Chat over lunch

Ch 59

POV Makoto Shinji

Can a person with no presence be called a protagonist? Probably not.

I wondered as I looked at the person sitting across the table from me.

"This is the first time that someone noticed and called me out you know?" Arakawa muttered softly while looking at his bento on the table.

I almost forgot that he was a guy for a moment as my heart rate quickened at his soft voice. His face looked so lonely and cute that if I were a girl in a shoujo manga, I would have fallen for him on the spot.

I quickly shook of the "susness" in my heart and focused on the situation. I could somewhat understand how Arakawa felt. He had been alone for so long that he had forgotten what it felt like to exist in the eyes of others. Just like me who had hidden his true self for so long from others, all this time he was isolated from the others as well. Alone at school, alone at home, alone at… work?

Wait a minute.