“Kyouhei,” said Mizuhito, putting both hands on his shoulders, “you heard the saying about birds of a feather?”
“Screw you! Just clear off, I’m going to enjoy the peace and quiet and then go home on my own. No matter what anyone says, I’ll keep at it.”
“Ehh? You meaaanie.”
“Meanie? I’m a meanie? Really?!” Kyouhei demanded as he kicked at his friend who was squishing his cheeks between his arms. Mizuhito swayed easily out of reach of Kyouhei’s indoor-shoe-clad feet as he answered.
“You really are a weirdo. Why don’t you just stand out, for once in your life?”
“I don’t want to!”
“Doesn’t it feel great though? Everyone’s focused on you, yeah? You’re taking their time, yeah? Doesn’t that feel just the best?”
“No, it doesn’t!” cried Kyouhei, slamming his hands onto the table as he got more and more irritated at not getting through to Mizuhito. “I’ve had enough of that crap.”
“Had enough of it?”
“I switched schools so many times when I was a kid, which makes you stand out, and for nothing! The phrases you say and things you do are all different, and even just that singles you out at school and in the town!”
“Oh yeah... ’cause of your old man’s work, right?”
“Yeah,” he grumbled.
A lot of Kyouhei’s philosophy had come from taking his father as an example of how not to live.
“Besides, I had more than enough weirdness when I didn’t know who my mother was!”
Actually... Kyouhei had only truly grasped the meaning of the words ‘mother’ and ‘wife’ when he was in middle school. Well, his father constantly took him to different places and had a local wife each time; Kyouhei had been traveling the world since he could remember. Given his circumstances, it’d make sense he didn’t know before.
All of this meant that Kyouhei still didn’t know who his mother was. When he asked his father, he’d said: “You just turned up next to me one day, I don’t know who it was.” It was awful.
“Anyway, about 80% of my issues can be put down to that utter moron. He probably just put down his logic and common sense somewhere and forgot about the damn things. Do you know how much I’ve suffered because of—”
“Hmm, but I’d like that. My dad’s just an office worker; I don’t wanna end up like that. You only get one life.”
“What are you on about?! Peace is the best—normalcy! I dare you to go on a trip with him, you’ll change your tune if—”
But that was as far as Kyouhei got before a chill assailed him. He shuddered.
“Huh, what’s up?”
“Nothing... just a shiver.”
“Same thing happened yesterday? You ’bout to start hacking up blood?”
“Don’t try to give me that dramatic crap! Besides, it ain’t a cough.”
“What is it then?”
“...I don’t really know,” he admitted, scowling as he rubbed his neck.
Behind Kyouhei as he did that was a girl watching silently from the slightly open door at the back of the classroom.
The first word that would come to mind to describe the girl would be ‘plain.’ Her black hair was neatly cut to shoulder length. She wore glasses with wide, thick lenses, and her makeup was very lightly applied, only to the level of a ‘natural look.’
At a closer look, she was fairly attractive, but she lacked any sense of self-confidence at all. Her fidgety behavior coupled with her expression, which seemed to be almost permanently a split second from tears, strengthened that impression all the more. A harshly spoken person would probably just sum her up with the word ‘gloomy.’
“...Senpai... Nanbu-senpai...” she muttered pitifully. Her cheeks were ever so slightly pinkened, like the petals on a cherry tree. The combination made it seem that the girl had some interest in Kyouhei, but... “...Senpai...”
Those mutterings and the object she was holding in her hand made things somewhat more doubtful: It was, to put it plainly, a strawman that seemed to have no other purpose than to have a nail hammered into it. How on Earth that came to be was a mystery.
“...Nanbu-senpai...”
As she clenched her fingers around the effigy, Kyouhei jolted within her vision.
Next to her, another girl, probably her classmate, was watching her with clear horror.
“...Sanae, you know...”
This girl was nearly the complete opposite of the one she had just called Sanae: she had eyes that were somewhat slanted like a cat’s, and an air of unyielding will about her. Her long hair was tied back into a ponytail, which added to the impression of being active that she gave off. If Sanae was the quiet, reserved one, she was definitely the loud, boisterous one. Plus, she looked like she played basketball or something.
“I don’t get what you see in that plain old guy, but if you like him that much, why not just tell him?”
“Eh...? Ah... I can’t... that... that would be way too embarrassing...”
She shook her head as the red hue on her cheeks deepened by another level, still gripping the strawman.
“...Just watching from here makes my heart feel like it’s about to burst...”
“’Kay,” answered the ponytail girl unenthusiastically, not sounding like she really cared much at all.
“...All I can do now... is possibly... use my feelings... and try to curse Senpai with all my might...”
“Why’re you cursing the guy you like?!”
“...T-That’s no good?”
“Of course not... probably.”
Silence, not quite a heavy silence, but also not a light one, fell between the two girls. The ponytailed classmate was the first to break the quiet:
“Well, why not just go ahead and stalk him, peep on him, or just kidnap him? I’m heading off, they’re showing Orbital Gear Grendam again at five.”
“...Ah, wait. Wait, Youko-chan. Ahh, don’t leave me alone. Ahhhhh, wait... If you don’t wait, I’ll... I’ll... I’ll curse you...”
“Quit it with the curses!!” The ponytailed girl, Youko, threw back over her shoulder as she walked briskly away, with Sanae trotting after her like a puppy running after its owner.
Well, as you can see above, Kyouhei was surrounded by people whose very existences sneered at such things as ‘normalcy’ and ‘peace,’ as well as Kyouhei’s modest wishes.
Yep, that’s just how things are.