Chapter 16: Piled on

Ishi was done with this day. Having his hopes crushed will certainly teach him not to look forward to anything anymore. He laid in his bed, wishing that this was all just a dream. However, there was nothing for him to wake up from. This was indeed his reality.

And the bad news would keep piling on as he heard banging on his window. The boy got up and looked to see what was causing all the commotion, only to see Rinse with a broom attacking the glass.

“What do you want?” He asked, opening his window. “Can’t you see I’m in my room sulking right now.” She did have free reign to look into his room at any given time. Of course, she made it a habit not to since he could be literally doing anything. A few of those thing being stuff she never wished to set her eyes on.

“You make no sense.” She glared at him with rage in her eyes.

“Huh?” He didn’t get it. They hadn’t seen each other since class ended. Surely he couldn’t have done something to have upset her already. “Did you just miss arguing with me?”

“It’s not that.” She retorted. “I’m talking about the girl you’re having over.”

“Uh? How did you find… Never mind.” Ishi decided it was better to tell her the context to this story. Unfortunately, despite telling her the truth. Rinse didn’t appear to be any happier to hear the news.

“Why would you even accept that?” He was always talking a big game about not wanting to interact with people. If that was the case, then the boy was really bad at doing it. “It’s just like with the field trip. You’re always arguing against everything, so why would you help out?”

“It turns out there are people I don’t argue with.” He explained. “They’re called teachers.” Authority did have an effect on him. Generally to the tune of not wanting to get into trouble, or disappointing the adults that held power over him. “If that’s everything, leave me alone so I can go to sleep.” Ishi attempted to end their conversation by shutting his window. However, she stopped it by jamming her broom into his room.

“Oh no you aren’t.” She said. “If you’re going to have someone over at your place, then I have to be there to observe you.”

“Observe me?” That was an odd choice of words. Then he remembered what she said to him during their bus ride back. The girl must’ve been rather curious about his actions, especially since they don’t appear to line up with his character. To him, what was there to figure out? He simply never had the opportunity to do the things he wanted.

As much as he didn’t want her to come over, there was no chance of saying no. Rinse would probably pester him seeing as she literal feet away from his room. “All right, but you’re not going to find anything interesting.”

***

A part of him was regretting allowing Rinse into his home. However, he also knew that if she wanted to annoy him for rejecting her, she could with that broom of hers. So this was his only logical answer.

“So, you got any homework you wanted to do while you were here?” He asked as she entered through his front door. This was the first time the girl had ever been to his place. A little unfair seeing as he got the chance on her first day.

“No, I took care of it before the break started. Doesn’t everybody?” She really was the angel of the school, wasn’t she? Ishi had a little bit that he didn’t mind taking care of on his first day of the break. “I guess I can study a little bit while I’m here.”

“Whatever.” He led her to the couch in his living room. “Kamagata should be arriving in a couple of minutes. By the way, if you think I’m mean, then she’s at least 10 times meaner than me.” If that girl didn’t want him showing up at her place, then she might not care to be doing homework in his room. Not to mention that being stuck in there all day would get stuff. So being in this more spacious spot was preferable.

As expected, there was another knock on the door. It was Chinae coming right on time. Despite her issues with him, at least she cared enough to give this a shot. Though the disgruntled look on her face revealed her true feelings. “I hope you don’t mind, but someone else wanted to join us.” He told her as she was led to the living room.

“I don’t really care if someone…” She stopped cold in her tracks when she saw Rinse’s face. “She’s here?”

“Well, Hattori does live next door to me.” After telling everyone at school about his new home situation, he figured there would be no surprises. “Who else did you think I meant?” It was likely Otoya in her mind, since that was the only person willing to put up with him.

“Well... I just figured that she wouldn’t want to be hanging out with losers.” An insult was expected coming from her.

“Hi, it’s nice to meet you.” Rinse ignored her cold nature and went straight for a warm greeting. “I guess you already know who I am, but you are?”

“Chinae Kamagata.” She replied plainly. “It’s nice to meet you too.” Ishi was a little surprised to hear how nice she was being. This was the same Chinae he went to school with, right? Or was this really because there was an idol in their midst? Perhaps even this girl wasn’t immune to the status of an individual. “Now let’s get started so I don’t have to see you for the rest of the break.” Well, she certainly was all the same when it came to him.

“Yeah… Let’s.” Ishi wanted to get this done with as soon as possible. It was already bad enough he had to tutor someone, but having Rinse here was a double-whammy. Given the rule of threes, he partially expected something else to go wrong to really hammer in his poor situation. “So, are you just not doing your work, or are you really just dumb?”

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“All this work is lame.” She replied, not really answering the question. “Why should I care about doing it?”

“Because you won’t graduate if you keep this up.” He informed her. “But if you can just do the work, then I’ll just need to supervise you so it’ll all get done.”

“…” Bashfully, she averted her eyes from him. “To tell you the truth, I got no clue on how to do this.”

“So it’s because you’re dumb.”

“Hirose, you shouldn’t be so mean to her.” Rinse defended the girl. “Aren’t you supposed to be the tutor? If she could do it, then you wouldn’t need to be here.”

“We’re at my house, so I’d still be here regardless.”

“Are you gonna help me or not?” Chinae brought the attention back to her. All this arguing was wasting precious time. While he responded rather irritable about it, Ishi did indeed start to teach her how to do the math problems. And the reading questions. And the English lessons. And the… Wow, he was just now noticing how much homework she had built up leading to this Summer break.

“There’s no way we’re going to get this done by the end of the day.” There were stacks on top of stacks of homework right in front of them. At this rate, they’d be lucky if it could be finished by the end of this break.

“What else are we supposed to do? Your plan wasn’t as good as you thought it was going to be…” While the pair argued, Rinse stayed off to the side, observing their conversation. Specially paying special attention to the actions made by Ishi.

He really was a curious fellow, as she absent-mindlessly played with her hair while watching them. Somehow his attitude drew her attention in. She couldn’t explain it, but it was most likely due to how he treated the people around him.

Here he was arguing with another girl like he did with her. Obviously he had a bit of a mean streak when things annoyed him, yet he could be kinder than he’d put himself out to be. For starters, despite his complaints, he still chose to tutor this girl. He wasn’t being lazy about it either, there was a lot to explain and the boy was doing it all with few corners being cut.

It was just like with the planning for the field trip with Youna. Ishi tried his best to come up with the best way to work things out. Splitting up the groups ended up making things a lot more fun for the students, and saved a lot of time as well. That was still with him supposedly not being close with the class rep. Yet with her, and with Chinae who he claimed to dislike, he spoke naturally. Harsh, but not with a sense of worry on his choice of words.

Which is why his apparent reputation as a loner made no sense to her. He seemed to interact with people normally and on a near daily basis. Not to mention his anti-social behavior didn’t affect his confidence. That boy was not what one would call shy or reserved.

“Great, we’ve got one piece done.” He said, breaking her out of this mental trance. The pair had gotten quickly to work on trying to finish up all the work. “Out of, like, a thousand.” Unfortunately, there was barely a dent done to their pile. They toiled away, but there was no way they would be even close to done at the end of the day.

“I don’t think you guys are doing to be finished today.” Rinse commented when she had finished up her own studying. There were still dozens of papers that needed to be filled out.

“Yeah, I guess we’ll have to pick up on this tomorrow or something.” Said Ishi. As much as the boy hated having to see this girl deeper into his Summer break, this was going to have to taken care of. A shame, since it was really cutting into his alone time. They looked to be about halfway done, so the next day should be their last as well.

“I really hate having to come back.” Chinae complained to him. “So I won’t. Unless you agree on one condition.”

“I’m not sure why you need a condition, but sure.” He wasn’t certain what she wanted, but it couldn’t have been that bad.

“Great. I’ll come back if she agrees to be here too.” She pointed over to Rinse. That sounded stupid to him. He already didn’t want her here in the first place, and why would Chinae want her here too?

“I’d love to come back.” Rinse responded with joy. Unlike her, Ishi was a lot more upset about this setup.

“What? I don’t get a say about who gets to come to my house?”

He didn’t.

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