The Price of Friendship
Prologue
"You want to be friends with me?"
A soft, nasal hmmm hummed from her throat as her eyes raked over me, scanning me head to toe like a piece of merchandise. The gaze of one of the top-ranked beauties in the entire city. My heart was pounding like mad.
The emotion flickering in those eyes as they took me in — it was awfully close to contempt. I was certain that inside her head she was thinking something like, Hmph, someone like you?
But that was fine. Why? Because she was a beautiful girl. Cuteness is justice, and beauty is a free pass. Just looking at her face made some unfamiliar wellspring of mercy bubble up inside my chest.
She thought it over for a moment, then spoke to me with an expression brimming with mischief.
"Alright. Let's do it — friend."
"By the way, would you believe it? I completely forgot to bring any dessert today."
"I think one of those special macarons they sell at the school store would hit the spot, honestly..."
"You can spring for something like that, can't you?"
"Because, after all, we're—"
"Friends, right?"
Just for the record — I'm not a pushover.
I was perfectly aware that this young lady, while calling me her "friend" in name only, was effectively trying to use me as her personal bread errand-boy. Was there really any good reason for me to go and buy her overpriced macarons just because she kept tacking the word "friend" onto every other sentence?
Right now, I was more rational than I'd ever been in my life. I doubt even Sherlock Holmes — that paragon of rational thought himself — could have matched the clarity of mind I possessed in this moment.
And so, after thinking it through with cool, objective, and entirely reasonable judgment—
I became her friend.
No matter how I sliced it, this was a steal.