I turned around and there I saw Sakurai eating cup ramen while hiding behind a table with a plant pot covering her. She was hiding what she was eating. Probably because if people noticed her eating something cheap and unhealthy, some may ridicule her.
Which is obviously stupid, but some high schoolers are stupid so you can't really do anything about that. They might make up some stupid rumour to worsen everyone's opinion of her and she becomes looked down at.
As I was thinking about these things. I heard Ikeda talk to me.
"Hey Haruki, what are you looking at back there?" he asked.
I glanced back at the stupid couple as he said that and fixed my posture as I made sure to cover Sakurai from the two of them and answered:
"Nothing, I was just wondering why girls are so into the school prince. Also, didn't I say to call me by my last name?" I said, trying to change the topic and make them lose interest on why I was looking at my back.
"Well, for your first question, it's quite obvious as it's already in his nickname. He is the school's prince. He is a handsome guy that most of the girls in our school likes. And for your second question... let me think about it... I refuse! I'll keep calling you Haruki from now on because it just sounds better!" He said in a loud voice.
"Whatever, do whatever you want. I'll call you Kento then?"
I mean, it isn't fair if he was the only one calling me by my name.
"Yeah sure." He responded.
Hearing our conversation, Hirasawa-san also joined in
"Then let's call each other with our first names too, Haruki-kun!"
"Yeah sure, even if I tell you not to, you're worse than Kento, so you'll probably continue calling me by my first name. Also, calling you Hirasawa every time is a pain. Your name is too long."
"Good!" she said in an energetic voice
Is she just speedrunning friendship now? It's only been a day since we met. Carefree people are amazing huh...
As we were talking, I looked at my back once again and saw a glimpse of Sakurai. She was staring at me for some reason? It looked like she was jealous... but with what?
After thinking about it more, I remembered something. Sakurai doesn't have a lot of friends. And even the few friends that she has, most of them just wants to get along with her to increase their own popularity. Those are the worst kind of friends.
Finally noticing that I was looking at her, Sakurai immediately went back to her meal acting as if nothing happened.
Luckily, the stupid couple, Kento and Hina, wasn't looking at me and didn't notice my exchange with Sakurai. They were too occupied feeding each other. Seeing this, I made a bitter expression on my face and continued to eat.
I've decided to ask Sakurai-san if I could cook her lunch and dinner from now on. It was obvious that she has only been eating unhealthy food for a while now as she looked malnourished. But I was the only one able to notice this.
Not to brag or anything, but I am very proud of my observing abilities. As it was the only thing I could do in middle school as I had no friends... Now that I think about it, that kinda sounds lonely.
Back to the topic at hand, I decided I would ask Sakurai about it after school.
Me, Kento and Hina then continued with our lunch. Sakurai successfully hid herself as no one noticed her... except for me. And after we finished eating, we went back to our classroom and played with our phones until lunch break ends.
After a few more minutes of playing some random games in my phone, our teacher finally arrived and thus, our afternoon classes began.
---
Our classes for the day finally ended and everybody started to get ready to leave the school. Kento and Hina left first and I waited outside the gate to look for Sakurai.
Finally seeing her leave, I waited for a minutes after she went go back home and followed her so that no one gets suspicious of us being related.
I feel like I'm committing a crime right now...
As we were nearing my house, I finally caught up with her and called her.
"Hey Sakurai-san." I said as I was running up to her. To which she showed a surprised expression at.
"W-what?" She asked, she is currently confused why I called out to her.
"Can I talk to you for a bit?" I asked.