Episode 14: Sara POV, then Kazunari

Saturday

After Takanashi-san left, I felt this overwhelming sense of panic. If I can’t tell him the most important things like this, it feels like something is going to be beyond repair…

I personally believe in you. You’re different from other boys, someone I can trust.

I haven’t been able to tell him those words yet…

Natsumi stopped me as I tried to chase after him.

「…Let’s just calm down for now. Let’s stop for today.」

「Natsumi, I still haven’t said what I wanted to say—」

「Calm down.」

Natsumi continued as if to reason with me.

「I think Takanashi-kun has dug his heels in, so you should give him some time to cool off before you expect him to listen. Don’t rush it, just take it slow at the next opportunity. But you know what you have to say first this time, right? Tell him that first. I’ll help out with whatever I can.」

「……Yes.」

I have never felt so pathetic.

I selfishly assumed that if I explained everything carefully from the beginning, he’d listen until the end, and I failed to convey the words that actually mattered…

Because I’ve become so used to loathing male students and rejecting others, I’m missing the basic common sense of considering the other person’s feelings before I speak…

It was a day that made me realize that all too clearly.

And then, Monday.

A lunch break where Takanashi-san doesn’t come…

This sight of me watering alone is something I’ve seen forever; it should be normal.

But now…

Even when I look at the bench, Takanashi-san isn’t there eating his lunch.

I couldn’t bring myself to prepare the bento I intended to make as a thank-you. Even the Hamburg steak I practiced so hard on… will I never get to have him eat it now?

I finished the watering indifferently, and when I opened my shoe locker to change my shoes at the entrance, I noticed an envelope inside.

There is one last thing I want to tell you. I will be waiting on the rooftop after school.

Thinking it was probably just the usual confession, I was about to tear the letter up when the word「lastly」caught my eye. There had never been a letter with that kind of opening before.

…Could it be… Takanashi-san?

Monday.

I’d been depressed since morning, but I didn’t want to skip and have the school contact my aunt or my parents, so I headed to school.

I didn’t go to the flower beds at lunch either, and spent the time in class pretending to be asleep. Halfway through, a worried RAIN message came from Yuji, but I just gave him a random reply.

…Is Senpai at the flower beds alone…?

After that talk on Saturday, I realized that I’m just another one of those idiots to her, and she doesn’t trust me for a second.

If you don’t want to be looked at with「those eyes,」then just forget it already…

School ended, and I was slowly getting ready to go home with a heavy heart…

It was a complete accident that I overheard those class idiots talking.

But… this coincidence was lucky.

「Hey, what’s the plan for today?」

「It’s Yashiro-senpai and his crew, right?」

「What should we do? You wanna go watch?」

「Nah, they might actually go too far, and I don’t want to be an accomplice.」

「True. I kind of want to see that haughty Empress screaming and crying, though.」

「Think they’ll film it on their phones?」

…What? What are they talking about? I know they’re talking about something terrible… Empress? The one those guys see as a haughty Empress… no way… no, it can’t be…

I left the classroom pretending to be calm, and once I was a little distance away, I started sprinting with everything I had.

Senpai’s class is 2-B!

At that moment… everything like what she thought of me, my fear toward her, or my own negative feelings had been blown away.

There was a possibility that someone I knew… someone I couldn’t quite stop caring about, was about to have something horrible happen to them.

If I just ignore this and something happens to Senpai, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life… Don’t overthink it, it doesn’t matter right now, and even if it’s not Senpai, I can at least give a warning…

That’s what I was thinking.

I reached 2-B and looked into the classroom through the open door.

Senpai isn’t here……

What do I do… I don’t even know the location… Do I look for her? …No, if I’m too late…

Just then, I locked eyes with a female student looking my way from the other side of the door.

That’s definitely the girl who was with Senpai the other day…

She looked surprised for a second, but she immediately came over.

「Hello, Takanashi-kun. Sorry about the other day. But since you’re here, I guess the one who called Sara out wasn’t Takanashi-kun after all.」

What does that mean? I called her out?

「Tell me about that. Was Senpai called out?」

「Yeah, apparently there was a letter in her shoe locker. The wording said something about it being “the last time,” so it was a bit meaningful for a love letter, and Sara thought it might be Takanashi-san…」

「I didn’t send anything. If I was going to do that, I’d send a RAIN message.」

「Yeah, I told her I didn’t think it was you either. But… she’s a bit of a mess emotionally right now.」

This isn’t the time to be listening to that!

「Where!? Did she say where!?」

「She said the rooftop…」

I started running before she could even finish. Please, let me be in time…!