Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan - Without Thinking

Chapter 8 - Full Throttle

Summer holidays. The highlight of every student's academic year. Six weeks of pure bliss. Saiki had finished off his summer homework straight away and then spent the rest of the days up to this point the same way he'd always done — at home, reading, watching TV and just generally chilling.

So why am I so goddamn bored.

He was lying on his bed on his back, facing the ceiling. Next to him was the book he had discarded a moment ago. It was a new thriller by an author that he really liked. It had been really promising so far. And yet it could not hold his attention this time.

His mind was somewhere else, once again.

Saiki glanced at the calendar. It was at the far end of the room, so there was no way he could read what was on it. He didn't need to, though. He knew it was three more days until August 4th.

She would be returning home with her family on August 4th.

And then what?

Saiki sighed, trying to relax his muscles. They had tensed up again.

He had no idea what was going to happen then. He wasn't even sure if he'd see her anymore at all before school would start again. They had nothing planned. They were going to, but then that damn date happened. That had been almost two weeks ago. They hadn't spoken since.

He hadn't meant to stare at her like that. It'd just happened. Maybe she was angry with him? She might have gotten the wrong idea. He'd wanted to apologize, but he didn't know how. He sucked with this stuff. He was much better at pretending he didn't care. Maybe he'd be better off not caring.

It was such a pain.

Saiki reached for his phone. Still no new messages. He considered sending her one, but discarded the idea. Much like the previous 20 times he'd considered it in the past few days. He didn't know what to say anyway.

How did this get so weird?

There was a quick knock on the door, immediately followed by his mother coming in. "Ku-chan? I made some tea. Do you want some?"

"There's really no point in knocking if you're just entering immediately," Saiki complained. He'd asked her so many times now. His telepathy used to alert him about his parents coming up, so he'd never made an issue of their atrocious knocking skills before. You'd think his mother would learn from walking in on him while he was changing, but no. All she'd done is squeal joyously how he was growing into such a fine young man. Whatever that was supposed to mean.

"I'll have some downstairs. Thanks."

He followed his mother down the stairs and plopped down on the sofa. Maybe there was something on TV that could take his mind off things. He started flicking through the channels as he sipped his tea.

He landed on a cooking program. Couldn't really go wrong with that — seemed like they were doing sweet stuff too. He could get on board with this. Might even learn a thing or two.

"Here's how you can make your own delicious gelato! First place the milk and cream in a saucepan..."

Gelato?

His mind was brought back to Teruhashi sharing a bite of her gelato with him at Café Mami's. Saiki frowned and changed the channel. Looked like a documentary that was about to start.

"ANGELS AND DEMONS REVEALED"

Saiki blinked. It had been a while since they'd exchanged notes. He kinda missed them. They'd been fun.

Damn it.

Next channel then. This shitty romantic comedy would do, even if it was nearly finished. What a surprise to see the male protagonist have pink hair. Even in this world, it was still a pretty rare sight. Oh, the female lead entered the scene.