Chapter 53

Chapter 53 – Different Than Normal

The cultural festival ended a few days ago. Since then, the temperature had dropped significantly. Mornings became noticeably colder.

Just a few days ago, the weather was warm enough for us to wear light clothes, but that isn’t the case anymore. The weather forecast had been showing us the first signs of winter and according to them, the temperature would drop even further as the days passed.

“Hey, Maki, the AC stopped working. What should we do?”

“…Seriously?”

It was early in the morning after I washed my face and entered the living room. There, my mom greeted me, wrapped in a blanket like a caterpillar.

“What about the heater? Isn’t it in your closet, mom?”

“Ah, I tried turning it on last night, but apparently that one is broken too.”

“Eh?”

What perfect timing. Of course things broke down when we needed it the most, it was the law of nature at this point.

Sometimes, I wondered why these things happened, but I realized that such questions were pointless.

In the end, my mother and I decided to send the AC away to be repaired later. I went to the school quickly afterwards. No point in loitering around the house when I could just do that at school where it would be way warmer. The AC at school should be perfectly functional.

“Maki, here’s your money.”

“Thank you…”

Since it was Friday, she gave me money for dinner as usual.

“…Huh, three thousand yen?”

She gave me an extra thousand for some reason.

“Hm? Aren’t you going to bring Umi-chan home again today? You’ll need at least that much, no?”

“That’s not something a parent should say– Whatever, two thousand is enough.”

“No. Both of you eat a lot, right? Two thousand isn’t enough.”

“…I still don’t need it, she won’t be coming today.”

“Huh? Did something happen? Did you two break up?”

“…What? …No, we didn’t. We aren’t fighting either, we’re still talking with each other normally.”

“Then, why?”

“…Circumstances…”

“You sound so cheeky.”

“…I’m going.”

I hurriedly left out the door.

As cheeky as it would sound, this was the decision of both Asanagi and I.

So, I had to do my part and follow through with it properly.

* * *

“Oh, good morning, Maehara-kun!”

“Eh? G-good morning, sensei.”

I tried to quietly walk past the school gate as usual, but suddenly the teacher in charge of greeting the student called me by my name.

I was surprised because my name was called so suddenly, but considering what happened back at the festival, of course the teacher would remember my name and face.

“Yo, ‘Main Character’. You’re earlier than usual today.”

“It was too cold at home… Wait, stop calling me that. I was about to forget about it, but you just had to bring it up, huh?”

As I was about to enter the classroom, Seki-kun approached me. Apparently he had to practice this early in the morning.

“By the way, Maehara. Do you have the pictures we took the other day? Nitta gave them to me, but I accidentally deleted them.”

“Ah, yeah I do… Here you go.”

I pulled out my phone and sent him the pictures that he was looking for. We exchanged contacts when we were cleaning up after the festival.

One of the images I sent was taken on the morning of the festival, the one with the mosaic in the background.

This one was fine, but the other picture I sent was a problem.

“Haha Maehara, you look so tense in this one, it’s funny.”

“Give me a break, it was my first time going through all that…”

It was a picture of me wearing the ‘Main Character’ sash while receiving a certificate and a commemorative gift.

The result of the festival was, our exhibit took first place, beating out other classes’ projects. The art itself was good, but the main reason why we got as many votes as we got was because of a certain manga publisher. I previously sent them an email to notify them of our project and to our surprise, they went out of their way to share it over their official social media account. It was a pleasant surprise for all of us

Though because of that, the rest of the class pushed me to the stage as the representative and made me receive our awards and stuff while wearing that goofy sash.

…Seriously, I wanted to bury myself in a hole somewhere.

However, ever since I embarrassed myself out in the open like that, the environment inside the class had begun to change.

“Oh, Good morning, Maki-kun! The weather is getting colder, huh?”

“Good morning, Mr. Representative.”

“Good morning, Amami-san, Nitta-san. Also, stop calling me that.”

“Eh, don’t sweat the small stuff~”

Since that day, my image as the ‘gloomy loner’ was gone and my classmates started trying to communicate with me actively. Compared to the unpleasant time back then when we were doing the lottery, I could say I prefer this kind of environment more.

“Huh? Where’s Asanagi? She didn’t come with you guys?”

“She overslept this morning, so I went ahead. She should be here soon though… Ah, there she is! Hey, Umi~!”

I turned around and saw Asanagi running toward us.

“Haah… I made it in time… How much time is left?”

“Five minutes before class started, still quite some time left.”

“Well, whatever, the important thing is that I made it in time.”

She showed us a smug smile for some reason. Her uniform and the likes looked messy though, a clear sign that she was rushing to come here.

“Good morning, Asanagi.”

“Good morning, Maehara.”

As usual, Asanagi and I greeted each other. Since we were paired up as the class representative for the committee, we decided to stop acting like a total stranger to each other.

Well, we still kept our friendship a secret from everyone except Amami-san though.

“Jeez, Umi, you got bed hair…”

“Eh? Really? I tidied up before I left my house though?”

“Maybe because you ran here, the wind messed up your hair, right, Maki-kun?”

“Mhm… It does seem messy.”

Amami-san walked up to her and touched her disorderly bangs. Having to take care of your hair like this seemed like a pain in the ass. Thankfully my hair was short enough so that I didn’t need to go through this hurdle.

“I’ll fix your hair, I got some hair conditioner with me. Ninacchi, help me.”

“Roger~ Let’s go back to our seats then~”

“Wait, you two…”

The three girls went to their seats while I walked toward mine.

“Good morning, Maehara-kun.”

“Good morning, Ooyama-kun.”

A lot of things happened during the festival but Ooyama-kun still treated me like usual. He wasn’t trying to ignore me or anything, rather this was how our relationship worked, we maintained a proper distance from each other. It was Seki-kun and the others who were too touchy-feely with me for some reason.

Anyway, some things changed and some things stayed the same.

I became a member of the committee for about a month. While I had my share of hardships and I ended up embarrassing myself publicly, I could say that overall, everything ended on a positive note.

Except for one thing. I had to spend my weekends without Asanagi.