Hasumi Kana’s Side
I—Hasumi Kana—was sitting cross-legged on my bed, hugging a pillow tightly.
I’d already taken a bath, dried my hair, and changed into my pajamas.
With my face buried in the pillow on my lap, I replayed the events of my walk home earlier today.
“Hasumi-san, is everything okay? Are you in trouble?”
The boy who sat next to me in class—Oda Shuhei—had appeared out of nowhere and rescued me from those persistent blond delinquents who were hitting on me.
While everyone else ignored the situation and hurried past, Shuhei-kun was the only one who stepped in to help me, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Shuhei-kun was a little intimidating when he was arguing with the delinquents, but afterward, he spoke to me with such a kind and gentle smile.
“He feels so different from before. To be honest, I don’t even really remember what he was like before summer break… But didn’t he say he had a change of heart over the summer? Now, he speaks so confidently, and he even volunteered to be the class rep—a role no one else wanted. Can a boy really change this much in just one month?”
If you haven’t seen a man in three days, look at him with fresh eyes.
That famous line from my favorite Romance of the Three Kingdoms came to mind.
At the same time, I realized there was this faint, fuzzy feeling in my heart—something that made me feel warm and a little flustered.
We even exchanged LINE contacts, and now we’re calling each other Hasumin and Shuhei-kun.
“And then he casually said, ‘Kana, huh? That’s a beautiful name.’ He really said that. He actually said it! He said it!!”
(He said it’s a beautiful name… Haha, a beautiful name…)
“Shuhei-kun…”
Just saying his name filled me with an inexplicable joy—so much that I didn’t even know what to do with myself.
“Maybe I should send him a message? I mean, he helped me, so it wouldn’t be weird to thank him again, right? Yeah, thanking him isn’t strange at all.”
I reached for my phone, which was lying next to my bed—
But then I remembered what he’d said,
“Sure, but… me? I mean, even if we exchange contacts, I doubt you’d have much reason to reach out to me.”
The way he said it made me feel like he was indirectly saying, We’re not close enough to be messaging each other, are we?
“Hmm… Now that I think about it, today was technically the first time we really talked, even though it’s already the second semester. Messaging him tonight might just come off as annoying…”
Besides, Shuhei-kun hasn’t contacted me either.
Which means, to him, I’m probably not that important of a person.
He just happened to be passing by and decided to help—that’s all.
“Yeah, that’s right. I should wait until we’ve gotten to know each other better before doing something like this.”
With that conclusion, I flopped onto my bed.
I stretched out with a big yawn.
“Alexa, turn off the lights.”
As soon as the room went dark, a wave of drowsiness washed over me.
With Shuhei-kun’s smile lingering in my mind, I drifted off to sleep, wrapped in a warm, fuzzy feeling.