Vol 1 Chapter 20 (2/2)

However, the one who was shocked to most, was none other than Reiko herself.

Dumbfounded. And—— startled.

She jumped to her feet and her knees. .h.i.t the table.

The cups fell and the black tea was spilling onto the gla.s.s.

“Hiii…”

Kae let a tiny shriek slip.

Reiko was startled and s.h.i.+vering. She shut her eyes closely and ran for it———— out of the room.

After school, I was heading for Arisugawa-san’s dorm.

Arisugawa-san had been absent today.

There had been a tea party incident, or so I’d heard.

The rough content was, ‘Reiko-sama has gotten furious at yesterday’s tea party’.

Hearing that the Arisugawa-san had gotten angry had taken me by surprise too, but such wasn’t the reaction of the cla.s.sroom.

Toujou-san, who Arisugawa-san presumably had gotten angry with, had been crying the whole time. The surrounding ojou-samas tried to console her and were completely pale themselves; they obviously didn’t know what to do. They were simply fl.u.s.tered.

The rumor had even spread to the other school grades, it had caused a turmoil as if a meteorite had struck the Earth.

I had decided that I shouldn’t attend the matter thoughtlessly with the ojou-samas being like that and had eyed the situation for the time being…

And here I was, standing in front of Arisugawa-san’s room.

“…………”

Even though I had changed my prior decision, I had a reason. Two even.

First, I thought my position could turn out to be extremely effective in this case.

I was a transfer student, a man, and a commoner.

An outsider so to say, in a good way. Someone uninvolved. Perfectly suited for mediation.

Well, there was no way I could leave the matter alone either, so there was no other choice.

I knocked on the door.

…No reply.

“Arisugawa-san?”

After I had raised my voice—— I felt it. My, so to say, sixth sense told me that someone had moved inside the room.

“Arisugawa-san? It’s Kagurazaka…”

A short while later——

“…………………………………………I’m here.”

With the door between us, I could faintly hear her from far inside.

“Ehm… would you mind to open up?”

“…………I’m sorry.”

This means she definitely won’t, huh?

I decided to give up on that right away and went with talking across the door.

“What happened?”

“…I can’t talk about it.”

It was the same thing the others had said in the cla.s.sroom.

When the uninvolved ojou-samas had tried to get to the bottom of it, they were continuously refused with a ‘I can’t talk about it’ and been apologized to.

However, going by my gut feeling and the looks they’d casted to me at the time, I’d started to surmise something.

That was reason number two why I came here.

“It’s related to me, isn’t it?”

“THAT’S NOT TRUE—!”

GACHA—!

“Ehh—?!”

Arisugawa-san flung the door open, when I had already accepted that she by no means would—— And she was standing there wearing a one piece pyjama that made her look like a princess.

That was probably what she looked like when she stood up. She had a bit of bed hair here and there and the area beneath her eyes was somewhat swollen, probably from crying. I had only seen her in flawless appearance all the time, so this lenient way of dressing felt very refres.h.i.+ng in contrast.

“———!”

Arisugawa-san appeared to realize her own state and blushed up in an instant, making a face as if she was about to leak a shriek.

“S-Sorry—!”

I got fl.u.s.tered too and turned around. There had been a similar situation like this, hadn’t there?

And then, I listened to Arisugawa-san’s story.

While I promised to not further pry into the details and Arisugawa-san stressed that it wasn’t related to me… she told vaguely told me about it. Her breathing got rough as she got to the second part.

My impression from what I’ve heard was—— Well, in short…

It had been a quarrel of sorts. She had gotten irritated, loud, and in the blink of an eye, the atmosphere had gone bad—— something like that.

To us, it was an everyday thing.

In situations like that, one of the parties involved would decide to make up and apologize by mail around evening or so (a.s.suming that’s enough).

Something like this.

And yet…

“…………I…………What should I do…………”

When I turned my face, Arisugawa-san looked as if the world was ending.

She was the same as everyone else had been in cla.s.s. Pale and at a loss.

Quite a few days had pa.s.sed since I’d come here.

So I could vaguely guess the reasons.

These young ladies didn’t fight.

For us commoners, it was a natural skill that we had acquired by having countless smaller and bigger disputes.

Knowing when to budge from one’s standpoint. Knowing emergency measures. Friends that you could rely on in these cases.

Those things weren’t a given here.

And so it had gotten Arisugawa-san, who appeared perfect in just about every regard, crying like this.

That’s why…

This—— was where the commoner had to step up.

“It’ll be fine.”

Arisugawa-san looked up to me with her teary eyes.

‘This ain’t a big deal,’ I tried to convey with a smile. I stroke her head.

“Leave this to the commoner.”

Translator notes and references

None.

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