I really love my boyfriend, but lately it seems like he’s too obsessed with soccer to pay much attention to me. I tell him I’ll cheat, but then he says, Don’t, and kisses me, which works to gloss it over. What a sly move.
I’m busy, too, with the school festival coming up, so I dunno what his excuse is. I have my on-stage presentation, plus I’m class rep for the Miss JK Contest, and we want to win both.
It’s fun to stay after school with everyone to prep for everything, but apparently the soccer team has to get ready for a tournament, so they’re exempt from festival prep. That means my boyfriend has no idea what a good time it is. I guess that’s why lately our conversations seem to only go one way, or like, we can’t find any shared topics to discuss.
That feels like a pretty big problem to me, but he doesn’t even seem to notice, which makes the whole thing worse.
I laid my tired head down on my open notebook.
“You’ve been working on something, but what is it? Did we have homework or something?”
Ayaka in the seat in front of me grabbed a long piece of my hair as she messed with her phone.
“I’m writing my Miss JK essay. I have to do a self-introduction, too.”
“Are you serious? I’m pretty sure that’s a total joke contest now. The class next door is sending a guy.”
“Huh? Why would a guy be a contestant for Miss JK?”
“Well, the teachers were all talking about how the contest was just about the girls’ looks or whatever, so this year they want a cross-dressed boy to really get the festival mood going.”
“What the hell? I didn’t know about that when I was nominated. Why do I have to be in this contest if it’s just in there as a dash of entertainment?”
If it’s Miss JK, we should compete for who is cutest!
Even if it had turned into a gag contest, I felt like I could still compete, but I just didn’t want to.
“Who’s our class rep? It must be their fault.”
“I dunno, but maybe one of those kids?”
Ayaka drew a pointing circle around a group in the corner of the classroom. The kids over there were getting really into a game of cards or something dumb like that.
I had talked to them a few times, but even when I smiled they never looked me in the eye. I had the feeling they were avoiding me.
“I can’t. Could you go talk to them for me, Ayaka?”
“Why? Go yourself.”
Phoo. I don’t care anymore. I’ll just cancel day-of. I only wanna do fun stuff during the school festival.
“Haru, this cracks me up. What do you mean ‘My strength: I have guts’? I’ve sure never seen ’em.”
“Shaddup.” I crumpled up my partially written intro to make it disappear. My weakness: I have a short temper.
“So, Haru. I want to get a boyfriend by the time the festival starts.”
“What does that have to do with me? Go ahead.”
“But I want to do it with the least possible effort.”
Ayaka, currently on the lookout for love, pushed her hair back and sighed conspicuously. She had her eyes on Saito, who was standing with a ring of boys.
He wasn’t paying any attention to us at all, so Ayaka heaved a genuine sigh next.
Saito didn’t usually stand out at all, but he was great at sports, so he made a splash at the sports festival and the girls had been talking about him all summer.
“Really?”
When I asked her that, she got a vague grin on her face and said, “I wouldn’t mind going out with him.” Is that right? Huh.“Plus it’d be nice to have a boy to go around the festival with.”
“I get it. My guy seems ready to totally ignore the festival.”
“Dump him, dump him. Look for a new one with me.”
“Uh, err, sorry... Do you guys have a minute?” One of the card-game boys came over to us, but at that exact moment I got a LINE notification.
Right before I thought I would check it, I noticed Saito paying attention to us.
“I’m going to the bathroom.”
Ayaka, you told me not to run, but I don’t think I can read this in front of you.