Every Morning the Most Popular Girl at School Sits Next to Me on the Train – 22

Today, I was able to get a lot of studying done.

Well, by the end of it, Echizen was acting a little weird, but thanks to Echizen helping with my memorization, I was able to get a productive day of work.If it’s like this, I guess I’ll get help from Echizen tomorrow, as well.

While I was thinking about things on the way home, my smartphone in my right pocket began to vibrate. Looking at the phone, the call was from Mamiko. Unfortunately, I was on the train, so I texted her back saying, “What’s wrong?” instead of picking up.

Her reply came back quickly.

“I’m really sorry for not being able to go today. It might be sudden, but are you free tomorrow?”

“I am, did you want to do something?”

“No, well… my mother’s condition isn’t that great…”

“Really…? Is it that bad?”

“I wasn’t told too much in detail… But it seems that she mentioned that she wanted to see Yoshiki-kun.”

“…Eh, why?”

“She said something about wanting to get better or something?”

“And… she’ll get better if I go?”

“So it seems…”

That’s what she says, but I wonder if Mamiko is feeling alright. I am worried about her parents, but too be honest, I’m more worried about Mamiko than her parents.

“If that’s so, I’ll go.”

I replied that way while thinking about checking up on Mamiko, rather than going to see her parents. After that we made plans to meet up tomorrow at 3 in the afternoon, at the central hospital in town.

The next day, I studied as much as I could in the morning and headed out of the house at around 2:30 in the afternoon.

The central hospital is reachable by bike with about a 30 minute ride. When I arrived, I was somewhat puzzled. When I was a child, the image that I had of a hospital was that you would go there if anything happened, but now, I barely go to the hospital.

If you catch a cold, “A little rest and you’ll get better” and everything is solved. If your arms or legs are hurting, “Well, you’re probably fine”, and nothing more is done. As such, the smell of medicine that tickled my nose, and the tension of the silence gave a sense of freshness.

I sat in a random seat and took out my smartphone to contact Mamiko and let her know that I’ve arrived at the hospital. Mamiko appeared shortly thereafter and called out to me.

“Sorry for making you wait.”

“It’s fine it’s fine. Let’s go.”

“Yeah, this way.”

I followed after Mamiko. As expected, Mamiko is beautiful even from behind. I have said this before but Mamiko becomes even cuter in her casual clothes. Besides that, she seems pretty energetic right now. It looks like there was no use for my worrying.

“I’m sorry about yesterday.”

“I already told you that it’s alright. More than that, are your parents alright?”

“Yeah, it was just a bone fracture. I was worried because my mother was making a big deal out of it.”

Well, that’s good. She had made it out to be serious, so I thought the injury would have been serious enough for surgery.

“That’s good, then. A bone fracture will still take about a month to heal though.”

“Yeah, it really is a good thing. I was super worried before.”

Her soft voice represented her heartfelt sigh of relief. Yeah, if Mamiko is alright then I am relieved as well.

“It might be weird of me to ask this since I cancelled last minute, but what did you end up doing yesterday?”

“Ah~ I just ended up studying at Mon Pet Kuwa.”

“By yourself?”

“… One of my coworkers helped with the studying.”

“That person… wasn’t a girl, was she?”

“… Yeah, it was a girl.”

“So, it was a girl.”

“Geh!”

How does she know every time? I thought I had a pretty good poker face too.

“I see. So when I’m not around, you decide to study with another girl.”

Mamiko puffed out her cheeks, showing her very apparent feelings of anger. Recently when she’s mad, she doesn’t just sulk, but instead, gets angry in a cute way like this. No, well I guess that’s still me making her angry.

“Sorry. It’s just that she’s really smart.”

“How much?”

“Top of her class at Oumi High School.”

“Tsk… that’s, well… amazing, but…”

Mamiko glares at me as she frustratingly bites her lips.

I thought that she seemed cute like that but I tried giving an apologetic smile and said that I was sorry.

I was thinking that she would just sulk like she normally did.

However, Mamiko acted differently.

“… What’s with that attitude? Are you really reflecting?”

She responded with a negative aura different from normal.

“O-of course, I am reflecting…”

“Lies, this time as well you probably that that I would forgive you immediately like usual.”

“…”

She was so accurate that I had nothing to say.

“Ugh, I can’t hold it back. At school you talk to girls normally, at your part-time work as well you talk to girls normally. I hate it.”

She slowly squeezes out her voice. At the end of it, she was glaring at me.

“I won’t forgive you. Until you really are regretting what you did, I for sure won’t forgive you.”

Then, Mamiko barged out of the room and went off somewhere. After being left behind, I didn’t chase after Mamiko, but just stood there, surprised. I felt that if I tried to forcibly stop Mamiko we wouldn’t progress anywhere.

Besides, Mamiko wasn’t wrong.

What I did just now was trying to take advantage of Mamiko’s goodwill. It was because I had naively thought that she would forgive me for anything since she liked me. I stood in the middle of the hospital hallway, looking up as I beat myself within my head.

“Hey, young man. Is something wrong?”

Then, someone called out to me. When I turned around to look, there was a woman, looking to be in her 30’s. She was holding a crutch with her left leg in a cast. It seems she had broken her left leg.

“No, nothing’s wrong. Thank you for your concern.”

“With a face like that, there’s no way nothing happened. So, why don’t you confide in me for a bit?”

No, confiding in someone that I met for the first time… Forcing myself to smile, I tried to decline. Then, when she saw my face, the women suddenly let go of her crutches. Of course, since she was being held up by the crutches, when she let go, she ended up falling. Moving out of reflex, I caught her, my hands almost touching the ground. It was like a princess carry.

“A-are you alright?”

“Somewhat, my leg kind of hurts~. I probably can’t walk alone, won’t you help me walk back?”

As she said that, she acted like she was in pain, but it was so obvious that even I could see that she was acting. This person, she fell on purpose…

Just so I would talk to her. How much does she want me to confide in her? While thinking that, I ended up quietly helping the woman to her room, since if she was hurt, I couldn’t just leave her.