10 years had passed since I started playing the game of sekkusu with my childhood friend. - Chapter 10: "Hime-chan" was how I called her, back then.

10: “Hime-chan” was how I called her, back then.

As I yelled, the attention of all the passengers in the train turned to me at once. The man who was trying to molest Haruhime quickly withdrew his hand and went for an escape.

“Hold there!”

I chased after that fellow.

But unluckily, the train was about to arrive at the platform.

The man slipped through the gap between the passengers and ran out onto the platform. When I followed him out, he was already on his way to the stairs.

“That guy is a molestor! Someone catch that guy!”

A nearby station attendant panicked and tried to subdue him. But the man was dexterous, too, and easily avoided the station attendant and ran up the stairs in a single bound. By the time I finished going up the stairs, the man was already out of sight.

“Damn it…….”

I couldn’t catch hold of him.

Dropping my shoulders, when I turned around, I saw Haruhime chasing after me from behind.

“Tet-chan,…….”

“Haruhime…, are you all right?”

“Un. I was a little scared, but… it was nothing bad.”

Haruhime said with a rather terror-struck look on her face. Even though she said that ‘It was nothing’ but having your body touched by someone you don’t know is can never be ‘nothing’ at all.

The smile on Haruhime’s face while saying this was completely different than the smile she had on her face a moment ago.

“You guys, may I have a word with you both.”

The station attendant who had followed, called out to us. He seemed to want to ask us about what was going on.

Haruhime and I looked at each other and nodded.

As we talked about the whole situation, it took us about an hour to completely say it all. Apparently, the man had been a habitual offender.

“I’m sorry, because of me, even Tet-chan is late for school too.”

When we arrived at the station nearest the school an hour late, Haruhime said apologetically.

“The one to be apologising should be that molested man, remember?”

“…… yes, but still…”

“No problem. Since I’m serious enough at studies, being late once or twice is not at all a problem for me.”

When I said that, Haruhime giggled, smiled wryly, then opened her mouth.

“Liar. Even though you are late on daily basis.”

As if the tension had been lifted a little, Haruhime’s face returned to its usual calm appearance.

“A~aah, I was so scared.”

“This doesn’t happen to you on a regular basis, does it.”

“Un, the trains aren’t so crowded during morning practice time.”

Standing in front of the empty school yard, I put my hand on the school gate door. When I was about to pull it open, Haruhime called out from behind me.

“Umm, …… thank you for earlier.”

She said with her cheeks turning red.

Her atmosphere was a little different from the usual, as if she wanted to say something, but couldn’t bring herself to say that important thing, because of which her mouth muffled.

“Haruhime?”

“Un~un, it’s nothing.”

Shaking her head, Haruhime looked contemplative.

“I’m really sorry that I didn’t notice sooner what was happening.”

“But still, you helped me,…… as I thought, Tet-chan is a cool guy.”

……By that, what does she even mean?

Somehow I kept the words that were about to come out of my mouth shut behind it. Even though something like that happened to you earlier, it’s not something that you should saying right now.

I swallowed up my emotions and looked for something else to talk about.

“……It would be better not take the train at that time of the day again.”

“Thank you for worrying about me.”

Haruhime nodded as if it was nothing serious at all.

After that, as we returned to the classroom, the class was slightly buzzed. I heard them whispering to each other about what maybe going on because we both showed up together at school in the second period.

‘…… what do you think is up, with those two?’

Oh, s**t.

I should have shifted the time of arrival between the both of us to the school. If we came to school like this, it’s obvious that everyone would be suspicious of us.

Sure enough, Fukuo in the back seat leaned forward and said.

“Tetsu-dono. This is …….”

“Nope, ……, there’s nothing special about it at all.”

“Ho~oh.”

He looked at me suspiciously.

“It’s just that the train I got on went into a kind of trouble. It just so happened that we both got on the same train.

I said this in a loud voice so that everyone around me could also hear.

But it was already too late, and I was taken notice of by one of the biggest yankees in the class.