Chapter 19: CH 19

Do you want me to help you?

Translated by Dawn

Do you want me to help you?

The next day, the second period was physical education, which consisted of soccer on the field.

The men and women were divided into two groups, but only the preparatory exercises were done jointly.

At our high school, there was one male and female student in charge of P.E. each, and they would lead the students in the preparation exercises.

Helping with preparation and clean-up was also the role of the student in charge of physical education.

However, only the boys in the section were absent today.

Then, for some reason, Kojima, the P.E. teacher, said, “Well, class rep!　I want you to substitute for me today!” So, since he suddenly asked me to take over for him, I had more chores to do.

And the other person in charge of P.E. was Satomi.

Well, but, the preparation exercises were no big deal.

As long as you were upfront and loud, that was the end of it. Soon it was time to move on to soccer.

If you only tried not to drag the good ones down, soccer would be a lot of fun there.

After kicking the ball around at random, the time came and went, and I was sweating moderately and thought that the class was over—-

“Okay, P.E. committee members…and Aizawa! Clean up the cones!”

Kojima’s voice made me and Satomi clean up the mess.

Satomi and I looked at each other.

She had a disappointed look on her face. I probably had the same look on my face.

I carried the cones with Satomi and stepped into the gym storage in the corner of the field.

On the way to put the cones inside, I happened to see Satomi.

For some reason, Satomi looked impatient and said.

“W-what? I’m telling you, I haven’t messed with Mizutani since then.”

“…I know that much.”

I sighed.

I nailed her the other day, and it seemed to have worked on her more than I thought it would

Compared to Yamamoto, this girl was much less of a small…or rather, much more understanding.

I was wondering if Yamamoto would be able to do the same if only I could get a hold of some weaknesses.

“You should do something about Yamamoto. Even for you, it must be annoying to see him pestering Mizutani so much.”

“If I could do something about it, I would have done it by now.”

Satomi said as if she was going to spit something out, and then she pointed at me.

“I mean, Aizawa, you should do something about it. You’re Mizutani’s boyfriend, aren’t you? You’re not helping at all. You’re pathetic.”

“Wha…”

Close, I almost hit her unintentionally.

I’d never hit anyone before.

But, well, there was no way Satomi could have known that my relationship with Mizutani was a fake.

If you looked at the current situation objectively, my assessment would be that I was an unfortunate boyfriend who couldn’t get rid of the insects that were latching on to her. Including the jealousy that I was dating Mizutani.

Yamamoto’s reputation seemed to have dropped even more.

I guess he didn’t seem to care about that kind of thing.

Holding back my anger, I asked.

“Satomi, why is Yamamoto not giving up when Mizutani is going out with me?”

“…Huh? What are you saying?”

Satomi stared at me seriously and then shook her head in dismay.

“Of course, it’s because you look unreliable, Aizawa. You look like a potato. If it had been Ikeno of the Class B group, Tsuyoshi would have given up, but…”

“…I see. So you’re saying it’s because of my specs?”

It was true that I was not particularly good-looking, and my athletic skills were average.

My studies were not so bad, but since the top grades were not posted in the regular examinations at this high school, no one knew about it.

In the end, everyone judges whether or not you were a good match based on such easy-to-understand specs, and in that sense, I guess I was “not a good match” for Mizutani. So Yamamoto thought that there was still a possibility.

Satomi nodded.

“Well, that’s how it is. Even if I’m Tsuyoshi, if you’re the boyfriend of the girl I’m after, I’m sure I’d think, “I still have a chance’, right?”

“…You two are such jerks. You guys really match each other.”

“You say that, but even you judge people by their looks, don’t you?”

“No way, I’m not—”

“No, Aizawa, you’re no exception. Let me ask you, did you really think nothing of me when you first met me?”

“Yeah, of course…”

As I was about to say that, I suddenly realized.

Come to think of it…when I first saw Satomi raise her hand to decide who would be in charge, I think I even imagined her personality based on her appearance.

“See, I knew you were judging me based on my looks.”

Seeing my silence, Satomi sighed.

She continued while carrying on the conversation.

“I’m not blaming you, Aizawa. As long as we have eyes, we can never avoid judging others based on our first impression of them. That’s why you thought I wasn’t good by nature, and I thought the same thing.”

“…..”

Wow, she was thinking the same thing.

We’re on the same page. Why don’t we go out for a while?

Leaving that joke aside—

I guess Satomi was thinking about a lot of things, too.

Maybe I should change my perception of her a little.

Of course, Satomi was harassing Mizutani, so there was no doubt that she was a jerk.

And one more thing.

I just remembered that the other day when Yamamoto was arguing with Satomi at the river bank.

“Who else in this school deserves her, but me?”

I think Yamamoto said something like that.

In other words, Satomi’s theory that “judging by specs, he thinks he can win” might be relatively close to the truth.

“Oh, that’s right, Aizawa. Do you want me to help you?”

“…what’s this all of a sudden?”

When I stared at Satomi’s face in surprise, she gave me a mischievous smile.

“The point is, if you improve your specs, maybe Tsuyoshi won’t be able to get close to that thieving cat, you know? So I’m going to help you with that. If you succeed, it will be a win-win situation for both of us.”

“…That’s great, but how are you going to raise my specs in the first place?”

Did she mean like going up from 32 GB to 64 GB or something like that?

Satomi shrugged her shoulders as though I didn’t understand. Annoying.

“You know, don’t you see where I’m going with this? I mean, no matter how you look at it, you have to start with the appearance. So…are you free on weekends anyway?”

“…What?”