My Memories Came Back, But I'm Not Telling My Childhood Friends

Chapter 15

After making it through the morning classes without any trouble, I headed to the school store with Ryosuke to buy lunch, just like always.

As for my relationship with Ryosuke, I figured suddenly cutting ties would look way too unnatural, so I decided to keep things as they were for a while. We’d probably go our separate ways after graduation anyway, so I could just gradually put some distance between us.

“Hey Reita, you really are acting weird. What’s with suddenly taking classes seriously?”

But Ryosuke already jumped in with a jab at my change.

“…I almost got held back last year. I just figured it’d be better than dealing with makeup tests and reports later.”

“Held back? Your test scores weren’t that bad, were they?”

“I got way too cocky.”

I gave a believable excuse to brush it off. By the way, getting too cocky was actually true. Even before my memories came back, studying only the day before tests left me barely scraping by on the failing line, so I had been thinking I needed to do something about it. It wasn’t all a lie.

“Still, you were taking it so damn seriously—”

Ryosuke was about to keep poking at me when it happened.

“Hey you, get in line properly.”

“Tch, shut up…”

In front of the school store, I spotted a girl scolding a guy who had cut in line.

For me… well, it was a pretty common sight among the students here.

It was Shizuno carrying out her justice.

“Oh, she’s at it again. Hoshikage Rin—no, wait, Shizuno Soraka.”

Ryosuke watched the scene like he was enjoying the show from above.

“Girls who act like heroes aren’t bad either. Someday I wanna dye her my color.”

His usual rotten taste made my face almost twitch. Maybe I really should cut ties with this guy sooner rather than later…

“Anyway, hurry up and get out of the way.”

“It’s just the line, who cares? I’m in a hurry.”

“It doesn’t matter. Stay in order.”

“Ugh, you’re so annoying…”

Shizuno kept staring straight at the guy and warning him, completely ignoring the awkward stares from everyone around.

Watching the scene, I felt a little worried.

Of course it was 100 to 0—Shizuno was completely right. Even something as small as cutting in line deserved to be called out.

But I also thought what Shizuno was doing might be a bit too much.

I wasn’t saying she should let it slide.

But guys like that never really reflect no matter what you say. They might pretend to understand on the spot, but inside they’re just thinking “shut up.” I knew that from personal experience not too long ago. Pretty convincing, right?

So snapping at them every single time was endless. For Shizuno it wasn’t just a waste of time—it was actually risky.

That kind of approach easily buys resentment, and sometimes the person you warned ends up holding a grudge.

Back in elementary school there was still that clear good-versus-evil feel, but once you hit middle and high school, half-baked justice tends to get swallowed up by the bad side.

Well, with Shizuno’s strong sense of justice she probably wouldn’t get crushed that easily…

Lately I’d been bothered by how bad the security at our school seemed to be.

It felt weird for me to say it since I used to be part of the problem, but things were clearly getting rough. Just the other day Rin had been persistently bothered, and every day you could hear Shizuno’s voice ringing out somewhere.

Yet it stayed right on the edge where nobody made a big issue out of it…

There was this strange, hard-to-describe unease about it.

“By the way, you’re actually pretty cute, aren’t you? Wanna eat lunch with me?”

“I decline.”

“Come on, I’ll even treat you.”

“I decline.”

“Sigh… Seriously, why do you only push your own demands and never listen to what I say? And a second-year acting all high and mighty—”

Just as I feared, the guy started flipping out.

—but his words got cut off midway.

“That’s enough.”

A sharp voice sliced through the air like a blade.

The one who appeared coolly in front of the arguing pair was a glasses-wearing guy with a refreshing atmosphere.

I recognized that face too.

It was our school’s student council president, Yamada.

“What the hell, who are you?”

“If you make any more noise, I’ll have to take appropriate measures.”

“What? This has nothing to do with you.”

“It does. Shizuno is my important junior.”

Yamada handled the guy calmly.

Important junior… oh yeah, Shizuno was on the student council too. The way he called her by name bugged me a little, but at least it didn’t look like things would blow up, so I felt relieved.

“Tch, remember this, asshole…!”

The guy spat out a classic weak-villain line and pathetically ran off.

That ended pretty quickly…

He acted all tough in front of a girl, but had zero pride, huh.

“Are you okay, Shizuno?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

The remaining Yamada checked on Shizuno.

At first glance he was pretty handsome. Tall, with a dignified presence that gave off a lot of authority.

He really had the perfect student council president vibe.

“If you ever have any trouble, just contact me. I’ll come running anytime.”

Then he gave her a bright, refreshing smile and walked away.

“…Tch. The student council is full of stuck-up bastards.”

Ryosuke, who had been watching the whole thing with me, let out a snide remark.

For a second I almost agreed, but I shook it off.

This was exactly the kind of inner part I needed to change…

After that, the two of us went ahead with our plan, bought lunch at the store, and headed back to the classroom.

—

Chapter 16

Speaking of bad security, lately the atmosphere inside the classroom has felt a bit strained too.

It’s not like any big problems have happened, but with so many strong personalities crammed together, the room ends up noisy every single day.

First off, just having the three school idols—Maya, Rin, and Shizuno—in the same class already makes it stand out.

Guys from other classes keep trying to hit on them nonstop. Just the other day, some bold idiot even confessed to Maya right in the middle of the classroom. …Sadly, he got shot down hard.

Maya really is a dangerous girl. She usually acts all soft and fluffy, but the moment someone tries to get close, she cuts them down without mercy.

Rin and Shizuno are just as popular as Maya.

Rin’s flashy gal-style look gives her high marks among the outgoing crowd. She’s not very friendly, but if we’re only talking about appearance, she might be number one.

Shizuno is more of a niche taste, I guess. The kind of guys who want to be scolded keep approaching her. Plus, among the honors students she’s respected as someone to look up to.

While we have these three beauties, our class 2-B also has the so-called three great evils.

Anyone sharp would’ve already guessed, but two of the three evils are me and Ryosuke.

…Man, what an embarrassing title.

It’s my own fault, but I haven’t exactly been rampaging around enough to deserve being called a menace. At least compared to Ryosuke, I’m practically harmless.

Seriously, whoever put this class together should probably be fired. And on top of that, the third of the three evils is also in this class.

That would be the guy sitting at the very top of the outgoing group’s caste—Koichi Ueno.

Well, opinions about him are split.

On the surface he’s a friendly handsome guy, and even though it’s only been two weeks since the new class started, he’s already gathered a lot of popularity. He acts like the center of the outgoing crowd and doesn’t get treated like a problem child like me and Ryosuke.

But some people mock him behind his back as a “harem guy.”

There are always girls around him. It might look like he’s just popular, but quite a few voices criticize his methods as not very nice.

Especially his strong caste awareness—he makes fun of the quiet kids to get laughs, makes beauty rankings, and drags others in to make his own status look higher. That seems to be why he’s disliked.

Basically, he has plenty of allies but just as many enemies.

As for me, I probably won’t have anything to do with him, so I honestly couldn’t care less…

What does bother me a little is that Rin belongs to his group.

While the outgoing kids were chatting and laughing happily, Rin sat there alone fiddling with her phone.

At first glance she looked kind of bored. Maybe that was just how she was these days, but she seemed pretty different from the Rin I used to know.

The old Rin was a lively girl. She was still stubborn, but basically bright, energetic, and always spreading smiles around.

But the current Rin almost never laughs. Since we ended up in the same class, at least I don’t remember seeing her smile even once.

When she’s with Maya her expression seems a tiny bit softer, but even then she looks hugely different from before.

Well, I’m hardly one to talk about other people…

“—Oh yeah, Rin-chan, someone said they saw you walking to school with Kawakami this morning. For real?”

While I was thinking, Ueno suddenly dropped my name.

Looks like the fact that I walked partway with them had turned into a rumor. That was exactly why I hadn’t wanted to do it… but what’s done is done. I pretended I couldn’t hear and secretly listened in.

“N-not really. He just suddenly talked to me.”

Rin smoothly lied to cover it up. In truth Maya had been the one who spoke to me…

She probably understood that telling the truth would only make things messier, so she said that.

“Rin-chan, don’t tell me Kawakami’s targeting you?”

“No way…”

“But I heard he hits on tons of girls. Seems like he’s after Maya-chan too. That guy’s seriously dangerous.”

…If I just kept quiet and listened, they started spreading all kinds of nonsense. If this was the old me, I would’ve gone over there to shut them up, but I couldn’t cause trouble, so for today I let it slide.

“If he does anything to you, just tell me, okay? I’ll help you out.”

“…Y-yeah.”

Then Ueno gave a cool-guy face and patted Rin on the head.

Rin wore an expression that was hard to read.

—And that’s exactly the kind of guy Koichi Ueno is. He uses the people around him to raise his own stock. I don’t know if he does it on purpose or unconsciously, but either way his personality is plainly bad, which is probably why he got labeled one of the three evils.

Well, I don’t plan to comment on that. I’m not in any position to judge others, and dealing with him would just be a waste of time.

More importantly…

She really doesn’t laugh anymore. Rin, I mean.

It’s not just that she doesn’t laugh. That tense look on her face. It’s almost exactly like back then—

…No, I should stop thinking about it.

Like I keep saying, this isn’t the time to be worrying about other people.