Vol 5 Chapter 52 (1/2)

Hyouka:Volume 5 Chapter 5-2

2 Present: 186k

“This road leads back to Kaht?”

Considering she was being taken along an unfamiliar road, it was no wonder she felt uneasy

“It connects back up to the course in front of Arekusa Shrine It’s quite the shortcut, you know”

“A shortcut, huh…”

Apparently still hung up on our leaving the course, I could hear her gru

“You pretty much do whatever you want, don’t you Oreki-senpai”

I wouldn’t say that was true If I absolutely had to, even I would properly run the entire length of the course I just couldn’t think of any others alternatives, so it couldn’t be helped that I had to resort to this

The two of us walked There was no longer a need for us to run

Lined up

“Hey, a cat,” h, I saw a cat sitting atop the wooden fence It was striped like a tiger

“Senpai, you don’t like animals, do you?”

“I haven’t considered whether or not I do Why’d you assume that?”

“Because anis that are a pain in the ass, senpai?”

She was dead-on At the same time however, I’ve never really considered myself to be someone that disliked animals I never really went out of my way to like them either, however

“Aren’t you assu a little too much?”

“Probably…”

Her voice becahtly quieter

“That’s just like me I always assume too much”

“Give me an example”

“I’ toIf she didn’t know anyone, then how could you have known about it?”

During this Hoshi+gaya Cup, I had done a lot of thinking about Ōhinata …

“That’s not it If you think about it, you can learn a surprisingly large nus”

“Really?”

I assured her that was the case, and she sighed

“From the very start, it’s not like I even said Chitanda-senpai was the reason I was quitting”

“You didn’t say it outright, but you told Ibara ‘Chitanda looked like a bodhisattva,’ right?”

“Isn’t that compliment?”

If that was truly the case, then as her head hanging so low as she said it

“’If someone looks like a bodhisattva on the outside, then they ht?”

Ōhinata weakly looked up at me with a bitter smile

“I went through the trouble of pretending I didn’t know about it, so couldn’t you just follow suit?”

“Second-years knohole bunch If you didn’t want us to know, you should’ve tried so harder”

“Like Russian?”

“Like Russian”

A small pebble rolled in front of us Ōhinata kicked it down the street and let out a shallow sigh

“I guess you found , then how about you tell ?”

“This isn’t about being wrong”

“It was just a figure of speech”

I had arrived at my conclusion based on what I re fro as I didn’t explain this process to her, she probably wouldn’t listen to what I had to say There was probably no working about it, but it was difficult to arrange everything in order

“I wonder where I should start”

“Why not from e first met?”

Of course that seemed to be the easiest solution, but…

“That wouldI feel like it should be possible to condense it a little”

“It’s fine if it’s long, isn’t it? After all, we…”

She paused as if to think about her choice of words, and then continued with a conflicted smile full of self-mockery

“After all, we accidentally veered from the proper path”

To think she could say such disreputable things about us I even told her ould join up with the roup later

I suppose it was true, however, that we broke off frole trace of anyone in the alleyway around us under the midday sun Even the cat that was there earlier seemed to have disappeared amidst the silence Only the sound of our footsteps and voices resounded off the wooden fences

“Well then, for now I guess I’ll start at the very beginning, on the day of the New Recruit Festival”

As I said this, Ōhinata stared hard into the side of htly put off

“On the day of the New Recruit Festival, you overheard Chitanda and I having an uni back on it now, youin a really inconspicuous place”

“It wasn’t unimportant at all You may have potentially saved somebody’s life then”

Now that she mentioned it, I suppose that really was a serious case of food poisoning I hadn’t considered up to this point that was took place at our table ended up being that significant of a conversation At the moment, however, I didn’t care to think about it

“The biggest hint fro you said”

“Really? Me?”

She pointed at herself

“What did I say again?”

“I don’t re the lines of ‘shady people don’t wear naure out what it was that the Confectionery Society was ”

A somewhat happy look appeared in Ōhinata’s eyes

“Now that youlike that”

It certainly felt like it happened ages ago considering not even two months had passed since then A recollection that had previously been trapped in my memories somehow escaped and reed that day, completely uninhibited by worry

“What captured my interest even ht before it I think it was so like this”

I took a single breath

“’This is just so a friend told me, but’”

“You have quite the memory”

“After all, the second I heard it, I thought that it was probably you just expressing your own opinions”

During the Hoshi+gaya Cup, I had asked Satoshi+ to try so fora friend told me, but no matter how you think about it, it’s pretty unfair that the General Committee doesn’t have to run” Satoshi+ responded with, “So that’s what you really think, huh? I’d think soht it was a fairly representative answer

“When people have so difficult to say to someone else, they often use phrases like ‘I heard this from someone,’ ‘there’s this ruinary third-party to soften the blow This wasn’t so that I said, and I don’t believe it at all, but apparently it exists soht I suppose it feels like a way of talking to soate”

“Using their back gate what a roundabout way of saying that”

Ōhinata smiled bitterly

“Just say what you’re thinking and call it cowardly”

“I’m not so brazen that I could criticize somebody like that”

The alleyway continued to stretch on I thought I saw so move out of the corner ofon a drying pole over someone’s veranda as it swayed in the wind

Had Ōhinata been using a inally thought, however

“In your case, that back gate comparison didn’t apply”

There was no response

“‘This is just soinary third-party, but rather actually exists in reality I can’t be certain that every phrase you evoked your friend for was so that they actually said, but some of them undeniably came from that very real ‘friend’ of yours”

Without either affir this, Ōhinata continued to stare at me with an incredibly calm expression

“Why do you think this?”

“Your actions and your ‘friend’s’ actions contradicted each other Things happened that wouldn’t have had you been si this ‘friend’ as a pretense for expression your own opinions”

“No way nothing like that happened”

She complained listlessly as she stared at her feet

“It was on the very last Sunday in April, from 2 PM onwards”

“I don’t re you can talk about it so specifically, I’ it was on your birthday, senpai?”

“That’s correct Letit with me in the first place”

“I’m very happy to hear that you enjoyed it”

Even as we exchanged these pleasantries, the uncomfortable tension between us as we carefully watched each other showed no signs of letting up It wasn’t like it was incredibly tense, but I figured I’d proceed with caution anyways

“That day, if I re some pizza It’d be perfect for the five of us to snack on, but in the end, we didn’t order any Do you remember why?”

“I do”

She raised her head and responded immediately

“It was because Ibara-senpai doesn’t like cheese”

I nodded

“That’s right By the way, did you know that even though Ibara talked about it like she didn’t like any cheese at all, she’s apparently perfectly fine with cheesecake?”

“Oh yeah?”

I cracked a srin

“I’ve eaten it with her once before”

She didn’t respond to this little observation of ht’ve not been on the best of terms, but we had known each other for over ten years I had seen her many ti cheesecake

“Do you remember what you said at that moment?”

After I asked that, she nodded slightly

“I believe I said ‘You don’t like cheese either?’ or so like that ‘One should throay rotten es and spoiled milk’”

Sure it was a nor your likes and dislikes, but it seemed like an awfully excessive way to word it That wasn’t all, however

“You forgot the ‘This is just so a friend told me, but’ in front of it”

“Is that so”

I was sure she reardless

“You have quite theup on the small stuff, don’t you senpai?”

“Even you re cheese So even I try to make it a point to remember what people can’t eat It’d be bad if I ended up reco it after all”

“Is that really how it goes?”

She scratched her check and showed me an embarrassed smile

For a bit, the alleyway seemed to curve around an old house with sheet iron walls A lot of water appeared to be dripping onto one of the walls fro to my ears

“After that I assuht that the ‘This is just so a friend told me’ siht so seemed off ent to the coffee shop”

After reaching this point, Ōhinata seeether on her own

“I see, so that’s what it was I’m an idiot as well”

“I thought for sure that you’d order the plain creaine my surprise when you didn’t”