The Best Friend of the Person I Like is Secretly Approaching Me - Chapter 1

Part 1: I Can Take Her Place

Chapter 1

How many people actually remember the moment they fell in love?

Some might not even be aware it happened.

Only later do they think, ‘Maybe it was at that moment.’

It’s common for people to ask couples how they first met or fell in love.

The answer usually highlights one of several moments that made a good impression on them.

But the truth might be that they were already infatuated with each other before that moment.

Because when you’re infatuated, you start to notice all the good things about the other person.

Even if you mention the most impactful moment, I wonder if that can really explain why you fell for them.

Such complicated thoughts race through my mind, the mind of Seko Rento.

I am in love right now too.

I thought to myself, ‘I am truly living my high school life.’

No matter the outcome, I hope I can be proud of my youth in the future.

I say ‘no matter the outcome,’ but of course, I’m hoping for a happy ending.

In other words, I hope this love will be fulfilled.

But I’ve started to think that this love might never come to fruition.

Because——

***

The first time I realized I was in love was on the first day of my last year in middle school.

Back then, I was the class clown.

In the closed community of a school, a social hierarchy naturally forms.

Students categorize each other into those who obey and those who make them obey roles subconsciously.

Although it seems like individual choices, there’s often a common understanding among the groups, which is interesting.

But because of that, these roles become fixed.

A common understanding is formed among dozens of people, and it’s quite terrifying.

The upper class can get away with anything.

If they act playful during class, everyone laughs; if they act harshly to someone else, everyone decides the other person is in the wrong.

On the other hand, the lower classes can’t get away with much; life is a bit restrictive.

They’re aware of this; that’s why they gather at the edges of the room, quietly going about their lives and enjoying themselves in their own way.

So what about the middle class?

They can belong to either the upper or the lower.

Some try to break into the top, feeling they’re better than people think, while others act passively and settle into the bottom.

People in the middle class are generally proactive, but I was different.

I would call myself passive.

However, I found myself in an upper class group before I knew it.

It wasn’t because I was appreciated.

I was simply brought in as a toy for the upper class—a clown, in other words.

When we moved up to middle school, students from various elementary schools gathered, making the community we lived in larger than before.

Perhaps for that reason, the caste system became more rigid than in elementary school, and people were divided even more clearly, at the top or bottom.

That’s why, from my entrance into middle school until my third year, the laid-back life I had as a middle-class student in elementary school was taken from me, and a life of being picked on by the upper class began.

The upper class had a certain allure.

Their mere chatter felt like the epitome of youth, full of charm and vitality.

Maybe I, too, seemed radiant from an outsider’s perspective.

But my heart was impoverished. I was placed in a position I never asked for, swallowed up by an atmosphere that treated it as the norm.

I lost sight of why I even existed here. Yet I couldn’t bring myself to make a move, which is why I am where I am today.

When I moved up to the second year, I thought I’d say goodbye to this position, but the caste system was unchanging, universal, and ruthless.

So even when I progressed to the third year, and the classes were shuffled, it continued.

True to that, the upper class boys would gesture to me sometimes, saying, ‘Hey, come over here.’

It wasn’t exactly a friendly invitation, but I still came.

“I heard this guy is good at impersonations. Come on, show us. Do that popular scene from the current drama.”

I’ve been in the same class as him since the first year, and he’s always thrown these impossible demands at me, laughing at my pathetic responses.

I know this, and yet, stupidly, I still do it.

I glance at the group and notice a face I hadn’t seen before.

A girl who is in my class for the first time after the shuffle.

It seems he wants to impress her.

But that doesn’t matter now. I just have to do as told.

“Double Payback!!!”

I imitate a scene from a drama I only briefly saw my mother watching at home.

I’m not actually good at impersonations, and I don’t even know the show well, so the quality can be imagined.

But it’s exactly what he ordered.

“Hahaha! Man, you suck! Were you lying about being good at this?”

Starting with his laughter, the classmates around us began to laugh too. I lower my head, letting out a forced chuckle.

But there was one person not laughing.

“Boring.”

The moment she uttered that word, the atmosphere froze.

The boy who had set me up was flustered, and the others awkwardly looked away.

“Ah, you didn’t find it funny? Hey, Seko! It’s because you made such a boring impression——”

“You’re the one who made him do it, right? Why are you blaming him? And everyone else, all of you just go along with it. Doesn’t anyone think this situation is weird? …Such boring people.”

She spoke in a tone of disgust. My classmates who had been playing with me suddenly seemed so small.

The next moment, our eyes met.

I felt myself being drawn into her large, beautiful black eyes.

“You just go along with what they say without any will of your own, huh? How boring.”

With that, she turned on her heel as her long, beautiful black hair trailing behind her as she walked away from us.

After that, they never messed with me again.

Then I realized I no longer had a place in the upper class group, and I wondered if I’d be alone from now on.

But her words kept echoing in my mind: a man without his own will is boring.

I knew I couldn’t go on like this. I wanted to change.

I realized that to do that, I had to take action to break this situation.

Actively taking the initiative, I was left with two options: trying to win favor with the upper class or finding a place among the lower class.

The upper class was out of the question. So, I headed for the lower class.

“Um, excuse me.”

“Huh…?”

“…Yes?”

It was lunchtime.

When I approached a group chatting in a corner of the classroom, they gave me a puzzled look upon seeing my face.

Of course, they had seen the whole ordeal.

They probably thought I was coming to them because I had been cast aside by the upper echelon.

I couldn’t blame them for thinking so.

But I couldn’t just give up now. I had to hold on.

“I’m sorry if I overheard, but I thought you guys were talking about ‘Torupani.’ Could I join the conversation?”

‘Torupani’, officially titled “Tornado Panic”, is a shonen manga where the protagonist uses wind magic to fend off monsters attacking the heroine.

The manga is known for the slightly risqué scenes caused by the wind magic.

They had been chatting about ‘Torupani’ earlier, and since I’m also a fan, I thought I might be able to join in.

One of my classmates, adjusting his glasses, asked,

“…Who’s your favorite character?”

“Uh, maybe… Fū-chan?”

“Hmm. The spirited girl, Fū. What do you like about her?”

“She’s always cheerful and sets the mood, but she’s actually very observant and secretly worried behind their back. Also… she’s quietly in love with the protagonist.”

“I get it!!! Casual fans might just appreciate her cheerful disposition or her kind nature, but her real charm lies elsewhere! The duality of her character, the juxtaposition of her public and private faces, and her hidden love! Ohh, the sweetness of it. You’ve got good taste.”

“Th-thank you.”

The unexpectedly enthusiastic reaction caught me off guard.

However, inside, I felt elated. It felt as if a fog that had clouded my vision suddenly lifted.

Since entering junior high, I had never talked about the manga I read.

It felt like the first time I ever expressed my personal preferences.

“By the way, I’m team Wind-chan. Those big boobs are the best.”

“Come on! That’s such a casual fan comment.”

“How dare you! You can’t talk about Wind-chan without mentioning her assets!”

“Oda-san, you’re is still inexperienced. By the way, my waifu is Tatsumaki-chan. Lolis are supreme.”

“…..”

“…Hmm?”

“It’s not ‘hmm?’, are you not going to continue? That’s shallow.”

“One doesn’t need to say much to describe the charm of Tatsumaki-chan.”

“Spoken like a true diplomat.”

Talking with them, I often find myself playing the straight man to their jokes.

The banter feels refreshing, and they laugh heartily.

This way, I started spending more time with them, both inside and outside of school.

While having one of our usual silly conversations in the classroom, I felt a gaze upon me.

Turning in its direction, there she was — the girl who inspired me to take the initiative, Misa Yosaki.

It was the second time that our eyes met. The last time, she looked at me with an expression of disbelief. But this time——

“Fufu—”

She was smiling.

It was then that I realized I had fallen for Misa Yosaki.

Or perhaps, I had fallen for her from the moment she gave me that turning point in life.

I can’t tell which one is true. It’s one of those things that only God knows.

In the end, throughout the roughly one year until our junior high graduation, I never confessed to her.

However, we did occasionally talk, and importantly, we were going to the same high school, so I wasn’t in a big hurry.

But I started feeling that if I continued like this, I’d just drag things on without making a move.

I might have changed, but being proactive and being assertive are different things.

Upon entering high school, I decided to shift gears from being merely proactive to being truly assertive.

Being simple-minded, I called her to the back of the school building on the day of our entrance ceremony.

“Why?”

The wind picked up, and her hair swayed as cherry blossoms danced around——it was a magical sight.

Entranced by her, I confessed my feelings.

“I like you… Please go out with me!”

Straightforward words of confession devoid of any suaveness.

The ‘ultimate confession’ that I had thought of all night wasn’t even on my mind. It had vanished the moment I saw her.

In the early spring when the cold still lingers, my face feels hot, and I can even feel the warmth in my ears.

Upon hearing my confession, she looked momentarily surprised, then showed that same smile from before and said,

“I’m sorry.”