Soul for a Girlfriend?

Only one week remaining for our exams. Most of the students were now getting serious about their studies. The atmosphere of class was as lively as ever, but instead of talking about different occasions, the conversations were about different subjects.

I could see the group of three students sitting in front of me solving something. Tsūmen, who was sitting next to me on the other hand, wasn't much worried about this exam. He was the kind of guy to open the textbooks a night before the exam.

Ms Tachibana was also giving us advice to focus on our studies during our homeroom today. She told us to study with our friends and also to ask teachers for help if we get stuck somewhere because we still have a week's worth of time on our hands. 

She also told us about the schedule of the exams. And it seems like we will have back-to-back exams. It will start with English on Monday, and will end with mathematics on Friday.

This was the period before lunch, and everyone was busy with themselves.

"Huh… only one week remaining." I heard Tsūmen sighing.

"As if you were going to study if there was more time left." I retorted looking at his laid back attitude.

"Of course not." He laughed while spinning the pen between the fingers of his right hand.

"Hey, you two." I heard Gaisen's voice approach us. I looked at him and he had his usual smile on his face.

"Yo, Gaisen-kun." Tsūmen greeted him back.

"What are you talking about?" He asked, taking a seat on the empty chair in front of Tsūmen's desk.

"Saishi was talking about how he is scared shitless for the exam." Tsūmen answered while pointing at me with the pen in his hand.

"Damn, it must be tough for you." Gaisen said, looking at me with a confused expression. It was like he found Tsūmen's joke really lame but didn't want to make him feel bad so continued with it.

"How's your preparation going on?" I asked him, since I know that he is quite serious about his studies.

"I can't tell to be honest. I'm studying, but I feel like I won't be able to solve questions in the exam." He said with a dubious look on his face. 

"Ah, then you try solving some questions from the textbook or sample question papers." I advised because that's what I do instead of cramming things up, solving questions is more useful.

"Or you can just chill like me." Tsūmen said with a thumbs up and a wink.

"No." Gaisen just outright rejected his advice.

"Jeez, why are you two so serious?" In our group, Gaisen was the one who was serious about studies, I am the one average one amd Tsūmen's the bad one because he doesn't even open his books.

I'm pretty sure if he sold his book to someone, it'll be sold for the same price it was bought for because of how unused it was. It looked almost new that even the pages smelled like a new book.

"Hey, is everything okay between you and Reina?" Gaisen suddenly asks this out of the blue.

"Well we haven't been talking for the past few days." I answered as I know that he also has noticed that. That's why he asked me this in the first place.

"Huh? What happened? You didn't tell me?" Tsūmen looked at me in surprise.

"It's not something worth telling, you know?" I said in a plain and boring tone.

"Everything between you and Yasu-san is worth listening to." He said emphasising on her name with a smug on his face.

"Anyways… So why did you ask this out of the blue?" I ignored Tsūmen and turned towards Gaisen.

"No reason, I just haven't seen you talking with her recently." He shrugged.

"I have noticed that too." Tsūmen nodded, following up Gaisen's claim.

"What happened between you two? It's okay if you don't want to tell us." Gaisen asked politely, but I can tell that he was curious about this too.

"No it's… actually something did happen between us." I was about to deny it but then decided to just go with the flow of the conversation and answer them honestly.

"What?" Tsūmen asked him in unison.

"I… said some things to her which I later realised that I could have said in a different way. Maybe she is mad at me." I answered with a shrug.

"Some things?" Gaisen raised his eyebrows at me. I looked over at Tsūmen, and he was clearly not satisfied with my answer.

"I'm going to go into details." I said, as I didn't want to disregard her privacy by telling something like that to others.

"That's completely fine, we understand." Gaisen caught on to my intention and showed me his hand as a gesture to back up his statement.

"Do we?" Tsūmen asked him jokingly.

"Yes we do, now shut up." Gaisen nodded at him.

  There was also something which was bugging me for quite some time now, but I couldn't ask that to anyone. Gaisen is Reina's close friend, but it seems like she still doesn't tell him about everything.

"Oh, I have an idea." Tsūmen calls out all of a sudden with a mischievous smile on his face.

"What is it?" Gaisen asked him. He looked at him, then his shifts slowly shifted towards me and then back to Gaisen.

"You're going to regret asking him that." I sighed, because I never trust ideas that come out of his head.

"No, no it's a good idea. I don't always say bullcrap." He said, shaking his pen from left to right as a gesture to say 'no'.

"Sorry to break it to you, but you do." I looked at him with disappointment in my eyes.

"I don't." He narrowed his eyes at me.

"Anyways, tell us your genius plan." Gaisen told him to continue.

He stood up from his chair and tubbed his hands together to imitate some villain from a manga he read. With a smug smile, he looked at me and said, "So, this is a plan to get you and Yasu-san together."

"Oh… I'm interested." Hearing these words out of his mouth, Gaisen was all of a sudden more attentive than ever.

"Ah shit, here we go again." I sighed again, pinching my temples between my index and thumb finger.

"So like since exams are near too, why don't we all plan a group study?" He said.

"Group study?" I was a bit shocked because it was actually a good idea. That way I can spend time with her too, and she wouldn't feel like she is wasting her time instead of studying.