A silence settled over us.

The source of it was Daniel.

Well… he’s human too.

Of course he’d feel awkward.

So I decided to comfort him.

“…Hang in there.”

Honestly, there’s no friend like me.

Daniel should be extremely grateful to me.

Hearing my encouragement,

Daniel lifted the shoe he was holding.

“Can I throw this away?”

Unbelievable.

What an arrogant response.

There wasn’t even a hint of gratitude.

“No way. Give it back. My shoe.”

The three of us walked along the track on the field.

Under the pink-tinted sunset,

long shadows from the trees stretched out in the same direction,

lying heavily across the ground.

As I walked in step with my friends,

I spoke.

“If june's that popular…”

I could feel them listening.

I chose my words carefully.

“Valentine’s Day must be the busiest, huh?

Bet the world looks different to you.”

I could already picture it—

girls swarming around June like a cloud,

as if they had been waiting for that day.

He’d be surrounded by people who liked him.

What kind of life was that, anyway?

“Feels like June lives in a world,

where he gets a new girlfriend every week.

Like a comic!”

For some reason,

that just felt like the kind of life a popular guy would have.

In my imagination, June answered,

“My girlfriend? Uh… which one?”

And of course, he topped it off with that confident, carefree laugh—

like a stereotypical heartthrob.

Daniel watched Cia quietly

as she drifted off into her own imagination.