CH 31

“I like you. Please go out with me!”

After school.

I was on day duty and had come to the back of the school building to take out the trash.

I had been gone for the entire morning and afternoon, and Asagiri had forced me to do all the rest of the work.

I was threatened to eat and drink on the tab, but isn’t not gonna happen?

Anyway, it seems that the back of the school building after school is the best place to confess your feelings.

Maybe it’s because it’s not so public, but many students often confess their feelings here.

But, leaving aside the question, “Isn’t that a bit public?” I am witnessing this very scene right now.

This is what I thought when I saw the scene.

I want it to be over soon.

The reason is the simplest and most obvious. I can’t take out the trash because you guys are there!

To get to the garbage station, you have to go through that passageway. It’s a long way around, but why do I have to expend all that effort for them?

I want them to do their youth in a place where I’m not.

I think about that while hiding in the shadows of the school building.

“I’ve been watching you for a while now. Kurase-san! I’ll make you happy, please!”

It’s a confession like a proposal. It’s very heavy for just going out. It’s okay for junior high and high school students to confess their feelings.

The percentage of those who will get married in the future is very small.

I know I’m not in a position to give a big lecture, but I’m frustrated right now. I want to go home now.

Wait a minute. What did he just say the name was?

I peeked out from the shadows of the school building to see the two people at the scene of the confession.

“So it’s Kurase”

One was Kurase. And the other was a boy I did not know.

The boy was rather sincere and serious looking.

“I’m sorry!”

Kurase made a sweeping statement about the boy’s confession without even a hint of hesitation.

The boy looks as if he is about to cry.

Pathetic. Come on, split up.

“M-May I ask why …… what is wrong?”

But he held his ground and desperately asked Kurase what he lacked.

I admired his spirit of not getting up just because he fell down, but I hope he would show that in other situations. Just move out of the way.

“Well, Takahashi-kun, it’s not that you are wrong. ……”

“I-Is there someone you like?”

There’s a guy in Kurase who likes ……. If there was someone, he’s a lucky guy. To be liked by a cute girl like Kurase. I hope he is cursed till the end of his life.

“I-I don’t like him!”

Kurase desperately denied it. Unfortunately, Kurase did not seem to like anyone.

“T-Then why…?”

I know, right? I’m curious about that ? I’m curious too. Kurase is the second most talkative person in my class after Sosuke and Asagiri, and I have a rather close relationship with her. I don’t think of her as a friend, but I am still a little concerned about someone so close to me.

Ah, It’s not that I don’t consider her a friend. It would be embarrassing if I thought so one-sidedly and he didn’t, wouldn’t it? So, until she says otherwise, we are just classmates who talk a lot.

Off topic, but why Kurase refused the confession. I wonder what it is.

“U-Ummm…..I have no one I like….., but there is someone I care about ……I mean …….”

Kurase’s shyly saying so was a dazzling sight that almost made me go blind.

The boy, on the other hand, looked despairing.

Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean. That feeling. Somehow, when you hear that your class idol likes someone, even if you don’t like her, you feel kind of disappointed. Eh, is it different from this? I mean, I don’t even know what the difference is between liking and caring.

＊＊＊

“T-That’s a lie!!! You can’t do that!”

“O-Ouch!”

＊＊＊

A short vision of the future. It was a scene where a male student was upset and grabbed Kurase.

What a pain in the ass.

She had just told him that persistent guys are not liked.

“Ah, it’s so tiring to take out the trash, it’s so heavy, it’s so hard.”

I went out in front of them, carrying a garbage bag in my hand, pretending I didn’t know anything about them.

“!”

“…Ah, Ito kun”

The man looks surprised at my sudden appearance. Kurase’s eyes widened when she saw me as well.

“Ah, Kurase. This is a strange coincidence. What on earth are you doing here?”

It was slightly barbed and reeked of acting. Besides, a man and a woman together in a place like this would be somewhat predictable, but never mind.

“Ah, no! It’s nothing! it’s really nothing!”

For some reason Kurase acted as if she had done something bad.

The boy are looking at me with a face like he is biting a bitter bug.

“Speaking of which, Asagiri was looking for you.”

“Eh, Yuri chan was looking for me?”

“Yeah, you’re going home together, right?”

“Sure, maybe she didn’t say anything about it. ……

“Well, you’d better hurry up, then. If it’s Kurase, she’ll search the whole school building.”

“Umm,……yes. I’m sorry, Takahashi-kun.”

Kurase bowed her head to a male student named Takahashi and left.

It is true that Asagiri was looking for her. That guy would look for Kurase as soon as he disappeared without saying anything.

I did a bad thing by interrupting Takahashi’s confession, but he was already dumped. It would have been better if nothing had happened to her than if he had grabbed onto Kurase like that.

“Well, I guess I’ll go take out the trash too.”

Finally, I get what I came for. I started walking toward the garbage station.

Takahashi still hadn’t moved.

“Tsk.”

As I walked past him, I heard an uncharacteristic tongue lashing from his serious face.

You’re not holding a grudge against me, are you, ……?

◆

Nanami is not here.

She often goes away without saying anything. But every time she does, I get worried. Because every time she goes away, she pulls up a problem somewhere. I have to find her before that happens.

“Yuri chan!”

Then, as I was searching all over the school building, I heard a voice from behind me.

I turned around to see Nanami with a big smile on her face and she was hugging me.

Cute.

“Nanami! What’s wrong all of a sudden?”

“Ehehe! Wanna go home together?”

I had the urge to hug her.

Not many other students would see her like this. She was too vulnerable. Too cute.

“Yes, let’s do that.”

Then I went to the classroom to get my things and then headed home.

“Where have you been?”

On the way home. I asked Nanami where she had been.

“It’s behind the school building!”

“……, you’re not being confessed again, are you?”

“Yeah, It looked like it!”

“Looked like?…… So what happened?”

“Of course I said no. Then he asked me if I liked someone. When I said no, he asked me why. I said no, and he asked me why, and then I was in trouble!”

Apparently, he was a persistent partner. He was dumped, but he was not happy about it. As long as Nanami was here, there was no doubt that she was safe, but I don’t think Nanami alone could have fixed the situation with someone who didn’t back down the first time.

“Was that okay?”

“Yes, and then Ito-kun came by to take out the trash. He told me that Yuri-chan was looking for me, so I went straight home!”

Good job! Good job. Sometimes he does it!

“Ah, I didn’t get his contact info……”

Lately, Nanami has been acting strange. She has been talking about him a lot. I feel somewhat lonely.

I have his contact information. If I knew his contact information, I would be able to tell Nanami through me.

But somehow I didn’t want to do that.

That’s ────

“!”

“What’s wrong, Yuri chan? Are you blushing?”

“I-It’s nothing!”

No, it can’t be. This is simply because I do not want that animal to get close to Nanami. It can’t be anything else.

As I was making excuses to myself, Nanami started to say something strange.

“But Yuri-chan, you have changed recently.”

“I’ve changed?”

Nothing has changed. Rather, it’s the same as before.

“Yes. What can I say, your expression became softer. I wonder if that’s why. I often hear boys talking about Yuri chan.”

“…..That’s the worst. I guess I should have been more Buddha-faced.”

That being said, I think Nanami gets more confessions of love than I do. I think the boys know that it is better to date a girl like Nanami, who is cute and has a good personality, than a girl with a personality like mine.

“No, you can’t. You’re so cute. You have to smile more!

“C-cute ……”

Nanami is the cute one. But still, it is because Nanami is like that that I feel happy when she says it.

I guess it’s because I’m in the same class as Nanami. In the first year, we were in different classes,……, so maybe the aura of happiness is leaking.

“Maybe it’s all thanks to Ito-kun, huh?”

I feel like I’ve been splashed with cold water. I had just been chewing on the special bond I had with Nanami. A foreign object entered the room.

“No. Not That guy.”

“No, that’s not true. Because, you know, lately you’ve been talking to other girls besides me, right, Yuri-chan?”

“No, no, no, it’s just Nanami.”

“Fufu, I’m glad to hear that, but you have to listen to me, okay?”

Nanami nailed me and I shushed her.

“It’s true that there are still a limited number of girls you talk to, but you’ve gotten to the point where you at least say hello to Sana and Suika when you pass them in the hallway, haven’t you?

“…………”

Nanami is right, I feel that until long ago, I would have had no one in my mind but Nanami.

It was certainly a change for me that I began to talk lightly with someone who was not my classmate and whom I had only talked to briefly on the mountain climbing trip.

“Ito-kun was the one who connected us. And since Ito-kun was in between you and them, you got to talk to them, too, right?”

“Well, ……, yes.”

Whether or not that is something I should be happy about, it is a fact.

“And Yuri-chan and Ito-kun talk to each other normally, right?”

“……Whaa? I’m not talking to him normally!”

The only conversation I have with him is always a non-productive argument. That’s not really normal, is it?

“Fufu, well, for me, it’s nice to have more friends, Yuri chan”

“…… separately. As long as I have Nanami, I’m ……”

The small murmur was not heard by Nanami.

Just then, we came to a fork in the road. This is where I say goodbye to Nanami.

I greeted Nanami and then slowly headed home.

I was thinking about what Nanami said to me earlier. But I can’t find the answer.

“I’m home”

Then I open the front door of the house. A rattle sounded from the old-fashioned sliding door.

“Grandma?”

I called out for Grandma, who was supposed to be in the living room, and opened the door.

“…… eh?”

“Long time no see. Nee chan.”

“Ara, Yuri chan. Welcome home.”

“I-I’m back. ……”

There he was, my younger brother, chatting happily with our grandmother.