COTE Year 2 Reimagined

Volume 1:Part 11

I was heading towards the school building thinking about tomorrow. It was the day we were supposed to meet Hosen. I'm not sure why, but I had a bad feeling about this. I'd have to be on guard the entire time with him around.

I spotted Kei walking ahead of me, but she was with her friends, so I couldn't go up to her,I needed to speak to her after school to confirm something and also check if she's fine.

While I was looking her direction, Yousuke came up to and started walking beside me.

"Good morning, Kiyotaka-kun."

He spoke to me with his usual warm smile, never leaving his face.

"Good morning, Yousuke."

A few moments of awkward silence followed, but he didn't seem to mind, so I decided to finally break the silence.

"Can I get your help with something?"

"Of course, what do you need?"

"I want to talk with Kei, but she's ignoring my calls, and I can't just walk up to her in public."

"I see. Do you want me to speak to her?"

"No, I just want you to walk with us. If the three of us are seen together, it won't be unusual or attract any unwanted attention."

"You're definitely right."

He put his hand on his chin and started thinking.

"Let's all walk together after school ends then,I'll ask her when we reach class."

"Yes, thanks for your help, Yousuke."

"Of course I'll never turn down a friend."

With that done, we made it to class. It was another uninteresting day that passed by at a normal pace. When everyone started to leave, Yousuke and Kei started walking together, so I headed out and followed behind them. However, I didn't say a thing until we actually left the building.

"Hello,Kei."

She jumped as soon as she heard my voice, and it seemed as so she hadn't noticed me walking behind them, Yousuke giggled at her, earning him a glare from her.

"Is that why you asked me to walk together?? So, trap me into a setup?"

"I wouldn't call it a setup exactly. I just wanted you two to make up!"

He was now smiling awkwardly while rubbing his hand on the back of his head.

Kei sighed before turning back to look at me.

"What do you want, Kiyotaka?"

We started to head in a path that no one usually took so we could get more privacy even though Yousuke was still with us.

"You've been ignoring me."

"Yes, because you deserve it."

"What did I do?"

She looked at me with a somewhat angry but also somewhat embarrassed expression while giving me a you know what you did look.

At first, I thought she might be upset at Amasawa being in my room when we were "dating" but that didn't seem to be it. She was most likely upset at the fact that I kept her out of the loop this time instead of asking her for help or updating her. It's true that so far in our second year I've barely made contact with Kei regarding these issues, but that's mostly because it involved that man there was nothing she could do against an agent sent by him.

"I'm sorry."

That was all I could say with Yousuke around. Even though he had some idea of my abilities, I didn't want to provide any more information than I had to.