The end of spring break took too long to arrive.

         Usually, it would be over in the blink of an eye.

         This time, it felt like the hands of the clock had rusted in place – the break kept dragging on and on and on. It just felt needlessly long.

          Finally, at last, April rolled around. With it came the new school year.

          I was a bit anxious.

          My footsteps felt heavy as I approached the school grounds.

          Although we were forbidden from interacting with each other at school, I wondered how I should face Sendai-san when I saw her. Though, I had no idea if I’d have to face her at all – we changed classrooms at the start of the new year, so we might be in different classes.

          I was fidgeting a lot, unable to calm myself down.

          Our class lists were posted by the front entrance.

          As I passed through the school gates, I saw a large crowd of people gathered around the relatively small pieces of paper.

          Breathe in, breathe out.

          Without making myself stand out, I took a deep breath in before exhaling. The first thing I did was search for my name on the list. After confirming which classroom I would be in, I looked further for the names of people that I knew. However, I didn’t find Sendai-san’s name there.

          I wasn’t expecting anything to begin with, so there was nothing to feel disappointed about.

        I sealed that thought away in my heart as I headed towards the classrooms that had formerly been home to our high and mighty seniors. When I opened the door, I saw Maika – who I met up with multiple times over the break – in the classroom.

          「Over here, Shiori!」

          Maika waved her hand around as she called my name.

          I walked over to the desk she was sitting at.

          「Good morning.」

          「Morning, Shiori. Man, I had no idea what I was going to do if we ended up in different classes.」

          「Same here.」

          「Oh yeah, did you see that Ami’s in our class too?」

          Back in our first year, we were in the same class as our other friend, Shirakawa Ami, but we ended up being separated from her the year after. However, right as I wanted to celebrate the three of us being together again, I noticed she was nowhere to be seen.

          「Yeah, I saw. Is Ami not here yet?」

          「Nope, doesn’t seem like it.」

          「I see.」

          Now that I knew Ami wasn’t here yet, it felt a bit strange for me to look around for anyone else. But even though I knew there was no way I’d find Sendai-san, I found my eyes continued scanning around the room. Though, it would’ve been weirder if I had seen her in my class – her name wasn’t on the same list as mine.

          「Oh? Was there someone else you wanted to be in the same class as?」

          Maika scanned the room, imitating what I was doing.

          「No.」

          「Whaat? You were totally looking for someone just now. Don’t tell me, did you want to be in the same class as your crush?」

          Maika asked, clearly poking fun at me.

          「That’s not it, and I don’t have a crush on anybody either. I was just looking around to see what sort of people were in our class this year.」

          「How suspicious…」

          「There’s nothing suspicious about that at all.」

          Maika continued to stare at me with a doubtful look on her face.

          「Seriously, it’s nothing.」

          I insisted as I let out a small sigh.

          If we end up in different classes, then this will be as far as our relationship goes.

          I thought back to the “little bet” I made with myself during spring break.

          Sendai-san didn’t start coming over to my house because of fate or anything. It only happened because of a coincidence followed by a series of whims that I had. In general, things like coincidences or whims never last very long, so an event like being put in different classrooms would probably be more than enough to end them. Plus, after what I did to Sendai-san the last time I saw her, I found it difficult to imagine facing her at all.

          The only reason I was feeling down like this was because I would no longer see the face of a person I’d grown used to seeing in the classroom – there was no deeper meaning to it. This wasn’t a bad thing, and it meant I didn’t have a reason to call for Sendai-san anymore, either.

          Eventually, Ami entered the classroom, and the homeroom teacher came not long after. After listening to the teacher drone on and on for a while, we were finally dismissed and our first day of the new school year came to an end.

          Maika and Ami invited me to go somewhere with them, but I turned them down, opting to go straight home.

          Without changing out of my uniform, I plopped down onto my bed and pulled out my phone.

          There was no particular reason for me to erase Sendai-san’s contact information, but I didn’t really feel there was much reason to keep it either.

          We were in different classes – she would forget about me soon enough.

          So there really wasn’t much point in keeping her contact information.

          There were a few things that put me in a bad mood in our first three days of school, and during those moments, I found myself instinctively reaching for my phone. However, by the fifth day, I was able to resist looking at my phone at all.

          In any case, it wasn’t all that uncommon to find people drifting apart after being placed in different classrooms.

          A week had gone by since I made the decision to cut contact with Sendai-san. Yet, I found myself with the manga I made her read aloud to me the first time she came over in my hands.

          On that day, I assumed she was going to read it well, but she was surprisingly bad at it. I stood in front of my bookshelf as I flipped through the pages of the book, recalling memories of how quiet she was while reading certain lines, or when she’d have difficulties bringing herself to say certain words.

          I heaved a sigh as I went to take a seat on my bed.

          When I closed the manga and put it by my pillow, I heard a chime from my intercom.

          I hadn’t ordered anything, so it couldn’t have been a delivery.

          I wasn’t expecting any guests either.

          Which meant that the person by the entrance was most likely just a salesperson or something of the sort. There was no reason for me to greet them, or even acknowledge them, so I decided to leave it be and turned on the TV instead. However, the intercom wouldn’t stop ringing.

          How persistent.

          I raised the volume on the TV to block out the noise from the intercom, but just as I thought it was over, I heard a notification from my phone.

          It was the sound of an incoming text message. I picked up my phone from the table. When I looked at the screen, I saw Sendai-san’s name appear on it.

          『Answer the intercom. I know you’re there.』

          Judging from the text, it seemed that the person ringing the intercom was none other than Sendai-san.

          I was always the one who’d send Sendai-san a message first, whereas all she would do was reply to it.

          That wasn’t something we decided on, but it became an unspoken rule. Until now, she had never been the first to send a message, and she had certainly never come over uninvited.

          『I’ve got some business with you, so hurry up and answer the intercom already.』

          As I stared blankly at my phone screen, a new message came in. Immediately after, the intercom started ringing again. She kept at it, much like an elementary school student trying to pull a silly prank. I turned off the TV, got up and walked towards the living room. I took a peek at the intercom’s monitor and just as I predicted, Sendai-san was standing right there. However, I had no idea why she came all the way to my apartment building when I hadn’t even called for her.

           「What did you come here for?」

          I asked through the intercom.

          「You read my messages, didn’t you? I need you to open this door for me.」

          Hearing Sendai-san’s voice for the first time in a while made my heart thump.

          But I wasn’t going to open the door for her.

          「No.」

          「I have something to give back to you, so open it.」

          「Something to give back to me?」

          「Yeah, so open the door already.」

          Sendai-san said, sounding a bit annoyed.

          But the expression on her face was the same as usual.

          Perhaps it was because she was outside, but she looked exactly like how she would as if she were still at school.

          「What are you trying to give back to me?」        

          「The clothes that I borrowed last time. I made sure to wash them.」

          The moment I heard her mention the clothes, I was instantly reminded of that day.

          After I threw popcorn at her and doused her in soda, I gave her clean clothes to wear on her way back home. I did say that I was giving it to her, not lending it to her. I was certain those were the exact words I said, too.

          Well, it didn’t seem like she’d ever intended to keep the clothes – she had declared that she would return them later.

          Sendai-san was a little too morally upright at times, which was sort of a pain. I didn’t want to take back something I’d already given away, and I had no intentions of going back on my word either.

          「I told you that you didn’t need to return it. Besides, I didn’t ask you to come over today either.」

          「I came over because you didn’t ask.」

          「Why?」

          「I don’t like feeling indebted to other people.」

          Sendai-san said firmly.

          I’m sure someone like Ibaraki-san would’ve kept it if she was asked to, but it seemed like Sendai-san was not that type of person. Even when I tried to give her five-thousand yen back at the bookstore, she was incredibly insistent on returning it.

          「I said I was giving it to you, so you don’t have to return anything.」

          That was probably not enough to get Sendai-san to back down, though.

          What a pain.

          At this point, we were just going around in circles. Since our conversation had reached a stalemate, I decided I was going to hang up on her. However, right before I did so, Sendai-san said something unexpected.

          「In that case, make it an order.」

          「…… Huh?」

          「I’m telling you I’ll listen to you if you make it an order.」

          「I don’t get what you’re trying to say.」

          「I don’t want to keep the clothes since there’s no reason for me to do so. But if you order me to keep them, then I will. And if you don’t want that, then at least order me to do something else, just like usual.」

          Sendai-san spoke like it was nothing.

          It was true that she would obey any order I gave her in exchange for five-thousand yen, so it wouldn’t have been strange if I ordered her to keep the clothes. But there was something about being told to order her around that didn’t sit well with me.

          「Why does it take an order from me to get you to accept a single piece of clothing? I already said I would give it to you, so just take it. Now, go home.」

          「If I leave now, I’m never coming back. Is that okay with you?」

          She was trying to get me to stop her from leaving.

          The voice that I heard through the intercom didn’t sound very confident at all. If I had to say, she sounded incredibly angry, far beyond mere frustration.

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TL Note: I wasn’t sure if this warranted an actual footnote or not, but in Japan, you’re stuck with the same classmates in the same classroom for an entire year. This means that the students are sorted into their classrooms right at the beginning of the school year (in April) and they stay there. In case you’re wondering, this also means that the teachers are the ones going around to different classrooms when they have to teach their respective subjects instead of the students swapping rooms all the time.

Anyway, I just wanted to leave that here because when I was in high school, it was totally different. You’d pick the courses you wanted to take and you’d go to those classrooms yourself. You would probably end up sharing some classes with others in your grade, but you wouldn’t be stuck with the exact same people, all day every day. (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

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Credits to himi for proofreading and editing this part!

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