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CHAPTER 1 – POSTER GIRL AND DARK MATTER
PART 03
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Lunch break was coming to an end, and I slowly made my way to the stairwell leading down from the rooftop.
R was floating around me in circles, body hunched so that she looked like a tiny boomerang, chanting, “I’m~so~dizzy~”. Her actions contrasted starkly with my misery, but it couldn’t be helped since she couldn’t physically be more than five metres away from me.
Ignoring R, I jogged down the corridor. I’d escaped to the rooftop of the special rooms block to vent my frustrations out of sight, and if I didn’t hurry back, I’d be late for my next lesson.
“Hey hey hey hey wait wait, you over there!”
Just then, a voice, speaking excessively fast, shouted from behind me, halting my progress.
Turning around, I found a fork stabbed into my face by a girl in a slightly worn-looking uniform.
“W-what?”
Our school ties were the same color, which meant that she was a freshman just like me, but her overbearing attitude immediately sounded alarm bells in my head.
“Have you eaten?”
“Huh…?”
Stunned by the unexpected question, I could only come up with a dumb reply.
The girl, with shoulder-length hair tied in a small ponytail on her right side, tapped her foot impatiently.
“I asked, have you had your lunch yet?” She asked again, clarifying herself.
“…Not yet.”
In fact, I hadn’t had lunch, since I took the first chance I got to escape from the classroom to destress. If I didn’t, Satsuki and Iris would have grabbed one of my arms each and forced me to make the gutwrenching decision of who I wanted to eat lunch with that day.
“So you haven’t eaten lunch? You’re not lying, are you?”
“I’m telling the truth… Anyway, isn’t this a weird question to ask someone at the end of lunch break?”
I knew I hadn’t eaten that day, but normally, most students, myself included, would have finished lunch by this time.
So what were the odds that this girl would have asked me this particular question today…?
“Then please eat this.”
With that, the girl stabbed at “something” on the plate she was holding in one hand with the fork.
…Erm, well… What was “this”, actually?
It was black.
But not the natural black of sesame seeds or seaweed.
To be honest, the color resembled something you’d get from mixing all the shades together on a paint palette, then combining it with the clumpiness of potato starch mixed with sulfuric acid… I didn’t know where that description came from, but it seemed to prefectly describe the blackness of the substance on her plate.
And now, that weird black blob was being pushed into my face.
My survival instinct kicked me in the ass, as if telling me to “Run! Run or you’ll die!”
“S-Sorry, but I’m not hungry. Bye!”
With that short excuse, I turned to escape, but she dashed to stand in front of me again.
“All the more you should try this. I’ve added dried plum, lemon, grapefruit, broadbean chilli paste, salty miso and balsamic vinegar to this dish specifically to boost appetite.”
“That’s too weird! That’s just too weird!”
“Sour foods make you salivate more, so you feel hungry. Spicy foods too, so I’ve added everyone’s favorite curry rice in as well.”
“You added too much stuff! And which part of that black blob even resembles curry rice!?”
“Well, I mixed it all together, then grilled, steamed, and chilled it, before adding my secret ingredient.”
But aside from hotpots and salads, don’t all other foods taste bad when mixed all together!? And that secret ingredient did not sound good. For all I knew, she’d added mud into the dish!
My survival instinct kicked me in the ass again.
“……!!”
I quickly turned around again, ready to dash out of this place without a shred of shame…but the girl tripped me up in an instant. The moment I crashed onto the floor, she climbed on top of me. I can’t escape!?
“Come, be a good boy and eat it.”
“Wait wait wait! I actually don’t like spicy food!”
“Oh. It’s alright, since I added chocolate and mont blanc in as well.”
“More weird ingredients!? O-Oh! You added curry with beef, right? My religion forbids me from consuming beef!”
“What’s your religion?”
“Erm…”
What was that religion that forbids the consumption of beef?
“I knew you were lying. Seriously, why does everyone lie?”
“…Everyone?”
“Whenever I ask someone to try this, they all lie and escape. How rude. I actually spent all night cooking up this new item to add to ‘Nozomiya”s menu, so everyone should be grateful and try it.”
“…Just curious, where are all the prople who lied to you?”
“They’re all sleeping in the school infirmary.”
“GYAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!”
That was just too crazy!
Just then, another female student appeared further along the corridor of the special rooms block.
“Tsumiki! What are you doing?”
“Tsk!”
The girl, Tsumiki, clucked her tongue in annoyance, before prying my mouth open forcefully.
“I’m not going to let you stop me again! And you better eat up too… Eat it!”
“GYAAA-pu!?”
The moment that black blob was shoved into my mouth, a taste I’d never experienced before spread across my tongue… Then, memories of that time when I went on a picnic with the old man and mum, and when I played with Satsuki in the park as a child, suddenly flashed through my mind.
“That’s your life flashing before your eyes. I’m outta here.”
With that, my survival instinct bid me goodbye as my vision went black.