“I need to talk to you. Alone,” Gentrei ordered.

She stopped me from entering the cafeteria, with a stony face. Her scowl scared me. Of course, I followed her to whatever secluded place she would bring me to. While I knew she could be fierce, I doubted she would kill me in private. Gentrei seemed more the type to kill me on the spot.

“I need your help,” Gentrei told me.

I remembered Gentrei did this before, back when we were both struggling in the writing contest. After our one bonding moment there, I should have guessed she needed something again. This time, I decided to be a little more open to her, to respect Harry’s closeness with her.

“All right, what do you need?” I asked, as we stopped in a deserted hallway.

“...It’s…about Harry, kind of,” Gentrei explained, “you better not tell Harry about this, you got it?”

“Well, sure,” I promised half-heartedly, wanting to hear what she needed, “what is it about Harry?”

“One of my friends…Injaius, he just…confessed to me,” Gentrei revealed.

“What!?” I reacted, “Really? Just a day after you guys revealed your relationship to me?! You’re not cheating on Harry, are you…”

“No way!” Gentrei shouted, before remembering to quiet down, “I just…I don’t know what to say…I don’t want him to feel bad, and…”

“You could just tell him, right?” I suggested, “he’d probably understand. I remember Injaius being a nice guy…”

“It’s not that simple!” Gentrei argued, “it’s because he’s a nice guy that I can’t say what I want!”

It is that simple though…

“What does Harry think?” I asked.

“I just said not to tell Harry! What makes you think I told him?!” Gentrei shouted again.

“Gentrei…I think you need to just calm down first,” I suggested.

“I am calm!” she denied in the least calm way possible.

She clasped her head in her hands and dropped to the floor while leaning on the wall. I couldn’t imagine Gentrei having trapped herself by being too considerate for others, yet here she was. Apparently she wasn’t as blunt as I thought she was. I guess her gaze wasn’t the only sharp part of her.

“I don’t know if I can show my face in the cafeteria like this…” Gentrei whined.

“It seriously can’t be that complicated,” I muttered to myself, “Fine, you want to eat here then?”

“Eat here?” Gentrei looked up from the ground.

“Yeah, I can go get you food from the cafeteria, if you really don’t want to look at Injaius or Harry,” I offered her.

“...That would be nice,” Gentrei accepted, and decided to sit where she was.

Now with a mission, I had to get food for Gentrei as she hid from the rest of the world. By the rest of the world, I mean the two people who apparently were rocking the world for her.

----------------------------------------

“I would like two servings of everything,” I told the lunch lady, after a long wait in line.

As luck would have it, I didn’t have to worry about Gentrei and her friends cutting in front of me. At this point, I didn’t have to worry about Gentrei pulling mean antics at all. I had Harry to thank for that. If it weren’t for him, I was sure I would only see Gentrei as some bully.

“Thank you,” I told the lunch lady before departing.

As I weaved through the crowds and tables in the cafeteria, I ended up coming across Injaius. In-Just my luck. He seemed to have been walking around the lunchroom for a while.

“Hey, you’re one of Gentrei’s other friends, right?” He asked, “Have you seen her?”

Apparently, he knew just the question to ask, and the one I didn’t want to have to answer. I thought about revealing Gentrei’s feelings to him, but I decided against doing so. Instead, I decided to try and get him to stop looking for her.

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“I have. She’s a bit busy though,” I told him, “she should come find you later, I think.”

“Oh, thanks,” he said, and he began walking to the table with all of Gentrei's other friends. I still couldn’t put a name to their faces, except for Injaius.

Sighing with relief, I continued my way to exit the lunchroom, only to come across Harry. I felt like some kind of character in a story being subjected to encounter after encounter. Then again, I only had two so far, if I didn’t count Gentrei.

Harry waved to me from the table he was sitting at, signaling to me to come to him. I decided to at least say something, so as not to be rude.

“I gotta go somewhere,” I told him, “I got some things to do.”

“Oh,” he replied, as he stopped signaling, “Well, have you seen Gentrei? I haven’t seen her for a while now.”

“She’s busy,” I repeated, “you should see her later.”

Without elaborating any further, I waddled out the lunchroom with my two trays of food. That was when I had a third encounter. Hurrying out of the cafeteria, I almost bumped into Iter, my replacement writing tutor.

“Woah, where are you going with those trays?” he asked, “got someone to meet?”

“What! How did you know!?” I asked, shocked.

“Well,” Iter glanced at the two trays and back at me, “I didn’t.”

“Oh…” I remembered I carried two servings of food with me, “right.”

“Who’re you serving that food to?” He asked, “Someone special?”

“Special?” I tried to think if the word applied to Gentrei, “I guess?”

“I see…” Iter pondered for a bit, “all right, enjoy your lunch with her.”

“Of course,” I parted ways with him.

Wait, how did he guess I was meeting a girl?

…Oh well.

----------------------------------------

“I brought your food,” I announced, as I gave the tray of food to Gentrei, “I hope you like the selection.”

“...It’s okay,” she responded, and took the food, “...thanks.”

“You were stressing enough,” I replied, and I sat down across from her, “

We both silently dug into our food, never really looking directly at each other. Actually, I just know I didn’t, since I never really looked at her. I wasn’t very comfortable with her, despite having eaten with her various times with Harry, and only one time with Itra.

Suddenly breaking the silence, Gentrei commented, “You’re pretty okay, for a wimp.”

“A wimp!?” I reacted, “after I went all the way out there to get you food just because you were too scared to be looked at by Harry or Injaius?”

“That’s what makes you pretty okay,” she replied, “It’s every other time that you’re a wimp.”

“How mean…” I grumbled before I continued eating.

“...Why help me now, if Harry didn’t ask you to?” Gentrei asked.

“Huh? When did Harry ask me to help you?” I questioned, after her question confused me.

“Back when you and your friend helped me…with my story,” Gentrei reminded, “you said Harry wanted you to help me.”

“Oh, yeah,” I recalled my white lie, “I guess I did say that.”

“What do you mean?” Gentrei cocked her head to the side.

“I mean,” I decided to come clean, “Harry didn’t tell me, he was absent, remember?”

Gentrei didn’t give an answer back. I expected something to be said after I finished a couple more bites of my food, but I only heard silence. A little worried, I turned my head back up, only to find her staring.

“Woah!” I reacted, jumping back a little.

“...Yeah, you’re definitely a wimp,” she stated, before she turned to her food to eat.

I couldn’t rebuke her claim. I decided to turn to my food as well.

“You still didn’t answer my question earlier,” she said, grabbing my attention.

“Oh, right…”

“This time,” Gentrei added, “Why did you help me at all? Both times?”

“I just thought you were a little more human than I gave you credit for,” I answered, “you were in a state where you couldn’t exactly be left alone…I kind of saw how Harry was able to be so considerate to you, you know?”

Gentrei had another moment of silence. This time, I didn’t wait to look at her.

“...Thank you,” Gentrei said, before standing up with an empty tray, “I think I have enough courage to go and face Harry and Injaius now.”

“Of course,” I responded, and added, “Wait, Gentrei.”

She stopped from leaving and turned back to me. “What?”

“Are we…friends?” I asked, never really knowing if she was just a visitor from another table, a bully, or not.

“...I don’t think that would be so bad,” Gentrei answered, “I’ll see you later, friend.”

I watched as she walked to the cafeteria, as her figure began to shrink as she grew further and further away.

Then, I remembered that I needed to go to the cafeteria to return my tray.

“Wait! Gentrei, I’m coming too!” I called out for her and caught up with her.

We walked the rest of the way to the cafeteria together.