Besides the odd stares from Shizuku while I tried to eat my lunch, the lunch period wrapped up smoothly without any trouble.

We went through the rest of our classes as per usual and the end of the day now greeted us after a long day of hard work.

Sakura had her extracurriculars and clubs to tend after, so she left after waving goodbye to me.

In contrast, Shizuku sat glued to her seat with a lost look on her face.

She looked around the classroom a couple times with an innocent puppy-like look, but no one minded her since everyone was heading somewhere already.

Looks like it's up to this good samaritan to take care of her!

Or so I would like to say, but I don't want to get in anyone's business if they don't want me to.

It's a golden rule of mine to be a non-interfering observer!

With that, I'll make my swift exit and go home to enjoy some R&R with me, myself, and I.

Even if it's a bit selfish on my part, getting involved with other people is a pain in the butt.

I began to leave the room after grabbing all my belongings, but I felt the hem of my shirt being pulled on.

It wasn't a strong tug, rather it was quite gentle.

Since there wasn't anyone else around me in an arm's reach, it could've only been one person.

I turned around to face the person who had decided to tug on my shirt.

"What's up?" I asked Shizuku.

In a rare moment of flusteredness, Shizuku releases her hold on me immediately. "A-ah. U-um..."

What's with the embarrassment?

"Hey, I can help you if you need something," I explained to her.

In response to my helpful suggestion, Shizuku nodded.

"Please show me around town."

***

How did I end up escorting one of the most prettiest girls in school?

We're currently walking around the town, with me being the tour guide and pointing everything out.

Even though Shizuku was supposedly a transfer student, she looked around town with a look of nostalgia.

As if she had been here before...

Maybe it's just my eyes playing tricks on me.

Looking at her once again, there was definitely a hint of a smile on that delicate and youthful face.

The sparkle in her eyes also alluded to the excitement that she was hiding within her body.

Eventually, we sat down at a bench at a local park after having spent a decent amount of time scouring the town and observing the different spots that the town had to offer.

"Was this little homely town off the coast of nowhere to your liking?" I asked, in a sarcastic tone.

Shizuku seemed to not get the sarcastic remark, as evident by her frantic expression.

"Wa-wa-wait! That's not what I'm thinking!" She frantically tried to explain. "I-I really like this town. It feels like home..."

"Home...?" I asked, questioning what part of this unimportant town feels like her home.

After mulling over it for a few moments, Shizuku finally found an answer. "Nice, comfortable, and relaxing. A peaceful place without much trouble and very little change. That's what my home was like. That's what this town feels like."

There was a thin smile on Shizuku's face when she explained what her previous living situation was like.

While she was talking, her stoic demeanor seemed to somewhat loosen up a bit as I got to have a deeper look into her personal feelings that she had been hiding.

In addition to her frail-like appearance that had never been seen before, I noticed that there was also a tinge of loneliness in her expression.

"Can't you go back home and experience that feeling again?" I inquired.

I knew that there had to be a good reason for her to have such powerful feelings of happiness for a place and also have an expression of loneliness whilst talking about it.

She probably had a very good reason for not having said anything about it so far, but I still wanted to pry in deeper.

Ever if it wasn't something I should be asking, curiosity was the root of discovery and existing as a human.

It seemed as if my efforts bore fruit, since she looked as if she didn't care that much about revealing the truth to me.

"It's a place that's there, but also not there. A place where I can always see it, but can't see it at the same time. It's a place I can visit, but it won't be the same as the last time that I saw it."

Shizuku explained her hometown in a very riddle-like way, which made me want to interrogate her more about it.

However, my intuition was telling me not to cross this line.

It was telling me that things between us could change as a result of me moving forward.

Let's not pry any deeper, I've done enough today.

"Thanks for telling me about your home," I said, thankfully. "It must've been lonely moving to a new place."

When I talked about the loneliness of moving to a new place, Shizuku's expression surprisingly got more bright in contrast to what I had thought it was going to be like.

Timidly, Shizuku looked up to me with an awe-striking smile on her face. "It's not that lonely. I mean, I have Sakura and..."

"And...?" I asked, in anticipation of her next words.

Shizuku continued with what she was saying, regardless if I had asked or not.

"...I have you."