Our Dating Story: The Experienced You and The Inexperienced Me - Volume 3 - Chapter 5.1

Chapter 5

Starting that day, Runa stopped messaging me on LINE every morning and every night. Even when I sent her messages myself, they were left unread and ignored.

When we saw each other at pamphlet subcommittee meetings, there was something distant about her attitude.

After several days of that, I couldn’t handle it anymore.

At today’s meeting, we finally had a full draft of the pamphlet and we were ready to send it to the printer.

“Well then, I’ll summon you all again once we have a sample pamphlet to review. Thanks, everyone,” said the teacher, at which point we all started getting ready to leave.

Runa left the room ahead of everyone, so I grabbed my bag and stepped out into the hallway to chase after her.

It had been over an hour since the classes had ended, so the only students still at school were those in clubs. The hallway was deserted. I could hear the sound of the school’s brass band practicing in the distance.

“Shirakawa-san...”

She didn’t turn around even though I’d called her.

“Sh... Runa!”

Runa stopped that time. I approached her in a half run to take my chance.

She slowly turned around. When she looked at me, there was pain in her expression.

“Um, I...” I began.

I wanted her to at least hear me out, but as I tried to get close enough that we could speak quietly...

“Ah!” uttered Runa, and she suddenly reached into her skirt pocket and pulled out her phone.

The screen was lit and vibrating. The only thing displayed on it about the caller was their number, but Runa looked surprised. She pressed the answer button.

“Sorry, I gotta take this, let’s talk another time!” Runa quickly said and then pressed the phone to her ear. “Yes, that’s right... What, right now?!” Turning her back to me, she walked down the hallway in a dignified way. “No, it’s okay. I’m on my way!”

Who was calling her? She was speaking rather politely, so it couldn’t have been a friend. Someone older, maybe? As I wondered if the one calling her was a man or a woman, I noticed that my heart was astir.

It was a call important enough that she had to take it. Normally, I would’ve been able to casually ask her whom it was from.

Runa’s back disappeared, and as I walked down the hallway, I had no choice but to leave the school by myself. I then headed to cram school.

***

Unusually, Sekiya-san wasn’t in the study room today. People who had already graduated high school had classes during the day on weekdays, so if I came here on my way back from school, I was normally pretty much guaranteed to run into him.

Checking my phone, I saw that I’d received a LINE message a few minutes prior.

Sekiya Shugo: One of our teachers held a class at the Shibuya campus today. I just got to Ikebukuro.

Sekiya Shugo: There’s someone I gotta see first, so it’ll be some time before I go to the study room.

“That’s different,” I remarked.

Sekiya-san, somebody who kept running from people he knew, was meeting up with someone?

Ever since Kurose-san had found out I went to this school, Sekiya-san and I had been making a habit of having a snack in the lounge once I arrived and then going to the study room. I’d been planning on doing that today too, so I’d bought a sweet bun at a convenience store. With no other option, I went to the lounge on my own.

I figured that even if Kurose-san was there, she’d be with her friends from School T as usual. But as I opened the lounge door, I found her sitting by the window, all by herself.

Back at our high school, I’d left the meeting room earlier than her, so she must’ve gotten here first because I’d stopped at a convenience store.

Kurose-san was reading a textbook with a drink nearby.

She’s so beautiful, I thought to myself. The plastic bottle of tea in her hand looked more like a teacup on a saucer to me. The biggest difference between her and Runa must’ve been the air of a refined, high-class lady that Kurose-san had.

Kurose-san still hadn’t noticed me. She wasn’t sitting directly in front of the entrance, so I pretended not to notice her either and sat next to the door.

However...

“Kashima-kun.”

Before I knew it, Kurose-san was standing in front of me just as I’d finished my bun.

“It’s not often I see you alone. You’re always with that tall friend of yours,” she said.

“Ah, yeah...”

My eyes wandered—both because I was shaken up by the fact that she’d called out to me and because it felt awkward to have her refer to Sekiya-san as my friend.

“I-I could say the same for you, Kurose-san,” I stammered. “What about your friends from School T?”

“They’re on an autumn break right now, so they only come to classes here.”

“An autumn break?”

Those schools for girls from rich families have something like that, huh... I’m so jealous.

Kurose-san gave me a small smile. “Ah, yeah. School T has two school terms. I guess it would be more accurate to call it a break after exams? Finals for the first term have just ended.”

“What? Two terms? Does the first one end in October?” I asked in confusion.

Perhaps figuring this conversation would take a bit, Kurose-san pulled up a chair and sat across from me. “Yeah. It’s just a matter of how to divide things up, so pretty much the only difference from our three-term system is that they have an autumn break.”

“Huh... That’s nice.”

“Isn’t it? I love that school... Well, loved.” A shadow fell on Kurose-san’s face. “When I had to leave, I asked Mom to at least let me go to this cram school as a substitute. Many of my friends went to Cram School K, and some of them came to this campus too. It’s cheap to take a stand-alone English course, and I figured it would let me go to the study room every day.”

“You come here every day? That’s amazing,” I said, impressed.

She was still only in her second year of high school. Even I wasn’t here that often.

Kurose-san smiled and hung her head. “There’s nothing amazing about it... I’m just running away.”

“Running? From what?”

She gave me a weak smile. “My grandpa has dementia. He’s had it for years now... My grandma takes care of him, but it must be hard on her...”

“Oh... I see.”

I had no idea. At that point, I recalled that Runa’s maternal grandmother couldn’t take care of Sayo-san—her own mother—which was why she’d asked Mao-san to do it. I hadn’t known why she couldn’t do it herself, though.

“We left the house when my mom remarried, so we’ve been away for a few years... When she got divorced again and we came back, Grandpa’s symptoms were even worse than before.”

The conversation was too serious for me to say anything back naturally, so I wordlessly listened while nodding.

“My mom has to work, so I know I should be at home and helping my grandma...but I don’t really want to be in the same room with my grandpa when he’s the way he is now... So, before I know it, I just find myself here.”

Her words made me realize something.

“Kurose-san, were you here during summer break too? I was taking summer classes here...”

“Really?” she asked, her eyes wide in surprise. “There were a lot of people here then, so I was always in the study room in the annex. I also hung out at my aunt’s place sometimes. I barely came to the main building.”

“Makes sense...”

No wonder I’d never run into her.

“I get to see my best friends if I come here. And besides...I want to go to college,” said Kurose-san with a happy smile. “I can get a scholarship. I want to go to the kind of school my friends from School T would aim for and be on campus with them all again.”

“I see...”

I’d had the image of those schools that automatically let their students advance to higher education without having to pass an entrance exam in my head, but School T had a high standard score. It must’ve been somewhere that prepared its students to get into high-ranking universities as well.

Kurose-san cheerfully went on. “I like manga...so I wanted to become an editor or something. Maybe I could edit a game magazine.”

“Oh wow...”

She likes it that much, huh.

“Then...why not become a mangaka yourself?”

Kurose-san smiled a bit at my simple suggestion.

“I don’t think I’m suited to be a creator. When I read manga, I do think things like ‘It would be more fun if the author did this instead,’ but that doesn’t inspire me to draw manga myself.”

“That makes sense...”

I liked watching gameplay videos and giving my impressions on them, but it didn’t make me want to start making any. Maybe this was the same.

Suddenly, Kurose-san gazed at me. “What do you want to be, Kashima-kun?”

With her large eyes pointed directly at me, I felt myself getting flustered for no reason.

“I-I don’t know... For now, I’m just planning to go to college.”

“Science? Or humanities?”

“Humanities, I guess... I’m not that good at the sciences.”

“Huh...” Kurose-san seemed to think for a bit. “You’d probably make a good teacher or something.”

“Me? A teacher?” I’d never been told such a thing before.

“Yeah. Since you’re going to college, why not get a job that requires a degree? I think you’d be a good teacher who keeps all of his students’ feelings in mind.”

“I’ve never considered that before,” I replied after a moment. “I thought I’d just work at some company like most people.”

“That would be fine too. Got anywhere specific in mind?”

“Oh, I haven’t really thought about it yet...”

The best company that would hire me for my skills and would pay the best. That had been the extent of my thoughts on the subject.

“Maybe a consulting company or something. You’re kind and all.”

“Consulting...?” I asked, not understanding at all.

“I don’t really know much about it myself, but apparently, it’s where you give your customers advice about their work.”

“Huh...” Never heard of that before. “You know a lot about different kinds of companies, don’t you?” I said.

“I looked into it a bit recently. Since I told my mom I wanted to go to college, I thought I should at least explain to her what kind of company I’d like to work at. And so I was thinking it would be nice to work for a publisher,” said Kurose-san, looking a little bashful. “I figured I wouldn’t sound very persuasive if I didn’t look up concrete statistics about hiring rates first to prove that college graduates had an advantage, but it seems like even my mom has noticed differences at work based on a person’s academic background. So, thankfully, she approved more easily than I’d expected.”

“I see...”

My parents had both graduated from college and my older sister was currently going to one too, so it had felt like going to college was a predetermined course to me. I’d never considered that I might have to persuade my parents that it was worth it for my future.

“She’s an adult.”

Kurose-san had said that about Runa the other day. To me, however, the way she was now, Kurose-san herself looked very much like one too.

She was a wonderful woman as well—just a different type from Runa.

Later that day, after having left the study room, I walked toward the train station.

“So teaching or consulting, huh...” I muttered to myself.

This was the first time I had a concrete image of my future. It had been vague in my mind for as long as I could remember.

A teacher could certainly hope for a steady income. And, apparently, being a management consultant was one of the most popular professional aspirations among college students in Tokyo.

I looked it up on my phone as I walked. “Interesting... This looks like it pays well,” I remarked. “I wonder what Runa’s going to do.”

Her postgraduation prospects were still unclear.

“I’ll live in the moment. I’ll live for the sake of living. Just like I’ve done until now. Will you love me despite all that?”

Of course I would. My feelings on the matter hadn’t changed. So I couldn’t ask her too persistently about it.

But...

Now that there was some tension between us, why did I end up having a private conversation with Kurose-san of all people? And to make things worse, I felt that time had been fun and meaningful... A terrible feeling of guilt was now catching up with me.

“Damn it... I blame it on Sekiya-san and School T’s autumn break...”

I knew I was barking up the wrong tree, but I couldn’t help but put the blame on someone else.

I’ll talk to Runa tomorrow. And I’ll make her understand how I feel.

Having made up my mind, I walked resolutely through the crowd and headed to the ticket gate.

***

The following day, when I came to school...

“Kashima-kuuun!”

After passing through the school’s gate, I was heading to the entrance of the building when I heard a clatter of footsteps approaching from behind and someone calling my name. Turning around, I saw it was Tanikita-san.

“I wanted to talk to you for a bit. I’m glad I ran into you here!” After she said that, Tanikita-san looked about restlessly, darting her eyes around. “Okay, Runy isn’t here. Come with me!”

She then led me to the staff parking lot behind the school—the same place where I’d once called Runa to and confessed to her.

“T-Tanikita-san? What’s going—”

“Okay, look. And don’t be shocked when you hear this,” she said, gazing at me with a serious expression on her face. Her large eyes were full of tension. It was scary. “Runy might have a sugar daddy.”

“A sugar...daddy...?”

My tension vanished in an instant. Frankly, I felt relieved at the fact that it did.

I was glad that I could have faith in her. That I was confident she wouldn’t do something like that.

I had no way of knowing what this was about until Tanikita-san explained herself further, but she had a way of doing things at her own pace. She must’ve misunderstood something.

“You’re talking about when girls go on dates with older men and get paid for it, right?” I asked.

“Yeah.” Tanikita-san nodded, still with that serious expression on her face. “I’ve been thinking recently that it’s been a bit weird. Runa had a Gucci bag I’d never seen her with before at that get-together the other day. And when we met up on Saturday last week, she had a Dior tote!”

“Wh-Whaaat...?”

Even I knew those high-level brands. That stuff must’ve been expensive, but still...

“They cost like three hundred thousand yen!” exclaimed Tanikita-san. “They can get even more expensive depending on the collection and size! Isn’t that crazy? There’s no way a high school girl could buy something like that, right?!”

“Y-Yeah...”

I didn’t have any interest in fashion to begin with, so I’d never really looked at the brands of Runa’s belongings.

“Maybe she got it from her grandma, though? I hear she’s fashionable too,” I suggested.

Runa’s grandma on her father’s side lived with her. From what Runa had told me, her grandma had some pretty modern hobbies—after all, she’d learned hula and had a waffle maker. It wouldn’t be strange if she had some brand-name bags too.

“Ehh? But isn’t it weird that she’d suddenly start borrowing one brand bag after another recently? Runy always liked more affordable bags up until now.”

“R-Really...?”

I was on the ropes here since I’d never talked to Runa about handbags. Tanikita-san was a girl, and she even wanted to go to a technical school to study clothing and accessories. She likely talked about fashion with Runa often.

“Have you asked Shirakawa-san where she got those expensive things?”

“I can’t ask her something like that! Wouldn’t it sound like I’m jelly? But if Runy went bragging about it, then sure, I’d ask.”

I couldn’t tell if this was how things worked between girls in general or if it was something specific to the relationship between Runa and Tanikita-san.

“So anyway, it would still be fine if it was just bags,” she said. “But I saw something else yesterday...”

“What?”

Tanikita-san’s tone grew even more strained, so I tensed up too.

“Yesterday I went to a K-pop store in Ikebukuro to sell a VTS hat. On my way back, I saw Runy in front of the train station, and I was going to call out to her...but then I saw she was walking with a man. An older man.”

“What...?”

Hearing that, I recalled the phone call Runa had received the previous day.

“What, right now?! No, it’s okay. I’m on my way!”

So that was who’d called her. It was a man... It appeared that my guess about it being someone older had been on point.

It wasn’t like I was convinced she had a sugar daddy or anything, but my pulse was now higher than it’d been a moment ago.

“That man... Was it this guy?” I asked, showing her a photo of Mao-san on my phone in the faint hope it was him. We’d taken that photo together with Runa when we’d worked at his beach hut over the summer.

Unfortunately for me, Tanikita-san shook her head. “No, it wasn’t. It was someone younger than that guy. Maybe more like a college student.”

“A college student...as a sugar daddy? Is that even possible?”

At my simple question, Tanikita-san tilted her head. “I dunno. Maybe he works part-time and has some money? Or maybe he’s not in college and already works full-time.”

Fair enough, I thought. Spending more mental energy on it wouldn’t give me any more answers than that.

But seeing a sugar daddy... Would Runa really do something like that...?

It was extremely hard to believe. But still...

“You yourself might lose interest in me at some point. I’m a gyaru, and I wanna do all the things that gyaru do.”

I recalled what Runa had said on that rainy day.

“Is having a sugar daddy something that gyaru do?”

“Huh?” Tanikita-san looked at me in wonder. “I guess it depends on the person. Even some prim and proper girls do it, I think... You’d expect to see a lot of gyaru at hostess clubs and other places where women coax guys into giving them money, but I’ve got no interest in being a hostess or having a sugar daddy.”

“I-I see... You’re right.” That made enough sense to me. “Then what would you say are ‘things that gyaru do’?” I asked.

“What’s that supposed to mean? Doesn’t that depend on the person too? Me, I do everything I wanna do.”

“Okay...”

“It depends on the person” is certainly a universal truth. It applies to pretty much everything out there.

I was well aware of that. Perhaps the reason I’d asked Tanikita-san anyway was because I still didn’t know Runa all that well. I didn’t know what she liked, what she wanted to do, what things she had on her mind... The thought of it made me ashamed.

Still, that man couldn’t have been her sugar daddy. That was the one thing I wanted to believe.

“Do you think Runa is the kind of girl who’d have a sugar daddy?” I asked, approaching the matter from a different angle.

Tanikita-san looked taken aback. “Well... I don’t know.” Her expression was a little awkward. “Runy’s a hell of a good girl, but isn’t there something about her that just makes you worried? She’s, like, reckless... Also, things aren’t going well between you two recently, yeah? I heard about it from Nikki. The guys Runy used to date weren’t exactly stand-up guys, so if she’s unstable because of what’s going on with you, maybe she’s getting desperate... I think it’s possible.”

“Makes sense...”

I now understood a little better how Tanikita-san saw Runa. I still wanted to believe Runa wouldn’t be seeing a sugar daddy, but I could agree with some things Tanikita-san had said.

“When I told Nikki that Runy might have a sugar daddy, she was all like ‘There’s no way!’ and laughed it off. But I only got to know Runy in our second year here, so...I still don’t know her well enough to believe that,” said Tanikita-san. She sounded restless like she was making an excuse. Then, she looked up at me. “I hope I’m wrong. But what if I’m not...? It worried me to think about it, so I thought I should let you know.”

“I understand.” It was up to me how to act on this information. “Thank you for worrying about her.”

The worry and discomfort on Tanikita-san’s face were replaced with a bit of relief as she heard me say that.

I had mixed feelings on the matter since I knew she’d told me this out of genuinely good intentions.

Honestly, it was shocking.

I didn’t think there was a sugar daddy involved, but regardless of her reasons, it seemed to be a fact that Runa had been walking together with a man that day.

I wanted to find out why as soon as possible to put my mind at ease. Surely it had been someone like her cousin or her older sister’s boyfriend, something like that.

But while I thought that, there was another possibility that felt more realistic than the idea of her having a sugar daddy and it wouldn’t let me calm down in the slightest.

That it was an ex-boyfriend.

Runa had once told me that she would delete her LINE account every time she broke up with a boyfriend. But what if an old boyfriend knew her phone number and still remembered it...? That phone number with no recorded name had appeared on her phone screen that day...and her formal tone... Wouldn’t it explain all that?

Still, what would she talk about with an ex-boyfriend she’d once distanced herself from? Romantic advice...? Had she complained about me, by any chance?

I wanted to ask Runa about it immediately.

But what could I say? Could I go demanding answers from her like “You were with a man, weren’t you?” when I myself hadn’t told her I’d been spending time with Kurose-san?

At the very least, considering our current circumstances, I would only be making our relationship worse by doing that.

As I headed to my classroom, racking my brains on what to do...

“Kasshi!”

Icchi called out to me in the hallway. Nisshi was behind him too.

“Morning...” I said.

However, the two didn’t look in the mood for pleasantries.

“What were you talking about with Tanikita-san?” demanded Icchi with a menacing look on his face.

“I saw it, man. You two were whispering in the parking lot,” added Nisshi. He looked scary too.

“Oh, it’s, uh...” I hesitated in my reply, considering what we’d talked about. “I-It was about Shirakawa-san—”

“You’ve really changed, Kasshi,” said Nisshi, angrily interrupting me. “You’re dating Shirakawa-san, but then you went laying your hands on Kurose-san and now Tanikita-san’s next?”

“You’re not gonna get away with this... Have you thrown away your humanity?! Where’s the reason you once had as a human being?!” Icchi brought his face closer to mine, looking ready to get violent at any moment—probably because this involved Tanikita-san.

“Like I said, it was about Shirakawa-san...”

“And what, exactly, were you discussing about Shirakawa-san?”

I couldn’t answer that.

“See, you’ve got nothing! Think before you say shit next time!”

After being told off by Icchi, I bit my lip. My head had been close to bursting even before I’d run into those two, and this encounter certainly wasn’t helping.

“Sorry. Leave me alone for a bit...” I said.

I wanted to talk to someone, but Icchi and Nisshi wouldn’t listen to what I had to say.

It would just complicate things even further if I brought this to a girl, so I couldn’t talk to Yamana-san either. And Kurose-san was out of the question for a lot of reasons.

There was only one person left whom I could share my troubles with.

“Things sure got messy, huh...” said Sekiya-san, folding his arms and groaning after hearing my story.

We were in the lounge at Cram School K as I’d headed there after my normal high school classes were over. Since the pamphlet subcommittee didn’t have any work to do today, I’d headed here as fast as I could and there weren’t many people at the lounge yet at this hour. Kurose-san was nowhere to be seen either.

“So, what do you want to do, Yamada?” asked Sekiya-san.

“I...” I thought about it as I started to reply. “I want to patch things up with my girlfriend...and ask her about the man she was with.”

“Won’t it get awkward again if you ask that after patching things up with her?”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

“Look, for now, you just want to know who he was, right? I can just ask for you,” said Sekiya-san with a grin.

“What?! How would you...? Are you planning to meet up with her?!”

“Well yeah, that would be the best option. It’d be suspicious if I asked over the phone.”

I went silent again.

I felt just a little conflicted about letting Runa and Sekiya-san meet up. When I noticed that this came from a complex I had toward him—a tall, good-looking guy with a satisfying life (at least before he’d become a ronin)—I started to hate myself a little.

“Okay. Please do,” I said, accepting my fate. “But how...?”

“If memory serves, you have a school festival next week, right? Invite me. I actually wanted you to do that anyway—I need a change of pace.”

“What?!”

While I was astonished, Sekiya-san proposed his idea, his spirits high. “Then, you just let me know once you find your girlfriend at school. I’ll act all dumb and be all like ‘Oh hey, ain’t ya the girl who was walking with that guy in Ikebukuro the other day?!’”

“You know, when you say that, it sounds like a new pickup line...”

“But if I’m with you, won’t she know that I can be trusted? If her boyfriend’s friend said something like that in front of the boyfriend himself, wouldn’t she be forced to explain?”

“You do have a point...”

It wasn’t the most natural or the most honorable plan, but at the moment, I didn’t have anything better.

“Guess I’ll finally get to see your girlfriend, huh... Looking forward to it,” said Sekiya-san. “Still, if they were in Ikebukuro, maybe I’ve seen them somewhere too...”

While his cheerful and carefree attitude made me a tad uneasy, I looked forward to next week’s school festival.

***

The day when the school festival was opened to the public had arrived.

We, the pamphlet subcommittee, had nothing specific to do today. We had checked the samples a week prior and had already turned in the printed brochures to the reception subcommittee. Because of that, we were free until other groups called for our help.

I didn’t keep track of what Runa and Kurose-san were up to today. They were probably either helping other groups or they’d asked for free time and were spending it as they pleased.

Sekiya-san was at cram school during the morning and was planning to come in the afternoon.

After 1 p.m., I was asked to watch the committee HQ tent next to the reception area while the committee head was away. I checked my phone every now and then while watching people walk past. That was because I’d just received a LINE message from Sekiya-san and he’d said he was on his way.

Then...

“Hey, isn’t he kinda hot?”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. He looks your type.”

When I heard the freshmen girls in the reception area whispering to each other, I had a hunch about what was going on. Sure enough, when I looked over, I saw that Sekiya-san had arrived.

When he passed by the reception area, he saw me at HQ and walked over to me.

“’Sup!”

Seeing this, almost all the students at both the reception and HQ areas looked at us.

“Huh? They know each other?”

“That’s unexpected... Ah, but wait, isn’t he that second-year girl’s boyfriend? Shirakawa-san’s?”

“Ah, that explains it. Guess a guy with a hot girlfriend would have hot friends too.”

Overhearing the reception girls’ quiet conversation, I felt even more embarrassed.

At that point, another person took my place watching the HQ tent. I had free time now, so I started walking around the school with Sekiya-san.

Wherever we went, I could feel girls’ eyes on us. They all glanced at Sekiya-san and then looked at me with surprise.

Well, this is kinda awkward...

I often felt similar stares directed at me when I was with Runa, but with her, we’d have roughly an equal number of boys and girls looking at us. It was doubly embarrassing to have only girls’ eyes on me. As an introvert, I would never get used to it no matter how many times I experienced it.

We walked around the school, looking for Runa. I wanted to get this over with as soon as possible.

My relationship with her was still strained. Ever since I’d started suspecting her of seeing her ex in secret, even I had kinda ended up avoiding her without realizing it.

After we had gotten through summer break, I’d thought I had much more confidence as her boyfriend than when we’d started dating.

But now, there was a reason to suspect Runa’s exes were still somewhere in her orbit. And so, my confidence proved fragile and started to waver.

Frankly, I was scared to learn the truth. But I couldn’t stand the thought of our relationship just fading into nothingness.

I wanted to clear the bad blood between us. To make Runa understand that I wanted to keep dating her instead of switching my affections to Kurose-san.

And that was why I had to learn the truth about her potentially seeing her ex. With that in mind, I dragged my heavy feet around the school.

Unusually enough, Sekiya-san wasn’t very talkative today. His face looked serious and tense—he kept vigilantly looking around as though searching for someone.

“You’re kidding me... This uniform, it has to be...” he muttered.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

“Nah...”

Then...

“Ah, Kashima-kun!”

A petite girl came running our way from across the hallway.

It was Tanikita-san. Even after having said all those things to me before, she still treated me as a fellow member of the festival committee without any particular difference from how things had been. For a guy like me who tended to drag things out, it was a bit overwhelming to deal with someone as candid and straightforward as her.

“Good timing! One of the decorations in the gym peeled off and fell down. I’m so short that I can’t reach it, not even with a stepladder. I can’t find the boys in our subcommittee right now, so would you mind helping me out?”

“Oh, uh, okay...” I replied.

When I looked at Sekiya-san, wondering what I should do, Tanikita-san looked up at him too.

“Ah...!” she exclaimed.

For a moment, I thought she was captivated by his looks, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Instead, there was astonishment written on her face.

And when I heard what she said next, I froze.

“Kashima-kun, it’s him! He’s the guy who was walking with Runy in Ikebukuro!”

I was at a loss for words.

What? It was Sekiya-san...? What kind of relationship does he have with Runa?

Is he...her ex?

But when I thought about it, it wasn’t all that unthinkable.

Sekiya-san seemed to have had many casual relationships during his time in high school, so if he’d run into Runa somewhere and dated her for a couple of months and then they broke up... He’d apparently fooled around enough to fail his college exams, so I could imagine that he’d two-timed or even three-timed her and then dumped her.

“No way...”

I’d been happy that I had become friends with him. He was a good-looking guy, and yet even an introvert like me found him easy to talk to. He’d looked out for me. I’d looked up to him as someone with more experience in life.

And yet...

Runa had done her best to please her exes, and they’d toyed with her and hurt her with their infidelity in return.

If Sekiya-san was one of them...

I couldn’t forgive him...

“What, seriously?! Is your girlfriend Shirakawa Runa?!”

So he did know her. He really was...her ex-boyfriend.

“I’ve been thinking she might be from this school. The girls’ uniforms looked familiar... Kurose-san looks so different in hers that I never considered she went to the same school,” he said.

If he really was her ex, his attitude was way too flippant. He didn’t even remember the name of his ex-girlfriend’s school?

“Sekiya-san... You’re such a...” I started. Anger, contempt, and disappointment mixed inside me, causing my shoulders to tremble. “I never wanted to see any of Runa’s exes...because I would hate them too much.” My fists shook and I fixed my gaze on Sekiya-san. “Why did you of all people have to be her ex...?”

At that point, perhaps intimidated by the look on my face, Sekiya-san opened his eyes wide and shook his head.

“What? Hey, it’s not like that!” he exclaimed.

“Don’t you think it’s a little late for that...?”

I’d considered the possibility that the man Runa had met up with that day had been her cousin or her older sister’s boyfriend. But if it had been Sekiya-san...then he must have been an ex. I couldn’t imagine any other possibility that made sense.

“You’ve got it all wrong, okay? Calm down!” Sekiya-san firmly grabbed my shoulders and looked me in the eye. “Listen closely to me.”

I don’t want to hear your excuses, I thought, glaring at him.

“Shirakawa Runa isn’t my ex.”

“Then what—”

“She’s a friend of my ex.”

When I heard him say that, my mind screeched to a halt.

“A friend...of your ex...?” I asked.

“If you think I’m lying, ask my ex yourself. I’m sure you know her—she’s at this school.”

“I’m sorry, I really don’t get what you’re saying. What’s your ex’s name...?”

Sekiya-san looked away, then hesitantly answered my question.

“Yamana Nicole. She’s a close friend of Shirakawa Runa’s, no?”

“What...?”

Yamana-san...?

Such an unexpected revelation caused enough chaos in my head that it felt like my brain could freeze like a computer at any second.

“Wait, so you’re Yamana-san’s ex...? And, um, you’re the one she dated for just two weeks in her second year of middle school...?”

He nodded. “That’s right.”

“And you listened to sutras...? Huh? You’re that chuuni ex?”

I couldn’t keep from laughing a bit while I said that, and Sekiya-san glared at me a little.

“That’s what I keep telling you,” he said, blushing. He then glanced at Tanikita-san out of the corner of his eye.

Tanikita-san, meanwhile, was looking at us with relief on her face. “So she wasn’t seeing a sugar daddy, then? That’s great!”

“What? A sugar daddy? You two have some really wild imaginations,” said Sekiya-san with a chuckle. He looked between me and Tanikita-san. “It looks like we need to talk, so would you mind getting someone else to help with the decorations?” he asked Tanikita-san, but he let out a noise as he noticed someone else in the distance. He beckoned that person over. “That’s a tall guy. Hey, come over here for a sec.”

The guy he’d called out to timidly approached us. It was...Icchi.

“Wh-What...is it...?” he asked.

“Oh, Ijichi-kun! Good timing!” Tanikita-san said. “Come help me!”

Icchi had been looking at me and Sekiya-san with suspicion, but his eyes immediately began to sparkle when she spoke to him.

“Y-Yeah, s-sure...!” he replied.

As Tanikita-san and Icchi half ran to the gym, they looked like a small animal and a bear running through a forest.

Sekiya-san and I went to a classroom where a freshman class was running a coffee lounge.

Though the afternoon peak hours were over, almost all the seats were taken. Incidentally, the individual classes at my school weren’t required to run anything for the cultural festival. There hadn’t been many students in my class who’d wanted to participate, so our class had ended up sitting it out.

I ordered a random drink and fidgeted as I waited for it. When it arrived, Sekiya-san began to speak.

“The other day... Sunday, was it? I left home and was heading to cram school when a girl I didn’t know stopped me in front of the station. That was Shirakawa Runa.”

I listened to him speak without a word.

“She was so cute and I thought it was my lucky day if she was trying to pick me up, so I heard her out. But then she goes like, ‘I’m a close friend of Yamana Nicole in high school. Nicole still hasn’t forgotten about you. Would you mind meeting up with her once again?’ Apparently, she was on her way to hang out at Yamana’s place, and she called out to me because she’d seen my face in photos.”

I recalled the expression on Runa’s face when Yamana-san had told us about her past love that time we’d played airsoft.

I thought it was just like her to do something like that. When she was walking through town and happened upon her best friend’s ex-boyfriend who she still had feelings for, she must’ve called out to him on reflex. I could never do something like that, not even for a good friend. If I’d only known his face from photos, I would worry it might be someone else, overthink things, and miss my chance to call out to him.

“That day, I had an interview with the staff about what college I want to go to. I told your girlfriend I needed to go or I’d be late, so she pulled a receipt out of her purse, wrote down her phone number with eyeliner or something, and gave it to me. Said she wanted me to call her when it was convenient for me.”

I could see her doing just that. She must’ve been desperate, for Yamana-san’s sake.

I loved her so much.

“Then, for a few days, I forgot all about it, but I remembered it when that receipt fell out while I was sorting through my bag. Her looks were really gyaru, but she was really cute too, so I figured I’d call her just to see her again.” Noticing the silent complaint in my eye, Sekiya-san cracked a smile. “Relax. I still didn’t know she was your girlfriend, okay?”

“I’m calm.”

If stuff like this put me on edge, I wouldn’t have been able to be Runa’s boyfriend.

Okay, I admit it did make my jealousy flare up a bit.

“So, I met up with her in Ikebukuro,” continued Sekiya-san.

That day, Runa had gotten a phone call. I recalled how, after that, Sekiya-san had also been late showing up to the study room.

“Nicole this, Nicole that... She really didn’t talk about anything except Yamana. I kept telling her it was all in the past, but she got all heated about it and insisted it wasn’t over at all in Yamana’s mind. She said if I agreed to see her she’d arrange it, but I didn’t and don’t feel like it, so we went our separate ways without reaching an agreement. That’s all there was to it.”

Having finished his story, Sekiya-san raised his hands as if to prove his innocence.

After thinking it over for a bit, I asked, “Why didn’t you want to see Yamana-san?”

I recalled what he’d said when he’d told me about his first girlfriend.

“If I could relive my life starting with my first year of high school, I definitely wouldn’t break up with her that time.”

He must’ve still loved her, at least enough to say something like that. So why?

“There’s no way I could,” he replied. “I dumped her because I wanted to fool around with other girls. After I had my fill of that, I couldn’t go back to her and say, ‘I should’ve stayed with you after all.’ There’s a limit to how selfish a guy can be, you know.”

“But...”

Yamana-san still hadn’t forgotten her ex Sekiya-san. If they still loved each other, couldn’t they start things over?

“I hurt her,” he said in a somber voice. “Back in her first year of middle school, Yamana was plain and didn’t stand out. She was a quiet girl with black hair. Just like me, she had that evil look in her eye, so she didn’t have many friends either,” Sekiya-san said, nostalgically narrowing his eyes as he spoke. “But she was caring. If you got her to open her heart to you, she was really devoted. We were both shy, so it took us a while to get on good terms, but she was a good junior and an excellent manager.”

Ah, I see now.

She’d stood in line together with Runa to buy those limited-edition phone cases. She’d call Runa over and over so that the latter didn’t oversleep. Yamana-san must’ve been just as considerate back in middle school.

“So we started going out...but after we broke up, Yamana ran wild. I think that was also when her parents fought a lot, after her dad cheated. She told me about it even before we hooked up.”

I’d previously heard from Runa that Yamana-san’s mother was single now. I guessed that was when she’d gotten a divorce.

“Things calmed down a bit around the time we started dating. It even seemed like they might not get divorced,” continued Sekiya-san, as though making excuses. “After she and her mom moved, Yamana dyed her hair blonde, got lots of piercings, and started hanging out with some bad sorts... I hadn’t stayed in touch with her, so I was surprised to learn about it from a schoolmate sometime later.” After saying that, Sekiya-san clasped his hands on the table. Looking down at them, he then said in a quiet voice, “The truth is, I needed to support her... Wanted to. But instead, I...”

If he loved her so much, he shouldn’t have broken up with her. Though I’d said as much to him before. I was sure he thought the same way, so there was no sense in blaming him at this point.

“So you’re too ashamed to see Yamana-san now?”

Sekiya-san didn’t reply, so I must’ve hit the nail on the head.

It was so frustrating.

“Just so you know, I’ve gone all the way...right through the kissing part.”

Because I’d seen Yamana-san looking just like a maiden in love.

“It’s so stupid, right? Being hung up on a guy I dated for just two weeks in my second year of middle school. It’s just, he was my first love, so...”

“Sure, I got to date lots of cute girls thanks to breaking up with her...but that only made me realize that my first girlfriend was the best. Even though it was too late to do anything about it at that point.”

They both still loved each other. With that in mind...was it too late to start things over?

“Sure, maybe you did hurt her, but...” I began.

Sekiya-san and Yamana-san had been each other’s first love and had started dating with pure feelings. And because that love had begun in such a clean way, one might think it was impossible to fix the damage that’d been done.

“If you can forgive yourself for the scars you left her with and your mistakes that led to it, I think you should be able to move forward,” I said.

I...

My first girlfriend already had many scars. Scars that’d been unceremoniously left on the pure Runa by guys who weren’t me. She had already been covered in them when I’d started dating her.

I wanted to embrace her, with all of her scars. Because...that was what it meant to love her.

“Especially if the scars she has to live with...were left by you...” I added.

Sekiya-san was looking down, but I could tell he was listening closely to my words.

“I think you should make her happy,” I continued as he remained silent. “Like Runa, I want you to meet up with Yamana-san again.”

After keeping his silence for a while, Sekiya-san raised his head. “When did you become such an expert on love, Yamada?” Though he spoke in a ridiculing tone, I could tell by his awkwardly twisted lips that he’d taken my words seriously. “Say, what’s she like these days, Yamana?” he suddenly asked.

“What do you mean...?”

“Her looks and stuff.”

“Her looks? Well...”

I figured a picture would do better than any shoddy explanation I could give, so I scrolled through the photos on my phone. I found the group photo from the time we’d played airsoft, zoomed in on Yamana-san, and showed it to Sekiya-san.

“I knew it; of course she’s a gyaru. But hey, she looks grown-up now.” His gaze looked nostalgic and warm. “Does she still pick fights?”

“Fights...? What kind?” I asked, startled by the alarming word.

“In her third year of middle school, on a bank of the Arakawa River, she apparently beat up twenty delinquents from another school. I heard that from my junior,” explained Sekiya-san in a matter-of-fact tone.

“T-Twenty?!”

That’s way too crazy... What the hell are you, Yamana-san?!

“Would that happen to be when she went by ‘Nicole from North Central’...?” I asked.

“Ah, yeah. I stopped hearing about her new nicknames after I graduated, so I didn’t know what high school she went to.” Saying that, Sekiya-san smiled with a bit of a distant look in his eye. “I wonder if she made some good friends in high school. The kind who can support her,” he quietly added. “I guess this Shirakawa Runa is probably like that.” Looking directly at me, he smiled. “You’re good people. A good couple too.”

“Sekiya-san...”

“Make up with her already. I want you two to be happy.”

I didn’t reply.

This was frustrating. Even Sekiya-san could become happy.

“I’m scared,” Sekiya-san then said in a self-deprecating manner with a half smile on his face. “My memories with Yamana are too pure... For a long time, I thought my feelings for my first love had ended long ago. I don’t have the courage to continue all that now.”

“Sekiya-san...”

No matter what I said at this point, I knew that we’d probably just be repeating the same exchange.

But as I was about to sigh out of frustration...

“There you are, Kasshi!”

Hearing a familiar voice, I turned to look at the entrance of the classroom and found Icchi standing there.

“Huh? Icchi? What about the decorations...?”

“That’s over with!” he said. “But listen, I was on my way back from the gym...”

He walked over to me despite the eyes of the people around us being on him. Whatever it was must’ve been serious enough that an introvert like him didn’t mind standing out.

“I saw some gaudy flirts from another school hitting on Shirakawa-san! You okay with that?!” he asked.

“What...?!” My pulse shot up. “They’re hitting on her...?!”

“Yeah, and on the demon gyaru too. They looked like nasty types—she was turning them down, but they were really giving them a hard time. They were like stalkers.”

What...?!

The next thing I knew, I was on my feet.

“So you’re going?! Yeah, I knew Shirakawa-san was your one and only!”

Icchi sounded happy. Had he really thought I’d wanted to make a move on Tanikita-san? Then again, that didn’t matter right now.

“Sekiya-san, you come too,” I said.

“Huh? Oh, okay...”

Sekiya-san got up as well. I figured the decision to follow me must’ve been easy because he didn’t know who the “demon gyaru” was.

Icchi led us to a different part of the school building.

“They’re over there,” he said.

Sure enough, I saw Runa right where Icchi was pointing.

Standing in a corner of the hallway, she looked to be at her wit’s end. A visibly irritated Yamana-san stood next to her, and in front of them were two guys wearing the uniform from a different school. With their faded blond hair and earrings jingling from their ears, the guys looked about as gaudy as they came.

“Ah...” came from Sekiya-san beside me.

I could tell he was holding his breath. He must’ve noticed Yamana-san.

“Hey, c’mon. What’s the harm, girl?”

“I told you to leave us the fuck alone.”

“Oh, don’t be like that!”

“You’re sooooo cute, I’m gonna die if I can’t get a kiss!”

“Oh yeah? Well just fucking die already.”

“Ah, I wanted to hear that!”

“Thanks a bunch!”

Yamana-san was fighting back against the two flirts. They weren’t quite on the same wavelength—it was almost like Yamana-san’s refusals were having the opposite effect on the guys and were inspiring them to tease her more.

“Let’s go, Runa!”

“Okay...”

“Hol’ up!”

“Not so fast! Try getting through this defense, my girl!”

When Runa and Yamana-san tried to get past them, the two guys spread their arms apart and blocked the way, obscenely shaking their hips.

This is awful...

These guys were real scum. The girls seemed unable to escape with them in the way.

Guess I have no choice but to go...

Things were still awkward between Runa and me since we hadn’t talked for a while, and I was afraid of the gaudy guys too, but my desire to help her immediately had won out.

Our classmates were looking on curiously from a distance. I knew this wasn’t the time to get embarrassed about it.

“Runa!” I called out, approaching her.

She opened her eyes wide when she saw me. “Ryuto...!”

I looked back at her. “L-Let’s go...”

Though I was scared of the guys hitting on her and Yamana-san, I offered her my hand. Runa reached out and took it.

“Ehh, for real?! Boyfriend to the rescue?!”

“Well shit, man! So much for that!”

With the two’s instigating complaints behind us, Runa and I held hands as we got out of there.

“Ah, hey...” Flustered, Yamana-san tried to follow Runa, but the guys blocked her way again.

“Not you, girl!”

“You should come hang out with us enough to make up for your friend!”

“What?! Fuck off!”

“Go on, go on!”

Yamana-san was enraged, still unable to shake off the two guys. As I walked away from her, I looked toward Sekiya-san, who was standing among the spectators.

“Nicole...!” Runa cried out as she reluctantly watched her best friend.

Sekiya-san...!

I looked at his face as if sending him a silent prayer.

He turned away from me. His face had a brooding expression on it. But the next thing I knew, he heaved a large sigh, as if he were putting something behind him, and he started moving.

He was headed toward Yamana-san.

With his hands in his pockets and his face looking a little stiff, Sekiya-san stood next to the gaudy flirts bothering Yamana-san.

“Take a hike. She’s my girl.”

At that, the two guys and Yamana-san simultaneously looked at him.

“Huh...?”

“Oh, seriously? Sorry, man...”

The guys parted the way for Sekiya-san, and they suddenly looked like complete wimps. Sekiya-san was tall, handsome, and didn’t look like he’d take no for an answer, so unlike when I’d made my appearance, they didn’t seem to have the composure to joke around.

Stepping between them, Sekiya-san took Yamana-san’s hand.

“C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

Yamana-san stood with her mouth hanging open, gazing at him with amazement.

“Senpai...?” Her tone was completely different from when she’d hurled abuse at the two flirts a moment ago. Yamana-san now spoke in the feeble voice of a young girl in love. “Why...?”

In the next moment, something glistening appeared in her eyes.

“Sorry I took so long,” said Sekiya-san. His smile was a little awkward and bashful.

“Senpai...”

As Sekiya-san pulled her down the hallway by the hand, Yamana-san used her other hand to cover her mouth as she cried.

Runa and I had watched the whole scene from a secluded corner of the hallway, and Sekiya-san brought Yamana-san to where we were.

“Senpai... Why...?” Yamana-san was crying her eyes out as she looked up at him.

The same spectators who’d watched those two guys hit on her and Runa were all around us. They were still staring at us with interest.

Sekiya-san noticed them too. “Hey, come on, don’t cry...” he said, looking flustered. “This isn’t how you act at school, right?”

“It’s just...” Making fists to shield herself from her long nails, Yamana-san wiped her unending tears with her hands.

Seeing her like that, Sekiya-san smiled at her in a fond, loving way. I’d never seen such an expression on his face before.

Then, as Yamana-san continued crying, he embraced her.

“I’ll do this, so stop crying soon, okay?” he whispered in her ear as he cradled and patted her head.

“Senpaaai... Hic...”

The sound of Yamana-san’s muffled sobs made a smile appear on my face by itself.

Thank goodness... I’m happy for you, Yamana-san. Fate let you see the person you’ve always loved again.

As I stood there with those moving thoughts in my mind, I felt a pull on the hem of my uniform. I looked beside me.

Runa was gazing at me with eyes that said something was on her mind. “Let’s give them some space,” she suggested.

“Oh, yeah... You’re right.”

We made our way somewhere a bit away from the two.

“Ryuto, you knew Sekiya-san?” she asked.

“Y-Yeah. We go to the same cram school...”

“I see.”

It had been a while since the last time I’d talked to Runa, and her floral-or-fruity scent made my pulse rise.

“I guess we have you to thank for all this, then,” she said. “You heard what I talked about with Sekiya-san, right?”

“Ah, yeah...”

Though I’d only learned about it a few minutes ago.

“I couldn’t convince Sekiya-san... Thank you, Ryuto.” Runa looked at me with a bashful smile. There seemed to be something glistening in her eyes.

“Runa...”

I had to say it.

I was glad about how things had gone with Yamana-san and Sekiya-san, but we still hadn’t talked about us.

But as I was about to open my mouth...

“Well, I don’t really get it, but I’m happy for the demon gyaru.”

Icchi walked over to us from amid the spectators. For some reason, even he had tears in his eyes.

“Man, love is so nice...” Watching Yamana-san and Sekiya-san from a distance, Icchi narrowed his already narrow eyes until they were practically just lines on his face. “You know, I’m thinking of confessing to Tanikita-san.”

“Whaaat?!” My shout was about as crazy as the thing I’d just heard.

“I mean, you know what she said when I helped her with the decorations earlier? ‘Thanksies! You were a big help, Ijichi-kun!’ What do you think she meant by that?”

“What she meant...?” I gave it some thought. “Didn’t she just mean ‘Thanksies! You were a big help, Ijichi-kun!’...?”

However, it didn’t seem like Icchi had really heard me.

“Honestly, I don’t think it’s hopeless. If I go confess to her now and it turns out the feeling’s mutual, we can dance at the bonfire tonight, right? I was just thinking how great that would be.”

He was speaking happily, his plump cheeks rosy. I’d never seen him like that before.

“But I’m too afraid to do it alone...so I wanted you two to come with me,” he said.

“Huh? ‘You two’...?” I asked.

“Me too?!” added Runa in round-eyed wonder. She’d been standing a bit off to the side until that point, fidgeting and looking like she did her best not to hear our conversation. “Are you sure?”

“Y-Yeah... You guys are my ideal... I was hoping I could be like you, and that’s why I decided to be brave and confess.”

Runa and I wordlessly exchanged glances.

Thus, the two of us somehow ended up going along to see how Icchi’s confession would play out.

***

“I-I like you! Please go out with me!” Icchi’s voice echoed through a classroom with only four people in it.

This was the classroom for class 3-D, and the festival committee was currently using it for storage. Clothes and other things lay disorderly on top of chairs placed on desks as well as on various spots on the floor.

Since Icchi had only just parted with Tanikita-san, he’d known where to find her and he’d called her here.

And then, he’d gone ahead and confessed to her.

Tanikita-san was frozen and had a surprised look on her face. She stared at Icchi with large, wide eyes. Then suddenly, she looked toward the ground.

I figured she was about to reject him. Tanikita-san took a deep breath.

“Ijichi-kun...” she began, appearing to be angry. “Did you know they call that sort of thing ‘confession terrorism’?” She rapidly threw one word after another at him as Icchi stood there, frozen. “I still don’t even know you well. So what made you think I’d accept?”

“Eh...? Oh, uh...”

“Are you even sure you like me? Why? Since when? What started it? Which part of me? Is it my face? So what, are you asking me to like you just because of your looks too?”

Witnessing Tanikita-san’s verbal assault made me start to tremble. I wished she’d go easy on Icchi.

I knew well how he felt. Falling in love with a girl just because she had thanked you for lending her a pencil was the same as getting feelings for a girl who’d said tall guys were hot. That’s just how virgins were.

If we had the opportunity to get close to a cute girl, that’d be enough for us to fall in love.

“I believe confessing is what people should do as a final confirmation of their feelings, when they already love each other,” she explained. “So I don’t think you should go trying your luck when you don’t know how the other person feels. Sure, you’ll be hurt if you get shot down, but it hurts to reject people too, you know? ’Cause you know you’re definitely hurting the person in front of you that you have to reject.”

Tanikita-san’s rejection was more like a lecture. It seemed endless.

“Kashima-kun confessed to Runy because you ordered him to as punishment as part of a game, right? Runy told me about it. She said she was glad it happened because she got to date him as a result, but I was like, ‘What the hell?’ Ijichi-kun, you take confessions too lightly. Isn’t that why you could order someone else to do it so easily?”

“Eh... Uhhh...”

Having turned a sickly pale, Icchi looked nauseated. It appeared that she was giving him such a thorough verbal drubbing that he was becoming physically ill.

“Confessing your love isn’t a game. If a gacha has a one-in-ten chance of winning, you can spin it ten times and win once, but if you confess to the same person ten times with the same timing, that doesn’t mean it’ll go well one of those times. When there’s no chance, there’s really no chance. It’s not even like you can save scum in real life.”

Icchi’s health had fallen to zero long ago. “Overkill” didn’t begin to cover it.

At that point, Tanikita-san bit her lip. “If you actually liked me, I wish you kept quiet right now. If you did and we became good friends, then maybe... Maybe I would’ve eventually come to know you well and fallen for you too. But you went and confessed now, thinking it wouldn’t do any harm, and hurt both yourself and me as a result. Is this what you wanted?”

Icchi couldn’t reply. He leaned against the wall limply.

Tanikita-san gave him a stern look. “Isn’t it important not to be pushy with your feelings when it comes to love?”

Having said her last piece, Tanikita-san turned toward the door and left.

Silence hung over the classroom for a while. The only people left here were Icchi in a corpse-like state and me and Runa in astonished ones.

After some time had passed, Runa walked up to the dazed Icchi.

“I’m sorry Akari said all that, Ijichi-kun...” She sounded apologetic—perhaps it pained her that her friend had done this. “You know how Akari’s always single even though she’s cute? That’s why guys often confess to her. She always feels down afterward and says something might’ve gone differently if she’d become closer with him first.”

Icchi’s eyes were still vacant, so I couldn’t tell if he was listening or not. “I’m sure you were shocked to hear such awful things, but I think Akari was surprised too... Could you forgive her?”

Maybe Runa was right. But I felt like that was a bit too harsh to say that to Icchi, given his current state.

“Okay. I’ll...go check up on Akari,” said Runa to me, and then she left the room.

Once we were alone together, Icchi, who had been leaning on a wall, slid down to the floor.

“It’s important not to be pushy with your feelings when it comes to love, huh...” he muttered after a while, sounding like he’d taken Tanikita-san’s words very seriously. There was heartbreak written all over his face. “I guess when she says it like that, I only liked her and didn’t actually love her...”

“Well... I guess so,” I replied.

Just like how I’d been before going out with Runa, most guys in high school probably only wanted a girlfriend to kiss and cuddle and to do all the other stuff with.

“You took a shot at it because you wanted to start dating her as soon as possible, right?” I asked.

“There’s that too... But if I didn’t stand a chance, then I just wanted her to stop giving me hope. I thought about her every day and my feelings for her grew too much every time I saw her. I couldn’t contain them anymore...”

The decoration subcommittee had been meeting every day recently. And today would be the end of that. That fact must’ve pushed Icchi to confess today.

“To be honest, some part of me did think I shouldn’t confess right now. But it was my first time falling for a girl in real life so strongly. I couldn’t go on without settling things...”

Poor Icchi, I thought, seeing the pensive, melancholic expression on his face.

“It’s hard to keep liking a girl when you don’t think you stand a chance with her. You’d need to be really deep in love for that. And I couldn’t handle it, at least not the way I am now...”

“Icchi...”

Now, it was getting painful, even for me. I was looking for words to console him with, but all of a sudden, the door opened and Nisshi showed up.

“Oh, this is where you were,” he said.

Something about him was different from usual too.

“Nisshi? What’s—”

“Hey...” he began, interrupting me. “I saw the demon gyaru walking around holding hands with some good-looking guy... What was that about...?”

“Well, it’s what it looks like,” I replied after a pause.

“Is he her brother or something...?”

“I’m afraid not...”

Nisshi went silent at that.

Ah... Guess he really did have a thing for Yamana-san.

When I saw him go pale and look like he might throw up, my chest hurt once more.

***

“We’ve lost at youth...”

The three of us remained in the classroom for a while after that. Icchi and Nisshi were sprawled out on the floor, looking up at the ceiling with lifeless eyes. I sat on the floor and watched over them.

“Kasshi. You keep things going well with Shirakawa-san. Marry her, have lots of kids, and make up for us loners not contributing to the next generation...” said Icchi.

“C’mon, man, you’re obviously exaggerating...” I replied.

It wasn’t like being rejected once meant he’d be alone for the rest of his life. I sympathized with him, though, able to understand just how badly Tanikita-san’s words had devastated him.

“So anyway,” began Nisshi. “If Kasshi has a beautiful daughter, I could marry—”

“That’s the one thing I won’t let happen!” I replied firmly out of concern for my yet-unseen future daughter.

Icchi sighed. “But man, you’re amazing, Kasshi. Seriously.”

“He really is...”

Judging by my friends’ tones, they weren’t being snide or jealous.

“It’s practically a miracle when you fall in love and the other person returns your feelings...”

“But I guess couples around the world are born from miracles like that.”

“Even some generic couple you see walking around out there managed to bring about such a miracle...”

“I really can’t imagine I can do it!”

“Me neither... You’re a lucky dog, Kasshi.”

I didn’t reply, but I had to agree. I was still living out the aftermath of a miracle. And yet...

“At the beginning, I found you interesting because you were completely different from me. The more I fall in love with you, the more I realize that we’re nothing alike. It makes me anxious. I start wondering if I’m really the right person for you. If I can be with you forever, the way I am now... If you’ll always love me.”

Of course I would. I really loved her, even now.

The one I wanted to be together forever with wasn’t Kurose-san, but Runa. And I wanted to tell her that again.

“Kasshi...?”

“Are you going somewhere?”

“Yeah... I’ll go look for Runa.”

Saying that, I left the room.

***

When Tanikita-san had been wiping the floor with Icchi earlier, I’d been thinking about Kurose-san.

“I like you.”

“I know how you feel, Kashima-kun. Don’t go rejecting me over and over.”

“This is a matter of my own feelings.”

It wasn’t like Kurose-san had asked me to break up with Runa and go out with her instead. At the time, I hadn’t understood why, and that part had been left unclear to me...

“Isn’t it important not to be pushy with your feelings when it comes to love?”

“It’s hard to keep liking a girl when you don’t think you stand a chance with her. You’d need to be really deep in love for that.”

I thought about it. If Kurose-san’s love for me is that strong... Can I still resist letting myself be swayed by her?

“All you gotta do is keep it together.”

That’s right, I realized. Even if Kurose-san loves me, there won’t be any problem as long as I keep it together.

She’s Runa’s sister, and that fact is never going to change. If I dare hope to become a family with Runa, that’s all the more reason I can’t allow myself to have feelings for Kurose-san.

“Okay.”

It’ll be fine.

Sure, Kurose-san is exactly my type. She’s attractive both on the outside and on the inside. We even have similar tastes. But she’s Runa’s sister.

It’ll be fine. I’ll never see her as anything more than that again.

If I keep this attitude up, I’m sure even Runa will eventually understand and feel at ease.

So I’ll go to her and tell her that.

That I want her to keep going out with me, like before.

“Ah!”

As I walked around the school looking for Runa, I ran into some familiar faces.

“’Sup.”

It was Sekiya-san and Yamana-san. Holding hands, they were walking close to each other like a couple of many years.

“So yeah, this is how things ended up,” Sekiya-san said, showing me their linked hands with intertwined fingers.

“Thanks for your help with that.” Yamana-san bowed a little bashfully to me.

“Sure. I’m glad for you two.”

I meant it too. But what was on my mind right now...

“Do you know where I can find Shirakawa-san?” I asked.