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The long summer break was over and it was time for the

students to begin the second term. The second term included the athletics

festival, the school festival, and for the second years, the school grip.\n

Juri’s Harunomiya Academy also had smaller parties planned

for Halloween and Christmas, so the students could sometimes feel like they

were only studying in the brief gaps between their preparations for those

events. And that may have been fairly accurate because the athletics festival

had only just ended, but Harunomiya’s students were already preparing for the

school festival and the school felt even busier than normal.\nJuri felt swallowed up by it all as she worked to get her

class ready. At the moment, she was out with some classmates to shop for

supplies at a mall near the train station. They had already decided to do a

café this year, so they needed plenty of ingredients to decide what they were

going to make and they needed fabric for the costumes.\n(We still have an entire month…but I guess it is best to get

this done sooner rather than later.)

She sighed while following after her classmates. Her earnest

personality meant she always worked hard on these school events and she was

looking forward to this festival, but she still could not muster much

excitement.\n

(We were still first years last year, so we only had to

decorate our own classroom.)\nShe had been a lot more excited during the preparations back

then. Her spirits had been high even when accounting for it being her first

school festival, so she had enjoyed chatting with her friends while out

shopping like this.\n(So why aren’t I this time? …Okay, fine! I know why.)\nQuestioning herself was pointless when she already knew the

answer: he was no longer here by her side. She had long since realized that his

absence was messing with her mood. Koshigaya Kazuki had confessed to her twice

early this school year and then more or less gone missing after temporarily

leaving the school.\nKoshigaya Kazuki. Simply thinking that name made her blush

and filled her body with heat. He was a childhood friend and former classmate

who had seemed like a permanent fixture in her life.\nIn the dozen or so years she had known him, she had learned

that he was a hopeless pervert who was horny around the clock. And he also had

the terrible taste to fall in love with a girl who disliked that sort of thing

and tried to keep up an innocent appearance.\nAfter that girl had rejected two confessions from him, he

had disappeared, but only then had she noticed the faint feelings inside herself.

Realizing how dense she had been had only led to regret for wasting that

opportunity. If she were a boy, she doubted she would want a girlfriend like

that.\n(Whenever I try to look at my actions objectively, I end up

insulting myself.)\nThe more she thought about it, the less she could figure out

what about her he had liked, but the even greater mystery was why he had

suddenly disappeared without telling her anything.\nA lot of their classmates had asked her about it, but she had

nothing to tell them. Every one of those questions was a reminder that he had

vanished without telling her a word and she started to feel like it must be her

fault, so she kept hurting herself more and more. The others had stopped asking

her about it as a kindness to her and they had insisted on inviting her out

during summer break, but she had never managed to shake free of this gloom.\n(It isn’t like he never contacts me, but it’s only once a

month at best.)\nIt was always by email and only to let her know he was safe

and sound. He ignored all of her questions about where he was and what he was

doing and, whenever he did respond to her questions in the next email, he would

only give excuses about it being a company secret. He had not even returned

home for the bon festival, so she had not seen him at all for several months

now.\nShe had barely seen his face after what happened: she had

rejected his confession twice, she had gotten in an argument with him after she

saw him flirting with a younger girl, and she had argued him with a lot before

all that as well. She felt even more anger toward him, disgust toward herself,

and general awkwardness than ever before and it all came from the fact that she

had refused to be the one to give in. So she felt like it was her own fault

that she felt this way.\nShe understood all that. She really did. But…\n(This is my fault, but…it’s his fault too. Are you really

okay with this!?)\nHis feelings for her had been strong enough to try

confessing to her again after she rejected him the first time, but did he not

mind at all that he had been away from her for so long? She did not understand

his feelings in the slightest. Unless…\n(Could he really be with that other girl? Is he using an app

or something to send her emails or letters or whatever every day?)\nShe shook her ponytail to reject that unpleasant thought.

She had been with him for as long as she could remember, so she refused to

accept that. She did not want to imagine all of that could have fallen apart in

an instant.\n“Okay, what else did we need to buy? Wait, where’s the list?”\n“Ummm, I think you left it with Juri. Hey, Juri?”\n

Her classmates’ voices dragged her back to reality, so she raised her head and

looked around in surprise. She found she had fallen a good bit behind her

friends, so she jogged up to them.\n“S-sorry. Um, what were we talking about?”\n“That we should probably keep the shopping list with us.”\nHer friend snatched the list from her pocket and breathed an

exasperated sigh.\n“You’ve really got it bad, huh?” “You were thinking about

Koshigaya, weren’t you?”\n“Wha-? I-I was not! Why would I be- wait, why are you

laughing!?”\n

She picked up her pace to chase after the teasing girls as they ran away from

her.\n“Hey, you’re not supposed to run here! You need to sto- kyah!?”\nShe ran into someone who stepped around the street corner

and fell back onto her butt.\n“Ow, ow, ow, ow. S-sorry, I wasn’t looking.” “Neither was

I.”\nShe apologized and frowned while rubbing her butt to soothe

the sudden pain. Her friends noticed the accident and ran back over to

apologize to the person she had run into.\n“Sorry, that was our fault!” “Are you okay?”\nFrom what she could see down on the ground, she had run into

someone in a suit. So probably an adult man. But he did not seem to be a mean

person because he stopped her from apologizing any further, slowly stood up,

and reached out a hand to help her up like a gentleman.\n“I’m- I am fine. And I must apologize for this.”\nRelieved by his kind behavior, she realized it looked bad to

stay down on the ground, so she quickly took his hand to stand up.\n“N-no, it was my fault. Thank you very…much!?”\n

As soon as she looked up at his face to take his hand, her eyes widened in

surprise and her expression froze in place.\n\n