012: Childhood Friends

"Thank god we came early." Yamamoto sat down on the seat next to me with a tray of lunch in his hand.

"Yeah. It gets crowdy in no time at all." I replied while taking a sip of the corn soup. Although I wasn't a fan of corn soup, it was tasty. So I had no way problem eating it.

He picked his stir-fried pork and bite into it. It produced a crunchy sound as he bit it. "This is good." He said wiping the pieces around his mouth clean with his tongue.

While he was focused on eating his pork, I saw Ito standing in the queue. Many boys were drooling while checking her out. The girls as expected were looking at her and the boys with disgust in their eyes.

Ito, after getting her lunch, was searching for a free space when our eyes met. She looked behind me. There were two empty seats. She took a step forward but immediately stopped as two students just occupied the spot. With a somewhat sad look, she started searching for another seat.

I noticed that Yamamoto was also looking at her.

"It seems like she has stopped doing those things lately. Just as you said." I spoke.

"Huh? Ah, yes, that's right." When I called out to him, he was startled. He had been too focused on Ito Yua.

"Hey."

"What?"

"What's your relationship with Ito?" I asked directly. I didn't give him any chance to prepare. The pork that was about to go inside his mouth hovered in mid-air.

"I don't have any relationship with her whatsoever."

"Liar." My response was immediate. He put the pork piece back on the tray.

He was staring at me. He must be trying to observe what I was thinking and why I had asked him that question.

Before he could overthink, and reach his own conclusions, I decided to answer his queries, "Remember the first day I transferred here? Do you remember what you told me back then?

He looked up at the ceiling trying to remember what he had said. "Keep your distance from her?"

"Bingo." He did remember. "That felt like it was more for her sake than it was for mine."

When the other students told me about her, they wanted me to stay away from her for my own well-being. But when he told me to keep my distance from her, it was as if he wanted to somehow stop me from getting close to her. He feared that. He seemed like he wanted to stop any more boys from getting close to her. He wanted to protect her. That was the feeling I got.

"And you were quite interested in what she did, where she was on a daily basis."

"Now don't give me that lame-ass excuse that everyone is curious about her. Yes. I know that she is a topic of discussion every day. But you didn't just keep tabs about her deeds. Every time, whenever she went out of the class, you made sure to know where she was going or who she was meeting with. I also heard that you went around and told the first years to stop getting involved with her." I stopped him before he could throw some petty counterargument.

"Why was that?" The chopstick on his hand was placed on the tray as well.

Yamamoto's face was scrunched up. So much so that there were deep valleys between his forehead. Anyone who was looking at his face would be able to understand that he was suffering through excruciating pain. Something was gnawing at his heart. Pain, anger, frustration, and regret were clearly written all over his face. This was the first time I had seen such a painful expression on his face.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to." I munched on my pork which I had saved for the last. The crunchy texture was to my liking.

"She was someone I knew since childhood."

"I see." That would explain a lot of things. In simpler terms, the two of them were childhood friends. That meant that it was likely he knew the reason why Ito Yua turned this way. But, if I were to ask him, would he tell? I asked that question to myself and the answer was easy to guess. Of course not.

That painful expression told volumes of what he must be feeling.

That simple answer he gave me answered most of the questions in my head. One of the important questions that I had. Why he was trying to look out for Ito Yua? Combine the answer with the expression of regret on his face, and we would arrive at one conclusion.

"Maybe you wanted to protect her and maybe you failed?." He looked at me wide-eyed and then lowered his face immediately. He had that same expression of remorse. He was regretting something. Maybe he had wanted to protect Ito Yua back then. When she still had a chance to be saved. When he still had a chance at saving her.

But he wasn't able to, it seems. That was why Ito Yua turned the way she was now. He was probably blaming himself for not being able to save her back then. That's why he was lamenting and bearing the guilt.

I wanted to ask more but if I pressed more he might end up crying here. That would surely attract the attention of everyone here in the cafeteria.

Since I had already gotten a good chunk of information out of this conversation, I was alright with stopping it now.

Just as silence settled down between the two of us, I heard a voice from behind me.

"What?! You left the dorm and you have started living with your parents?!" The voice was loud enough to garner a few eyes on the two of them.

"Shh! Keep it low."

"A-Ah, sorry."

The girl who had spoken in a loud voice and apologized just now had bob-length brown hair and she had a small mole under her right eye that I noticed immediately. It was a feature that won't go unnoticed by anyone.

And the other person was Aina.

"But why did you move out suddenly?" The girl asked Aina in a low voice.

"Well, I didn't want to come across a certain someone in the dorm. I wanted to avoid it no matter what. So I moved out."

Ever since I had come, I hadn't come across her even once. It was a good thing that we hadn't crossed paths so far. But we would definitely not be able to avoid each other if we were to live in the same dorm. So that was why she moved out or so she reasoned.

"I was planning to move out of the dorm as well. If there are some good places around where you live please recommend to me, Aina."

"H-Huh?! K-Kage?!" She turned around immediately after hearing my voice. Since we were sitting with our backs to each other I had no way of seeing her face but I could picture it vividly. Yes, that's exactly what she must be looking like right now. Surprised and annoyed.

"Oye, Kage. Why are you here?" she asked.

"That's a rude question. Why else would I be here?" I asked her right back.

She stammered for a response. I could hear her taking deep breaths. Once, twice, thrice, four times. Oye, isn't that way too much?

"Calmed down enough?" After about umpteen deep breaths I asked.

"Yeah. Perfectly. And please don't joke about those things."

"I was not joking though."

"Huh? Oye, wait. Are you serious about leaving the dorms?"

I stuffed that last bit of pork inside my mouth as I replied. "Yes. I even have the permission of the old-er-director that I can move out anytime I want." I almost said her old hag. I need to be careful.

"Geh!" She let out a sound as if she had been just pierced by an arrow square on her heart. "I hope you don't live anywhere near me."

"But A place near where Aina lives is a condition that I have set for myself while searching for a flat to rent."

"Why would you do that?!" She asked. She was irritated. And I was enjoying it.

"To irritate you of course."

"Argh! Don't you have anything else to do?!"

"No," I replied flatly.

"There are trillions of nerves in a human body. And I can't understand how someone can manage to get on every single one of it!"

She stomped the ground hard and knocked out her chair violently in the process. With heavy and loud steps she stomped away from the canteen. Many eyes were focused on us. She sure made a commotion. And I was thinking that last statement was amazing.

"Let's go," I called out to the spacing out Yamamoto and we left the canteen after cleaning our trays and returning them to the shelves.

The two of us were walking down the corridor.

"Do you know Shizuku-san?"

"Shizuku? Ah, Aina, you mean. Yes. I am a student council member after all." I answered him. Though that was not the first time we met.

"Yeah, right. I still can't believe that you made it into the student council."

"I am amazing after all."

He was looking at me and pondering something. "What's wrong?"

"When you just said that, you didn't sound arrogant at all. I felt like you were just stating the truth."

"Ho? Thank you, buddy." Let's be honest. I didn't expect that at all.

"And also." He spoke again. "You seem to be on pretty good terms."

"You are saying that even after you saw what went down in the canteen?" I laughed as I answered him.

"But you were using her first name, right? And she called you Kage as well."

I stopped dead in my tracks. Seeing that he asked, "Hey, what's wrong?"

I shook my head saying to him that nothing was wrong and folded my arms behind my head. "You could say we are on good terms."

I answered. But if Yamamoto hadn't pointed it out then I would never have noticed. And why didn't I realize it earlier?

I had been calling her, Aina. I had been using her first name as it was obvious. But it hadn't been much since the two of us met. So why was I using her first name? Like it was the most natural thing to do in the world. That was puzzling me.

And she also called me Kage, right? She had been doing the same. Why? The question mark didn't disappear. There was no answer to that question.

It was strange.