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Chapter 139 – The Day of the Class Match
The day for the class match finally arrived.
I woke up in the morning with slight muscle soreness, so I stretched lightly to ease the pain. Thanks to the practice we had with Nitori-san and Houjou-san, my previously weak body had grown a little stronger.
I also managed to sleep for eight hours daily so whenever I woke up in the morning, I felt refreshed.
I was washing my face in the bathroom right after I finished cleaning up after my mom, who had left for work earlier.
I heard footsteps coming from the front door, but there were more footsteps than usual.
Other than Umi, there was another person… Or maybe two?
“Good morning, Maki.”
“Morning, Umi… Also, Amami-san, Nitta-san.”
“Morning, Rep~ All gray nightwear, huh? Lame~”
“It’s too early for this… Anyway, what’s up? It’s rare for all of you to come here together like this.”
Whenever Umi picked me up (or woke me up), she would normally come alone. We would meet up with Amami-san and Nitta-san on the way to school.
“Sorry to bother you, Maki-kun… Um… I was nervous all night long, so…”
“Did you sleep late last night?”
“Yes… And I overslept… Hehe~”
She laughed it off, but her eyes looked unusually clouded, maybe it was just my imagination?
I asked Umi about it. Apparently, when she called Amami-san this morning, her voice sounded more gloomy than usual and she thought it was best to not leave her alone and cheer her up instead. She asked Nitta-san to tag along since she was already on her way.
I was surprised that all three of them decided to come, but after hearing their reason, I understood why they would do it. Not like I minded having all of them here. I just needed to brew a little more coffee, but that wasn’t much of a problem.
I’d rather spend the morning together with Umi, but this was fine too. Today was Friday, so we could hang out all day after today’s matches were over.
I made coffee for everyone to chase away our lingering drowsiness. This time, I didn’t make black coffee, instead I put in a sufficient amount of sugar and milk for everyone’s coffee. I took a sip of my coffee and let out a soft sigh.
“—In the end, we couldn’t settle anything with Arae since the last P.E, huh?
We nodded after hearing Nitta-san’s words.
It was the first time that Amami-san stood up to Arae-san. I thought something bigger would happen, but surprisingly, nothing of note occurred. However, she had been acting strange ever since.
“…She had been avoiding me ever since. Normally, she would just dismiss me or mock me when I tried talking to her, but nowadays, she just runs away when I call out to her…”
I’ve been watching their interactions since the last P.E., and sure enough, Arae-san had been treating Amami-san like air.
Previously, she would always throw sarcastic remarks towards Amami-san whenever she approached her, but now she just avoided her completely.
She didn’t even look at Amami-san’s face. Whenever Amami-san approached her, she would either run away or tell her cronies to deal with Amami-san in her stead.
The class’ atmosphere was calm because we stopped hearing her sickening words, but the divide between the two groups grew larger.
If anything, the situation in our class had gotten much worse. Things escalated from simple skirmishes to a full-blown cold war between the two groups.
And we had to play in today’s match in such a state.
The class match was an annual event meant to strengthen the unity of the newly formed classes, but for our class specifically, it just worsened it instead.
“Yuu, I told you many times already, this isn’t your fault, so stop blaming yourself. Everything is completely her fault, okay?”
“True! I don’t care if she has a good reason for it, but she took it too far this time.”
I agreed.
From the information we got from Nitori-san and Houjou-san, she probably had her own reasons to act like that toward Amami-san.
But that was her problem, we had no obligation whatsoever to care.
If only she would apologize or at least face Amami-san directly, this situation wouldn’t happen, but what’s done is done, no matter how much time we spent moping about it, we wouldn’t be able to change anything.
“Thank you, everyone…” *Yawn* “I feel a little sleepy now…”
“You should lie down for a while, we still have time, just use my mom’s room… It smells like cigarettes though…”
“Why don’t you let her sleep in your room instead, Rep? It’s just for a little while, it’s not a big deal~ Oh, wait, could it be that your bed is reserved for a certain girl here? My bad~”
“And who is this ‘girl’ you’re talking about, hm?”
I couldn’t do that, no matter how close I got to Amami-san, I simply couldn’t let her sleep in my bed.
Well, Umi often did, but we didn’t talk about that.
“Just sleep on the couch instead, I’ll make sure your clothes won’t get all wrinkly, okay?”
“If you say so, Umi.”
Then Amami-san moved to the couch and took a nap while hugging Umi.
“Don’t worry, Yuu… No matter what happens, we’ll always be on your side…”
“Mm. Thank you, Umi, Everyone…”
Umi started petting her head gently and after a minute or so, she finally fell asleep.
Her sleeping face looked so peaceful and beautiful.
I wanted her to always make this kind of peaceful face.
After all, looking all depressed didn’t suit her.
“…Maki.”
“Hm?”
“…I might end up doing something bad later, so… Can I ask you for help?”
I didn’t know what she was planning, but I’ll try to support her however I can.
“Got it, let’s do something bad together.”
“I don’t want to get involved with Araecchi, but Yuuchin is my precious friend, so I’ll help you guys out.”
“Thank you, both of you. We should get some rest too… We’ll be really busy later…”
I set the alarm five minutes before the time we planned to leave the house. The three of us then closed our eyes and slept.