Chapter 5: Ill Give It Some Serious Consideration

“Anyway, I’m heading to the staff room.”

“Okay. See you later.”

“See you later, Ryoya!”

After saying goodbye to Reona and Riona by the shoe lockers, I started making my way toward the staff room. It had been a while since I’d last been at school, but nothing seemed particularly different.

“Well, it’s not like I’ve been gone for years. I guess a little over two weeks isn’t long enough for anything to change.”

By the time I’d finished thinking that over, I had arrived at the staff room. My homeroom teacher gave me a number of things I needed to know. Apparently, taking several months off could cause problems with attendance requirements, but being absent for around two weeks wasn’t much of an issue.

Well, if catching the flu meant having to stay home for nearly two weeks, it’d be ridiculous if every time someone got sick, they were suddenly at risk of repeating a year.

After hearing everything I needed to know, I left the staff room and headed for my classroom. The moment I stepped inside, my classmates’ eyes briefly turned toward me. Unfortunately, though, not a single person made any attempt to come over and talk to me.

“…Yeah, figures.”

I’d expected this, considering I was a friendless loner, but actually experiencing it firsthand still made me feel pretty miserable.

For the time being, I took my seat and rested my head on my desk. My hospital stay had completely thrown off my daily routine, and I was incredibly sleepy. I was just starting to doze off when I heard a familiar voice coming from the entrance.

“So, Riona absolutely insisted that she wanted to be with her big sister, you know?”

“Yeah, yeah. I get it. You’re completely obsessed with your little sister, Reona.”

The voice belonged to my classmate, Reona. Technically, I couldn’t be completely certain, since there was another girl at this school named Riona whose voice was exactly the same. But judging by the subject of the conversation and the speaker’s cheerful tone, it had to be Reona.

At first, hearing Reona and Riona speak at the same time had left me completely confused because their voices were identical. Lately, though, I’d gradually started getting better at telling them apart.

Reona hadn’t been in the classroom when I’d arrived earlier, so she must have been out taking care of something.

Incidentally, Reona belonged to the highest-ranking group in the school hierarchy, made up of the particularly outgoing and popular boys and girls in our class.

Considering that Reona was a beautiful quarter-Japanese girl, was about as tall as I was, and had outstanding social skills, it went without saying that she was at the top of the classroom’s social hierarchy.

Which meant that someone like me, a gloomy loner at the very bottom of the hierarchy, a mere Mob Character B, should never have had any reason to interact with her in the first place.

While I was thinking about how depressing that was, I continued dozing off.

Then I heard footsteps approaching my desk.

The footsteps stopped right in front of me. And then, for some reason, their owner suddenly blew a powerful puff of air directly into my ear.

“Whoa?!”

I shot upright with a startled shout, only to find Reona standing in front of me, wearing the mischievous expression of a child who’d just successfully pulled off a prank.

“Oh, Ryoya-kun! So you really were awake!”

“W-What was that for?!”

“Sorry, sorry! You looked so defenseless that I just couldn’t resist playing a little prank on you, Ryoya-kun.”

Reona said this without showing the slightest sign of remorse.

I was about to protest, but then I noticed the countless eyes staring in our direction and thought better of it.

Looking around, I saw that the entire class was watching Reona and me. We’d attracted a ridiculous amount of attention. It was probably because I’d let out such a stupidly loud yelp just now.

My classmates were looking at me with undisguised curiosity.

Some of them even seemed jealous, and I felt unbelievably uncomfortable.

Considering that Reona was practically the class idol, it was only natural that some of my classmates wouldn’t be happy seeing her casually interacting with a loner like me.

“…I’m seriously embarrassed because everyone’s staring at us. Could you please just leave it at that?”

“Honestly, you’re so troublesome. Fine, I’ll let you off the hook for now.”

“I’d be even happier if you promised not to do it again.”

“I’ll give it some serious consideration.”

“That’s exactly what someone says when they have absolutely no intention of considering it.”

I spoke quietly enough that only Reona could hear me. Perhaps she’d picked up on the situation, because she replied in an equally quiet voice.

After that, Reona returned to her own seat as though nothing had happened.

Her friends from the same group immediately started asking her about what had just happened, but it seemed she was casually brushing off their questions.

As for me, I felt just as horribly uncomfortable as before. Naturally, I spent the rest of the time until first period began with my earphones in, my head on my desk, shutting out absolutely everything around me.