Chapter 31: 3.1

Chapter 3 – End of First Love

 

Part 1

 

Summer vacation was over and the second semester had begun.

 

When I entered the classroom, my eyes met with Shiina’s, who was already seated on her seat.

 

“…Yo.”

“…Good morning.”

 

I called out to her, but she bowed her head and avoided my gaze.

 

After replying to my greetings, she turned her focus back to the novel in her hands. It seemed like she didn’t want to talk with me.

 

Ever since the fireworks festival, she had been acting like this toward me.

 

She had been avoiding making any contact with me.

 

We still did the treatment for her curse but, even then, we only talked when we needed to. It felt like I was a doctor doing my own job instead of helping a friend out.

 

I wanted to do something about it, but I just got dumped by her, so I didn’t want to be too forceful to her.

 

Hopefully, we could get back to how we were before all this. For now, I should let time heal everything.

 

They say that love ruins friendships. This was the first time that I’ve ever experienced it, even though I’ve read about this all the time in stories. Honestly, I regretted it. I should’ve just let things go as they were instead of trying to push our relationship forward like that.

 

As I let my cheek propped onto my desk, I felt a slap on my back.

 

“Good morning! Why do you look so down?”

 

Hina seemed to be in a good mood today. I would have liked that she held her slap a little though, because it hurt.

 

“I’m sleepy. My internal clock is all messed up because of the summer vacation.”

“As expected of a member of the going-home club. You had a good life during the vacation, huh?”

“…Yes, but I was working part-time, you know?”

 

I nodded to Hina’s question.

 

After Shiina dumped me, I had many sleepless nights and I slowly became a night-owl. Well, part of it was because my shifts were mostly during the evening or night.

 

Thanks to that, I ended up not getting enough sleep. Now that school is starting, it’d be a pain to get my internal clock in order again.

 

“I woke up at six everyday during the vacation, why can’t you just do that?”

“I’m not a freak like you who’d willingly go to club activities. Besides, it’s summer vacation, you’re supposed to be relaxing at home.”

 

After hearing my answer, she acted as if she had found out the truth of the world. Stop it, Hina. If you were to proceed, you’d end up like me and join the going-home club!

 

“Hina, long time no see!~”

“Ah, Misuzu! Heya!~ Look at you, girl! You got a tan?”
“I went to the beach! Right, hear me out, when I went there with my boyfriend—”

 

Suddenly, a girl classmate approached Hina. Hina then turned her back on me and started chatting with that girl instead.

 

I stared at her slender back. Huh, did she get taller?

 

It felt like it had been a long time since I last saw her.

 

Now that I think about it, I haven’t seen her that much during the vacation.

 

Well, I was busy doing my part-time job to cope with my broken heart and she was also busy with her club activities. But, the thing was, normally she’d visit my home to hang out with me when things weren’t so busy. She hadn’t done so lately and it felt lonely.

 

The last time she visited me was when she dragged me to go shopping for her swimsuit and that was quite a while ago.

 

As I was sitting idly while thinking in my seat,

 

“Yo, what’s up?”
“Good morning, everyone.”

 

Shinji and Yuuka entered the classroom.

 

They walked so close to each other. I guess Shinji accepted her confession back at the festival, huh?

 

Then, Shinji sat in his seat, right in front of mine.

 

Yuuka on the other hand, joined in to chat with the other girls.

 

I caught her stealing a glance in my direction, no, in Shinji’s direction.

 

When the girls noticed her blushing, everyone started to tease her.

 

Shinji then gave the girls thumbs up much to Yuuka’s dismay and the girls teased her even more.

 

“Congrats.”

 

When I said that, Shinji let out an unusually innocent smile.

 

“Thank you.”

 

S-So dazzling… Is this what they call happiness? I can’t…

 

For someone with a broken heart like me, this is too much to handle…

 

“What about you?”

“…What do you think?”

 

His question made me tear up.

 

“Huh, you got dumped?”

 

He lifted his brows in surprise.

 

“How could you ask it so casually? I’m suffering here…”

 

Shinji looked at me before looking at Shiina, who was reading a novel on her own. Then, he patted my shoulder.

 

“Stay strong.”

“Thanks.”

 

As we were having this exchange, the homeroom teacher entered the class.

 

“Take your seats, we’re starting the homeroom.”

 

Then, the boring school day began.

 

I missed the summer vacation already.

 

During the vacation, I wanted school to start earlier but now that I had lost the reason why I wanted to go to school, I wished that I could stay in my house instead. I couldn’t even bring myself to talk to Shiina now.

 

…Well, just seeing her already made me happy, but that wasn’t enough!

 

“I know everyone is still in the mood for summer vacation, but get a grip already. It’s a little early to talk about this, but the inter-class ball tournament is coming up soon. Please decide the participants later, okay?”

 

Said the teacher.

 

Ball tournament… Right, there was that thing.

 

Last year I just skipped the whole thing together with Shinji.

 

…If I participate, could I show Shiina my cool side?

 

…No. Even if I tried, she dumped me already. There was no hope for me.

 

“I don’t feel like doing it.”

 

I sighed.

 

However, there was no use in being depressed forever.

 

Summer vacation was already over, so it was time for me to straighten my mood up.

 

I’ve decided to give up on Shiina anyway.

 

If I tried to cling to these futile feelings, it’d only backfire on me.

 

“…Alright.”

 

First, I should fix our broken relationship.

 

With that in mind, I marched toward her seat.

 

*   *   *

 

Shiina’s PoV

 

I’ve given up on Godou. I’ve given up on Godou.

 

I repeated those words like chanting a sutra as I pretended to be reading the novel in my hands. I was aware that I hadn’t moved on from the same page for a while now. With an iron will, I restrained my head movements that’d involuntarily look toward Godou’s direction if I were to let my guard down.

 

At first, I was optimistic that this feeling would fade away as long as I didn’t meet him for a while. But he still needed to give me treatment for my curse, so I ended up having to meet him a few times during the summer vacation.

 

A part of me felt glad because of that.

 

The other part of me was disappointed with myself for thinking like that.

 

“We are just friends… We are just friends… We are just friends…”

 

When I was repeating those words in a whisper,

 

“Oi.”

 

Godou’s voice entered my ears. I jumped in surprise.

 

“Hyaa!”

“Woah! What’s wrong with you?!”

 

Perhaps, startled by my voice, Godou also jumped in surprise.

 

I was so flustered that I threw the novel in my hand away.

 

I hurried to catch it before it reached the floor, but because of the sudden movement, my body swayed.

 

And then I fell down.

 

…Or so I thought. Godou caught me in one of his arms while his other arm was grabbing the novel I had just thrown. That was an amazing catch.

 

“Oh…”

“T-That was dangerous…”

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“As expected of Godou…”

 

I could hear the uproar that my classmates made from a distance.

 

Then, Kirishima-san and the others came over to check on me.

 

“Mai-chan, are you okay?!”

 

I felt embarrassed from all the attention everyone gave me, so I left Godou’s arm.

 

It was a shame that I had to leave his side and it seemed like he shared the same feeling as me, judging from his expression. Wait, there was no way that was the case. It was probably just my imagination.

 

“S-Sorry, I was surprised…”

“Seriously. What the hell is wrong with you?”

 

Godou immediately scolded me. I knew it, that feeling from before was merely my imagination.

 

“I-It was your fault for coming up to me suddenly like that!”

“It was your fault for being surprised by something like that. Besides, you should thank me for saving you. If it was any other person, they wouldn’t be able to catch you gracefully like I did.”

 

I pouted my lips in frustration.

 

He made a good argument that I couldn’t refute and I hated it.

 

Before I realized it, I was speaking normally with him. Even though I have been struggling to do it for a while now. Maybe it was because my emotions ran amok.

 

“As always, Godou’s reflex is amazing.”

 

Said Yuuka. Meanwhile, Shinji whistled in admiration.

 

“So cool…”, said one of the girls in class.

 

If I could hear it, that meant Godou could hear it too. But for some reason, he ignored it with a cool face… Ugh, how frustrating.

 

 

“What’s wrong, Shiina?”

“…Nothing. Don’t mind me.”

 

I answered in a grumpy tone. “I see,” he answered with a happy smile.

 

It was because of that smile that I kept misunderstanding his intention. Seriously, could he just stop?

 

“That was cool~”

 

 Kirishima-san nudged him with her shoulder.

 

“I’m already cool to begin with, you know?”
“Hahaha, look at yourself in the mirror properly and say it again.”

“It was a joke! Stop making fun of me!”

 

They looked happy when having such exchanges.

 

Today too, they got along well.

 

Both Godou and Kirishima-san were my friends.

 

As long as they could smile happily like that, there was nothing else that I could ask for.

 

*   *   *

 

Godou’s PoV

 

Two days have passed since the summer vacation ended.

 

My internal clock was corrected and my body finally was getting used to the change of pace.

 

“Pass pass!”

 

A member of the soccer club, Sakuragi, asked for a pass, so I passed the ball in my feet over to him.

 

“Nice, Godou!”

 

He received the ball properly and shot it right into the goal.

 

Then, he came toward me and we high-fived.

 

“Nice shot!”

“Your pass was a nice one too! You should just join the soccer club already, dude. You’ll be a regular in no time.”

“Nah, I wanna live like a slouch for a while longer.”

“Ah, well, I got you, I wouldn’t want to throw a life like that away either.”

 

Sakuragi nodded his head.

 

Perhaps because of the upcoming ball tournament, our P.E. class turned into practice sessions for various ball games.

 

The game I will be participating in is soccer. When they assigned which person got which game, I was asleep, so they decided it without telling me about it.

 

Well, I had no complaints about that. I liked all the ball games, so I could go with anything they threw at me.

 

Though, I did think that it was a little early to hold a ball tournament. I mean, summer vacation just ended and all. It was still better than regular classes, but you know…

 

I only played soccer in P.E., but thanks to the experience from my previous life, I gained the habit of observing people’s movements and the mindset to anticipate and counter them. My reflex was good to begin with, so applying this strength of mine to the sport would be a piece of cake.

 

Not only that, I could also imitate the movements of a really good player perfectly. 

 

In other words, no one could beat me in sports if I was serious.

 

“Pass, please.”

 

Normally, I’d try to hold back, but since the ball tournament was coming up soon, I decided to take it a little more seriously.

 

I received a pass from Sakuragi.

 

At that moment, two of the enemy’s defenders were closing on me.

 

As both of them tried to reach for the ball at my feet, I stopped the ball and spun around. 

 

Roulette, that was what the move called. I easily dodged them both, kicked the ball lightly to the right of the defender who tried to stop me in a hurry and dribbled away from him. (T/N: Dude just pulled a Zidane.)

 

I went in from the right wing and passed the ball to Shinji who was waiting for me at the center of the penalty box.

 

Sadly, Shinji blew the shot and it hit the side of the goal.

 

At that time, I managed to read the trajectory of the ball ahead of time, so I was already running toward the ball’s landing area. Then, I leaped toward the ball and shot it with my right foot, scoring a goal.

 

Takahashi, the goalkeeper, didn’t manage to move an inch to stop me. He immediately slumped on the spot.

 

…Whoops, I went too far. Guess I needed to hold back a little.

 

When I felt conflicted like that, I could hear the girls’ yelling voices.

 

Apparently a group of girls just neglected to practice their own sports to watch me play soccer.

 

“Amazing! You’re great!”

“Godou, you’re on a roll!”

 

Sports were the only field where I could use the experience from my previous life, so it was inevitable that I was good, no, peerless at it.

 

However, everyone in class didn’t know this fact, so they praised me instead of chiding me.

 

Since I was on a roll, I felt a wave of excitement and was about to show off even more. Then, I saw Shiina making a disgusted look at me.

 

Could she cut me some slack? I wanted to show off once in a while too!

 

Despite my conflicted feelings, the game continued on as everyone kept passing the ball to me.

 

Well, that made sense since our team was mostly dependent on Sakuragi, the member of the soccer club and me.

 

After that, I avoided doing flashy moves since Shiina’s gaze hurt my conscience, so I only gave my teammates passes.

 

I felt confident in my plays, but I also felt confident in my vision.

 

I’ve dealt with hundreds of demons at once before and I could tell the positions of my team and opponent from their footsteps, that was why I could give my teammates passes without even looking toward their positions.

 

Since I haven’t moved this body around this much for a while, I was having more fun than I thought.

 

“Nice!”

 

I pat Sayama’s shoulder after he received my pass and scored.

 

Supporting others felt good too. Before I knew it, I was getting too absorbed in my role.

 

I glanced over at Shiina’s and the rest of the girls’ direction.

 

For some reason, Shiina was staring at me in a daze. Our eyes met involuntarily.

 

Almost immediately, she turned her face away from me. Did she realize that there was nothing but a single tree in that direction?

 

Meanwhile, the other girls were waving at me.

 

When I waved back, they started screaming. Could it be… Was this the start of my popular phase?!

 

Well, actually, this always happened during P.E.

 

Before my memories were awakened, I was already an athletic person. After my memories awakened, I could utilize my combat experience freely. That was why I usually kept everything moderate and restrained myself.

 

After all, it was obvious what would happen if I were to take things seriously.

 

I mean, I was holding back, but Sakuragi and the others were trembling when they saw me.

 

“Are you actually a genius?…”

“Nah, I’m just on a roll today.”

 

I wonder how long will that excuse work?

 

Clearly, I wasn’t an amateur and with a little practice, I’d easily get better.

 

This was the reason why I didn’t join any sports club.

 

Back in middle school, I was in the basketball club. They invited me to join the club in high school too, but I decided not to join it.

 

Because of my previous life memories, I grew too strong. I knew that if I wanted to be successful easily, I could just do sports all my life, but I didn’t want that.

 

Though, I wasn’t averse to using this strength of mine for something fun like the upcoming ball tournament.

(E/N: Baseball arc PTSD)

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