In a Life I Restarted After a Bad Ending, I’m Somehow Being Hit With Extremely Heavy Feelings From a Classmate I’ve Just Met for the First Time - Chapter 30

We kept attending classes since morning, and lunch break finally came. For my classmates, everything we learned in class was new. But for me, since this is my second life, I’ve already studied all of it before. So for me, it feels more like reviewing than learning something new.

I understand most of the lessons right now. Sometimes I just remember the parts I had forgotten. The topics we study as first-years aren’t that hard, but some of them can appear on entrance exams, so I still take the classes very seriously.

“It’s finally lunch break!”

“Amane really gets energetic the moment lunch starts.”

“Everyone gets energetic during lunch break, don’t they?”

“Or is it just my imagination that the difference from class time is way too big?”

“I think that’s just your imagination.”

She said that, but I really don’t think it is. From my seat behind her, she sometimes looks bored during class.

Well, even though I take classes seriously, I probably look the same during subjects I’m not good at, so I can’t really complain.

“Anyway, let’s eat lunch. I worked hard making it today, so make sure to tell me what you think.”

“Thank you, as always.”

“It’s fine. I do it because I want to.”

While talking, I took the lunch box she handed me. Ever since our family trip ended, Amane has been making lunch for me pretty often. She said she wanted to show me that she really can cook. I never thought the day would come when a girl would make lunch for me.

Thinking that, I opened the lunch box. Inside, there were dishes like fried chicken and rolled omelet. It was something that took time to make. At this point, there’s no doubt that she can cook. We moved our desks closer and started eating together.

“Yeah, it’s really good today too.”

“Right, I think I did a pretty good job.”

I was very satisfied with the lunch, and it was good enough to make me want to eat it again. But at the same time, there was also a problem.

“…Even so, the stares around us are still intense.”

“That just means we’re getting a lifetime’s worth of gazes.”

Yeah, our classmates were staring at us a lot. Honestly, I already had a feeling this would happen the moment we started eating the same kind of lunch together in the classroom. And just like I expected, it turned out exactly that way.

I actually wanted to eat somewhere else, away from everyone’s eyes, like the courtyard. But Amane didn’t seem very interested in leaving the classroom. At the same time, I couldn’t just accept her homemade lunch and then go eat somewhere else alone. And that’s how we ended up in this situation.

“I’ve always lived a quiet life and tried not to stand out… so it feels like I’ve been breaking my record for attention these past few days…”

“For me, this level of attention is nothing special.”

“Comparing me to you in the first place is already wrong.”

There was a huge difference between Amane and me when it came to looks. The amount of attention we usually get isn’t even close. In the first place, this whole situation was probably caused by Amane. I’m just getting dragged into the attention because of her.

“Well, you’ve got to experience what it’s like to be popular, so isn’t that a good thing?”

“If this is what being popular feels like, then I don’t really want it.”

That was my honest thought. Also, this kind of attention felt different. It wasn’t the good kind of people give to someone they like. It felt more like we were standing out in a bad way. So even though the lunch tasted great, I couldn’t relax at all because of all the stares around us. It ended up being a very uncomfortable lunch break.