"Good morning, Yamauchi!"
"Good morning, Ike!"
Arriving to class, Ike wore a broad grin as he called out to Yamauchi. It
was rather unusual for them to get here so early. It'd been one week since the
entrance ceremony, and Ike and Yamauchi would always make it to class
right before the bell rang.
"Whew, man! I was looking forward to today so much that I barely
slept last night!"
"Ah ha ha! This school is just the best! I can't believe that it's almost
time for swimming! And when I say swimming, I mean girls. And when I say
girls, I mean girls in school swimsuits!"
It was true that the swimming classes were co-ed. In other words, that
meant that Horikita, Kushida, and all of the other girls would be…showing
off a lot of skin. The girls backed away from Ike and Yamauchi's rabid
excitement. I, on the other hand, sat in my chair, isolated and alone. I
couldn't do so forever. I had to proactively work at joining a group of friends.
Fortunately, their conversation had ended, so I stood up. However, just
then…
"Hey, Professor! Come here for a sec!"
"Uh, you called?"
A chubby boy, apparently nicknamed "The Professor," approached
them slowly. If I remembered correctly, his name was Sotomura or
something like that.
"Professor, can you record the girls wearing their swimsuits for us?"
Ike asked.
"Leave it to me. I'll pretend to be sick so that I can skip class and
observe."
"Record? What are you planning?" I asked.
"The Professor is going to rank the girls' breast sizes for us. If we're
lucky, he'll get some pictures with his phone."
"Hey, hey." Sudou visibly drew back in response to Ike's plan. If the
girls found out about it, the consequences would be severe. However, despite
the content of the conversation, I was jealous of their easy banter. Having
friends had to be nice. I wanted friends, too.
"Pathetic," a familiar voice said.
"So, you're here, too, huh, Horikita?"
"I just arrived while you were looking at those boys over there. You
didn't notice me. If you want to be their friend, why not try just talking to
them?" she asked.
"Shut up and leave me alone already. If I could just do it, I wouldn't be
agonizing over it."
"From what I've seen, you don't seem to be unsociable or lacking in
communication skills, though."
"There are a lot of reasons why I can't do it. So far, you're the only
person I've been able to talk to, Horikita."
Even though I'd exchanged contact information with Ike and the
others, I still hadn't been able to actually hold a conversation with them yet.
"Wait just a minute. I already warned you not to, but you wouldn't be
thinking of me as your friend, would you?" said Horikita. She took a few
steps away from me, as if in disgust.
"It's fine. No matter how low I sink, I'd never dream of being your
friend," I replied.
"I see. I feel a little relieved."
I wondered just how much she hated having friends.
"Hey, Ayanokouji!" Ike called my name. When I looked up, I saw him
beaming at me.
"Wh-what is it?" I asked.
I stood, stuttering as I did so. Horikita no longer showed any interest in me. A chance to enter into a new group of friends had suddenly fallen into
my lap.
"To tell you the truth, we're taking bets on the girls' chest sizes."
"We've come up with some probabilities."
The Professor took out a tablet and opened a spreadsheet. The names of
all the girls in our class were displayed. There were numbers listed as well. I
honestly had no interest in gambling, but I couldn't let this opportunity go to
waste.
"Umm. So, is it okay if I join you?" I asked.
"Yeah! Come on, do it. Do it!"
As of right now, Hasebe was the likeliest contender for the biggest
breasts in the class. The odds sat at one to eight I hadn't heard most of the
names before. I couldn't even remember my classmates' names. This was too
awful.
"This is way more elaborate than I would have thought. Aren't you
observing them a little too closely?"
"Come on. We're men, aren't we? Men have only two things
constantly on their minds: tits and ass!"
Even if that were true, he really had no filter whatsoever. By the way,
Horikita was ranked lowest. If you managed to win the bet, that was over
thirty times your wager back. Well, in terms of breast size, it was obvious
who would win and who would lose. Horikita had no chance.
"So, what's your wager? It's 1000 points to join."
"I see…"
I clearly lacked information. Scanning the list, I realized that not only
did I not know the breast sizes of half the people here, I didn't even know the
names and faces of most the girls. Actually, aside from Horikita and Kushida,
I couldn't recall hearing about anyone else. Kushida seemed to have fairly
large breasts, but not large enough to take first place.
"Come on, play with us. It's no fun if there're only a few people
betting, you know?"
"I'll do it!"
"Me too, me too!"
"I have experience scouting girls and checking out their tits!"
While I considered the offer, boys crawled out of the woodwork around
me, getting blatantly excited over the size of the girls' breasts. The girls in the
classroom looked at us like we were dirt.
"I'll join, too. By the way, my money's on Sakura," Yamauchi chimed
in. Sakura was a somewhat plain girl who wore glasses, but because I'd
barely talked to anyone, I honestly didn't know that much about her. While it
looked like he was pondering something, Yamauchi tapped the Professor and
Ike on the shoulders and whispered something to them.
"I'm only telling you guys about this. The truth is, I actually confessed
to Sakura."
"What?! S-seriously?!" Ike was the most surprised and flustered by
this. Had his goal to become the first guy in class to snag a girlfriend fallen
through?
"Yeah, seriously. But keep this on the down low. It's just between us,
okay? I mean, I thought she was really plain at first, but then I saw her
wearing regular clothes. She was huge, man."
"You doofus. If she's not cute, you shouldn't ask her out, even if she's
got huge tits. I wouldn't date anyone unless they were in the same league as
Kushida or Hasebe. I'm not interested in such a Plain Jane."
He spoke harshly because no one else was around. I wondered how
much I believed Yamauchi when he said that he'd asked Sakura out. I had my
doubts. In the end, I decided to place my bet on the girl with the highest odds.