4

Crouching there, hiding, made it feel like I was doing something wrong. Well, I obviously was, but sharing that wrong doing with Mai was kinda fun. Was I into it because she was with me, or was I simply getting off on the feeling of doing something that I shouldn't?

          I knew right away, but decided to leave the question unanswered.

          At some point, the orange ping-pong ball had rolled all the way to the end of the wall and come to a stop.

     "Maybe I'll drink some milk during lunch today, so that I can jump down without breaking my legs", Mai planned. The look on her face was simultaneously seri ous and non-serious.

          Of course, today didn't end up being the "next time" she had promised.

          As school came to an end that day, Mai had, as was the norm, already left. She had told me before that her mom would yell at her if she came home early, so I figured she just loitered around town, killing time.

          Much like yesterday, I attended the afternoon classes, after which I dropped by a bookstore with Ina and Lily. I normally wouldn't have gone with them as my home was in the opposite direction, but today, there was something that I kinda wanted to check out. Well, not that I knew if they even had those sorts of books, considering that I had never taken a look at that section before.

      "Oh, they do."

           Standing before the shelf that contained sports books, I pulled out one that taught table tennis. If Mai was going to look stuff up online, then I was going to use a book. I turned it around and took a look at the price tag. As I did, I couldn't help gasp.

      "That's expensive!"

             I could see now why the internet got so popular. It

was easy to look stuff up. And cheap.

      "What are you looking at?"

             Ina walked up to me and took a look at what I was holding. Though we had parted ways at the store's entrance, she had apparently seen me and come to check out what I was doing.

       "You're going to join the table tennis club, Shina?" she asked, tilting her head. A pretty strange question, considering that our school didn't have one.

               Ina was my kinda plain-looking classmate. She had never dyed her hair, never shoplifted, and probably had never pulled the hair of a girl from another school. Well, not that I had done the latter two either.

               Her eyes were big and round, which lent a certain air of charm to her... or maybe just simple-mindedness,as evidenced by her addition of a vocal sound effect into the swing of her air racket. She easily got caught in the moment, and I'm sure that if you flattered her, she'd even do a backflip or two for you. She also often lamented about how there were no people in school who shared her passion for her hobby-fishing-but that was a whole another story.

        "So, why table tennis? Did you watch 'Ping Pong' on TV or something?"

        "No, I wasn't influenced by anything. I just... felt like it."

               It would have been too difficult to explain. Well, it really wouldn't have been. Still, the words wouldn't come out, and I ended up placing the book back onto the shelf without so much as reading a single page of it. In the end, it seemed that I too would be relying on the internet. In my mind, I could already hear Mai accusing me of copying her, and it kinda pissed me off. I was so angry, in fact, that it'd be worse if she didn't say it.

         "Guys, don't leave me!"

               The last member of our group toddled over, pro-claiming her presence in a monotone-ish voice. Lily had giant breasts and wore glasses. What more did I need to explain? Well, her hair was also really long, and when she wasn't in her school uniform, it often rested on her chest.It was straight, silky smooth, and felt good to the touch.

               Matching her ****** size, her attitude too was all adult like. She was always calm and composed. But, also a little dumb.

          "What are you talking about?"

               Ina gave her chest a slight smack, as if to say "don't worry about it".

          "Okay, I won't", she replied while giving Ina's head a tap in return. The two had been friends since middle school, or so I'd heard. I, on the other hand, had only gotten to know them after entering high school, and so, even if we were all friends, it felt like the two were slightly closer with each other than with me. Still, friendships aren't such that being close is always better. Get too close and you might be met with opposition, and you'll realise that you weren't ever that good of friends to begin with.

           "What's your excuse for such casual sexual harassment?" "You always worry about your boobs. I thought I'd help you ease up."

Ina wasn't at all ashamed. Rather, I had never seen her act that way. Did she maybe have a strong sense of what was right? Or was that the wrong way to describe it?

            "You do?" I asked. Looking downwards, almost like she was a little embarrassed, Lily nodded slightly.

            "Well, they're big and boys are always staring at them. Of course I worry."

                 She crossed her arms, as if to hide her chest. Of course, she wasn't able to hide it at all.

            "All the boys in the classroom imagine themselves groping your boobs ten times a lesson, I think."

            "Whoa... That's gross."

                  Lily looked visibly grossed out as I said this. Well, that probably wasn't all they imagined, but since I didn't want to start talking about those sorts of things in public, I decided to leave it there. Taking a glance at the table tennis book I had put back into the shelf, I sighed.

            "That's the price you pay", Ina said, and gave her chest a tap, in the same way that you'd tap someone on the shoulder.

            "Oops, got them mixed u- Blegh!"

                   Lily smacked her head before she could finish her sentence, and she ended up biting her tongue.

                   The two continued their back-and-forth, making all sorts of noises. I slipped away quietly so as not to be grouped with them.

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