And so, the sympathetic Youko Miyake shows herself.

Youko Miyake

“Hey, are you hungry, Ki-kun?” I mockingly asked.

He only gazed ahead of him.

At first, I had believed he had been gawking at the odor of food that roamed, but I soon came to notice that his eyes weren’t in the shape of enviousness or exhilaration at all. It was a violet-colored, wide pupil, dead eyes that gaped ahead. Stiff and lusterless than ever before in comparison to his usual glare.

I mutely eyed him in dismay until I followed where his emotionless eyes led to.

There was a single round table, encircled with four hazel chairs occupied by a group of girls that looked like our age, who conversed in glee and giggles.

All wore trendy outfits, like ripped jeans or long skirts, jackets or plain-loose sweatshirts, canvas sneakers or sandals, even stylish hairpins, and hair ties. With this colorful spectacle of clothing, it was hard to look at all four of them, so I had to narrow down my view to just one.

The first girl I laid my eyes on had a perky and vibrant smile, with brunette straight hair leading down to her nape and a cute bun on the top. There was a pink hairpin over to the right of her bangs, too, possibly to support her hair so it wouldn’t all cover her eyes.

She seemed to be the most extroverted out of them all with an aura of exhilaration that was felt and spread when she spoke.

Beside her, was a girl whose jet-black hair halted at her shoulders. She had crystal-like blue eyes and a grin that was evidently fabricated to make it seem that she fit in with the group. It was clear as day that she was an extremely sheepish, and bashful girl who was just trying to have some type of felicity in her life.

Next to the withdrawn female, was a short girl. Supposedly a first-year due to her height, her attitude seemed to be alike with the first girl; a jaunty and festive personality: but also like Shiori when it came to a naive, innocent girl.

She had platinum-blonde hair that touched her spine, and a face akin to a doll. Currently, she had been laughing uproariously while she held her stomach and wiped her tears concurrently. It almost made her fall backward from her seat, but she was saved by the fourth and final girl that I haven’t looked at yet.

Upon gazing at the fourth girl, she looked to be the more mature one out of everybody else in the group.

She was a little taller than the black and brown-haired girl but overpowered them in maturity. Her silver hair bangs covered her forehead and had some hair sticking out on the side that looked adorable. The rest of her hair was also styled in a three-strand braid that also reached down her lower spine. She also had glossy, smooth white skin, along with a mole that was present on her left cheek.

Her eyes were like a yellow gem that sparkled in the bright sunlight, and her smile was of a generous and compassionate one that suited the soft-hearted nods that she gave out towards the short girl she was helping while she pushed the seat back to its original place.

But, as I peered at their close friendship, I could see nothing wrong with what was happening.

“Do you know one of them… Okumori-kun? Do they go to our school?” I slowly looked over.

His eye bags were heavier than usual, and the atmosphere of what seemed to be an abomination started to overwhelm me. His breathing was non-existent, his eyes didn’t scan anywhere else, and his body didn’t bother to move a single inch.

I hovered my hand above his shoulder with dubiousness, but firmly got ahold of it eventually.

“Heeey, Ki-kun!” I shook him. “Earth to Ki-kuuun! Listen, do you like ramen? Do you?”

His cold stare disappeared when he felt my grip on his shoulder. He shut his eyelids and opened them in repetition, appearing to snap out of his zoning-out session. Then, his head sluggishly moved to face mine, only to give me a catatonic look.

“What, you don’t?” I arched my back.

He then promptly returned his gaze back to the girls and returned to ignoring my presence.

I cleared my throat.

“Huuuh? You don’t like ramen?! You’re one of those guys?! You’re weird, Ki-kun! I’ve never met a person who doesn’t like ramen!” I stepped closer as I teasingly insulted him.

He seemed annoyed now and grunted in displeasure.

“You’re probably one of those guys who like… Erm… Wasabi, or, err, spicy curry! You definitely like spicy stuff, don’t you?!”

There was a brief pause in his livid mood.

“Ohmigod. Do you actually like spicy things?”

“Is that weird?” was what his reaction looked like to my shock.

“B-But, like, it’s so painful! It’s like… Bleh! Or-” I stuck my tongue out and panted as an example, then brought it back inside my mouth. “-and- and, like, my tongue goes on fire! It’s so super-duper hot! I think I cried when I first tried wasabi!” I exclaimed with a shudder “You like experiencing that type of pain?!”

He answered with a diffident nod.

I stepped backward and got into a defensive stance. “You’re scary, Ki-kun!”

“I didn’t say I hate ramen, so shut up.” He violently muttered at me.

A smug look appeared on my face after seeing his passionate reply. I put my hand on his shoulders and rattled him around. “Well, you could have just said so! It’s decided! We’re getting ramen!”

Okumori finally faced me and watched me with a face devoid of expression. He bobbed his head after hearing my declaration and began to relocate his eyes back onto the group of girls that continued to merrily talk with each other.

But before he could, I jerked him forwards with my hands to pull him away and save him from possibly being another creep reported in the daily newspaper sometime next week. I had to drag him to the nearby ramen shop and place him like a bowling pin when we arrived.

Men are so heavy and hard! I internally cried as I struggled.

After taking a quick breather and sucking up the tiredness, I lifted my voice to a high-pitched tone and tried to look unruffled “So? Whaddya want, Ki-kun?”

He appeared to be startled, presumably from how suddenly I had pulled him over.

“Oh, don’t look so surprised. I thought you liked ramen?”

He sighed and turned to the menu to order.

It took us a while to actually finish our orders because of Okumori’s lack of communication. It was humiliating to watch, actually, because Okumori tried to point at what he had desired instead of actually saying what he wanted. The woman who had been taking the orders obviously had no way of accurately knowing what he was asking for, so I had to intervene and order it for him. I was like a mother helping his son to order for himself.

When we sat down after getting our orders, I couldn’t contain myself because of the smell of noodles and the steam that smacked my face to prove how scorching hot it was.

Can I really finish all of this? I mean, there’s so much…

I looked at Okumori’s order. His soup was in the color of dark orange, and the aroma that it gave out was just purely menacing. It reeked of peppers and various spices that caused me to quiver.

I gawked at his bowl and gulped. “Is that the spicy tonkotsu ramen? It’s going to be very spicy, you know?”

He stoically nodded.

“... How high is your spice tolerance?”

He swayed his head right to left as if he was saying, “So-so.”

“That’s not ‘so-so!’ That’s extreme!” I pointed at him.

His eyes turned droopy when he heard me. He used the chopsticks to pick noodles up from the bowl, then inserted them inside his mouth, all the while continuing to eye me as if he was mocking me.

“F-Fine!” I angrily muttered but was shamed by his jeering attitude. “Enjoy experiencing the pain!”

I’m going to train my spice tolerance once I get home! I definitely am!

I snared some noodles using my chopsticks and slurped them bitterly. But because of how my attention had been diverted to Okumori’s extraordinary tolerance of spice with his tonkotsu ramen, I had ignored the miso ramen I had ordered.

And it was hot. Really, really hot.

So, I spat it out.

Shoot! I forgot to blow on it!

I cupped my mouth with my hands, shut my eyes, and loudly squealed. My legs under the table wildly kicked up and down when I struggled as a humane response to try and cope with the boiling torment.

Soon, I would regain the calmness I had. I breathed in and out frequently; traumatized by what had just transpired. “S-Sorry—”

When I opened my eyes to Okumori, I relieved a fretful gasp. With noodles glued onto his face, and a shiny, shiny face, he returned a dangerous glare at me with his frozen chopsticks and immovable body. The bangs that covered his forehead were swept away and formed a middle-part, revealing his forehead that had small specks of brown.

“K-Ki-kun?!” I shrieked.

I snatched the paper towels that were sitting serenely on the table between us and lunged forwards to jam them onto his face. “I’m so sorry! I’m so, so sorry! Forgive me, Ki-kun!”

He muffled loudly under the copious amounts of white paper towels that I shoved on him.

“Here, Ki-kun! I’ll clean your face for you! You don’t have to worry!”

As if the situation couldn’t get any more dreadful, while we struggled, his tonkotsu ramen began to spill because of our violent shaking.

I stopped. “Wait, Ki-kun! The foo—!”

His hard, rough hands connected with my wrists. He locked them down inside his palms, and immediately tried to shake me off of him after. It only caused the table shaking to be much lousier.

“Wait! Stop! Stop!” I wailed.

But, it was to no avail. I attempted to warn him once more, but I was quickly shut up by the touch of his soup against my tongue.

Since our fighting, his ramen only made a bigger mess than what was already previously a terrible time. To both of our shock, the ramen spilled everywhere, and somehow, in some coincidental mistake, his soup had reached my mouth.

I yelped and let go of the paper towels I clenched, now covering my mouth just like earlier.

I fell back onto my chair with a loud thump with wails of pain that was muffled by the hand that I coated my mouth with.

Since I burnt my tongue just a minute ago, the spice that I had experienced on my tongue only amplified the pain even more. It was as if there was fire dancing in my mouth, and I couldn’t get rid of it no matter what I did.

I glanced at Okumori and saw that his white t-shirt that was under his ebony jacket now played with a reddish color around the abdomen area.

Oh, great…

A minute later.

We ended up causing a scene in the middle of the food court, so we both had to clean our mess in discomfiture as the people watched us in all types of emotions. There were remorseful stares, antagonized stares, and somehow even grinning stares that were pointed at us as we embarrassingly tried to scrub our table with the remaining paper towels.

“Sorry,” I ruefully apologized with a squeaky voice, now sitting down on my seat apprehensively.

Okumori had leaned onto the table with his right hand on his forehead; a clear indication of stress that extruded from him.

I felt a lump in my throat as I observed him, but shook my head right to left briskly to get rid of it.

“Hey, do you want to, erm, get some new clothes…?”

“Oh, Shut up-” Okumori tried to scowl at me, but was halted by a familiar voice that made both of us unnerved.

“O-O-Okumori-senpai?!”