As we looked at each other with our lost composure, we drew closer to each other, slowly moving our faces closer and we reduced the distance between our lips and were about to kiss…
Yeah like hell that would happen. As soon as we looked back at each other from the same 5 feet distance, our love-filled eyes which were giving comfortable warmth in an instant turned to ice-cold glares throwing daggers and giving the aura of two centipedes trying to devour each other, truly a terrifying sight...
“We should stop, doing this isn’t going to get us anywhere.”
She let out a sigh, and this time too her tone was charming one but it felt like it was more on the emotionless side.
“It would be better, if we just show our ‘true selves’ instead of the fake one.”
“It depends on your definition of ‘True’.” I replied in a harsh voice.
Well now after saying that, I guess it was a mistake to have said that in such a cold way but if she is asking for true-self of mine, this is it.
“The way you just replied that is your true self. But I guess you are too dumb to realize it.”
Jinx, she saw right through me. Heyyy wait a minute weren’t the last words unnecessary?
“What a waste of such beautiful face, with that face such cold words don’t go along.”
“You again switched to your fake side.”
“Tch… so what do you want from me? Why go through the trouble of trying to find me?”
“I-I didn’t do anything of that sort, I was just…umm…passing by… Yes! I was passing by from nearby.”
I can’t help it but gave out a smile on my face, she looks too cute while embarrassed when you see right through her lie, it’s totally obvious she isn’t confident in it herself. At the very least, I don’t act like that after getting caught.
“You just thought see looks too cute while embarrassed when you see right through her lie, didn’t you?”
“N-NO, OF COURSE I DIDN’T, WHY WOULD I? AM I A CHILD TO YOU TO THINK THAT?”
WITHOUT A SINGLE BIT OF DOUBT, SHE SAW RIGHT THROUGH ME! I could feel blood rushing through my cheeks to ears, I’m now in the same condition as she was and on top of that I gave away little trembling feet motions for a moment there just like an embarrassed child does.
She was about to say something, but I was just right in time, I managed in succeeding interrupted her.
“What is it that you wanted from me?”
I spurted out these words in a rush with the reason so that she won’t be able to say a single word, the thought terrifies me to death that maybe she was about to say everything going in my mind again. I saved my dignity.
“Well no need to say anything in a rush but you did save your dignity just now.” She gave a small wink at me.
I bent over at my knees symbolising a defeated man who just lost all of his life’s reason to live.
“Well don’t worry I won’t kill you from shame. I want you to help me.”
She again saw though me. How many times is it going to happen?
“What help do you want from a person you just 6 seconds ago merciless killed with shame?”
She was again giving the flustered expression maybe she isn’t good at asking for help.
“Umm… you see… since your class is full of normies [1]… I want you… to umm… keep me…”
As she was finishing her voice decreashed due to which at the end her voice was almost inaudible, and because of that I misunderstood it for a quite perverted scene for a second there, but it without a doubt was only my imagining.
“What did you say at the last again? Sorry but you were speaking to low so your voice didn’t reach me.”
She motioned as if mustering up the courage to speak again.
“I want you to be with me all the time at school.”
Why did she have to say it in a way like it’s a big deal, if she wanted to me to keep her company it wasn’t necessary to gather courage like she was asking me on a date.
“But why me? You could have chosen someone else.” For now, I asked the topic which perceived much more importance in my mind than other things.
“I told you, they are not worthy of being with someone such as myself, all they do is talk nonsense all day long.”
She is arrogant and full of pride; that was the impression she gave me by saying it that way.
“Are you not troubled by the rumours that would start going around?”
“What kind of rumours?” she tilted her head as an innocent child when they heard something completely unknown to their existence.
“You know… the kind of stuff these normies talk about that… that we maybe… maybe are…”
This time it was my voice going to the stage of being inaudible.
“Sorry, what?”
“I said they might… think we are a couple…”
I thought she might have had quite a number of experiences of with boyfriends and all, but when I said it she was frozen solid from shock and unexpectedly like when volcano erupts, many emotions erupted out of which the most predominant one was her cute blushing.
“Are you okay with that?”
Since she was not speaking and hiding her face by looking down I thought I should better ask to keep the conversation flowing instead of carrying on that awkward silence.
“O-Of cou-course I’m o-oka-okay, you know I-I had ma-many boy-boyfriends!”
“THAT’S A CRYSTAL CLEAR LIE!!!”
I took a deep sigh, it’s now clear that she is pure angle and I absolutely can’t ask her for somethings which included to do a task which might include boys so now I have to take the blame upon myself and have to take the job of the fallen [2].
“Ok, so… umm… I will come up with an excuse to tell teacher so that I can sit next to you, is that okay with you?”
“Why do you have to ask teach for that? I thought we can sit wherever we want.”
“That would have been the case if it was the matter of same gender but since you are a girl shit-chat would take no longer than a fragment of nanosecond the moment I would approach you. So I will have to first find a believable excuse.”
“THANK YOU!!!” from her voice it was obvious that she was over the moon [3]. And in it she held my hand from both her hands.
Her hands were soft and warm; her grip was a little tight like she was actually waiting to hold hands, and as a result it made my heart beat faster, my cheeks turned red, my blood was racing in my veins yet it was so calming and settling, it soothed my heart and mind to pure comfort and peacefulness.
“Ok then maybe you should head home. See you tomorrow, I will tell you my plan tomorrow in school.”
When I finished I could see her eyes sparkling like a small child will when he lays his sight on a new toy. I could even feel little ‘bouncing’ movements she was doing; it didn’t feel like a big deal to me, I just had to keep her company but it might have meant a lot to her.
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“Ok then… bye and again thank you.”
The very moment she asked me for this ‘favour’ of hers’ I had a bad feeling about this, but my feelings won’t let my wind to think straight… I was downright fascinated from everything about her… beauty of her appearance, way of talking, sweet melodious voice, her innocence and how adorable she looks whenever she got flustered whenever it comes to ‘sensitive’ talk.
My heart was running a marathon and feeling relief and fully relaxed at the same time, it was indeed a quite difficult situation for me to explain, and certainly it turned out I was unable to even ask ‘why’ should I do it, how would it even be profitable for me.
Don’t take this in a wrong way but it was without a doubt important for me; I was endangering all the admiration I have earned and my fake persona that I had built, if it went wrong rumours can go being as bad as making me a play-boy.
Well that aside now I’m back at my home, making dinner; I hate to admit it but I have to always eat something with lots of protein and vegetables to keep my body fit and appealing, even if I want to I can’t enjoy delicious food with too much calories like deep fried chicken or a cakes to my heart’s content.
I ate a full course vegetable meal for today’s dinner, I’m also quite well-versed in cooking too it is essential to learn to become a good cook to please women’s heart, who could even think all of this is coming from a 15-year-old teenager.
Anyways after I finished with dinner, I washed the dishes there were only a few of them since I’m the only one living here. After that I took a bath and brushed my teeth.
Exhausted and only running on last bits of energy, I went ahead and did the most hated task which every single student hates to the uttermost extent… homework.
It is really anger-boiling task to do after you have already spent so much of your energy and it’s even more exasperating thing to do for me when it Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, not so much on Saturdays’ since it’s a non-working day and not have to worry about school, only have to do my part-time jobs.
Aannndddd… now my mind making excuse with the name of work to avoid doing this painful task. And then it crossed my mind… I totally forgot about one more thing from my daily routine, I didn’t practiced illustrations today. I can’t no matter what postpone it to some other time.
I took a deep breath and after cursing myself for keep chatting with her for so long, I rushed as fast as I can to finish my homework.
“Ah! Finaalllyyyy” I stretched out my body to squeeze out all the pain and fatigue from my worn-out body.
“Ok now time for the last task of the day~… muaahhh…” the lack of sleep is showing all over my face, after this big, wild animal like yawn I got up from my normal desk and arranged all the necessary things for the next day and after doing so, connected my digital tablet to my pc and started my work.
As I was lacking time I hastily yet skilfully started to make the draft sketches, I moved my pen, and the cursor moved in complete sync with it. I drew the draft sketches of a girl under moonlight standing beneath cherry blossom with hands behind her back and a cute smile full of life on her face, long hair and glittering eyes.
Yeah, my drawing was of Itsumi-san, the plus side of chatting with her was during the time I got to capture some of the beauty of her, my drawing was not representing the true beauty of her like how we can only get glimpse of the fragments of beautiful nature yet we can’t fully embrace its true magnificence within only one lifetime…
I finished my drafting within 2 hours and somehow able to make it before 12 o’clock, now totally deprived of my energy reserves I slithered onto the bed not as a human being but in the form of a snail and the next second before I knew it, I fell asleep…
Next Morning
“BEEP-BEEP…BEEP-BEEP…BEEP-BEEP~”
I woke up to the ear-piercing sound of the alarm clock, for some reason I’m getting the feeling the alarm was ringing since quite a while… I turned around on the bed to get a little more comfortable with my position and by the time I noticed I was already on the edge, before I could’ve even gotten the time to stop myself…
“THUD!!!” I hit the floor with a nerve-wrecking impact and the first thing in the morning I got was a great experience of bone-breaking pain right at my nose (it didn’t break don’t worry).
“OUCH!!!” I grabbed my nose and after 30 seconds or so of rolling on the ground with agony got up since now I was fully awake, I checked at the clock and got another tremendous shock.
“15 MINUTES!!! ONLY 15 MINUTES ARE REMAINING BEFORE SCHOOL STARTS!!!” as I was yelling, it gave me another shock… it slowly and mockingly turned to 14 minutes remaining…
“HOLY FUCKING SHIITTT!!!” I rushed to get ready since it takes 5 minutes or so to reach school while walking, I think I can cut it short to 2 minutes if I run. But still, I have to get ready for other things. I hurried up took a bath within 3 minutes, brushed my teeth in 2, did other important things (You already know what I mean~) in 4 minutes then wore my uniform made my hair in the 2 minutes (yeah, I have to do that every day, hairdryer and all) and in the last 2 minutes made a sandwich with eggs and veggies and rushed out still holding the sandwich in my mouth.
Locked the door, and there goes your Olympic athlete going for his gold medal along with his faithful companion Mr. Sauce-less Sandwich…
“I knew I was forgetting somethings well anyway… Thank You for the Meal…” And there goes Mr. Sauce-less, he was betrayed by his own friend. Truly a short, full of haste and a tragic life… Rest in Peace in my stomach until my acids [4] melt you.
And along this drama ongoing I reached the school just in time, its 15 minutes before our homeroom starts but our watchman doesn’t let us in, he closes the gates before the school time maybe it was principal’s idea so that all students learn the importance of time in their lives or some other bullshit crap, so even if we got just a second late they won’t let us in, what a cruel guy.
I slowly walked to my classroom while wiping my sweet of and taking deep breathes to get my breathing under control and remove any other signs that can indicate that I ran. I course I can go without doing any of these things but they would start questioning why was I late and other things and slowly will start making their own theories like I was out with a girl till late night or I’m a closet otaku that watches anime till late night or something, and of course that would also affect my perfect life so I can’t afford to let those things happen.
After arriving right in front of the class I just remembered another thing… I DIDN’T THINK OF A WAY TO GET NEXT TO ITSUMI-SAN!
I took a deep sigh, now what’s done is done; I have to think of something on the spot…
“Today’s not a good day for me.” I muttered and opened the door.
There she was standing right in front of me, she had the look of worry and it turned into relief the next second, it was clear that she was waiting was for me and behind her I saw other classmates chatting in groups and standing around but from the corner of their eyes they were looking at us boys staring in utter envy and girls staring with little jealously on their faces.
But oh well, this time I am Not going for the higher opinion of the majority, I don’t care this time if they will think in a harmful way about me that can affect my persona, I don’t care if their overall opinion about me goes down to zero… but right now I just want this one person, the one standing right in front of me, even if I gain just one point in relationship with her I would still want to be with her, if I have to give away million points of everyone just for one point of this person… I will take it without a doubt…
When I came to back to full consciousness, I noticed her… blushing…
OH SHIT, I forgot that she can read my mind as clear as day, I slammed my face with my palm in disappointment in myself about how stupid I can be, letting my emotions runs wild like that even if it’s still in my mind shouldn’t had done it.
I heard chuckling from nearby sure enough she read that too. I suggested that we go back to our seats and talk about ‘the way’ just by mind-reading and hand signs and as few words as possible. It’s not like telepathy so it’s not accurate but it just depends how efficiently you can understand the other person, and if you ask me she is reading me like a book that she wrote herself.
We set back at our seats and when the suspicious staring stopped and everything was back to normal, we started to discuss our plan.
“So, did you thought of anything?”
“Sorry I wasn’t able to…” she gave a disappointed look, maybe she truly had held expectations from me.
“That’s too bad…”
Now I’m starting to feel bad for her. Then the light bulb lit up.
“Hey I just thought up of a really good way, but we will have to wait till tomorrow for it.”
“That’s brilliant!” her eyes lit up again. “Waiting till tomorrow wouldn’t be a problem, but if it’s ok to ask… why till tomorrow?”
“Well someone was worried a lot and couldn’t just sit still for the one they were waiting for… and as a consequence, everyone grew suspicious.” I felt sorry, shouldn’t have used such sarcastic way.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t had done that, I got uneasy about thinking that you won’t come today.”
“I’m…sorry, should have thought about your feelings too before saying that…”
We became awkwardly silent for a while.
“Well umm… so about the plan…”
“Yes!” she said in the same manner as Chitanda Eru from Hyouka [5]. It was really cute when she did it that way. But I don’t get it why did she get so excited?
“So…umm…it actually a child’s excuse but our chance of succeeding is quite high. Tomorrow we would ask the teacher too change our seats and we will give the reason that we can’t see the board properly due to low eyesight. It would be easy for both of us since-”
“Since I’m new in this class and no one knows about me too extensively so they will believe easily if I told them that I have weak eyesight.”
She is quite sharp, she accurately said everything that I was about to say, as expected of her.
“But what about you? How would you convince them for your part? Considering that you gave the suggestion about eyesight and you have been in this class since quite a long time… wait I know that means-”
“Yeah I have weak eyesight in reality and everybody knows that already so that won’t object it. And if we both ask together, our class teacher is quite a lazy guy so he would like to save energy and avoid trying too much to look for seats and hence would make us sit together. It would have been a different case if it would have been someone else but he is just that sort of guy; we are quite lucky with that.”
“Well it’s true that a lazy person would do something like that but since I don’t know the teacher too well I’m not in the place to say anything. This is quite a straightforward and childish plan if you ask me, but let’s go with it.”
Ouch that hurts, it’s not that I gave it a lot a thought, I just wanted to save the effort myself so I instead went with half-truth instead of a full-fledged made-up story.
But if I truly wanted I could’ve just said no to her yesterday itself, but I couldn’t. Since I…no I mean we were incapable to come over our feelings that We Both Wanted to Be with Each Other.
Translations & Notes
1. Normal people but in this case it referred to people who were dumbfounded and would follow anyone without considering about the truth about a person or those who acted as sheep and would follow everyone else.
2. Fallen angels from mythologies who sinned and were cast out of heaven because they rebelled against God to fulfil their own desires.
3.
4. Hydrochloric acid of stomach which helps in digesting food.
5. Hyouka, an anime, manga and light novel series, in the mystery genre.