CH 62

I entered the house with Natsuki and headed to the living room first.

“Sorry, I’m a little tired, so I’m going to bed.”

“Yeah, okay. Are you feeling sick?”

“No, not really. I just have a headache.”

“Okay. I’ll be doing something else, so take your time and rest.”

I decided to accept Natsuki’s words and rest a little.

I was so tired and drowsy that I didn’t really feel like staying awake.

I told Natsuki she could do as she pleased, so I went into my room and fell into bed.

I immediately started falling asleep and had a dream.

☆☆☆

I immediately realized that it was a dream.

I was in a third eye viewpoint from the sky above, with a young me and Kagurazaka below me.

“What’s wrong? Why are you crying?

I asked Kagurazaka, who was crying while sitting on the swing in the park where I was dumped.

Kagurazaka then looks up and stares straight into my eyes.

“The boys are mean to me. They steal things from me and pull my hair.”

“……That’s terrible.”

I muttered to myself with a frown on my face.

Thinking about it now, those boys who were mean to Kagurazaka might just wanted her attention. Until about elementary school, they might be mean to a girl like her.

“I’m scared. They are mean to me even if I didn’t do anything.”

“Don’t worry ! I’m here for you. You can tell me when that happens !”

I said confidently to Kagurazaka while rowing vigorously on the swing next to her.

Kagurazaka has become stronger now, but it wasn’t that way in the past. That’s why I thought my role was to protect Kagurazaka.

I remember that the boys stopped being mean to her right away because she had a certain amount of power and they didn’t want to do it.

“Thank you, Yuuki. It cheered me up a little.”

“That’s good.”

Kagurazaka looked at me with a dazzling smile and swollen red eyes, and I returned the same smile while pedaling the swing.

Perhaps it was my fault for looking the other way, my hand slipped and I was thrown forward. and land on your face.

“Are you okay? You made a loud noise.”

“I’m fine. Yeah.”

I said, brushing the sand off my clothes, trying not to cry.

I think there was a time when this happened. I guess I was trying not to remember because I was embarrassed.

After that, I asked Kagurazaka, [What do you do for fun?] and started playing with Kagurazaka.

And then, my viewpoint twists and turns, and I fly back to another time.

☆☆☆

My viewpoint jumped to middle school, and just as before, I was in the same viewpoint as if I was looking down from the sky.

Below me, they were having a sports festival. Judging from the color of the headband I was wearing, this must have been the sports festival in the second year of middle school.

It was the type of sports festival held at a rented track and field facility, and there was a relay race between classes about to take place on the track. I was sitting on a bench watching, and I was staring at one of the boys.

Otori, who has become better looking since entering middle school, has shown his talent in sports as well, and was one of the guys who was the center of attention in the relay this time.

From the stands, girls leaned forward and cheered for him in a scream, and he waved back, looking embarrassed.

Among the girls were Kagurazaka and Kamisaka, and I had mixed feelings at the time.

While I’m moping, the dry sound of a pistol echoes through the stadium, and the first runners begin to run.

Four men and four women take turns running, each running 100 meters.

In no time at all, they become the anchors, and Otori’s class passes the baton to him in third place.

The gap to first place is about 10 meters, and the cheering in the stands grows even louder.

Amidst such cheers, Otori closed the gap with the front and passed the first-place finisher with a run worthy of the track and field team, and crossed the finish line with a gut pose.

“Amazing…….”

I muttered to myself as I watched Otori high-five his classmates after reaching the finish line.

The difference between Otori, Kagurazaka, and Kamisaka and me was so clear by this time that I began to feel inferior to them.

At the same time, I felt a mysterious distance between the three of them.

Maybe they had already started to look down on me by this time.

Then the viewpoint twisted again, and I flew to another time.

☆ ☆ ☆ 

The next time I flew to that day when something broke down, the day I was betrayed.

I confessed my feelings toward Kagurazaka who’s sitting on the bench, got dumped, then Kamisaka and Otori came out from behind me.

They say a whole bunch of bad things about me, push me away, and the three of them kick me.

I looked k at the window of a nearby house and saw someone who looks like Natsuki peeking at me.

The three of them leave and I’m left alone.

I wonder how in the world I ended up in this situation. What went wrong?

There is nothing to regret now. I have no regrets towards them. I’m not dissatisfied with my current situation.

Still, I couldn’t help but wonder why things had come to this. I don’t think I did anything wrong.

But for some reason, I felt as if there was a gaping hole in my chest.