The postbox in the fourth block was Sanae’s spot. Here she would wait for ‘him’ every morning. This was because her line of sight from the postbox allowed her to watch ‘him’ for a relatively long time on his way to school.
Of course, in an absolute sense, it was a mere three minutes and change. On top of that, ‘he’ probably didn’t even know that Sanae existed; it was a relationship that consisted solely of one-sided staring.
Even that small amount of time, regardless of it being as far from a chance meeting as it could be, was the highlight of her day.
The time was 7:50—soon ‘he’ would be coming.
Sanae felt her heart pound. Even the simple act of waiting in the shadow of the postbox made her feel like her heart would burst.
And then...
She breathed in sharply. ‘He’ had appeared, approaching from the horizon; a boy walking slowly up the road, a school bag hanging from his left hand.
He was a plain figure. Part of it was to do with the utterly unremarkable beige blazer that made up the school uniform, but many other factors came together to lend that impression to his appearance as a whole.
His hair was undyed, and not grown out. He had no piercings, rings, or similar accessories. He was decent-looking, but not to any great degree. The most someone could pick out as noteworthy about him was his sharp eyes and the glasses that seemed to conceal them.
And on top of that... he was practically the poster child for a ‘model high school student.’ He walked with his back straight and his uniform impeccable, not even a single button was undone on his shirt. Even the school bag he used was the one specified upon entering the school, which he had kept for all this time.
He’s wonderful , thought Sanae.
He was the average height for a male and had a relatively average physique, but all of those trivial normalities were special abnormalities to Sanae.
His name was Kyouhei Nanbu, the one and only senior that Sanae longed for.
“Ahh...” she let out, her heart racing with the suffocating pain. She’d fixed her gaze upon him so she wouldn’t miss even a single blink from his eyes.
And so, she noticed immediately.
Kyouhei was different than usual.
His grip on his bag was looser than usual, his hair was limper and less shiny. And on top of that, his glasses were 2.35 millimeters further down his face than usual...!
The things her scope-like eyes zoomed in on with the precision of a lovestruck girl were the clear signs of fatigue on his (in her opinion) beautiful, perfect face. His glasses made it hard to tell, but it looked like there were bags under his eyes.
“...Senpai...”
What on earth... had happened to Kyouhei? She wondered.
Her feelings grew conflicted, the worry made her unable to just stand there, but she didn’t dare to run over to him and ask what was wrong.
All she could do...
“...Senpai...” she murmured as she clutched at the strawman in her hand.
She didn’t have the courage to speak to him directly, so she would put all of her feelings into her nail.
“Send them to him...! My—”
“What are you trying to send?!”
Sanae felt a strike to the back of her head as she held the strawman to the postbox and hefted a wooden mallet.
“Ah, Youko-chan...” she said once she turned around.
“What’re you playing at with that strawman first thing in the morning?!”
This was one of Sanae’s few friends, Youko Minebe. She was essentially the exact opposite of Sanae, who spent most of her time in a shrine at night, or hiding in the shadows. Youko seemed energetic and open, much like a vivid landscape at dawn.
“Uh... err... umm... Senpai looked kind of tired... so I thought I could kinda curse him maybe... you know?” Sanae asked as her cheeks flushed red.
“Curse him?!”
“I... I shouldn’t...?”
“Of course you shouldn’t! That being a question at all is the scary thing about you.”
“But... when I think of Senpai, I can feel my heart squeezing... and I can’t breathe,” she said, putting her hand on her chest, “so I accidentally...”
“Accidentally... You accidentally made a strawman and hammered a nail into it?”
“You don’t, Youko-chan?” Sanae asked with upturned eyes.
Even though she was asking seriously, it was still wrong and bizarre.
“I don’t. I think most of the country doesn’t, either.”
“But, but, you know, you see it in magazines a lot. ‘You too can get the guy of your dreams with this!’”
“Those aren’t ‘curses,’ they’re ‘charms’!!”
Well, they were both magic.
“Anyway,” she continued, “curses are forbidden.”
“No... Youko-chan...” Tears welled up behind Sanae’s glasses. “That’s so mean...”
“Don’t you think cursing people is meaner?!”
“But it’s a longstanding tradition of Japan...”
“That kind of tradition needs to die out already!!” Youko cried out.
It was then that Kyouhei Nanbu passed by, sighing and still out of it.
“Nanbu-senpai,” Youko called to him, “Good morning.”
“...Huh? Ah, yeah, morning.”
Kyouhei had turned around at her greeting, but his expression was confused for a moment.
He was most likely trying to remember Youko and Sanae’s names, but of course, hadn’t memorized the names of a couple of girls who weren’t in the same year, class, or even club. They just happened to go to the same school.
“You’re...”
“I’m in first year, Youko Minebe. This is Sanae Murata.”
“Ah... right.”
His expression was clearly exhausted as he nodded.
“You look really tired for not even having gotten to school yet. Did something happen?” she asked.
“...Eh?” Kyouhei’s face, previously drooping with tiredness, suddenly stiffened as he spoke in a panic. “Ah... no! Not at all! Nothing happened! Everything’s completely, totally normal! Really!”
His words tried to gloss over it, but his expression told a different story.
“You just seem different than normal. Sanae-chan was worried and—”
“Y-Youko-chan!!”
Sanae’s face was bright red as she looked down bashfully.
Usually, this kind of situation would make someone realize that the girl might have an interest in them, but... Kyouhei was nearly at his wit’s end, and no such realization came to his mind, so he just shook his head.
“Ah, no, really, nothing happened! I’m fine, I’m fine, really!”
Then, with an unnaturally forced “See you,” Kyouhei quickly left them behind.
Sanae and Youko were just left standing by the postbox.
“See, you just ask what’s going on like that,” Youko told Sanae, turning to look at her.
The sight that greeted her was Sanae, still gripping the strawman, her eyes swimming with tears behind her circular lenses as she looked at one of her few friends, or more accurately, glared at her.
“...Youko-chan... you talked so much with Senpai... Not fair...”
“...What’s not fair, what?!” she cried out.