt like I had to say something. "So...summer's really close, huh?"
"Yeah..." she replied noncommittally. "Um...T-Tomoya-kun?"
"Yeah, cutie?"
Her pace slowed, slowing me down as well. "H-How many cute g-girls do you know?"
"One," I replied easily, "and I'm very lucky to be dating her."
"Thank you." She giggled briefly before falling serious again. "Maybe I asked the wrong question. Um...other then Onee-chan and I, how many girls do you know?"
"Well, let's see..." Thinking about it, I realized that, other than Sunohara, everybody I'd come into contact with recently had been girls. "There's Furukawa and Sakagami – you've met them – Fuuko too...Miyazawa from the Reference Room...I think that's about it, unless you want to count the girl from the library, but I didn't really talk to her much."
"Y-You seem to get along with g-girls okay. What about the guys?"
"Just Sunohara," I answered easily. "And that's just because Koumura-sensei put us together. Now that I think of it, I haven't been to his place in a while." Ryou said nothing, and I looked over in concern when the silence became uncomfortable. "You okay? Did I say something wrong?"
"Eh?" Ryou looked up at me so quickly I was afraid her neck would pop. "N-No! You're fine! It's just..."
I kept my concerned expression but otherwise kept silent.
"...I don't know what to think about you being friendly with other girls."
"I see. Well, if it helps, I haven't had much to do with any of them since we started going out. I guess...I guess I just get along better with girls. Too many of the guys at school are trying to be something they're not, and I'm not interested in being like that."
"We girls can be like that, too," Ryou said quietly.
"I believe you," I replied, "but I don't see it, so I don't know about it."
In spite of my attempts at reassurance, I felt an uncomfortable tension the rest of the way to her house.
***
"Sorry about yesterday," I said, bowing to the student body president. "We got caught up in another drama."
She chuckled softly. "Drama seems to find you, doesn't it? It's okay. Are you ready to give me an answer?"
My girl and I exchanged awkward smiles. "I don't know how much use we'll be, but we'll help as much as we can."
"Great," Sakagami said as she drove a fist into her palm. "Let's get started as soon as possible, then. Are you free after school?"
Ryou and I exchanged another look. "W-We are..." Ryou started, "...but..."
"Is something wrong?" she asked, crossing her arms.
"No, no... It' just that..." Ryou suddenly took hold of my arm. "P-Please talk to her about F-Furukawa-san."
"Oh, right," I said, snapping my fingers. "We haven't talked to her about this, but we wanted to suggest having her do a performance at the festival, to help with recruiting. Would that be all right? I know we're not in a very good bargaining position here, but..."
Sakagami drummed her fingers against her crossed arm as she sighed. "I'd have to talk to the rest of the council, but...I'll see what I can do." She flicked a gaze at Ryou before focusing on me again, and I suddenly felt that discomfort again. "You ready for me to tell you what I need?"
I smiled self-consciously. "G-Go for it."
***
"A performance? At the festival?!" Furukawa laid a hand on her chest as though she was trying to control her breathing. "I-I don't know..."
"You don't have to," I said, trying to comfort her. "I just asked Sakagami about it to see if it could be an option."
"W-Well, thank you," she said, seeming to calm down. "The girls have been wanting to do something since they joined, and I think they may like to do something like this."
"You might be able to get even more members this way," Ryou offered. "That's why Tomoya-kun talked to her about it."
I could see a look of determination in Furukawa's eyes as she gazed at me. "Of course! If Okazaki-san could talk to the Student Council president about this, then I should be able to do a performance!"
I raised a hand to stop her and I noticed that it was trembling; that look in her eyes... "Y-You don't have to, Furukawa; like I said, we're just trying to get you the choice."
"Thank you!" she cried as she grabbed onto my hands, sending a chill down my spine. "I-I'll go talk to the girls about it!" And with that, she hurried off to do who-knew-what.
I brushed my hands together to get rid of the lingering sensation of her touch. Something about our interaction... "W-Well, she's off, I guess. Well, shall we-"
My girlfriend stood beside me, holding her skirt in her clenched fists and trembling. "T-Tomoya...kun..."
"Ryou?" I said, removing her hands from her rumpled skirt to hold them in mine. "What's wrong?"
She looked up at me with what looked like panicked eyes. "N-Nothing! Nothing, really!"
"Hey, it's okay..." I said softly as I caressed the back of her hands with my thumbs. "If there's something wrong, you can tell me. I'm your boyfriend, right?"
"B-Boyfriend..." She pulled her hands from mine to step forward and wrap her arms around me. "Y-Yes, you're my boyf-friend. And I...I-I-I-I'm your girlfriend..."
I held her trembling form and wondered just what in the hell was going on.
***
"Fuuko needs to make seven-hundred starfish, but Fuuko can't do it alone," the first-year announced. "Fuuko needs Strange Guy to help."
"First, we really need to work on your pronouns," I quipped and Ryou, who had managed to recover from her earlier distress, giggled softly. "Seriously, we'd really like to help you but...seven-hundred is still a lot of work; you're going to need more than the two of us if you're going to succeed."
"Fuuko knows this!" she exclaimed. "But Tom...Okazaki-san is smart and reliable, and can help Fuuko help Onee-chan!"
I sighed, then looked over to my girl. "This is getting more and more complicated."
She gave me a cute smile. "Maybe we should have recruited for Fu-chan instead of Furukawa-san?"
"No, we couldn't do...wait a minute..." a smile slowly spread across my face. "I think you might be on to something, cutie."
"Wh-What?"
"Well, if we recruit for Furukawa, she'll probably feel indebted to us so we could ask her about helping with Fuuko's situation. If we had the whole Theater Club helping out, we could finish this in a week, maybe two."
"What about the Student Council president?"
I quirked my mouth to the side. "I'm not sure; she may consider letting Furukawa do her performance as repayment for our help...but we could still ask." I snorted. "If we could get Sakagami alone, she could probably carve all of them by herself; that girl's ridiculously strong." I looked back to Fuuko. "You let us handle this, okay? Just keep carving like you have been, and Ryou and I will see what we can do, okay?"
Our underclassman nodded once. "Okay!"
"And work on your pronouns," I added.
She hesitated, but finally nodded again with a light blush. "Okay!"
I raised a hand as she ran off to do who-knew-what before turning to my girl. "I was thinking that we could talk to...what's wrong?"
Ryou had taken hold of her skirt again as she trembled. "T-Tomoya-kun...she...she..."
I sighed as I took her into my arms again and hoped that, someday, she'd tell me what the problem was.