Soul for a Girlfriend?

After a series of events in the past three days, I have stopped visiting the kendo club. And after my conversation with Vivian, I understood a few things about Naoto as well as him. He may be annoying but he is also really kind to the people he cares about.

Reminiscing about my actions, I was actually regretting going overboard on her since it appears that it has become a downfall for me. Naoto already didn't talk with me much and after that, I feel like she is completely ignoring my existence.

And since the sports festival was just over, the club was also not very active so I had no way to talk with her. I can't just go to her classroom and start a conversation with her out of the blue. Things have been quite complicated recently.

Tsūmen was quite curious about what happened between me and Vivian that day. I didn't tell him about Vivian beating the shit out of me because if I do, I'm pretty sure he'll be worried. Though he knew that something was up with me since I wasn't going out at lunch time to meet them anymore.

He also tried to ask me indirectly if something happened, but I just brushed off his question as it was rather unnecessary for me to talk about it.

My eyes towards Kizhashi as I noticed her scribbling something in her notebook. Well it was rather odd for her to write something because she definitely wasn't the kind of person to study in class.

Looking at her, many more thoughts came to my mind. Reminiscing about the thing I noticed on sports festival, also the way she was helping me, but I'm sure at some point she would get curious about my requests that's why it's best to let her get involved a bit since she'll lose her memories that way and it'll be a bit easier for me to manipulate her.

I was quietly sitting on my chair with my English book open in front of me as my eyes were wandering around the monotonic words printed on the page. English was a subject I didn't take seriously at all as I used to study it the night before the exam only.

A lingering feeling of dread was washing over me every time the thought of Naoto would pop in my mind. I was feeling restless and wanted to check her immediately at that moment. I wanted to feel assured about my situation but unfortunately I had no clue on what position I was standing.

It was taking the queen's gambit without knowing how to counter it and getting stuck in a messy situation with high chances of being checkmated. Though I wasn't as expressive as others, so it always appeared like I had a poker face.

As the remaining periods went by as usual, and that day also went without a speck of interaction with Naoto. The last period also came to an end as the bell rang and everyone started packing their bags after the teacher left the classroom.

Nothing much happened that day too except the exponential peaking on my restlessness. I picked up my bag as I walked out the door with Tsūmen following me behind with a confused look on his face as he asked, "Are you good?"

He has asked this quite a few times, as I looked back at him and gave him a sharp look to which he replied with an awkward laugh. We kept walking with the sound of chatter all around us.

Our class was on the first floor so it took us some time to get down to the ground floor since the staircases are crowded during these times. As I was walking towards the shoe lockers, a faint voice calling my name ringed in my ear.

"Sakamaki-kun?" I felt someone call out my name, and that voice was quite familiar, as I turned around and replied hesitantly, "Y...yes?"

  Standing behind me was none other than Naoto with a frown on her face as she was looking intently into my eyes and with an irritated tone she said, "I need to talk."

I looked over to Tsūmen who was standing a bit far from me with a smug look on his face, and then shifted my gaze towards her as I replied, "Do so."

I wasn't in the mood to tease her but looking at her pissed face, I couldn't help but crack some sarcasm. She rolled her eyes, and pointed towards me with her index finger as she said, "With you!!"

I gave her an awkward smile, and said, "Oh… okay… what do you want to talk about?"

Listening to me, she clenched her fists and sighed as she gestured to me to follow her. I looked at her then turned towards Tsūmen to tell him to continue without me. He nodded and walked off as I followed Naoto.

We were heading in the opposite direction to what others were going but I didn't ask her anything as it felt like she wanted to talk to me alone.

We finally reached the place, and I was guessing correctly as we were standing in front of the club. She turned towards me and resting her arms on her shoulder she rolled her eyes and said, "Are you stupid?"

"Sometimes." Narrowing my eyes at her, I replied in a confused tone because I wasn't being sarcastic but it sounded sarcastic.

She sighed, and with a frown on her face she said, "Why are you so annoying?!"

"My bad…" I said, but cutting me off mid sentence she said in an agitated tone, "Anyways… so I actually wanted to talk about that day!"

"Monday?" I replied in a plain tone, but realizing what she did, her cheeks flushed up with a tint of red as she was clearly embarrassed.

Nodding hesitantly, with tensed eyebrows, she said in a serious tone, "Yeah… who the hell do you think you are?!!"