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Why ‘him’?

I had been thinking about it since last autumn.

‘His’ name was Maehara Maki. For some reason, we have been in the same class since the first year. Even so, we barely exchanged words with each other.

For a while after school started, he had only been idling by himself in class. He’d go home without saying a word to anyone for the entire day. He spent his day pretending to be sleeping at his desk or going somewhere by himself.

He was the kind of guy whose existence you’d only remember once in a while.

Honestly, I never wanted to get along with him. I knew that our conversation would die down even if we tried to talk, so there was no point in starting a conversation with him to begin with. Aside from that, I didn’t want other people to look down on me for getting along with him.

‘I’m not like him.’ I, Ooyama Takeshi, had been living my life with that thought in mind. It was a relief knowing that someone who was lower than me existed.

However, things changed after the cultural festival.

Asanagi Umi, Amami Yuu, Nitta Nina, three girls who were considered good looking by the boys started to gather around him. Perhaps it was because they worked together during the cultural festival. In any case, he started to speak more often.

By the time winter came around, Seki-kun, a member of the baseball club, joined their group. Ever since then, his presence was becoming more pronounced in our class.

His surroundings were constantly changing and growing. Compared to that, mine was…

“It’s heavy. Can someone help me carry my bag over to that bridge over there?”

After school, when I was walking home with the usual group of people I usually hang out with, someone suddenly said that. Of course, none of us were kind enough to carry his bag for him, but since it seemed fun, all of us decided to do rock-paper-scissors to decide who’d carry his bag.

Originally, our group wasn’t particularly close. We just came from the same middle school. We only grouped up so that we wouldn’t get isolated in high school.

All the friends I had in middle school went to different high schools.

There was one of them who said, ‘Let’s hang out once in a while after we enter high school,’ but I hadn’t heard from him since.

“Let’s do rock-paper-scissors. We’ll pick either scissors or paper. Whichever group has the least members, will carry the bags of the group with the most members.”

“You should join us, Ooyama.”

“Okay.”

After saying the chant, I put out a rock. Meanwhile the other four put out papers.

And so, they threw their bags at me.

Each one of the bags were heavy and I staggered a little when I received them.

“Hahaha, your luck is rotten, Ooyama!”

“Well, you only need to walk for around a hundred meters, so do your best!”

Two of them said those words to me before quickly racing to the bridge.

The other two showed their concerns toward me for a second, but seeing that the first two had gone ahead, they only said “If you think you can’t make it, just tell us,” before chasing the other two.

“…You can’t hear me from over there even if I call out to you.”

I muttered to myself. I didn’t want anyone to hear those words.

Since it was rock-paper-scissors, I could only blame this on my bad luck. Or so they wanted me to think. I noticed that the four of them winked at each other right before they put out their hands.

…No, I was probably overthinking it. This was just something we did for fun. Besides, they were just telling me to walk, it wasn’t a big deal.

I decided to follow the four people who had gone ahead while shaking my head. Suddenly, a certain pair of students caught my eyes.

“…Really?”

There they were, Maehara and Asanagi, walking while holding hands in a friendly manner.

Back during the festival, there had been rumors going on that they were dating, but they never confirmed nor denied it. It seemed like they really were going out.

“…”

At that moment, I felt miserable.

In a group filled with dull people, I was the dullest among them all. Meanwhile, someone who I thought to be lower than me managed to get a cute girlfriend.

We weren’t so different in terms of appearance, but why did he get all the good things?

I could hear a girl giggling from somewhere. Surely, she was laughing at me.

The thought of leaving the bags right here and then crossed my mind, but if I were to do that, those four would surely abandon me.

“…S**t.”

With a click of tongue, I rushed toward the place where my ‘friends’ were waiting.

Why him?

Ever since that day, I avoided Maehara like a plague.

* * *

Maki’s PoV

“…I think I probably envied you, Maehara-kun. Not only Amami-san and Asanagi-san, you quickly got to know the girls that everyone found cute and unapproachable. The other boys tried to get close to them, but they always failed to do so, meanwhile, you managed to do it easily. And now, even the vice-president is on your side… It’s so unfair…”

“Because of that you tried to get me into trouble and spread the rumor about Amami-san and I?”

“No… Yes, I took the picture, but I just wanted to tease you a little with it. Well, that was the plan, it wasn’t like I had the guts to do it anyway. But the other four started scouring through my phone and found the picture…”

“So that was what happened?”

“Yes. Apparently, there is this girl in first year that one of them had his eyes on. That girl loves gossiping about scandals like this, so they edited the picture, fabricated rumors out of it and tried to get her attention… Well, that was what Arae-san told me.”

I thought that Takizawa-kun did really well handling this case, but apparently Arae-san did even better as she managed to get to the root of the situation quickly.

Well, even though she was pretty rough on Amami-san initially, she was generally well-liked by other girls. She really was the perfect person for the job.

“…That’s all. It was the other boys who started the rumor, but I’m still the root of the problem as I was the one who took the picture. I knew the truth, but I didn’t come out because I wanted you to get into trouble…”

Of course I didn’t trust his words as he could be just as involved in it as the others. But, if his words about his friends were true, there might be a chance that what he was saying was the truth.

Well, his expression was convincing though, so I guess I could trust him a little. It seemed like he had given up on everything.

“So, what should I do now? If you ask the student council for help, you could drag me and the perpetrator out to explain and apologize to everyone about the rumors…”

Said Ooyama with a more vigorous voice than before. It felt like he was trying to come out clean, but his voice sounded more desperate than anything.

“I don’t need you to do that. Not everyone in the school knows about the rumor anyway. Besides, I’m not doing this to take revenge on you guys.”

What we ultimately wanted from Ooyama-kun and his friends was for them to stay out of our lives.

Now that the rumors had spread around, even though they came out and explained that everything was a lie, people wouldn’t believe them so easily. Besides, I didn’t want them to get off that easily.

For now, what we were going to do was to stick with Nakamura-san and Takizawa-kun until the rumor died down to an extent.

As was the case with a real fire, handling rumors were also a handful. Even when the rumors died down, we still had to deal with the aftermath.

To some extent, relationships between people were the same.

“I don’t need your apologies. I doubt it’ll be a sincere one anyway and I don’t want any one of you to get off that easily.”

“…You seem angry, Maehara-kun.”

“What do you think? I’m just living my life and you all came barging in and started s**t with me even though I didn’t even know who you are. Not only that, people I care about got caught in the crossfire…”

Honestly, I really wanted to lash out on his group, but I decided not to.

It was a complete waste of time and energy to deal with worthless people like them. Devoting all that time and energy to Umi and the others would be more worthwhile.

“Let me tell you something. Do this again and who knows what kind of s**t that I’ll do to you.”

Umi, Amami-san and Nitta-san nodded at my words.

It was the consensus of everyone in the group.

This time, everything somehow lined up perfectly and we were able to solve the problem smoothly. But if we didn’t manage to solve it like we did, we’d have to deal with the s**tshow for the entirety of the sports festival.

I didn’t want my first and last sports festival in high school to happen on such a sad note.

“…Got it, I’ll let them know. I hope that they won’t have the guts to do something like this again… See you later, then…”

After sensing that we didn’t want to have anything to do with him anymore, Ooyama retreated and opened the door.

I didn’t want to feel anything about him, but seeing his back being hunched even more than usual made me pity him a little.

I thought that everything would be settled with this for the moment, but it seemed like a certain person in our group thought otherwise.

“Ooyama-kun, can I have a word with you?”

Just before he closed the door and left, Amami-san called out to him.

Up to this point, she had only been listening to his words silently.

Ooyama-kun’s relieved face turned grim once again.

“Y-Yes?’

“Ah, sorry for stopping you suddenly like this, but there’s something I want to tell you.”

Saying this, Amami-san took a few steps toward Ooyama-kun.

Her golden hair fluttered as she let out her usual bright smile.

“Y-Yuu?’

“Yuuchin?!”

“Jeez, why are you two acting like that? It’s all okay~”

She acted like she didn’t do anything special.

“W-What is it, Amami-san?’

“I just want to correct something that you previously said.”

She was smiling like usual, but her clear blue eyes were devoid of any smiles.

“Maki-kun and you are completely different. Your look, personality, everything is different, so know your place.”

What came out of her mouth was something that I had never expected.