Short Story 1 : Ichinose Honami SS – Apparent difficulty

A short distance from the dorms.

I was standing by the shadow of a vending machine letting out a breath of fog.

«It's still so cold~».

It was morning and time to go to school. A cold morning in March was inviting the coming of spring. I had wanted to talk to a certain person so much this morning so I decided to wait until I could see his back.

It would have been warmer to wait in the lobby but I felt it would have been embarrassing to ambush him. In the end I decided to lay it low hiding instead.

«… Being called out by my other friends would be… a bit».

With this excuse, I had already waited about ten minutes.

Can he come over quickly please? With these thoughts in mind, I felt my pulse steadily rising along with the time ticking away.

U—

If I knew it would be like this, I wished I'd rather contacted him and asked to meet up in the first place.

The thought that I should so suddenly and coincidently call out to him was a mistake. My bad.

Maybe I should stop with the ambushing thing and just do it normally? Well then, where and when should I call out to him then?

But…

I wanted to meet and talk to him today, no matter what.

Remembering the exchange with Nagumo-senpai yesterday, I felt I wanted to overwrite it somehow.

Then in the corner of my line of sight, I discovered my objective walking by. It was Ayanokouji-kun.

«Good morning— Ayanokouji-kun!».

Leaving it up to flow of events I walked closer while greeting.

«Ah. Good morning, Ichinose».

Noticing me voice, he turned around and replied. Despite his blank look on his face, seeing his usual self, I…

I stiffened up.

«Hmm?».

Yahoo—! A greeting pose followed with my body stiffening.

I remembered I hadn't decided what to talk about at all.

Usually I went with the flow or the mood when I talked with my friends after all.

However, today have been the only day I thought about deciding on a topic beforehand.

But that's way too late now. Having already called out to him, I just have to make it work somehow.

«What is it?».

Showing some worry from seeing me standing there as if petrified, Ayanokouji-kun called out to me.

As if breaking out of a movement restricting spell, I decided to start with a certain template I've been using frequently.

«Yaa, well, it's cold today, right—?»

The topic being about the recent weather due to this March being unusually cold.

«Sure is».

The weather was somewhat weird, making it easy to mistake that one was living in Snow Country.

«Did you plan to go to school with someone?»

Wanting to confirm it, just in case, I asked him.

«No, not at all. I'm basically alone in the mornings».

That was a relief. If someone was going to just show up impromptu here and now, Ayanokouji-kun would probably be troubled.

«Well then… Want to go together?».

Hearing this Ayanokouji-kun nodded without hesitation.

Ah—that went well.

«...…»

Ah— it should have anyway…

The topic, I can't find anything! Realising how I wasn't being my usual self, his expression showed how troubled he was.

I felt talking like we usually do was getting harder. There was a strange change going on within myself.

As expected, deciding to talk with him proved to be the right choice after all.

With these firm thoughts in my head, I began walking by his side.