Chapter 7: A Strategic Retreat? (Yukiya’s Point of View)
In the hallway in front of the classroom, I pressed my fingers to the corners of my eyes.
I made eye contact with Kanae. Kanae spoke to me. Kanae lent me her towel. Kanae smelled nice…
With just those few minutes of events, my motivation, which had sunk under the weight of being rejected and worrying about what to do next, recovered. Ever since then, I haven’t been able to stop imagining, “Maybe I still have a shot?”
No, no. That’s not it. Kanae likes Souta. Even if I was rejected, Kanae is someone important to me. There’s no way I can interfere with her love life.
I sternly reminded myself of that.
…And yet, I’ve been stuck repeating it over and over.
To calm myself down, I decided to look around the hallway. Students who must’ve just arrived were hurrying into their classrooms. It looked like morning homeroom was getting close.
“Phew… anyway, I need to pull myself together…”
Unfortunately, I’m someone who was clearly rejected yesterday. Even if a time ever comes when I confess again, for now I should put some time and distance between us.
I regained my composure and returned to the classroom.
Most of my classmates were already seated. I should hurry and sit down too… just as I thought that, I ended up locking eyes with Kanae, who was sitting far away.
She’s looking at me too, right…?
At this point, it was more confusing than happy. Between her lending me the towel earlier and this, what kind of flow was this supposed to be? Was it really a chance, or was she just being considerate because things were awkward…?
And then, without knowing anything about my confusion, Kanae suddenly gave me a small wave.
“Ngh!?”
A weird sound slipped out of me.
Kanae, shyly waving her hand, was just too cute. I felt like pressing my fingers to my eyes again.
B-but what do I do? Is it okay to wave back? Souta’s right near her too… I mean, why did she suddenly wave in the first place? D-does this mean Kanae also…
While I was flustered by the unexpected situation, I could see Kanae’s expression drooping more and more as she kept waving from afar.
She looked sad and dejected, like she was overthinking things… crap!
I hurriedly waved back. This wasn’t the time to be nitpicky. Kanae looked sad. I had to cheer her up no matter what.
Kanae noticed, and her face instantly blossomed into a bright smile as she waved back energetically.
Seeing that, I seriously started thinking things like, the confession was no good, but maybe she’d say yes to a proposal… I want to marry Kanae.
Our mutual hand waving kept going until the teacher came in and scolded us.
And then lunchtime came, and I was stuck worrying.
Today, just like this morning, I kept making eye contact with Kanae even during class.
“I did get rejected, right…?”
I was honestly at the point of doubting it.
Because today, whenever I tried to avoid Kanae according to plan and escape somewhere during breaks, she came over like she was trying to stop me and timidly started up pretty trivial conversations.
“Um… Yuki-kun… earlier, when we were waving at each other, we got scolded together, didn’t we…?”
“Eh… ah, uh, y-yeah! W-we got scolded! We sure did!”
Or,
“Um… Yuki-kun, it sounds like it’s going to rain tonight…?”
“Huh?… o-oh! Really? Then we can’t leave the laundry out… a-ahaha!”
Or,
“Yuki-kun! W-where are you going…?”
“I’m just going to the bathroom, that’s all…”
This was how it’d been the entire morning break.
On top of that, after a few words we’d both get awkward, the conversation would die, and Kanae’s ears peeking out from her hair would be clearly red. Every time, I ended up misunderstanding things…
Unable to bear that atmosphere, the moment lunch break started, I stood up and fled to the soccer club room.
“But seriously, what’s Kanae thinking?”
Why was she getting so involved with me… I should just ask her directly, but my lack of courage made me feel pathetic and disgusted with myself.
Just a little while ago, pointless optimistic fantasies like “Maybe I still have a chance?” or “What if Kanae actually likes me too?” had been floating around in my head. Now that I was quietly eating my lunch alone in the empty club room, my thoughts sank in a negative direction instead.
Thinking about it calmly, the reason Kanae kept interacting with me today was probably because things were awkward after yesterday’s confession, and because she was being considerate toward me as her childhood friend, at least in her own way.
Even this lunch might’ve gone by without her talking to me at all if I hadn’t run off to the club room.
Normally at lunchtime, it was always me who went over to Kanae and Souta, and that’s how we ended up eating together. Kanae almost never came to me or invited me herself…
When I thought about that, it really did feel like I never had a chance, and maybe I’d actually been pretty in the way when I kept showing up during Kanae and Souta’s lunch time.
Ah, this was bad. Once I thought that, I seriously started feeling depressed. What kind of guy was I, getting carried away with optimistic fantasies right up until now…
I clutched my head and writhed in embarrassment.
With my emotions swinging up and down like this, I realized all over again how unsteady I was, and I also noticed that I hadn’t managed to put my original plan of “keeping some distance from Kanae” into practice at all.
“Ahh, my willpower’s way too weak…”
No matter how much Kanae came to me, or how cute and kind she was, or how nice she smelled, I couldn’t keep acting lovestruck forever.
For now, I needed to take even a little bit of distance…
If possible, before I got another chance to confess to Kanae again someday, I wanted to erase even a little of the image that’d taken root between us of “confession equals failure” and “confession equals rejection.”
And even though it tore me up inside, I did want Kanae’s love to work out, in its own way.
“I can’t get in Kanae’s way.”
Just imagining Kanae and Souta starting to date made my chest tighten painfully.
In a gloomy mood, I let out a heavy sigh and decided to head back to my classroom.
If I went back now, I should be able to slip in just as fifth period was about to start…