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Lunch break the next day.
When I walked into the student council room, Mishima was sitting at a desk by the window, checking the budget sheet for the cultural festival.
“Good morning.”
“It’s already noon.”
“You really pay attention to the finer points of greetings, don’t you?”
“Accounting doesn’t allow for even a one-yen discrepancy. The same goes for the time.”
She was acting just as usual—so much so that I couldn’t believe she was the same person who’d been drinking coffee at the café yesterday.
However, there was a familiar little packet sitting in the corner of the desk.
“Is that sugar?”
“I found some left over in the archives room.”
“The school’s archives room doesn’t keep sugar cubes, does it?”
“…I bought them on my way to school.”
Mishima-senpai looked away, seeming a bit awkward.
“Did you like the coffee yesterday?”
“The taste was just average.”
“If the manager asks, she’ll get mad.”
“But it was good enough that I wouldn’t mind having it again.”
In other words, it seemed she intended to come back.
When I smiled, Mishima furrowed her brow slightly.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. I’m just a little relieved.”
“About what?”
“You look healthier than you did yesterday.”
Mishima-senpai’s hand paused.
I was just checking to see if she was pushing herself too hard, but for some reason, she was staring intently at my face.
“Kasugai-kun.”
“Yes.”
“Do you say things like that to just anyone?”
“You asked me that yesterday, too.”
“I haven’t received an answer yet.”
“I say it to people I notice.”
“Is that so?”
Senpai’s voice was flat.
But the fingers gripping the bag of sugar cubes tightened just a little.
“Kasugai-kun.”
A cold voice rang out from behind me.
When I turned around, Himuro was standing at the entrance.
“It’s only been three minutes since lunch break started, but you two seem pretty close already.”
“We were just checking the budget.”
“Does checking someone’s complexion count as part of accounting duties?”
“Mishima senpai, yesterday—”
“Kasugai-kun.”
Mishima cut me off.
“There’s no need to bring up what happened yesterday.”
“Right.”
“Yesterday?”
Himuro’s gaze sharpened.
“Did you go to ‘Anemone’ last night, Mishima-senpai?”
“Yes.”
“While Kasugai-kun was there?”
“Yes.”
“Do you plan to go again today?”
After a moment’s thought, Mishima-senpai replied matter-of-factly.
“If my work finishes as scheduled.”
“Then I’ll add some unscheduled tasks.”
“It’s a problem for the vice president to add work for personal reasons.”
“It’s right before the cultural festival, so there’s plenty of necessary work to do.”
“Himuro, do you really want to work with Mishima-senpai that much?”
When I asked that, they both fell silent.
Apparently, I was wrong.
“Kasugai, please keep quiet.”
“I got scolded again.”
“It’s your fault.”
“Did I do something?”
“The problem is what you didn’t do.”
I’m even more confused now.
After that, President Kuze and Shirasaki also entered the student council room, and preparations for the cultural festival began.
It seems we’re short on cardboard for the interior of the haunted house our class is in charge of. We decided to assign people to haul it from the storage room after school.
“I’ll carry them.”
“Senpai. I’ll go too.”
Shirasaki immediately raised her hand.
“I’ll accompany you as well.”
“Himuro, don’t you have Student Council work to do?”
“I’ll work something out.”
Mishima-senpai also looked up from her documents.
“We need to check the inventory in the storage room. I’ll go too.”
The three of us locked eyes.
“We’re just going to get some cardboard boxes, right?”
When I asked, Shirasaki smiled, Himuro narrowed her eyes, and Mishima adjusted her glasses.
“Yes. We’re just carrying cardboard boxes.”
For that to be the case, everyone’s voices sounded strangely stiff.
After school.
In the end, I ended up heading to the storage room in the old school building with the three of them.
As we walked down the hallway bustling with preparations for the cultural festival, I recalled how, just a short while ago, I’d been constantly following Kotonoha’s back.
Now, with people calling out to me from all directions, I didn’t even have time to think about anything else.
I’d thought that school life after a heartbreak would just quietly fade away.
Apparently, my youth gets even noisier after I’ve lost.
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