An after school affair with an unattainable flower - Chapter 2 (Osmanthus): Part 1
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Chapter 2: Osmanthus
High school sophomore year, early July.
“A~ah, it’s so hot!”
“Don’t be so sloppy, Taichi, lying down in a place like that doing nothing.”
“Right back at you, don’t smolder in a place like this. Just go and participate with them already.”
“I don’t like sports.”
“I don’t get that at all, even though you’re not necessarily bad at it.”
“Likes and dislikes do not necessarily match with being bad or good at it.”
It was around the time when the sun was about to reach the top of our heads.
Our class had a physical education class. The sport is soccer.
As for me and Taichi, we were slacking off at the edge of the schoolyard because we weren’t good at physical education all in all.
“And,” I added.
“It will be cruel to force them to let us in, knowing that they’re already having a good time with just the guys from the soccer club and the athletic club playing against each other.”
“I know what you mean just by seeing that..”
With final exams and summer vacation approaching, the class had been becoming quite noisy lately.
—See you later! Shiranui-kun!
After that exchange of greetings of our awkward meeting that day, in the end nothing progressed.
Well that was a given.
I hadn’t had any contact with her until now, and even though I say it myself I’m not much of a man actually. So I guess I’m just like any other person who appears in the wide picture.
Contrary to the fact that I shouldn’t have even a speck of hope at that time, I still went on and had a little bit of hope, because of which I’ve been feeling a little bitter over this past month.
Apparently, I experienced a heartbreak at the same time I encountered my first love.
The other side is Takamine Hana. Because of that name, moreover the appearance of that name, which is homonym with “Takane no Hana”, they shared a similar meaning with each other: A flower so beautiful, but unobtainable.
For me, she is an existence that I can only admire. Nothing more than that.
However, in fact, it wasn’t all that shocking. Actually I’m even feeling grateful for that time since it gave me a good experience of love, who had no experience in it whatsoever.
Be it her, or those rabbits or those horns, I soon lost interest overall being forced to focus on the upcoming final exams that were closing in.
As you can see, I am a delinquent student who doesn’t like sports and also is on bad terms with studies.
And since I don’t have a very good grade. I thought that it would be rather difficult to convince my father who was already reluctant to approve of my passion. So I decided to put some extra effort into the end-semester final exams.
“I wish physical education would disappear from the face of the Earth.”
“I can’t agree more.”
The two of us just watched our energetic classmates moving happily from one place to another continuously for an hour.
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Even though there was no progress with the unattainable flower (Takamine no Hana), the novel I had been writing made considerable progress.
Ok, just one more push.
I continued to write after school as usual, and now the story was nearing its end.
It was the scene where the hero and heroine overcame the climax and pledged their love to each other under the wedding bell.
ーー“I swear”
I ended the story with having the protagonist say those words.
“And It’s over”
I put my pen down and stretched my body.
When I regained conscience of the world around me, in front of me there was a beautiful girl with her long hair, smiling, just like that other day.
“Good job. Looking at that face, it seems you didn’t notice me until now huh.”
“T-Takamine-san, why are you…”
“Same reason as the last month.”
“Is that s–o, Oh, how do I say it, It’s been quite a while huh.”
“Un! It’s been a long time, although we’re in the same class.”
Fufu
she giggled gracefully, but somehow it was childlike.
“Yeah true, somehow weird as well.”
I laughed as well.
“Actually, I wanted to get along with you, but if I suddenly became friendly with Shiranui-kun, everyone might eventually find out about Shiranui-kun’s book. So it kind of became hard to talk to you.”
“…Well, I also had similar reasons.”
Liar. Coward. Me.
“But you were able to finish writing a novel in just a month. Shiranui-kun is kind of amazing.”
“No, no, this is just a short story. About the size of a notebook, so it’s still far from professional authors when you take note of what they are able to achieve.”
“Say!”
“?”
“Can I read it?”
Doki
I won’t deny the fact that it’s partly because she’s cute, but it is also more because I never took the initiative to show my work to anyone before.
Last month was an accident. After all, it takes courage when you ask yourself.
However,
“It might have bad grammar, but can you still read it?”
If it’s my first love, maybe I can show it to her. Or so I made an excuse to myself.
“YAY!”
She politely took my world history notebook and took a deep breath before she opened it.
Takamine-san’s stature while reading felt so picturesque that normally anyone would be charmed and attracted to it, staring at her continuously. However, in my case, as I was more nervous than I thought, I had no freedom to have such thoughts or sense in any way whatsoever.
Even though I remained nervous for some time, but, observing how seriously she was reading my story, I began to calm down little by little.
As I had nothing to do right now, I decided to read a book as well.
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“-kun, -ui-kun, Shiranui-kun!”
“Uwaaa!”
“I’m sorry, no matter how many times I called you, you just wouldn’t respond.”
A shake on my shoulder pulled my consciousness back to reality.
“No, no, I am sorry from my side as well. Sorry I didn’t notice you earlier.”
I was quite irritated by being forcibly interrupted from reading, but I tried not to show it as much as possible.
“So then, did you finish reading it?”
“U-unn.”
It was a shock for me.
This was Because, I thought that as a sign, an evaluation, that it was not even worth reading completely.
“So, can I take this home with me?”
“Eh?”
“I guess it’s a no?”
“No it’s not necessarily a no, but…”
It seemed that I misunderstood.
It seems like I often get confused when I’m interacting with this girl.
Is this what the saying ‘you can’t understand the female heart’ is, as I have heard before?
“Yay~. So then, since it’s getting dark already, let’s head home for now.”
“Eh?”
I never expected to be invited to go home together, so I was quite surprised by this sudden invitation.
“I live on the opposite side of Hakou Station, but what about Takamine-san?”
“So, I’ll be with you till the midway then, Shall we go then?”