CH 72

Today is 14 February.

It’s what people call ‘Valentine’s Day’.

According to my dubious knowledge, there is no officially recognized Christian Valentine’s Day.

In Europe and America, it is said to be a day for giving cards and other gifts to lovers and close friends.

However, I heard that Westerners often give each other cards and small gifts, so Valentine’s Day is not so special or popular.

Furthermore, I have also heard that this day is ‘the day when some saint was massacred’.

However, when it came to Japan, it was changed to ‘a day for girls to give chocolates to boys they have feelings for’.

Rumor has it that this too was ‘promoted as a sales promotion event by sweet manufacturers’.

It is surprising that almost half of Japan’s annual chocolate sales are made on this day.

I’ve hated this day since I was in junior high school.

The reason, as I don’t have to tell you, is that I don’t get chocolate.

On this day, the girls are excited from the morning.

‘Who are you going to give it to? How many do you want to give out?’ ‘When should I give it to XX senpai?’ ‘I wonder if △△-kun will receive them?

And the ones who get them get double-digit numbers, and the ones who don’t get them don’t get any.

There has never been a day when the popularity of boys is so blatantly exposed in the light of day.

There are girls who are in a festive mood and are excited, popular boys who are proud and full of joy, and unattractive boys who spend this day trying not to stand out as much as possible and killing their breath.

Naturally, I’m the third.

Depending on the year, I would sometimes get some of the girls I was close to to give me some of their own chocolate, but that was rare.

And when I found out that girls I thought were cute and girls I thought I got on well with didn’t pay attention to me and gave chocolates to other boys, I felt sad.

This is why I hated Valentine’s Day.

I used to think that whoever thought of such an event should be exiled.

But this year was different.

Or so i thought but, I was depressed from the morning in a different way.

‘Ding-dong.’

It’s a house bell.

Perhaps the cause of my depression had arrived.

I reluctantly opened the front door.

“”Good morning!””

One’s voice was cheerful. The other a little shy, but trying not to lose it.

Two beautiful girls jumped into my view, side by side.

Well then, let’s go have some fun!’ Enka said.

“We can stay together until the evening today, right?” Meika-chan said.

I try as much as possible not to let my annoyance show on my face.

“All right. Let’s go out then.”

I said that and left the house.

It was around noon yesterday that I received a text.

I was told by Touko-san that she suddenly said, ‘On Valentine’s Day, Enka and Meika-san say they want to play with Yu-kun. I’m sorry, but will you go out with them?’

“Eh?”

When I saw that, I couldn’t help but do so.

Isn’t Valentine’s Day supposed to be about meeting lovers first?

I typed a quick reply.

Yu >Will you be coming with us as well, Touko-san?

Touko >I’m still busy. So I can’t go with you.

>But we haven’t seen each other at all in the past week, have we?

I wrote a series of complaints.

Yes, for some reason, it feels as if Touko-senpai has been avoiding seeing me for the past week.

No matter when I contact her, she always says she’s busy at the moment.

And even though tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, she hasn’t said ‘let’s meet’.

I thought that tomorrow I could spend time with her!

On the contrary, she told me to go and play with my sisters, isn’t that too much?

Touko ＞I’m sorry. But it’s just a little while longer. Will you bear with me?

I let out a disappointed sigh.

I can’t help it if she says something like this.

As for me, I have no choice but to wait until she’s ready to meet me.

“Where do you want to go play?”

I asked the two walking in front of me.

“Where would you like to go, Yuu-san?”

To Meika, who said that.

“How about the arcade for now? The three of us can play together.”

Enka replies.

If that’s the case, is it near Kaihin-Makuhari?

“Okay, let’s go there. Let’s do that.”

We headed for Kaihin-Makuhari station.

There is a large game center in front of the station at the north exit.

There is also a game center in a large shopping mall a little further away, but we headed for the arcade in front of the station first.

The first one is a classic video game.

I’m good at these games, but apparently Enkal isn’t so good at them. She soon got bored.

Next was a sound game.

This, on the contrary, was something Enka was good at.

I’m not so good at sound games and I don’t have much experience playing them.

Then there was the crane game. I’m good at this and so is Enka.

Only Meika seems to be bad at it.

Meika is good at both video games and sound games.

The game she was best at was air hockey.

In this game, neither I nor Enka could stand up to Meika-chan at all.

I knew that she belonged to the track team and was fast on her feet, but her reflexes were also quite good.

After two hours in the arcade, we moved to a shopping mall a little further away.

It was well past lunchtime and we were getting hungry.

“Do you want something to eat?” I asked.

“Then we’ll take turns for an hour from now on. Meika first, right?”

Enka tried to move away from me.

“What do you mean?”

I asked, and Meika answered.

“As expected, En-chan said that she wanted some time to talk alone with you. So we decided to take it in turns to spend an hour each at lunchtime with Yu.”

“Yes, there are things we need to talk about together, but we can’t do that if the three of us are together all the time. So I talked it over with Meika and we decided to do it this way.”

When she said this, Enka waved her hand lightly.

“Then I’ m going to go and hang around there. The next hour is lunch with me, so don’t eat too much. Isshiki-san.”

She then walked away.

I looked at Meika.

“So, what shall we eat?”

“Whatever Yuu-san likes is fine.”

In the end, we went into a fast food restaurant.

As I had to ‘switch with Enka in an hour’, I didn’t want to spend time looking for a restaurant, and afterwards I had to keep Enka company for the rest of the meal.

We ordered a drink and a hamburger each, and Meika and I took our seats at the table.

“Yu-san, um, this is–.”

The box that Meika-chan took out was about 20 cm square.

“Thank you.”

I awkwardly accepted it too.

“Should I open it here?”

Then Meika-chan turned red and waved both hands.

“Please stop! Open it when you get home. It’s handmade, it’s embarrassing!”

“Really? I’m happy because it’s the first time I’ve ever received a handmade one. What is it?”

“It’s a chocolate cake. It’s the first time I’ve made one, too…”

Saying that, Meika-chan turned her gaze away shyly.

But when the two of us are alone, it’s hard to talk about anything.

The same seems to be true for Meika, who is less talkative than she was before.

But I was surprised the other day. I was surprised that even Meika-chan would say something like that, not to mention Enka.

As I was troubled by the lack of conversation, I tried to make a topic of conversation for now.

“I apologise for saying those things out of the blue and putting Yuu-san in trouble. But I really meant that.”

I saw a sparkle in Meika’s eyes.

“Yuu-san and senior Touko don’t look like lovers to me. This is not only my opinion, but also my brother’s.”

“That’s because we were senior and junior, so we didn’t get into that kind of atmosphere immediately…”

“Then we still have a chance. En-chan told me that.”

I was interrupted and I missed my chance to say something.

“I was also surprised when En-chan told me that she ‘fell in love with Yuu-san’. But En-chan told me that ‘friendship is friendship, let’s attack each other fair and square,’ and I made up my mind. Whether the other party is En-chan or senior Touko, I don’t intend to lose!”

She said clearly.

It seems that Meika-chan is in a much more combative mode regarding this matter.

–Speaking of which, Ishida once said, ‘Meika looks mature, but she is competitive and strong-minded’.

In other words, she is the opposite of Ishida, who, despite his tough appearance, has a gentle heart.

“But you know, I don’t want to get your hopes up, because I like you, Touko-san.”

But she looked me in the eye and nodded.

“I fully understand that too. I think it’s normal for the person you like to have, another person they like. Whether you give up on that or not is another matter, isn’t it?”

She then turned her gaze back sadly.

“I can’t help it if Yuu-san says that he likes Touko-senpai. But if you also understand my feelings, and if you like me even a little because of that, then—…”

This again interrupted the conversation for a while.

When I looked up, I saw Enka standing outside the shop.

When her eyes met mine, she waved with a smile.

Meika must have noticed that too.

‘Oh, it’s already been an hour. It’s time to switch places with En-chan.’