Chapter 3: A New Friendship
[Hayate Kurogane]
The next few days passed by slowly. Aoi and I were in the same class, and we sat next to each other, but our interactions were still brief and awkward. She would greet me every morning with that same bright smile, but I never knew how to respond.
I wasn’t used to people like her. People who seemed to wear their emotions on their sleeves, without holding anything back. It was... strange, but not necessarily bad.
One day, during lunch, Aoi suddenly spoke up.
"Hey, do you want to eat lunch together?" she asked, her voice full of energy.
I blinked at her, taken off guard. I hadn’t expected her to ask something like that. I usually ate lunch alone, keeping to myself.
"I usually... just eat by myself," I said, my voice flat.
But Aoi wasn’t discouraged. She smiled brightly and plopped down beside me anyway, unbothered by my lack of enthusiasm.
"It’s fine! I just thought it would be nice to eat together for once!" she said, her voice full of determination.
I didn’t know how to argue with her, so I just sat there, quietly eating my lunch. I had no intention of getting close to her, but there was something about her that made it hard to say no.
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[Aoi Tachibana]
Hayate was different from anyone I’d ever met. He didn’t talk much, and he didn’t seem to care about much either. But I couldn’t just let him be alone all the time.
He deserved to experience life more fully, to feel things more deeply. I didn’t know what had happened in his past, but I was determined to show him that there was more to life than just getting by.
I sat beside him during lunch, even though he didn’t seem to want me there. But I didn’t mind. I was used to it. People often acted like I was too much, too loud, too emotional, but that was just who I was.
"Hey, Hayate, do you have any hobbies?" I asked, trying to break the silence.
He looked at me for a second, then shrugged.
"I don’t really have time for hobbies," he replied, his voice emotionless as usual.
I didn’t give up. "Well, what do you do after school then? Do you just go home and study?"
He glanced at me again, as if I was asking a question I shouldn’t have been asking. But after a moment, he answered.
"I don’t study. I just go home and... exist."
I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I could tell it wasn’t a good thing. I decided to press on.
"Well, if you ever want to try something new, just let me know. We could hang out sometime!" I said, hoping to spark some kind of interest in him.
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End of Chapter 3
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