Chapter 12
TL: Akabane
***
In the evening, I exchanged messages with the chairman just like I did during the day.
We didn't have anything special to talk about, so we just chatted normally.
In the end, she reacted happily when I told her about the antiperspirant we had been talking about all day today.
Right now, I didn't feel any special feelings during the time we were friends, even though we were of the opposite sex.
However, since the chairman was so friendly, I had to be careful not to get carried away and ask too many in-depth questions.
She asked me if "have I ever had a girlfriend?" or "is there someone I'm attracted to?"
To be honest, I didn't really need to hide anything from her, Haruki and also Yukito, because if I revealed some details to them, those three people would correct me right away.
When I was thinking like that, I answered all the questions from the other party honestly, keeping the chairman personality in mind.
......If there's a story about one of the relationships from her past, I'm sure there must be something she wants to hide.
[I keep asking you questions, is there nothing you want to ask me?]
[Hmm... I feel uncomfortable asking a girl something too deep from a guy's perspective.]
[You can ask me anything, okay?]
"Hmm..."
It will worsen my image if I'm still reluctant to ask even after being told that.
I hope I can ask the right questions. If I was good at talking, I would've had a girlfriend by now.
[It's hard for me to talk to the opposite sex...]
If it's a same-sex friend, then it's fine, but if it's the opposite sex, then it's dangerous.
The fact that we were in the same class and understood each other's surroundings to some extent made it even harder for me to ask her.
"Let's try..."
Even if someone seemed to be surprised and backed away, she wouldn't immediately reply, "No way" , "Don't call me again" or "Don't come near me again."
If she moves away from me, I will try to regain her trust with sincerity and an appropriate sense of distance...
[I'm sorry if I said something annoying. I was just curious, since you said that you had been in a relationship, I was curious about it a little...]
"I should be able to ask her something better..."
I felt disgusted as I looked at my own typing.
My first words seemed like I was looking for safety, but let's just ignore them.
After all, I don't know what is the right way for a man in this world to conduct this kind of conversation.
[M-hm, I see! Are you interested in that too?!]
[Yes! From what you said yesterday, it must be quite difficult, and I wonder what kind of person you're dating.]
[I don't mind telling you. I didn't tell this to anyone else, but he's someone who was in the same class as me at the cram school.]
[Hoo, so he's a student from another school?]
[That's right. Around that time, all my friends around me started getting boyfriends, so I felt that I should follow the trend."]
[Follow the trend?]
[Yes. I know that it's inappropriate for me to talk about this, but when everyone else had boyfriends, I felt that I should have one too. But, because I didn't really like him, so it didn't last long.]
[It turns out that there is such a truth, huh?]
[I didn't know how to talk about this with my same-sex friends, and I also didn't know what would happen if I talked about it with the opposite sex, because rumors about my relationship would definitely spread, so I chose to keep quiet. I trust you with this, so please keep it a secret, okay?]
[Of course. It might be a bit rude of me, but I was relieved to find out that even the popular chairman apparently has her own problems.]
Hearing this truth alone made me realize that even a chairman, who rules everyone and is well-liked, also spends her time thinking about friendship carefully.
The reason why she is dating someone might sound impossible to some, but it made quite a bit of sense to me.
Basically, for boys, whether or not you have a girlfriend depends on whether or not you're popular, but it's different for girls.
It's not unusual to find a group of girls clearly divided between those with boyfriends and those without.
If you don't follow that trend, you can't keep up with the conversations and routines of the group.
This may be a difficulty peculiar to girls that boys do not have. For the guy at the cram school who might have really liked her, the outcome might have been sad, but he was still the only guy who had ever dated the chairman, so he had at least a little pride.
[That did happen! In the end, I learned a lesson from that incident, and I decided to stick to my own stance.]
[I'm impressed with you. Even now you're still sticking to your guns, and you also still have a lot of friends."]
[Hmm. Well, apparently it's not a good idea to follow the trend.]
[Uuh....!]
Her last words gave me a critical attack.
[I'm really relieved that I said it. I really didn't tell anyone about this. Thank you for listening to me.]
[No, no. It was a precious story.]
[I thought you would be disappointed. I myself can't believe that I got my first boyfriend for that reason.]
[On the contrary, it's a relief to know that even the most popular people have their own problems.]
[You're a horrible person, huh, you even feel happy when a girl has problems!]
At first, I was hesitant to ask her about something so profound, but it turned out to be a good decision.
If I had a problem, I could probably talk about it with the chairman, who wasn't afraid to talk to me about her own problems.
[Well, since you already know my secret, so if anything happens at school, I'll ask you for help, okay?]
[If there's something I can do, I'll definitely do it.]
It's been a few months since we first met. It also took some time for us to really get to know each other, but I feel like I've gained another friend that I can trust.
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