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127

Cory generally tried to soften his expression whenever someone looked discomfited by his face, but he didn’t try at all for Eric. Cory wasn’t the type to try to look gentle for strangers, so he probably wasn’t doing this just because it was Eric.

“Do you want to go to our afternoon class together?”

Eric said, glancing at Cory to gauge his reaction. Cory was just staring at him, but Eric flinched, scared. His pride seemed to have been scarred. He walked towards me with a slightly stiff expression on his face.

Eric had definitely come to our club room to head over to our afternoon class together. That made me happy, so I hurriedly stood up and hurriedly walked over to him.

Cory stared at my smiling face as I ran towards him with a shocked expression on his face. Then, he sat up straight when he saw Eric open his arms wide and when he hugged me.

I, who had on some tight rose-colored glasses when it came to Eric, was happy that he had come to see me. It was embarrassing, but I hugged him back.

Eric asked me a question as we left the room. There was a loud crashing sound as soon as we got out.

What happened, did Cory trip or something?

“Cory DuBois, why was he glaring at me like that?”

“He was just staring at you. He has sharp eyes, so he always gets misunderstood because of that.”

“….Mm, I can see that.”

With that conversation, Eric continued to walk, staring in front of him.

On our way to the training hall, Eric began to walk faster. I had to almost break into a run to catch up to him. I didn’t know if he was just a fast walker or if he didn’t want to match his steps with mine, but I walked faster to walk next to him.

As the two of us walked together to the training hall, there was an awkward air between us.

The sounds of our steps were the only noise around us. I wanted to become close, boyfriend and dating whatnot, but there were no opportunities for us to be close.

I don’t think I’d ever approached anyone because I wanted to become close to them. Relationships just naturally happened as I’d lived life, so this was something that I hadn’t really worried about. I had always been busy trying to live out my life instead of forming relationships or friendships.

I disliked the awkward air between Eric, my boyfriend, and I. I wracked my brain for a topic to talk about.

“Wow, the day is so long. I’m exhausted.”

“…..”

“You’re probably having a harder time because you transferred, right? Are your classes okay?”

“Yeah.”

Eric said halfheartedly. Even when I attempted conversations, he didn’t seem to want to respond. This wasn’t just today–it was usually how it was when we were alone. When there were people around us, he always spoke kindly to me and treated me well.

I never had a long conversation with Eric. Eric seemed to be a boy with low self-esteem but a huge sense of pride. He always loved to talk about his own experiences but didn’t like listening to others’.

I always had to find the topics that he enjoyed speaking about. Most of those topics were the ones that allowed him to brag about himself.

I just told myself that he was like this because he was young, and just let him talk about whatever he wanted. I wanted to get closer to him, even if it was like this. Even if I would’ve cut them off in an instant if he was anybody else.