Chapter 62: In The Cafeteria For The New School Year

TL: lime
ED: Spynine01

A few days have passed since the new school year started.

Usually, Shijo would always greet me from the seat next to me, Touma would talk to me while fiddling with his phone, and when I turned around, I’d look at Shiori reading her book with her headphones on as per usual――.

Such a scene every morning was commonplace until just a few weeks ago. But it feels like it’s been a lifetime ago since I last witnessed those events.

I sat in my seat in the sixth class of the second year, soaking in the sentimentality of the situation.

The seats are given based on your name order, and in this school, starting from the top of the attendance number is by the window, so the final number would be at the very back seat by the corridor.

I sit in the first seat by the window and take out my phone.

The girls next to me, the boys diagonally beside me, and the people behind me are complete strangers.

――I mean, most of the people in this class are strangers to me.

A perfect away. I wonder what I would have done in the early days of freshman year… I guess I got by then because Touma was around. I’ve been getting a lot of help from him ever since junior high school.

“Good morning, Isshiki-kun.”

I turned my head to look towards the voice that suddenly called out to me, and there was the angelic figure of affection and elegance, with a dazzling smile just like a sunflower, even though it was currently spring.

I heard the boy behind me say in a low voice, “It’s the Angel of Affection and Elegance…”

I didn’t think that name was very well known, but I guess those who know, will know.

Well, she’s very cute. It’s only natural that people know about her.

“Morning. Is Shijo also alone?”

When I asked her, she smiled wryly.

“That’s right. It’s the same with Isshiki-kun too.”

“I don’t like it…”

She replied with a wry smile and pointed at my phone, saying, “That’s unusual.”

“Isshiki-kun, you’re using your phone at school.”

“Ahー… Well, in the first year, I didn’t have to play with it at school――I had someone to talk to after all.”

When I said that, Shijo laughed in response.

But suddenly, she moved towards my ear and–

“Are you in contact with your fiancee right now?”

“――Ha?”

I could feel her breath in my ear, and it opened the door to such indescribable sexuality, but the content of Shijo’s line managed to prevent my perversion from rising to a higher level.

“Two people torn apart due to a different class. But civilization has a way of taking care of that problem. They can make plans to meet up in the morning, and leave the next class together to go to the rooftop where no one else would be around. The wind in spring is still chilly, ‘It’s cold,’ ‘It won’t be cold if we hug each other,’ ‘That’s right,’ and they hug each other as if talking about their eternal love―― Kya~ー.”

“You’re a pervert, aren’t you?”

“Ahaha. No, I’m not.”

I say, “No, no,” waving my hand.

“――I mean, do you always have these sort of fantasies with him?”

I teasingly said to her, “No, I don’t.” Shijo replied a little embarrasingly.

No, the only way you’d have these fantasies about someone else if if you already have a pattern of them. I can understand that feeling somehow.

“I feel like Shijo’s character is kind of falling apart gadually, like you’re getting kinda desperate because you guys have separated?”

When I jokingly asked her that, Shijo shook her head and denied it, saying, “That’s not true.”

“I’m in the same club after all, just because we’re apart for a little while doesn’t mean we’re completely estranged…”

Despite her words, Shijo sounded a little sad.

“I’ve just been with Isshiki-kun for so long that I’m starting to show my true colors to him.”

I could see her forcing a smile as she said that..

“I’m feel a bit proud. When a girl like Shijo tells me that.”

I said cheerfully as the mood was about to get a little heavy, and she cheerfully said.

“Ahー. Don’t try cheating.”

“Cheating is when a guy has a wife or a girlfriend so―― hmm?”

Shijo pointed at me.

“You have one, don’t you?”

“No, that’s why…”

The chime rang as if interrupting my response.

“Ah, bye then.”

“Oh.”

Shijo was able to get to her seat before the chime finished ringing, and as soon as the chime stopped, walking in was Kaede Minami-sensei, a second-year female teacher with a long wave, who you probably wouldn’t even doubt it if we told you that we were the same age.

“Good morning everyone!”

Not everyone replied “Good morning” like we did in the first year, but rather a sparse “Good morning” from all around the class could be heard instead. Minami-sensei had a wry smile on her face.

This didn’t seem to be a very cheerful class.

As for me, I’m comfortable with the fact that Minami-sensei is my homeroom teacher this year as well.

I had been her student for a year, so I could understand her personality well.

But if you ask me if that is her true personality, I wouldn’t be so certain.

She probably wears a mask at school.

However, there is no need ever to remove that mask, nor is there any need for me to know her true face without it.

It’s because we’re teacher and student.

♢

“Your fiancee’s mood is clearly in a bad situation right now..”

At the school cafeteria during the noisy lunch break, Touma’s suddenly spoke as he put the bowl of yakitori rice he was eating on the table.

Yakitori-don, the first dish on the new menu for this school year, is a simple yet ubiquitous bowl of yakitori topped with mayonnaise and green onions.

As I entered my second year of high school life, I was thinking of exploring new items from the menu this school year, but the guys I eat with will definitely not change even if I did move on to the next grade.

Most of us don’t fit in together with the same class. That includes us.

I was eating a delicately made yakitori donburi while looking at the unchanged good-looking guy with the glasses, when I was suddenly told that.

“Maybe someone got slashed recently?” [ED: It’s been a while so this is just someone getting rejected if you don’t recall it.]

I joked with a gesture like slashing a Japanese sword, to which he nodded his head and said, “Yeah.”

“That boy in my class was pretty quick.”

“Seriously…?”

“Seriously.”

Touma speaks as if recalling.

“Let me tell you a story. That was 360,000… or was it twenty minutes ago? Oh well.”

“You’ve brought it up like some old stuff again.”

My point was brilliantly ignored by him.

“When the cool-headed and peerless angel was wearing her headphones during the break at the end of third period, a boy was standing right in front of her. He was talking frantically about something. Well, I guess he just wants to get closer to her, nine times out of ten that’s the case after all. He was a little too insistent, so she took off her headphones and said something back to him. I was a little curious, so I walked right by him to listen to what she was saying.”

『Why do you want to be friends with me? Why do you care what music I like? Why do you want to have dinner together? Why? What’s the reason? My appearance? My personality? My belly? The seven spices?』

“――You know, that sort of thing.”

“No, you added the last one, didn’t you?”

“――It’s funny, isn’t it?”

“I knew you had no sense of humor.”

But still――.

“He’s still a real creep.”

“That’s what she said to him with absolute no expression on her face. After that, I couldn’t even… look at the guy. It’s his fault for taking on the challenge without any sort of plan.”

I looked at Touma, who was laughing, and think, he’s got a bad personality.

However, I am relieved that Shiori had said that to the boy, and I also think that I myself also have a bad personality.

“――Huh? Touma.”

I changed the subject to quickly hide my bad character.

“Hmm?”

“Is Shiori alone?”

“Are you curious?”

“W-Well…”

I thought Touma was going to tease me when I said that, but he didn’t and just answered normally.

“She’s alone. Well, I am too――ah… Right.”

“What’s up?”

He sounded as if he had thought of something, but Touma denied it with a smile, saying,

“Nope, nothing at all…”

There’s absolutely something that he’s hiding.