After entering the class, Shun and I relied on the seating chart posted on the blackboard to confirm our seats.
However, it’s not like the seats are shuffled in order of attendance number…?
With my surname being ‘Yamashita,’ I’m always close to the back of the seating order. And this year, there’s no one with a last name starting with ‘Ya’!!
That’s right, with me being Yamashita, I’m in the back!
Given the seat in the back corner by the window and the prime seat at the very back, I ended up sitting there.
“Yes! I’m in the very back corner!”
“Yuto, lucky you! You get sunlight during class, you can oversee everyone, and most importantly, it’s perfect for napping, right!”
“Shun… You can’t just sleep during class, you know…”
“Hahaha!! I can’t hear you at all! But… I’m also happy with my seat, you know?”
Shun’s mischievousness is so refreshing and endearing. But because he always dozes off during class, he barely scrapes by with passing grades on tests… and yet every time, he ends up crying.
…But more importantly, his seat is what makes him happy?! That’s what I’m curious about!!
I looked for the surname ‘Mizugami’ this time, peering at the seating chart once again.
“Shun’s seat is… huh!?”
“Next to Yuto, right at the very back! Awesome!”
That’s right, Shun’s seat was next to mine!
There’s nothing more reassuring and delightful than having your dear friend right beside you!
“I’m glad! But you know, Shun, if you’re sitting next to me, you can’t doze off during class, right?”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I’ll wake you up with a poke.♪”
“Ugh… Maybe we should swap seats after all…”
In such conversations, we naturally laughed together, sharing moments of laughter and conversation. Even being able to have such exchanges was the greatest happiness for me, who had hidden my Omega status.
A few minutes later, other classmates began to enter the classroom one after another, familiar faces and those new to being in the same class for the first time… Before I knew it, the classroom was filled with vibrant colors and sounds.
Everyone placed their belongings on their desks, some sitting down right away while others went off with their friends… Until the morning homeroom began, everyone spent their time freely.
But the seat in front of me gradually remained vacant while other seats were being filled, with no sign of anyone coming to occupy it… Seriously, absent from the very first day of school…??
“Is the guy in front of Yuto absent on the first day?”
“I wonder what’s up? Did he oversleep?”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
It seemed Shun was thinking the same thing.
P mbeivc’a tfiq yea offi j ilaaif fzmlafv jybea ktb kbeiv yf rlaalcu lc ogbca bo wf, jcv yfobgf P xcfk la, la kjr alwf obg tbwfgbbw…
Dea lc atf fcv, fnfc ktfc atf tbwfgbbw rajgafv, cbybvs jqqfjgfv lc atf rfja lc ogbca bo wf…
Z-Zjsyf atfs’gf jyrfca vef ab qbbg tfjiat…??
As I was pondering such thoughts, our homeroom teacher swiftly finished the New Year’s greetings for the new academic year and declared, ‘Let me introduce a transfer student to you all.’ Huh, a transfer student…??
With the teacher’s call of ‘Come on in,’ the door opened, and the transfer student appeared…
The transfer student stood next to the teacher, and the teacher introduced them.
Yamagiyama Yamato
Yes, this was the first encounter between me and Yamato…
* * *
The transfer student’s name is Yamagiyama Yamato.
He’s tall, but seems to be a bit shorter than Shun… I can tell by appearance…
And in my high school, we were only required to wear a white shirt with a green tie and a navy blazer; as long as the pants were navy, both boys and girls had freedom in choice.
But Yamagiyama’s tie was crooked and not properly tightened…
And above all, his hair… It stood up like a hedgehog, neatly styled with black hair.
My high school didn’t have strict rules about hairstyles, so we weren’t reprimanded for styling or dyeing our hair…
Does he style it every day…?
Styling it seems like a hassle…
While I was thinking about that, Shun whispered to me in a voice only I could hear, muttering, ‘Is that a hedgehog…?’ So, I couldn’t help but blurt out, ‘Styling seems like it’s hard…’
Everyone seemed to be nervously watching Yamagiyama… There’s no need to look at him like he’s some sort of bad person…
Amidst this, Yamagiyama spoke up at the teacher’s prompt.
“I’m Yamagiyama Yamato… Nice to meet you…”
H-He seems so aloof…!
I wonder, is he just nervous because it’s his first day…? No, even so, the aura I feel from him seems like he doesn’t want to draw attention…
After his rather aloof self-introduction, the teacher showed Yamagiyama to his seat… Wait, Yamagiyama… Ya… What?! In front of me…?!!
Yes, the reason the seat in front of me was empty was because it was the seat of Yamagiyama, the transfer student…
Wow… Mr. Hedgehog is in front of me… I’m terrible too, thinking of weird nicknames in my head…
Yamagiyama didn’t seem to care about the eyes around him as he… No, as he headed towards his seat…
Just before Yamagiyama sat down, I caught his gaze for just a moment…
Is there something… on my face…?
Ah, th-there is! Black-rimmed glasses…!
Yes, if Yamagiyama’s trademark is the hedgehog, then my trademark is these black-rimmed glasses.
Even though I don’t necessarily need them to see, the writing on the blackboard is a bit hard to read without them…
And thanks to my surname, I often ended up in the back seats, so I wore glasses… b-but it’s not like that’s the reason, right…?
But just from that brief moment of locking eyes, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Yamagiyama’s expression was somewhat cold, and there was a hint of loneliness deep in his eyes…
Yamagiyama just plopped down in his seat in front of me with a pouty face, and all I could see were his large back and the head of the hedgehog reflected in my eyes.
Because he’s tall, his back is notably larger than mine…
But for some reason… To me, this large, looming back seemed incredibly small and lonely…
* * *
During homeroom, the teacher started distributing various sheets to us.
There were timetables, surveys for elective subjects… dozens of sheets distributed in the typical pass-it-along-from-the-front style.
Since I’m at the very back, all I had to do was wait for the sheets to reach me.
But the person passing the sheets to me… Unquestionably, it was Yamagiyama.
As the sheets kept circulating from the front, when they finally reached me, Yamagiyama didn’t even turn towards me. Instead, he just reached out his right arm from above his shoulder and fluttered the sheet towards me…
What’s with that… Come on! Couldn’t he at least turn his body a bit to hand it to me properly?! And fluttering it like that just makes it harder to grab…!
That happened dozens of times in just a few minutes… Hah… But why won’t he look at me…?
Contrary to my perplexed feelings, for some reason, I found myself wanting to turn that large yet small back around…
Homeroom ended, and it was break time.
Shun and I were thirsty, so we walked down the hallway to the vending machine to buy drinks.
“Hey, Yuto? Was there something on your face?”
It seemed Shun, who was sitting next to me, also noticed that Yamagiyama had glanced at me for a moment.
“There’s nothing on it… Wait, i-is there something…?! Ouch!!”
After seeing my face, Shun teasingly poked my forehead.
“Unfortunately! There’s nothing there!”
“But, you know, that guy seems kinda weird.”
As he popped open a grape-flavored carbonated drink from the vending machine, Shun mentioned it to me.
“With the way he was acting all aloof, it’s easy to see him that way, right…?”
I replied to Shun while opening my favorite orange-flavored carbonated drink.
“But… when our eyes met, I kind of felt like Yamagiyama looked… lonely, or somewhere… somewhat melancholic.”
“Huh…?”
“And also, Yamagiyama’s back… It looked so big yet felt so small, and somehow lonely…”
“Hmm…”
Wait, does Shun not really care about what I’m saying…?
No, surely that’s not it… With the way Yamagiyama acted all aloof, it’s understandable that anyone would be unsure how to perceive him or how to interact with him…
Yamagiyama… Yamato…
“Alright! I’ve decided!!”
“W-What now, suddenly?!”
“I’m going to make Yamagiyama turn around!”
“Huh?! What are you talking about?”
“Because! This year is our last year of high school, right?… If possible, we all want to graduate happily together, don’t we?”
Despite his large but seemingly small back…
I might be called nosy…
He might continue to tell me to leave him alone…
Even so, I don’t want to leave him alone in his aloofness, and I don’t want him to spend his last year of high school feeling lonely…
Being alone is painful… I understand that pain all too well…
If possible, I want to be friends with him…
That desire alone is what moved my heart…
“Well… I guess I can understand where Yuto’s coming from…”
“He’s sitting in front of me, so I’ll try to do something I can!”
“Well… I’m here next to you, so don’t push yourself too hard, okay? If there’s anything, feel free to talk to me anytime.”
“Hehehe! Thanks, Shun!”
And so, with this exchange, the battle between me and Yamagiyama to make him turn around began.
