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“Huh? A-Ah, s-sorry, I—”

Nitta-san had told us silly jokes and made a fool out of us, but she never lied to us before. That was why I found this to be so surprising.

At a first glance, she seemed to be laughing at my reaction, teasing me like usual. But it was clear that she didn\'t feel the same way inside. Just like I thought, not long after, her laughter turned to sound bitter as she let out a deep sigh.

“Well, I get what you’re feeling. I don’t even know why I lied to you. Actually, I came here by myself for no reason at all. I probably thought that if I just told you guys that, you’d find me pitiful or something… Well, at least, thanks to that lie, Yuuchin didn’t have any strange thoughts about me being here.”

“I see. Is Yuna-san still studying at home, then? Or maybe she’s in the cram school?”

“The former. She was nagging at me, telling me to study or something when I was lazing around at home, so I went outside. Since I didn’t make any plans to go out with anyone today, I couldn’t just invite anyone to come with me out of nowhere. And, I don’t want any of my friends to see me loitering around if I were to go to the usual places, so I took the bus ride and came here instead.”

In the end, the four of us somehow bumped into each other here, unplanned, leaving out Nozomu, who was busy with practice, like always.

If Nitta-san and Amami-san weren\'t having some kind of problem with each other at the moment, all four of us could just hang around here together like usual.

“I see… But, why are you telling me this? I don’t know about Umi, but I completely bought your story. You could just not tell me the truth at all, you know?”

Also, it wasn’t like she needed to call out to me in the first place. I was clearly daydreaming. Hell, I didn’t even notice her until she called out to me. She could just pretend that I wasn’t here and moved on.

Hearing my question, Nitta-san answered in the same nonchalant tone he used when she revealed the truth to me.

“I don’t know… I mean, I tried to ignore you, but your creepy face disgusted me, so I felt like I should bring you to your senses.”

“…Did my face really look that strange?”

“Yes. I won’t be asking you what you were thinking about, but I can tell that it’s something perverted.”

“N-No comment.”

“That’s basically admitting that I was right.”

It was a bad habit of mine to daydream whenever I was by myself. This was something that I was painfully aware of and normally, I’d do my best to prevent this kind of thing from happening. But at the moment, I was too exhausted to do that.

Usually, Umi would pinch me to bring me back to my senses whenever this happened, but… She wasn’t here at the moment and I couldn’t see her anywhere among the crowds…

After she confirmed that her assumption was correct, Nitta-san stretched her body and plopped down on the sofa next to me.

“Seriously, though, what’s wrong with me lately? Normally, I could just work on things to prevent everything from going this badly… Rep, this is all your fault.”

“What? Why me?”

“Because it’s your fault. It’s Umi’s, Yuuchin’s and Seki’s fault too. Seriously, when you hang out with four stupidly honest dummies for a long time, their stupidity just infects you like a plague.”

“I don’t know about that…”

“That’s because you’re the biggest dummy of them all. You’re literally the gang leader himself.”

“What? No?”

From my perspective, it felt like I was someone who wasn’t supposed to be in the group. But it seemed like according to Nitta-san, that wasn’t the case.

Instead of Umi or Amami-san, she thought that I was the center of our group.

Honestly, that kind of thought had never crossed my mind.

“Well, that aside, sorry for lying to you. I’ll be going home now, staying here by myself just bores me. I still have to study… And there’s also the whole parent-teacher interview thing… Ugh…”

“Ah, okay… Take care then…”

“See ya.”

After that, she stood up, waved her hand and walked away.

Maybe she felt better after talking to me, but her expression was lighter than usual, as if a heavy burden had left her chest.

…At that moment, my hand moved and grabbed her shoulders before I realized it.

“Huh? What’s wrong?”

“Ah, no… You see…”

I wanted to know what happened between her and Amami-san.

At first, my relationship with her might have been distant. She was just a friend of my girlfriend and I was just a friend of her friend, but that didn’t matter anymore. Right now, she was my friend and I believed that she also felt the same way towards me.

“…You really want to know why?”

“Ah… If you’re okay with it, yeah… But, if you aren’t… I won’t force you…”

While I might not be able to help her on my own, if everyone else were to help, there should be no problem.

Umi, Nozomu and the others were more than willing to help if I were to ask—

“Then, can you keep this a secret from Umi?”

However, Nitta-san’s next words made me realize how naive that kind of thinking was.

“Eh?”

“I can tell you, but you’ll have to keep it a secret. You can’t tell anyone about it. Not Umi, not Seki, no one. Can you?”

“T-That’s…”

“So, can you?”

“…No.”

I couldn’t give her an answer right away.

Keeping it a secret from Umi… Yeah, there was no way that I could do that.

While it was true that Amami-san and Nitta-san were precious friends of mine and I’d willingly help them if anything were to happen to them…

I wouldn’t do it if it meant I had to disregard Umi in any way.

Just imagining Umi keeping a secret from me while doing things behind my back made me feel sad and I didn’t want her to feel that way.

At that moment, her saddened face came into my mind.

Yeah, there was no way I’d let her make that kind of face again. I’d have to protect her innocent smile, no matter what.

“…So, what are you gonna do now?”

“Sorry. Just pretend that I never asked.”

“Okay. Well, I expected you to say something like this anyway.”

It felt frustrating that I couldn’t do anything for her as a friend, but it was my decision to prioritize Umi above all else. All I could do for her was to believe in her for now.

The five of us should be there for each other… How did things turn out to be like this?

It wasn’t like any of us had done something wrong…

“…Don’t give me that look. Things will return to normal in one or two weeks time, you don’t need to worry about it. Yuuchin and I also wouldn’t want things to go on like this forever.”

“If you say so…”

“Mhm. You should just do what you normally do. Flirt with your girlfriend without a care in the world. It’s frustrating for me to see you like that, but that’s really the best thing you can do for now.”

“You didn’t need to put it that way…”

For a moment, I recalled the fun time when Umi and I were flirting in my house. But, I realized that I shouldn’t think about that at the moment, or else I’d make another strange face that Nitta-san could tease me about.

“Alright, I’m going home for real this time. Midterms are coming, so why don’t we have another study session? My grades are getting worse ever since we got into different classes.”

“…Okay, let’s hold another study session. For all five of us…”

“…Sounds good to me.”

Yes. All five of us. Just like always.

“Rep.”

“Yes?”

“You… Shouldn’t overthink this. Just be yourself and do the things you usually do, okay?”

“Um, okay? I mean, I haven’t planned to do otherwise…”

“That’s great then.”

“Are you trying to copy me again?”

“Who knows~?”

After she tried to mimic the way I talked, she walked away quickly from me.

…Well, I hoped that talk could help her ease some of her worries.

Anyway, all I could do for the moment was to pray that everything would go well…