We entered the physics room, and I sat at my usual spot. Fushimi took the seat right next to me.

“So you’ve got the gyaru lunch for today, eh, Ryou?”

“Yeah. Mana’s been making my lunch lately.”

She’d stop whenever I skipped class or got bad marks on my tests. She was more like my mother than my sister—although all of this was under my actual mom’s direct orders.

Torigoe walked all the way to us, then took the spot in front of me.

“…Is this seat free?”

“Yeah, as you can see.”

Torigoe opened her lunch box in silence, while Fushimi also quietly started eating hers.

…What’s up with these two today? Is it like National Falling-Out Day or something?

“So you’re not sitting in your usual place, Torigoe?”

“Nope,” she replied bluntly, then put another bite in her mouth.

“Fushimi…are you sure you won’t have any problems leaving the others?”

“This is an emergency, so yes.”

“O-okay…”

An emergency for me, maybe.

They weren’t speaking at all—the silence was taxing.

I tried various topics they’d probably like, but neither of them reacted as I’d hoped.

“…Are you two mad at each other?”

That was the only possible conclusion. A wise man once said, “Only true friends get truly mad at each other.”

“It’d be easier if we were,” Fushimi said with a sigh.

“It’s not as simple as that, Takamori.”

It’s not?

“Then what is it? Tell me, please.”

I looked at Fushimi, to no avail. Then I turned to Torigoe, and she put her chopsticks down.

“Takamori, there’s something I want to tell you after school.”

Fushimi’s shoulders jumped; she was shaking as her head swiveled back and forth between me and Torigoe.

“After school? Okay.”

“I’ll see you in the classroom.”

“You could tell me now.”

“I can’t tell you now. That’s why I said that.”

“…I guess.”

I didn’t object, but what could it be that she couldn’t tell me right then?

Torigoe sighed, rested her head on her hand, and looked at Fushimi and me. “You and Fushimi go way back, right?”

Fushimi nodded before I could answer. “Yeah. We stopped talking for a while, but we’ve been friends ever since grade school. A-and even now…we’re still…” Her voice turned quieter and quieter as she replied.

Torigoe snorted. It felt vaguely aggressive, almost as if she was trying to rile Fushimi. It was strange. Was Torigoe always this kind of person?

“Do you know why the girl who’s always been by the protagonist’s side always loses out in manga, anime, movies, and everything else?”

“It happens to guys, too. The first boy who likes the protagonist of a girls’ manga never ends up winning.”

“Yup. And the reason for that is that they’re never exciting enough.”

Fushimi said nothing, which was a silent acknowledgment of that point.

“Since they’ve known their friend for such a long time, they’ve already experienced most things with them. It’s not enough to truly get their heart pumping.”

Fushimi cast her eyes down. She’d been trying to object to everything Torigoe was saying, but that flame of defiance was quickly being extinguished.

“You’ve been with them forever, so you don’t really care about knowing them further. On the other hand, if you’re interested in someone new, you’ll be more invested in the process.”

“…!” Fushimi quietly gasped.

There was something going on behind this conversation, but I didn’t get any of it except that Torigoe was somehow tormenting Fushimi.

“Torigoe, let’s stop this. I don’t get where the conversation is going.”

“I’m not talking to you, Takamori.”

“And that’s why I’m telling you to stop.”

“Sorry… I just remembered I’ve got some class-rep stuff to do.” Fushimi stood up with a thud and left the physics room.

Torigoe let out a long sigh after she was gone. “Geez…”

It was hard to understand what Torigoe was thinking, since she never really talked, but now that she was talking, she was even more incomprehensible.

“…Wait for me after school, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“You don’t have rep stuff to take care of?”

“…There’s nothing we have to do during lunch.”

Maybe checking where the next class would be and doing preparations, but nothing else. The next class that day was classical literature, which was always held at our classroom. There were no materials to prepare.

“I know I’m right, but I might’ve been too harsh…,” Torigoe muttered and frowned.

“Is there really any need to ‘truly get your heart pumping’? I don’t believe there is.”

“Then you should’ve said so.”

“Why?”

We are talking about manga, right?

Right then, I had a revelation. “Oh, are you fighting because you like different characters in a manga?!”

“No.”

Damn, and I was sure I had it.

“Seriously, why the hell would you…? No, that’s not it. At all.”

“Don’t deny it twice!”

Why do you sound so fed up?

Once Fushimi was gone, Torigoe returned to her usual place, and we spent the rest of lunchtime in silence.

The last periods of the school day came and went. It was Fushimi’s turn to write in the class journal, but she left as soon as the last class ended.

There was no rule saying the journal should be written inside the classroom, so I assumed she’d do it somewhere else.

Usually, though, she’d write it while chatting in here. Maybe it had something to do with Torigoe wanting to talk with me?

I turned around to find Torigoe tapping at her phone; maybe she didn’t want to talk right away.

People who had club activities left the classroom right away, while the others discussed where to go hang out before leaving. All the other conversations disappeared after around ten minutes, leaving only Torigoe and me there.

I sat backward in my chair, leaning my chest against the backrest.

“So what did you want to tell me?” I asked.

Torigoe put her phone down. “You haven’t noticed, but your stock has been going up lately.”

“…Are we talking about finance or something?”

“Your social stock.”

Social stock? “Oh, that Fushimi-buff thing you were talking about?”

“There’s also that, but remember when you told off Matsuzaka’s crew for talking behind her back?”

Oh, that thing about her helping out at the tennis tournament?

“Apparently, a lot of the girls fell for you after that.”

“And how can you know that?”

“There’s this thing called ‘group chats’—ever heard of it?”

“You think I’m dumb or something?” I just wasn’t invited—doesn’t mean I don’t know the concept.

“Well, it came up in there, and everyone started liking you more.”

“Huh. I thought they’d start hating me. Everything was extremely awkward after that.”

“These are two very different things.”

Is that how girls work?

“Up until this April, I thought I was the only one you got along with.”

And you wouldn’t be wrong.

I never spoke to anyone in class, while I did chat a bit with my physics-room lunchmate.

“And when I found out you were Fushimi’s childhood friend…I started worrying that maybe I wasn’t your number one… So… Um…,” she stammered as she looked for the right words. “It kinda stung.”

She looked as if she had something more to say, so I waited for her to continue.

“I wondered why. It didn’t really make sense why I’d be sad.”

She’d thought she was my best friend, but it turned out that wasn’t the case.

I had experienced that several times during grade school. It did sting, thinking you were someone’s best friend and then finding out they liked someone else more. Made you feel lonely.

“But I didn’t just feel sad, actually. It was something else, not what you’d have for a friend—it was more…romantic.” Torigoe groaned quietly and looked down. “…I didn’t like that you got along with Fushimi. I hated it—hated that a girl like her was in the picture. I didn’t stand a chance.”

How would I have felt in her place? Would I have hated it if I saw Torigoe getting along with another boy once we got to second year?

If anything, I probably would’ve been relieved. I would’ve been glad that she had someone else to talk to.

“So when I thought about why I didn’t like it, there was only one answer…”

“Yeah?”

“I finally realized. I’m in love with you, Takamori.”