Date Her Instead Vol. 3

Chapter Eleven: Chiyo Wakabayashi

As Michi marched through the halls, she wondered what it was that made her move. "I don't even care about her," she thought. "Why am I even the one out here? Shouldn't it be that stupid Endo-san? They're supposed to be friends right?" However, despite her complaining, Michi's feet still carried her forward. She went through one hallway, then another, even checking bathrooms along the way, but Chiyo was nowhere to be found.

"Agh, what the hell! Where is she?!" Michi yelled inside. Her frustration continued to build. Part of it was certainly being caused by not being able to find Chiyo, but most of her anger was aimed at herself and failing to understand why she was the one looking.

What had driven her? What had made her think "She's not okay?" Why was it that out of everyone at that table, Michi was the one that got up? She hated Chiyo. She couldn't stand her. The gal's method of wearing her uniform was disgraceful to the entire school, if not the entire city of Iwanai. Her way of speaking was obnoxious, she clung to others without asking and was by far one of the weirdest people Michi had ever met.

Chiyo lived up to her reputation as a gyaru. She slept around, the students knew about it and she even joked about it. If someone was curious and asked her about it, she'd start telling stories about her sex life. Outside of school, her clothes were even looser than her uniform and Michi was sure that Chiyo hit on multiple guys a day.

Overall the idea of gyaru-ism (or whatever you'd call it) made Michi sick. To her, it was like girls giving out their bodies like free candy. Their coating was sickly sweet, but have too much of it and you were sure to lose your appetite. They flaunted their assets, held no regard to their surroundings or other people nearby and completely did whatever they felt like. The fact that anyone could think acting in such a way was acceptable at all was one Michi didn't understand.

Before Chiyo had appeared in Iwanai, Michi couldn't really recall any other girls like her. There was Jasmine, but her beauty was so high that it just seemed natural she'd look the way she did. That wasn't to say Chiyo didn't have looks either, but it sometimes felt like she had to try harder. And, perhaps, that was what Michi hated most of all. Maybe it wasn't always the case. Maybe some of those girls were just like that, but to Michi, the whole "fashionable, flashy, trendy girl with make-up and dyed hair" just felt fake.

Talking to Chiyo had only further proven her point. In the conversations she had had with the gal, Michi was sure she'd probably never gotten any sort of genuine response or real answer to a question. Dancing around with words, Chiyo had seemingly master the art of saying what she wanted to without anyone else understanding. That was something that really irritated Michi. She was straight-forward and told it like she saw it. If someone asked her a question, she answered. If someone wanted her opinion, she gave it. Was it always what people wanted? Absolutely not, but at least Michi could take solace in knowing she had spoken her mind.

With her own personality so drastically different from someone like Chiyo, Michi found it easy to dislike her kind. And yet... she strode on. Stomping step by stomping step, Michi meticulously checked every room she came across, every tucked-away corner and every place in between in search of the gal. She didn't get it. She couldn't get it. What was it that made Michi want to find her? She didn't know. In order to find an answer, she'd have to dig. Far, far into the depths of her heart would she have to go to able to truly understand why she was doing what she was doing. But currently, for the Michi that existed now, going that deep was impossible. So all she could do was march through her school.

When she reached the third floor, Michi got the feeling that she had walked into a ghost town. Most of the classrooms were for third-years, but the years themselves weren't exclusively divided up by floor. A couple of the rooms had been mark for first-years in the current school year. There had been complaints initially, but considering third-years don't have to show up every day anyways, it quickly became a moot point. Aside from the classrooms, there wasn't much else. A small room for making copies was down the hall and next to it was a small computer lab. Nothing else was really worth mentioning.