Chapter 16 – A Pinch

We were saved since Asanagi was away at this time, but I never expected to run into Amami-san here.

“Eh? Yuu-chin, you know each other?”

“Jeez, Ninacchi! He’s our classmate! We even met with him the other day!”

“…N-now that I think about it…”

Maybe they were just messing with me, but apparently, other than Amami-san, my other classmates didn’t recognize me.

Then again, I was like air in class, even if I were to walk right in front of everyone, I was completely confident that they would never notice me.

“Maehara-kun, do you come here often? It’s the first time we bumped into each other here, right?”

“A-ahh… Mhm… That’s true…”

I casually fiddled with my phone, pretended that I was doing something with it, but in reality, I secretly called Asanagi, before quickly shoving my phone into my pocket.

My phone was cheap and it picked up a lot of the background noises, so if I did this, my phone should be able to convey the conversation between me and Amami-san to Asanagi.

“Ah, are you here with someone else? Right, of course! Playing alone in this place is boring after all.”

“S-something like that, yeah. I’m a little bit tired right now, so I’m taking a break by myself.”

“Really? I noticed there are two drinks over there, so I assumed that you’re here with someone else…”

“Uhh…”

As expected, Amami-san was really observant. Of course, she also observed everyone in the class closely, it wasn’t limited to me. Normally she was like an angel, spreading her kindness toward everyone in the class, but right now, she was more of a demon than anything.

At this rate, no matter how obscure Asanagi’s attire was, Amami-san, her best friend, would notice that it was her immediately.

Anyway, I need to make sure that they won’t find out that Asanagi is currently here.

We were still keeping our relationship a secret after all, letting Amami-san and the rest of the class know about it would be bad.

“Still, I’m glad that Maehara-kun has friends you can hang out with. I was a little worried about you because you were alone all the time in class.”

“I-I see… But, I prefer to be by myself, so you don’t need to worry about me…”

“Really? Well, if you feel lonely, you can always reach out to me! I don’t mind you inviting me for lunch too!”

“O-okay…”

I’m thankful that Amami-san felt concerned about me, but, after seeing the faces of her cronies… Yeah, I won’t be calling out to her in the future.

I’m quite perceptive if I may say so myself, I can read the air.

‘Don’t get ahead of yourself, loner’, that’s what they are telling me with their faces.

“Thank you for your kind words… I’ll gratefully keep them in mind. Well, I have to go now…”

“Ah, wait a minute!”

I decided to leave the place immediately. But as I was about to leave, Amami-san grabbed my shoulders from behind, it seemed like she had something in her mind.

…I had a bad feeling about this.

“W-what is it…?”

“Hey, if you want to, you can hang out with us right now, Maehara-kun! Of course, you can bring your friend along too!”

“Eh?”

I was so surprised that I let out a strange sound.

“Wait, Yuu-chin! Wouldn’t that inconvenience Maehara-kun? Besides, Maehara-kun seemed to be occupied with something.”

Perhaps she didn’t fancy the idea of me tagging along, Nitta-san immediately chimed in from the back. Well, me too, even if Amami-san went through the trouble of inviting me like this, I disliked the idea. Even if Asanagi was included in her group, I would still dislike it.

“Nitta-san is right, Amami-san. Besides, if I were to join in, everyone would have to be considerate toward me and they wouldn’t be able to enjoy themselves to the fullest.”

“Really ~? I think it would be more fun with more people though…”

If I were a more sociable person, I would be able to blend into the group without ruining the atmosphere, but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. I’m bad at dealing with any kind of group activity with more than three people in it, and I’d prefer not to ruin the group’s fun.

If Asanagi were here at Amami-san’s side, she could warn her about it because she was her best friend and all, but she wasn’t here right now.

“Yeah, it’ll be more fun if Maehara-kun joins in, no? Or maybe you dislike him, Ninacchi?”

“Eh? N-no, no way that’s the case, right…?”

Out of everyone here, Nitta-san was probably the closest person to Amami-san, but, sadly she wasn’t Asanagi, she wasn’t close enough to Amami-san to act more assertively toward her.

Reining in the uncontrollable Amami-san while keeping up and guiding the other people such as Nitta-san… When I first heard that Asanagi was doing something like that, I could only vaguely imagine such a scene. Now that I’ve witnessed what she was really up to, there was only one thought that popped out in my mind.

Asanagi was actually doing such a troublesome thing.

“I can see why she’s exhausted…”

“Eh? Maehara-kun, did you say something?”

“Ah, no, nothing… Anyway, about the thing you said previously…”

“Mhm, what do you think?”

“…Sorry but, I don’t want to hang out with you guys.”

“Eh?”

Hearing my words, the cheerful expression on Amami-san’s face immediately turned gloomy.

“Ah, of course, I’m glad that Amami-san invited me, but, you see, I’m not big-hearted enough to hang out with a group of people who clearly dislike me.”

‘In other words, you lot’, I glared at her cronies, including Nitta-san.

Both my attitude and words were clearly filled with hostility and it would definitely deteriorate the good atmosphere they previously had.

Normally, I would just ignore them and retreat, but by the time I realized it, my feelings were already leaking out of my mouth.

I didn’t know why I felt this way.

“Besides, today is the day for me and my friend to hang out together. I’m sorry, but I don’t think neither my friend nor I, would like it if someone were to intrude on our time together like this… So, my bad, I can’t accept your invitation.”

“Ah, Maehara-kun…”

“Then, see you later, Amami-san… I appreciate the invite.”

With that said, I waved lightly and shook Amami-san’s hands off, and walked away.

I vaguely heard someone trying to tell me something, but the sound of the background music drowned out their voices. Not like I cared about what they had to say.

After making sure that no one was following me, I pulled out my phone from my pocket.

[Thank you, Maehara. You saved me.]

“You’re welcome… Well, we’ve had enough fun for today, so let’s go home.”

[…Mmm…]

We decided to meet up again at the ticket gate. In the end, we managed to escape from the arcade without being discovered by Amami-san and her cronies.