42 The RACE!

My life.

Do I really have to hate it because of that whistle?

"Do you have a problem with me?" I asked her as we both had sprawled on the hard ground, dust gripping our sports uniform.

"I'm the one who should be asking you that dummy. What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to make us take the lead. But since you are so lazy to do anything, you keep slowing us down."

"Slowing us down? Do you even know how fast you are? Even if I was a guy, I would still pale in comparison. The thing I never understand is why you never enter the top 5 during all of our joint PE classes. For some reason, it pisses me off."

That's because I have no reason to do that.

She knows too much.

"So now it's my fault? You know what, I think we should be dead last. Its better that way."

"No. Please anything but that! Those laps are too much for me."

Me too.

Most people had already recovered from the falling season and began the race meaning we were one of the dead last pairs because of our uncooperativeness.

"Let's stop now. If we continue doing this, we'll really be last." I said those words as I stood up from the ground.

"Get up before our situation becomes irreversible."

The moment my attention shifted to our surroundings, all I could hear were phrases like people were chanting something creepy or praising something or those ridiculous things they do in cults.

"One! Two! One! Two! One! Two!"

"Creepy." She muttered under her voice thinking the same thing whilst lifting herself up from the ground.

"Are we going to do this or not?"

"Do I really have a choice?" She put her hand over my shoulder for support and I did the same in order to improve our balance.

"Don't disappoint me." She said light heartedly.

"Don't expect too much from me." Then we began with a light jog joining the weird one-two rhythm.

Lucky enough for both of us, she was a good girl this time.

Even though I hate to admit it, but I know I'm the only person who knows her the most.

And she does too.

So as we covered the track field bit by bit, we began to accelerate with each step as we formed a perfect coordination procedure this time making the last whimsical one we did look appear as if it never occurred in the first place.

Both of us ignored the unconventional level of intimacy which was occurring between the two of us at the time since our focus was glued on not becoming dead last.

"Can you go faster?"

"Who do you think you're talking to?"

After the mediocre chat that instantly dissipated as soon as it spawned, our acceleration reaching a point where we were sprinting, we soon caught up in the last pair and left them in the dust in an instant.

Due to the shock they received from our shocking dexterity, they lost their balance and as a consequence of losing focus midway ouch, that gotta hurt.

One down.

Two to go and we'll be good to go.

The same also happened to the two preceding pairs in front of us expect that they didn't fall face first again onto the ground meaning that we now entered the safe zone.

Despite entering the safe zone, I just wasn't satisfied with it.

"Don't (pant) worry about that. With our (pant) pace (pant), we'll easily catch up to them."

"Are you okay, you look like you can't keep up."

"No need (pant) to be considerate (pant) about me. Lets just go!"

When I looked at Saki, she seemed to be troubled like under a heavy burden.

At the same time, there was another emotion written all over her face and I'll never forget it.

For a moment, its like the old her had returned like she was her previous self again.

She was smiling despite the strenuous circumstances.

And that smile brought back old memories.

Not negative ones.

Happy memories.

Just what made her to change if she was like this previously?

Do people really change that much?

No.

What am I thinking?

That's not the correct way of thinking.

She betrayed me.

And I can't let that go.

Even if I want to, that feeling, those emotions, they are attached to me.

She was my world but in the end, decided to discard me from her life.

She knew it all too well.

She knew just how I fawned over her.

But still, she threw me away nevertheless, leaving me to suffer all alone.

If only she never left me, then I…

I…

I would never have had emophilia in the first place.

I wouldn't have suffered emotionally to the point where I cannot protect my emotions properly.

Now I'm just a patient whose disease can never be cured by any doctor, but only with time.

Seeing that my inner turmoil was wrecking serious havoc inside me despite that incident happening a while back, I looked away to the front from her face which contained so much of my memories and my childhood.

Her presence is making me suffer so much.

Lets just finish this race and get this over with.

I cannot thrash our efforts into the race for the sake of failing to let go of my past.

I have Sayumi now and I should focus on her and hopefully…

I hope she can make me forget about Saki completely.

I really hope she can fill the void within me.

If she's able to do that, then I'll give her everything I have.

It might be a bad way of thinking, but I guess that's just how love is.

It doesn't have to be rational.

Because the moment it does, it loses the true meaning of love actually is.

When the sac race ended, out of the 24 pairs, we had an astounding position of 5 out of all of them and I could not help but be impressed by our combined effort.

"Yay we did it." Saki chirped happily as she jumped at me, hugging me tightly forgetting all the attention we were attracting.

"We did it Sakurai. We passed." She looked up at me.

Right.

She's always been like that.

But…

After seeing me not reacting in any manner and showing nothing but apathy, she realized her mistake and released me from the tight hug letting me go and embarrassing herself by looking away with a bit of a frown.

"Sorry."

Sigh.

I just realized, bringing us closer together like this is going to invoke some old form of interactions between us two.

That's why she unintentionally hugged me like old times, spurring my old memories and haunting me as most of them flooded back to me.

"GREAT PERFORMANCE YOU TWO! IF ONLY OTHERS WOULD TAKE YOUR EXAMPLE, I WOULDN'T HAVE TO BE SO HARSH." The loud coach who seldomly praised people praise us.

I guess we were just that amazing.

I crouched down and began untying the rope which was binding our legs and simultaneously avoiding all the background voices which were showering useless praises and leaving her to that.

"(pant), (pant) You guys, how did you (pant) do that?"

"That was incredible, (pant) you guys."

"And to think you (pant) only just started to associate (pant) a couple of minutes ago. You hardly even associate in class. That was (pant) amazing."

"Yeah, you two are a match made from heaven!"

Met a couple of minutes ago?

Perfect match?

Perfect…match?

If only they knew what happened.

They are completely oblivious to the fact that we are childhood friends.

And we used to perform activities like these a lot together.

Why do my classmates always praise me whenever I'm with a girl, but when I'm alone, no one even tries to approach me?

I can't trust this poison they always feed me.

"Thanks you guys." Saki received their thanks well partly because people were drawn to her.

Actually, that was very tiring.

As for the last three pairs, they suffered the anguishing awaited fate they had reaped for themselves.

After running three tiresome laps on top of that!

-WHISTLE!

"TIME FOR THE STRETCHES! BUT I HAVE AN ANNOUNCEMENT TO MAKE!"

"FOR TODAY, FORTUNATELY FOR YOU ALL WEAKLINGS, I'M NOT THE ONE WHO IS GOING TO BE LEADING YOU DURING STRETCHES!"

"Miss Katame, if you would please."

Did he just get coy there?

Why did he get humble?

Where are the loud words?

"Afternoon class."

"""""AFTERNOON MA'AM!"""""

Where did this enthusiasm come from?

"As he said, I am Miss Katame and I am an apprentice teacher starting this week. Apart from being an apprentice teacher I am also a bit of a yoga instructor. Hope we all get along well."

"Another apprentice teacher! And this time it's a female one at that."

"Why is she wearing baggy clothes though?"

"When I grow up, I want to be as pretty as her."

"Hey dude, how about after this lesson, we'll go and get her number."

You're barely 13, what are you thinking?

"Hope she's as friendly as she seems."

Not interested.

She has a pretty face so what?

I won't judge a book by its cover.

-WHISTLE!

"EVERYONE! SHUT! UP!!!"

"Calm down teacher. You need to relax. They are all just kids. You'll scare them to death one day if you keep being like that."

"Well, if you say so."

What's… the drama going on between these two?

Something's fishy.

"Mind if I borrow your partner so a sec."

She said as she interacted with the Sayu-Momo duo.

Momo just nodded her head in response.

"Okay, so the stretches we are going to do today are very simple. First, we are going to start with the back-to-back twist pose and it goes like this."

Then she proceeded to show us the rest of the poses.

I have to say, they were breathtaking.

Wonderful.

Picturesque.

"And that's just basically it for what we are going to do today. If anyone is having a hard time understanding, please raise your hands."

And there were some hands up including mine.

90% from boys, 10% from girls.

The math is obvious.

Well, I don't have to mention anything as we're are going to do the activities.

The instructor repeated the stretches that we were going to do along with Sayumi.

And yeah!

Wonderful.

Picturesque.

Marvelous sight.

"Since I showed you twice the stretches that we are going to be doing, everyone get ready to start."

-WHISTLE!

"GET READY! BACK TO BACK TWIST POSE! TWO MINUTES!"

"How about you let me take care of this one and rest for a bit? I'll take care of this one."

"If anyone gives you any trouble, just call me."

"I don't think there will be any need for that."

With that, the grumpy old man left.

'Seriously, what is going on?' Was all that was written on our faces.

-Whistle~!

A whistle is always a whistle, no matter how you change the tune or melodious it gets.

"Okay guys. Back to back pose. Make sure you inhale and exhale slowly so that you can relax your muscles for stretches to take effect. You'll switch when I blow the whistle again."

-Whistle~!

The back-to-back twist pose is whereby both partners have to sit cross legged facing opposite directions with their backs resting on each other.

But that's not all.

You would have to face right in order to touch your partner's knee with your right hand and use your left hand to touch your own knee.

And I'm not too happy about that.

Maybe if it was the past perverted me, I would have jumped on the spot.

But just inciting this type of intimacy between me and her is bound to cause something.

Hope my intuition is wrong.