"By the way, Sumire, are you angry at Hayashi? The way you told me, I don't think Hayashi ever bullied you. It was just her friends, right?" Kelly asked, interrupting their lunch. Sumire appeared momentarily stunned, but after grasping the meaning behind his question, she responded in a serious tone.
"Yes, she didn't bully me directly, but she also didn't intervene to stop her friends," Sumire replied. There was a brief silence between them.
"....."
"I... I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I don't have any right to be angry at her. I guess I should be grateful that she didn't participate in it herself."
Kelly couldn't help but feel shocked and surprised as he looked into Sumire's eyes. Her serious expression was a stark contrast to her usual shy and reserved demeanor. He had never seen this side of her before, and it caught him off guard. It made him realize that there was so much more to Sumire than he had initially thought.
'Honestly, I was surprised to see such a serious look in her eyes, never thought she had it in her.'
"No, you have nothing to apologize for. You're right, sorry for asking such a weird question," Kelly responded, realizing the awkwardness of his inquiry.
Sumire glanced at him, her eyes softening. "No, I don't mind if it's you," she replied quietly.
An awkward silence settled between them for the rest of their lunch. Kelly and Sumire resumed eating, their conversations halted. Within a matter of minutes, they finished their meals without exchanging a single word.
"Well, well, what do we have here? An otaku love nest," a familiar voice suddenly pierced the air.
Upon hearing that voice, Kelly inwardly sighed, bracing himself for the inevitable confrontation to come.
'Today, now of all days I really wasn't in the mood to deal with all this nonsense.'
Kelly let out a frustrated sigh, his internal monologue reflecting his exasperation.
"What's this cat got your tongue?"
"N-n-no, we were just having lunch, Daichi-kun."
"Is that so? By the way, Kamimura, you look sleepy there. Did you stay up all night watching hentai and playing with your thing?"
Daichi snickers
"Ohhh! Gross! Who stays up all night to watch porn? Really, what a creep!"
"Or maybe you didn't get enough sleep, because suddenly your left eye started throbbing."
"hahahahahahahahahahah"
The boys all laughed, as if they found that statement somehow hilarious, the student who first called out to Kelly was Daichi Hiyama, he is of above average height and good at both academics and sports has brown hair and eyes and is considerably handsome for his own part, ever since Kelly started this school he has it in for him without any reason and has been teasing Kelly for being an otaku on daily basis trying to show his superiority over him to impress a particular queen bee of class, the ones who were laughing wickedly next to him were Miki Yamamura , she is basically a delinquent who likes to mess with people and Reo kondo who for one doesn't look much but he is physically capable in a fight.
"Don't you think so too, Hayashi? Hey, how about you and your friends join us for lunch today?" Daichi asked expectantly.
Hayashi, after listening to the conversation and proposal, locked eyes with Kelly, keeping everyone in suspense. Then, she said something that left everyone, including Kelly, utterly shocked.
"Kamimura-kun, can I join you and Shiranami-san for lunch?"
The words hung in the air, causing Daichi to feel like the ground had been pulled from beneath him. He was too stunned to utter a single word.
"No, sorry, we just finished our lunch" Kelly replied.
"Ohh… okay" Hayashi replied in a lackluster manner.
'I am pretty sure she saw us finish our lunch and deliberately asked that question to reject Daichi's proposal by throwing me under the bus, haaaa…, that sly fox, must be her way of some kind of revenge for staring at her for too long, and looking at the condition of Sumire, who was so nervous to even look up, I couldn't accept that proposal in my right mind it felt like she timed it, she had no intention of eating lunch with us or Daichi.'
"You bastard, how dare you," Daichi fumed in anger, taking a step towards Kelly. However, before he could make a move, a voice from behind halted him in his tracks.