Story About Buying My Classmate Once A Week

「So, about Sendai-chan. Did she go anywhere during spring break?」
From my phone, I hear Noto-senpai’s happy voice.
Unusual.
I received a call from my Senpai about a part-time tutoring job, but the conversation never ends, even though it has served its purpose. The phone call, which is usually cut off at business only, is accompanied by chit-chat.
This kind of thing is rare because of Senpai, when talking through the tool of a smartphone, hang up the phone with little need to talk about anything that is not necessary.
「We just went shopping for clothes.」
I get up from the bed, which I had been using as a chair, and sit down on the floor.
A lot of things happened during spring break, including things I couldn’t tell my Senpai about. But the only time I made plans to go anywhere was shopping with Utsunomiya.
「Didn’t you take a quick trip with the money from your part-time job?」
Dinner is still ahead of us and we have time to talk. Miyagi is in her room too, so I don’t mind if we have a long talk, but this isn’t a good trend.
「Not anywhere in particular.」
「Do you have any upcoming travel plans?」
March is already over.
And spring break will soon be over.
So I tell her「I have none,」although my Senpai should know that I have no such plans.
「You don’t have any plans to travel or go with Miyagi-chan?」
I knew she would ask.
From the flow of the conversation, I could predict that Senpai would likely bring up Miyagi.
Miyagi and travel.
I sometimes think that it would be nice to have such a thing. But I am the only one who thinks that one day we would like to go on a trip together, no matter how close or how far away it is. I know, so I tried not to think about it too much, but my thoughts are about to go in the wrong direction because my Senpai says strange things.
I pull the empty crocodile tissue cover and pat it on the back.
「I don’t have any. I mean, why is it limited to Miyagi?」
「You two live together, so you two should at least take trips.」
Senpai said cohabitation as a matter of course.
I have told her several times in the past that we are roommates, but she still says we live together, so I don’t deny it anymore.
「Even if I was traveling with Miyagi, why would you want to hear about me and Miyagi’s trip?」
We went to the aquarium and the zoo together, but Miyagi doesn’t go out with us whenever I invite her, nor does she go anywhere with me. I don’t know how she draws the line in her mind, but I know there are “times” and “places” when it is okay to go together.
Still, when I talk with my Senpai, I can’t help but wish that Miyagi would go on a trip with me in the same casual way that my Senpai talks about living together.
「Sounds interesting and I would like to hear about it. I heard from Mio that she went to Sendai-chan’s house to visit, and she said that Miyagi-chan was quite interesting. If so, travel stories would be interesting, and if you’ve been there, you need to tell me about it.」
「That’s just Mio making up stories. Speaking of Mio, she is always exaggerating.」
「Indeed. Well, but if you’re close enough to live together, maybe you two should go away together.」
「I’ll think it over.」
「Well, let me know when you two travel.」
「I don’t think I’ll be able to report anything as interesting as Senpai expect me to.」
「It’s fun, for sure. Well, Mio wants to see me. I’m going to go now.」
I don’t know where my Senpai is, but as she said, Mio’s voice comes from far away. She was still fussy and started talking about who she was talking to and how she wanted to talk to me too, and Senpai told me in a hurry to「think about the tutoring,」and hung up the phone.
I look at my phone, where I can no longer hear anyone’s voice, and sigh one sigh. I put the trip I can’t go on back in the back of my mind and think about the things I have to do.
I will continue to tutor Kikyō-chan in April.
I was thinking that I had to give Miyagi a good deal of time to talk about this, which was decided quite some time ago, when my Senpai asked me if I wanted to take on more part-time tutoring work.
I have to say it.
My head hurts because I’ve added a new tutoring job to the list of tutoring jobs I’ve been thinking about for a long time. I knew that Miyagi would look at me uncomfortably when I told her about my part-time job, so I doubled down on telling her if I didn’t.
Perhaps Miyagi’s bad habit of putting off unpleasant things has rubbed off on me.
「Once or twice are the same, just the same. Either way, I’m talking about a part-time job.」
I encourage myself to get up.
I am told that I don’t have to ask permission for the part-time job, but I can’t not tell her because it will interfere with our meal times.
I feel heavy.
If I tell her, it will offend her. I think Miyagi should have a part-time job anyway, but I don’t enjoy the idea of her meeting someone I don’t know and increasing our interaction. My mind doesn’t work as it should.
I exhale.
「I think it’s time for you to go home.」
I leave the room with the empty crocodile in my arms. Stand in front of Miyagi’s room and take two deep breaths. I knocked lightly on the door three times and heard a voice from inside saying,「Come in.」
「Here, I’ve come to return it. I’d feel sorry for you if you caught a cold without this tissue cover.」
I enter the room and place the crocodile next to Miyagi, who is lying on the bed reading a manga.
「A cold, a tissue box?」
Miyagi closes the manga and gives me a dubious look.
「Yes.」
「…Sendai-san, even though you are an erotic devil, you have a maidenly side to you. You even named stuffed animals.」
「I think the erotic devil is superfluous.」
「If I had to choose between a maiden and the erotic devil, it would definitely be the erotic devil.」
「Miyagi is also erotic, and you can’t speak for others.」
「I don’t want to be called erotic by you, Sendai-san. Also, this.」
The crocodile I placed next to Miyagi comes back to me.
「I’m here to return the crocodile, though.」
「Put them on a box of tissues.」
「Miyagi is rough on them, aren’t you?」
I complained and put the crocodile handed to her on a box of tissues. Then, as I sat down, using the bed as a chair, Miyagi sat up as if in a panic.
「I’ll return the penguin.」
With a simple voice, the stuffed animal that had been sleeping on the bed is placed on my thigh.
「You can still keep it.」
I tried to return Pen-chan to Miyagi, but「That’s enough. I’ll give it back,」comes a grumpy voice.
「Well, I’ll leave Pen-chan with you for a while.」
The stuffed penguin belongs to both of us, Miyagi and me. It is something that can be in either of our rooms, so I’ll take it in stride. Now the crocodile is back with Miyagi and the penguin is back with me, but it’s not about the stuffed animals that I have to talk about.
The stuffed animal is just an incidental thing.
「Miyagi. You know…」
I can’t find the words I need to continue.
I patted Pen-chan’s head and exhaled, and Miyagi sat down next to me.
「Sendai-san?」
Miyagi calls me to join the interrupted conversation.
Right now, her mood is not so bad.
But the thought of it getting worse makes my temples ache.
「Ah, yeah. It’s somewhat about my part-time job as a tutor.」
I drop my gaze and stares at the penguin’s head.
Miyagi says nothing.
So I say the words that follow.
「I’ll be going to Kikyō-chan’s place in April as well.」
「…Sendai-san, you said the girl was accepted to high school.」
Miyagi blurts out.
「She did, but she wanted me to keep coming. Also, I’m thinking of adding another student.」
「…Heh.」
I hear a flat voice and my stomach aches as well as my temples. As I exhaled, I slowly looked up as the penguins seemed to turn gray around me.
「Is it okay?」
When I look at Miyagi and ask, she averts her gaze.
「You don’t have to ask me. Like I said before, you don’t have to ask me every time you want to do something.」
.
Even if Miyagi doesn’t want to do it, I will do the part-time job. That’s a given, so I appreciate the word that I don’t have to ask permission. But it’s not fun.
I will continue to work part-time and have no intention of quitting, but I want Miyagi to tell me not to work part-time and to stay by my side.
It is contradictory, but I wish Miyagi would direct stronger feelings toward me.
「Can I have the part-time job?」
I ask in a small voice.
「…It’s okay, but it’s frustrating.」
Miyagi says in a low voice and kicks me in the leg.
「What do you mean, by frustrating?」
「You’ve told me about your part-time job, and you go out of your way to ask me if you can do it even though I’ve told you that you can do it on your own, or you telling me as if after the fact that you’re going to continue tutoring a child who’s already been accepted to a high school, it’s frustrating. ——It doesn’t matter what my opinion is anyway.」
With a voice that doesn’t hide her bad mood, I was stepped on.
「It’s not like that.」
「I don’t care what the reason is, you should at least get a part-time job on your own. Maika will have a part-time job starting in April.」
「Utsunomiya is going to work part-time too?」
「She was selling hamburgers.」
It sounds like Utsunomiya is talking about making hamburgers by hand and selling them around the university or somewhere, but perhaps she means working part-time at a fast food restaurant.
「It seems like Utsunomiya has good place to work in the hospitality industry.」
「Maika is bright and energetic.」
Miyagi says without looking at me.
Her voice is still low, so she is not in a good mood.
I think maybe she doesn’t like the fact that Utsunomiya, who is a good friend of hers, works part-time. I know that part-time work reduces the amount of time she spend with her best friend, so I don’t blame her for not being in a pleasant mood, but seeing Miyagi like that doesn’t put me in a pleasant mood either.
「Utsunomiya, getting told off by a customer.」
Squeezing the stuffed penguin to my stomach, I push back the darkness that is trying to crawl out of my mind.
「Is it really possible for that to happen?」
「It can happen. Mio, and there are things that are done to me.」
When I answered in as cheerful a voice as possible, Miyagi said to herself,「I have,」and kicked the floor a ton.
「…What about you, Sendai-san?」
「There’s none.」
“Almost,” is the first word that comes to mind, though.
My part-time job at the café was short-lived, and customers don’t talk to waitstaff that much. Still, that is not to say that such things didn’t happen at all. But none of them were serious confessions; they were light, like pick-up lines, so I don’t think there was any need to bother telling them.
「About Mio-san, do you go out with people like that?」
Miyagi raises her gaze from the penguin and looks at me.
「I’ve never seen her give a good response before.」
「Why? I thought she wanted a boyfriend so much that she’d invite people to a party.」
「Even if she wanted a boyfriend, it wouldn’t be just anyone. And Mio doesn’t feel like she’s going to a party to find a boyfriend.」
「What do you mean?」
「She likes the atmosphere of a party, doesn’t she? She likes getting together with others and having a good time. She’s just lucky if she find the right person, probably.」
「Hmmm.」
Miyagi, looking uninterested, says,「……part-time job, I think I’ll do it too,」and abruptly mumbles something I wasn’t expecting.
「Eh? Part-time job? Where? Really?」
She can’t be serious.
I just said it somehow.
I thought so, but the words that popped into my head were torn apart in my throat, and they came flying out in pieces.
「Maika has a part-time job, too, so she’ll have free time.」
Miyagi blurted out.
「Are you really going to work part-time?」
「Sendai-san, rock-paper-scissors.」
「That’s not the answer to my question. What game are you suddenly playing?」
「If Sendai-san wins, I’ll take a part-time job.」
I don’t know if she’s serious or not.
But I don’t think Miyagi wants a part-time job.
So I suggest a way that I will definitely lose.
「…Miyagi, show rock. I’ll do scissors.」
「That’s no contest.」
Miyagi then popped Pen-chan with a grip.