First hurdles.

You know, it didn’t take long to see the very first issue of having five girlfriends, and I should’ve foreseen it. It had nothing to do with having five girlfriends, though, but more to do with who four of those were and the situation they were already in.

I came to the realization that same day during lunch break. I wanted to spend time with Mila, Grace and Sarah, like always, but I also REALLY wanted to spend time with Noelle and Alice for very obvious reasons. That’s when it hit me. Mila, Grace and Sarah didn’t want to be seen with Alice to avoid ruining her public image.

“Go eat with them,” Grace told me.

“It’s an important time, after all,” Mila said. “Don’t worry about us. We’ll live.”

“We’ll eat with Lena and Amanda,” Sarah said.

They said not to worry, but I worried. I… didn’t like it. It felt like making a choice, picking Alice and Noelle over Mila, Grace and Sarah, and it felt wrong. This wasn’t how I wanted things to be. But… I suppose it was naive to expect things to be easy. I made up my mind to work towards making this relationship, well, work. There were going to be problems, and I had to find a way to fix them, even if it took time.

For the moment, though, I couldn’t do anything about it. There was one thing I believed, however, and it was that they were making it a bigger deal than it was, but maybe that was me not paying that much attention to the school happenings as a whole.

I texted Alice, and she told me to go to the student council office again. Once there, I saw the two girls with the lunch boxes on Alice’s big desk.

“Come in,” Alice said, smiling. “We usually use this room to eat. The other council members go to the cafeteria.”

Noelle chuckled. “Alice tells them we’re working, which is true most of the time. The other members… They’re not as serious about the student council as Alice is.”

The air between them seemed the same as always, which was a relief. “So you have this room all to yourselves?”

“Pretty much, yes,” Alice said. “The other members are only here when they need to, which is usually after school meetings. It’s a nice perk for being the president, at least.”

I pulled up a chair and sat down at the desk with them with my own lunch. However, the moment we started eating, an awkward silence settled between us.

I really should’ve seen it coming.

Remember how I mentioned it before. These two girls were not like Mila, Grace and Sarah. Those three were very much capable of talking your ears off. They were forward and had no fear of saying what they thought, so they could carry a conversation by themselves. But with Alice and Noelle, who were both more reserved…

I winced internally. So it was really up to me? Me? Well, better step up, then. If anything, I’d learned some things from those three.

“How’s it going with the talent show?” I asked. It was an attempt to get them talking about something I knew they were invested in.

“Oh, right!” Noelle beamed. “We got it approved!”

“Only if the students themselves take care of setting it up, though.” Alice sighed. “The principal doesn’t want to spend any money on a tech crew or anything like that. If we want to make it happen, it’ll need to be run by the student body.”

“A tech crew? I think the audiovisual club could help,” I told them. “One of its members is in my class and he knows how to set up projectors and speakers, and I think he does some audio mixing.”

Alice raised an eyebrow. “How do you know that?”

“I heard him talking about it a couple of times, and he always offers to help the teachers with tech problems.”

Noelle stood up from her seat and went to get a notepad from a drawer. “What’s his name?” she asked me.

“I think it was… Liam.”

Noelle wrote it down. “Thanks for the tip.”

“We were also considering asking the music club for help,” Alice said.

I unconsciously flinched. I had hoped they hadn’t noticed, but they did.

“What’s wrong?” Noelle asked.

“N-Nothing. The music club is a good option, too. Most of them work with their own equipment, so they know how to set up a stage already.”

Alice and Noelle kept their eyes on me, studying me.

“So this is what they meant…” Alice muttered.

“You feel it, too?” Noelle asked her.

Alice nodded. “It’s like you can tell instinctively that there’s something he’s not saying, right?”

“Yeah! It’s strange, but...”

Oh. So it was like that sensation the girls talked about? That version of my sixth sense that let them understand some of my own thoughts.

Noelle fidgeted “It’s just like Grace said. It feels like I know you’re not saying everything. Do you… have something against the music club, Oliver?”

I closed my eyes and grimaced, rubbing the back of my neck. “You could say that. I was in it during freshman year, but I quit. Someone cut the strings of my guitar once, and nobody said anything about it. It was a message. I wasn’t wanted there, so I left.” I sighed. “But that has nothing to do with the talent show. It’s just a personal grudge.”

“No, it does have to do with it.” Alice crossed her arms with a sour face. “If the music club has members that would sabotage one of their own, then I don’t think I want to put them in charge of setting up the stage.” She turned to Noelle. “We better check with the audiovisual club. What do you think?”

The redhead nodded. “We’ll need to watch out for any kind of cheating. Should we take care of the voting process ourselves?”

These two were suddenly in professional mode. It was nice to see their back and forth. Seeing them so bashful and **** when we were alone almost made me forget how competent they were. It also showed that they were still getting along well. And yet the fact that the awkward silence returned when they finished talking about the talent show, meant that… the problem was me.

We all focused on our food, eyes down, yet the two of them would sometimes glance my way, notice the other was also looking, and they’d go back to their food all stiff and nervous. I knew I wasn’t imagining things.

What should I do?

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