Once our jubilance had more or less died down, we left the gym to rest. The next thing I knew, the usual crew was around me. Myself, Tatsuya, Reita, Uta, Hikari, and Nanase—the six of us relaxed on a bench.
“Wow, we won. My heart’s racing,” Hikari said.
“Apparently it’s the first time a first-year class has ever won,” Reita said.
“Hey, it’s all thanks to me,” Tatsuya crowed. “We would’ve placed third or fourth if we hadn’t gotten first in basketball.”
“Tatsu, the credit’s not all yours,” Uta said.
“Shiratori-kun and Haibara-kun contributed a lot too,” Nanase said in agreement.
“Honestly, it just came down to stamina in the end,” I said.
“Those guys spend all their time sitting and studying for exams, so they were outta gas by the end,” Tatsuya said.
We all laughed together. The awkwardness that I’d felt yesterday had vanished. We were conversing like normal. I thought I’d been about to lose them, but we had returned to our group of six. I was elated.
“All righty! We should party!” Uta suggested.
“We’ve got practice today. Not like I can move anymore after this, though,” Tatsuya groaned.
Hikari laughed with pity. “Tatsuya-kun, you’ve got it hard.”
“Why don’t we celebrate on Saturday? We can gather after practice,” Reita said.
“Where should we go?” Nanase asked.
“Saize is the gentlest on my wallet! So we’ll meet at Saize!” Uta declared.
“Uta, why don’t we go to your family’s place for once? It’s big enough to seat the six of us,” Reita said.
“We could! But it’ll be more expensive than Saize!”
“Uta’s? What kind of place was it again? An okonomiyaki restaurant?” I asked.
“Mm-hmm. It’s near the shopping street,” Reita said. “It’s not that spacious, so our whole class wouldn’t fit inside, but if it’s just us, then I think it’ll be perfect.”
“Oh, but I’m broke. Let’s just hang out at the park instead,” Tatsuya said.
“Then it won’t be much of a party!” Uta protested.
Tatsuya and Uta were full of life. They quarreled over silly things while wearing smiles. Our group of six isn’t complete without them leading us around. Now that I’ve got this back, I want to treasure it.
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