Soul for a Girlfriend?

251  A Coincidence

I was walking towards the nearest fast-food joint. It was quite cold outside as November was coming towards an end. I was wearing my usual sweatshirt so the chilly weather didn't affect me much.

Days were getting shorter too, as it was only 5 in the evening, but the sky was getting darker. The streets were busy as usual. I was heading towards downtown as that place had a ton of restaurants and fast-food joints.

I used to live in a neighbourhood which was a bit far from the main city. But it didn't bother me much as I realised that living near the downtown or any actively congested place would've been quite a trouble.

The area I lived in was quiet and peaceful, unlike those parts where hordes of people and tons of cars are passing by every few seconds making a lot of noise.

Living there was like a nightmare for me.

I walked up to the fast-food joint and noticed that it was a bit more crowded than usual. Well, it was a Saturday so I wouldn't have expected anything else. I made my way inside the building.

As I entered, the sudden transition in temperature from cold to hot was quite comfortable as they got heaters inside the building. I was quite a frequent customer there, so I was acquainted with the cashier there.

Since I went there a lot, he had a pretty good idea of my go-to orders.

I was having a small talk with the cashier while my order was being prepared. He was talking between the intervals between bills, so it wasn't really an active conversation. It was more like we were just acknowledging each other.

My eyes were wandering around now and then, watching over the groups of people around me. It was unusually packed inside. As I was about to walk off with my order, my shoulder bumped quite roughly with someone. "You…" I heard a raspy voice directed towards me. Looking towards the guy, I noticed it was none other than Shig. He was staring at me, as I broke the ice between us, "What a coincidence seeing you here."

He wasn't really fond of me, neither was I.

"Definitely it is." He replied, and an awkward silence grew between us again. He was holding a piece of paper in his hand, which I assumed was his bill. His dark eyes were gazing at me while he had a plain expression on his face.

Observing the situation wasn't going anywhere, I decided to leave.

I walked past him without trying to continue the conversation any further. As I walked out the door, I turned back and glanced at him for a moment.

Something struck my mind.

I heard the door being pushed open and the figure of Shig walking out of there while looking at his mobile. I waved at him and called out his name, "Hey! Dude…"

He was caught off guard by my voice as he looked around, a bit confused. His gaze fell upon me and narrowed his eyes while asking, "Yea?"

"Can we... Have a talk?"

It was a good opportunity.

"Yeah…" He replied with a bit of hesitation in voice. After staring at me for a moment, he added nervously, "... Actually I wanted to talk about something too."

I found it rather weird that he wanted to talk with me. But it didn't matter since he won't be of much use after that conversation.

We started walking down the street while none of us said anything. It was quite awkward for both of us since we didn't know each other properly and, on top of that, Shig seemed to have some sort of hatred towards me.

"What did you want to talk about?" I asked him, as it was getting a bit awkward between us. He glanced at me and said, "I should be asking that!"

"Well, I just wanted to ask how Shiraishi's doing?" I directly got to the point. He looked at me with a bit of a surprise on his face while the words from his mouth trailed off, "Dude…"

"No, like she hasn't been talking to me." I said with an awkward tone and he raised his eyebrows. I averted towards the road in front of me and added, "We had a fight a few days ago."

"Damn, no comments." I heard him gasp and after a few moments of silence he said, "I don't know fam, I don't talk much with her."

"Well, you have your reasons, so I understand. I thought you might've an idea."

"She… looked normal to be honest with you." He replied in a hesitant tone. I turned towards him with a plain expression on my face as he quickly added, "I mean she looked her usual self, but that's maybe because I only observe her from far."

"Ah, and what about that dude? Who was bullying her?" I asked, as a frown formed on his face and he replied, "That piece of shit isn't talking with her after that day."

"Wasn't that incident very weird?"

Though I haven't given that incident much thought, it was quite unsettling, especially if I considered it from Shiraishi's perspective. Someone randomly writes insults about her and presents it in front of a vast audience.

It was quite a reckless thing to do.

"What do you mean?" Shig asked me with a hint of confusion in his voice. I specified, "That paper with rumours about her."

"Yeah, but I didn't give it much thought. We sought the situation out at the end so it was good." He nodded, and added, "Though I was curious as to who made it. I'm pretty sure it was him."

"He has something against her since she rejected him. What a bastard!" "To be honest, by his reaction, it seemed like he had no idea about that." I said, recalling his reaction and body language. He was indeed bullying her but he really didn't have any idea about the paper.

"For real? I'm pretty suspicious of him. But I didn't confront him since it would just end up escalating the situation." He said as we're walking past a vending machine whose light was flickering.

"Yes, I think."

After all, it was me.

Domo! Author-san here,

Thanks for the power stone support, Guys