Honey & Silver

19

*Time skip (during school)*

A cloud of thoughts fog my mind.

The clock ticks

and ticks

and ticks and ticks

the seconds away. My classmates

click

and click

and click

and click their pens.

The teacher scrapes

and scrapes

and scrapes

And scrapes

chalk along the board.

My leg bounces up and down.

Over

And over

And over

And over again.

Slam

My teacher closes his book loudly and exasperatedly says "Alright, get out of my classroom."

Almost as if on cue, the end of period bell rings, signifying the usual relief that the school day was over.

But this time, the relief was not there. He had to face the team again, after what he had done. Why don't I just skip this and then go visit Koshi after school instead?

No, I can't do that. As much as I want to, I already promised to meet Noya and the others there, and I don't want to make them feel any worse then they probably already do. I can just visit Koshi after we're done at the coffee shop.

Yeah.

That's what I'll do.

"DAICHIII!"

Noya comes running out of nowhere, dragging Asahi behind him, causing Asahi to run.

Noya only starts running when he gets a few centimeters away from me, which felt almost calculated, seeming as he stopped just in time to not run into me or Asahi. But that seems unlikely, since he's so bad at math.

"So, can we just go now? Or do you have something to do before we go?"

"Isn't Kiyoko supposed to come with us?"

"Yeah, she's right there."

I turn around and see Kiyoko awkwardly standing with her books in her hands.

"I can't believe you didn't even know I was there!"

She says dramatically, transferring her books over to one hand to obnoxiously flop her free hand onto her forehead.

This doesn't feel right.

They're acting as if I didn't do anything wrong.

They're acting as if nothing happened.

"Alright, alright, let's get going already!" Noya whines and tugs on Asahi's sleeve. "Right." Kiyoko agrees.

So, we make our departure to the coffee shop.

The whole walk there, everyone was having a good time except me. They were talking and laughing like they had not a care in the world.

When we finally arrived, the place was quiet, like the afternoon rush had just gone through and left the place for dead.

Kiyoko goes ahead and sits at the table by the windows, and the rest of us follow suit.

"Okay," Noya folds his hands on the table in front of him. "Let's get to the point, Daichi."