Chapter 91.

Chapter 91. Christmas Eve, Operation: To Kill A Mockingbird’s Love (3/8)

I struggled back to my feet and put down another random card. I walked up to her and said quietly, “Alicia, without you in my life, I am nothing.”

I took a step back and observed her reaction.

Huh? Why? Her eyes were glued to the ground scanning it from left to right, a bit shy. She seemed embarrassed.

“Ran, what did you just say to Alicia?” Rosa asked with an amused smile.

Why did the ‘often communicate that without her in your life, you are nothing’ fail so miserably? Ah. Am I blind? It said, often. I don’t have time for something like that! I need immediate results! It seemed this card would backfire when not used correctly. It was the equivalent to a continuous trap card that had to occasionally be invoked.

It was my own fault for not getting a better understanding of my cards and just blindly tossing them out in hope of it showing some positive results.

I decided to make a tactical retreat and sat back down on my chair to finish eating. I may have lost the battle, but this war was far from over.

I’d recollect myself and regroup with my allies. Wait, I had no allies here. I was surrounded on all sides by enemies. Alicia’s little brother might be an ally in a way, but if I told him what I wanted to do, he’d do the opposite. Meaning… I had to tell him the opposite of my intentions for him to work in my favor.

You know, why the hell have I still not learned this kid’s name anyway? With how I’m forced to stay here for winter break I was starting to realize just how much of an inconvenience it was not knowing. Alicia always called him little bro. Irene called him son. Rosa called him cutie and doted on him a lot.

Since I’d gotten tired of it, I opened my mouth and straight-up asked while I ate. He was seated to my left while Rosa was to my right.

While chewing some food in my mouth, I whispered to him, “Hey, kid, what’s your name? I never did end up getting it.”

“Huh? My name… why do you suddenly want to know that? Are you planning to use it in some sort of devil contract or ritual?” He whispered back clearly suspicious of my intentions with his guard up.

“Either you give it to me, or I ask your mother or elder sister.”

“Chris. Chris Sorayuki.” I grumbled out frustrated when he realized I could easily find out.

“Then, Chris. I’d like to enlist your assistance with something.”

“My… assistance? With… what exactly?”

“Can you get your sister to be disgusted by me and hate me?”

“Hah? What are you up to now? Is this supposed to be an attempt at reverse psychology? There’s no way you’d actually ask me for what you really want. You’d definitely ask me this thinking I’d be uncooperative and do the exact opposite. Thus thinking, I’d try to make my sister like you, to go against your wishes right?”

I put on a frustrated look on my face and responded, “It seems you’ve seen through my true intentions.”

“Hah! So I was right. I won’t fall for your deception again. I’ll definitely make my sister hate you no matter what… though… it’s not like I haven’t been trying to do that already. She just doesn’t listen, no matter how much I tell her you’re a bad guy. An evil devil who deceives little children. A monster who steals candy from children.”

“Hey, when did I ever steal candy from children?”

“Ugh. I tried to throw in a lie, but she didn’t believe it at all and gave me a good scolding when I said you stole candy from children. She didn’t scold me about the part where I said you were a bad guy or the part about deceiving children for some reason. Now that I think about it, I was only scolded whenever I told her lies about you. The parts I thought were genuinely true she didn’t say anything about, she just brushed them aside like nothing. Do I have a ‘tell’ when I’m lying or something?”

Well… she already knew the other two details could be considered true. She was only mad when her little brother told her a lie after all. That would be a baseless smear as well and she wasn’t the type to let that sort of thing fly even if it was her little brother.

“I see. It sounds like you’ve had it tough. Keep trying though, I’m sure your feelings will reach your sister if you do, Chris.”

When I said that along with his name he looked at me like I was a stranger he didn’t recognize.

“What are you trying to pull now? What sort of strange deception is this? I’m not going to fall for it, you hear?”

Haaaah. It seemed the image of me as a devil was ingrained deep into his mind. Our relationship would probably never change. He’d always remain vigilant of everything I said or did. Oh well, it was better to remain vigilant around the enemy than to let your guard down, be blindsided, stabbed in the back out of nowhere, and caught with your pants down.

I didn’t bother to respond and continued to eat my food.

Out of nowhere a fork with some food on it was pushed out in front of me from my right. It was Rosa.

“Open up, Ran~”

Was this some sort of humiliation game?

She leaned in closer and whispered in my ear, “It seems your plan to make use of an enemy as an ally won’t work out too well, huh? Heheheh, keep struggling while you can, Ran~ your resistance is futile. The world favors women’s feelings over men’s these days.”

Frustrated, I opened my mouth and ate the food she presented to me. It was as she said, our world didn’t give a shit about what men felt. Women this, women that. That was all they blabbed about in the news like it was some sort of stupid petty little competition. If a man could only kick a field goal thirty-nine yards, he'd be mocked. If a woman did the same thing, she’d be lauded as a war hero and have her name recorded down in the history books as being born for that one moment.

Ah, just thinking about it ticked me off.

Forget it, forget it. No need to remember that stupid publicity stunt. It hasn’t even happened yet.

To Alicia, I’m sure it looked like I was being friendly with her friend. The only problem was she was my girlfriend. In what world was that stupid suggestion going to apply here! I crossed that idiotic suggestion off the list immediately. If anything it only worked against me.

I sulked by myself with an unpleasant air around me as I finished my food. It was good, but I wouldn’t show it. Alicia was the one who’d done the more laborious work to cook it, so I had to make it look like I hated it.

When I finished the food, I let out an obnoxious loud belch. It was the ‘Be disgusting’ card.

Everyone looked at me with a strange look. Yes, it was another out-of-place action I’d never done before.

Rosa wasn’t fazed in the slightest though, she calmly opened her mouth and interpreted my belch in whatever way she found most convenient. “Jeez Ran~ you were too embarrassed to admit the food was good in front of everyone so you let out a loud belch instead? In other countries, the louder the belch, the more of a compliment it is to the chef you know~ I’m glad you found the food to be so good, Alicia really worked hard and put A LOT of love into it~”

When I heard her translation of my belch, I moved my plate aside and collapsed, cheek down on the table. Nothing I did ever worked out. I wanted to raise the white flag. Every single thing I did, the tables had been turned on me. Time and time again. How was this even possible? Was it that difficult to make a girl dislike you without taking things too far?

“Aww~ Ran enjoyed the food so much he wants to go to sleep and dream about the food he just ate.”

Stop! Just stop it! Stop making random interpretations of my actions and taking advantage of your position as my girlfriend by acting like you know me so well! It’s embarrassing, okay? 

“Oh my, Ran really is quite the shy boy at heart who can’t easily express his emotions very well.” Irene suddenly joined in to torment me with her insidious words laced with poison.

Just end my misery and misfortune.