“What a terrible scene...” I blurted out. Kanon-san and Chikaze-san looked like fish that had washed ashore on the beach; one was slumped over her desk and the other leaned back limply in her chair. I don’t remember them looking like this at the beginning of lunch...
I had forgotten my own lunch at home today, so I’d gone to buy a bun from the store. But this is what I found when I got back. Their eyes were completely dead.
“Um, Yukito-kun? What happened to them?” I asked him.
He had a sheepish grin on his face. “Hey, Yuzuki. They’ve been like that ever since they got back from talking to Yashiro.”
Yashiro-kun? What in the world did he do to them? I gave him a puzzled look, and he laughed. “That’s what happens when girls find out the guy they have a crush on already has a girlfriend. They didn’t even realize they liked him until they found out they didn’t have a chance, so now they don’t know how to feel.”
“A crush... What?!” They both had a crush on him?! I guess now that I thought about it, they had been talking to Yashiro-kun an awful lot. Plus, he told me that there was a girl he liked. And apparently the girl in question was neither Kanon-san nor Chikaze-san.
“They’d better give up on him. He’s head over heels for his girlfriend,” Yukito-kun said.
Then all of a sudden the light returned to their eyes and they both exclaimed in unison, “Wait just a minute!”
“How did you know that Yashiro-kun had a girlfriend, Yukito-kun?!”
“Are you sure she’s real?! It’s not just an imaginary girlfriend?!”
Oof, they’re accusing him of having an imaginary girlfriend? That’s harsh. Are they really his friends?
“Y-Yeah. A while back, Yashiro-kun told me himself that he was dating someone,” Yukito-kun stammered under their menacing glares. He told me later that when he went to ask Yashiro-kun to get along with Kanon-san and Chikaze-san, he’d said that if Yashiro-kun tried anything shady with them that he’d come after him. And then Yashiro-kun smiled and told him about his girlfriend.
“I have a girl who’s really important to me. I’d never betray her and make a move on another girl, so you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
And apparently that was terrible news for Kanon-san and Chikaze-san. At least he had been honest about it, though.
“No way...” Kanon-san looked beside herself.
“Well, who’s Yashiro’s girlfriend, then?” Chikaze-san flopped back into her chair dejectedly.
Yukito-kun nonchalantly revealed the truth. “You guys already know her. Because,” he said, pointing to the desk behind Yashiro-kun’s, “She was sitting behind him every time you two went to talk to him.”
◊◊◊
“What? You have a girlfriend, Yashiro-kun?!”
“And not an imaginary girlfriend or, like, an anime character or something?!”
“You have a girlfriend even though you’re a loner?!”
Once Hanamizawa-san and Ido-san heard I had a girlfriend, they caused a huge commotion. That told me everything I needed to know about how they thought of me.
“It was totally harsh.”
At lunchtime, I threw myself against the circulation desk and told Nue the whole story as she read a book next to me.
“You’re not an imaginary girlfriend. You’re real. See, I can touch you.” I reached out and touched her shoulder. She swatted at my hand, but she didn’t push it away. Just lightly tapped it, so it must not have bothered her that much. I let go of her and leaned back in my chair. “You know, I’ve been thinking. Hanamizawa-san and Ido-san have totally the wrong idea when it comes to loners. They think that because they’re fine being by themselves, they always want to be alone. But that’s not right.”
I propped my cheek up on my hand and stared at Nue. “If I’m strong enough to be alone, I’m fine being with other people too, no matter how many there are. If you’re okay being by yourself, you don’t have to worry about being isolated from your friends.”
That’s why some loners were okay with not being loners all the time. After all, I had no problem talking with Hanamizawa-san and Ido-san. But I got that strength from the girl sitting in front of me...
“That’s why I like spending time with you like this, Nue.”
She closed her book with a thud and slowly turned towards me, calling my name. “Hachijo-kun.”
Obviously, my name is Yashiro, but she called me Hachijo-kun.
I waited for her to continue, but she turned away in a huff. “I wish you wouldn’t say things like that.”
“Sorry. Did I interrupt your reading?”
“No... It’s just embarrassing.” I took a closer look and noticed even her ears were bright red. I thought I was going to laugh.
She didn’t really talk that much, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have feelings or that she was inconsiderate. She just always had a lot of thoughts going on in her mind—too many to express in words.
That was the first thing I noticed about her after we started dating. So when she did finally put something she was thinking into words, I knew that she really felt strongly about it.
That’s why I fell in love with Nue—I mean... “Tsugumi Torano-san.”