CH 49

Shiorin, Akarin and Mihorin happily opened the bags of popsicles that we’d brought for them.

“Haaah~, I can feel it coursing through my heated veins~!”

“So good~!”

“It’s so cold and refreshing~!”

They all sucked on their long, thin popsicles and started licking them with their tongues.

―Ah. This scene might have some indecent connotations, huh…

This ridiculous crossed my mind for a moment before Hasumi suddenly blushed and whispered in my ear.

“J-Just as I’d expect from you, Ritsuki… You specifically chose to buy the popsicles in order to watch this scene. I’ll also lick my popsicles as hard as I can, so you can watch me too if you’d like, okay…?”

“N-N-No, you’ve got it wrong, Hasumi! This is just a coincidence! I didn’t have any ulterior motives behind the popsicles!”

I panicked and hurriedly denied her accusations, but my voice ended up getting heard by Shiorin and the others in the process.

Hasumi deliberately chose to whisper in order to prevent this exact thing from happening and yet here I am. What a fool I am.

Shiorin and her friends looked at how each of them were licking their popsicles, which made their faces flush red.

(Ah, this is the end. They’re going to prohibit me from entering the house forever. In fact, they might even choose to never talk to me for the rest of my life ever again…)

Shiorin, whose face was still flushed red, audibly cleared her throat. “Ahem!”

Then, with a cramped smile on her face, she said.

“R-Ritsuki-kun… Don’t worry, I believe that you don’t have such evil thoughts!”

When Shiorin said that, Akarin also followed suit with her eyes looking up at the ceiling, clearly avoiding eye contact.

“T-That’s right, Ritsuki-kun! I-I don’t even know what you guys were talking about~!”

Thank god they forgave me…

―Hmm?

Everyone’s been calling me by my name without any sort of honorific these days, but now it seems like they’re attaching a “kun” behind it.

“S-Sudou-kun… I’m grateful for the popsicle, but it looks like my body has already cooled enough now. I’ll store it in the freezer and eat it later.”

Mihorin even went back to calling me by my last name and put her popsicle back into its packaging.

Ah, I was completely wrong about them forgiving me.

They’re now completely distrusting of me and they’re even putting some distance between us.

Shiorin and her friends are beautiful idols, so I’m sure they have more than their fair share of fans who look at them that way.

Of course, for these girls who seriously devote themselves to their idol activities without any ulterior motives, they see those kinds of fans as people they have to stay away from at all costs.

I think they’re now seeing me as one of those kinds of people…

I guess my appearance also doesn’t help my case…

―No! Shiorin and the others aren’t people who judge people based on their appearances!

I want to believe that they’re only “suspecting” me for now.

If I can win back the trust of Shiorin and the others, I should be fine!

“Ritsuki’s a boy too, after all…”

“Hasumi, please. You of all people should believe in me…”

Even Hasumi was suspecting me of deliberately choosing to buy the popsicles with an ulterior motive in mind.

Well, in Hasumi’s case, she actually does have justification for suspecting me since she found out about me browsing her bookstore for lewd books, so this is just me reaping what I sow…

To Hasumi, I am one of her few friends, and because I am a regular at her store who buys lots of books, she has no choice but to stay friends with me.

But in reality, I’m sure she’d love nothing more than to stay away from a pervert like me…

―In the end, although I wasn’t prohibited from entering the house ever again, the girls were now harboring suspicions of me being a pervert.