Chapter 8. This year for sure! (3)
Actually, the act of making friends is almost an instinctual behavior.
No, I mean, it's not that the act of making tons of friends and becoming a popular kid is an instinct.
Maybe I should explain it as human instinct playing a role in recognizing someone with similar habits, getting close to them, and becoming friends.
And unfortunately, that instinct slowly fades away as we get older.
No, rather than fading away, it's more accurate to say that the opportunities for it to exert its power gradually disappear.
Up until high school, don't they just herd kids of similar ages, even in identical uniforms, into the same room and make them spend a long time together? Even those who don't know how to get along with people have time to explore the surrounding entities to some extent.
But once you graduate from college and get a job, the chances of the people around you being 'my age' aren't that high, and unless you get a job at some massive conglomerate, the number of people gathered around you is more limited than you'd think. So the probability of the other person being a 'kindred spirit' drops significantly, too.
With the added burden of worrying about being 'adult' and whatnot, you end up just accumulating professional relationships without ever making new friends. Eventually, you even forget how to approach strangers in a friendly way, and you slowly become isolated within society...
...No, I'm not really sure why I'm explaining this right now.
Anyway, since they were hanging around so openly that even I—who forgot how to make friends back when I became an adult in my past life—could tell, Soi and Chaeyi, who naturally attract people wanting to be their friends even when they're just sitting still, must have noticed it even faster.
Especially since Soi wouldn't really care about people approaching her, as long as they didn't have ill will toward me—
"Oh, Jihye! Mirae!"
—though I didn't expect her to greet them this familiarly.
Huh.
"S-Soi."
Hehe, the kids approaching us as if they'd been waiting.
Uh, what is this?
They were clearly terrified when I talked to them.
The two's school uniforms are still a bit frumpy. Their skirts go down just below the knees, they haven't sewn the pleats to make them fit tight, and their shirts don't exactly accentuate their figures.
So, to be honest, if we stood facing the three of us, it wouldn't look out of place at all if passersby thought we had 'summoned' them.
Why is that?
The girl with short hair and round glasses among the two had a very happy and deeply moved expression.
It was like the expression of someone who usually acts like they're too cool to attend class gatherings, but then nods eagerly when the class president asks, "Wanna come?"
"Why are you standing where the sun hits? Sit here."
Soi said that as if it were the most natural thing in the world, patting the seat next to her.
"Huh."
I let that sound slip out without realizing it.
It was a bench that would normally be full with about four people, but since none of us three are particularly chubby, and the otaku duo were even skinnier than us, they managed to squeeze into the space Soi made by pushing me and Chaeyi aside.
"......Who are they?"
At Chaeyi's question, the girl who might be Jihye or Mirae flinched.
"Classmates."
"Oh my."
"Ah, I see. Lua, you don't know yet, right? We got close last time. Right, Jihye?"
It seems the short-haired girl with glasses is Jihye.
"U-uh, is that right?"
Her face was beaming, but she looked unsure.
That makes sense.
So-called 'popular kids' have this amazing talent for remembering the names of classmates they've never even spoken a word to.
They even confidently call them by their first names without the surname, even when it's the first time they've ever spoken to them.
Regardless of whether the other person is a boy or a girl.
Of course, that's how they become popular, having that level of sociability, but the person being called is bound to be startled the first time their name is called.
So, maybe this is also because they were a bit surprised to have their names called for the first time.
"Y-you play that game."
"Yeah. Look. Isn't it pretty? Since Lua was playing it."
Come to think of it, I've almost never seen Soi talk to other kids about stuff like this. Obviously. Soi isn't an otaku to begin with.
'Otaku'—it's already a vulgar term, but to put it more vulgarly, the 'hardcore otaku' stratum isn't actually an easy group to distinguish.
In the past, if you were in your mid-teens and still obsessed with manga or anime, you might have been called that, but in today's world, Japanese anime proudly ranks 1st or 2nd at the box office.
As an outsider otaku who dabbles in various minor genres, when I see a couple go to the theater to watch a shonen manga movie and then post something like 'Otaku couple's theater review,' a sort of aimless rage starts to well up from deep within my chest.
So I can't bring myself to acknowledge them as 'hardcore otaku'!
But when those very people approach me in a friendly way and bring up manga, my expression involuntarily softens, and I end up spilling out all sorts of things, making the other person freak out—that's the sad existence of what you call 'hardcore otaku'.
...That's why I know it well.
So, actually, even when looking at the same character, there's a huge gap between someone who is a 'hardcore otaku' to the bone and a so-called 'normal person who likes manga'.
"Look, if you stroke their hair like this."
As Soi said that and stroked the lobby character's hair, the black-haired character let out a subtle moan and blushed.
Naturally, that character is one full of affection for the protagonist.
And the protagonist of this kind of game is usually treated as the same person as the player.
But would Soi be immersed enough in the game to do that?
To those who aren't very immersed, that character is just one of many common characters, rather than a romantic interest. It just means they look like a person, but they're no different from that rabbit character they sell a lot of keychains of.
But if you're a 'hardcore otaku', that kind of character is supposed to be 'my heroine'.
"......"
I'm not really sure why I'm thinking about this, though.
No, there were always many Soi friends I didn't know. Because Soi was always a kid who made new friends. Of course, if I had to be precise, it's closer to me not being able to remember all of Soi's friends rather than them being friends I didn't know.
But why?
I feel a bit bad.
It's a bit strange to say it like this, but if I had to put it bluntly, it's like, 'What do you guys know about Soi?'—that kind of feeling.
Right. Soi is definitely not an otaku like me, so even if she plays games, she won't dive deep into them. It's probably just the feeling of, 'I went in, saw a character that looks like me, and just splurged on it.'
So it's obvious she wouldn't be interacting deeply with those kids or anything—
"Yeah, yeah, that, actually, there's not just head touching, there's also..."
My head went blank for a moment after hearing Jihye's words.
No, in this kind of game, usually, if there's touching other than head touching, it means breasts or buttocks, right?
Don't tell me they're trying to teach that to Soi right now?
I'm not sure what kind of emotion this thought is close to. I mean... I...
But before I could intervene.
Grab.
Before Jihye's finger could make contact, Soi grabbed Jihye's wrist.
"Oh."
Although both Jihye, who was grabbed, and Soi, who grabbed her, made sounds as if they were a little surprised.
"I know that too."
Soi, who blinked for a moment, said with a smile.
That smile is a bit stiff.
...Huh.
What is it?
Something is...
That... didn't she have an expression that she absolutely hates having her character touched?
"U-uh, sorry."
"Yeah."
Soi let go of her hand, and Jihye pulled her hand away.
Looking at that expression, it seems like she's debating whether she should run away or not.
So, it's exactly the situation I mentioned earlier. The one where you get a sense of internal intimacy because the other person called you by your name, and then you end up saying too much.
The kind of expression that says, 'Was I not supposed to act like we're close?'
"......"
The expression was one that would make even me, watching from the side, break out in a cold sweat, so without realizing it...
"Jihye? Mirae?"
When I cautiously called their names, the two nodded quickly.
Hmm.
Asking why they were terrified when I talked to them last time wouldn't mean anything here.
I backed off after seeing that attitude, but surely Soi wouldn't have backed off.
Leaving Soi, who had frozen up, I hesitated for a moment, wondering what to say.
"Uh... hi?"
"Ah, hi."
"Hi?"
When I greeted them, the two awkwardly greeted me back.
No, well, what can I do?
Even if the exterior is undeniably a beautiful girl, the contents are still me...
Besides, even the popularity I was feeling indirectly through Soi has evaporated now, so the only difference between us is whether our uniforms are tight or not.
...No, if I have to be precise, it's the difference between having 0 favorability and negative favorability, so maybe I'm worse off.