Game Gyaru

Chapter 34: Rejected

Hakuta had no idea he was being watched, but it didn't prevent him from feeling any less nervous about his situation with Iruka. She seemed a nice girl, nothing about her appeared to have any bad intentions. Yet he moved like he was on thin ice. Where one wrong step would have him plunge into a freezing lake, just as doing anything to wrong her might make her act rash.

"See, this place is great." She said, pointing over where she wished for them to sit at.

"Yeah, sure." He verbally agreed with her, but there was nothing special about the location she chose for them. It was just a random tree planted along the school grounds. There was a walkway for students to come and go, but that was it. Sure, one could get a view of the outside world while they were confined within the space known as school, but was that really something one needed? They weren't trapped here, so he didn't consider it a thing to want to worry over.

"Now come on, sit down next to me." She plopped herself comfortably laying her back onto the trunk of the tree. Iruka grabbed out her lunch from her bag. The lunch box was filled to the brim with rice, multiple different meats, and a plethora of vegetables to pick from.

It was a far cry compared to his own lunch. Something plain with just some bread, cabbage, and a small amount of leftover beef from last night.

"I'm guessing your mom made you that." He said, sitting next to her.

"Yep." She spoke with pride, as if she were the one who made the meal she ate at this moment. He couldn't help but feel a hint of jealousy. It was fortunate for her that she had a mother who could cook lunch for her. Meanwhile, he couldn't trust his dad to boil water, and even that would assume he was here in the first place. "So who makes your lunches? You or Shiuka?"

"I cook both our lunches." He explained. "That girl should be nowhere near a stove, not while I'm still living there." There was one time he tried to teach her, but it was a regrettable moment he wished to never repeat ever in his life. A second time would likely also be the end of his life.

It was fortunate the group spying on them took a spot so high up in the building. While they were able to watch the pair clearly, they were too far away to be able to hear anything they said. Perhaps if they were yelling, then maybe they'd have a chance. But there was no reason for that sort of thing to occur.

"Funny, that's what my mom says too." She laughed. "The more I talk to you, the more you sound more like an old lady."

"Am not." He defended himself. How else was he supposed to take her gesture other than offense? It didn't even appear that she made it out to be a bad thing, but he was a teen boy. How else was he supposed to take it? "There's nothing wrong with being mature and ready for the adult world. Isn't that the whole point of growing up?"

"Well, we'll get there when we get there." She held a much more relaxed viewpoint compared to him. If he was still as mean as he used to be with Shiuka, he might use the same insult as before about how these years were going to be the only good ones for girls like her. But that would be going too far. Not to mention he didn't want to get on her bad side anyway. "Anyway, that doesn't look like you've got much. You want to eat some of my food?"

"I don't know if that's really fair." He hesitated on accepting her offer, but his stomach growled in hunger over the offer.

"There's no way I can eat all this anyway." She assured him it would be no problem. "Just take some, you'd be doing me a favor."

"Well, sure." He held up his bento box to allow her to drop in some of her food. But she wagged her finger in his face to silently tell him this wouldn't be her strategy.