Uninvited Visitors

Stare.

Stare.

Stare.

Hajime sat on the floor, opposite of the three girls who happened to invite themselves to his place without his consent. 'They were already there, and it would be more embarrassing if they cause a scene outside in front of my place. Sigh~ what are they doing here? Did I call them here? No, there's no way I did.' Shaking his head, Hajime stood up and brushed his pants, indifferently ignoring their stares as he headed to the kitchen area where the sink was. "Does anyone want some tap water? My treat." He casually offered.

'What are they doing here, anyways,' Confused, Hajime headed to the sink even before any of them accepted his offer. In the end, he decided to grab three glasses and give them a glass of water each.

"Thanks, and um... this is for you, Hajime." Fuuka was the first one to give the tangerines, which made the other two, Natsumi and Megumi, glare at her. It's as if there was an unwritten rule that they were supposed to give their tangerines together— or so that's what Fuuka processed from their wordless act.

Without saying anything, Natsumi and Megumi also handed him their bags of tangerines, which made Hajime wonder if this is some sort of elaborate prank that the three of them came up with. 'I don't need this many tangerines. What on earth?' Hajime inwardly said to himself but he accepted the bags with a light thank you anyways.

Setting the tangerines by the counter in the kitchen area right beside the sink, Hajime rejoined the group and sat opposite them. It took a lot of fidgeting, and awkward stares, as well as undetermined pauses before Hajime cleared his throat and asked the question he'd been meaning to ask. "So, what brings the three of you here?"

With a slight lean, the three of them stole a glance at each other before avoiding each other's gazes altogether. After the second bout of fidgeting, Fuuka was once again the proactive one to answer first.

Rummaging through her pockets, she found her phone and approached Hajime, showing him a text message that her older sister sent her just a couple of hours ago. "She was worried, you didn't attend school for three days. Did something happen, by any chance?"

"Here, your printouts." Natsumi simply said. "Akamine-sensei told me to bring these to you. And also... " Before Hajime could reach out his hand towards Natsumi, she retracted the printouts and grabbed something from her bag.

Unsurprisingly, it was none other than the oversized bento she always carried around in hopes that she could give it to Hajime. She finally found the chance, albeit the chance happening at the wrong timing. "... here. I'd wanted to give this to you during lunch but turns out you were absent. What happened?"

"Thanks... you didn't have to go through all the trouble though." Hajime felt guilty that Natsumi had been meaning to give him lunch. He felt bad that he didn't actually attend school today. But then again, it's not like he couldn't.

Up until now, after all, he still had great difficulty moving around due to the injuries he sustained from the one-sided beating up of the three debt collectors. Just remembering it alone made his broken rib scream in pain. Wincing, Hajime set the oversized bento beside him.

His glance then panned towards Megumi who hasn't spoken a single word. Unlike the first two, she didn't actually have a reason as to why she stopped by. Because of that, she couldn't look Hajime straight in his eyes and reason out that they were friends. There were two people in the room and besides, she knew she'd feel greatly embarrassed if she said something along those lines.

Suppressing the redness that was about to surface on her visage, she bit her lips and turned sideways before Hajime could even ask her anything.

Knock.

Knock.

'Great, another one.' Hajime threw his hands in the air as he approached the door. Of course, he didn't wear a disappointed expression so the three girls thought that he just did that out of impulse.

It was Franz.

"Young sir, pardon the intrusion," Franz muttered, giving Hajime a formal bow as a greeting before settling down on the floor right beside where Hajime sat all this time.

In return, Hajime returned the bow before offering Franz a glass of water after he sat down.

"You seem to be wearing a lot of bandages all over your body, young sir," Franz commented after drinking.

"Ah, about that..."

Finally getting the cue to tell everyone what happened, Hajime simply summarized it, telling everyone that he got into a fight— that one thing led to another and he was sent to hospital after suffering injuries. Feeling a little bit embarrassed as he was in the center of attention, Hajime started pointing at his arms, legs, and ribs— the parts that were either injured or broken. Every single time he recounted what transpired, the three girls would let out an exhale of awe, or a gasp, or something in between. They were pretty amazed that Hajime survived all that and didn't die.

Knock.

Knock.

"Delivery!" Someone yelled outside.

"Ah, excuse me," Franz said in a low tone just when Megumi and the others started firing off their questions towards Hajime.

It was obvious that there was still some shred of awkwardness between the three girls as they continued to sit together and ask questions. They did make small talks here and there but their voice was shaky all throughout.

As for Hajime, he realized that the three of them didn't really come together. It was just a strange string of coincidences that brought the three of them, at the same time, to his place. Plainly, they weren't used to each other's presence and that caused them to be uncomfortable with each other. And it's not like one of them could sit beside Hajime since that would entail a plethora of misunderstandings. They don't really know each other, so doing something that would lead to a wrong idea is out of the question.

An awkward silence befell the group when Franz stepped out to talk to the delivery guy. As it turned out, he was the glue that held everyone together— he made the atmosphere less awkward than it already was since he was the only adult around. That's why when he excused himself, the four of them grew quiet, getting more and more anxious as seconds passed with him gone.

To be fair, this was the first time that Hajime catered to a group of visitors. For the past year, he didn't have to go through that pain, and recently, he just had to welcome one visitor— Megumi.

That's why having four visitors at once is unknown territory for him, something that he couldn't even imagine would happen. He didn't have any friends, to begin with, and he was treated as an outcast, as the delinquent of the class. How did that solitude lead to this situation? That question presented itself in Hajime's mind.

Sniff.

When Franz reentered Hajime's abode, an all-too-familiar smell invaded everyone's noses, making them salivate. Hajime had a different reaction, however— his stomach started grumbling.

All of them open-mouthedly stared at Franz as he set the food on the table— three boxes of fried chicken and two two-liter soft drinks, to be exact. "Please help yourselves," Franz voiced out. He didn't elaborate any further since everyone got exactly what he meant.

"Fried chicken!" Fuuka exclaimed.