Ignorance 1

Summer break is awesome. No school, hot enough days to warrant trips to the beach… You name it. Even when the teachers make sure to ruin it as much as possible, that doesn't mean that they have to get away with it!

Or that's what I'd usually say at least.

“That bastard’s at it again.”

“Eh? Are you listenin’ to me? I’m talking about plans to go to the beach and—”

“Look.”

Kazama is looking down on the floor beneath, from the staircase’s railing. I lean closer and see a loser talking to one of the most beautiful girls of the school. If not the most beautiful girl period.

Wait, that’s…

“Ah, this ‘Touya-kyun~’.”

“Don’t make your voice like that, it’s gross.”

Kazama is pissed off again, huh. Not that I can say much about my own mood. Since seeing Akamine’s face, even from above…

The uneasiness from a couple of days ago returns. It can’t be helped.

Like most people here, I’ve only ever seen her smile demurely and be a model student all around: Good grades, elegant, everything a parent would dream of and the perfect example for any teacher to compare the whole class to.

In that sense, I’d say that being that cute on top of those traits is a little too much. Like we mortals aren’t left with anything in comparison.

Not that I’m jealous or anything. I’m not Kazama; I just think that being compared to an underclassmate is pretty annoying.

And such a student glared at us in such a twisted way…

Gah! What am I even thinking?!

“Hey, man. I’m sorry to tell you this, but she’s really not into you at all.”

“Do you want to die?” Kazama glares at me. That alone would be fine, but I seriously don’t need him showing me his fist!

That’s too much for my pure and frail heart, y’know.

“I mean, do we even have a choice? What is life without death? What is a beginning without an end…?”

“You’re a pretty annoying bastard.” Kazama scoffs and goes back to looking down on the two students talking, but they’re gone now.

It seems like they only met up for a moment. As the average-looking dude walked upstairs soon enough. Blush and a dumb smile on his face… Honestly, it is annoying.

“Oh, if it isn’t Touya-kun~!” No matter what Kazama says, I can do this in a less annoying way and get away with it. After all, the recipient of the teasing is now this guy that is pissing Kazama off so much. “Whatcha doin’, huh~?”

I lean on the railing a bit, and our underclassmate snaps out of whatever fantasies he was having.

“E-Eh?! You are the Senpais from the other day…?” Ah… That flustered expression and inability to look us in the eyes… It can’t be helped that Kazama gets so annoyed by this guy.

“Man, Touya-kun remembers us! Hey, Kazama. He knows it’s us but he didn’t come say hi. What’s going on here?” I approach the guy slowly, carefully. I still can’t wash the strange feeling away. But the guy doesn’t notice as I snake an arm around his shoulders. “Isn’t that bad? Touya-kun should show his Senpais some respect!”

Kazama moves closer too. But he doesn’t get on the poor bastard’s personal space. The black-haired underclassmate is already struggling to pull back from my hold, after all. But all he manages to do is squirm under the pressure.

Kazama glares at this ‘Touya-kun’ for a moment before clicking his tongue and turning away.

“Leave him be, Saruya. He doesn’t have his big boy pants on without a girl to impress.” Or so Kazama says, but he turns around to glare one more time. “White knighting only works in shitty manga and games, got it?”

Man, what a pain in the ass… Kazama can’t get in trouble or the school will call for his tutor, so why did I even go this far?

I guess that I get Kazama a little bit, though. Having an annoying feeling stuck in the pit of your stomach… It sucks ass.

“Okaaaay…!” Can’t be helped. I release the guy and smack him on the shoulder. “See ya, ‘Touya-kun’! Don’t hog all the cuties, okay? Leave us real men something!”

I don’t stay to see what the guy would say. I don’t care, and I’d rather put this behind me.

Sometimes it’s better to ignore the strange feeling rather than confront it.

“Now, that’s more like the Saruya I know.” Kazama murmurs instead of speaking up as usual. So I know that he’s being serious, more heartfelt here. “Unlike back at the mall.”

“Oh my, is Kazama-san perhaps worried about me~?”

“I’ll seriously punch you.” Hmmm… He only raised his voice a tiny little bit. He’s seriously serious!

…Which is a problem for me. I don’t want to talk about that.

“It just sucks, ya know? I seriously want a popular girlfriend! It’s not fair at all.”

“Katase said the same, word for word. But anyone can see that his lower head actually controls his actions.” Kazama scoffs and gives me a side glance for just a second.

For a guy that insists that people have to speak up, Kazama really likes to force people to squirm and guess what he’s talking about…

“Weren’t we talking about bikinis and babes just a minute ago…?”

“Saruya.” Kazama uses his normal tone this time.

I raise my hands. There is no need to have him get pissier here.

“Dude, your mood is in the dumps recently! What gives?”

“I don’t like it.” Kazama replies after a moment of silence.

“Right.”

“I don’t like that guy.” Kazama balls his hands into fists. “Bumbling around like an idiot, getting chicks to surround him without realizing… I don’t like that.”

Chicks…? So one of the most popular girls of the school isn’t the only one?

“Oh, I see. You’re just jealous.” I expected that Kazama would react with more anger. It’s preferable over continuing to talk about that day. But he doesn’t.

Instead, he just gives me look filled with a mysterious feeling that I don’t recognize.

“It doesn’t make sense. That’s all.”

“…” I guess that I can understand that but… “Dude, you can see from kilometers away that the guy has nothing going for him. Whatever girl has her eyes on him will dump his ass immediately.”

“Exactly.” Kazama replies but doesn’t elaborate.

Seems like that’s as far as he wants to go with this.

“Well… Okay then.” Phew… In the end, he didn’t want me to explain my weird mood. Good. “So, as I was saying… The beach…!”

Yeah, summer break will be here soon! No time to dwell on weird stuff that will lead nowhere!