After that, Umi and I kinda got lost in our own world, leaving Nitta-san—who ordered a second cafe au lait while staring at us with a disgusted look. In any case, our talk concluded after an hour.
“Haa… Everything starts off pretty seriously, but to the usual suspects, it just ends up like literally every other day! Rep! Take responsibility! Pay for my drinks and my chocolate parfait!” (T/N: She actually sait ‘drink bar’ instead of ‘drink’. If you don’t know, drink bar is what the machine that you usually use for free refills in chain stores is called in Japan. So, basically she’s asking for whatever it was that she ordered from there. I just translated it this way so it flows better, and I figured that it achieves the same purpose anyway, but if you’re interested in the technicalities, there you go.)
“What’s the logic behind that, even…? Well, the drink is one thing, but pay for your parfait yourself.”
“Jeez, you’re so stingy~!”
Though she was puffing her cheeks, as if sulking, Nitta-san ended up paying for her drinks. She even paid ours too, actually.
“—Just think of it as an inconvenience fee.”
She said that with a giggle, but… Personally, I thought she should pay me back for all the drinks and food I paid for her all this time, but hey.
“Anyway, I think it’s about time I’d get home. You two are going to have a flirty party after this, right?”
““It’s a dinner party!””
Well, we couldn’t really deny her words because we’d probably end up doing that.Anyway, after this, we would go to Umi’s house for dinner. My mom was actually invited too, but she couldn’t come because of work, the usual thing.
Sora-san hadn’t contacted us about picking us up, so I figured that I’d just walk Umi home. But suddenly, when Umi took out her phone to check, her phone rang.
“Ah, it’s my mom… Yes? What is it, Mom?”
“Sora-san’s calling you?”
“Yeah… Sorry, I need to go for a bit.”
After saying that, Umi left us and went to the direction of the rather deserted parking lot. Nitta-san and I moved away from the entrance of the family restaurant too, so that we wouldn’t get in the way of the other customers.
“…Anyway, thank you for treating us, Nitta-san. I never expected you to treat us at all… Actually, isn’t this the first time you did…?”
“Maybe? Well, I just got my pay from my part-time job, so I have money to spare.”
“Huh? You have a part-time job, Nitta-san?”
“Uh, yeah? Did I not tell you? I’m working at the drugstore near my house as a cashier, they also let me stock the shelves. My shift’s mostly on weekends.”
“…Huh, I see…”
“What’s with that reaction? Are you really that surprised I got a part-time job?”
“…Considering that you seem to be always low on cash, yes, yes I am.”
Honestly, after that incident back during the winter—the one with my dad in the family restaurant—I always thought she’s always short on cash. I always assumed that she spent her money dolling herself up or doing something fun, but now that I think about it, she never really had money problems save for that one time, huh?
She often asked me to treat her to something—which I only did a few times, and I only bought her some drinks from the cafeteria.
…Speaking of, out of all the people I knew, she was the one whose impression changed the most.
It changed over time, but at first I thought of her as a ‘rude person’. Part of it was because when I was only sitting quietly at the back of the class, she never even tried to acknowledge my existence even though we were classmates. Actually, it felt like she was avoiding me up until the preparation of the school festival began.
Neither of us had a good first impression of each other, that was for sure, but now we were comfortable enough with each other that we could talk without feeling awkward like this. Fate really worked in a strange way, huh?
“Hm? What is it? Why are you staring at me like that? My face is not a free spectacle, you know? 50,000 yen per month, negotiable.”
“What are you even on about…?”
She was wearing the same expression as always, but I could tell that she only said that nonsense after reading the atmosphere between us; she just didn’t want to make the atmosphere awkward.
Even though I was the only one here, she still went out of her way to do that. This personality of hers was probably the reason why she didn’t just let the case with Amami-san go.
“…You know, Yuuchin said something else to me.”
“Hm?”
“During our argument, she said ‘Stop forcing your view on me! What do you know when your love life always ends in failure?’… You know that my love life didn’t go that well last year, right? She knew about that and so she took a dig at me from that direction… Of course, she immediately apologized, she said she went too far…”
“…I see.”
“But you know… Even if she apologized, it still hurts… I didn’t mean to force her or anything, you know? …Seriously, what the hell was I even doing back then, hahaha…”
Remembering what happened back then, Nitta-san laughed. In contrast, her expression looked gloomy.
Eventually, her dry laughter fell down onto the asphalt road and blew away by the wind.
“Rep.”
“Yea?”
“Expressing your feelings to others is hard, huh?”
“…Yeah. At the very least, it’s harder than our school’s exams.”
There was just no right answer when it came to communication between people. Upbeat people, quiet people, serious people, people that were prone to anger—everyone was different. Although there were generally ‘better answers’, at the end of the day, the best answer for each person would still be different.
And in most cases, not even the person themselves knew what the best answer for them was.
“I don’t think you’re wrong by any means, Nitta-san.”
“Huh? Rep…?”
“I don’t know the details of what happened back then, so it would be unfair of me to judge it solely by your accounts, but I know that wherever it was that you did, you did it to help Amami-san in your own way… That’s why I don’t think what you were doing was wrong.”
Honestly, it was a gray area. It was hard to tell whether she was right or wrong, but I wanted to stand by her side.
After all, the reason why she did all that was to help her ‘precious friend’, Amami-san, to face her feelings properly.
She provided the best answer that she could find.
While they ended up fighting because of that and their fight affected the mood of our group overall, I didn’t want anyone to treat her action as a ‘mistake’ or a ‘failure’.
Even though ultimately, her actions created an awkward atmosphere for our group of five.
“Nitta-san, can I ask you a favor?”
“A favor…? …What is it?”
“I probably don’t even need to ask this, but…”
In the current situation, there was only one person who could always stay by Amami-san’s side no matter what.
“Please keep being friends with Amami-san. She’s probably trying to avoid you because of the current situation, but please do your best to close the gap between the two of you.”
“…Do you really think that’s a good idea? Yuuchin’s pretty strong-headed about this, you know? If I’m not careful, it’ll only make the situation worse if anything…”
“Then, do you think sitting around doing nothing is better? …I mean, I don’t mind if you really think that’s better.”
“…Hm.”
That probably sounded like I was taunting her, but at least I got her to think now.
Honestly, she was like Amami-san. Gloomy expression didn’t suit her.
“You could say something like that now huh, Maehara?”
“Thanks to you. Well, 10% of it is your influence, I think.”
“10% is still relatively big~ Eh, whatever.”
After saying that, Nitta-san stared at me while smiling.
Her expression suggested that she was teasing me, or maybe mocking me straight out, but I knew that she wasn’t doing it out of malice.
In any case, even people who were used to socializing could have troubles in their relationships at times.
“Anyway, thank you for listening to me. Ah, why don’t I treat you to something next time? Let’s go to the family restaurant from before, you know, the one memorable place for both of us.”
“Phrasing. It isn’t that deep… Anyway, sure, but you need to make up with Amami-san first.”
“Of course. But, hm… That means I have to treat all three of you, huh? Guess I’ll have to be more careful with my spending this month…”
“Casually forgetting Nozomu again, huh?”
Speaking of Nozomu, how should I break the news to him…?
He was genuinely worried about both Amami-san and Nitta-san, so I had to tell him about this at one point…
But, considering that he liked Amami-san… Telling him everything would be quite the hurdle it seemed…
“—Okay, got it. I’ll tell those two about it and I’ll contact you again later… Mm, okay. See you, Mom.”
Just as my conversation with Nitta-san ended, it seemed like Umi had finished taking care of her business. She placed her phone back in her bag, then came running towards us.
“Welcome back. Here, I’m giving your boyfriend back to you.”
“Stop saying that kind of nonsense… Anyway, Umi, what did Sora-san say?”
“Ah, well, it’s about the dinner party… There seems to be a slight change in the plan…”
“A slight change…? What happened?”
“My mother told me the details of why it happened, but… Ugh… Where should I start…? Honestly, when I first heard it from her, I was also surprised…”
“…Umi?”
I noticed it when she came running, but Umi looked quite flabbergasted.
From her previous words, it didn’t seem like the dinner party would be canceled, but…
“Why don’t you tell us what the change of plan is first? You can tell us the details afterwards. I could hear some part of your talk with your mom, so I assume that I’m also invited?”
“Yeah. Well, it was Eri-san who invited you, not my mom, though…”
“Huh? Yuuchin’s mom?”
I had a similar reaction to Nitta-san here. Why did Eri-san’s name come up so suddenly?
Originally, the Asanagis (Sora-san and Umi) and I were the only ones who’d be at the dinner party.
“Um, for starters, the dinner party would be a BBQ, and we’ll be doing it at Yuu’s house instead of mine. Because of this, Eri-san and Yuu will also be there, obviously… Mom said that they want to apologize for all the troubles they caused during the parent-teacher interview…”
“Ah, I see…”
Sora-san probably mentioned the dinner party to Eri-san, so it wouldn’t be surprising that the latter decided to join in. Since Eri-san also felt responsible for the trouble her daughter caused to everyone… Yeah, I got it now.
But, the problem here was that Eri-san didn’t know about the ongoing drama in our group.
“So, what are you two going to do? They just decided it so suddenly, so, Maki aside, if you have any other plans, you could just refuse, Nina.”
“Nah, I’ll go. The thing between me and Yuuchin is one thing, but this is a completely different thing! I’d rather eat good food in her house for free than eating whatever instant ramen Yuna-nee made back at home anyway.”
“You don’t need to say that part out loud, Nitta-san…”
Well, rather than Nitta-san, it was actually Umi and I who were flustered about this change of plan.
If Nitta-san hadn’t told us about what was going on, we could probably treat Amami-san like usual, but now that we know…
That Amami-san liked me romantically… It would be hard for us…
Putting me, my girlfriend, and Amami-san, who fell in love with her best friend’s boyfriend together like that so suddenly…
No matter how I thought about it, things between us would definitely turn out awkward…
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