Saotome Sou became high-spec all of sudden. Tests results are always on top, highly athletic and although the person himself wasn’t aware, he is considerably a handsome man. But such person also has a fault. He’s expressionless as a doll.
After a particular event, his world turned up-side down, that very day took all his emotions from his face, a very serious situation. It’s actually interesting that he can’t even laugh, no tears fell down no matter how sad he was, it’s like a curse or something. The problem though isn’t only his expression. His expressionless voice take his weirdness to another level and stand out remarkably.
But, the person himself doesn’t seem to mind it that much…
In Sou’s mind, today is a good day but he’s the only one who thinks like that. In other words, it was quite disappointing.
Sou enters the cla.s.sroom five minutes before homeroom, the boys and girls glanced at him as usual.
In the eyes of the boys, there is envy, jealousy and sometimes fear. Their fear is still understandable. If there is a person who doesn’t change his expression at all, it’s considerably weird. But he can’t understand the envy and jealousy. Sometimes, there’s a guy who would like to say something but couldn’t when meeting his dark eyes.
As for the girls’ eyes…… No, he’s not quite sure either. It’s difficult to express unlike the downright plain eyes of boys.
To begin with, when they see him, everyone would say「Don’t look at me!」. Well, they don’t need to say that however when I don’t say anything they thought I have a communication disability. It’s rather worrying.
When he reconsider it, his mother too is a amazing poker face master. He may have resemble his mother. But being expressionless isn’t hereditary, isn’t it? He haven’t seen his father’s face so he’s not sure. He’s not too interested in that either but……
Once, he thought he saw his mother smiled. It’s the time when she saved money and bought him a present in his first birthday. He won’t probably forget that face in his lifetime. His mother told him one time.
「I’m sorry. I can’t say anything for now. But I’m sure that both you and I can laugh from the bottom of our hearts. In the meantime……」
A week after my mother went missing.
He filed a police report of a missing person, but there was no clue after all. He looked everywhere. Thinking his mother was still alive but……
Alright, back to the story. As to not attract a lot of attention, he thought that he should go to school earlier but for that reason, it became troublesome. Because of that, the morning turned from a merely ordinary to hopeless.
And because of my hateful grandparents cutting short my sleeping time. Please stop rampaging when you drink sake in the middle of the night. I acc.u.mulated stress having to apologize to the neighborhood every time.
I want to praise myself when I considerably done my best for being able to come to school this time. It would be comfortable though if I have more time to rest before coming to school and attracting this much attention.
I’ve become frustrated when I think of my grandparents. Sigh. Let’s not think about those people today.
N~ ……I mean in the first place, it feels strange to have been bathed in weird gazes from all around before the lesson starts. Particularly the boys’. I don’t remember something I did particularly to you guys at all! Because I don’t have the slightest care. Soon, it’ll be half a year since I enrolled in this school. Lonely? I hardly talk to a girl……
But don’t say I’m a loner. It’s sad. And it’s not even reflected on my expression at all! But after all, won’t a conversation with me is just deadly boring? They say “Saotome Sou has an atmosphere that makes him difficult to talk to” but then again I don’t care because it can’t be help anyways. By the way, there is this fellow that’s full of sense of justice tried to talk to me several times but to no avail. Are you letting all your stress off on me?1
Oh, that is the person Sou hates the most, a tall figure ikemen2 with clear features and a brown hair that overflows with sense of justice, that guy always says he hates bullying the weak. He always stand like the leader of the cla.s.s. Normally our cla.s.smates called him Ren but I heard that he’s called Sawaki-kun specifically by the girls. And his famous too.
Break into pieces!!3
Oops, I mustn’t say that. It seems I become hot headed. I need to calm down.
Phew……
Although Sou himself is considerably popular too but because it’s troublesome, he himself didn’t notice at all. It made a great number of boys envious.
The two people who are always in Sawaki’s sides are Maezono Tetsu and Shimada Shunpei. Maezono has a grim appearance which made him look like a delinquent. He seems to be Sawaki’s best friend from primary school. How enviable. A best friend. I wonder if I’ll have someone like that someday. It’s possible. Well, I hope at least.
Shimada has a baby-face with a pet.i.te body, he always look at Sawaki with sparkling eye, a complete understanding and respect. For him, every word of Sawaki is absolute. It seems they met when he was being bullied and had been rescued. It already gone beyond respect, perhaps worship is more fitting.
Although Sawaki is popular, his cronies are all men, there are rumors how Yaoi Fandoms4 enjoys the enticement.
Anyway……
I opened the door of the cla.s.sroom then I noticed that everyone’s eyes are all focused on me so I was swallowed by those whirlpool of thoughts but I should probably arrive at my seat soon.
N? After a few seconds, my eyes intersect with the cla.s.s idol Segawa Chinatsu’s but it was averted by a terrible force. I was shocked just now. But it wasn’t reflected to my expression.
Segawa Chinatsu has an appearance of a Yamato Nadeshiko.5 A sleek black hair reaching to her waist. Eyes full of curiosity that makes you hold an impression of them seeing through all your thoughts. Several seconds after our eyes intersect, I thought that I heard a shrill voice of a girl, I cast a look at Sawaki who’s nearby. Yup. It was probably an evil spirit.
And now a boy’s. That’s why I examine it carefully. But, I don’t understand its meaning.
The bell rang and after a little while I arrived at my seat and sat down, a teacher entered the cla.s.sroom and the homeroom began as usual.
Now then, let’s do our best today.
–Lunch break–
My name is Segawa Chinatsu. My girls cla.s.smates called me ‘Chinatchi~’ from my name Chinatsu. The boys called me Segawa. In this school there are three boys who are suddenly became popular among the girls. I was amazed to learn that the two is from our cla.s.s.
The first one is a soph.o.m.ore, Akutsu Tatsuto senpai. A wild man with hawk-like eyes and a raffled hair. He seems to be a good friend of Maezono-kun and often come to our cla.s.s to see him so I have talked to him several times. He looks scary but he’s a surprisingly a kind and friendly person~. According to my a.n.a.lysis, there’s unexpectedly someone like that who bridge the gap between them and young people. There’s a little rumor mixed in our cla.s.s about him being Wild-senpai. The person in question seem to like himself refer to as such. Because he can fight evenly with strong junior high students, though I don’t understand it well but as such is the legend among the delinquents. Nonetheless, it’s a little scary……
The second one is from our cla.s.s, Sawaki-kun. A freshman regular of soccer club and he’s smart too. He’s an amazing person that has an action force that turned people from the wrong and he also hates and takes initiative to stop bullying. He’s very popular among men and women. He has a lot of friends and make everyday fun. My friend Kotomi-chan said… uh, what was it again? Something like a riajuu.6 Young girls in our cla.s.s seems to have a liking to Sawaki-kun like many other cla.s.ses. Sawaki-kun are often with Shimada-kun and Maezono-kun, sometimes I’ve come with them together with wild-senpai and Mana-chan guhehe…… though I did a strange laugh, is it okay?
And then there’s the third. He’s from our cla.s.s like Sawaki-kun and our cla.s.smates called him『Doll prince』――
Sou-kun! Kya~~! Carried by my wild ideas, my eyes met with Sou-kun!! I’m so embarra.s.sed, I’m going to explodeee! Why is it? Why are you so cool? Why are you so mysterious? Again, being mysterious is cute too! But I never talked to him…… not even once… I’m such a weakling~~. Everyday, I summon my courage and tried to talk to him but when I think that if I were to speak strangely and he dislike me, I can’t help but retreat.
Sou-kun is always expressionless and no one ever saw his smiling face. Recently, there’s a mysterious rumor going around that who ever saw his smiling face will have happiness through out his life…… I have an idea what kind of person who spread that rumor. Certainly, if I ever saw his smiling face, I would be too happy and faint. Oh, imagining it made me drool……
Oh, This is what I’m always expecting to happen so I always look at him regularly. Looking back, maybe those days that ended up in failure was destiny telling me that this is it.
Who would’ve thought that when I turned to Sou-kun today, our eyes intersected! After a few seconds, my mind went blank, I was surprised and I quickly turned away unnaturally, but regretting it later.
This time, majority of the girls in the cla.s.s saw Chinatsu having a staring contest by chance, their looks become a little excited but not to the state that she noticed it. However, it might be said that no one can afford to reach Chinatsu.7
W-, w-, w… What should i do~…!?8 This is the first time our eyes met~! I’m so happy, I’m having a nosebleed~! I’m seeing a lot of Cupid of love! They hail arrows at me! This is the one that mother often talks about「Love at first sight.」!
I can’t contain the happiness to myself and told Kotomi-chan the happenstance.
「Eh?……Chi-chinatsu, you la-la-like Sa-saotome-kun!?… …(What should I say.)」
I didn’t hear well the last part, needless to say, it was rather obvious with her trembling reaction. Mumumu…… by any chance, is this what they called love rival!? If it is, Kotomi-chan is a tough rival! She has a light brown hair tied in pigtails. She’s shorter than me with her 140cm to my 155cm height. She has an aggressive almond-shaped eyes, it gives you a first impression of a cute lolita but if you look carefully she’s a beautiful young girl~.
「Does Kotomi-chan have a person she likes?」
「I-I-I don’t know~. Hahaha……」
Even while saying so, she couldn’t help but glance at Sou-kun.
「Haa~. Kotomi-chan, anymore lies is cheating! I already understand it with just a glance~.」
「Ugh, am I that so easy to understand?」
「Yes. Kotomi-chan is too honest, it’s completely reflected on your expression.」
「So that’s why I always lose in the ‘Old Maid’8……」
I probe her purely because of curiosity, as a result she’s a rival as expected. Kotomi-chan’s character is too honest and readily confessed, she was too embarra.s.sed and her face became bright red. Her watery eyes is so pretty that can almost make a woman walk to a different path. By the way, it seems she never talked to Sou-kun too.
I want to learn a perfect poker face, while observing Sou-kun, I’ve become interested. A perfect opportunity…… Alright, as one would expect of my rival. She’s stubborn.
As a result of having talked to each other, we thought that there’s possibility that in the next three years, we wouldn’t be able to open up to him about such things, I wonder if I should start to implement a strategy for us two to speak to him, though mostly I’m the one who will do the talking but will it be alright?……
If us two mutually encourage each other it will be fine, so I went to Sou-kun with Kotomi-chan――
Translator notes and reference:
1俺は救済対象じゃないのかな
2Ikemen means a good looking-man/cool ― sljfaq.com – ikemen
3モゲテシマエ!!
4Yaoi fandom refers to readers of yaoi (also called Boys’ Love, BL) ― Wikipedia – Yaoi Fandom
5Yamato Nadeshiko (やまとなでしこ or 大和撫子?) is a j.a.panese term meaning the “personification of an idealized j.a.panese woman” ― Wikipedia – Yamato Nadeshiko
6The term Riajuu is an abbreviation of a j.a.panese phrase that means “A person who lives a fulfilling real life”. In particular, “ria” originates from “riaru”, the j.a.panese reading of “real”, and “juu” comes from “juujitsu”, the j.a.panese word for “fulfilling” ― funj.a.panese.net –riajuu
7この時、クラスの女子の大半が偶然ではあるがちなつと奏が見つめ合う瞬間を目撃しており、少しの間女子たちが色めき立つのだが見つめ合った本人たちがそれに気づく様子はない。もっとも、ちなつに至っては余裕がないというべきかもしれない
8 Old maid is a card game in which players collect pairs and try not to be left with an odd penalty card, typically a black queen ― google.com – old maid