CH 42

But I have one condition…is that okay?

“…Aizawa and the Thieving Cat.”

Satomi muttered a few words, and silence fell on the spot.

Ten or twenty seconds passed.

Maybe it was only a moment.

I came back to myself and broke the silence.

“…Satomi? What are you doing here?”

“…What do you mean. What’s wrong with me being here?”

“No, there’s nothing wrong with it, but…”

It was a dumb question for sure, even though she was temperamental.

Looking at her in her yukata, it was obvious what she was trying to accomplish.

But—

“Are you alone now, Satomi?”

“Haa!? Why would, why would  I be…?

Satomi turned over, clenched her fists, and shook them shakily.

In short, she was alone.

After the incident the other day, she had been feeling a bit out of place in class, and I guess that was part of the reason why.

…Thinking about it, is Satomi the type of person who comes to summer festivals alone?

Of course, I did not mean to make fun of the fact that she came alone.

Whether it was a festival or a New Year’s visit, I think it was fine if you go alone.

It would be a different kind of fun than going to festivals with others.

But that Satomi.

Well, it was not something I needed to worry about now.

It was none of my business.

Satomi looked up, lifted her eyes, and said as if she was confessing.

“Yes, I am. I’m alone. Why? What’s wrong with coming to a summer festival by yourself?”

“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it. I think it’s perfectly acceptable to go to a summer festival by yourself.”

“…Eh?”

Satomi blinked her eyes.

She looked at Mizutani, wondering if she had said something strange.

Mizutani tilted her head.

“…I still don’t understand you.”

What’s that? I don’t know what she means.

After sighing, Satomi crossed her arms as if she had regained her composure.

She looked at me and Mizutani, who was sitting on the bench, alternately.

“So, what are you guys doing here? It’s not a very crowded place here. …No way.”

Satomi gasped.

She backed away with her feet wearing geta all the way back.

……Well, isn’t she mistaken about something again?

“This.”

Mizutani showed her bare right foot, which had been plopped down after taking off his getas, in front of her.

Satomi approached Mizutani with a dubious look on her face. And she frowned when she saw the reddened area at the base of his thumb and index finger due to the geta.

“Wow, this looks really painful. Do you have a bandage or something?”

Mizutani shook her head.

Satomi snorted, “Are you an idiot?”

—You can’t be the one to speak that.

She stood up and started to say,

“Wait a minute. I live close by.”

Satomi turned her back to us and walked away from us, walking too fast for her to wear getas.

Disheartened, I sat back down on the bench, feeling a little uncomfortable.

Mizutani and I looked at each other.

“What was that?”

“I don’t know. But she didn’t seem to be thinking anything strange.”

“That’s true, but…”

As I waited while discussing such matters with Mizutani, Satomi returned a short time later.

Upon closer inspection, she was holding a box of band-aids in her hand.

……No way, this guy.

“Here you go. If you put a bandage on it for now, I think you can walk around with it.”

I didn’t expect that.

Satomi, looking away, pressed a box of adhesive bandages into Mizutani’s hand.

I watched with bated breath, wondering what was happening.

After a moment of wide-eyed puzzlement, Mizutani fearfully accepted the box.

Her eyes were shaking, as if to express her confusion.

“…Why.”

Mizutani looked up and stared at Satomi.

Satomi remained silent as she looked away, but Mizutani continued to look at Satomi nonetheless.

After a while, Satomi took a breath as if she had lost her patience with Mizutani.

She turned her face toward Mizutani and opened her mouth in a downcast manner.

“…I’m sorry, you thieving cat. I did a terrible thing to you. I finally realized it recently. I know it’s a little late for that, but I wanted to apologize.”

“…is really late. It’s already been more than a month.”

At Mizutani’s frank comment, Satomi uttered something like a groan.

Perhaps feeling guilty, she blurted back more than usual, “It’s been more than a month”

“But it’s hard for me to get close to you at school right now, and…”

“I know. Everyone’s afraid to make enemies.”

Mizutani said it plainly. It was said with a real feeling.

In the class, Satomi is now treated like a sore thumb.

This was due to the fact that she had been bothering Mizutani in various ways, which was once again viewed as a problem.

It was rumored that she had gone out with me to interfere with the relationship between Mizutani and me.

—I feel sorry for Satomi, however, because the rumor is wrong.

Thinking so, I once consulted Ogura about whether I should clear up the misunderstanding.

Ogura seemed to be the best person to talk about this kind of thing.

But Ogura said,

“Aizawa, the person involved, trying to clear up the misunderstanding won’t solve anything.”

She kicked me in the face.

He then smiled, moved his face closer to mine, and continued, “A, n, d.” 

I still remember what Ogura said to me after that.

“When you ask out a boy who has a girlfriend, there isn’t a girl who doesn’t think about her girlfriend even for a millimeter. I don’t know about Satomi-san, but I’m sure she had Karin-chan in mind when she asked Aizawa-kun out~”

“…in short?”

“Aizawa-kun, you might have been set up without even realizing it.”

No way, I think I said.

However, Ogura was still wearing the same emotionless smiling face back then.

“I don’t know if it’s that hard to believe. I mean, Satomi-san was jealous of Mizutani-san for Yamamoto-kun, right? Wouldn’t she be willing to do something like that to get back at him?”

“I think that’s true, but…no, wait a minute. For Satomi, it would be better for me and Mizutani to get along well in the first place. Because there will be no room for Yamamoto. If Mizutani and I don’t get along, the person who will suffer the most will be her.”

“Well, I guess that’s true if you think about it properly.  But you know…”

Ogura stopped speaking once there, and then said clearly,

“Would a girl who could think like that be mean to Karin in the first place?”

When I heard Ogura’s words—

I thought, of course, that maybe Satomi was a horrible person.

I thought that maybe I had bonded with her because we had met and talked once outside of school.

But more than that, I was scared of Ogura in front of me.

At the same time, I respected Shuji for having a normal relationship with such an unfathomable girl.

I wondered how that idiot could be dating this girl.

Or perhaps it was precisely because Shuji was an idiot that he could see Ogura as a girl and not be afraid of her. Because he didn’t notice that aspect of Ogura. There was a saying, “The right person for the right job,” and I think Shuji was exactly the right partner for Ogura.

Now, let’s leave aside Ogura.

It was indeed difficult for Satomi to approach Mizutani in the classroom right now.

Because everyone was on the lookout for Satomi to do something again.

Therefore, what Satomi said earlier, “It is difficult for me to approach you at school now,” was true.

I couldn’t tell how far Satomi was going in the matter of going out with me.

Ogura did say that, but…I wasn’t sure.

Well, as far as I see Satomi in front of me.

I think I could trust that she was at least reflecting on her actions at the moment.

Maybe the fact that she was treated like a sore thumb in the class had helped her a lot.

But the rest was up to Mizutani.

She was the one who suffered the damage from Satomi.

Boil it or bake it, Mizutani could do whatever she wanted.

“Okay, I forgive you.”

After a short pause, Mizutani said to Satomi, who looked overtly relieved,

“But I have one condition…is that okay?”

She continued.

“O-of course. I have no right to say this or that right now.”

While stoutly replying, Satomi could not hide the tremor in her voice.

In essence, he might be a coward.

Mizutani smiled at her.

“I wish you would stop calling me a thieving cat.”