Before My Memories With You Melt Away in Tears - Episode 11

The incident started from something really trivial. A few days after starting to date Kyoya, it was the second period of one day. In a slightly noisy classroom, I changed the direction of my desk and sat facing my friends. On the blackboard, the words “What would you say in English in this situation?” were written, and various illustrations depicting different scenarios were stuck on the board.

“Hey, but isn’t that weird?”
“Right? That’s what I said too! I told them not to joke around.”

Across from me, Shuri and Fujino were happily complaining about someone. Since I didn’t want to talk badly about someone I didn’t know, I gave a forced smile and nodded along, while writing answers down in my notebook.

I wanted to ask, “Aren’t you going to do this?” but I hesitated to interrupt their conversation. Besides, thinking about how they would react if I said that made my stomach hurt, so I decided not to ask.

The first question was easy, but the second one was unexpectedly difficult. I could probably combine some unknown words to come up with an answer, but I couldn’t come up with the right words on the spot.

To answer with only the English words I knew…

While I was thinking about this, I suddenly heard a loud thud, like something had been slammed on the desk at the front of the classroom. I quickly turned to look.

“Hey, what are you all doing?”

Standing in front of the teacher’s desk, English teacher Kanemoto raised her voice, almost hysterically. The moment she did, I could feel every single person’s gaze in the classroom shift toward her.

“Do you all understand what I said?”

I lowered my gaze to the wooden grain of my desk and stayed silent. It seemed like my classmates were in a similar situation, as the once noisy classroom had gone completely quiet.

“You’re not elementary school students! Why can’t you do what I told you? What you should be talking about right now is not how you plan to spend your afternoon or badmouthing your boyfriend, nor even the excitement of winning at your club competition. It should be about the topic on the blackboard!”

Her reasoning was so spot-on that I couldn’t argue back. I just waited with a serious expression, hoping her anger would pass. Then, once the tension died down, I figured we could have a proper discussion. But when I casually looked up, I locked eyes with Kanemoto-sensei.

A bad feeling crept over me.

Kanemoto-sensei gave me a bright smile before walking toward me, the sound of her heels echoing on the floor. When she reached my desk, she grabbed my notebook.

“Ah,” I gasped.

After looking closely at my notebook, Kanemoto-sensei nodded with satisfaction.

“When I looked earlier, I noticed that only Okamachi-san was alternating between the blackboard and the notebook. I thought you were probably writing an answer to the question. But when I look at your group…”

Kanemoto-sensei’s gaze shifted to Shuri and Fujino, who were sitting next to me. She started scolding them, comparing them to me. If she kept doing that…

“Eh, no, no! It’s not like that! We just asked Ayaka to summarize our answers for us, right, Shuri?”
“Ah, yeah, yeah! We just divided the roles—one to come up with the answers and the other to summarize them.”

The two of them quickly came up with excuses and threw them at Kanemoto-sensei. But no adult is going to be fooled by such childish lies, especially not a teacher.

“Really? But you seemed to be having so much fun talking,” Kanemoto-sensei said, narrowing her eyes at them.

“Well, we like English, so it’s natural for us to have fun, right?”
“You like English, huh?”

Kanemoto-sensei’s eyes were squinted even more, as if she didn’t buy it.

“Well then, let me ask you something.”
“What is it?”

I had a bad feeling about this.

“Can you tell me one of the sentences Okamachi-san has written in her notebook? If you really came up with it yourselves, you should be able to answer, right?”

Fujino froze, unable to speak. Shuri, with a face that seemed to say “maybe we should apologize now,” looked troubled.

But it seemed like Fujino was too far in to back down. She glanced at the blackboard, checked the problem, and answered.

“Well, that’s wrong.”

There were many different ways to say the same thing, so Fujino’s answer was definitely a possibility in my mind. Unfortunately, the phrasing I thought was clearer and more straightforward seemed like the better option, so I gave my own answer instead.

I quietly peeked at Fujino. She was glaring at Kanemoto-sensei, frustrated with the result.

In the end, after a bit more scolding from the teacher, the class shifted from group answers to individual answers. I couldn’t help but think that if we had done this from the start, the unnecessary conflict could have been avoided. As I gave my answer for the picture in question, I reflected on how things might have gone differently.

“Wasn’t Kanemoto-sensei’s logic weird during class?”

After the English class ended, Fujino pouted as she slammed her notebook shut.

“Yeah, seriously, I didn’t get why she was that mad,” Shuri agreed, crumpling her textbook and tapping the desk in frustration.

I could only give a wry smile, watching them.

“If she didn’t want us to make a fuss, she should have just kept us in groups from the start,” Fujino continued. “I mean, we were talking, but it wasn’t like we weren’t discussing the lesson at all.”
“Yeah, exactly. We were talking about it at first, and then she got mad just because we were talking during one part. That’s a bit much, don’t you think?”

When she said “at first,” I almost smiled, but quickly retracted it.

“What are you laughing at?”

“Huh?”

Fujino’s voice was cold.

“You were looking at me like you were annoyed. Why?”
“N-no, I wasn’t!”

I quickly denied it, but Fujino was staring at me intently.

“You know, Ayaka, sometimes I can’t figure out what you’re thinking.”
“Eh…?”

I was caught off guard. It felt like Fujino could see right through my weakness.

“I don’t think that’s true… But if I made you feel that way, I’m sorry.”

I knew I shouldn’t do it, but instinctively, I smiled. I knew it was only going to make Fujino more upset.