A Hybrid of Life and Gasoline | 命とガソリンのハイブリッド

Part 19 | Rip off

On Tuesday at noon, it was raining in Ibaraki. June always was a time for crazy weather in Ibaraki and will continue through July, but this year was different because the rain level was low and temperature was high.

Ippei and Akira were sitting in their classroom, lunch time had just started and they brought out the food they've prepared. Ippei was focusing on the Yakisoba he bought this morning, which looked ghastly but it'd give him enough nutrition to go through the day, while Akira appeared dejected about his rice ball as well, because that's all he could've gotten as the weather meant he couldn't go out and buy anything else.

"I hate the rain, haaaaah." Akira commented while looking out the window, which Ippei thought was pointless as the weather wouldn't change even how much he'd complain.

"You said that like you haven't lived here your whole life. It's always raining in June." Ippei replied nonchalantly.

"I wish tomorrow it'd be sunny..."

"Make a sun doll then."

"That never works... right?"

Akira turned to look at Ippei who's focusing on eating his food like it's not just a terrible mush, at the same time looking at his phone screen and grinning like an idiot from time to time.

"I take it's going really well then." Akira commented.

"Huh?" Ippei turned and looked at Akira, perplexed.

"With you and Sachiko-chan." Akira clarified.

"Oh, right." Ippei seemed to slightly blushed, before turning and chatting with Sachiko via the phone again.

Akira knew this guy was madly in love for sure, Ippei had always been appearing aloof, so when he changed into this grinning idiot it was very obvious to anyone, he's been like this for weeks now and everyone within their circle knew.

Akira couldn't deny he's a bit jealous, a kind of default status for a single guy whose friend was hanging out with less and less, although deeply he's happy for his friend.

"Went somewhere nice on the weekend?" Akira asked though didn't expect Ippei to answer.

"Oh we went to Cinema Sunshine last weekend." Ippei replied, still looking at the phone.

"At Aeon mall?"

"Yeah. We went there to buy some stuff and decided on a whim to watch some movies."

"Something fun? Something romantic? I haven't followed movies for a while now."

That continued question from Akira changed Ippei's expression subtly, it turned more bemused, not unhappy, but it was very weird.

"Well, I wanted to ask you about this, but I wasn't sure..." Ippei said, a bit reluctant.

"What is it?"

"Well, I let Sachiko choose the movie, right? I thought that was the right thing to do in that situation, but the movie she chose was, eh..." Ippei answered, but stopped mid sentence.

"If it's between the understanding of you two, I can't see how that would be an issue."

"Well she chose a movie I had no interest in, but I didn't say anything, yet she insisted on asking if I'm alright with it, I said no, she insisted on having me suggest something else because she didn't want me to be unsatisfied. I insisted that no, I'd be happy to watch it."

Akira's eyes glazed over a bit as Ippei quickly rattled that off. Akira was indeed pretty confused.

"So finally I relented and told her to choose something else, she did, but would that not make her unhappy?" Ippei continued, looking genuinely concerned about all of this.