Chapter 16 – A Pinch
We were saved since Asanagi was away at this ti, but I never expected to run into Amami-san here.
“Eh? Yuu-chin, you know each other?”
“Jeez, Ninacchi! He’s our classmate! We even t with him the other day!”
“…N-now that I think about it…”
Maybe they were just ssing with , but apparently, other than Amami-san, my other classmates didn’t recognize .
Then again, I was like air in class, even if I were to walk right in front of everyone, I was completely confident that they would never notice .
“Maehara-kun, do you co here often? It’s the first ti we bumped into each other here, right?”
“A-ahh… Mhm… That’s true…”
I casually fiddled with my phone, pretended that I was doing sothing with it, but in reality, I secretly called Asanagi, before quickly shoving my phone into my pocket.
My phone was cheap and it picked up a lot of the background noises, so if I did this, my phone should be able to convey the conversation between and Amami-san to Asanagi.
“Ah, are you here with soone else? Right, of course! Playing alone in this place is boring after all.”
“S-sothing like that, yeah. I’m a little bit tired right now, so I’m taking a break by myself.”
“Really? I noticed there are two drinks over there, so I assud that you’re here with soone else…”
“Uhh…”
As expected, Amami-san was really observant. Of course, she also observed everyone in the class closely, it wasn’t limited to . Normally she was like an angel, spreading her kindness toward everyone in the class, but right now, she was more of a demon than anything.
At this rate, no matter how obscure Asanagi’s attire was, Amami-san, her best friend, would notice that it was her imdiately.
Anyway, I need to make sure that they won’t find out that Asanagi is currently here.
We were still keeping our relationship a secret after all, letting Amami-san and the rest of the class know about it would be bad.
“Still, I’m glad that Maehara-kun has friends you can hang out with. I was a little worried about you because you were alone all the ti in class.”
“I-I see… But, I prefer to be by myself, so you don’t need to worry about …”
“Really? Well, if you feel lonely, you can always reach out to ! I don’t mind you inviting for lunch too!”
“O-okay…”
I’m thankful that Amami-san felt concerned about , but, after seeing the faces of her cronies… Yeah, I won’t be calling out to her in the future.
I’m quite perceptive if I may say so myself, I can read the air.
‘Don’t get ahead of yourself, loner’, that’s what they are telling with their faces.
“Thank you for your kind words… I’ll gratefully keep them in mind. Well, I have to go now…”
“Ah, wait a minute!”
I decided to leave the place imdiately. But as I was about to leave, Amami-san grabbed my shoulders from behind, it seed like she had sothing in her mind.
…I had a bad feeling about this.
“W-what is it…?”
“Hey, if you want to, you can hang out with us right now, Maehara-kun! Of course, you can bring your friend along too!”
“Eh?”
I was so surprised that I let out a strange sound.
“Wait, Yuu-chin! Wouldn’t that inconvenience Maehara-kun? Besides, Maehara-kun seed to be occupied with sothing.”
Perhaps she didn’t fancy the idea of tagging along, Nitta-san imdiately chid in from the back. Well, too, even if Amami-san went through the trouble of inviting like this, I disliked the idea. Even if Asanagi was included in her group, I would still dislike it.
“Nitta-san is right, Amami-san. Besides, if I were to join in, everyone would have to be considerate toward and they wouldn’t be able to enjoy themselves to the fullest.”
“Really ~? I think it would be more fun with more people though…”
If I were a more sociable person, I would be able to blend into the group without ruining the atmosphere, but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. I’m bad at dealing with any kind of group activity with more than three people in it, and I’d prefer not to ruin the group’s fun.
If Asanagi were here at Amami-san’s side, she could warn her about it because she was her best friend and all, but she wasn’t here right now.
“Yeah, it’ll be more fun if Maehara-kun joins in, no? Or maybe you dislike him, Ninacchi?”
“Eh? N-no, no way that’s the case, right…?”
Out of everyone here, Nitta-san was probably the closest person to Amami-san, but, sadly she wasn’t Asanagi, she wasn’t close enough to Amami-san to act more assertively toward her.
Reining in the uncontrollable Amami-san while keeping up and guiding the other people such as Nitta-san… When I first heard that Asanagi was doing sothing like that, I could only vaguely imagine such a scene. Now that I’ve witnessed what she was really up to, there was only one thought that popped out in my mind.
Asanagi was actually doing such a troubleso thing.
“I can see why she’s exhausted…”
“Eh? Maehara-kun, did you say sothing?”
“Ah, no, nothing… Anyway, about the thing you said previously…”
“Mhm, what do you think?”
“…Sorry but, I don’t want to hang out with you guys.”
“Eh?”
Hearing my words, the cheerful expression on Amami-san’s face imdiately turned gloomy.
“Ah, of course, I’m glad that Amami-san invited , but, you see, I’m not big-hearted enough to hang out with a group of people who clearly dislike .”
‘In other words, you lot’, I glared at her cronies, including Nitta-san.
Both my attitude and words were clearly filled with hostility and it would definitely deteriorate the good atmosphere they previously had.
Normally, I would just ignore them and retreat, but by the ti I realized it, my feelings were already leaking out of my mouth.
I didn’t know why I felt this way.
“Besides, today is the day for and my friend to hang out together. I’m sorry, but I don’t think neither my friend nor I, would like it if soone were to intrude on our ti together like this… So, my bad, I can’t accept your invitation.”
“Ah, Maehara-kun…”
“Then, see you later, Amami-san… I appreciate the invite.”
With that said, I waved lightly and shook Amami-san’s hands off, and walked away.
I vaguely heard soone trying to tell sothing, but the sound of the background music drowned out their voices. Not like I cared about what they had to say.
After making sure that no one was following , I pulled out my phone from my pocket.
[Thank you, Maehara. You saved .]
“You’re welco… Well, we’ve had enough fun for today, so let’s go ho.”
[…Mmm…]
We decided to et up again at the ticket gate. In the end, we managed to escape from the arcade without being discovered by Amami-san and her cronies.
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