"Yeah, it's hard to imagine looking at her now." The corners of his lips lifted a bit as he tried to smile, but his emotions were taking over him.

"Yeah…" I nodded.

"Even though she is a changed person from what she was in middle school, she still feared bullying." A wry smile formed on his face, but his eyes said otherwise.

"Was she bullied badly?" The way Uyeno and Isobe assaulted her, the way Kizhashi reacted to that, might be the result of her past trauma getting stirred up in that moment.

"She never told me in detail, neither did I ask her." He said in a rather low tone.

"That's a good thing that you didn't pry her." I really respected Gaisen from this perspective because he genuinely cared for other people.

"Yeah, but every time she recalled those memories, I don't know what they were… she would always ask me for a hug." He said with an awkward smile.

"That's…" I didn't know what to say, so I kept quiet and let him continue.

"I know… even though I was pretending to date her, I somehow made her comfortable with me." He had a smile worthy of regrets while he reminisced about these memories.

"That's a good thing… why don't you two actually go out now that you are comfortable with each other?" I asked what any reasonable person would do, but it seemed like there was a catch to it.

"We can't… what we have between us is more like an agreement made from my sheer goodwill." He said while staring at me.

"So neither of you have romantic feelings for one another?" An agreement? What is he even talking about? And what's with Kizhashi and these weird deals she keeps making with other people.

"Nope." He shrugged and chuckled.

"That's weird." I narrowed my eyes at him.

"I had my reasons for what I did… but every time I looked in her eyes… those empty void eyes… I feel so helpless." He clenched his fists and his jaws tightened.

"I… uh…"

"And I did the same thing with Koi again… I couldn't help her. I was still the useless trash I was back in middle school." He slammed his hand on the armrest of the bench with so much force that I felt the vibration.

"I haven't changed at all. I can't help people. I'm weak." I was shocked to look at this side of him because he was always this happy-go-lucky person.

"I couldn't help my friend back then, and now Koi too… Why!?" His pent up frustration was finally leaking out.

"Your friend?" He has never mentioned this friend before.

"Takeda Ryō." He looked up at the sky and said in a deep voice.

"Huh?"

"He was my best friend in middle school… and my only friend…" His voice was trailing as a strong gust of wind flew by us.

"We used to sit together, talk with each other all day long. Now that I think about it, he was the first person who I ever talked with in middle school." He continued his story, and I didn't interrupt him for once.

"I still remember how we started talking… I was eating along during the lunchtime on a table in the far corner of the cafeteria and he joined me with a bright smile on his face. I found him irritating back then, but over time, he became one of my closest friends." He looked at me with a bitter smile and his eyes seemed so sad. It was really an unusual sight for me.

"I'm assuming he was a victim of bullying too?" I asked, but he didn't respond and the silence between us grew. Seems like his mind wasn't here at all.

A few moments later he looked at me and said, "...Yes"

"I didn't mean to make you remember some horrible memories. Sorry." Looking at him, I realised that I did something bad unintentionally.

"No… no it's fine." He smiled.

"He was bullied, really badly every day. To the point that he stopped coming to school. I later found out that he transferred school but was diagnosed with dysthymia and was suicidal." His voice was shaking, but it wasn't from fear.

"All this because I was too scared to stand for him. Because I didn't want to be the target of their bullying." It was from his sense of failure.

"The thought of helping him crossed my mind every time they would do something horrible to him in front of me. But the thought of them doing those to me always overwhelmed me." His righteousness and his firm sense of justice were killing him by trapping him in the guilt trip.

"When Koi asked me to help her, I couldn't deny her because the smiling face of Ryō would always appear in front of me."

"And so you agreed to this deal?" I asked in a stern voice.

"I didn't want Koi's smile to disappear like it happened with Ryō. The boy who used to make me smile forgot how to laugh for himself." He was sinking in the void of despair.

"You're indeed a trash Gaisen." I said in a cold voice while staring right into his eyes.

His eyes grew wide, and he said with much desperation in his voice, "I know… at the end, I again failed to protect Koi from Uyeno's group. What am I even doing!?"

"Pretending to date someone? To help them? And failing that?" My eyebrows were tense and there was a stiff frown on my face.

"But…" He opened his mouth, but I interrupted him.

"You're pathetic!"

"I…"

"You're pathetic for thinking that you can help everyone. You can't save everyone, Gaisen." My gazes shifted from the can in hand to his gloomy eyes.

"B… but…" He tried to say something, but it didn't matter anyway.

I continued, "To stand by someone's side means to leave another's. It's just how things work. As creatures with desire inside our hearts, we will always have to leave something behind in order to move forward."

"Even so, I just had to help a single person, but I failed." His head was hanging from his shoulders and his eyes were locked on his shoes. There was a brief moment of silence between us.

"Look at me when I'm talking." My tone was harsher than usual.