Chapter Text
It'd been three days and I had been having a hard time trying to avoid Teruhashi at all costs. Well, at least it's giving me something else to focus on so my parents didn't look as worried for me as before, though they definitely still were; they were planning to take me on a trip to cheer me up. It's not that I don't appreciate their worry, but everytime I go out I know I'll have to mentally prepare for some kind of bullshit to happen that'll make me unable to actually enjoy the trip and I'm somewhat tired. I wish the world could stop for a moment so I could rest.
And what's worse, I haven't even had time with all the avoiding to go have a peek at what Satou's doing...looking at him, even from a distance, always calms me down but now I can't even have that.
School had ended for today and I was left waiting fifteen minutes in the bathroom for Teruhashi to leave but she's still outside, asking around if I had already left or not. At some point though Aiura found me and shamelessly came into the boys' bathroom and knocked on my stall while loudly saying:
"Saiki~, why are you avoiding us? We only want to help you, you know?"
She and Teruhashi had teamed up on this for some reason. I felt my heart pounding and an ugly feeling rising in my chest; even I thought it was strange I was getting so worked up because of something so small.
I don't..., I started saying, trying to control my tone, then I just couldn't say anymore. Aiura kept throwing thoughts at me: we just want you to be happy. We want to help. I know he's the one for you; I know you'll be happy beside him.
She kept hammering that into my head and I... I wanted that so badly. I wanted someone to help me but couldn't bring myself to ask, partly because of pride and partly because of shame. I'm the overpowered one, I'm supposed to be the one helping everyone else. I should be able to do this by myself, I should be saving people.
I felt so bitter. I'm only seventeen.
Okay I said then immediately regretted it.