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We briefly conveyed the messageăLooks like he still canât be honest with us either. Weâll try come again next weekăto Yamazaki-kunâs mother, and left the house with our heads heavily bowed.\n
As we were about to leave, I looked up at Yamazakiâs room to see if he might be peeking out at us, but the curtains were tightly closed.\n
To return the bicycle to Kaito, riding tandem once again, we took off towards the school.\n
ăHow was it, Yua? Did you get any impressions from talking to him?ă\n
ăItâs not a problem to me however many times he calls you a womanizing scumbag, Saku-kun. But I definitely canât forgive him for calling me a meat slave.ă\n
ăIf you took the converse of that, then Iâd agree⌠For now, could you please stop squeezing my neckâs carotid artery in retaliation?ă\n
Yua placed her hands on my waist.\n
ăTo be honest, that wasnât a very good impression. I donât like this kind of labelling, and this is purely the superficial aspect of what I felt from todayâs conversation⌠but he felt like the stereotypical otaku as depicted by society. He probably has his circumstances, but thatâs no reason for him to hurt people heâs never met before with irresponsible words.ă\n
ăWell, I guess so.ă\n
To me it was business as usual, but Yua might not yet be used to receiving haphazard ill will from a stranger. Although inevitable for as long as youâre recognized as part of the riajuu group, it is in no way anything pleasant. I think she did a good job of handling him while keeping those emotions in check.\n
ăDid you notice something, Saku-kun?ă\n
ăIndeed, something extremely important⌠that guy hates me, doesnât he?ă\n
ăSeems that way.ă\n
ăSniffle, sniffle.ă\n
When I feigned exaggerated tears, Yua removed her right hand from my waist and patted me several times on the back.\n
ăItâs okay, itâs all right. Saku-kunâs cool, after all.ă\n
ăAh, thatâs the thing you say when youâre casually trying to sidestep the issue.ă\n
I couldnât see her face, but I was sure she was muffling her laughter.\n
*Kishi-kishi*, the wheels of the mom-bike laughed too.\n
The setting sun dyed the faint, lingering clouds above. From bitter orange to tangerine, from tangerine to apricot, and from apricot to gentian and lapis lazuli blue, it painted a beautiful, almost fictional gradation.\n
Cuddled together with long shadows in tow, our silhouettes looked like a page out of a proper adolescence, moving forward without a care in the world for some shut-in hikikomori.\n
It looked even more fictional than the sunset on this day, and wasnât so bad.\n
Continuing in this way together with Yua, it seemed like we could rush off to just about anywhere.\n