“Erika, why have you been avoiding me recently?”

Uh oh, he wasn’t whispering anymore.

Several heads turned in our direction. Even the teacher noticed our distraction and suddenly stopped in the middle of his lesson.

Erika was the one who seemed most concerned, quickly getting out of her seat and dragging Fern out of the lecture hall.

It had become too awkward for me to stay as well.

I guess I might as well follow them.

*

“Fern, it’s not that I don’t like you any more—”

“You’ve been hardly responding to my texts, you haven’t been hanging out with me even though I ask, and now you’re going to class with Akira… without even asking if I want to come. I just, I don’t know what I’m doing wrong…”

Pressed up against the wall, Erika looked up at Fern. I couldn’t really see his face that well from this angle, but he seemed to be feeling a mix of anger and betrayal. In the situation, it was pretty easy to guess his emotions anyway.

Romantic feelings can mess up your mind, at least from what I’ve heard.

Erika was the girl he liked, after all.

“I-it’s just that you’ve been really weird as well. You’ve been touching me a lot and you talk way less too! I don’t even know how to act around you any more!”

“What… what, no, that’s…”

She pushed him back a little and he didn’t fight back this time.

I guess they’re finally getting it together now. Although Erika still didn’t seem to be on the same page as him.

“You act so different, Fern… I don’t get it!”

I guess it’s hard to tell when someone likes you. It’s just a natural bias that people hold.

“I-I’m not that different. What am I supposed to do when you don’t invite me to places and stuff? I don’t have anyone else to hang out with!”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Erika’s expression dropped a little.

There was a moment of silence as the two of them stared at each other.

“…Erika, are we even friends still? I-I just want to be sure.”

“Of course we are! We’ll always be friends!”

“Okay…”

This felt somewhat manipulative.

Fern began to approach Erika, going into her personal space again.

“I will… it’s just that you seem to be really odd right now. I don’t know, it’s just uncomfortable.”

Suddenly, Erika glanced over at me.

Ah, maybe I really should say something.

Before I could open my mouth, Fern rushed over to me. He was always a little emotionally unstable, whether that was just immaturity or something else, I didn’t know.

“I didn’t know that you and Erika were so close. Why didn’t you tell me about this, Akira?”

Sigh.

“We only hung out yesterday and today.”

“You hung out yesterday as well? What else, you guys sleep together too?”

From the tone he just said that in, it really made me contemplate letting Sumire sleep in my room all the time. That definitely wasn’t a normal thing people just do.

Although I guess it didn’t affect me that much, Sumire wasn’t exactly a normal person either.

Regardless, this whole situation was getting a bit annoying.

“That’s all. I’ll invite you next time if you want.”

He turned back to Erika.

“So, what are we doing today then? Where are we going to hang out?”

She looked up at him.

“Well, we were just at the maths class. We were going to listen to that before you just barged in. That was a really rude thing to do, Fern.”

His face contorted.

His emotions were really getting to him.

I quickly grabbed him and pulled him back a little.

Letting them sort it out by themselves was taking too long.

He went limp without much of a fight.

I looked at Erika. She seemed to have been staring at me for a while.

“I’m just going to give this to you straight before anything else happens. Fern likes you, romantically.”

She seemed really taken aback. Her face was wide with shock before she quickly covered her mouth with her hand.

Everyone was frozen. That was nice for a change.

I wasn’t sure if interfering like this was the best idea, but it didn’t matter now. This was going to happen inevitably, even if I didn’t bring it up right now, they would’ve figured it out sooner or later.

But still, for a normal person, would this be the right thing to do?

I guess I wouldn’t know.

I let go of Fern.

“What the… Akira, why did you tell her?!”

Anxiously, she looked at Fern.

“You… like me? Is that true?”

He didn’t respond.

I guess that was as good as an answer.

They can sort out their situation now.

Fern glared at me.

“Why did you say that? Akira, why?!”

“You were going to make a bad decision at this rate. She’s better off knowing, anyway.”

“Are you trying to ruin our childhood friend…ship?”

“It’s not ruined, it’s just changed. It wasn’t going to last with your feelings being in there. It's better this way.”

He was still angry.

“But how would you know! Now stuff is going to be awkward between us! How will we hang out like we used to?”

“Who knows.”

“What do you mean ‘who knows’? You caused this, you have to do something…” his voice strained.

“Alright. Go talk to her now. That’s what to do.”

Erika was silently looking at us, still holding her face in shock—and embarrassment now.

I pulled Fern off of my body and let him cool down. Both of their emotions were starting to boil over and leak everywhere.

Nothing was going to happen until both of them calmed down.

I might go back to my room now.