It’s Hard to Tell the Difference between a Close Friendship and a Romantic Relationship
Since Yume was with the other student council members, I’d thought that the plan was for Minami-san to have lunch with me and Isana, but I was mistaken. I’d been completely off the mark.
“Ta-da! This is Isana Higashira-chan!”
“Whoa!”
“Whoa!!!”
Two girls were added to the equation. They were clapping, their eyes locked onto Isana’s boobs. I recognized them; they usually hung out with Yume and Minami-san. One had a bob cut and a general spaced-out vibe, while the other was tall and gave off a sporty feel.
Isana tugged at my sleeve, her face filled with unease. “Wh-Who are these people? Why are they here?!” she whispered.
Someone like Isana, who was outgoing with people she knew but shy with everyone else, could only tremble like a lamb in a den of lions. Jeez... I don’t know what Minami-san is up to, but I guess I have to be the mediator here.
“Uh...” I looked at the two of them and tilted my head.
“Oh, right.” Minami-san clapped her hands together. “Nasuka Kanai’s the one who looks like she’s got zero motivation. The loud-looking one’s Maki Sakamizu!”
“Huh?! You sayin’ he doesn’t know our names even though we’re in the same class?! Also, what do you mean ‘loud-looking one,’ Akki?!”
“I don’t take note of people I don’t interact with either,” said the spacey one. “Nice to meet ya. Pleasure knowin’ ya.”
“Huh?! Wait, am I in the minority?!”
This girl is just as Minami-san described—loud. The more lackadaisical one seems more in tune with me and Isana, though. I repeated their names in my head, trying to commit them to memory. Okay, I’ll remember them...at least for today.
“Well, we can do away with the formalities,” I said. “Why’d you call us over here? Just so you know, when it comes to meeting new people, this one here is a fish out of water, gasping for dear life.”
“That’s needlessly descriptive!” Minami-san remarked. “Well, like, it’s kinda lonely without Yume-chan. And then I remembered that I hadn’t introduced them to Higashira-san yet, so I figured I might as well use this opportunity to do just that.”
“You should’ve asked her first.”
“Oh, good point! Higashira-san, let’s have lunch together, okay?” Minami-san said cheerfully, looking at Isana.
Isana’s eyes flitted between Sakamizu and Kanai before she finally mustered out a response. “Well... I suppose... It’s okay...”
“She said, ‘I’d love to’!” Minami-san very liberally interpreted Isana’s words.
“Eek.” That only made Isana shrink back more.
Good grief. I understood that Minami-san was only trying to lighten the atmosphere, but she really shouldn’t have put words in Isana’s mouth.
Minami-san dropped Kawanami to the ground, then pulled up two chairs and put them next to Sakamizu and Kanai.
“This one’s for you, Higashira-san,” Minami-san said as she sat in one of them. “I got permission.”
“O-Okay,” Isana said.
She sounded so helpless that I brought my own chair over too. While I did, Sakamizu and Kanai looked down at Kawanami’s lifeless body.
“Poor thing.”
“He looks like a dead fish.”
I put my chair next to Isana’s and sat down, which finally made her comfortable enough to follow suit.
Then I heard some murmurs from Sakamizu and Kanai.
“They’re huge.”
“They so are.”
“They’re jigglin’.”
“They so are!”
“Watch it, you two,” Minami-san interjected.
Well, Isana is currently bra-less. I’d have to make sure I stopped them if they tried to grope her. Seeing how tense she’d gotten, I decided to start up a conversation.
“Isana, did you bring lunch?”
“Oh, yes. I did. Huh? What else could this neatly wrapped box on my lap be?”
“Well, it’s just that I can’t imagine Natora-san making food.”
“Apparently my father made my lunch today.”
“Oh...” I hadn’t met him yet, but they really seemed to work him hard. But then again, based on the impression I’d gotten from Natora-san, this could’ve just been how their housework was split.
“Was yours made by that kind woman?” Isana asked.
“Yeah. Yuni-san really went all out for today.”
“Your stepmother is so kind. I’d like to request an exchange of mothers, in fact.”
I refuse. I do not want Natora-san as my mom.
“Hm...”
“I see...”
Kanai and Sakamizu made noises while Minami-san grinned for some strange reason.
“Well, my compatriots, what do you think?” Minami-san asked.
“It’s too early to say anything,” Kanai said.
“But they were talkin’ about their families, so they gotta be pretty close,” Sakamizu said.
What are they talking about? The three of them began muttering among themselves while opening their lunches. Minami-san had apparently bought bread from the convenience store while the remaining two had lunch boxes.
“Wait, Nasu-cchi, why are you even here?!” Sakamizu asked, opening an even bigger lunch box than all of ours. “Shouldn’t you be eatin’ with your upperclassman boyfriend? This isn’t the time to be ‘whale watching’!”
“Meh. I feel like Minami-chan needs me more after being rejected by Irido-chan.”
“Excuse me?! I wasn’t rejected!”
Hm, well, it’s true that Yume has less time to spend with Minami-san now that she’s on the student council. Honestly, though, I expected Minami-san to act a lot crazier than this, due to how she’d acted in the past.
Minami-san ripped open her bread’s packaging and chomped on it. “I’ve matured! I’m an adult who can genuinely celebrate her dear friend’s success!”
“Mm-hmm...”
“You matured so quickly. It was only a week ago that you came crying to me that you were so lonely,” Kanai said.
“Th-That’s what triggered my maturation!”
I wish you could’ve matured before you started high school. That would’ve saved me the trouble of your proposal and all that. I had a feeling that the reason she’d settled down a bit had been Kawanami, but also because she had other friends aside from Yume.
“Um... Mizuto-kun?” Isana brought me out of my thoughts. “Let us exchange food items. I am very much a fan of the Irido family fried chicken,” she said, eyeing my lunch box.
“Oh, right. Okay, open your mouth.”
“Ah...”
I picked up a piece of fried chicken with my chopsticks and brought it to her mouth. It was like feeding a baby bird.
“Mmm, so delicious!” Isana said, her cheeks puffing out like a chipmunk’s as she chewed.
“I’ll take one of these candied sweet potatoes then.”
“Mmff?!”
I swiped one of the potatoes from her lunch box and swiftly brought it to my mouth.
Isana quickly gulped down the chicken and grabbed me by my shoulders. “Pardon me?! Those are my favorite!”
“Yeah, I know.”
“You did it on purpose?!”
“You took something I like, so I took something you like. Fair’s fair, right?”
“It’s common practice that you take what you like, not what the other person likes!”
“Yeah, but nothing’s really catching my eye. Everything looks about the same to me.”
To me, food was nothing more than sustenance. It didn’t have any special meaning to me, and it had been like that for as long as I could remember.
Isana deeply frowned. “You’re the type of person nobody would enjoy cooking for!”
“So what? Were you planning on cooking for me or something?”
“Hmph. No, I simply was remarking on how that’s one less path to your heart.”
“And what do said ‘paths’ matter to you at this point?”
“They matter a lot! I’m hard at work, day in and out, studying methods by which to entice you to dote on me more.”
“It’s nice to dream big, I guess...”
“Would you like me to draw you erotic images or something?”
“Why the hell would I want that?”
“If I can’t win you over through your stomach, then I’ll appeal to your lust!”
“Things’ll get out of control if I don’t do something now, so I’ll dote on you a little. Here’s another piece of chicken.”
“Yay! Mmff!”
As I brought the second piece of chicken towards her mouth, I really was starting to understand how a mother bird felt. But also, it seemed that the three girls around us had begun talking among themselves again.
“Uh, they’re definitely dating, right?” Sakamizu whispered.
“There was absolutely no hesitation when he fed her. Chills,” Kanai muttered.
“Yeah, but they’re just friends,” Minami-san said.
“Lies! There’s no friggin’ way! They’re definitely getting down and dirty on the weekends!”
“Irido-chan’s gotta be walkin’ on eggshells around them...”
Then, at that moment, Kawanami, who’d been as still as a corpse, suddenly sat up.
“Eek!” Isana cried, clinging to my shoulder.
Hey, you know you’re not wearing a bra right now, right? As I tried to move my shoulder away from the soft sensation encroaching on it, Kawanami looked around at the three girls, his hair covered in dirt.
“I...could’ve sworn I heard a really unpleasant conversation just now.”
“Just your imagination. Here,” Minami-san said in a terrifying voice, brushing off his claim while tossing the extra bread she’d been holding at him. “Lunch. I bought you some while I was at the convenience store. Show me some tears of gratitude!”
“Huh?!” Kawanami glared at the bread she’d tossed at him while wiping off the dirt from his hair. “I would’ve preferred curry bread.”
“Knew you’d say that, so I bought that too. Here,” she said, throwing him another unopened bun.
“Oh? Thanks!” Suddenly, his face relaxed.
Seeing this, Sakamizu and Kanai started talking among themselves once again.
“Wait, these two are definitely dating too.”
“No, I think they’re actually married.”
“I knew I heard something really unpleasant,” Kawanami said, grimacing.
“Yeah, you might’ve been right on the money with that,” Minami-san agreed.
Sheesh, can these people just settle down and eat in peace?
“Eek! I-I’m so sorry! My nipples are still kinda...”
Yeah, I’m counting you among “these people” too, Isana.
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