Chapter 14. Skipping School. (1/2)

It was the following week, Thursday morning. The last three days had been the most peaceful days I’d had in quite a while. I didn’t have to worry about my nosy neighbor staring at me the entire day.

She’d had her hands full every day with guys approaching her left and right.

Though I say it was quite peaceful, that doesn’t mean it was as peaceful as I wished it was. There had been another unexpected development that was both a pro and a con. On the surface level it appeared to others I’d made a friend in class. It was the boy who seemed to be the leader of his pack that first confronted me.

Ever since then, starting on Monday, he’s stuck close by to me like a leech. Inadvertently, my bet which led to Rosa not paying attention to me for three days led to them being convinced that my words had been the truth. If I was buddy-buddy with someone in class, then I’d be ignored by her. That one particular lie had turned into the truth in their eyes.

Things had truly worked out perfectly. Better than I could have ever imagined. My only complaint was that I couldn’t be alone as much as I liked as I had this new fly buzzing around me.

Jasper Munez, that was apparently his name. His friends just called him Jass for short.

He had brown messy hair that made him look a bit wild. He seemed to be rather popular among the girls as he was on the school’s basketball team. He made it as a regular despite only being a first year. He was an inch or two taller than me, somewhere around 6’2’’.

In terms of his academics, there was nothing to complain about. His test scores ranged from 85-90% on tests.

He was a bit of a hot head though. He also had girls on his mind too much. He was constantly asking me about Rosa which was quite troubling. I usually just dodged his questions or told him I didn’t know the answer to them.

He’s asked me several times if there were any girls I was interested in. Every time I told them there wasn’t he never seemed to believe me.

He even asked me what my type was but I personally didn’t have an answer. I didn’t really know what my preferred type was as I never thought seriously about matters related to romance.

What type of girl I wanted to date, how would I know?

Today was the same. It was before the beginning of class and Jass was leaning against my neighbor’s desk directly between Rosa and I. I’m not entirely sure whether or not his strategy was to try and catch her attention by showing her he was a good friend of mine.

She herself was rotated away from me looking the opposite direction while talking to a few guys who’d swarmed her.

Jass would occasionally peek at her from the corner of his eye to see if she ever looked at him. Sadly, she completely ignored him.

When he realized his efforts of getting her to start a conversation with him on her own were proving to be futile he put on a face of dismay. Resigned he came closer to my desk and squatted down on the right edge of my desk. He talked quiet enough so only the two of us could hear.

“Dude, how do I get her to start a conversation with me? I don’t even know what to talk about with her.”

“Just talk to her about things you talk with other girls in the class about.”

“I can’t man. She’s different. She’s way out of the other girls in our class’s league. When I look her in the eyes my mind ends up going blank.”

Hah? Then just give up, idiot.

“If the problem is born from when you look her in the eyes, just don’t look her in the eyes. Simple. You could just look at the wall behind her rather than making direct eye contact when talking to her.”

“Oh! That’s a good idea.”

Seriously, the other guys seem to be talking to her just fine, don’t they?

I took a look and examined them more closely, but a lot of their eyes were wandering while making small talk with her. They were mostly looking at each other rather than Rosa while talking. Occasionally, they’d shoot a cursory glance at her lips, chest, or legs. It seemed their conversation was a rather superficial one as well.

It seemed Rosa wore a smile on her face when she occasionally joined the conversation, but to me, her body language when looking at her back from behind didn’t appear to be someone who was genuinely happy or enjoying her little chat with them. It felt like nothing more than a cheap facade she’d put up.

Well, as an adult with more experience under my belt, I’d become more attuned to small subtleties like this and reading social cues. In the past, I couldn’t see through things like this at all. I didn’t know they existed and even if I had I certainly wouldn’t have known where to look for them.

Honestly, when I really thought about it, I myself didn’t know what to talk to Rosa about. What did we usually talk about anyway? I guess ourselves at times. The two of us did occasionally open up to one another. A lot of the time it felt like we had conversations through our eyes though.

It sounded weird… but whenever our eyes locked it felt like we had some sort of connection.

Kind of like there wasn’t much need for any words between us.

As if she’d felt my gaze on her back she turned her head to the front, but I noticed her peek at me, and our eyes locked.

‘This is all your fault. I won’t let you off easy.’

It felt like she wanted to tell me that.

‘This is no fun at all.’

‘Don’t you dare ignore me and turn away!’

I turned away and put my head down, taking great pleasure in her suffering.

“Hey, Rosa, Ran was just telling me about how there was a guy you might be interested in but he said he doesn’t know who it is, is that true? D-Do you really happen to have a guy you’re interested in?”

The oblivious fool who asked that annoying question was naturally Jass who saw an opportunity when she turned her head.

Being a person suddenly dragged into this by the idiot directly beside me I raised my head and bit and lazily looked over to them. All the other guys in front of her suddenly sported unusually serious expressions.

“Did I say something like-”

Jass stepped in front of me and covered my mouth with his hand behind him.

“Hmm… he said something like that? I don’t recall ever telling him something like that though. Don’t you think he’s just lying to you?”

“Lying to me? There’s no way Ran’s the type to lie about something like that.”

“Really? Because he told me straight to my face that he is a liar that lies all the time.”

“I never said anything of the sort. Please stop defaming my name.” Another lie, of course. I am a liar after all. What do you expect me to do? Tell the truth?

“Are you accusing Rosa of being a liar, Ran?”

“No, I just think she might be misremembering something. Maybe she had that conversation with someone else. She does seem to be quite popular with guys. She might be confusing me with another guy.”

“Oh, now that you mention it, you might be right. Sorry, Ran.” She clapped her hands together in apology.

She’d become a lot more animated than when she was talking with the other guys once the two of us started bickering.

“You two sure seem… close. How long have you two been childhood friends for?”

“Childhood… friends?”

She shot me a glance. She locked eyes with me for a second and it seemed she’d somewhat figured out the situation from just that.

“Hahaha. Honestly, I can’t even remember. It’s been so long. When did we meet again?”

She took the safest option since she didn’t know if I’d already told them that and whether he was just seeking confirmation. I was a bit surprised she didn’t expose my lie right then and there. I couldn’t help but wonder why she didn’t.

“Jeez. Ran said he didn’t want anyone to know we were childhood friends. Did he tell you directly or did you figure it out on your own?”

“He told us when we asked him about it.”

“You asked him about it? Why would you do that?”

“W-Why? Uh… that is…”

“They were just curious because of how you paired up with me for the fitness test.” I cut in and answered on his behalf.

“Y-Yeah that’s it.”

Jass thanked me secretly by raising a thumb up outside of Rosa’s line of sight.

“But Rosa, you never did answer the question before about whether there was someone you were interested in or not.” It seems Jass really wanted an answer to that question as he pushed for it a second time.

“Hmm… maybe there is, maybe there isn’t.” She tapped her lower lip with her index finger while answering inconclusively.

“Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?” Jass probed.

“Isn’t it because she’s unclear of her feelings as to whether or not she likes that person?” Another boy chimed in.

“Oh. I guess that makes sense. So you’re undecided on whether you want to pursue that person?” Jass asked.

“I suppose you could say that.”

“Whoever it is must be quite the lucky guy.”

Personally, I’d call him unlucky, but that’s just my two cents.

“What sort of guy is your preferred type?”

“My preferred type? Probably an older mature guy with a good head on his shoulders.”

“Do you have a height preference?”

“A bit taller than me would be nice.”

“What about personality?”

Somehow this man had found his groove in asking her questions. I truly had to applaud him for his efforts.

“A man of solitude.”

“You mean the serious type?”

“Yeah, you could say that. But I’d like for him to be able to joke around and make me laugh too. He can’t be a pushover either, but I’d like it if he leaves some leeway to bend a bit so he’s not intolerably stubborn.”

“Oh. What about appearance-wise? Any preferences there?”

“Are you trying to find out exactly who it is that I might be interested in? If so, that’s a secret~”

“Haha. You got me I guess.”

Really now, this is the sort of conversation I’d expect to hear from high schoolers. Ah, youth. It has nothing to do with me though.

I silently slammed my head against the desk and wanted to find a hole to bury myself in. Like hell it had nothing to do with me! She was just blatantly describing me to them, wasn’t she?

It was a good thing these guys didn’t know me very well.