Volume 1 - CH 7

I am standing in front of my room after I left Kanade. I am afraid to enter this room. The images of those guys are stuck in my mind, and I can’t seem to get rid of them. The image of the two people I know so well, making love in the bed I usually sleep in.

Unable to suppress my irritation, I opened the door vigorously and hit things at random. I thought it was lame of me to hit things, but the hatred that welled up from the bottom of my body fueled my destructive impulse.

(Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it.)

I just kept on destroying what I saw. I flashed back to the image of those guys hugging each other naked on this bed. I unconsciously took a pair of scissors and stabbed the bed repeatedly.

“Hahahahahaha ……”

(S**t… Don’t play around with me…)

———

After regaining my composure, I decided to move rooms first. Conveniently, I have one room in my house that is used for storage. I immediately started moving my stuff, hoping to get away from this room as soon as possible, even if it was just for a minute or a second. With that single thought in mind, I spent the rest of the night moving my belongings from one room to another.

My mother complained to me on the way, asking me why now, but I bowed my head and asked her for a favor, and she gave up and said, “I don’t have a choice.” …My sister, Hanaka, asked me, “Yuu nii-chan what’s wrong? You’re scaring me a little,” but I didn’t have an answer for that, so I apologized with a single word, “I’m sorry.” She looked at me suspiciously, but then, perhaps giving up on something, she nailed me with a single word, “Just be quiet during the night,” and walked out of the room.

The room move went smoothly. The room was originally equipped for storage, so I didn’t have to move a large amount of stuff. Perhaps it was because of this that I was able to put the bed and other items out for oversize trash early in the morning. As expected, when I told them I was going to put the beds out for bulky trash, they said, “What’s wrong with you? Did something happen?” There was no way I could say, “On this bed, the person I thought was my girlfriend and the person I thought was my best friend were naked and hugging each other,” so I had to excuse myself by saying, “I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately, and I’d like to replace it.”

“Whew, I finally calmed down.”

I lay down in my new room. For the time being, I’ll sleep on the guest futon, and next time I’ll go to Home Center to buy a new bed. I was exhausted from all the things I had been through. When I lay down, I felt my whole body relax and sink into the futon.

(Tomorrow is school… I wonder what kind of face I should make with Hazuki when we go to school together…)

My consciousness quietly melted away as I thought about such things in dim light.

*****

[Kanade’s Point of View]

I was thinking back to today’s events.

I had thought that there was a high probability that Hazuki-chan and Kouki-kun would have some sort of illicit relationship, so I suggested the surveillance camera to Yuu-kun to eliminate my suspicions, but I never imagined that they would go to such lengths. I thought they might at least kiss, but who could have imagined that she would make love to another man in her boyfriend’s room?

When the images of those two starting to make love were shown on the screen, I couldn’t understand what the hell was happening. I came to my senses when I heard Hazuki’s charming voice gradually becoming hotter and hotter, and tremendous anxiety passed through my mind.

(Yuu-kun is going to break!)

I came back to myself and hurriedly looked at Yuu-kun’s face sitting in front of me, but my body instantly stiffened and I was unable to speak to him or stop the video.

Yuu-kun is usually cheerful and bright, always giving everyone strength with his smile like the sun. I don’t know how many times Yuu-kun’s smile has saved my life.

Whenever I was feeling a little tired, Yuu-kun always listened to me quietly. And at the end of the day, he would always smile and say, “Don’t worry. Kanade can do it,” he would say, cheering me up.

I have loved Yuu-kun like that since I was in elementary school.

But in the second year of junior high school, Hazuki-chan confessed her feelings to Yuu-kun, and the two of them became lovers. I knew that they had liked each other before, and I was ready to give up on Yuu-kun, so I decided to quietly put a lid on my feelings for Yuu-kun. Even after dating Hazuki-chan, Yuu-kun was very kind to me, and I couldn’t give up on him after all.

But when Yuu-kun was watching the video at the coffee shop, his expression was different from before; there was no emotion on his face and I couldn’t see any life in his eyes that were shining brightly. As time went by, his face became pallid and his body trembled. I knew I had reached my limit and reached out to remove the earphones from his ears to make him stop watching.

That’s when Hazuki-chan turned to Kouki-kun and said, “I like yours the best. You make me feel the best.” At that moment, Yuu-kun got up from his seat as if he had just burst out and run into the bathroom.

After Yuu-kun got up from his seat, those two were still flirting in the LCD, reflecting on their earlier act. “Why do I get so aroused when I do this with Kouki?” They were saying selfish things like, “I feel safe with Yuuri, but I can’t expose myself like this.”

“I think it would be better to tell Yuuri about our relationship. Then we can be together forever, can’t we?”

“I can’t do that. I love Yuuri. I love you as much as you love me, but Yuuri is still special.”

I was at the end of my patience. The two of them are no longer my childhood friends. They are enemies. They are my enemy. I have to make sure that they don’t get close to my beloved Yuu-kun anymore. Yuu-kun’s heart will be broken if he stays with those two.

But how do I tell them that I know them? I think it’s too half-hearted to just break up with them like normal. That would not give them the same amount of pain as Yuu-kun.

My original plan was to get into their room at the right time after watching the video and confront them with today’s video and pursue them. But there was no way I could act after being shown something like that. If I confronted them when they weren’t calm, it could have ended up in a violent incident. I couldn’t let Yuu-kun do that.

I tried to think of a way to break off the relationship between the two of them without hurting Yuu-kun.

However, no matter how much I thought about it, no good idea came to mind, but I suddenly realized something.

I thought for a moment, then slowly lifted up my phone, opened RINE, and sent a message to a classmate from junior high school.