Chapter 8 The Man Magnet’s Osechi #2
“Momoko?” Shiori, who’d been eyeing the drinks, suddenly put her glass down and turned to me. She spun her body around to face me and stared into my eyes.
“Did something bad happen to you today, by any chance?”
Oh, no. Could she tell?
“N-no…”
Pull your chin up. Lift the corners of your mouth.
Despite my brain’s desperate calls, the muscles on my face refused to cooperate. I tried to smile, but the sides of my lips had stiffened.
“You seem a little down. I could just be imagining it, though. I’m sorry if I am.”
Why did you have to notice?
Why you and not Iori or Hozumi? Why did you have to notice first? Now you’ve given me even more proof that you’re a wonderful person. And that makes me feel even more miserable.
“The person that I love…that I loved. He got married.” The tip of my nose burned. “I don’t know why I feel so hurt. It’s already…been…a year.”
My voice was trembling. The uneasy feeling that I’d been fighting back came pouring out of me.
“I-I’m so—” I choked on my words. “I’m sorry. I’m supposed to be l-listening to your story.”
“You poor thing. Come here.” I’d broken into sobs, and without hesitating, Shiori pulled me in for a hug. A smooth and pleasant scent of milky roses enveloped me.
Right, I thought as she wrapped me in her warmth, she’s the type of person who doesn’t hesitate to hug someone when she sees them crying.
She knows how to connect with people instantly, to liven up the mood, to be attentive in a subtle way. If only I had been born that way, then…
“God, I’m so sorry. I’m sure you weren’t expecting the president of the Funeral Committee to burst out crying like this.”
Sniffling, I pulled away from her and bowed. Shiori handed me a tissue.
“It’s totally understandable that you’re upset about your ex-boyfriend getting married. You know, I was bawling my eyes out yesterday, so I really feel your pain.”
“You were crying yesterday?”
“I broke up with the person I’d been in love with for five years. I’ve always felt like I should end the relationship, but I kept prolonging it.”
“Oh, no. So you must be hurting so much right now.”
“I’d made this osechi for New Year’s, to have it with my boyfriend. But then we broke up, and I had all this food on my hands. I couldn’t eat it all on my own, so I came here.”
That…that was the reason? So when she said she was “bored,” she must have meant that her plans suddenly changed because she broke up with her boyfriend.
I thought about all the emotions that she must have been carrying.
She and her boyfriend were supposed to be together for New Year’s.
She’d put so much work into this osechi, yet she didn’t get the chance to watch him eat it.
Despite being so hurt, she was acting so cheerfully.
Not only that, she had even looked after me, a stranger.
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry. I wish I’d known! Really, I am so sorry.”
I can’t believe I’ve been so bitchy about such a sweet girl!
I pleaded, “Please forgive me! You must think I’m crazy!”
“You are crazy,” Hozumi said.
“You’re funny, Momoko.” Shiori laughed. “Honestly, don’t worry about it. We can comfort each other!”
Shiori’s face broke into a grin as she pulled at the tab of her can of beer.
And so we finally raised our glasses and belatedly commenced our meeting.
—
Shiori-chan’s (she preferred to be called Shiori-chan rather than Shiori-san, which apparently made her feel awkward) ex-boyfriend was named Fujimoto-kun.
They’d met at the photography agency she joined as an intern five years ago.
Judging from the picture that Shiori-chan showed us, he was an attractive man, with long messy hair and a mustache that suited him well.
There was a kind of gloominess to him, which gave him an air of maturity.
“I’d wanted to get married, but Fujimoto-kun didn’t want the same things. Apparently I ruin the men I go out with.”
I was surprised. She had such great communication skills, I expected her to be adept at navigating romantic relationships.
I took Shiori-chan’s hands in mine. “I guess even girls like you can feel lost when it comes to romance. I know exactly how you feel.”
Tears filled my eyes, this time for a different reason. We’re all fighting the struggles of life, aren’t we?
“I bet you ask him ‘Do you really love me?’ all the time because you needed constant validation.”
“Oh, umm…yeah, totally. I always do that.”
“And then the next thing you know, he’s treating you like you’re a clingy woman and telling you that he feels ‘burdened’ by you. Right?”
“Y-yeah, I…I can relate to that.”
“Not only that, when you’re over at his place, you secretly—”
“Stop right there!”
Clink-clink-clink-clink. Suddenly, a high-pitched sound rang out.
It was the sound of Iori tapping his chopsticks against a bottle of vodka. Hozumi covered his ears, annoyed.
“Momo-chan, just stop for a second,” Iori said.
“Huh?”
“Hey, Shiori-chan, you don’t need to hold back.”
Hold back? What is he talking about?
“You attract a lot of guys, don’t you?”
I could tell that Shiori-chan was astonished. The air between Iori and Shiori turned tense, as though they were trying to feel each other out.
“Oh, no. That’s not true at all.”
As Shiori-chan waved her hands around, Iori sighed briefly.
“You’re being kind and agreeing with Momo-chan because she’s upset.
But you’re not being totally transparent with us, are you?
” he said, looking straight at Shiori-chan unblinkingly.
“If you really want your heartbreak to rest in peace, you need to put all your cards on the table. There’s no point in disguising yourself in this meeting.
This meeting is about removing the mask that you’ve been wearing. ”
Impulsively, I looked at Shiori-chan. She just sat there, glued to the spot.
“Sh-Shiori-chan? Are you all right?”
I put my hand on her shoulder, and Shiori-chan bowed down.
“I’m so sorry, Momoko! I’m actually a Man Magnet!”
“Wait, what?”
Iori was right?
“I’ve never not had a boyfriend. Even at school, I always went out with the hottest boy in class. I can get any man I want. The truth is, I can’t keep them away. I’m so sorry I misled you!”
“What kind of apology is that?”
“One time, a ticks-all-the-boxes guy who had an excellent job at a foreign-owned consultation firm proposed to me, and I turned him down. To be honest, I’ve never needed validation from men. If anything, they’re the ones who get insecure over me. I am a Man Magnet through and through.”
“This does not sound like an apology,” I insisted.
Is this what she meant when she said she “ruins” men?
“I get the impression that you and I are cut from the same cloth,” Iori said.
“Basically, you came to Amayadori to recover from your breakup, but once you met Momo-chan, the president of the Funeral Committee, you felt like you needed to get her to like you. Which is why you were talking so self-effacingly and were playing along with her.”
Shiori-chan puffed out her cheeks and shot Iori a fierce glare.
“Y-you’re a fine one to talk,” Shiori-chan said. “You’re the one who was pretending like you believed me. For the record, unlike you, I don’t rely on a pretty face to win people’s hearts. I worked hard to hone my skills to come this far.”
“Oh, yeah? Show us what you got then—you must have excellent advice on how to make a guy fall in love with you.”
It seemed that a rivalry had started between Iori, the Woman Magnet, and Shiori-chan, the Man Magnet. Sandwiched between the two, Hozumi looked at me, pleading to be rescued.
“So this is what happens when you pit two Magnets against each other,” Hozumi said under his breath, as Iori and Shiori glared at each other. “It’s rather dangerous.”
“I agree. It’s certainly put a stop to my tears, though. I don’t even know why I was feeling so down anymore.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Hozumi said.
The night grew darker, bringing more and more snow.
I gripped the bottle of vodka and picked up my chopsticks. The Woman Magnet and the Man Magnet seemed to be locked in an increasingly heated battle, and it was my turn to stop them.
—
“Now that I know who you really are, I expect you to tell me everything. I need to know how you get all the guys.” I replenished Shiori-chan’s glass with beer, filling it to the brim before placing it front of her. “Please?”
If Iori says she attracts a lot of guys, then she must be the real deal.
But there was something I still couldn’t understand.
To put it bluntly, Shiori-chan didn’t strike me as the kind of girl that guys were attracted to.
I mean, her style of clothes was what you would call thrift-store chic, and she wore Doc Martens, not heels.
If anything, her appearance seemed to be the opposite of what I’d always believed guys liked.
“How to attract guys…” she said. “Well, I suppose it’s lots of different things.”
Shiori-chan gulped down her beer. She really was a good drinker. A thin layer of foam formed on her top lip, and she gave it a small, kitten-like lick.
“But for average-looking girls like me, there’s really only one way to get the guy that we want,” she continued.
“Wh-what is it? Tell me!”
Shiori-chan raised her index finger in front of her face. “The single most important thing you should do is not show your femininity.”
“Huh?”
“Whatever you do, never be that girl the other girls hate. The second you become the enemy among girls, you stop being attractive to men.”
“Seriously?”
“I couldn’t be any more serious. It doesn’t matter how beautiful you are or how big your boobs are.
Girls who are a threat to other girls will never be the number-one choice for guys.
At the end of the day, popular guys marry the girls who are good at flattering them, the sweet girls—you know, those girls that everyone says are nice. ”