“Which open campuses did you go to?”
“Sahoda University, Aoyama University, and Heisei Gakuin University — three.”
“All three had a great vibe, very stylish. Genuinely fun.”
Yeah, those were the holy trinity of brand-name difficult schools. Once again I was being reminded that Reona and Riona lived in a different reality than I did. As I was slipping into a private gloom-spiral, Riona spoke up.
“Whichever university you want to go to, I will get you in. Leave it to me.”
“I’ll back you up too, full force, so don’t worry.”
The two of them said it earnestly. Riona’s actual ability had been demonstrated on the recent finals; having her behind me was worth a hundred allies.
“So let’s go to the same university together. The three of us.”
“I want to spend my four university years with Ryouya and Nee-chan.”
”…Wait — are you serious?”
I tossed the reflex objection in. They had quietly proposed something not minor.
“Hey, Riona, did I say something weird?”
“You didn’t say anything weird.”
Both of them put on identical confused expressions. They had no idea why I’d yelped.
“It sounded like you were saying you wanted to keep sticking together through college, that’s all.”
“That much is so obvious you’re weird for being surprised, Ryouya.”
“Are you still half-asleep, maybe?”
Their faces were dead serious — no read where this was a bit. Apparently Reona and Riona had been genuinely planning to go to the same university as me. I had a lot of follow-up questions, but the bus pulled into the campus and we had to disembark.
“Bigger than I expected.”
”…Yeah. Comprehensive university, single-campus.”
“Let’s find the reception.”
I was still chewing on the same university comment, but I shoved it aside and walked.
“Hey — that girl is so cute.”
“Yeah, imagine a college life with someone like her.”
“Both of them are gorgeous. Maybe a model or an idol?”
“Wouldn’t be surprised.”
Voices both male and female were drifting in from all directions just from us walking through campus — same as on the bus, they were drawing massive attention.
Needless to say, Mob Character B next to them was getting the kill-me-with-your-eyes treatment. We checked in at reception and made our way to the multi-purpose hall for the welcome talk.
“You can hear different dialects all around us.”
“Yeah, Okayama City University draws people not just from Chugoku — Shikoku and Kansai too.”
“We’re stuck with standard Japanese. Slightly envious.”
“Kansai-ben is genuinely cool though.”
Born and raised in Tokyo, I don’t have a regional accent. My mom, from Okayama originally, apparently spoke Okayama dialect as a kid, but after coming to Tokyo for university and never leaving, she’s gone fully standard.
After almost an hour of the welcome talk, we moved to our mock-class rooms. I was in economics; Reona and Riona were in foreign languages.
“Riona and I are this way. Meet up after the mock class?”
“Yeah, message me when you’re done.”
“See you in a bit, Ryouya.”
We split up. The campus was big enough that moving between classes was clearly going to be a daily workout. I hadn’t even gotten in yet and was already worrying about it.
◇
After the mock class we met up, did the campus tour and the individual-consultation booths, and were now having lunch. The university has a lot of cafeterias — picking one was hard — but we’d ended up at the one the open-campus guide had marked as popular.
“What was your mock class like, Ryouya?”
“Economics did a thing on equity investing. Pretty interesting actually.”
A lecture in a hall that could seat hundreds was a far cry from the small-classroom-of-thirty I was used to in high school. Once I was actually a college student the novelty would wear off in a week, but for now it was novel.
“The foreign languages mock class was entirely in English. The technical terminology was way over my head — Riona understood it all though.”
“I watch a lot of stuff in English. So I got most of it.”
If even Reona, a quarter-English speaker who can hold ordinary conversation, found it hard, I would have been dead.
“What was more surprising — random strangers kept asking us to exchange contacts.”
“Turning them down repeatedly is exhausting, frankly.”
“Me and Nee-chan got harassed.”
During the campus tour and the consultations, Reona and Riona had been mobbed — and not gently — by other high school attendees and the student-tour-guides asking to swap contacts.
In just a few hours they’d been hit up more than five times. The fact that I, a male, was visibly with them did not matter at all. I genuinely was not in their field of vision.
“Aaah, if I were two-meters tall and stupidly handsome, would girls also be asking to exchange contacts with me?”
I’d been envying their popularity and muttered it without thinking. If I were tall-and-flawlessly-handsome, swapping contacts with girls would presumably be effortless.
While I daydreamed about a world-line where I was significantly more attractive, the expressions on Reona’s and Riona’s faces across the table snapped clean off.
”…Are you wanting to exchange contacts with girls, Ryouya?”
“What is it, exactly, you’d be doing with those contacts, Ryouya-kun…?”
“Things you can’t say to me and Nee-chan?”
“If that’s what’s happening I genuinely can’t forgive it.”
The two of them were speaking in their normal tones, but their eyes weren’t smiling — at all. Feeling like I was about to be eaten alive, I scrambled.
”…No, no, that was a joke. I have no idea what I would even talk to a girl about, much less ask for contacts.”
“Right. Good.”
“If Ryouya-kun was about to make a mistake, I would have had to apply a serious punishment.”
The atmosphere thawed. I had no idea where that landmine had been but I’d come within a centimeter of detonating it. Verbal censorship engaged.
After the cafeteria we did the rest of the open-campus programs. Reona and Riona kept getting hit on; they shut each one down. Stop glaring at me, fellas.