“Huff… huff!”
I passed by a girl from Class 3 who stopped and sat on the grass after 5 laps. She was breathing roughly and she might even collapse if not for the water someone gave her.
Well, unlike what I guessed, we’re not running, we’re just walking. How could someone be so tired from that?
I don’t know. Don’t ask me.
The teacher decided our PE class for today to be like this. Now we’re like zombies walking round and round the track.
Err… It’s proven a bit effective to increase our endurance. We were told to walk around the running track for 20 laps. Everyone has to finish that or else, the content of the next PE class will be the same.
“Onoda. Do you think everyone could finish 20 laps?”
Sakuma asked me. He was following behind but it seems after 5 laps, he’s also starting to get tired.
You’re an athlete. Why do you look tired already?
Well, even if walking is something we do everyday, doing a long-distance walk was proven to be tiring especially if you factor the heat of the sun and the state of one’s body. Usually, you should bring a bottle of water to keep yourself hydrated. But we were only allowed to drink after 5 laps. That girl I passed by stood up again after drinking water.
“Maybe? We have less than 2 hours. One could finish walking 20 laps around this track in more or less an hour.”
Those like us who exercise regularly could easily do it but it might be a bit harder to those indoor types. Especially Aya. I saw her lagging behind among those like her with low stamina. She was initially ahead of us. But because of her slow walking pace, I already passed by her. I slowed down for a bit and gave her encouragement saying I’ll spend time with her later when I visit the Book Club. That energized her and made her more eager to finish the 20 laps.
Remembering Aya, I looked back and saw that Satsuki was now walking with her.
Satsuki can finish 20 laps easily so she’s slowing down for Aya’s sake. That girl can be quite considerate despite her foul mouth. Looking at them together, I’m glad I made Aya open up even to her.
Sakuma also looked back to follow my gaze. When he saw the two girls, he turned to me and suggested something.
“Why don’t we slow down? Let’s wait for them.”
Wait for Satsuki, you mean?
Ah. Well, I guess that’s good too, even Nami and her friends were clustered together. The teacher didn’t mind it as long as they kept their pace the same when they group up. I should’ve done this before when we passed by her earlier.
Well, I didn’t know that it was allowed.
“Alright. Rindou looks like she needed more encouragement from us.”
His suggestion is also good for me. Aya will be more satisfied with this.
Satsuki told me that Aya was almost always alone back in Middle School. She also didn’t get the chance to talk to her because Aya thought of her as someone scary.
Now in High School, she finally has us as her group of friends.
This group of friends might be twisted from the inside though but in normal people’s eyes, we’re just a normal group of friends, like Nami’s and Ogawa’s.
“Man, why don’t you date Rindou? You two will look good together.”
Here he goes again. This guy. Aya is already mine, I don’t need to confess and start dating her.
“I’m already satisfied with what we have right now, you know? The problem here is you, do you remember what I told you yesterday?”
I brushed off his pestering again and turned the arrow back to him.
I’ll constantly remind him like this so that he wouldn’t forget about Satsuki’s sister. This way he might not be just confused but also start leaning towards her.
“… That thing about her sister, can you not tell her about it?”
Sakuma wore another complicated face. Ah. This must be why he looked tired already. He kept thinking about it yesterday that he didn’t get enough sleep.
“Alright. Don’t worry.”
I already told Satsuki about it, you know? You’re late at reminding me.
Following his suggestion, we slowed down our pace and waited for the two to catch up to us.
Aya’s eyes glimmered when she saw me wait for them and her lips turned into a smile.
My schedule was slowly opening up now that I stopped acquiring new targets. I wonder, when can I take her home?
I really want Aya, her erotic face from that day was still fresh to me. I want to see that again.
She already resolved herself for that so I shouldn’t let her wait for long.
Ah. I decided.
Next week, I’ll make time for her. For us to be alone it’s either my house or a hotel. I want it to be somewhere where she can be comfortable and at ease so I’ll ask for her opinion when the time comes.
I went to Aya’s free left side, Sakuma will be suspicious again if I chose Satsuki’s right.
Satsuki didn’t mind it or she just doesn’t want to voice out any objection, it’s not like she wanted me to act as her boyfriend. We’re always closer than this to each other whenever we’re alone.
When it’s Sakuma’s turn to choose, he also didn’t take Satsuki’s right and instead settled on my left side.
This guy, are you and Ogawa related? Or is it because of how confused you are right now that you forget to openly show your affection to her again?
Ah well, he’s a bit better than Ogawa at least.
“Idiot.”
Satsuki muttered when she saw that Sakuma cowered to walk on her right.
She’s still conscious of him and I still have no way to change that yet.
The catalyst being Satsuki’s sister is needed. If in the end, Sakuma backed out at confessing to her, then that’s probably the time when I will start replacing him. It’s a win-win as well, Sakuma will finally have someone I wouldn’t target. For now.
Err… well, I could also stop being this cruel to him and let him be happy by crossing out Satsuki’s sister if he succeeded. I still don’t know the whole story after all. Maybe there’s still more to it.
After completing 10 laps the teacher told us that we could rest for 10 minutes. Thankful for that brief respite, everyone was overjoyed and slumped down to the grass.
Us four took our space and sat on the grass like everyone else then I stood up to go to the vending machine to buy drinks for us. Satsuki tagged along with an excuse of wanting to choose her own drink.
“I’m sure you’ll pick lemonade again.”
On the way, I heard Satsuki’s voice that was directed to me.
“You liked the taste of it. Did it change?”
I just really love her reaction whenever lemon or lemonade appear before her. The taste of her lips and tongue back then, it still lingers in my mind.
“You know why, idiot.”
She glared at me but there’s a hint of blush on her face. Even without me reminding her, she already remembered that scene.
Ah. I want to take her lips again. I got blocked by Sakuma yesterday and now I don’t know when I can be alone with her.
This time doesn’t count, there’s a lot of eyes around us.
“I’ll choose lemonade too and drink it with you, that way we can both remember that time.”
I tried teasing Satsuki more and that earned me a punch to my shoulder from her. Sakuma isn’t around anyway, a little teasing like this is fine.
“Shut up! Someone might hear you.”
She raised her voice a bit but the next sentence was told like a whisper.
This girl…
I really love teasing her. I got a bit busy these days so I somehow forgot to keep teasing her. And there’s still Sakuma who can’t stop being suspicious.
Just looking at her blushing like that, even if she acted like she’s mad at me, the things I made her remember was also something she couldn’t forget.
“They won’t know what we’re talking about.”
I closed the distance between us and whispered to her.
“What? What are you two talking about, Onoda?”
Another voice rang out from behind me. I looked back and saw a Harada. With a smile that looks like she just caught on something interesting, she put herself in between us.
This girl, how can she show up out of nowhere? Where did she even come from?
Satsuki was startled from Harada suddenly showing up.
“Chii. Where did you even come from?”
I was also startled though I immediately regained myself and acted normally.
Is this girl a ninja? I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen her around us when we started heading towards the vending machine.
“Huh? I came back from the restroom, you know. I drank too much water that my bladder couldn’t hold up. Enough of that anyway, I saw you two heading this way so I thought I would say hi.”
She pointed to the restroom that was located near the track and field.
When I accepted her request to meet her next week, she stopped pestering me in class. That made Fukuda sigh in relief. That delinquent guy seemed to be head over heels for her but for some reason, he’s not convinced that they were dating.
Maybe this girl was just using that point to keep boys she’s not interested in, who were trying to approach her, away.
“So Harada-san is already this close to you that you’re already calling her with a nickname.”
Eh? Satsuki? Why of all things to notice you picked that? Is she possibly jealous that I’m calling Harada by the nickname she gave?
“Like, are you jealous, Maemura? Heh. I totally push Onoda to call me like that, you know? He knew I wouldn’t stop pestering him if he still calls me using my last name.”
Right. In the end, I changed the way I call her to Chii. Whenever she messages me and I call led her Harada, she will keep reminding me to call her Chii. Our conversation couldn’t flow smoothly when she kept interrupting it like that.
“Why would I be jealous? It’s not like we’re dating. What about you, Harada-san? Why are you interested in him?”
Satsuki asked. She’s trying to divert the topic to Chii so she could forget what we were talking about before she showed up.
When Chii was trying to talk to me in the classroom, Satsuki didn’t move from her chair and just watched on at the spectacle until Nami blocked her and Mori took me away.
“Nothing special. He just really caught my eye, you know? There’s a lot of girls around him, it will just be a matter of time before he gets taken away by one of them.”
This girl, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about but I guess she’s trying to provoke Satsuki into giving out information about us.
When I looked at Satsuki, she had an expression like Chii’s words affected her.
Err… Did it bother her? It wouldn’t be me taken away by one of them but them being taken by me one by one.
“That guy’s an idiot. He won’t date anyone. Oh. Onoda, lemonade for me.”
Satsuki answered before turning to me.
In the end, she still chose lemonade. This girl… What’s the point of coming here with me? To give us some time alone?
We already arrived at the vending machine and I started choosing our drinks while the two still continued at their topic.
For their topic to be this near them, don’t they think I might be bothered by what they’re talking about? .ℴ
Ah. Satsuki knew I’m someone who wouldn’t bother about anything about me and Chii was purposely letting me hear it.
“You heard the rumor, right? Andou might get to him before you.”
She also heard about that rumor, eh? But she still thinks it’s Nami who was approaching me and not the other way around.
“That doesn’t concern me at all, Harada-san. Who would like this pervert, anyway?”
You? You already confessed that you like me, Satsuki
Chii only smiled at that before dropping the topic since she couldn’t get Satsuki to be flustered by what she’s talking about. Whatever her guess about our relationship, she wouldn’t know that we’re way past the first stages of dating. We don’t need that label on us.
After that, I finished buying our drinks. Of course, this time it’s not free. They already handed me the money before going here.
I gave the lemonade to Satsuki and she blushed again while looking at that can.
Chii didn’t notice that because she’s currently choosing her own drink.
That girl, she just peed because of too much water and now she’ll buy herself another drink.
We waited for her before going back to our group. She then separated from us and went back to the Delinquent Group.
Aya was already sweating, she was the most tired among us four. She smiled and happily took the can of juice from me.
Sakuma, on the other hand, was looking at the two of us but he didn’t say anything else and just thanked me after handing him his can of soda. He acted normally but that gaze from him…
This guy, is he starting to suspect us again? We only bought drinks not too far from here. I guess once he started suspecting us, that will continue even with as little detail as that.
I don’t care anyway, he could suspect us all he wants but I’ll keep confusing him to her sister.
After that 10 minute break, everyone continued walking to finish the 20 laps required.
This PE class for today was spent leisurely just walking around the running track.
Of course, it’s still tiring for everyone that when they finished, most of us slumped down to the grass and waited for those still lagging behind for a few laps. Everyone was cheering for them and even handed out free drinks to those who ran out of water, just for them to finish it.
It might be easy to complete since it’s just walking but it’s tiring for everyone’s legs. Good luck to them walking back to our classes.