C24. Confiscation of Omu Rice Mountain ◇ Hiria

I was caught with Sakura-kun, whom I was supposed to have disliked, and when people saw me being comforted with tears in my eyes, I became a bad girl.

The people around me didn’t know what was going on, so they speculated on their own.

According to them, apparently, the fact that I said I hated him was a lie to play with Sakura-kun, and we were secretly dating behind everyone’s back and I cheated on him. And when he found out, I cried and clung to him. Every scenario I heard leaking out had me as the bad guy. This kind of rumor tends to be created by girls, so it is inevitable.

But I’m sure it’s not just that.

Sakura-kun has always had a sense of integrity whereas I’ve had 50 boyfriends before according to others.

I’m sure this physiognomy is at fault.

Fifty boyfriends, playing around, it’s all the stuff of a bad girl, isn’t it? My sister has been called beautiful and mysterious, but she has never been called innocent when I think about it. She doesn’t have the shyness or gap of an idol.

“Saionji-san, I heard the rumor.”

During the lunch break, Kawai-san unusually approached me.

“We have nothing to do with the source.”

“Ah, huh?”

That’s all she said, and then she went away. As if to replace her, a figure appeared at the entrance.

“Saionji!　You’re getting a little annoying!”

I heard a rather brave yell and looked over to see a large girl from another class standing alone with her arms folded. When I got close to her, she squeezed my shoulders tightly and took me out to the fire escape. Even though she was a girl, she had a very strong feeling of being a Yota (TN: good-for-nothing).

It was a beautiful day outside the door, but I was being tangled up with a Yota.

When I came face to face with her, I noticed her face.

I’ve seen this girl before. When I was staring at the other classes looking for Nekura-kun, she was the one who was always making everyone laugh in the middle of the classroom. She was big and had a big impact, so it was hard to mistake her. But I couldn’t figure out what she wanted.

“Saionji, no one seems to be able to bring it up to you, so I’ve come to tell you.”

This girl student snapped her fingers as she said it and tried to be terrifying.

“Well… what is it?”

“It’s about Sakura-kun. I’ve heard a few disturbing rumors.”

She scoffed her chin with an expression that seemed to say, “Ahhh?”

“W-wait, are you part of the faction that wanted to date him, the radicals of the Love Federation?”

I braced myself thinking they are finally here, but instead, I got a glare.

“I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to go out with him… I just want him to be happy… That’s what I’m talking about. What’s your deal?”

“Even if you ask me what my deal is…”

She’s a little bit upset, but I wonder if she’s the type of girl who understands when I explain.

“This mammoth will not tolerate anyone who hurts Sakura-kun! Just back off obediently!”

She was snapping her fingers again. It looks bad for the bone.

However, although I was scared that I would be hit at any moment, I felt drained because she only intimidated me and did not enter into action at all.

That being said, mammoth huh …Her body is certainly big, but still.

“Did you give yourself that nickname?”

“What?　I don’t care about that!”

My friends in junior high school had a lot of weird nicknames, like Goliath and Pochomukin. But they were fun nicknames that we all decided on together, and they liked them and seemed to fit. In this girl’s case, it just doesn’t fit.

“Um… What’s your name?”

“What..?”

“Ah, shouldn’t I have asked?　I didn’t mean to tell on you or anything, but I just felt like asking…”

“Hm. I’m not going to hide it. If you want to tell on me, tell on me. It’s Saotome Manami…”

Manamin.

This is the first time I’ve been able to find a nickname that really fits someone perfectly, but I don’t have the nerve to say it in this situation.

“You just thought it didn’t suit me, didn’t you?”

“No, I didn’t. I’m the one with a name that doesn’t fit.”

“H~uh~?　You’re the only one in the whole school who hasn’t been bested by a stupid fancy name like that. Are you an idiot? Are you making fun of me?”

It was a quick retort, but it was just an awkward follow-up in bad language. You can’t hide the goodness of a person behind it. I almost laughed a little.

“No, you see, for me, a fitting name would be omu-rice mountain kettle or something like that…”

“Lame!　lamedy lame! It doesn’t suit you at all. I would be the one who should be named omu-rice mountain! Confiscated! Omurice mountain confiscated!”

What is this person? I feel like she’s a comedian trying to be an entertainer even in this situation. She’s not very good at attacking people to hurt them, but the rhythm of her words makes me feel strangely happy. I don’t know what it is about this girl.

Then, I suddenly realized.

She’s a little like Pochomukin.

Most of my friends had been in the same school since kindergarten, but Pochomukin was the only one who had transferred from junior high school. She came from a co-ed school in a rural area a bit far from here, and she was hurt by a few boys. When we first met, she looked like a wounded beast, and she had the strongest hostility towards me.

Pochomukin was a big girl, and she looked quick and strong, but she was actually the most girlish girl in our group. Her room was full of pink, and her favorite manga and movies were all romantic and girlie.

I felt strangely nostalgic because they had a similar atmosphere.

“Saotome-san, you’re a bit like my beloved friend…”

“What?”

“Yeah, you know, Pochomukin was my friend in junior high school. She was bigger than Saotome-san, but she was kind.”

Saotome is looking at me with suspicious eyes.

“She said she cried all through elementary school because some boys called her a boy-girl or a wrestler because she was so big. But what she hated more was the girls who laughed at her…”

Saotome-san’s brow furrowed, and she made a clearly disgusted face. She chewed on her bottom lip a little, not the little fake face she had just made, but a serious look of disgust.

“Pochomukin became a good friend and started smiling really cute and became cheerful, but if she had gone straight to a co-ed school with people like that, she might have turned out like Saotome-san.”

“What do you mean..?”

I was suddenly saying something incomprehensible, but she was listening to me. She’s a good girl after all. I mean, she doesn’t have the air of a mean person, to begin with, does she?

“Saotome-san, you’re always making everyone laugh in the classroom, and you’re very popular… You proudly go by nicknames you didn’t give yourself…”

If you go for the laughs yourself, it’s less damaging than being laughed at. I thought Saotome-san always looked happy and surrounded by friends, but when I actually talked to her, I couldn’t deny that she was kind of creating a character. The feeling of overdoing it is too strong. I’m sure she’s playing the character that the people around her want her to be.

“But Pocho didn’t like it… She said she absolutely hated the nicknames given to him by boys she hated… I remember it really well.”

“Don’t lump me in with those weaklings!”

“Pocho wasn’t weak!　Even though she was laughed at, she stayed the girl she wanted to be. She’s much stronger than Saotome-san.”

I blurted out a lot of fragmented and inadequately explained words. It’s not that I wanted to do anything, but I felt so sad when I saw this girl who looked like my friend. I’m sure there are many things she’s pushing herself in.

This girl, who was laughing at herself, taking in all the sadness and pain I had heard so much about from Pocho, looked really painful.

Saotome-san was silent for a long time, so I looked up at her.

She was breathing out quietly, huffing and puffing, and crying. When I opened my eyes in surprise, she glared at me.

“What does a person like you understand? Someone like you, who has no worries at all.!”

“Well, I don’t know how you feel, Saotome-san. But I also have a lot of other problems, and you don’t know that.”

“Don’t be silly! There is no such thing as a problem for someone like you! There can’t be!”

“Yes, I do! I’ve been told that I have fifty boyfriends, something that doesn’t even exist. And my classmates use honorifics and shy away from me, that I can’t make friends at all! But that doesn’t mean I’ll ever play the character everyone wants me to be.”

“U~gh…”

“Saotome-san is always surrounded by friends, so you probably don’t understand, but the lunch eaten alone isn’t very tasty.”

“….”

“Saotome-san, you were never stopped from helping wherever you go during the school cleaning time and weren’t warned by the teachers because they thought you were slacking off, right? Even if it’s not malicious, it’s the same as being ostracized.”

“U~u~u…”

“Who told you that I was playing with Sakura-kun, Saotome?　Did you hear it from him? Everyone talked whatever they wanted, right? I …”

“You idiot!　I don’t want to know about such things from someone like you!!”

Saotome-san cried even more.

I wonder if I said anything to make her cry that much.

But I could tell by looking at her face.

She is probably much kinder and more sensitive than me. It was as if she was crying over Pocho and me. In layman’s terms, she was a crybaby.

While I was waiting for her to stop crying, the bell rang.

When I walked back into the hallway with Saotome-san, the students, who had been watching with bated breath at a distance, widened their eyes.

I guess that’s natural.

I was called out, and when I came back, the one who was supposed to settle things with me was crying.

This is going to cause another unwanted misunderstanding.