After the bell rang, alerting the students and faculty of break time, Hikaru, Mamoru, and Akira had grouped up together again and stared conversing. A bit about school, a bit about themselves, but mostly about unimportant teenage boy stuff.
"Um..." A girl in the next class who had frequently come to see Akira along with a bunch of other female students, interrupts their conversation. "Lily, may I have a bit of your time elsewhere?"
He stared at her for a few seconds before agreeing with a simple nod, then standing up and leaving with her. As they walked up the stairs towards the roof, he was aware of the two guys trailing behind them, who had let their curiosity get the better of them.
"Uh..." She started, her nervousness very obvious in her tone and posture. "Lily... I... I've liked you for a while now Lily. Please go out with me."
She was quite a beautiful girl. She seemed sweet, smelled like daises, smiled very kindly, and was probably the prettiest girl in her class. 'But there's no way this girl truly likes me' Akira thought, as he secretly profiled her.
He hadn't been in the school for over two weeks, yet she had developed such kind of feelings for him? Akira found that very hard to believe, as he left her waiting for his answer. She was nice, but like the other three girls who had confessed to him earlier that week, and the week before, she was only interested in him because of his appearance, and the attention being with him would bring her.
"No thanks," Akira said simply, and began to walk off.
It took a moment to break out of her bewilderment, but once she had come to her senses, she grabbed him by the hand, halting his motion to the door.
"Wait," She began. "Please think about it again. I really really like you. Or, is it that you already have someone else you like?"
She was sure there was no way he would turn her down just like that. He was just probably unsure of himself. She pursed her lips, and batted her eyes as she waited for his second response.
'At least the other three girls before were either meek enough to hand me a love letter and leave, or thoughtful enough to give up gracefully,' Akira deliberated, getting a bit irritated at the slender fingers that grasped his forearm. He wasn't good with physical contact from strangers.
"No," Akira stated with a small sigh. "I'm just not interested in you that way. Thank you anyway."
With this, he was sure she had gotten the message, and resumed his motion to leave. He contemplated whether his answer would give him away as a little emotionless, but then waved it off as something he couldn't really be all too bothered about.
As he plodded down the stairs, he heard the sound of footsteps fleeing, and remembered the two eavesdroppers that had been secretly following behind him. 'They witnessed the whole thing huh?' Akira sighed. 'Would they think I was a bit emotionless as well?'
The two boys were already at their seats by the time he came into the classroom, though Mamoru had borrowed the seat next to his.
"Why'd you turn her down?" Hikaru questioned, as soon as he plopped down into his seat in the middle of the both of them.
"Hikaru!" Mamoru exclaimed, inwardly blaming himself for expecting Hikaru to have kept their eavesdropping a secret.
"What?!" He replied with a shrug, then leaned back in his chair.
"I just wasn't interested," Akira responded, with a soft shoulder shrug.
"Eh? The struggles of an incredibly handsome guy, huh?" Hikaru sang with a low tone.
"Only handsome men can be choosy," Mamoru added in with a sigh, then rested his chin on his palm.
"But you know," Hikaru started, gazing at Akira in his usual intense manner. But this time, he was looking at him with a clear purpose. "You're more beautiful than handsome, don't you think?"
This statement made Akira's eyes widen a bit as he flinched a little. Only two other people had ever said that to him. One of which was Lucien the first time they met 6 years ago, and the other was someone he had not though of in a while because it only festered his nightmares.
"Hikaru, boys don't appreciate being called beautiful you know," Mamoru commented, sighing at Hikaru's utter bluntness, though the thought had crossed his mind once before.
"Yamaguchi," A voice from behind them called to Mamoru who was busy tugging Hikaru's hair before Akira can respond to the statement. It was the class vice-president, Mamiya Mizumi. "It's time to make the announcement."
"Right!" He acclaimed, just remembering what he had to do today before the end of the school day.
He stalked down to the front of the class and stood behind the podium. He liked standing in front of such a crowd in class like this because it made him feel like he was a college professor lecturing his student, which was his dream job.
"Excuse me class," He called, drawing all the attention in the room to himself, and silencing the noisy chatter. "We need to talk about the inter-high school sports festival coming soon."
"Sports festival?"
"Isn't that like, a few weeks away?"
"Yeah, I think it's about two weeks away,"
The students broke out in indefinite chatter.
"Yes, the sports festival is two weeks away," He started, scribbling down a few things on the smart board behind him, with a light pen. "However, each class is tasked with planning their individual wins."
"What the class president is trying to say is," Vice-president Mizumi cut in, simplifying the details as Mamoru continued to write down information on the board. "Each class is put in a bracket specific to year, and will compete against the same years of other school."
"Meaning," Mamoru added in, placing down the light pen in its holder once he was through. "First years will go against other first years of different schools, second years against second years, and third years against third years. It isn't like last year when it was simply school against school."
"Which means, we'll have to put in more work," Mizumi stated.
"Aww!"
"That's not fair,"
"Most of the members of the basketball club are second years, so what are we going to do for the basketball section?"
"This blows,"
"I think it's actually interesting,"
"It'll be more fun this way, won't it?"
The students bore each of their own opinions, however all of them were determined to make their class perform spectacularly since they were- after all, 'upperclassmen'.
"Mizumi and I will be discussing with the other class representatives," Mamoru started again, calling their attention back to him. "For now, let's select who will do what. The male and female activities are divided."
He pointed to the list he had scribbled down on the board. He listed out all the activities the third years would be participating in, and left a line blank to fill in the names of the students who would be participating in it. Basketball, soccer, three legged race, scavenger hunt, kendo, kyudo, judo, 400 and 800 meter races.
"So, out of the 28 students in this class, who wants to participate in any of the activities listed above?" Mamoru inquired, glancing around the classroom.
As expected, no hands were up. Mamoru let out a sigh before he continued,
"Very well. Hikaru and Lily will participate in all the martial arts activities."
"Hm?" Akira hummed, deeply confused at his name being called.
"What?! Why? I don't want to," Hikaru retorted, folding his hands and leaning back on his chair, with his legs stretched out.
"Hikaru you're already on the teachers' black list," Mamoru responded. "You're athletic and good at Judo, and the merits you earn from this festival are you're only saving grace. And Lily, you joined pretty late, and you haven't joined a club yet right? And Hikaru said you were good at mixed martial arts as well, so please help us out. You don't really have a choice though."
'Huh?' He exclaimed in his head. He was a bit surprised that Hikaru would tell him that he was good at martial arts. Half because he knew he said it as a lie, and the other half because it was actually true. He had been in his line of work for 6 years, and trained hard in all kinds of martial arts within that time. But how Hikaru knew this if he hadn't intended for it to be a lie, was what bothered him. And now he was forced to participate in a category on sports day though he didn't want to. He was starting to dislike school even more now.
"Then, for the basketball club..."
"Hanazawa can do it since he's in the basketball club,"
"No way, I don't want to..."
While the rest of the categories were sorted out by Mamoru, Mizumi, and the rest of the class, Akira stole repeated glances at Hikaru. Though he wasn't quite fond of him, he was very perceptive and even called himself his friend. His interest in him grew a little.
'What a strange guy," Akira thought, as Hikaru caught him glancing at him, then shot him a small grin. 'Yeah, a really strange guy.'