Junior High School
Inumaki Ji knew that Gojo Satoru was criticizing him.
Of course he knew that the two would separate, and he was prepared for separation when he graduated from elementary school.
But he cared about what Hinata Aoi thought of him.
Even if they had to separate, perhaps never see each other again, he could not bear any stain on his image in Hinata Aoi's heart.
Thinking carefully about the series of psychological activities that had driven him to make friends with Hinata Aoi, Goumaki Satoru tried hard to find excuses to justify his motives, but to no avail.
At that time, he felt guilty about being involved in Hinata Aoi being kidnapped by the curse master, and he was grateful that Hinata Aoi saved him from the curse spirit... He was also amazed and expectant about Hinata Aoi's unique abilities.
This expectation came earlier than guilt and gratitude. It took root when he bumped into the girl for the first time, which led to a series of subsequent events.
After being in the same class with Hinata Aoi, these emotions ran parallel in his heart, winding and twisting into the same rope, giving him strong enough motivation and patience to be close to Hinata Aoi unconditionally.
So he couldn't say that his mind was pure and he didn't approach the girl with any selfish motives.
Remember that Hinata Aoi ignored him at the beginning... Was it because she felt that he had ulterior motives that she was so obviously unwilling to pay attention to him?
After that, the relationship went from easing to becoming closer... Was it also a compromise that he had to make due to his persistence?
...Perhaps they had never been on good terms. He had always been deceiving himself and being self-righteous, taking Hinata Aoi's polite response as proof of their good relationship.
Gojumaki Ji couldn't accept that he was such a bad person, making friends in the name of repaying a favor but still wanting to take advantage of them, and he couldn't accept the possibilities that popped up in his mind.
He was immersed in his own complicated and tangled thoughts, and his understanding of Hinata Aoi these days was blurred.
Given Hinata Aoi's personality, if she could tell that the other party was approaching with impure intentions, even if she wasn't disgusted, she wouldn't think about returning the favor because of the other party's unscrupulous kindness.
Without reciprocity, you will just feel that the other party deserves not to get what they want.
So the button that was offered and the big bag of souvenirs were already the answers to the question, but Gojumaki Ji couldn't figure it out at the moment and was still unable to extricate himself from self-doubt.
He lost the courage to talk to Hinata Aoi and retreated into his shell to sort out his increasingly tangled thoughts.
After the entrance ceremony, parents left one after another and students went to the classroom to welcome their first class of the new semester.
Hinata Aoi didn't walk fast, and by the time she reached the classroom door, more than half of the seats had already been occupied by her classmates.
I subconsciously glanced at my usual seat - the last row by the window, and saw a pure black backpack lying diagonally on the desk.
At the same time, we cannot ignore the white hedgehog who sits at the same table with that schoolbag.
With his arms on the desk and his head lowered, he wrote his name on the textbook stroke by stroke, then turned to the third page and began to read word by word, with an incongruous look of diligence.
I took the textbook home for several days without knowing how to write my name. When everyone was waiting for the homeroom teacher, I took out the textbook and looked at it. With Inujuan Ji's expressionless face, it looked cold and wise.
His classmates were not sure whether he was truly studious or just pretending.
Hinata Aoi had no reason to be polite, so she brushed past others and walked to that seat. She pulled out the chair with one hand, picked up her schoolbag with the other and put it on the next table.
The boy didn't look up, but took the schoolbag and hung it on the hook beside the table, then continued to flip through the textbook, not a single word of which could enter his mind.
Hinata Aoi couldn't help but glance at him.
Even when they were having a quarrel, he never forgot to save a seat for her.
If she didn't really like this place, Hinata Aoi might have chosen another seat just to avoid sitting at the same table with Inumaki Satoru.
I don’t know if Goujuan will ask the classmate next to her to change seats, and then cover her face with her arms, as if she doesn’t want to communicate with her.
There can’t be a problem with the gift, right?
Is there anything he is taboo about?
Hinata Aoi decided not to waste her brain cells anymore and ignored the unhappiness in her heart, thinking optimistically that this was not a bad idea. Although she didn't know the reason, the two of them might have gradually become strangers.
In such "beautiful" anticipation, Hinata Aoi didn't notice that Fushiguro Miki had exchanged seats with someone else and sat at the table in front of her.
After everyone chose their seats and waited for a while, the head teacher, wearing a professional suit, holding a roster and wearing low heels, walked up to the podium.
"Hello everyone, I am your homeroom teacher - Chiba Airi." The name was written on the blackboard with chalk smoothly and freely.
"...I hope to spend a wonderful and youthful time with you all over the next three years!"
"Next, let's start from the row closest to the corridor and introduce our selves in an 'S' shape~"
The first student who stood up obviously had not made any preparations. After simply saying his name and hobbies, he didn't know what to say next. He took a few seconds to report his home address, and ended his self-introduction with a red face amid the applause and laughter of his classmates.
One after another, it was Inumaki Satoru and Hinata Aoi's turn, and the joyful atmosphere came to an abrupt end.
Two people with language impairments who introduced themselves with notebooks in succession left the students present at a loss.
I had never met a disabled person in the past ten years of my life, but now there are two of them.
Each one was comparing how good-looking and calm they were. The students couldn't even muster any sympathy for them. They didn't know what expression to make, and their faces were all a little stiff or distorted.
There was no need for the head teacher to ease the atmosphere. Fushiguro Miki raised her hands and clapped to encourage others, making the situation less awkward.
After Hinata Aoi finished her introduction, she continued with her own self-introduction without any pause, bringing the atmosphere back to normal.
The homeroom teacher nodded with satisfaction, and after all the self-introductions were finished, he did not specifically mention the names of Inumaki Satoru and Hinata Aoi to ask everyone to pay extra attention.
After giving an impassioned pre-school mobilization speech, he comprehensively explained the school's history and the honors it had achieved, and briefly mentioned the campus rules, sowing the seeds of honor and cohesion in the students' hearts. Only then did he begin the class.
During lunch break, before the kind-hearted classmates came over to invite her to lunch, Hinata Aoi walked out of the classroom with her lunch box.
Fushiguro Tsugumi half turned her upper body and didn't have time to speak, so she could only watch Hinata Aoi leave.
The lively girl sitting in the seat in front of her, Momoko Sakurai, also turned around and asked Miki Tsu to go to the cafeteria together.
"...Don't look, you won't come back even if you look." Sakurai muttered softly, not daring to let Tsumiki hear.
With her many years of experience in dealing with people, Hinata Aoi is a person with an extremely stable core, and she has no feelings of inferiority due to her muteness.
Even silently excluding others.
The few people who came to chat with her during the break just left after a few words. It was not only because they had just met and had no common topics, but also because Hinata Aoi had no intention of continuing the conversation!
Momoko Sakurai saw everything and was very confident in her own judgment.
The handsome guy next door named Gojuan Ji was also unable to speak, and he kept chatting with two boys until class started.
Hinata Aoi definitely did it on purpose!
Sakurai Momoko felt that Hinata Aoi was a bit arrogant and distant, and she didn't have a good impression of her.
If someone is difficult to get along with, then that person is difficult to get along with. Physical defects are not a reason for people to understand everything.
In particular, her future best friend, Miki Fushiguro, is particularly concerned about these two people with speech disorders.
She was attracted by Tsumiki's gentleness and kindness, and didn't want to see Tsumiki's efforts being ignored or let down.
...We should start with Tsumeki and persuade her not to be so kind to everyone.
Momoko Sakurai acted like an experienced person and made it a priority to guide her future best friend.
*
Hinata Aoi carried her lunch box and walked up the stairs one by one.
She didn't know what the situation was with the school's rooftop, and she wanted to see if she could continue to use the connection between the rooftop and the corridor as a private lunch spot.
When you reach the top floor, the door to the rooftop is open. You don’t need to turn the handle. You can walk directly into the rooftop with the half-open door.
The gentle spring breeze was still chilly, ruffling Hinata Aoi's hair.
There was no one else on the rooftop, but the seniors in the second and third grades had not yet started school. Hinata Aoi couldn't figure out whether the rooftop was always open or she just happened to arrive when it was not blocked and could feel the comfort of being alone.
Through the gaps in the fence, you can see the cherry blossoms lined up neatly below and outside the campus. There's something otherworldly about the beauty of the trees from this height.
After standing there for a while, enjoying the breeze and breathing in some fresh air, Hinata Aoi did not open her lunch box to enjoy her lunch.
The rooftop was still a bit chilly for her; the wind from spring to summer felt even colder than the wind from autumn to winter.
Turning back to the corridor, Hinata Aoi and Inumaki Satoru who was sitting on the ground against the wall were facing each other.
The boy had one leg bent and the other straight, his lunch box open on his thigh, a rice ball in one hand, a mask hanging on the wrist of the other, his arm resting on his bent knee, his eyes distracted, and white rice grains stuck to the corners of his mouth.
Hinata Aoi couldn't help but frown at the decadent sitting posture, like a bad boy who had just had a fight.
Hinata Aoi's sudden return scared Inujuan Ji so much that he forgot to chew and was in a panic, not knowing where to clean up first.
The imagined "beauty" is over.
Unless she was blind, Hinata Aoi didn't want to pretend not to see anymore.
A heavy rain was falling in the boy's purple pupils. His snow-white eyelashes trembled slightly, and he lowered his eyes. He held the lunch box tightly in his hands and knelt on the ground nervously.
It was clearly a normal sitting posture, but Hinata Aoi could see a sense of apologizing.
Unable to control herself, she walked up to Gou Juanji who was sitting upright, raised her hand and ruffled the boy's hair, which looked hard but was actually soft as cotton.
It was this guy who disrupted her clean network of interpersonal relationships. She couldn't avoid him no matter what, forcing her to compromise again and again... Hinata Aoi's hands couldn't help but carry a force of venting anger.
But I still didn't want to use too much force, for fear of damaging my already stupid head.
"Let's go together."
"……Um!"
From the first time she gave in, she could no longer be cruel to Goujuanji.
“Do you like this middle school?”
After seeing this, Gojuanji immediately responded:
"I like it!" I like going to school and going everywhere with you.
"...You knew I was going to school here?"
"I know..." When it came to Gojo Satoru, Inumaki Satoru was a little more cautious.
"…Brother Haibara told me." Is that correct?
Goujuan secretly observed Hinata Aoi's expression, worried that she didn't believe it.
Gojo Satoru didn't say that Hinata Aoi didn't know about his existence, it was Haibara Yu who reminded him not to let the secret slip.
One of the current heads of one of the three great families mobilized several sorcerers to secretly protect an "ordinary person". Anyone in the sorcery world would be curious if they knew about it.
The fewer people who know about this matter, the better, including the parties involved.
Inuju Tsuchiya was right to be cautious, and Hinata Aoi was indeed testing the reason why Inuju Tsuchiya chose to attend this school.
She didn't think she was worth the Goujuan family's sacrifice just to be in the same class with her.
But when he saw Goujuan Ji still following him despite his bad temper, he thought that his ability was indeed a good medicine to alleviate the boy's "symptoms", and he also felt that it was reasonable for Goujuan's parents to spend money to get Goujuan in.
After finding the answer to the doubts in her heart, Hinata Aoi accepted that she had underestimated other people's persistence and financial resources, and unknowingly finished the lunch box in her hand.
Goujuanji has not yet come out of his own entanglement, but his mouth is not controlled by his brain, and he starts to talk about his holiday experience pitifully.
Fortunately, he knew to cover up the information related to Gojo Satoru and others and passed it over.
Hinata Aoi was listening and picking out the key points.
"Are you going to special training every night from now on?"
“…Almost.”
"After school?"
"……right."
Hinata Aoi nodded, and then quickly stroked Inujuan's hair to express her comfort, feeling a lot more relaxed.
I feel like my plan to stay away from Inumaki has not completely failed.
These days are becoming more and more hopeful.
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