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Eru had always known it would happen.
Ever since the very start, she’d known that Oreki was special. No matter how often he said he was normal, she’d always been able to see that it wasn’t true. Even if she’d come to learn over the years that he’d believed it.
She’d known since she was a child where her place was. She was a child of the Chitanda family. This small town and its two halves, and the smaller part of it owned by her family, were where she belonged. She didn’t resent or lament that fact. She had accepted it, and lived wanting to fulfil her role.
But even if she was okay with it, sometimes it was a little… sad. Her place was in a world clinging to the past, a world of dirt and families from hundreds of years ago. No matter how curious she was, she would always just be pressing her face up against the window to look into the world outside. She’d visited Tokyo once, and known right away it was a world that she’d never belong in.
It was a place where someone liked Oreki belonged. Someone who could figure out anything, who could solve any mystery, who could notice every tiny detail and put them together into a story that fit reality so perfectly it was like he was weaving the story outward rather than gathering the facts inward.
It was like magic. No, that wasn’t it. It was like a magic show. All the wonder and surprise of magic, packaged up and played for her like a stage performance. How many times had she nagged him to unravel a case for her? Like a little girl tugging at her father’s leg for a bedtime story. How childish of her. But she couldn’t bring herself to regret it. Oreki had changed because of that. Because of her, she wanted to think, but perhaps that was selfish. Maybe it could have been anyone, so long as they pulled him out of his quiet routine. Any selfish girl who interrupted his “energy conservation” could have done it. She just happened to be the one who was selfish and oblivious enough to do it.
He was going to college in Tokyo. A distinguished one, one that friends of the Chitandas had gone to. Despite his grades at the start of highschool being almost calculatedly mediocre, near the end of first year, he’d changed, and his grades started to rise, until by third year he was in the top three in most exams.
He was leaving any day now, to move in to his new place and get settled in before the semester started. Part of her wanted to tell him to stay longer, for as long as possible, but she couldn’t bring herself to. She’d been selfish enough.
Except… there was one last selfish wish. Just one. The last one, before Oreki left for his new life.
“Oreki…” she said, and he looked up from the box he was packing. “Why are you doing a business degree?”
She paused for a moment, almost afraid to let the following words out. Like the fear of a magician wondering if this time, the spell would fail, and “abracadabra” would lose its magic forever.
She said them anyway.
“I’m curious.”
Oreki sighed.
It wasn’t the kind of sigh that indicated real frustration or anger. It was his sigh of acceptance. Knowing that the dice had fallen a particular way, and he just had to resolve himself to dealing with it.
“...I guess I probably should have already said this,” he said, tugging at the tuft of hair at the front of his bangs. “Do you remember Hanamatsuri, in our first year? Where I carried the umbrella?”
“Of course,” Eru said. “Thank you again for that.”
Oreki waved the gratitude off. “After that, when you told me about picking the sciences…” he said. “There was… something I thought of saying.”
“Something you… thought of saying?” Eru said, tilting her head.
Oreki had rubbed off on her in their time together. She’d never have his mind- she couldn’t think like him any more than he could like her. But she’d learned a little. Enough to draw some conclusions. This was something that he remembered, despite it being something he hadn’t even said, at a point nearly three years in the past. More so, he remembered that he hadn’t said it.
Which meant he had expectations of what saying it could mean.
Her heart tightened in her chest.
She knew this was in the end for them in some ways, but she’d hoped it wasn’t in every way. That he’d visit. That he’d write. That they’d call each other to catch up, from time to time. Was this… something Oreki was saying to get off his chest, because he saw this as the last time they’d ever speak?
No, she was jumping to conclusions. This was why she couldn’t be like Oreki. She jumped on one idea too readily.
But she still held her breath as Oreki opened his mouth to speak again.
“Do you remember what you said that day, when we were walking home after the festival?” he said. “About your role, and what you’d chosen to do?”
Breathe again, Eru.
“I do,” she said. “I said that I’d chosen to try to increase the yields. That’s why I went into the sciences.”
And why she was still studying so hard.
Oreki tugged harder at his hair.
“That’s not all you said,” he said.
Eru closed her eyes, trying to recall the day.
“...I said that the other option was improving the business, but I didn’t think I was cut out for it. And you agreed.”
“Right,” Oreki said.
Eru opened her eyes again. Oreki looked awkward and nervous. Just like he had on that day.
“What I almost said back then was…”
Oreki took a deep breath.
“...About the business side that you gave up on…” he said. “How about I take care of that for you?”
Eru stared at him, wide eyed.
The deduction was easy. There was no need for complicated detective work to realise what that meant.
There was only one way that Oreki, a man not born into the family, could possibly take over their businesses.
The Chitanda family wouldn’t hire a contractor or sell their interests. Not at such a high level as managing the finances for their lands. The only way for Oreki to take over the business side would be for him to join the family.
“...That’s exactly the face I imagined you making,” Oreki said, pulling at his hair again.
“Oreki. You know what you’re saying, right?” Eru said, her heart speeding up but her manner composed. This was about the family now. She had to be serious.
Oreki didn’t meet her eye. But he nodded.
“So then…”
“...Don’t make me say it…” Oreki mumbled.
Eru pouted a little. “I think saying it is the least you can do in a situation like this.”
Oreki sighed.
“When I get back,” he said. “This is just a hypothetical, okay? I already told you,I’m just average. There’s no guarantee I’ll get good enough at business to pull this off.”
“You will,” Eru said, grabbing Oreki’s hands and moving her face close to his. “I know it!”
“Then I’ll be back,” Oreki said..” And I’ll say it properly then.”
“I’ll be waiting,” Eru said. “And Oreki?”
“What?” Oreki said.
“...When you say properly, tell me when you first fell in love with me.”
She smiled, the heavy sadness that had been weighing on her the whole time melting away.
“I’m curious.”