A few minutes after that, I woke up from the hit. However, when I thought I should've been sent to the hospital, when I opened my eyes, I was still in the same classroom that I was in Not only that, I was standing up as well, instead of laying down like a proper person who just lost consciousness.
I touched my face, my head, my body, and there wasn't a single sign of pain being transmitted into my brain. In fact, I felt rather lively and dead at the same time.
It felt as if I had just time travelled.
The room was still the same. The desks and chairs were scattered about the room, making a huge mess. But this time, instead of the same girl that was in the middle who was panting heavily, sweating a lot, and assuming a pose like they had just thrown something, this time she was backing away from me while she was on the floor, her eyes tearing up.
"I-I won't hurt you anymore…," she said, her voice cracking. "S-So please don't hurt me—!"
After that, she started waling like a child who had just broken their toy.
I was trying to process the situation right now, but with a girl crying in front of me, I wasn't even sure if I was involved in such a situation. After all, I don't think I've ever made a girl cry before, let alone when I was unconscious.
Frantically searching my bag, I felt a plastic inside with stuff that felt like circles, so I pulled it out and handed it over to her.
"Here!"
"H-Huh…?"
She wiped off her eyes, and then stared at the plastic bag that I had. She carefully grabbed it out of my hands, and then inspected it before eating it.
"…Cookies…?"
"Yeah. They were cookies my senpai left me when she graduated. I haven't eaten them, but it feels more right to let you have it."
Senpai-san graduated, and I was already on my second-year. I really didn't want to eat those cookies she left me, since they were the only memorabilia that she gave me. And also, that was the time I didn't even know her name, so that much just made me not want to eat it. It's like wanting to keep my memories with her a little longer.
But these were her cookies, which were quite special to me. I wouldn't just give it away to some random person, but it felt okay to give it to this this girl.
She started eating the cookies, while also casting her eyes down. She seemed to be trying not to cry, like a child who just had a fight with their parents and was trying to look tough.
I sat next to her, and she didn't even budge.
"…Why were you messing things up in here?" I asked.
I was supposed to be in my club by now, but it doesn't seem right to just leave a girl crying like this, even if she just almost killed me. I can just come up with a reasonable excuse. After all, I am the president of that club now.
"…My boyfriend left me."
"…I see."
No wonder why I wanted to give the cookies Senpai-san left me. It was all because of that reason. Even if I didn't know it, it seems like my instinct knew about it, so I gave it to her.
And although it's been a year since I met Senpai-san, the comforting stuff that I did with her was still kind of lingering onto me. But there wasn't any need to worry about that part, because I still knew one girl that I was still comforting. It was Yuuna Akabane.
We both met in the library, and have been meeting with each other ever since. It blossomed from having similar tastes in novels, and we became friends. Though, after a bit, she shared her pains with me. It was about the guy she liked, who suddenly had a girlfriend. After that, I proposed to her my company, and we basically just hugged each other. She started crying, started cursing the guy she once liked, and then got tired.
We both admitted to separate schools when we graduated as senior high students, and we didn't exchange contact information, so there wasn't any way that I could keep in contact with her.
But in my junior high years, I still kept in contact with her for more than a few times per week.
"…I'm so mad!" she suddenly shouted. But it didn't really scare me. She went right back into eating. "Even though he always spoils me rotten, he just can't forget about his sister…"
"So the problem is with his sister? Are you jealous of his sister?"
"No, it's not that. It's just…"
To be completely honest, I'd kinda want to side with her boyfriend—or maybe ex-boyfriend?—when it came to sisters. I had a sister myself, and there was no way that I would let anything happen to her.
"She was badmouthing me when I first came inside their house. Saying things like 'rude,' disrespectful,' and 'scary.' I'm not scary, am I?"
"Well, talking real, you kinda are."
And multiple sources, also known as everyone in my junior high, would think of the same as me. That's how much Suzune Satou's fame reached the entire school.
"…But ass soon as I saw your crying face, it just didn't feel like the same anymore," I quickly added.
"…Isn't that what you would call 'pitying'?"
"No, it's something else. I can't really explain it, though…"
And I'm not that low of a man to pity a girl who's heartbroken.
"Hey, can we clean up this mess?" I asked. "I still have club to attend to, and I don't want to disappoint anyone by converting from president to ghost member."
"You can go ahead," she said. "I'm the one who messed up this place, it's also my responsibility to clean it up."
"I'd say half of the responsibility is also on me. If I hadn't entered earlier, you wouldn't have threw the chairs and tables at me, and I wouldn't have made you cry."
Even if I didn't even know the reason why she cried.
***
After that, we kept our interactions with each other at a minimal level.
I knew what her name was, but she didn't know mine. So seeing her again in senior high was a really surprising.
"…Satou-senpai, is that really you?"
"U-Um…!"
It seems like she was flustered.
I hadn't introduced myself back then, so she didn't exactly know who I was in the first place.
But what confused me the most was her personality. She was extremely noisy, seems to be always mad, and her hair was longer that it is right now.
"I-I'm sorry to ask, b-but do you perhaps know Ryuuji Akamatsu?"
That shocked me the most.
"Hm? Yuuji, is that your brother?" Miku asked.
"N-No…"
Ryuuji was the evil counterpart of me.
I'm not talking about me having what people called eight grade syndrome, but literally talking about reality here. Ryuuji literally was my evil counterpart—my alter.
There exists a mental illness that I assume not most people get, and it's the dissociative identity disorder. It's some form of mental illness that makes other personalities of you, and it doesn't just range from one. You can get as many as your brain can handle.
However, I only got one, and I nicknamed that alter "Ryuuji."
It would've been fine if everytime he switched with me, he didn't do anything wrong, but back in elementary, he hurt so many people over the course of his switch with me. My mom somehow cured me, and now I haven't received a single switch with him for the last five years.
So hearing that name from some stranger…
"…How do you know that name?" I asked Satou-senpai.
"A-After we met, I-I've been trying to find ways to learn his name. I-I got the name from a girl his year named R-Rina Tsukushiba, so I went and searched for him, b-but…"
"Rina…"
That was a name I hadn't heard from someone's mouth in years.
If I had to explain it all in one word, it would definitely be "memories."
It wasn't that we both met in junior high, nor did we meet in senior high, but rather, I've known her ever since elementary. Shes my childhood friend, or should I say, used to be my childhood friend.
"…I see," I said. "Well, I don't know anyone named Ryuuji, but my name is Yuuji Akamatsu. You may have mistaken my name in the alphabet, but I assure you that my name in Yuuji. There's no one in this world that has that name."
"Apologize to all the people with the name 'Ryuuji,' Yuuji," said Miku. "Well, Senpai, seems like you got the wrong person. From the looks of it, it doesn't seem like my friend here doesn't have any relatives named Ryuuji.'
"I-I see," she said. "But they look rather similar…"
"I assure you that you've got the wrong person," I said, before turning my back and exiting the library.