This week is also coming to an end, and I still haven't started studying for my exams. Last night instead of studying, I ended up reading a light novel. Why am I like this?

I was walking with Tsūmen back to our class from the cafeteria. He was drinking some soda that he got from the vending machine. I was shaking the bottle of choco milk because the chocolate coagulates at the bottom of the bottle otherwise.

We were walking past the staircase near our classroom when I noticed Yasurouka and Gaisen climbing up the stairs while talking with each other.

It was weird that Kizhashi wasn't with them. I rarely see Yasurouka and Gaisen together without her. Gaisen looked at me and smiled, while Yasurouka looked at me and sighed. What was this difference in reaction?

Tsūmen called out to him as both of them walked up and stood in front of us. "Yo, Gaisen-kun, and Yasu-san."

"Yasu-san?" Yasurouka tilted her head in confusion as Tsūmen called her with a name he had never used before.

"Ah, Shi…" Gaisen sighed.

"Yes, short for Yasurouka-san. Your name is too big, so I thought of a nickname." He smiled and looked at her.

"I see…" she said in a hesitant voice with a frown on her face.

"Well, you can call me Tsū-kun, or Yuki-kun. That way it will be even between us." He sipped the milk in his hand.

"I'm going to stick with Yukimura-kun. But you can go ahead with your nickname." She gave him a thumbs up with a slight smile.

"He is just so carefree." Gaisen patted Tsūmen's back. Right now we're standing blocking the staircase, so I suggested they leave the way as I walked to the side and stood next to a wall.

The way we were standing, Yasurouka was standing in front of me with her back towards the wall. I noticed her gazes towards my hand, as I was shaking the bottle.

"Are you trying to disintegrate the milk at a molecular level?" She said and rolled her eyes.

"Tsk, nerd!" I clicked my tongue. I wasn't annoyed though, I was just messing with her.

"What did you call me?" She retorted back.

"Nothing, it's just that this tastes good after shaking." I avoided that question and told her what I really was doing.

"That's what she said." Hearing me say that, Tsūmen commented this in an instant as he and Gaisen burst out in laughter. Looking over at her, I could see the corners of her lips curved as she controlled her laugh because this was a really immature joke.

"Are you in middle school?"

"Huh!? You used to do these things in middle school?" Though it might look like he was the innocent one among the three of us, but Tsūmen and I did our best to corrupt him.

"Shut up?"

"So you're accepting that you used to shake in middle school?"

"You…" I didn't continue what I was saying as I heard a small chuckle coming from Yasurouka.

I finally sighed, and decided not to pay them any attention, as they were laughing at that lame joke. Sometimes I wonder if I have a bad sense of humour or if it's the other way around.

"What are you laughing for? Huh!?" I said in a rough tone at her smiling face.

"Ooooh, really scary Mister Jerker." She laughed. I swear whenever these three are together, I'm the one who gets trashed one. This made me remember the time when I walked back with them and she took a photo of my face. Tsūmen made memes from that.

I tore off the straw which was attached to the side of the paper bottle with my other hand but it was inside a plastic cover so I had to tear it off. I held the bottle at the edge with my teeth and tore off the plastic cover.

Suddenly, I was pushed from backwards with such force that I had to use both of my hands to support myself. My hands slammed on the wall with a loud noise that seemed to startle Yasurouka, standing in front of me with a shocked expression on her face.

The straw fell from the hand of course, and looking at her cheeks slightly tinted in red colour, I could help but feel my heart beat getting faster. This was something I wasn't prepared for, so it took me off guard.

She wasn't looking at me, instead her eyes were focused on my shoes. I knew she was embarrassed, that's why she couldn't look me in the eye.

I quickly withdrew my hands from around her and took the bottle in my hands from my mouth.

"Sorry." I said in a plain tone, trying my best to not show that I was embarrassed in that moment too.

"It's...umm... It's okay." She gave me an awkward smile, closing her eyes, and trying to make it as genuine as she can at that moment.

I heard the faint chuckles of Tsūmen and Gaisen. I shifted my gaze towards them and they looked away. Probably at that time, my face may have looked like I was pissed off, but I wasn't at all.

"Also, don't give me that smile. Hate that." I said that to Yasurouka as she stopped smiling and shrugged.

"And here I was trying to be nice to you." She shook her head in disapproval.

"You're more cute when you're being bashful." I said. I could feel both of their gazes at me, but still I decided to flirt a bit with her, because why not?

Hearing the comment I made, she again blushed slightly, but this time her lips curved into a smile, and it looked like she had something to say.

"You're also…" Before she could finish her sentence, the bell rang, and it was time for us to return to our class.

"What?" I asked, since she couldn't complete what she was about to say.

Looking at me in the eyes with her cherry coloured cheeks, she stared at me for a few seconds before nodding her head in denial and rushing back towards the class. "Nothing… Idiot! Jerk!"

Even though the last part wasn't necessary, she still said that and somehow I feel like she was about to say something good about me, which is a really rare event depending on how unromantic things are between us at this moment.

I looked towards Tsūmen who was giving me a suspicious look with slanted eyes as he asked, "What was that?"

"What?"

"Aren't you friends with her? Or at least that's what you told me." He wiggled his eyebrows.

"Well, we indeed are. Why are you asking?" I decided to annoy him a bit.

"Well… friends don't flirt like that." He emphasised on the word 'friend'.

"Well… it is what it is." As I said that, Giasen chuckled looking at both of us.

"No, it's not. Just accept that you're hitting on her."

"I'm not." I again denied his claim.

"Bruh!" He replied. He was definitely getting pissed off, and I was enjoying it.

"Oi, let's head back." Gaisen said, while walking towards the class. After a few moments of staring showdown between me and Tsūmen, we also followed him to the class.