Even If I Killed This Love, Only You Wanted To Protect It (R15) - Chapter 2.1. An Unfamiliar Face

A week has passed since the number of seats in the classroom increased.

Shimizu Terumichi, the owner of the newest seat, got used to everyone in the class in no time and climbed to the very top of the caste, which was something I and some other students had expected.

At first, he seemed like someone who only hung out with Kouno Yuka. However, on his first day of transfer, he played an active part in basketball in one of our PE classes, almost instantly joining the group of those idiots, with whom he then continued making the whole classroom noisy by chatting with the girls, including Kouno Yuka.

He is definitely much more popular than I was two months ago, having reached the top of the pyramid in an instant.

And now, because it’s break time, he can be heard laughing in the back of the classroom.

I don’t like Shimizu Terumichi’s strained, faint laughter. It feels fake. It’s been less than a week since I met him, and he seemed rather impolite on his first day of transfer. Moreover, that stupid brightness of his reminds me of that time in the second year of junior high school.

“Oh! I haven’t taken a video with Terumichi yet. Let’s take it, shall we? What song would you like to choose?”

“Uhhh, well… This or this, maybe?”

After the fifth hour of today’s classes, I was lying down on my desk, wishing for the remaining hour to pass by as soon as possible. Then, I heard the voices of Kouno Yuka and Shimizu Terumichi from behind. They were probably trying to take a video.

By the way, I didn’t really want to know the contents of the video. However, I didn’t like to move around purposelessly. But I wouldn’t look forward to talking to them either.

When I reluctantly got up and tried to reach the door on the opposite side, I heard a mocking voice behind me.

“Could it be that you were listening all this time?”

That impatient voice belonged to Senda Riko.

Kouno Yuka immediately asked, “Is that so?,” sarcastically. Shimizu Terumichi made a silly laugh, saying, “No, that couldn’t be.” “Scaryyy,” uttered the others simultaneously.

What a pain in the ass. Even though you guys only think of me as some bug.

I pretended not to hear them and looked down. If I react, it will be over. If I show them that I can hear them, they will start messing with me like a toy.

When I left the classroom, a gloomy person like me was standing in the corridor, holding a smartphone in his hand.

He was probably from the class next to us.

I heard that the class next door had a relatively large number of people called otaku*. There were many of those who liked anime and games. At the athletic festival, they were at the very bottom in the ranking of all the seven classes, due to which Kouno Yuka ridiculed them.

*Otaku is a Japanese word that describes people with consuming interests, particularly in anime and manga.

There were people in the corridor. I couldn’t even go to the bathroom. There were also those who stood by a mirror, fixing their hair. The stairs had become a place for students of other grades to hang out, so I had nowhere to go. Eventually, I just started walking without a certain destination.

Damn it. Why do I have to wander like this?

Kouno Yuka was happy with her current seat. Even when Andou-sensei asked her whether she wanted to change seats soon, the girl put pressure on the other students, asking them with a smile on her face, “Isn’t the current arrangement still good for everyone?” She stated that it was a spot where you wouldn’t be caught sleeping during lessons, and that it was really convenient that the seat was near lockers.

“Annoying.”

But no matter if I hated her, it would be over for me if I said anything unnecessary right to her face.

Surely I’d be bullied for the last three years. It was the same when I was in elementary school and junior high school. I have to continue maintaining the peace that I have had till this day. Unlike junior high school, I can’t take a break from school for too much time, as I would get dropped out or would have to repeat a year eventually. I have to put up with it…

While turning away because of this weird feeling that appeared in my stomach, I checked the clocks of each classroom and started waiting for the start of the next lesson.

However, the wait was almost unbearable, and I felt like the hands of the clocks didn’t move for a slightest bit. When I went down the stairs, went back up, and ended up going around the corridor, I heard a voice from behind, “You…” My heart started pulsating greatly. I assumed that I wasn’t the one being called, so I casually continued walking. However, the same voice from before appeared again.

“That’s you for sure. You’re from the class next door, right?”

I turned around and noticed Kurai-sensei, the homeroom teacher of the class next to us, standing before me.

The teacher’s cold eyes were looking straight at me, and I immediately understood that I was the one he was calling. After that realisation, my forehead got covered with sweat.

“Actually, I wanted to tell Andou-sensei, ​​who is in charge of your class, that the timetable for your class will be changed… Could you please deliver the message instead?”

Kurai-sensei’s words made my head go blank.

Me, delivering the message…? What should I do? Should I write it in the corner of the blackboard? But what if everyone finds out that I was the one who wrote it? Andou-sensei might say something when she looks at the blackboard. Then I would have to talk in front of my classmates…

I imagined myself talking in front of everyone as their eyes were directed right at me. I started sweating at the very thought of something like that happening in my life. Then, Kurai-sensei tilted his head, probably noticing my current state.

“Is something wrong?”

“…N-n-no.”

I wanted to reply to him properly. I wanted to, but I couldn’t speak well.

It was useless. That’s why I didn’t want to talk. Did I really have to leave the classroom?

I felt as if my head was spinning around, and it hurt a lot. The moment later, someone’s hand was placed on my shoulder as I tried to get the words out of my mouth.

“What’s the matter, teacher?”