Episode 59 – Empty Seat

“–Yuuki, wake up. It’s already morning.”

“Hmm? Good…..morning?

The shaking to my body woke me up. It seems that I was able to fall asleep surprisingly quick last night. I wasn’t  tired and felt refreshed.

Shiori san also seems to have just woken up, her pajamas are open a little and she has trouble keeping her eyes open.

“Let’s have breakfast, Yuuki.”

“Yes, I guess so.”

After washing my face, I ate the breakfast Riko made.

After changing into the uniform and waiting for Shiori san to come downstairs, the two of us headed to school together. Since I didn’t know the way to the school, Shiori san said she would go with me.

It seemed that they also took the train to school, and there were few students wearing the same uniform on the way to the station.

As I left the station, I saw more and more students wearing the same uniform, which made me a little nervous.

Now that I’m going to this school for the first time, I don’t know my previous friendships, and I’m nervous about walking with these two students.

Maybe it was like this before, because the students around me never paid attention to me.

After parting with them, I head to the 1-2 classroom. My class seems to be the second year class.

I opened the door and snuck into the classroom. Fortunately, not many people noticed me as they were either talking with their friends or working on their assignments.

I tried to go to my seat, but since I didn’t know where my seat was, I realized that I had to ask someone.

While I was puzzling over who to ask, both boy and a girl approached me.

“Yo, Yuuki, you don’t know where your seat is?”

“Ah, yeah.”.

“I’ll show you everything, so come with me.”

They are very kind people. Maybe they were my friends.

I followed them and put my luggage in my seat.

They were sitting close to each other and I saw them sitting side by side behind me.

“Ah, of course you don’t remember us. …..I’m Ishizaki Shota. And this is Segawa Yuri.”

“We were your friends, Yuuki, so it’s nice to meet you again.”

“Yeah, nice to meet you.”

When I said that, the two looked down with sad eyes.

“You really forgot…….”

“Sorry……”

“You shouldn’t apologize, Yuuki, okay?”

I’m the one who forgot, so if someone makes me sad, I feel like I’ve done something wrong.

When I was feeling down, Ishizaki kun clapped his hands.

“I don’t care about that ! There must be a lot of things you don’t understand yet, so let’s teach you some things !”

“Yeah, let’s do that.”

“…..Thank you.”

Until the teacher came, I was taught what I had learned up until now.

After a while, the teacher came into the classroom and started short homeroom. I looked around to see if it was time for that, and since the whole class was there, I thought I had been talking for a surprisingly long time.

Then I suddenly noticed that there were empty seats. I was told that there were 31 students in our class, but for some reason there were desks for 32 students, and one of them was empty.

After SHR, I asked Ishizaki kun and the others,

“Hey, was that empty seat originally occupied by someone?”

“Oh……those seats were empty to begin with. It’s just empty.”

“I see………that’s something different.”

Ishizaki kun said that without making eye contact with me, and Segawa san was scratching hrt head with a wry smile on her face.

I thought that if the seat was empty from the beginning, it should be put away, but there might be some circumstances, so I decided not to go any deeper than that.

I was left with a vague feeling in my chest, but I tried not to let it bother me and began to spend the first day.