Time, as it turns out, is a sadist. It has this nasty habit of stretching moments of profound, soul-crushing humiliation into what feels like a geological epoch. I was trapped in amber, a perfectly preserved fossil of a high school idiot caught in the act of what could only be described as "Public Groping by Gravitational Misadventure."
My hands were still on Yumi's chest.
It was a fact so monumentally awful that my brain kept rebooting every time it tried to process it. The warmth seeping through her blouse was a constant, searing reminder. My palms tingled, my face burned with the heat of a thousand suns, and the very air I was breathing seemed to have been replaced with pure, uncut shame.
Yumi was frozen solid, her body rigid against mine. Her face, which was still just inches from my own, was a beautiful, tragic canvas of scarlet. Her wide, chestnut eyes, usually sparkling with life, were now shimmering with unshed tears of sheer mortification. A tiny, choked sound, something between a squeak and a whimper, was trapped in her throat.
And then there were the other two. The twin poles of this sudden, horrific magnetic field.
To my right, Akari Saito. The Ice Queen's legendary composure was not just cracked; it was shattering. Her gray eyes, usually so cool and analytical, were now chips of flint, sparking with a dangerous light. The clipboard in her hand looked less like an administrative tool and more like a weapon she was moments away from using. Her gaze wasn't just on my hands anymore; it was on me, and it was filled with a potent, terrifying cocktail of disgust and something that looked unnervingly like betrayal.
To my left, by the door, Rina Watanabe. The Wild Card. She was savoring this moment like a gourmet meal. Her arms were crossed under her chest, a gesture that only served to emphasize her own confident curves, and her head was tilted with amusement. That sharp, predatory grin hadn't wavered. She was a wolf that had stumbled upon a three-way deer-in-the-headlights pileup, and she was clearly enjoying the show.
Move your hands, you moron! my brain screamed, finally managing to fire a single, coherent command through the fog of panic.
With a jolt, as if I'd been electrocuted, I snatched my hands back. "I-I-I'm so sorry!" I stammered, scrambling backward and tripping over my own feet. I landed hard on my butt, the impact rattling my teeth. "Yumi! I didn't—I tripped—Kenta's book—it was an accident!"
The spell was broken.
Yumi flinched as if my touch had lingered like a phantom limb. She wrapped her arms around herself, a protective gesture that made a fresh wave of guilt wash over me. She wouldn't look at me. She just stared at a fixed point on the floor, her entire body trembling slightly.
The silence that had fallen over the classroom was now being filled with frantic, excited whispers. I could feel dozens of eyes on us, dissecting the scene, forming opinions, cementing this as the "Kenji Tanaka Incident" that would be whispered about in the halls for weeks. Kenta, the unwitting catalyst for this disaster, had shrunk so far down in his chair he was in danger of phasing through the floor. He shot me a look of such profound, pitying apology that it only made me feel worse.
"An accident?"
Akari's voice cut through the whispers like a surgeon's scalpel. It was dangerously soft, but every syllable was laced with ice. She took a slow, deliberate step towards me, her hard-soled loafers making an unnervingly loud clack on the linoleum floor. She now stood over me, a terrifying monolith of righteous fury.
"You call public indecency an 'accident,' Tanaka-kun?" she asked, her eyes narrowing.
"It really was!" I pleaded from my undignified position on the floor. "I swear on my entire collection of limited-edition manga!"
"Tsk, tsk, Prez," Rina drawled, sauntering further into the room. She came to a stop beside Yumi, draping a casual arm around her shoulder. Yumi stiffened at the unexpected contact. "Lighten up. It's obvious he just lost his balance. Or maybe," she added, her eyes glinting with mischief as she looked down at Yumi's flushed face, "he was just overwhelmed by Aihara-chan's hidden charms. Can't say I blame him."
Yumi's head snapped up, her expression a mix of confusion and indignation at Rina's casual, almost mocking familiarity. "Wha—"
Rina gave her a little squeeze. "It's a compliment, sweetie. You should take it."
This was Rina's specialty: fanning the flames. She wasn't just observing the chaos anymore; she was actively stirring the pot with a giant, invisible ladle. Her intervention had a three-fold effect. It positioned her as the "cool, understanding" one, it subtly belittled Yumi by treating her like a flustered child, and it directly challenged Akari's authority. It was a masterclass in social warfare.
Akari's glare, which had been focused entirely on me, now swiveled to Rina. The temperature dropped even further. "Watanabe-san. Your presence here is just as much a violation of school policy as Aihara-san's was. And your commentary is vulgar and unbefitting a student of this academy."
"Oh, I'm wounded," Rina said, placing a hand over her heart with zero sincerity. "My poor, vulgar heart can barely take it. I just came to ask Tanaka a question. It's not my fault I walked into a live-action soap opera." She then turned her head, her gaze falling on me. "Speaking of, Tanaka. The literature club is looking for volunteers to help build the set for the cultural festival play. It involves power tools and manual labor. Thought it might be your kind of thing."
My mind, still reeling, struggled to catch up. The cultural festival? That was weeks away. Why was she asking me this now?
It was a power play. A blatant, in-your-face attempt to stake a claim. In the middle of this disaster zone, with me on the floor and Yumi looking traumatized and Akari radiating pure murderous intent, Rina was trying to recruit me. It was so audacious, so completely tone-deaf to the immediate crisis, that it was almost brilliant.
"I… uh…" I began, trying to form a coherent sentence.
Before I could, Yumi finally found her voice. She shrugged Rina's arm off her shoulder, her politeness gone, replaced by a quiet fire I hadn't seen in years. "He's busy," she said, her voice firm. Her eyes, still misty, were locked on Rina. "He's helping me with my history report this weekend."
She had weaponized my careless "it's a date" comment. She threw it down like a gauntlet. The air crackled. It was a declaration: He's with me.
Rina raised an eyebrow, her smirk returning full force. "A history report? Sounds thrilling. I'm sure he'd rather get his hands dirty with me. We'd have way more fun." The double entendre was so thick you could have cut it with a knife.
Yumi's cheeks flushed again, this time with anger. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means exactly what it sounds like," Rina shot back, her playful tone hardening into a challenge.
"Enough!"
Akari's voice was like a thunderclap. Both Rina and Yumi flinched, their argument cut short. Her face was a mask of cold fury.
"This is a classroom, not a marketplace for a boy's attention," she spat, the insult hitting all three of us with pinpoint accuracy. "Watanabe-san, Aihara-san, you will both report to the student council office for detention after school for disrupting the peace and violating inter-building regulations. As for you, Tanaka-kun…"
She took another step closer, forcing me to crane my neck to look up at her. Her shadow fell over me.
"Your… clumsiness… has caused a significant disturbance. I expect you to reflect on your actions and how they affect those around you. See that it does not happen again."
Her words were for me, but her glare was a sweeping scythe that cut across Yumi and Rina as well. It was a warning. A promise.
The final bell, signaling the end of the break, rang out, saving me from having to formulate a response. It was the sweetest sound I had ever heard. The teacher for the next period, a portly, balding man named Mr. Suzuki, waddled into the room.
"Alright, settle down, settle down!" he boomed, oblivious to the high-stakes emotional drama that had just unfolded. "Calculus waits for no one! Open your textbooks to page 142. The chain rule isn't going to learn itself!"
The crisis was over. For now.
Akari gave me one last, lingering glare before turning on her heel and stalking back to her desk with the rigid grace of a furious monarch. She sat down, her back a straight, unforgiving line.
Rina shot me a wink, a silent promise of future chaos, before strolling out of the classroom as casually as she had entered, completely ignoring Akari's detention order.
Yumi, her face a storm of conflicting emotions, scurried back to the door without another word. She paused, her hand on the frame, and risked one last look at me. Her expression was unreadable—a painful mix of hurt, embarrassment, and something else… disappointment. Then she was gone, leaving my bento—the catalyst for this whole mess—sitting on my desk like a beautiful, tragic monument to my stupidity.
I scrambled to my feet, my legs still shaking, and collapsed into my chair. The whispers around me slowly died down as Mr. Suzuki began scrawling equations on the blackboard.
I stared at the bento. Yumi's favorite tamagoyaki was in there. But my appetite was completely gone, replaced by a cold, leaden ball of dread in the pit of my stomach.
In the span of five minutes, I had accidentally groped my childhood friend, been publicly shamed by the student council president, and become the focal point of a territorial dispute between two girls who clearly despised each other. And somehow, I got the feeling that a third one had just entered the fray.
I slowly opened the bauto box. Inside, nestled amongst the rice and vegetables, was a perfectly shaped, fluffy yellow omelet. On top of it, drawn in delicate ketchup script, was a little smiley face.
I picked it up with my chopsticks. It felt heavy.
This is bad, I thought, my mind replaying Akari's glacial fury and Yumi's wounded expression over and over. This is really, really bad.
Just as I was about to put the tamagoyaki in my mouth, a small, folded piece of paper landed on my desk. It had been flicked from the desk in front of me. Kenta's desk.
I looked up. Kenta was pointedly staring at the blackboard, pretending to be engrossed in the mysteries of the chain rule, but a faint blush was visible on the back of his neck.
Confused, I picked up the note. It wasn't from Kenta. It must have been passed to him from his own right.
I unfolded it. The handwriting was neat, precise, and instantly recognizable. It was from Akari Saito. My heart leaped into my throat. Was this my official notice of expulsion? A summons to a disciplinary hearing?
There was only one sentence written on the paper.
"Are you hurt?"