It was as if you were telling me not to come and save you.

To be fair, Tsukiyomi Jinguuji never considered himself to possess any real literary flair; he simply read more books than most people his age. He would read "The Castle," "The Catcher in the Rye," "The Great Gatsby," as well as "Weekly Shonen Jump," "Electric Library," and, back when he first entered middle school, he even secretly bought a few issues of "Comic Quick Paradise" to read.

Never did he believe that someone who spent his days immersed in books, who could spin a few metaphors, was somehow superior to his peers. After all, Jinguuji was nothing more than a scoundrel who toyed with girls’ feelings—what right did a scoundrel have to look down on anyone?

So when the underclassmen around him, even the student council president, looked at him with hopeful eyes, Jinguuji felt enormous pressure. The ballpoint pen hovered above the paper, often pausing for several seconds before the ink would begin to flow.

"Well, it's just that, from the perspective of someone loyal to the original work, I can offer a few suggestions for revising the key scenes. Please, don’t all stare at me like that—I’m nowhere near as professional as Kudo," the boy was forced to say.

Jinguuji felt a headache coming on. Did these people honestly think that just because someone was top of the class, he could effortlessly play with words?

Don’t underestimate the power of language! he cried out silently in his heart.

"Senpai, don’t say that. Honestly, I’m just an average student in my class. I’ve been wanting to find someone who really understands this stuff to help me out," Kudo replied.

Jinguuji couldn’t figure out why Kudo seemed to have such inexplicable faith in him. But then he realized—Kudo probably trusted Hoshinomori Hoshino, who had entrusted this task to him.

Jinguuji stole a glance at Hoshinomori Hoshino and found her watching him too, a gentle smile on her lips and eyes that gleamed like water, as if they were about to swallow him whole.

Without betraying any emotion, Jinguuji quickly looked away.

Ah, it felt like he was being conveniently roped in by this woman.

Well…never mind. I’ll put my mind to it for a bit.

He thought.

...

...

By the time they left the drama club, it was almost time to leave school. Jinguuji and Hoshinomori Hoshino walked together down the corridor linking the main building to the old schoolhouse.

"I’m a bit surprised, you know. I didn’t expect you to be so good at writing. Seems all those books weren’t in vain after all," she said.

"That wasn’t meant as sarcasm, was it?"

"Of course not! As the student council president, it fills me with pride to have such an outstanding vice president. Kudo and everyone in the drama club were thrilled too."

Jinguuji sighed softly. "Thanks to that, I even added him as a friend on Line. He said he’d show me the rewritten version for feedback. Unbelievable."

"Isn’t that good? You’ve finally made a friend."

"You call that a friend? He only wants something from me."

"Don’t say it like that. They mean well. Aren’t they all lovely underclassmen?"

"I’ll admit they mean well, but I’m not sure about lovely."

"Oh, but I remember a few of the girls are quite cute. And didn’t one of them slip you a note?"

"......"

Alright, she was right about that.

There was a subtle complexity to Hoshinomori Hoshino’s expression. She had only meant to help broaden his circle of friends—who would have thought that, in the blink of an eye, a girl would be trying to hit on him?

Then Hoshinomori Hoshino reached out her hand. Jinguuji stared intently at her fair, delicate palm for a long moment before saying seriously, "Looks like tomorrow is an ill-omened day for the president—you’d best stay home."

"Tch! Who said you could read my palm? You know how to do that?"

"I know the basics."

"Liar."

It was a lie.

"That’s what I dislike about people from Tokyo. Look how pure Yagami is."

"Where’s she from again?"

"Nagoya."

"No wonder her Kansai dialect sounds a bit off."

"Don’t make fun of a girl’s accent."

"I never said that."

"Yagami is a very strong girl, you know. She came to Tokyo all on her own... Ah! Trying to change the subject won’t work. Hand it over."

"Hand what over?"

"The note that junior girl gave you, of course! I can’t just let the vice president of the student council go around flirting with innocent, naïve underclassmen."

"That’s unreasonable. She was the one who forced it on me. I didn’t even keep it."

Hoshinomori Hoshino squinted at him, studying him for a long moment.

"Lying won’t work~"

"I really didn’t keep it."

After a while, Hoshinomori Hoshino finally lowered her hand and grew serious, looking at him intently.

"Jinguuji, I’m not joking. I want you by my side, not because of what others say about you, but because I believe in what I see in you. I want to use my influence to help others see who you really are, to change their minds about you..."

"And what good would it do for people to know me?" the boy replied in a tone as faint as ink.

A gust of wind from the direction of the baseball field rustled the leaves in the courtyard, sweeping toward the boy and girl, passing easily through the corridor that connected the buildings.

Thud.

"Ball."

Thud.

"Ball."

Thud.

"Strike."

It was as if the wind carried with it the pitcher’s tense breaths and pounding heartbeat from the mound.

Breathing in the slightly dusty wind, Jinguuji gave a faint, easy smile.

"Someone like me—no one would want to know."

The autumn wind, like a babbling infant, reached out with clumsy hands, tangling the girl’s long hair. As her hair fluttered and drifted before her eyes, the boy’s face—half-hidden through the strands—seemed impossibly distant.

"Hey, Jinguuji," she began softly.

"I’ve told you before, haven’t I? Since the day we met, you’ve been putting yourself down, and I think that’s wrong.

"Even with the drama club—you have to value the connections you form with others. The ties between people are forged in these very encounters.

"When I heard you say you were ostracized, when you calmly told me you had no friends...

"My heart twisted with sadness and anger.

"Why can you say such things so calmly, things that make me so sad?"

"Because I don’t care about those things. Maybe, to you, friends are irreplaceable. But not everyone feels that way. Take me, for example.

"President Hoshinomori, if I may be blunt, isn’t this... a kind of arrogance?"

Perhaps he was right. Perhaps it really was a kind of arrogance. Yet Hoshinomori Hoshino seemed to see right through him—to the wounded heart that lay beneath his calm expression.

"But Jinguuji, you said you liked Watanabe, didn’t you? You even said you could play him to life on stage.

"Someone like you, who loves Haruki Murakami so much—how could you truly love being alone?

"So why... why must you push me away?

"It’s as if you’re telling me not to save you..."