Chapter 7: Do You Hang Out With Your Crush Even Though You Know It's Hopeless?

"Okay, girls, I have to go to class now!"

"What? Why not skip today? Hear this, I got a message from this cute guy~ He said he's arranging a mixer for the three of us!"

"You two go without me! More options for you to choose from! I really can't skip this one or I'll get the teachers really mad!" Airi answered as she ran for the school building.

"Whatever, girl, you do you. Go study and become a genius or something..."

That was the conversation the three girls held right below Haruto's new branch shortly before parting ways.

"Really? Is that it?" the boy said, unable to hide the small hints of disappointment on his face.

"She didn't meet up with any guy, she didn't badmouth Kenta, she even refused going out to a mixer just to come back to school?"

"And what's more impressive, all that in a single morning," Yuurei added with a straight face that didn't last too long.

"By this time, you'd barely wake up, turning around just to make sure that the first thing you see in the morning is the flustered face of your lovely local ghost. Your eyes staring deep into mine as I imagine you pulling me close and... Kyaaaa! Too much! My head's going to explode if I think about it!"

Spewing her fantasies as she flew all around, Yuurei was unintentionally testing Haruto's trust in his grip upon the branch, every move she made morphing the human boy's sense of reality as he tried to look after Airi.

"Hello~"

And before he could catch sight of her again. He heard her voice from afar.

"I was waiting for you, Airi-chan-senpai!~"

And together with her was now the boy who had been widely recognized as a dead man's replacement around campus.

"Kenta? What's he doing with Airi? And why is she hugging him?!"

"Eh~"

Yuurei had also stopped moving, looking at the two with a smug smile covering her face as if to say things were only now getting interesting.

"What do you say, Darling? Should we listen in some more?"

Haruto nodded as if it were a matter of fact, and so they did.

*****

"And then he said that he's taking the next train after mine! What does he mean by that? Is that a boy's thing? We were going the same way!"

"That's a weird one... It certainly isn't something men usually do. Maybe he was shy?"

"Shy? How can someone get shy around someone as cheerful as me? Or is it because I'm too pretty? Ah... my looks might've cursed me to be forever alone, Kenta..."

"THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT BOYS???"

By that point, it was fair to say that Haruto was fuming. Were anyone to look his way, they would think that the tree on campus had caught fire the way dark smog leaked out of the boy's ears.

"Easy there! How about we look at something else for a while? Look! That guy over there is about to confess!"

And in vain did Yuurei try to calm her man down. Everything she said was stopped by an invisible wall right before it reached Haruto's ears.

"Or maybe we should get some coffee. Maybe a shoulder massage? Or should I sing to you?"

Only by her third lullaby sung by Yuurei did Haruto finally turn around and lay back on the thick branch.

"This makes no sense," the boy said, venting at the only one who would listen.

"One day he suddenly starts acting all stupid and then he gets more depressed than that time when I told him King Kobra was by far not an original name. He tried to change his way of being all because he wanted to get together with Airi-senpai, and now, after getting rudely rejected, he sits next to her and talks about her past dates? What kind of magic is that girl capable of?"

"Maybe it's the head trauma you've given him..."

"That's not even the hardest smack this year!"

"Wait... wha—"

"And to top it all off, he looks miserable. Look at him!"

"I see him smiling though. How do you know he's not feeling good—"

"Girl, he has a buzz cut! Who in their right mind decided to look like an egg with a clear mind?"

"That's a fair point... He's always had that though..."

While Yuurei and Haruto kept going back and forth about how the boy's friend was losing himself over the girl he himself insisted on hanging out with, Airi and Kenta finished their discussion. The sight of those two getting up attracted upon them two pairs of eyes from the tree.

"Thank you for listening to me, Kenta! You really are a great friend!"

After speaking these words, tracked by the gaze of the boy who had been with his legs up in the air more than on the ground lately, Airi stretched her hands forth, stepped closer to Kenta, and hugged him tightly.

"Oh... Kenta... You idiot."

It was then that Haruto's instincts had been proven right, and after taking a good look at the boy who, during the hug, wore a most miserable expression, he lay again with his back in that branch.

"Look. You see what I mean now?"

Even to Yuurei, who had tried to look at things in an optimistic way, that face said it all.

"Kenta..."

"It's obvious... That boy is struggling..."

"But what can we do about it?"

To Yuurei's question, Haruto sighed.

"I'm not sure," he said.

"I've never been good at this friendship thing..."

Haruto continued to look at the yellow leaves in the tree, watching as one here and there fell into the hug of the cold ground, tricked by the chilly breeze to seek warmth in the place it will be forever buried. 

To think that a leaf would do all of that just because all of the other leaves who knew no better were talking about how cool it would be to get  down.

"I can't deny your questionable friendship practices... But I accept you either way, brother!"

That's when the one they had been talking about not long ago spoke from below the tree, startling both Haruto and Yuurei.

"By the way... what are you looking for up there?"

Knowing it was already too late, Haruto took a deep breath, waved goodbye to Yuurei, covered his head, and smiled with an accepting look just before heading towards the cold campus ground headfirst.