Anju Khanna 10

Yuri Okabe and I head to the cafeteria.

She's sobbing, which is understandable: she just received a beating from one of her friends and was not allowed into class.

Because of that, I decided to buy her something at the cafeteria. I'm fully aware that won't help her heal her wounds—but if we consider the food she consumes there will help her create more cells that will be in charge of healing said wound, then it would be helpful. Or at least nothing there would alleviate the pain she's currently feeling.

But she seemed to appreciate it quite a bit.

Or maybe she's just acting nice with me. Maybe she understands my actions are nothing but a clumsy and useless effort to help her out.

Or maybe she just wants some juice.

I must investigate more about it.

Anyway, she's still sobbing.

I pat her back lightly, and what can I say to comfort her? According to the internet, these are the most common phrases people use to comfort someone:

1. "Please don't cry": This sounds like her sobbing annoys me and I want her to stop.

2. "It's ok/everything's fine": Well, this is obvious. Besides, she's not sobbing because of something that's happening right now, but because of something that already happened, so the fact everything's fine at this very moment is irrelevant.

3. "Everything's going to be ok": I can't know that; the future is nothing more than endless possibilities.

4. "She's an idiot/she's not worth it/she doesn't deserve you": The fact Nakahara-san hit her doesn't make her an idiot, it just makes her violent, and I don't get the other options. "She's not worth it/she doesn't deserve you?" How can we determine that, and what relevance do they have?

Now, as I expressed before, those options lack sense/basis.

So why do people say them?

Maybe because they don't know what else to say.

Like me.

Anyway, she glances at me and smiles. There's still some tears running through the bandages on her cheeks, but I must say that, despite the circumstances, the tears and the bandages, her face is quite beautiful. I know that the concept of beauty is as abstract as it is incomprehensible but, I don't know, her face is pleasing to the eye.

Although, according to my research, staring at someone is considered rude, and people often feel uncomfortable and/or intimidated about it.

She avoids my gaze.

Yes, I definitely bothered and/or intimidated her.

"I bet you're thinkin' like I'm a dumbass to cry that much," she says.

"No," I reply. "Why would I think that? Because of the circumstances, the fact you're crying is quite understandable."

Ella turns towards me surprised and stares at me.

Is she trying to be rude with me and/or make me feel uncomfortable and/or intimidated?

And now she hugs me. Why? The only thing I did was to tell her "Because of the circumstances, the fact you're crying is quite understandable." Is she hugging me just because of that?

"Thanks," she tells me while she sobs.

Or maybe she understands my intentions of comfort her, and she's just being nice to me.

Or maybe she just wants to hug me.

I must investigate more about this.

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Now we're sitting on the floor. We haven't arrived the cafeteria yet, but she asked me to take a break. I think the cafeteria is a much better place to rest than the end of a hall, and it's pretty close. But she had a rough day so I end up giving in. Also, because the teacher did not allow us to get into class, we have plenty of time to spare until next class starts.

"Hey," she says. She already stopped sobbing, but she still seems a little bit down. "So… idk, why did you join ANIME LIFE or whatever?"

"Well," I reply, "technically I can't join a club if it's not an official one, and I've never agreed to join ANIME LIFE.

"WHAT?!" she seems extremely surprised by this. But why? She doesn't have anything to do with the club, so she shouldn't really care. "SO YOU LIKE ENDED UP HERE AND YOU'RE NOT EVEN IN THE CLUB?!

.

.

.

.

.

.

She bursts into laughter.

"So they like suspended you and all, and you didn't have anything to so with anything," she's still laughing for some reason. But maybe this will help her to forget the bad day she's having."

"Yeah, I guess," I say. "People say I'm really lucky, but I always end up like this. The same happened to me in the other clubs."

"So you tried to get in other clubs?" she gets closer and closer to me and stares at me expectantly. "Tell me everything."

Well, maybe my stories can distract her and brighten her mood, so why not?

"During all this time, I've tried to join several clubs, and some of them even accepted me. But in the end they weren't what I was looking for. The first club I tried to join was the basketball one.

"I always thought you were on the team," she confesses.

"A lot of people have told me that," I tell her. "Anyway, before I joined, I investigated what it was about. I saw games, reviews, analysis, tutorials; I read articles, reports, forums and even manga, and I immediately discovered that basketball was way more than throwing a ball to the basket; there were a lot of strategies, concepts, rules, roles, etcetera.

"When I tried to join the team, the coach immediately put me in some test team, and we started playing. Practically I've never played basketball, so I just humiliated myself there: my teammates passed me the ball several times, and I had a really hard time catching it. When I did, I almost bounced it with both hands, but I remembered that's against the rules, so I started bouncing it with only one hand.

"But the ball bounced on my foot and went out the court.

"After that, the coach told me to stay under the basket to take the rebounds, and so I did. But the ball constantly bouced off the board and went everywhere except where I was.

"When I finally took one of those rebounds, one of my teammates asked me for the ball to start the counterattack.

"And I threw it so hard I ended up shooting it right into the basket on the other side of the court."

"Wait. IT WAS YOU?!" she yelled surprised and excitedly. "It was really you! OMG!"

"Yes, it was me, but I don't know why you are smiling. I missed terribly a simple pass… And how do you know about this?"

"You scored from the other side of the court like a ton of times!" ah, yeah, after I missed that pass, the coach and everyone there asked me to throw the ball a lot of time from a lot of different places. They even cover my eyes, and I think they even recorded all.

Now that I think about it that explains a lot.

"Everyone knows about it!" she just confirmed my suspicions.

"Yeah, well, the coach ended up accepting me in the team. I told him I really wanted to understand more about basketball, but he told me the only thing I was going to do was to throw the ball to the basket.

"That's when I left the team."

"Maybe you should have stayed; you're an amazing shooter. And maybe you'd like end up learning something there."

"I'm not a good shooter," I repeat. "It was just luck, and the chances something like that happens again is practically zero, so they'd probably end up kicking me out of the team sooner or later."

"No, no, no," I don't know why, but she's insisting. "Those shots weren't just luck tbh. You have to show me how you do 'em. Hey, what happened to the other clubs you joined? No. You know what? Let's go to the café, and you tell me there. My ass is freezing."

She gets up and offers me her hand.

That's unnecessary, but I appreciate it.

I take her hand and, with her help, I stand up.

"Let's go," she says and starts walking.

I catch up with her and walk by her side.

She seems to be in a good mood. And is that because she enjoyed my story, because she no longer feels any pain or discomfort, because she tries to be nice to me, or for some other reason?

I must investigate more about this.