CK 03

Chapter 03…

First-Year Student

Section 1　Reunion

 “So What?”

I got ready for school tomorrow and lay down in bed.
Since I have school tomorrow, I can’t stay up late.

But—I couldn’t fall asleep.

Even counting sheep didn’t help.
Two things from today kept looping through my mind.

The first was my childhood friend, Insei Masato, or “Maa-kun.”

Why did Maa-kun, who used to say “We’ll be together in middle school too!”, suddenly disappear?
And now, in high school, why did he show up in my class without even contacting me?

After three years apart, he seemed completely different.
I can’t help but wonder—what happened to Maa-kun during those three years? Honestly, I’m worried.

The second thing was the mud doll and the armored man from this evening.

I’ve lived in Nebula City all my life.

But I’ve never seen or even heard of either of them.
That bothers me too.

Just in case, I messaged Hii-chan after I got home.
But her reply was, “I don’t know either.”

Since I couldn’t sleep, I gave up on trying.
I had a bad feeling that I’d stay awake until morning like this.

So I reached for my phone, still charging, and searched about the mud doll and the armored man.
Maybe they were already famous and I just didn’t know about it.

But—nothing came up in the search results.

Why not?
The first reason that came to mind was that… maybe we were the very first witnesses.

If that’s the case… should I have taken pictures?

Or… was it a dream or hallucination?
But it felt way too real, and Hii-chan remembers it too.

As I was regretting it and overthinking, before I knew it—I had fallen asleep.

☆☆☆

The next day, after school.
I turned down an invitation from Yoko-chan—“Wanna hang out together?”—saying, “I have something important to do!” and hurried off to look for Maa-kun.

Honestly, I did want to go hang out.
But in the end, I couldn’t help but prioritize finding Maa-kun.

For some reason, I just felt like I needed to talk to him as soon as possible.

Since I couldn’t find him inside the school, I changed shoes and stepped outside.

And there—right past the school gate—I spotted Maa-kun’s back.
I quickly messaged Hii-chan and called out to him.

“Hey! Maa-kun… right? Do you… remember me?”
“Who are you?”
“It’s me! Shirakami Yui! We were together all the way until elementary school graduation…”

At that moment, Maa-kun turned around and looked at me.

His piercing gaze was terrifying.

I was struck speechless, the conversation dying on my lips.

Maybe I shouldn’t have called out to him… I regretted a little.
But—it’s not wrong to want to talk when you finally reunite with a friend you couldn’t contact, right?

As I hesitated, Maa-kun let out a small sigh and finally spoke.

“…Do you want something?”
“Y-you remembered me…?”
“I remembered. So? Do you want something?”
“No, not exactly… It’s just, well, you disappeared right before middle school, so I thought we could catch up, you know…”
“There’s no need for that.”

Those words struck me dumb again.
And Maa-kun began to walk away, leaving me behind.

“Wait—where are you going?”

Out of breath, Hii-chan had caught up and called out to him.

Maa-kun sighed again before speaking.

“…So Hiyori’s at this school too.”
“Yeah, I am. And the Masato I knew would never just leave Yui behind like this. What happened to you in these three years?”
“What the hell, both of you coming at me…”

His glare was frightening. No, more than that—he was clearly angry.
But I forced myself to speak up anyway.

“Hey. We don’t know what happened to you… but still, since we’ve met again, can’t we be friends like before?”
“There’s no need for that.”
“…Why are you rejecting us so much?
Oh—do you maybe have some kind of problem? You can talk to us about anything, you know?”

My words only drew another sigh from him.

He really wasn’t the same Maa-kun as before.

“…Do I really need to spell it out? I’m telling you—don’t get involved with me.”
“Hey!”
“Wh-what? Why would you say that!? We’re friends, aren’t we!? Are we not allowed to worry about our friends!?”

The words burst out of me against his ice-cold tone.

And before I realized it—tears were streaming down my cheeks.

Noticing, Hii-chan looked at me with concern.
Meanwhile, Maa-kun wasn’t looking at us at all—but off into some distant place.

His hands were clenched tightly, trembling.

“…So what if we’re friends. I don’t need something like that.”

Leaving those words behind, Maa-kun walked away.

Even though I thought I’d never see him again, we had a miraculous reunion—only to be rejected.
It was so sad, and so frustrating.

Big tears rolled down my cheeks.