Time Of Our Lives; Kirisuna

Chapter 62: How Others Fare

Third Person POV:

Silica exited the science lab as soon as class ended and shoved her hand into her backpack as she shuffled around for her schedule. She grimaced once she saw the red circle drawn around her next class.

The Student Council had recently proposed to hold a school tour for the transfer students and first years with every member assigned to supervise a specific class.

Unfortunately, she's struggled to fulfill her duties for the past two days. She sighed unable to discard her responsibilities and dragged her feet to her assigned class, class 2-B.

The class in question was already lined outside upon her arrival. The class leader, Takuya, stepped aside and greeted her with a bow.

"We'll be in your care again, senpai!" He beamed with a smile.

Despite meeting like this for the past two days, Silica still felt embarrassed. After all, in addition to being popular among their classmates, a class leader had to be an exceptional student.

Silica saw herself as inferior to Takuya.

"L-Likewise, T-Takuya." Silica stuttered under Takuya's extroverted nature, "So, where are we going?"

"We decided to head for the gymnasium today. Of course, class 1-C also agreed. They're probably there as we speak!"

"T-Then, let's go!"

Takuya, with her permission, took charge and led them to the gymnasium.

Silica lagged behind the group. Due to her incompetence, she held the class back and reprimanded herself for her tardiness.

I never do anything right. She thought as she fumbled around with her fingers.

They arrived inside the spacious gymnasium and merged with class 1-C. The classes sat on the smooth, cold floor as Takuya and Kouichi, class 1-C's leader, instructed them to.

Silica didn't want to get in their way and distanced herself from them. Her partner, Tanaka, noticed her behavior and stood beside her.

She sidestepped away from him, but Tanaka simply closed the distance again. This repeated itself until Tanaka had had enough.

"Are you gonna keep going?" He said.

"W-What do you mean?" Silica averted her eyes.

"At this rate, you're gonna hit the wall."

Tanaka pointed past her and she followed his finger only to jump back in surprise. She estimated three feet were left before she hit the gymnasium's wall.

"I...I didn't notice..."

Silica stepped away from the wall and returned with Tanaka to the group.

Tanaka, unable to restrain himself, asked. "Is something wrong? You've acted like this since we started two days ago."

Silica looked down at his comment. She hadn't noticed she'd acted strange. Once again, she was reminded of how much of a burden she was.

Tanaka noticed her expression clouded, "Something is wrong, right?"

Without turning to him, Silica said, "Nothing's wro---"

She was cut off when Tanaka grabbed her shoulders and forced her to look him in the eye. Silica stiffened from the sensation of his touch.

She recalled the last time this had happened to her.

Last year, when Eiji had gotten into trouble with a group of boys, to rescue him she had followed Kirito's orders and tried to seduce their leader, Ken, to get the truth.