Chapter 95: Falling Apart
One would think that obtaining a harem would be a dream, but for Kouji his life had turned into a nightmare. Himawari wanted nary a thing to do with him, which was an impossible goal given their tutoring group situation. On the bright side, she wasn't going to throw her grades just to get back at him. Though that was only a poor consolation prize for what he lost.
"And that's how you do that problem." He explained to her, his voice lacking his usual energy.
"Right, thank you." Himawari maintained her polite manner, but there was no longer and informality with the way she addressed him. "Kuzuhana." She had also regressed to calling him by his last name once more. "You're… Very helpful." Their sesion together had come to an end. Quickly, the girl packed up her things and left before anyone else had gotten their stuff packed. There was not a single word uttered by her to say any farewells.
"I do not understand what has made her so distant." Anastasia spoke up when they were all alone. Of course she had no idea on what had happened one week prior. Not a single soul wished to inform her of their secret dealings. "Kouji, I know that she is hard on you, but have you done anything to make her upset?"
They grew silent upon hearing her question. How could one answer that if they weren't at liberty to reveal the truth to her?
"I'm sorry." Kouji was the first one to break the silence. "It's not something I want to talk about." He was the next one ready to leave the room after Himawari.
"Um, will we be walking to the station after school? We haven't done it since-"
"Sorry about that too." He cut her off. "But I haven't been in the mood to be walking with anyone." With that, he made his leave.
"Even Kouji's being cold." Anastasia hung her head down in sorrow. To not know what was wrong was killing her on the inside. It also hurt the other three still remaining to know that they were the cause of this.
"It'll be… Fine." Yuma gave the girl a pat on the back. "I'm sure that… Things will be back to normal." Whether or not that would be soon was a different story. In fact, there was also the risk that things would continue to degrade for them. This rift among them was growing.
"Anyway, we got a little bit of time to kill before the next class." Waa got up and made her way to the exit. "I guess I'll just be hanging out under some trees…" She winked over to Teru, signaling the desire to talk privately. The other girl got the message and came up with an excuse to join.
"Same here, I could use some fresh air after being trapped in this stuffy room." She followed. Things were getting to dicey to not have a conversation about this. Of course, they left Yuma out of this because… Well they didn't want to spend an eternity waiting for her to speak up.
"So, what are we going to do about this?" Waa got right to the chase the moment they were alone. "I'm sure you agree with me we've all been pretty miserable lately."
"Of course I know that." She responded. "But it's not something that we can work on. This is between him and her." Though it certainly was their business considering that they were romantic rivals. "Except, I hate seeing him like this." Kouji was a different person after the breakup. It hurt her in more than one way to see him like that.
"To be honest, it makes me a little jealous to see him so distraught." If that's how he felt about Himawari, did any of them have a chance? "Or I guess this is why he's so indecisive." That boy would know how he'd feel about ending things between one of them. So it happening to him would undoubtedly be worse on his emotional state.
"This is really messed up." It almost seemed that they were powerless in this current situation. "There's gotta be something." As much as the girl racked her brain, there was no solution coming to mind.
"I got nothing too." Waa replied. "Makes sense seeing as the two of us are in a tutor group in the-"
"Wait..." With their recent secret escapades, Teru had gained more skill in being aware of their surroundings. When one wants to keep important matters private, they become a lot more paranoid. "Someone's seems to be spying on us." She yelled out to a random bush that was a little far from them. It was probably about 30 meters from them, which made Waa look at her crazy. However her suspicions were correct when a pair of girls were produced from it.
"Ehh? You know it's rude to spy on people's private conversations." The small girl tried to play it cool. Hopefully the contents of said conversation wasn't divulged to them. "Now tell us what you heard."
"We didn't hear anything." One of them responded with worry. Getting on the bad side of Teru certainly wasn't on anyone's agenda.
"Honest, we were just watching you." The other followed up. "We weren't going to tell anyone else, but we just wanted to watch you do some… Forbidden stuff."
"Forbidden… Stuff?" Teru's eyes widened as she came to the realization of what those girls thought they were talking about. Then they got cross as her rage began to bubble up. "All right, that's it!"
"Hey, hey, let's not get too hasty." Waa did her best to hold her back. Which wasn't easy seeing as she was the shortest girl in the entire school and taking on the strongest. "Don't forget what you promised Kouji."
"You two are lucky." She pointed at them. "Now get out of my sight." The two girls fearfully ran away as quick as their legs would take them. "It's so annoying, why do people keep thinking I like girls?"
"To be fair, I bet everyone at school thinks of us two as the most likely to swing that way." Not that she ever thought that way, but the girl was aware of the stereotypes. "Personally, before Kouji showed up, I thought I'd end up as some lonely lady running to other lonely woman who really missed out on getting a man. Ooh, maybe I could find a dragon to pull a sword out and we'll happily ever after that."
"Don't get too wrapped up in your stupid manga fantasies." Teru bonked her on the head. "We still have something a little more important to worry about." Their problem with Kouji would continue to grow if nothing was done. At this rate, he wasn't going to solve his own issues, so it was going to be up to his harem to support him.
"Well, I still can't think of anything." Waa admitted. That hit on the head certainly didn't help her, but there was something they could try. "But maybe we should pay him a surprise visit after school."
"And what makes you think he'll let us in?" They hadn't been there to see him privately after that day as well. Not because he told them not to, but because it did get a little awkward with the whole group. "Kouji doesn't even want to hang out with Anastasia."
"How could he say no to three cute girls showing up at his doorstep?"
"You mean, two cute girls?"
"I know you're self-conscious, but I didn't realize you were self-deprecating too."
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