8Play 12: The Valley Of Beans

I was clutching my head in embarrassment as Saito turned to Souji.

"That's enough fraternizing, Souji." To me, he said, "It isn't as if you were saying anything that might cause trouble for you." He looked away as if guilty of eavesdropping.

"I think I have to blame myself for being too stupid to talk aloud," I murmured under my breath quietly. "So what's up?"

Saito met my eyes. "I came to tell you that dinner is ready." His eyes then shifted to Souji and me, and then back to Souji as if a little suspicious of what we were doing. "I had intended to wait until you and Souji finished your discussion, but..." He trailed off, and I understood. Saito was quite certained that I would end up arguing, or worse, strangling Souji if the conversation continued. My stomach chose that moment to growl loudly, and I went red.

"Then let's go!" I shot up from the floor and hurriedly left my room. As I made a turn, I collided into someone with an "Oof!"

"Sorry...Ah, Toudou-san." I rubbed my nose where it hit his chin. "Are you okay?"

"My apologies, Heisuke. I'll be there presently." Saito spoke behind us, as Souji stood there quietly, grinning.

"Yeah, yeah. You too, Jun. hurry up or it's all gonna be gone by the time you get there." Toudou smiled, looking excited for dinner.

"Sorry, Toudou-san." My stomach growled, making sure to humiliate me. "Let's go now."

He nodded, ready to run back for dinner when he turned to me, an uncomfortable look on his face. "Look, um, you can drop the whole 'Toudou-san' thing, okay?" Seeing my look of confusion, he scratched his head awkwardly. "Just call me 'Heisuke'. Everybody does."

I turned back to glance at Saito and Souji as if I needed their approval. Souji's lips twitched, and I took that as an encouragement. "Just...'Heisuke'? With no honorifics?" I asked unconvincingly.

Toudou shrugged. "Yeah, why not? I mean, we're about the same age anyway."

I pursed my lips and took a deep breath. "Then...Heisuke." He gave me a big smile in response, and suddenly our stomachs growled almost simultaneously. A giggle escaped my lips and he chuckled.

"Sounds better already. Shall we go?"

I looked at him and beamed brightly. "Yeah." A slight blush crept up to Heisuke's cheeks, and I flushed too. We stood there for an awkward second, before I declared loudly with a fist in the air. "Let's go eat!"

I stared at my plate in shock as the men around me started to devour their dinner.

Beans, beans, and more beans. Why was the fish cooked with beans!? I held myself back from pushing the plate away in disgust.

"What's wrong?" Harada asked from my side. I tried to smile reassuringly but flinched instead. I was kind of skeptical about telling them what I couldn't eat, but there might be a chance that there wasn't any type of medication which could treat allergic reactions.

"well... I started slowly. "I can't exactly eat beans...?"I gazed at the beans around the fish. " I'm actually allergic to them."My heart thrumped. there should be term 'allergy' in this era, right? I crossed my fingers behind my back, heisuke and nagakura who were both busy trying to snatch each other meals, stopped and stare at me as if in doubt. I gulped nervously--am I going to get exposed this time?