#141

 

 

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A girl was sitting on a chair in the canteen shrinking her body in front of me as if she was depressed.

It was hard to believe that she was the same person who we had sat face to face speaking boldly about the future of the student council in the student council room not too long ago.

 

The dignified expression on her face, the strong and sharp eyes, and the self-confident demeanor were all gone.
There just stood a quiet, ordinary girl.

 

“Would you like some …tea?”

“O,Oh, thank you…”

 

I handed her a cup of tea that I had just bought, and she accepted it without hesitation.

In a closed room, completely empty except for the two of us, a silent atmosphere prevailed.

 

I looked at Shiraishi as she drank the tea I gave her, and remembered what Hino-kun had said.
I wondered which of the three were the real Shiraishi: the smiling, friendly Shiraishi in his memory, the current Shiraishi, or the one we had seen in the student council.

No, ‘real’ is probably not the right word.

 

All of them are her, and all of them are correct.
But I couldn’t figure out which was her true self.

 

But when I saw her sitting in front of me, the first thing I thought was that she looked more natural than when she was in the student council room.

 

When I didn’t ask any questions and just looked at Shiraishi to observe her, she swam her gaze around, perhaps feeling awkward, and then Shirasaka began to speak in a low volume of voice.

 

“S-senpai, you don’t want to ask me anything… well, not that I have anything to say…”

 

“If you want me to listen to you, I will, but there are some things you might not want me to hear.

 

Any unnecessary probing can lead to unnecessary disputes.
What’s more, I really feel that it’s hard for me to ask, because I was the one who opposed in the student council room.

 

But I can’t just pretend I didn’t see it and turn around.

If she were as easy to talk to as Shizuku and Kirasaka, I could still find a way to start a conversation with her, but that’s not the case with her.

I’m sure she’s a type of person I’ve never dealt with before, and that’s what makes her troublesome to deal with.

 

However, I can’t just remain quiet.
What kind of punishment is this, both of us in a silent room?

I turned my gaze onto the desk to start a conversation.
There, in both of Shiraishi’s hands, was a notepad.

 

That’s the same notepad she was holding in her hands when she was huddled in the corner.

 

“Is it …important?”

“Eh? Oh, this?”

 

I was curious about what was so important about an ordinary notepad with nothing unusual about it, so I asked her directly.
Shiraishi moved the notepad quickly to her back to hide it from my view.

 

“No, this is not particularly important. …Aaah, it’s important, yes, but…”

 

“But it looked as if you just filled a page.”

“…”

 

Please don’t look at me so coldly.
It’s as if I’m the one who took a peek.

 

Isn’t it your responsibility to take care of your privacy?
You should be grateful to me that I took notice of it, but you’re blaming me instead.

 

It was my usual crooked way of thinking, but nothing came to my mind after that.

 

 

 

After a few minutes of silence, not yielding to the silent pressure, I just took a few glances and waited for a response. Shiraishi let out a big sigh, as if she had given up.

“If you’ve already seen it …then it can’t be helped, this…”

 

“Ah, I can’ t see what’s written.”

 

 

 

 

I started speaking like some kind of villain, but before Shiraishi could finish her sentence, interrupting her.

I don’t know why I felt the urge to say this, but I did.

 

It’ll be a good idea to lie low and just state the facts.
Shiraishi, who had even made a serious expression, blushed and turned over in embarrassment.

 

“T-th-this is the conversation notebook I carry around with me on a daily basis!”

 

“Keep going…”

 

I don’t hate that attitude of not being affected by what others say…
With a blush, she stuck out the ‘conversation notebook’.

 

Words were written all over the page which was opened in that notebook.
It was a cute little notepad, with the round girlish letters and some occasional emoticons and symbols scattered throughout.

 

However, there was one thing that bothered me…

 

 

//How to get a boyfriend during summer vacation!//

 

“Hey, isn’t this the wrong page?”

 

“Eh? … Ah-Kyaa!? No, this isn’t it! It was this one!”

 

She hurriedly flipped through a few pages, and this time she opened the right one and Shiraishi handed it to me.

The letters were still round, but this time there were no distracting symbols on the page anymore.

 

It was just a normal memo.
Since she had made a fatal mistake before this, I didn’t care about the symbols and pictures.

The page had that much of an impact on me.

 

I suppressed the urge to turn back the pages of the notepad I had received and looked down at the page.

On the page, there was a self-introduction, answers to questions about her blood type, how she spent her holidays, and explanations of her hobbies and specialties.

 

It was as if she had prepared her answers to the questions in advance.
…just as if it was test.

 

“It’s like an answer sheet.”

 

I said, expressing my honest impression.
I wondered how she even bothered to write down her hobbies, skills, and her holiday plans

 

It’s not like she’s going to have an interview.
I was impressed with myself for having found such a strange and rare case of a female student.

 

“Haa…”

 

Shiraishi, who had become so absorbed in reading what was written there, let out a deep sigh.
Then she spoke briefly about her feelings in a voice so faint that we could only hear because we were the only two people there.

 

“It’s over ….my high school life.”

 

“Don’t end it without any permission.”

 

There she was, shrinking again as if she had reached her end.

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: I'll write more about Momiji Shiraishi in the next chapter! ---