My Stepsister is My Ex-Girlfriend - Volume 5 - Chapter 4

The Ex-Couple House-Sit

“I’m a guy. Don’t forget that.”

Akatsuki Minami

Thirty minutes had passed since Yume-chan and I had sat down in this family restaurant.

“So, the thing is...”

“Uh-huh?”

“P-Promise not to laugh?”

“Of course! Don’t worry. Go on, tell me!”

“Well...”

“Yeah?”

“No...I can’t. This is too embarrassing.”

“You can do it, Yume-chan!”

“Do you really want to know?”

“I do, I do!”

I, Akatsuki Minami, love Yume-chan with all my heart. I wish to be with her every minute of the day. To be the only thing in the eyes of the girl with the body that every girl wants. To inject her voice into my veins.

Keep all that in mind when I say the following: this sucked. I wanted out.

Yume-chan had told me about an hour ago that she wanted to talk about something. I was so excited to see her again after all this time, so I’d wasted no time getting ready. After meeting up, I spent the first thirty minutes trying to ask her what she wanted to talk about, and the next trying to get her to talk about it. This felt like a filler arc.

Yume-chan’s cuteness afforded my forgiveness for the first half hour. I would’ve smacked anyone else at least three times over. Can you hurry up and get on with it? You’re the one that called me here today. Don’t you realize that I’m choosing to waste my time here?

That being said, I understood why Yume was having so much trouble getting the words out. I had a faint idea what she wanted to talk to me about, but I couldn’t just come right out and ask her. Instead, I let her drag things out. Yume-chan was never the type to cut straight to the chase. You want relationship advice, don’t you?

Obviously. After all, she’d started calling Irido-kun by his first name all of a sudden. I’d only noticed a few days ago when she’d started messaging me after getting back from her family trip. Ever since then, I’d been slowly preparing myself for this day. I’d known it’d happen sooner or later. Yume-chan most likely tried to get his attention on her own, but it hadn’t worked out. Higashira-san was extremely satisfied with her friendship status with Irido-kun, and I couldn’t be Yume-chan’s girlfriend. I was a little surprised it had taken this long for her to come to me for help.

But still... It hurt to know that in her mind, I’d been relegated to being the friend she went to for stuff like this. I wasn’t sure if I could stay calm and give her actually good advice. I started thinking that maybe it’d be best for me to try and stay as neutral as possible and—

“So...” Yume-chan sounded much more resolute now. “The thing is...”

Finally. I was still burning with jealousy, but I refused to let it show. No matter what happened next, we’d still be friends. More than anything, I didn’t want to see Yume cry. I needed to do everything I could to help her. Now, all I had to do is listen to her confession of love for Irido—

“Higashira-san and Mizuto are dating.”

“Uh...” Huh? Huh?!

My mind went blank. All I could do was blink over and over again as if in a daze.

Yume-chan looked at me with confusion before coming to a realization. “Oh, sorry. I should’ve explained more.” She frantically waved her hands apologetically. She’s so cute. “Our families think they’re dating. Even her mom is totally convinced.”

Oh, okay. I just jumped to conclusions. Their families are convinced that— Wait, what? Why?

“How cliché.” I dryly laughed while thinking about how stupid it was that Isana Higashira had somehow “won.” “What is she? How are things going better for her after we stopped helping? Could she sense our ulterior motives or something?”

“Well, it’s partially our fault for letting our parents run wild with their initial misunderstanding. We thought it was harmless and figured it would’ve been more annoying to explain the truth to them. But why did he have to go over to her place before we cleared it all up?!”

“Huh? Are you sure Irido-kun is bothered by this outcome? Usually when people think you’re dating someone you aren’t into, you shut that down fast.”

“Oh... True...”

“Ah! W-Well at least, most people do. Normal people do, but Irido-kun’s a special case. Who really knows!”

I could tell that my comment had made her feel bad, so I quickly tried to follow up with something to salvage the situation. If you’re going to be so transparent about your feelings, you should just come clean already!

“It’s hard to fix things when others have their own idea of what’s going on, but it’s even worse when the people involved don’t do anything to set the record straight. If they don’t care, they won’t make any effort to try and fix the misunderstanding. Others will make their own assumptions, but that should be that. Nobody gets hurt.”

“Yeah, but...”

“What do you want to do, Yume-chan?”

“I...” Her expression stiffened as she stroked her glass of orange juice. “I’m freaking out because I feel like I have to do something, but I don’t know where to start or what I even want to accomplish.”

“Hm...” Yeah, this isn’t gonna be easy.

I said nobody should get hurt, but that wasn’t true from Yume-chan’s perspective. If Yume-chan and Irido-kun were to start dating, he’d be seen as the guy who not only cheated on his girlfriend but also laid his hands on his own sister. The only way to clear up this misunderstanding was for the two people involved to do it themselves, but...

“I hate you so much, Irido-kun...” I muttered.

“Huh?”

“Yume-chan, you need to go straight to the source if you want to clear this up. You can’t do anything about it on your own. You need to go to them—well, Irido-kun, at least—and get him in the mood to take action.”

“‘Get him in the mood’?”

“Make him feel like this whole ordeal is getting in the way of what he really wants. So, basically,” I said, sticking up my index finger, “make him feel the same as you.”

“Uh... What?” Yume-chan blinked over and over, freezing for about ten seconds. “The same as...me?”

“Yep.”

“U-Uh, wait. Wh-What do you mean by that?”

A grin spread across my face. “You know exactly what I mean.”

Her face turned a deep shade of red before dropping flat on the table. She let out a long groan.

“Chill, chill,” I added. “This stays between us. I promise.”

“How... How did you know?”

“You’re not exactly Fort Knox; you’re an open book.”

“Nooo!”

Argh, how can she be so cute?! Screw you, Irido-kun, but thanks for giving me the opportunity to see Yume-chan like this.

“By the way, what happened on your family trip?” I asked. “Your entire attitude did a one-eighty.”

“Am I really acting all that differently?”

“Yeah, that’s what it feels like.”

“Well...” Yume-chan slowly sat up and began brushing her long black hair out of her face. “Nothing happened...per se.”

“Aw, don’t be like that. C’mon, you can tell me.”

“Oh, but, uh... You have to promise not to tell anyone, okay?”

Crap. I might’ve just kicked the hornet’s nest. I knew she was dying to tell me what had happened, despite her reluctant facade. Even worse, Yume-chan had filed me away as the one she could talk about romantic stuff with. I’d screwed up. It was too late for me.

“So, here’s what happened...”

“And like, his face was all nonplussed, but his heart was pounding! He always makes fun of my body, but ha! Serves him right!”

Yume-chan started cracking up at my story. Phew, I feel so much better! Glad I could get that gaudy idiot’s stupidity off my chest... Wait. Wasn’t she supposed to tell me a story?! Why am I the one sharing?

“Did anything else happen between you two?” she asked.

“Aw, I guess something happened, but it wasn’t anything too special.”

“Oh, don’t be like that. C’mon, you can tell me.”

“Hm... Well...” Suddenly I had a moment of clarity in the midst of the laughs we were having as I recounted my experiences. “Full stop! Why am I the one sharing right now?!”

“Uh... I don’t see the problem.”

“We’re supposed to be talking about how to get Irido-kun to come clean about his fake relationship!”

“Oh... Right. Sorry, I was just having so much fun that it slipped my mind.”

Yeah, me too! It’s fun to get together with a friend and dish about romance— Wait, no. What romance? There’s nothing romantic going on in my life! I swear!

“We were talking about what you should specifically do, remember?” I said, trying to get us back on track.

“Right... What should I do?”

“Well, first thing’s first. You gotta make up with him. You get pretty pissy when you’re trying to hide your embarrassment. It’s like a defense mechanism. You get so cold.”

Yume-chan groaned in response. Truth be told, my soul had left my body when she told me about how she’d kissed him during their family trip, but the pain I felt then wasn’t nearly as bad as how I felt when she told me why. How are you so bad at expressing yourself?! Sure, it’s cute, but still! Also, what the hell, Irido-kun?! How can you be so dense?! Why are you asking her why she kissed you? There’s only one frickin’ reason to kiss someone!

“But how am I supposed to make up with him?” she asked.

“Don’t think about it too hard. I’m pretty sure he’s a bigger pushover than you think.”

“You really think so?”

“Yep! He’ll forgive and forget as long as you’re sincere. I don’t have any specific advice about what to do, though, ’cause you know him better than I do.”

“I do?”

“You’ve been living with him for how many months now? Something’s had to have happened to close the distance between you two. When did you feel the closest to him?”

Yume quietly repeated my words as she fell into thought. Seriously, why do I gotta be the one giving advice? I’d already gotten an idea about how Yume-chan really felt when we helped Higashira-san with her confession. She had been really conflicted about whether she wanted Higashira-san’s confession to work out or not.

“Oh.”

“Got something?” I asked.

“Well...” She averted her eyes, maybe out of a lack of confidence. “So... When we first started living together, there was a time when we had to house-sit—just the two of us.”

Oh god, I almost just vomited blood.

“Phew...” I stared at the ceiling as condensation dripped down into the bathtub.

I hope Yume-chan’s doing okay. I submerged my mouth and blew bubbles. I just had to give her that advice. Irido-kun was supposed to be my enemy. I missed the days when I had tried to get him to marry me back in April.

My blood boiled at the thought of what Yume-chan was doing to Irido-kun right now. At the same time, though, I sincerely hoped that everything would work out. My feelings were all over the place. I was an emotional mess.

I didn’t necessarily want to date Yume-chan. I mean, if she asked me out, I’d instantly say yes. That’d be a no-brainer, but at the same time, I was afraid of a certain emotion rearing its ugly head. Jealousy.

It wasn’t that I was jealous of her crushing on others; I was jealous of her ties to her family. Now that I thought about it, I was probably incredibly jealous of other families in general—people who are with you through thick and thin. I wanted a taste of that, which is probably why I had thought marrying Irido-kun would be the best course of action.

When I had asked him out back in April, I was still burdened by my massive failures in middle school. I’d be lying if I said that some small part of me didn’t want to make up for everything I’d done back then, but right now...

“Hey, you done in there?”

“Sheesh, I’ll be out soon! Don’t get your panties in a bunch!” I replied to Ko-kun as I stood up.

You could let me take it easy for a little longer, you stingy bastard. Yeah, sure, this is your place, but seriously. Since we both found it really annoying to fill an entire bathtub just for ourselves, we’d been taking turns. Some days he’d take a bath at my place and others, I’d go to his. This was a give-and-take kind of situation. I let you take a bath at my place, so you can at least let me take my time in yours.

This wasn’t something we did until about a month ago, after the study camp ended. It was like we’d returned to how we used to be. The only thing was that his weird allergy hadn’t gone away.

“Hm...” I began wiping myself down with a towel while thinking. “I wonder if his allergy’s gotten any better...”

Yume Irido

I finished wiping myself down with a towel before wrapping it around my body.

“All set.”

This was what I’d come up with after talking with Akatsuki-san. In the five or so months that I’d lived with Mizuto, the time that I’d felt the closest to him wasn’t when I kissed him at the festival. It was when we started living together. I’d wanted to tease him a little, so I’d put a bath towel on, gone out into the living room, and...well, a lot almost happened.

The scene began replaying in my head.

“W-We can’t. The rules...” I’d said.

“I’m okay with losing today,” he’d said.

I hid my face as I stood in front of the mirror. Thinking about it, that was a really crazy memory. If our parents hadn’t come home practically right at that moment, we would’ve... Ugh, this is the problem with teenagers! We’d been broken up for a full month, but we’d almost let our lust get the better of us!

But what I was doing right now was fully dependent on that adolescent lust. I needed Mizuto to want to fix the misunderstanding about him and Higashira-san. I’d concluded that the best way to persuade him was to seduce him. What better way was there to get a guy to do something?

It was a simple plan, and everything had fallen perfectly into place. It was almost as if a higher power was supporting my efforts. Our parents were both apparently coming back late today. I’d learned from my mistakes, though, and made sure to confirm that they didn’t expect to be back until after ten.

I had until then to complete my mission and retreat to safety. I dubbed this the “titillate and run” strategy. I definitely wasn’t scared of climbing the stairway to adulthood. I simply wanted to wait, after taking everything into consideration and all.

It’s go time! I confidently walked out of the bathroom and headed to the living room. It was quiet, but I’d seen Mizuto earlier reading a book on the couch. He should’ve still been there. I opened the door and sure enough, he was in the exact same position I’d left him in.

“I’m done,” I declared.

“Mm-hmm.” Mizuto shot me a glance. What do you think? The last time you saw me like this, you spit out your tea. “I’m gonna wait a little before taking mine.” Mizuto’s eyes calmly went back to his book.

Uh... What? Did he not notice? Maybe he looked too fast and it didn’t really sink in what I’m wearing? “Whew...it’s hot,” I said as I sat down on the couch, making sure to be in his field of vision.

What now? You can see me clearly, can’t you? Look at these thighs! Look at me shifting my legs! But Mizuto continued reading his book without looking up once. H-How dare you?! Okay, then what about this? I reached for the bottle of tea on the table, making sure to stay low enough for him to see my cleavage. There’s no way you can ignore me now! I know you’re interested in my chest, especially since you stole my bra back then!

Mizuto did glance at me. Yes, finally! I knew it, you closet per—

“Here,” he said, pushing the bottle towards my hand.

“Th-Thanks...”

All I could do was pour the tea out into a cup. In the meantime, Mizuto calmly returned to his book. What the heck is this?! You were so fidgety back then! You kept stealing glance after glance, but now you’re practically ignoring me! Look at me! Do you know how embarrassing this is?!

I gulped down the tea in an effort to calm down. This was about when I gave up, but I couldn’t let things end here. I still had a plan. If he was going to ignore me until I gave up, I’d have to create a situation where he had to look at me.

“Hey,” I called out to him.

“Hm?”

“Could you...help me dry my hair?”

Akatsuki Minami

“Seriously? Dry your own hair.”

“Oh, come on. You don’t know what it’s like having long hair. Please? I never ask.”

Ko-kun turned the hair dryer on and warm air blew on my hair as I sat on the couch, wrapped in nothing but a towel. He ruffled my hair. His technique—if you could call it that—was all over the place, but I couldn’t complain. It still felt nice. It’d been a hot second since anyone besides the stylists at the beauty salon had dried my hair.

“Y’know, you could at least wear some real clothes. This isn’t your house,” he grumbled, sitting behind me.

“Gimme a break—it’s frickin’ hot. What, can’t take your eyes off my body?”

“Yep. Can’t stop looking. Too worried that your towel’s gonna fall off that smooth cylinder you call a body because it doesn’t have anything to latch on to—ow!”

I landed a blow to his side with my elbow. I stretched my legs across the couch as he hunched over me and pointed the hair dryer down. When we were younger, he had to sit on his knees to be taller than me while we were sitting. Now, though, he was just naturally taller.

If I fell backwards, my head would probably land on his knees. How would he react? I’m kinda curious, but I’ll wait until he’s done drying my hair at least. I looked down to see my thighs, which the towel neglected to cover. I may not have had the most developed chest, but I was secretly very confident about my legs. Even my childhood friend with his strange affliction would find himself at least a little bit aroused by them.

Honestly, I’d been doing some thinking about his allergy and how far one could go before it was triggered. Radiating an aura of romantic interest would definitely make his allergy flare, but would “unwittingly” seducing him do the same?

His libido couldn’t have been nonexistent. His heart wouldn’t have been beating so fast at the pool otherwise. My guess was that something like getting a glimpse of panties would be okay as long as he thought it wasn’t intentional, meaning that I was safe as long as he thought my actions had no romantic motivation behind them.

I wanted to test it out. If we were going to continue to be around each other, it was important to know where to draw the line. This had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with me wanting him to treat me like he used to. This was all so I could tease him by playing to the edge of what would trigger his allergy, making him just horny enough that he wouldn’t want to be home alone. If he could no longer hold back and gave into his urges, all I’d have to do is go along with it and he’d probably self-destruct from his allergy. Easy peasy.

“Hey,” I said, moving my arm behind me so I could twist my body and tilt my head to look up at him. We were so close. The towel I was wearing didn’t really leave too much to the imagination. “You know how there’s a culture festival right after school starts again? Do you know what our class is doing?”

I raised my knees to flaunt my thighs. My towel was in a position such that it was just barely covering what it needed, which might not have been great since I wasn’t wearing anything underneath.

Then again, I didn’t care much if he saw me naked. Sure, I’d be embarrassed, but I was pretty sure that in his mind, nudity wasn’t nearly as hot as being scantily clad.

Ko-kun looked into my eyes. “Dunno. We pretty much have free rein over whatever we wanna do.”

“So that means we could do food-type things, right? Whaddya think about a maid café?”

“I’ve never seen maid cafés outside of manga.” He paused. “Actually, nah, there was one last year, or so I heard.”

“I feel like the more prestigious the school, the more anything goes.”

I was making it seem like this was a normal conversation, but I was closely watching his eyes. He’d already glanced at my thighs three times. He was doing his best not to look at them, but he obviously couldn’t help himself.

Hm... Looks like my guess is right on the money. He’s fine as long as he can’t sense any romantic intention behind actions. Also...he still ogles me like this now? Interesting. In that case...

“I wonder what kinda outfit would look best on Yume-chan. I wouldn’t want her to wear anything too revealing.” I took the opportunity to adjust my butt’s position, moving it closer to him and bumping my tailbone against his pelvis in the process.

“She’d only wear clothes like that in front of Irido.” His hands grazed my scalp as he continued drying my hair. Maybe it was just me, but it felt like he was being gentler than before.

“Ugh, you just can’t resist shipping people, can you?” I shook my head. “Anyway, I dunno how many people from other schools or other grades you’ll run into, but be careful not to get hit on.”

“Yep. You should watch out too.”

“Huh? You’re worried about me being hit on?”

“Nah, I’m saying you should watch out and make sure Irido-san doesn’t get hit on. No way in hell is anyone gonna hit on you.”

“Screw you! Of course I’m gonna be hit on! It happens every now and then...by creeps.”

“It’s ’cause you look so young!” he said, stroking the hair behind my left ear.

Got one right here. While running his hands through my hair, he stroked the back of my ear with his thumb as if he was giving it a massage. Then, he began rubbing my earlobes. I wonder what he’s thinkin’ about. Maybe he’s imagining touching me somewhere else... Just kidding.

“Ahn!” I decided to moan a little as a freebie.

He immediately moved his fingers away from my ear. Heh heh. How fun.

“Should be dry enough...” Ko-kun turned the hair dryer off.

Looks like this is about as far as he can take it. This experience had been very informative. From now on, if I wanted to tease him, I’d have to do it without him interpreting it as a romantic gesture.

“Hey,” he called out in a low voice, making me jump and squeak in surprise. “If you’re serious about guys creepin’ on you...I want you to be more careful.”

“Wh-What are you getting all serious for? I was just messing around.”

“Really? Okay.” Suddenly I felt his breath against my ear. “Maybe I should give you a hickey so other guys won’t hit on you.”

I felt a current run up my spine. I felt his breath slowly move from my ear to my neck, to my clavicle—

“S-Stop being stupid!” I freaked out and moved away, turning to look at him. “If you did that, I wouldn’t even be able to go to school!” I put my hand over the spot on my neck where I’d last felt his breath.

Ko-kun grinned. “What’re you gettin’ all serious for? I was just messing around.”

“H-Huh?!”

“I was just thinking about how you gave me a hickey in middle school. Sheesh, that was a time and a half. I tried popping my collar and everything else I could think of, but all I did was draw more attention to myself.”

Now that he mentions it... Yeah, I think I remember doing that. I’d been pretty excited about it too. I’d thought I could keep all the girls off of him if I did that.

“This was gonna be my way of gettin’ back at you, but I guess there’s no point since no one’s gonna see it anyway, unless summer break somehow ends early.”

Really? You weren’t so turned on that you wanted to kiss me? You weren’t lusting after the nape of my neck? Even if he had been, he’d never say it out loud. If he wanted to play it all off as a joke, then that was that.

But then I realized something—a certain possibility. If Ko-kun actually wanted to start something and was all over me as a result...wouldn’t I need to keep pretending not to be into him so his allergies wouldn’t trigger? Oh, god... That sounds like hell.

Yume Irido

The hot air from the dryer blew against my hair.

“So, why do I have to dry your hair again?”

“I-It’s hard to dry it by myself when it’s this long. Can’t a girl just get a break once in a while?”

Mizuto’s thin fingers ran through my hair. Even though it wasn’t as intense as skin-on-skin contact, my heart was beating faster regardless. His fingers were so gentle—the complete opposite of whatever came out of his mouth. Why am I the one whose heartbeat’s getting faster?! I need him to be the one getting flustered!

According to Akatsuki-san, no matter how emotionless he acted, showing him my unguarded back would have him sneaking glances. He hadn’t been looking at me in any particular way when I’d come into the living room, but now that he was in my blind spot, he had to have been looking at the nape of my neck, my shoulders, or my cleavage! All I had to do was catch him in the act and that’d give me the emotional upper hand.

I slightly turned to look at Mizuto, but all I saw was him staring at my hair, calm as ever. He didn’t look like a person who was getting aroused by my bare skin. This was starting to piss me off a little.

Here I was, doing something that I wasn’t used to in the slightest, but he couldn’t be bothered to give me even a little bit of a reaction?! This wasn’t normal! He wasn’t this calm just a few months ago! But if this was how he wanted to play things, then I knew what I had to do next. I loosened my towel a little bit. I wasn’t trying to take it off completely—I simply wanted it to be just a smidgen looser. I’d just be making it look a little messed up.

After a little bit, I succeeded in separating the towel from my body slightly. I took my hand off it and began looking at my phone. You want to look, don’t you? You’re interested, aren’t you? Of course you are! But still, I didn’t feel any change in his movements. I turned my phone on and quickly switched to the front-facing camera. Immediately, I saw his eyes flicker away. He is looking!

This gave me a boost of confidence, so I puffed out my chest. I won! Serves you right, you closet pervert! If you’re so interested, you should’ve looked at me from the start. Ah, I feel so much better. I wasn’t free yet, though. I may have won the battle, but I hadn’t won the war. I had to make sure I didn’t loosen my grip on the situation and— Wait, loosen? Suddenly, I felt a totally different sense of freedom. Something had been released from my bath towel.

“Huh?” My towel fell onto the couch.

My body was fully exposed. My skin that was still flush from the bath was out in the open, and with it...the strapless bra and shorts I’d been wearing.

“Huh?”

I quickly pulled the towel back up. Th-The jig is up. Sure, it was embarrassing for him to see me in these clothes, but more than that, it was awkward that he’d seen that I was wearing them under the towel. I broke into a cold sweat. In the event of the unexpected happening, I’d put these on as insurance. Now he knew that I’d come here with the intent to seduce him.

“Uh-huh... I see. Mm-hmm. I see.” Mizuto turned the hair dryer off. His cold voice was the only thing I could feel on my back now. “How simple.”

I winced as I took psychological damage.

“So you tried repeating what you thought worked in the past, thinking that I’d fall for it again?”

I winced once more.

“I don’t know if you were just trying to mess with me or make me fall prey to our rules, but either way...if you’re gonna try to seduce me, you should at least do a good job. You were so obviously nervous. I was trying to be considerate.”

I cringed so hard. Would it kill you to be a little more delicate with your words? But I’d taken so much damage, I couldn’t bring myself to fight back at all.

“Yume.” My name coming from his mouth was still so unfamiliar to me. Something inside me began stirring. “I’ve gotten better at playing things off thanks to the time I’ve spent with Higashira.”

My heart jumped. S-So he wasn’t ignoring me? He was actually...

“I’m gonna tell you what I tell her all the time.” His voice was lower than usual and pierced deep into my brain. “I’m a guy. Don’t forget that.”

Wha— What the heck was that? His voice is still ringing in my head. I-I can’t—

“I’m gonna take my bath now. You should get dressed before you catch a cold.” Suddenly, he was back to his normal self, and with that, he left the living room.

I fell to the couch as soon as I couldn’t sense him around anymore.

This is so...unfair! Telling me that is so underhanded! It should be banned—a crime! Did he do it on purpose? Is this payback? Is it because I tried to seduce him? It’s too mean, though! Argh! This is exactly why Higashira-san likes you! What’s gonna happen to me if you stop trying to play things off?!

Incidentally, I remained on the couch, rolling around agonizing about this until mom got home.

Akatsuki Minami

“Later. G’night,” he said as I left.

If we were still dating, he definitely would’ve let me stay over. It wasn’t like I had to go very far to get home, though. In less than ten seconds, I was already finding myself collapsing onto my bed. How am I going to cure his weird allergy?

I was the one who had caused it to appear in the first place, so it’d make sense if I helped cure it too. Really, it didn’t matter to me if he was cured or not. But it’d definitely be annoying if he misinterpreted things and I caused his allergies to flare up.

Oh, yeah. Wonder how Yume-chan’s doing. If things had gone well, right now, she and Irido-kun would be... I need to interrupt them. The ringtone will snap them back to their senses. I picked up my phone and called Yume-chan. I’d be surprised if she ignored the call or immediately hung up, but before I knew it, I heard the click of her picking up.

“Hello?”

“Yume-chan? You okay right now?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

She didn’t sound frantic or anything. More importantly, she sounded like she was alone. I felt relieved.

“How’d it go? Tell me how it went.”

“Well... Y’know... Ehe heh heh...”

Huh? Why is she nervously giggling? She sounds embarrassed, but as if she wants me to press further. No way...right? There’s no way that...

“So...did it go well?”

“Uh... I guess you could say that?”

“Huh? What does that mean?”

I heard Yume giggle from the other side of the phone. I don’t want a giggle! I want an explanation! Speak, girl!

“Well, he told me not to forget that he’s a guy.”

“Huh?” Did I cut out or something? That can’t be it...wait. Wait!

“So yeah, the plan didn’t work at all, and he knew what I was doing from the start. But you know, I was actually able to get a rise out of him. He’s just good at hiding it. He was being considerate of me because he’s a guy.”

“Uh... What? Huh? What the heck?” Imagining it made my heart skip a beat. What is this? A one-liner from a rom-com movie trailer?

“Is Irido-kun a shojo manga protagonist or something?” I asked.

“I know, right?! The fact that he said that all so naturally and effortlessly is scary.”

“Kinda pisses me off that his cute looks are starting to match his actions. Can you guess what I heard today?”

“Huh? Did you do the same thing to Kawanami-kun today?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah. Well, just on a whim. So, we ended up talking about getting hit on, and then he was all like, ‘Maybe I should give you a hickey so other guys won’t hit on you.’ Gross, right?”

“Huh?! Isn’t that hot? Like, really hot?!”

“Maybe for you, Yume-chan.”

“Sure, but I bet I’m not the only one who would think that.”

“Hm, you think so? Well, I guess I didn’t hate it.”

“Aw, you should be more honest.”

“He’s the one who’s not honest! He always laughs everything off!”

I was pissed that Irido-kun had caught Yume-chan’s heart like that. It was basically hell for me to have to sit and hear her talk about her problems and then for me to give advice. But...maybe it wasn’t so bad exchanging secrets with Yume-chan like this.