“I’m sorry. Rena just won’t wake up no matter what I do.”
“Nah, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it. We’ll see each other at school anyway.” I left the Kazuki household shortly after sunrise wearing a fresh, clean uniform. I only planned to make a quick stop at my house and then head straight to school, but her mother followed along to see me off anyway. I felt like she was making way too big a deal out of the whole thing.
“It’s no wonder, considering how late she stayed up,” she continued. “And after running until she passed out too! You must have really been enjoying yourselves.”
I laughed awkwardly. “Enjoying ourselves” was one way to describe it, I guess. Kazuki had spent the entire evening extolling the virtues of running, explaining how great it is to push yourself to your limits, and trying to urge me to join the track team. I was more than a bit fed up with her one-sided sermon by the time it was finally over. All those wistful, sentimental feelings I’d built up had been completely blown away by her spiel, and even though all sorts of impactful stuff had happened to me throughout the day, the only part that actually turned up in my dreams was Kazuki.
“Thanks again, Kou-kun! If you wouldn’t mind, I’d really appreciate it if you’d keep looking after Rena. It’s good to know she has a friend like you.”
“Yeah, of course.” I couldn’t exactly decide that unilaterally—it was more up to her than me, frankly—but I agreed anyway for politeness’s sake. It goes without saying that I definitely didn’t plan on “looking after” her closely enough to join the track team.
“Feel free to come visit any time!”
“I will, thanks!” Now that one I was actually sincere about. Her curry was powerfully alluring. It’d be pretty darn rude to treat her place like a restaurant, but I was absolutely planning on coming up with some sort of pretext to show up for dinner again eventually.
“By the way, I still have another eight hundred recipes in my repertoire you haven’t tried yet!”
“Holy crap, seriously?! I wanna eat all of them!” I could try a dish a day, and it’d still take a little over two years! I cannot pass this up!
“You could eat as much of my cooking as you wanted if you joined the family, you know?”
“In, uhh, what sense?”
“Rena-chan’s a real cutie, isn’t she?”
“I’m not following your logic here...”
“I’d love to hear all about how things are progressing between you two the next time you come over!”
“Aha ha ha...” Okay, yeah, I get it now. Change of plans: never coming back here again. Man, this really sucks.
❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤
I made my way from Kazuki’s place to mine, then from my place to school.
As a side note, the durian smell in my apartment had completely vanished overnight. Renge’s doing, most likely—actually, the entire apartment looked like it’d been cleaned. She’d probably called in a housekeeping service or whatever. I considered thanking her but, upon further consideration, realized that she’d probably complain about how I ran off and left it to her in the first place, so I decided to put it off. Indefinitely. I might have recovered physically, but I was still a total chicken at heart.
So anyway, I made it to school in no time, no problem. Look at mister exemplary student over here, heyo! It was Friday, and Oumei High was the sort of school that gave its students the full weekend off consistently, so under normal circumstances everyone would be in full-on pre-weekend relaxation mode. The fact that finals would be starting the week after next, however, meant that circumstances were notably abnormal. The school was awash with an air of tension—or rather, an air of grim, tragic determination.
By the next week, tests would be right around the corner, and some of the students who’d given up entirely would start acting up. Then, once finals were finished, summer vacation would be right around the corner, and another portion of the student body would get so hyped up for it that they’d go crazy all over again. In that sense, the heavy, gloomy atmosphere was more or less a one-day deal.
It was the sort of atmosphere that really deeply drove in the fact that finals were looming...or rather, it drove it in for people other than me. I, after all, had done jack squat to study for them. My place on the summer school roster was apparently already set in stone, so what did I have to lose, anyway?!
“Ah! Morning, Kou!” Kaito walked into the school and greeted me right as I was stowing my sneakers in my shoebox.
“’Sup, Kaito?”
“Not much, but what about you? You’re looking pretty gloomy.”
“Huh? I am?” I’d been doing my best to keep a defiant attitude in the face of adversity, but apparently the cloud of melancholy hanging over the school was getting to me after all.
“You feeling okay?” he persisted.
“Huh? Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Jeez, though, Daimon-sensei really blew a gasket when she realized you weren’t showing up yesterday. She thought you were cutting class again.”
“I don’t even wanna think about that...” Our homeroom teacher, Daimon Kasumi, was single, somewhere around thirty years old, and definitely not a lady I wanted to provoke the wrath of. She had a pretty substantial chip on her shoulder about the whole not-finding-someone-to-marry thing, and who knows what might happen to me if I gave her the chance to vent that anger in my direction... Man, teachers who act like they’re the king of the classroom are such a pain. I’ll sic the PTA on her one of these days. Mark my words!
“She did cool down when she heard that you really were sick, though. She was actually pretty worried about you.” Gotta love a homeroom teacher who genuinely cares about her kids! You’re the best, Daimon-chan!
As I privately executed one of my finely honed and incredibly abrupt internal attitude shifts, we strolled to the classroom. Kotou and Kiryu were already waiting for us inside. Kotou was actually in a totally different class, of course. Details, details...
“Morning, Tsumugi, Kyouka,” said Kaito with a smile as bright as the sun.
The two girls returned his greeting. What an incredibly peaceful morning. Somehow, it really underlined the fact that a high school student’s primary occupation is going to school. Getting sick in weird ways and being too bedridden to go to class causes nothing but trouble. I wanted to go back in time, slap my past self upside the head, and tell him to get his ass up and go to school, even if it kills him.
“C’mon! Go for it, Kyou-chan!” whispered Kotou, glancing at me as she jabbed Kiryu with her elbow.
“‘Kyou-chan’?” I parroted, skeptically. Given the elbow thing, I figured she must’ve meant Kiryu, but since when did she end up with a weirdly cute, mascot-character nickname like that?
“D-Don’t pressure me, Kotou-san...” Kiryu glanced at me as well, though she was mostly occupied by resisting Kotou’s goading. I had a pretty good idea what was going on: Kotou Tsumugi’s fetish had manifested, and she was trying to tell Kiryu to greet me like a proper childhood friend.
Thing is, greeting someone after being called out like that’s actually pretty nerve-racking! Kiryu and I had split up on a pretty uncomfortable note the day before, so she was almost definitely worrying about how she should act towards me. All right, looks like it’s time for me to take the lead! Kunugi-kun’s fully recovered and back in action!
“Morning, Kyou-chan!” I said, copying Kotou’s nickname for a bright and cheery greeting.
“Kyou—?!”
“The heck?! Kunugicchi’s gone crazy!” Okay, so they didn’t take that super well. Why is it okay when Kotou says it but “crazy” when I do? This is sexist for sure! Somehow!
“Morning, Tsumu-Tsumu,” I continued, doubling down.
“Mngh... Morning, Koutarou!”
“Okay, now that’s just a completely different name.” I thought I was being clever by copying her nickname shtick, but I certainly hadn’t been prepared for her to call me by a wrong-but-real name. Conventional tactics are no match for her!
“G-Good morning, K-Kou-chan!” Kiryu somehow managed to slip into a gap in our skirmish and squeeze out a greeting. A pretty Kotou-esque one too. The two of us turned to look at her. “Wh-What?! He made fun of me with a nickname! I was just getting him back for it!”
“Oh em gee, Kyou-chan, you’re adorable,” mumbled Kotou. Honestly, she was right. Kiryu was blushing vividly and fidgeting like a classic shy-girl stereotype. The gap between the way she was acting and her usual attitude enhanced the effect—the whole thing was cute as hell. “Again! Do it again, Kyou-chan! Pleeease!”
“Wh-What?! Do what again?!”
“The way you said hi to him! C’mon, repeat after me: ‘Good morning, Kou-chan!’”
“A-Absolutely not! One greeting’s good enough, isn’t it?!”
“As if a greeting you have to force out one syllable at a time could ever be good enough! I couldn’t even hear it! Right, Kunugicchi?!”
“Yes. Of. Course. I. Heard. Nothing.”
“See!”
“He’s lying! Obviously! I’ve never heard that flat of a monotone before! Stop making fun of me, both of you!” Her face was somehow flushed even harder than before, and she was practically quivering with rage.
“Oh, c’mon, Kyou-chan, you can’t get embarrassed about something like this!” laughed Tsumugi. “You don’t wanna let you-know-who take the lead, right?”
“Who’s you-know-who, Tsumugi?” Kaito popped in.
“Butt out, Kaito! Actually, wait, that’s it! You can help us out too!”
“There’s nothing to help out with in the first place!” shouted Kiryu. “Are you even listening to me?!”
Kaito looked bewildered. “Any idea what they’re talking about, Kou?”
“Not a clue.” The two of us were completely out of the loop and could only spectate their exchange. Speaking of which, we weren’t the only spectators—at that point, the vast majority of students in the classroom had begun watching.
Kiryu had a reputation for being an ever-calm, stunningly beautiful honor student (and also for being more than a bit antisocial, frankly). I mean, the closest she had ever come to chatting with me before that point had been a one-sided barrage of insults! And yet there she was, bantering away in public with Kotou like a perfectly ordinary girl.
The two of them may not have realized it, but they had a trait in common: absolutely everyone agreed that their looks were stunning. Like, really attention-grabbingly so. The assorted lecher-boys (intended as a compliment) and paparazzi-girls (not specifically intended as a compliment, but I guess I can count it as one) were straight-up holding their breaths in the hopes of catching every detail of the two’s conversation.