They were strolling down the hallway while she was talking to Sorah. Then Sorah met her friends and stopped to chat. Casually greeted each other, the group started talking all kinds of things.
There were five people but only four of them were talking. The fifth one was Midori, which had zilch to say or add to their conversation and kept quiet with a smile on her face. After a few minutes passed, she still stood there saying nothing but being a nice listener.
Midori felt like she was just somebody happened to stand there, listening to their conversation. Someone just happened to be talking with Sorah before the group met; she felt like an outsider that couldn’t join them.
She had wanted to leave when Sorah began to talk to them as she perceived that she couldn’t talk with them about anything. She wasn’t comfortable socializing with them yet. However, the problem was that...
Should I just leave, without saying “bye”? But saying “bye” just somehow feel weird and not would also feel weird.
“...” Gathering the faint courage within her that Midori couldn’t feel but knew about, “...Bye.”
The girls were still chatting, not one of them noticed Midori’s word. She felt awkward for there were a lot of students walking in the hallway.
They didn’t hear me...Maybe I said it too quiet? But there may be people watching...Stating it again would be embarrassing if they can’t hear again.
She stood there for a couple more seconds.
Even if they heard me, it would be awkward especially when the other three stare at me. It would be uncomfortable if only Sorah said bye to me but would also be odd if all of them said bye to me. Maybe I should just leave...even if it’s weird to suddenly disappear like that.
Midori smiled meekly, her eyes blankly gazing at a random place rigidly, and turned around to leave.
Returned to the cloth stool, she started reading till the first class was about to start.
-----
At dinner, the family were talking about politics and news.
Noukyuu placed some rice into his mouth with a pair of chopsticks and sighed, “If this keeps going, Vietnam will surely be destroyed by China.”
“What did China do?” Nanaka asked.
“The food is replaced with fake food made from plastic and chemical. Hence, restaurants’ food is fake.”
Midori said, “Then what about home-grown plants?”
“The water is polluted and if water is polluted, even soil would not be spared of toxins. Restaurants’ food is dangerous but home-grown food is also poisonous.”
Clicking his tongue, he snorted, “Even medicine is fake. Eat food make you sick and taking medicines to stop the sickness would only make it worse.”
“China is China after all, it has always been cruelly ambitious since centuries ago.” Nanaka spooned some miso soup into her rice bowl. “They want the world, changing the Earth to China," she bit her chopstick a few moment later. "..."
"Eating so well," sarcastically, Tosaka said then chewed on her food.
-----
After watching ENN, the daily news of the school, Midori was interested in the Model UN Club. The club was about politic and United Nation related stuff and she was interested in dragging China down. She didn’t want China to success in their path to taking over the world.
Although I dislike politic and I don’t need to become a politician to drag that country down, I still need to know it to be a good business person. Politic is similar to economic, there are skills that both share, it wouldn’t be bad to know what it’s really like being a politician.
“I’m going to give back your test papers. Don’t put it away, I’m going to collect it later.” Mrs. Amado picked up a pile of papers from her desk and started walking around the students' desks.
The teacher placed the test paper face-down on Midori's desk and moved on. Midori flipped her test paper over and saw a neat and nicely put A-, 45 out of 50. Looking through the paper, she supported her forehead with her palm, her face had a smile, but it was twitching ever so slightly due to irritation.
How many times has this happened, Midori!? You could have easily gotten a perfect score if you didn’t make such a stupid mistake like this. Why did you add when you are supposed to subtract!? And this is a 1 not 7!...Why did I make the 1 looks so similar to 7?
In period 7, orchestra, Midori figured that her locker sharer was a member of the Model UN club. While putting their instruments away, she asked, “You’re in Model UN, right? Badenah?”
Badenah raised her head to look at her, “Yeah.”
“So, how is Model UN?”
“Oh. Well, we will be assigned to a country and write a paper proposing how to solve the country’s problems…”
Hearing her short and laconic explanation, Midori was more interested in joining the club.
Even though it is in the middle of the year, it is still better than starting next year. Badenah said that you will only get something from the clubs at graduation if you joined it for all four years, didn’t she?
That afternoon when the end-of-the-day bell rang, she went upstairs to go to her locker. Along the way, she came to look into the class that was of the teacher who advised the Model UN club. Unfortunately, the room had its door closed and there was no light inside.
There is only one reason for this that makes sense— he isn’t here for the whole day. If he is here, he would still be in his classroom since school just ended...I’ll look for him tomorrow.
Actually, Midori felt relieved that Mr. Aper wasn’t there. She was quite anxious about coming because she once came to the class at the start of the year, but they were in session that day, discouraging her from entering.
She finished any homework that she didn’t finish in class and put it in her locker before taking her coat and lunchbox out and lock the locker. Walking down to the music hall and into the practice room, she put her stuff down and went to get her violin.
She told me that she’ll be here at 4:30 pm. so don’t use your phone while you’re in here, only use it when you are out of the music hall. There should be no problem today, I told her very clearly.