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The door of the classroom was closed whenever there wasn't a performance.

It looked like being the receptionist also meant being the house-sitter as I was sitting on a pipe chair at the entrance of our class while my classmates were taking a break or visiting other class exhibitions.

Tomorrow, I had to go around school for my planning committee job as an assistant historian, so today was the only day I could participate in class. Unable to contribute to the initial class preparations and with all of tomorrow being booked, it was only fair I was stuck here all day today. Heck, I wanted to thank my classmates instead if they went through the trouble of preparing and approving this job for me and considering it as a form of class participation.

Well, people that considerate were a dime a dozen though. I had an idea of who could have suggested such an idea.

"Nice job." A plastic bag was placed on the desk with a thump. I looked up to find Yui.

She took a pipe chair leaning against the wall, unfolded it, and dropped onto it with an "ooph". Are you an old lady or something?

"So, how was it?"

"Seemed okay, I guess? The audience seemed to like it at least."

Putting aside the fact it couldn't be considered as a complete play, it did its job well in riling up the audience. Ebina-san's super producer vision was still a mystery to me, but I think the play was able to establish itself as entertainment, incorporating Tobe's idea of 'fun'.

There really wasn't any reason to complain, especially since it was something out of a high school Cultural Festival. Making people with an expansive social network like Hayama, Tobe, and Oooka a part of the cast wasn't an act of favorites, since I think they were able to maximize the amount of excitement in their respective circles.

Seeing someone you got along with act out a different character, and then, seeing that person leak out his usual character was another type of fun altogether they could create compared to what they already deemed to be fun. With that in mind, the musical could be considered decent. More importantly, it was because Totsuka was cute.

"Everyone really did put a lot of time into it," Yui said as she was stretching her body and bending her back with a groan. Her emotional tone conveyed all the hardship they had to deal with up to this day. You guys did a good job, really… Anyway, stop stretching backwards like that with that T-shirt, I can't help but notice your chest and navel. Her chest looked nice and the way her sides trailed down to her midriff was gorgeous. I wanted to touch her skin there but I held myself back.

"Well, I figured. I'm sure they all did. But I wasn't there so I wouldn't know."

"Well duh, you were in the planning committee. A-Also… are you bothered at all about being left out of that first huddle we did?" Yui pressed her index fingers together and looked up at me. This was one of her habits whenever she asked something sensitive. She was worrying about pointless things again.

"No, not really. Besides, I didn't even do anything, so it wouldn't be right to include me." It didn't change the fact that she was being considerate of me. I answered her honestly which was rare for me. Yui sighed with a renounced smile.

"…I knew you'd say that."

"Huh, how…?" It's a little embarrassing if you knew what I was going to say, please stop. Yui leaned back against the backboard of her pipe chair and its squeaking resembled an embarrassed laugh.

"Duh. I mean, you're serious about the weirdest things. I can tell just from watching you."

"What, you're watching me…?" The pipe chair then squeaked in surprise. When I looked, Yuighama had stood up half way and was waving her hand in front of her chest.

"Ah, just kidding. Forget I said that just now. I'm not watching you at all. What I meant was I look away a lot."

"Uh, it's not like you can't or anything…" I scratched my head in response. We both went silent. In that time, the noise from the two neighboring classes grew conspicuously loud. It sounded like class 2-E and 2-G were a big hit. In particular, class 2-E. They had some sort of jet coaster attraction and there was a long queue for it. People unable to deal with the long wait started complaining and the students of class 2-E weren't sure how to deal with them. As strange as it is, lines typically attracted more lines. This wasn't limited to just lines. Things that were selling sold even more. The very fact that it was selling doubled as advertisement which led to even more sales. Class 2-E's situation was no exception as seen from the growing tail of the line.

"Wow, that looks rough," Yui gasped.

"Things are going to become unmanageable if that keeps going, won't it?" From what I could see, class 2-E didn't have enough people so they couldn't process the line fast enough. It was only a matter of time before the hallway was a congested mess. It was at that moment. Breeeeeet—a high-pitched sound could be heard. I looked in its direction and Meguri-senpai was there.

"Everyone, get on it," Meguri-senpai said even though there was no one present. Suddenly, the other student council members appeared. They proceeded to organize the line and relocate the rest of the people in the back elsewhere. Are you guys the staff at comiket or something?

"Is class 2-E's representative here?" Yukinoshita was mixed in there as well. She promptly summoned the class representative, listened to the circumstances, and went over how to deal with the situation.

"Yukinon's so cool…"

"Sure. The guy from 2-E obviously looks really scared though…" To us, Yukinoshita was like her usual self, but to the people who weren't familiar with her, her cold intensity was frightening. "But she looks a lot better now."

"…That's true." Yukinoshita let out a small breath after finishing the discussion about the countermeasures with the representative. When she lifted her face, her gaze was directed my way for just a moment. But she quickly averted her eyes and walked away. She probably had another job to deal with.

As we watched her leave, I spoke to Yui sitting next to me, "Hey, can I ask you something?"

"Hm? What is it?" Yui rested her chins in both of her hands on the desk and answered without turning.

"Have you been by Yukinoshita's recently?" I wondered.

"Oh un."

"Did you talk about something?"

Yui mumbled while thinking and then spoke, "Nothing at all."

"Huh?" I asked for an explanation with a gesture.

Yui then narrated the continuation of that day. "We got hungry, so we ate dinner together. Then we watched some kind of DVD. After that, I went home… So I didn't ask her anything you wanted to know, Hikki."

Her last sentence was almost as if she was refusing to say.

"…Well, it's not like there's anything I wanted to know."

"Really? I wanted to know some things though."

"Huh? So why—"

—didn't you ask her? I tried to ask, but when I looked at Yui's profile, my voice withered away. Her expression as she watched Yukinoshita in the distance turn the corner of the hallway was so sincere that I hesitated from going any further.

"You see, I'm going to wait for Yukinon. I think she's trying her best to talk to us and get closer to us… That's why I'm going to wait for her." It was an answer you could expect from Yui.

Yui would definitely wait. It's because she had been trying to get closer all this time. Yukinoshita fully understood this and that's why she was trying to respond back by trying to take a step forward herself.

"But I won't wait for people that aren't going anywhere."

"Huh? Well yeah, there's no point in waiting for a person like that."

Yui smiled lightly. With her cheeks cupped in her hands, she slightly twisted her body my way. In front of the idling class, the traffic of people accelerated. Students walking in the hallway were going back and forth, heading for their next destination or trying to solicit more customers. The commotion didn't need to discriminate between every individual in a frantic rush nor us. It was just one with the background, the sounds of the environment. That's why I could hear her voice so clearly, a voice that was much more soothing and mature than normal.

"That's not it. I won't wait… but I'll go instead."

My heart jumped. It was a pain that could eat away at me internally. When I looked at Yui's moist eyes, it made me want to think about the meaning of those words. But if I were to think about them, I will be at a dead end. And ultimately, I will likely be mistaken. I've come this far being mistaken about a lot of things. But this time, I don't want to be mistaken, I'm sure. That's why I didn't have the words needed to answer her at this moment.

"Really…"

"Uh huh, really." I gave her a meaningless and vague response and Yui returned a shy smile. Her embarrassed smile was telling me that the discussion was over. Both of us let out a small sigh and averted our gazes. It was then my eyes spotted a plastic bag resting on the table.

"Anyway, what's with the bag?"

"Oh, I forgot. You didn't eat lunch yet, right?" She shuffled through the bag and took out a paper pack. She then took out something from inside that pack. Huh. That's one weird matryoshka item. I thought, but apparently it was something else. It was like, bread or something. A plump, rectangular loaf of bread. It was plastered with fresh cream mixed, dressed in chocolate syrup with colorful, chocolate sprinkles. But it was essentially bread. A plump, rectangular loaf of bread even. Then again, this was just a loaf of bread. Cooking? More like a loaf of bread.

"Tada! Honey toast!"

I looked at it with a mildly passionate gaze. It might've been because of that that Yui said tiredly, "It's not that big of a deal. They have this at Pasela in Chiba too."

"Uh, I don't exactly go out to karaoke, you know." But in the hands of an amateur, this was the kind of quality you could expect for honey toast. Obviously, an actual pro would make it more authentic. I mean, this was just bread, seriously. Couldn't they put in a little more effort in making it look less like bread? It's literally bread. Absolutely bread.

"Yoink," Yui let out an energetic yap you wouldn't expect from her when distributing food and she apportioned the food onto paper plates. So you're doing it bare handed… Well, that's fine too. I took a bite of the torn piece of honey toast.

"So good!" Yui stuffed her face, chewing with fresh cream dabbed on her face. She must be a sweets person. She looked pretty happy.

I stared at her face and was hypnotized by it. Her smile was infectious and I grinned. I loved how happy and enthusiastic for life she was. It was incredible. It was so much unlike me. I think I needed it to balance me out. I think I needed that optimism and joy. It was hard to discount that kind of happiness. It was pure and came from a pure place. I… I liked that about her.

Fuck.

Not dwelling on that.

But sharing a meal between us was something. It sure made me feel… it made me feel all kinds of weird. A good weird. Still I would struggle to call what we were doing a date. Especially in the context our coffee outings provided.

Fuck.

Not dwelling on that either.

As I was watching her expression, I was starting to get the feeling I might end up liking the honey toast myself.

I carried a piece to my mouth in anticipation. …This bread is so hard… The honey hasn't even soaked in all the way yet.

There wasn't enough fresh cream on it, so this must have been some kind of slow-inducing punishment game halfway in… Yui's idea of choosing this for lunch was pretty dangerous too. But the person in question seemed satisfied. Was there anything good about this?

"The fresh cream is so good!"

Hey… Wait… Is fresh cream even necessary on honey toast? You stole some from my portion too, didn't you? I thought I'd give her an earful, but I restrained myself since Yui was enjoying it. We finished it off with tea, making it a complete meal. …Yeah, well. I guess it's good, maybe? Yui finished her food and wiped away the cream at her mouth with a tissue. Her lips were glossy. The sunlight reflecting against them was bright. I ended up averting my eyes as a result.

The honey toast was pretty big even though there were two of us eating it. Well, it was an entire loaf of bread… It had to have been expensive then. It was nothing like a burrito.

"Oh yeah, how much was it?" I took out my wallet and asked. Yui stopped me.

"It's okay. It wasn't much."

"No, I can't have that."

"I said it's fine!" Yui stubbornly refused. At this rate, we'd go back and forth…

"I may have the desire to be raised, but I don't intend to take charity!"

"What's with that bizarre pride of yours!?" Yui groaned and took some time to think. She then whispered quietly, "Jeez. You're such a pain, Hikki… Fine. Why don't you treat me to honey toast next time then…? Say, Chiba's Pasela."

"You're going to choose the place too….?" I spoke bitterly, but even I knew what the meaning behind that was. Because of that, I found myself gauging my distance with Yui again. I really do think we've gotten closer compared to before.

I'm not so immature that I would deny that fact out of desperation. It was like that for the written application too. If it was just filling it in, I really could have just asked anyone. But I went out of my way to find Yui and even relied on her. I was allowing that. It was really easy to rely on Yui. However. That's exactly why I needed to keep myself in check. To blindly place unrestrained faith in someone is dependence. I mustn't rely on Yui's kindness.

I mustn't let Yui's good will spoil me. Her kindness was something that created painful memories, made you worry and agonize over them, and wring them out. And I knew all of that. That's why I mustn't place my trust in her so easily. On the slim chance that all of that weren't due to her kindness or good will, but due to much more different emotions, then I had to be even more careful. Because that was simply taking advantage of a person's weakness. Feelings should be managed appropriately. Distances should be maintained suitably.

-So is it okay for me to take at least one step forward again?

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-WG