A Book Can't Be Judged By The Cover Chapter 75: Uninvited Visitors

Stare.

Stare.

Stare.

Haji sat on the floor, opposite of the three girls who happened to invite themselves to his place without his consent. ’They were already there, and it would be more embarrassing if they cause a scene outside in front of my place. Sigh~ what are they doing here? Did I call them here? No, there’s no way I did.’ Shaking his head, Haji stood up and brushed his pants, indifferently ignoring their stares as he headed to the kitchen area where the sink was. "Does anyone want so tap water? My treat." He casually offered.

’What are they doing here, anyways,’ Confused, Haji headed to the sink even before any of them accepted his offer. In the end, he decided to grab three glasses and give them a glass of water each.

"Thanks, and um... this is for you, Haji." Fuuka was the first one to give the tangerines, which made the other two, Natsumi and gumi, glare at her. It’s as if there was an unwritten rule that they were supposed to give their tangerines together— or so that’s what Fuuka processed from their wordless act.

Without saying anything, Natsumi and gumi also handed him their bags of tangerines, which made Haji wonder if this is so sort of elaborate prank that the three of them ca up with. ’I don’t need this many tangerines. What on earth?’ Haji inwardly said to himself but he accepted the bags with a light thank you anyways.

Setting the tangerines by the counter in the kitchen area right beside the sink, Haji rejoined the group and sat opposite them. It took a lot of fidgeting, and awkward stares, as well as undetermined pauses before Haji cleared his throat and asked the question he’d been aning to ask. "So, what brings the three of you here?"

With a slight lean, the three of them stole a glance at each other before avoiding each other’s gazes altogether. After the second bout of fidgeting, Fuuka was once again the proactive one to answer first.

Rummaging through her pockets, she found her phone and approached Haji, showing him a text ssage that her older sister sent her just a couple of hours ago. "She was worried, you didn’t attend school for three days. Did sothing happen, by any chance?"

"Here, your printouts." Natsumi simply said. "Akamine-sensei told to bring these to you. And also... " Before Haji could reach out his hand towards Natsumi, she retracted the printouts and grabbed sothing from her bag.

Unsurprisingly, it was none other than the oversized bento she always carried around in hopes that she could give it to Haji. She finally found the chance, albeit the chance happening at the wrong timing. "... here. I’d wanted to give this to you during lunch but turns out you were absent. What happened?"

"Thanks... you didn’t have to go through all the trouble though." Haji felt guilty that Natsumi had been aning to give him lunch. He felt bad that he didn’t actually attend school today. But then again, it’s not like he couldn’t.

Up until now, after all, he still had great difficulty moving around due to the injuries he sustained from the one-sided beating up of the three debt collectors. Just rembering it alone made his broken rib scream in pain. Wincing, Haji set the oversized bento beside him.

His glance then panned towards gumi who hasn’t spoken a single word. Unlike the first two, she didn’t actually have a reason as to why she stopped by. Because of that, she couldn’t look Haji straight in his eyes and reason out that they were friends. There were two people in the room and besides, she knew she’d feel greatly embarrassed if she said sothing along those lines.

Suppressing the redness that was about to surface on her visage, she bit her lips and turned sideways before Haji could even ask her anything.

Knock.

Knock.

’Great, another one.’ Haji threw his hands in the air as he approached the door. Of course, he didn’t wear a disappointed expression so the three girls thought that he just did that out of impulse.

It was Franz.

"Young sir, pardon the intrusion," Franz muttered, giving Haji a formal bow as a greeting before settling down on the floor right beside where Haji sat all this ti.

In return, Haji returned the bow before offering Franz a glass of water after he sat down.

"You seem to be wearing a lot of bandages all over your body, young sir," Franz comnted after drinking.

"Ah, about that..."

Finally getting the cue to tell everyone what happened, Haji simply summarized it, telling everyone that he got into a fight— that one thing led to another and he was sent to hospital after suffering injuries. Feeling a little bit embarrassed as he was in the center of attention, Haji started pointing at his arms, legs, and ribs— the parts that were either injured or broken. Every single ti he recounted what transpired, the three girls would let out an exhale of awe, or a gasp, or sothing in between. They were pretty amazed that Haji survived all that and didn’t die.

Knock.

Knock.

"Delivery!" Soone yelled outside.

"Ah, excuse ," Franz said in a low tone just when gumi and the others started firing off their questions towards Haji.

It was obvious that there was still so shred of awkwardness between the three girls as they continued to sit together and ask questions. They did make small talks here and there but their voice was shaky all throughout.

As for Haji, he realized that the three of them didn’t really co together. It was just a strange string of coincidences that brought the three of them, at the sa ti, to his place. Plainly, they weren’t used to each other’s presence and that caused them to be uncomfortable with each other. And it’s not like one of them could sit beside Haji since that would entail a plethora of misunderstandings. They don’t really know each other, so doing sothing that would lead to a wrong idea is out of the question.

An awkward silence befell the group when Franz stepped out to talk to the delivery guy. As it turned out, he was the glue that held everyone together— he made the atmosphere less awkward than it already was since he was the only adult around. That’s why when he excused himself, the four of them grew quiet, getting more and more anxious as seconds passed with him gone.

To be fair, this was the first ti that Haji catered to a group of visitors. For the past year, he didn’t have to go through that pain, and recently, he just had to welco one visitor— gumi.

That’s why having four visitors at once is unknown territory for him, sothing that he couldn’t even imagine would happen. He didn’t have any friends, to begin with, and he was treated as an outcast, as the delinquent of the class. How did that solitude lead to this situation? That question presented itself in Haji’s mind.

Sniff.

When Franz reentered Haji’s abode, an all-too-familiar sll invaded everyone’s noses, making them salivate. Haji had a different reaction, however— his stomach started grumbling.

All of them open-mouthedly stared at Franz as he set the food on the table— three boxes of fried chicken and two two-liter soft drinks, to be exact. "Please help yourselves," Franz voiced out. He didn’t elaborate any further since everyone got exactly what he ant.

"Fried chicken!" Fuuka exclaid.