“Let’s calm down and think this through, okay? Isn’t only falling for girls who would never fall for you setting yourself up for failure from the very start?”
“Sure is,” I said after an awkward pause.
“And besides, that’s the sort of logic that only people who’re already pretty popular with girls can get away with. Are you one of those super popular harem-lead sorta guys, Kunugi-san?”
“Spare me, please...” Oh god, my face must be on fire! The shame, the shame, the shaaame! Nothing could possibly be more agonizing than getting dragged by this openly idiotic urchin!
“I mean, really! If you told anyone other than me about this, they’d probably friend-dump you, y’know?”
“It’s that bad? Friendship-destroying bad?!”
“Go ahead, give it a try! Once you’ve told everyone you know about this and end up a desolate loner, I’ll be happy to be the only person who gives you the time of day! You can be totally socially dependent on me!”
“Why would you dream up a scenario like that?! Your imagination’s scaring me!”
“Your ridiculous edgelord-ness is scaring me!” Yuuta took a long, deep breath, then let out an equally long, equally deep sigh. Meanwhile, my heart buried itself deeper and deeper underground. “Let me think about this... Okay, Kunugi-san, why don’t you ask me about my type?”
I hesitated. “Your type? Really?”
“Really. Oh, but I’m a maiden, so you have to take it really seriously, okay?” The look in Yuuta’s eyes was about as serious as she was asking me to be. I couldn’t suss out her intentions, but since she was doing it that earnestly, I figured I might as well play along. I took a deep breath as well, thinking about all the scenes I’d seen in movies that went along those lines and imagining the sort of role I was supposed to play.
“Yoshiki... No—Yuu.”
“‘Yuu’?! Y-Yes?!” I looked her squarely in the eyes, which widened as she returned my gaze.
“So, uh, hey. I was just wondering—what sort of guys are you into?”
“Do you...really wanna know?” Wait, what? She’s not gonna answer right away? Why’s she dragging it out? This isn’t scripted, is it?
“Yeah, I do.”
“But...why?” Because you told me to ask! No shit!
...But no, actually, she might be on to something here. If I asked her about her type and she replied instantly, it’d sound really dubious. Taking the time to be all hesitant and set a super-serious mood would make the whole thing feel way more authentic. Dang, Yuuta... Not bad at all for a girl who barely comes up to my waist. Maybe she’s trying to teach me a really smooth, ideal way to respond to the question? She might be a lot more used to this sort of thing than I gave her credit for!
And of course, if that was what she was going for, I had no choice but to jump on the bandwagon. “Because I’ve, well... I’ve sorta taken an interest in you.”
“In me...? You have? Tee hee!”
I paused dramatically. “So, I really wanna know. Tell me: what’s your type?” It was not an easy act to pull off. I felt like I was gonna break out in goosebumps. You can do this! Endure!
“All right. My type...” She paused, narrowing her eyes and turning away from me. She fidgeted for a moment, then finally looked up once more, locked eyes with me, and spat it out.
“I’m into the sort of boy who would never fall for me under any OUCH?!” I reflexively karate-chopped the top of her head. Nice work, reflexes! My spinal cord’s still got it where it counts!
“What was that for?!” she squealed indignantly.
“That’s my line! I was all excited for some sorta master class, and then you were just friggin’ making fun of me!”
“Excuse me, I was putting my everything into teaching you just how ridiculously cringey of a line it was! I was being nice!”
“Then what was the point of the whole stupid preamble?!”
“Oh, like you weren’t getting into it too!”
“I was not!” Aaaargh, I can’t stand this girl!
“So anyway, are you actually pretty popular, Senpai?”
“Where’s this coming from?”
“I said before, right? That answer you gave was popular-dude logic. It wouldn’t make sense for you to say something like that if you’d never been at least a little popular, would it?” Yuuta smirked obnoxiously. In a certain sense, I was jealous of the fact that she could be that proud about that level of “logic.”
“I’m not really popular, no.”
“Oh, that’s a surprise...”
“Wait, it is? Does that mean that I seem like the sorta guy who would be?”
“It’s surprising that you’d say you’re into girls who would never fall for you when you’re not even popular to begin with! Like, really?!”
“Yeah! Fair enough!” Why did I even bother asking when I already knew the answer?! And quit smirking like that, you stupid munchkin!
“Screw it, I’m outta here...”
“Oh, right, you said you were going to the school store, didn’t you? Don’t you think it’ll be totally sold out by now, though?”
“In that case, I’m going back to class and passing out...”
“Heh heh heh! I’ve got good news for you, Kunugi-san!” Yuuta proudly held up a pair of cloth-wrapped lunch boxes she’d been holding at her side. A...pair?
“Wait, what’s with those?”
“Heh heh heh, well spotted, Kunugi-san! Are you curious? Are you?”
“You’re the one who showed me—”
“They’re lunch boxes!”
“Yeah, I can tell... Wait. Lunch boxes?” Something about the way she said it caught my attention. Was there a slight emphasis on the “boxes” part, or was it just me?
Hmmm? Oh, okay, I get it. I see it coming a mile away! They’re just lunch boxes, with nothing inside! Thinking about it logically, there’s no way Yuuta would ever bring a pair of lunches to school, considering her daily flailing-around-by-the-school-store routine. She might’ve pulled a fast one on me a moment before, but I wasn’t about to let her have her way twice in a row!
This was Yuuta we were talking about. She was probably walking around with an empty lunch box in a pea-brained attempt to trick herself into feeling like she’d just eaten a hot, satisfying meal, or something similarly ridiculous. That’s almost tragic...
“By the way, they really do have food in them! They’re full to bursting!”
“Oh. That so...?” Never mind, I was jumping to conclusions. Hmph!
“And by the way, this one’s for my friend, so I don’t have so much as a cent to give to you, Kunugi-san!”
“A ‘cent’?” When all was said and done, the only even remotely valuable information I gained from that whole exchange was the fact that Yuuta had a couple lunch boxes. As far as my hunger was concerned, nothing had been resolved whatsoever. Maybe I’d feel better if I gave the shrimpling just one good punch...? Wait, no, down Kou, down! Going all out on a kid like her would make you the childish one! And violence isn’t gonna solve anything either!
“Disappointed, Kunugi-san? Ah! Don’t tell me you were hoping to mooch off your kouhai’s lunch? Wouldn’t that be, like, super embarrassing, from a senpai perspective?”
“I was just thinking, ‘Oh, huh, she’s got a lunch box,’ that’s all. I’m not even hungry! What’s your deal?”
“But your stomach was just rumbling a second ago!”
“Wait, seriously?”
“Nope!” Why, that little... I had most definitely gotten got.
“Okay, fine, you win! I’m hungry, okay?! Ahh, dammit, and seeing you wave your stupid lunches in my face just makes me even hungrier! I’m gonna go back to my classroom, pass out, and try to forget about it!”
“Not so fast!”
“Why?! I just described exactly what I’m gonna do! Laid it all out like narration in a novel! For the love of god, just let me go already! I’m begging you!”
“The truth is, these lunches aren’t actually mine.”
“Oh! They’re not! Great! Then why were you friggin’ bragging about them?!”
“M-My friend made them for me, so they’re mine, technically!”
“Okay, so they are yours after all! What the hell are you trying to accomplish here?!”
“They’re mine, but they weren’t mine to begin with, so, I mean... If I’m gonna share some of them with you, I have to ask the person who made them about it first!”
“Wait, you’ll share some with me?” Now that was a bolt from the blue. I never imagined that Yuuta, of all people, had the capacity for charity!
“Only if she says it’s okay, though! She made it for me, after all...”
“Not gonna lie, for a second I thought that the fact you forced your friend to make a lunch box for you goes to show what a greedy little gremlin you are, but I changed my mind! You might be a pretty decent person after all!”
“‘Greedy little gremlin’?!”
“Seriously, it takes some real maturity to give away something that somebody else gave you and look smug as hell about it!”
“You’re making fun of me, aren’t you?! I don’t even know if I wanna share anymore...”
“Oh, you kidder! I know you’d never abandon me!”
“So obnoxious...”
I gave Yuuta a hearty pat on the head and ruffled her hair like the good-natured young man I’d just turned into. Sure, she called me obnoxious for it, but she was just being bashful. She didn’t actually mean I was... Wait. This is pretty obnoxious of me, isn’t it? Whoops.
Nevertheless, I patted on. This would be the first and last time I patted her head like that in my life. She kept clamoring on about how “obnooooxious” I was being for a while, but before long, the absurdity of the situation got the better of her and her tirade gave way to laughter. Whoops, did I break her?
Yuuta’s friend though, huh? Wonder what sorta person she is, and I wonder if she’ll be okay with Yuuta splitting her lunch with me... Wait. Huh?
Yuuta’s friend?
“Oh.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Just, ahh, to double-check—you only have one friend, right?”
“I have two!”
“Right, and that’s counting me, yeah?”
“Yup, yup!” Meaning the other person who’d be showing up soon would be her other friend. And that would mean...
“Sorry, Yuuta, just remembered something! Gotta go now, bye!”
“Huwha?! Kunugi-san?! Hey, wait!” I spun around and fled at top speed, ignoring her shouts.
There was only one person who Yuuta’s other friend could possibly be: her. And meeting her at that moment would be bad, primarily because I wasn’t even close to emotionally prepared for it.
I sprinted around a corner at top speed and hid, peeking back down the hallway. A second later, a girl I knew well emerged from the staff room wearing a uniform that was simultaneously incredibly familiar and incredibly new, seeing as I’d only seen this particular girl wearing it once before.
“Sorry I’m late, Yuu-chan... Huh? Why’s your hair all messy? What happened?”
It was Ayase Hikari. The girl whose memories I’d stolen just two days before.