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Later that night, after helping Sakura go out and repair her camera, I was holding onto my cell phone pretty tightly.

There was so much sweat on my hand holding onto my cell phone that it didn’t seem like I was in a room with a functioning air conditioning unit.

“We’ve managed to shrink the gap between ourselves and Sakura… would you agree?”

“It’s better than how it was yesterday, at least. Though, there’s still a lot more progress to be made. I’m pretty disappointed in myself.”

Kushida probably had her heart set on getting on even better terms with Sakura than what she ended up managing to do. However, it has always seemed like Sakura has placed a high wall between herself and others. Unless we manage to overcome that wall, it would be difficult to call in Sakura as a witness.

“That reminds me, why did you try to get Sakura to take off her glasses?”

“Well, it would be a bit awkward to say why exactly. For some reason, it felt like they didn’t suit her exactly- if that makes any sense. Or rather, should I say that she doesn’t seem to be very connected to her glasses? I don’t exactly understand it myself. I had thought that I had met her before, but I guess it was just a typical misunderstanding.”

“No… maybe it’s not just you imagining things. Sakura isn’t the type of person who dresses for the sake of fashion, right? I’m the same way. I choose to wear plain, non-standoffish clothing to the best of my ability.”

“Yeah, you’re right. She doesn’t seem to be very fashion-conscious. But what’s wrong with that?”

When Sakura dropped her digital camera and went to pick it up, I saw her glasses from the side.

The feeling that something was out of place has stuck to me ever since then.

“It feels kinda unnatural that such a young girl would be wearing decorative glasses.”

“Eh? Sakura-san’s glasses are decorative? But didn’t she say she had poor eyesight…?”

“Glasses and decorative glasses may look the same at first glance, but there’s definitely a difference between them. Real glasses have a distortion on the other side of the lens. Sakura’s lens didn’t have any distortion to them. I had thought that she wore them for the sake of fashion, but what she said earlier today has got me wondering.”

“She’s wearing glasses only for the sake of fashion? Well, that isn’t very typical.”

If someone is particular about accessories and the like, you’d expect them to be interested in clothing and makeup as well.

“Or is it an attempt to hide some form of complex? For example, if you wear glasses, you come across as an intellectual, right?”

“That’s true. People do look smarter when they wear glasses.”

“In Sakura’s case, it may be that she doesn’t want people to see the real her, so she hides behind glasses. It doesn’t seem like she simply doesn’t like interacting with people either. Her posture is always stooped down low and she never looks other people in the eye.”

It feels like there’s something hidden within her, just beyond the wall.

“Sure enough, bringing Ayanokouji-kun along today was the right choice after all. I always feel like you’re skillfully looking into other people.”

…That’s a little embarrassing.

The reason why interactions with Kushida move along so easily is because she skillfully guides the conversation along in a natural manner.

For those unable to walk that path, such as me, she steps up and shortens the distance so that they can get to a place where it’s easier for them.

“After that-”

While Kushida was gently leading the conversation, another call came in on my cell phone.

I just need to confirm the caller ID in way that Kushida wouldn’t notice. If it’s Ike or Yamauchi, I’ll just put them off, but if it’s Horikita… that, I’d need to think about that. Ah, so it’s who I thought it was after all…

The name shown on the display was ‘Sakura’.

“Sorry Kushida, can I call you back in a bit?”

“Ah, sure. Sorry for talking for so long.”

With vestiges of regret, I ended my call with Kushida. I answered Sakura’s call before it had the chance to go to voicemail.

The line was silent after I answered the call, but it only lasted for a few seconds.

“Um… This is Sakura…”

“Ayanokouji speaking.”

I thought that this was a strange way to be starting off the conversation, given that we had just exchanged contact information with each other.

Even though we had gone through the formalities of exchanging contact information with each other, I didn’t expect that she would actually end up calling me. If a situation arose where she needed to get into contact with somebody, Kushida would also be available.

“Thank you, for accompanying me today.”

“No… It’s not that big of a deal. You don’t have to be so worried about it. After expressing your gratitude so many times, it starts to worry me instead.”

“Yeah…”

There was a moment of silence. Rather than being Sakura’s fault, it was more that I had failed to properly respond to her. The reality of how much I relied on Kushida to lead our earlier conversation soaked in. Nevertheless, I still felt as though I had to give this conversation my all.

“What’s wrong?”

“Erm…”

Once again, the silence continued. What should I do in a situation like this? Big brother Hirata, please guide me.

“Did… did something come to mind?”

Then, absolutely generic, yet unintelligible words came flying.

Does she want to know my thoughts? There’s no way that she wants a response like: ‘Kushida was cute in her casual outfit’, or ‘Sakura, you’re unexpectedly more interesting than I thought you would be.’ right?

There just weren’t enough clues, I had no idea how Sakura was expecting me to answer.

“Did something happen?”

I sensed the depths of uneasiness in her words, and tried to lightly reel in a clue by the thread. However, a lightly pulled thread breaks easily, its line melting into water.

“Not at all, sorry… Good night.”

Without any chance for me to stop her, Sakura ended the call.

I thought of trying to call back right away, but in the end I understood that I would just be repeating the same failure all over again. In order to take a little time to think, I went over to the sink to wash my face.

My call with Kushida lasted for about ten minutes, but during that time, there was no indication of a call coming in on her end. If a call came in from Sakura before then, it wouldn’t be strange to hear about it from Kushida. That being the case, was she planning on calling me, and then Kushida afterwards? In general, when someone makes a phone call, they reach out to their superiors, or someone they’re more intimate with first. In other words, in this case it seems reasonable to assess that she’s only contacted me so far.

Just to make sure, I sent a message to Kushida and asked about whether or not she had been contacted by Sakura so far.

She responded a few minutes later, confirming that she hadn’t heard anything from her.

“She asked me to invite you, Ayanokouji-kun. Aren’t you in contact with Sakura-san?”

That’s was what Kushida had told me when we met earlier this morning.

At the time, I thought that it was because Sakura would be nervous at the idea of meeting alone with Kushida, so she asked Kushida to invite trustworthy people to come along. But… it seems that wasn’t the case.

Kushida had playfully told me that it was love at first sight. Putting that unrealistic fantasy aside, was there some reason why it had to be me? I thought back to how I felt as I interacted with Sakura throughout the day today.

Although almost all of the conversation earlier today was held between Sakura and Kushida, there was also one subject that was directed towards me. That would be the situation that happened between me and the shop assistant when we were trying to get the camera repaired. Other than that, I couldn’t think of anything.

Then, was that why she asked me what I had on my mind?

The pieces of the puzzle that I’ve managed to gather up were far too few in number and simply insufficient for seeing the bigger picture.

Several fantasies, wild delusions, and other things were floating around in my head, but they all lacked credibility.

All I had was the type of evidence that left me unable to decisively decide on any one idea.

Typically I would think it would be fine to just ask about it at school, but when it comes to Sakura, I don’t think it’ll be that easy.

If I was to go try to speak with Sakura, who doesn’t spend any time conversing with others, It would just stand out in a bad way.

I prayed that my worries about her phone call would end up just being needless anxiety, and began to prepare to go to bed.