An Introvert's Hookup Hiccups: This Gyaru Is Head Over Heels for Me! Volume 9 E-Book

Yuishi

• Herausgeber: J-Novel Club
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: An Introvert's Hookup Hiccups: This Gyaru Is Head Over Heels for Me!
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 342

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

After his lovey-dovey display with Nanami at the school festival, Yoshin feels more part of his high school class than ever. As the bonds between him and his classmates grow stronger, Yoshin realizes that the annual sports festival will soon be upon them. Newly determined, Yoshin decides to seriously participate, with Nanami vowing to cheer him on in her own special way! Plus, the end of the sports festival means the beginning of preparations for their graduation trip—to none other than fabulous Hawaii! As the couple gears up for their first overseas trip, they seem to be preparing more for a honeymoon...? Get ready for another round of memorable events for these young lovebirds!

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Prologue: To Each Their Own Regret

Chapter 1: Something Never Heard Before

Interlude: It’s Good to Double-Check

Chapter 2: My Own Personal Cheerleader

Interlude: Piggybacks and Hugs

Chapter 3: The Courage to Extend the Invitation

Interlude: A Slight Awakening

Chapter 4: On the Class Trip, We Shall Go!

Interlude: Expectation and Excitement

Afterword

Color Illustrations

About J-Novel Club

Copyright

Landmarks

Table of Contents

Color Images

Prologue: To Each Their Own Regret

I’m sure most people have heard the saying, “Hindsight is twenty-twenty.” But how many people have thought about what that actually means?

I’ve used the saying plenty of times myself, but I didn’t at all know where it originated. I was guessing that it wasn’t terribly uncommon for people to do so.

But it seemed that in this case, I had been misinterpreting the meaning of this particular saying.

I had always thought that the saying meant we couldn’t undo something we’d done, no matter how much we regretted it. In other words, I thought it was a saying we used after we had already done something. But actually, it looks like the saying was meant to teach people to think before they act, so that there wouldn’t be anything to regret in the first place. I felt like that was actually the opposite of the way I had thought about it. I wished I had known earlier that it was trying to teach us something about the future, instead of the past.

Because...

“Oh, it’s Misumai-senpai—the one that was kissing onstage,” I heard someone say.

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

“I heard he won the best couple contest because he kissed his girlfriend onstage.”

“Seriously? Wow, he’s pretty wild. I thought he was a total straightedge,” the other person muttered.

You’ve got me all wrong. Well, okay, I guess you don’t. But then, why am I feeling so defensive?

Just like that, though, random girls from the year below would come talk to me, or I would hear them talking about me from far away.

Ah, see, I can hear it again now. They’re talking about the couple contest.

Nanami and I had gotten carried away and ended up kissing onstage. I wasn’t going to make it seem like she was the one who initiated it, because—had I wanted to—I could’ve stopped her from kissing me. I knew this really was hindsight, but in that moment I had been able to see her movements almost frame by frame. So in all honesty, I could have stopped her if I had really wanted to. I could have used both hands to stop her in place, or dodge her, or just pretended like we kissed. There were many ways I could’ve done it. But I didn’t. I guess there was no way I’d ever dodge a kiss from Nanami, in any case.

Still, I had accepted what she had done. And that was why we were both responsible for that incident at the couple contest.

Still, just when I thought we’d taken care of one rumor, there was now a new one to deal with—though I guess this one was more based in fact.

What could I say? We both got carried away.

That was probably what school festivals were all about...or so I thought, until our teacher reprimanded me for what we did. Dammit, I thought they weren’t going to yell at us for stuff that happened at the school festival.

A reprimand? Or a warning? Whatever it was, the teacher called me in and told me to tone things down. He also told me that Nanami and I were probably the first ones to ever actually kiss onstage for the couple contest.

Seriously? I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I thought everyone was doing it, but I was sure that there were students who did it at least every few years or something. Didn’t someone say something about things at the festival being carnivalesque, after all?

But whatever the truth was, in the end Nanami and I were granted the dubious honor of accomplishing a certain “first” for the school.

I ruminated on these events as I made my way back to our classroom. Nanami...wasn’t there. It seemed she still hadn’t returned.

Nanami wasn’t with Otofuke-san and the others; she had been called in by a different teacher, separately from me; that teacher was none other than the school nurse.

Maybe she would be easier to recall if I referred to her as the one who had given me...that thing.

Even though I was a little taken aback by the fact that Nanami had been called in by the school nurse, I was pretty sure Nanami herself was even more shocked than I was. She was an excellent student, of course, but I guess not even she could get away this time without some kind of reprimand.

Seeing as how she wasn’t back yet, she was probably still in the midst of her conversation with the nurse. Still, it seemed rare for me to be the one waiting for Nanami in the classroom.

I sat down at my desk and messed around on my phone. Baron-san and the others were logged into the game chat. I pondered for a moment whether to tell them that Nanami and I had kissed onstage...but then thought better of it.

It felt like it had been a while since I last played on my phone by myself in the classroom. I used to waste time like this constantly; doing it now somehow left me wanting, though. Maybe I’d gotten too used to Nanami peeking in from the side or getting excited with me whenever I played now.

When is she going to come back?

“Do you regret...kissing me?”

Out of nowhere, my inner Nanami spoke, voice full of anxiety. Wait, that sounded like there was something wrong with my brain. She had actually asked me that question before heading over to meet with the school nurse.

There was no way I regretted it.

I didn’t regret kissing her. If there was any regret, it would have been for not thinking more about where we were kissing. It was because we kissed where we did that we were able to dispel all those terrible rumors.

“Dang...I really messed that up. How could I have been so careless?” someone muttered.

When I raised my head at the voice, I saw Kenbuchi-kun—rather, Hitoshi—sitting in front of me. Though his body was turned toward me, he was gazing down at the floor, muttering without actually looking at me.

“Man, this sucks. I really should have done it,” he continued mumbling.

Uh, is it just me, or does he sound like he really wants me to ask him what’s up? Should I talk to him? But asking him seems like a lot of trouble.

Hitoshi just kept mumbling to himself as I sat there trying to decide what to do. He wasn’t looking at me at all, so I couldn’t tell if he was doing it on purpose.

He was the first friend I’d made since starting high school, so the idea of not asking him what was up made me feel bad, even ungrateful in a sense. It might also sound opportunistic of me, but a part of me thought that reaching out to him now would be a good step in rehabbing my interpersonal skills too—even though the thought of him not responding to me was terrifying. If that happened, I was pretty sure I would cry.

“Is something—” I started.

“You wanna listen?!” he shouted.

Yikes, he’s coming on super strong.

I had spoken up while worried about whether he’d respond to me at all, but he seemed to have been waiting for me to talk to him the whole time. Yeah, that actually scared me a bit.

As I sat there with my eyes wide open in surprise, Hitoshi looked back at me, expectation lighting up his eyes. There seemed to be no way I could say I wouldn’t listen. Not to mention I wasn’t good at saying things like that in the first place.

“Not sure I’ll be of any help, but sure,” I muttered.

“Thanks. Yeah, you know, it’s just that I thought I’d mucked things up with the school festival,” he began.

“The school festival?” I repeated.

Mucked things up? How? I was no expert, but in terms of how it went, I would’ve said that our class did really well with the school festival. We had a lot of people come to our café, and we also had a ton of fun. I mean, maybe having the guys cosplay as girls was kind of a mistake, but I still thought we were all into the whole thing.

“I don’t think you messed anything up,” I offered.

“No, man. I’m not talking about the festival itself. I just realized that we should’ve made a class shirt or something,” Hitoshi explained.

“A class shirt? What’s that?” I asked, tilting my head in wonder at the unfamiliar phrase. Now it was Hitoshi’s turn to be surprised, confusing me even more. Is this really that important?

“You know, it’s when we all wear the same T-shirt? For class solidarity? You’ve never heard of it? I wanted to do it, but then I totally forgot,” Hitoshi ended up murmuring.

I had no idea such a thing existed. It wasn’t the kind of term that showed up frequently in the manga and things I read, so it wasn’t really on my radar.

Hitoshi continued to moan and groan, his upper body splayed out over the desk. He practically radiated sadness.

What was I, as a friend, supposed to say to him in times like this? Should I just let him be? I had thought that the school festival had ended in a huge success, but for people who had wanted to do more, maybe there were still lingering desires.

I guess that was his regret. I had to admit that I never even thought of it. Were other people having regrets about the school festival right now too?

Does Nanami have regrets too? Just as I was thinking about that, a shadow crossed my field of vision. Thinking it was Nanami, I looked in that direction...only to discover that it wasn’t her.

“Huh? Shirishizu-san?” I found myself saying.

“Oh, Misumai-kun. And Kenbuchi-kun too. It’s rare to see the two of you together,” she muttered.

She looked so dejected that I was about to mention it was rare to see her in that state.

Shirishizu-san, very clearly exhausted, seated herself at a desk near us and put her head down too. Oddly enough, she took on the exact same posture as Hitoshi.

Two people sitting before me in basically the same way. Should I say something to Shirishizu-san too? Or was it better to leave her alone?

After going back and forth, I finally chose the former option and asked, “Did something happen?”

It felt weird to check on Hitoshi and not Shirishizu-san—at least, to me it did.

Unlike Hitoshi, Shirishizu-san didn’t jump at the opportunity to divulge things to me. For a while, she wiggled in her seat like a restless caterpillar, and then eventually turned herself toward us and let out, “The teacher really put me through the wringer.”

“Oh, I see,” I said, deducing everything from her straightforward response. Just like Nanami and I had kissed onstage, Shirishizu-san had done something shocking as well.

She had slapped her childhood friend.

It really was something else. And because of that, getting yelled at for doing something like that in front of so many people unfortunately made sense. If anything, maybe we should be glad that the teacher was only angry with her. Still, Shirishizu-san seemed pretty down about it.

“Also,” she began hesitantly.

Huh? There’s more? I can’t think of anything aside from that magnificent slap though.

By the time we realized it, both Hitoshi and I were staring at Shirishizu-san with concern, as she seemed unable to continue. She then blushed slightly and glanced away from us as she murmured, “The underclassmen and the other delinquent types have started calling me ‘boss lady.’”

Hitoshi and I were at a loss for words.

Right now Shirishizu-san was wearing her school uniform like a gyaru, but when she was standing onstage for the best couple contest, she had looked like a total delinquent herself. Slapping another delinquent-looking student—even if he was her childhood friend—would certainly get her into her current situation.

It made perfect sense to me, though I didn’t dare say that out loud.

“Boss lady,” Hitoshi murmured softly.

“Stop it,” Shirishizu-san moaned as she turned toward Hitoshi and glared at him, her eyes in their usual narrow look while she still lay slumped over the desk. It seemed, though, that neither of them was going to move from their current position of having their heads down on their desks.

Her posture still intact, Shirishizu-san kept muttering to herself about why she had to go and slap him when and where she did. I guess this, then, was Shirishizu-san’s regret.

“Don’t take it too hard,” I said to her. “Apparently we’re always destined to regret things.”

“What do you mean, dude? Having no regrets at all is way better,” Hitoshi returned.

“That would be ideal, sure. But realistically speaking, it’s just not possible to live life without regretting things,” I explained.

I’d only been living the decade-plus of my life given that I was only a high schooler, but it already seemed to me that regret was an emotion no one could avoid experiencing.

It was like that in manga too: there were so many scenes centered around characters making decisions out of a desire to leave no regrets in their lives. But despite all their talk, they seemed to keep landing themselves in situations where regret was inevitable—where, in the end, they were left to ponder if perhaps the other choice would have left them better off.

So, really, it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing to have regrets.

My dad and I talked about this precise topic just a little while ago. It was after the dare had ended, and I was thinking about whether I’d made the right decision.

“It’s fine to regret your decision. Regret is just another important function of the heart, so I would never say that having regrets is meaningless. The important thing is not to regret things too much, and to move forward with your decisions knowing that you’ll give everything you’ve got to your future.”

I remembered the conversation well because it was the first time I had talked about something like that with my dad—it was one of the first times I had felt so relieved from hearing someone else’s advice.

I suddenly wondered if my dad had ever experienced something that made him think that way. I didn’t ask him about it then, but maybe I could the next time I had the chance.

“I see. That is an interesting way to think about things,” Shirishizu-san said.

“I’m really just quoting my dad, though,” I confessed.

“I don’t think I’ve ever talked about stuff like that with my dad. Wait, when was the last time I even talked to him?” Hitoshi wondered out loud.

I shared my thoughts because I wanted to make the two of them feel a bit better. It seemed I had been able to do that, at least a little bit.

I also never thought I’d ever get to sit in a classroom talking to...friends. And even though I never imagined it, it wasn’t too shabby. I was honestly having kind of a fun time.

Just then, I heard the classroom door open, so I looked over in that direction—and found Nanami walking in with her brows slightly furrowed.

Did Nanami get a talking-to as well?

“Welcome back, Nanami,” I said.

“Hey, Yoshin,” Nanami said weakly. She then walked over to me rather than to her own seat, entirely deflated and unsteady on her feet, and proceeded to lean on me face forward.

We thus ended up hugging each other while I remained seated in my chair.

I wasn’t expecting her to do that in the classroom, so I had to brace myself to catch her. My body felt like it was going to start trembling any minute.

“Why aren’t you sitting down?” I asked her, more than slightly confused.

“The other two look exactly the same, so I wanted to do something different,” she mumbled.

Apparently she wanted to stand out from the others. Gosh, is there a need for her to be competing against them like that? Just as I thought that, though, Nanami managed to reposition herself and moved to hug me from behind. She was now pressing into my back and leaning all her weight on me.

“Did she yell at you that much?” I asked.

“Um, no, not that much,” she replied.

I assumed Nanami had gotten quite a talking-to because she seemed pretty drained, but that seemed not to be the case. She held me as if to cradle me, then started swaying from side to side.

So I, too, swayed to match her movement.

“Man, you two sure are close,” Hitoshi remarked.

“They’ve been a lot more clingy ever since the school festival,” Shirishizu-san added.

Their comments hinted at mild exasperation, but of course we would have never done this had there been others in the classroom. We were only able to do this because it was after school. Wait, we are able to do this, right...?

Nanami, though, seemed to be looking at the two of them with mild indignation. I couldn’t quite see her face, but my guess was that her current expression might even be one of pride.

“Then why did you look so concerned earlier?” I asked Nanami.

“Well, uh,” she began hesitantly, tightening her grip around me. She then continued speaking, choosing her words very carefully.

“After she reprimanded me about the whole kissing thing,” Nanami began.

“Uh-huh,” I said, trying to get her to continue.

“She asked me why...”

“Uh-huh.”

“...there was no tongue.”

“Huh?”

It felt like time had stopped in our classroom. Wait, she talked to the school nurse, right? How did they get to talking about that? What is that lady even asking? Oh, see, the other two are completely frozen too. Shirishizu-san’s turned bright red. Hitoshi’s got his eyes all wide and is repeating “Tongue... Tongue?” like a broken record.

“N-Nanami-chan, who asked you something like that?” Shirishizu-san asked.

“The school nurse,” Nanami said simply.

With that, both Shirishizu-san and Hitoshi let out a soft “Ah,” as though that explained everything. Their faces were still twitching, but they did seem to understand that the school nurse of all people would ask such a question.

So that really is how everyone thinks of the nurse, huh?

“When she asked me that, I kind of regretted that I didn’t think of it myself,” Nanami muttered.

“Hold it right there,” I said.

I knew that regret could take many forms, but this one was completely unexpected.

Having never thought that a kiss could even go in that direction, I suddenly felt nervous about whether Nanami—who was still hugging me from behind—wouldn’t try to pull it off right then and there.

Chapter 1: Something Never Heard Before

I was often told that studying was a student’s top priority, so I also wondered why we had so many nonacademic events for school. Given that I was a pretty disengaged student, though, I took neither academics nor school events all that seriously.

I wondered, I was... I was talking a lot in the past tense. I couldn’t really claim that I was now an engaged student, but there were definitely things about me now that were different from before. My grades were a lot better compared to a year ago, and I also now participated in school events. I felt like I was going through all the excitement that a first-year would have experienced, only a year late. Does that make me a late bloomer?

This was all only possible because of Nanami. My horizons had really expanded since I began dating her. Moving forward, too, I knew I was going to do more things that I otherwise wouldn’t have had I been by myself. I couldn’t thank Nanami enough for that.

I couldn’t, but...

“I don’t wanna have anything to do with that event. I just don’t want to,” I mumbled.

“Really? That much?” Nanami asked.

I nodded several times in response to her question, though I remained completely silent.

This was nonnegotiable for me. I genuinely disliked it. It was an event that absolutely made me put my foot down, with just the thought of it making me tremble. I couldn’t stop, like a little kid afraid of ghosts in the dark. I knew it sounded childish of me, but still.

Nanami watched me as I made my immature remarks, her expression one of mild surprise. Even when I saw her looking at me like that, I only looked down, as if I could express how strongly I did not wish to participate by literally not looking her way.

“You really dislike sports festivals that much?” Nanami asked, using her pleasant and beautiful voice to speak such terrible words that must never reach my ears. Oh, no, Nanami—you shouldn’t let such words cross your lips.

Those two words topped my mental list of words unsuitable for public broadcast. If at all possible, I wanted to be able to bleep them out any time they were spoken. I was aware I might be overreacting slightly, but still.

The event I found more distasteful than any other...was the sports festival Nanami mentioned.

It was, quite literally, a festival celebrating sports. I guess we could think of it as the sports version of the regular school festival. In fact, on our campus, it happened immediately after the school festival—which meant that it was going to take place not too long from now. I found just that fact alone completely abhorrent.

“How do you like to work out but not like the sports festival?” Nanami asked.

“Working out is okay because I do that on my own. I just don’t like sports that involve other human beings,” I explained, scratching my head even though it wasn’t itchy. It was like my body was trying to physically manifest unpleasant memories. Look, I couldn’t stand the twice-darned event, and I couldn’t help how I felt.

The feeling was probably rooted in a childhood experience. I couldn’t remember it terribly clearly; I just knew that a very definite distaste for sports festivals was thickly plastered onto my heart.

Track and field, individual sports...I even hated the regular PE classes we had. I didn’t mind doing athletic things on my own, though, so maybe I just disliked the sports we did at school. I really couldn’t explain it myself.

“So, what did you do about it last year?” Nanami asked.

“Uh, I think I lost at some individual event, and then I just ditched the rest of the festival by sitting out somewhere,” I replied.

“Wow, that sounds even more delinquent than what most delinquents would do,” Nanami let out.

“Oh, come on. I wasn’t breaking any rules or anything. Probably,” I protested.

“No way! You must’ve broken some kind of a school rule or other!” Nanami exclaimed, knocking her fist lightly against my forehead. The contact seemed almost to make a sound, but of course it didn’t hurt. It was an adorable way for her to scold me, almost as if she were talking to a small child.

I’d thought this before, but I really did kind of like getting scolded by Nanami. Though if I overdid things, she might actually get mad at me. I didn’t know how to describe it, but her scolding felt as if she was looking out for me. I could imagine a fully activated Nanami scolding me the way someone would tease the person they liked. Man, it would be amazing if there was a specialist out there that studied this exact thing.

To keep myself from thinking more about it, I had to press my palms against my cheeks.

“What were you doing the whole time the event was going on, then?” Nanami pressed.

“Well, I think last year there were some mats kept in the gym storage closet, so I just lay on them and played some games,” I said, trying to jog my memory of that day. I didn’t have the guts to fake an illness and hang out in the nurse’s office, so I had just wandered around places where there was no one else nearby.

And it was because I’d wandered that I found just the right kind of environment already set up for me to sit out the sports festival. I must have thought I had hit the jackpot and just stayed in the closet for the whole day. I thought I saw a few other people skipping out on the sports festival, but it seemed like a don’t ask, don’t tell kind of situation. They weren’t my friends or anything, so I didn’t really remember. Now that I thought about it, maybe the spot I found was well-known to the school truants.

“Jeez, you can’t be doing that! The sports festival is part of our education too,” Nanami insisted.

“I see. I suppose you could see it that way,” I responded.

“You’re being uncharacteristically stubborn about this. You must really hate sports festivals,” Nanami murmured.

I nodded quietly, to which Nanami just let out a wry laugh. I mean, even I couldn’t explain why I disliked it so much. I guess I should just chalk it up to a childhood trauma.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Nanami began as though she had thought of something, bringing her index finger up to her lips. I watched her mouth intently just in case she was going to trace her lips with her finger at some point. With my gaze fixed on her lips like this, I found myself recalling what she had said before.

It was when Nanami, Hitoshi, Shirishizu-san, and I were all talking in the classroom. After each of us had mentioned our unique regrets about the school festival, Nanami had said something outrageous.

Or, rather, she had had something outrageous said to her.

“Why was there no tongue?”

How could a teacher have said this when they were also scolding us for something bad we’d done? But since it was the school nurse who had said this particular thing, I suppose it wasn’t completely unimaginable; she apparently gave students relationship advice, and had expanded into giving students sex ed lessons too.

But that still didn’t explain why she would ask about tongue...or whatever.

I couldn’t help picturing the school nurse, a grin on her face like a naughty child about to cause trouble. Yeah, she’s definitely the type to say stuff like that. After all, I still have...that thing she gave me saved in my wallet.

I’d had no opportunity to make use of it, but I couldn’t quite throw it away either. That was why it was still sitting in my wallet. Though I felt like when the time came to use it, I’d hesitate just because it’d make me think of the school nurse.

In any case, it seemed Nanami had taken to thinking about what to do about her tongue after being told that. She even went to the trouble of declaring that in front of me. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do after such a declaration, but I did think of one thing.

How, with just the addition of this one small element, does a kiss suddenly become so sexual?

I was probably the only high school student to be thinking about such a question so seriously. Regardless, looking at Nanami’s lips made me return to such thoughts and questions. Is there some kind of tongue practice you can do beforehand?

“Hey, Yoshin? Are you listening?”

“Huh?! Oh, sorry, what were you saying?” I managed to say, quivering as I suddenly realized that Nanami was looking into my eyes.

Until a moment ago, I had been staring at her mouth, but all of a sudden I was meeting Nanami’s gaze directly. Of course I would be surprised.

“What were you thinking about?” Nanami asked suspiciously.

“Huh?”

“I mean, you rarely space out and miss what I’m saying,” she continued.

“Oh, well, you know,” I said, struggling to find a response.

“You were thinking about something pervy, weren’t you?”

My body gave another slight jolt. No, I’m pretty sure it’s not pervy. I mean, it’s about kissing, so it can’t possibly be that pervy.

Nanami then narrowed her eyes like Shirishizu-san always did and looked even more intently into my face. Her piercing gaze started making me sweat out of nerves. A chill went up my spine, and I couldn’t keep my eyes in focus. With her eyes still narrowed, Nanami leaned in to bring her lips closer to my ear.

“Next time we’re alone, tell me about it,” she whispered, then pulled herself away from me as her eyes returned to normal. Her expression changed so suddenly that I felt a totally different kind of shiver go up my spine.

Wow, I don’t think I can win this one, I thought, seeing Nanami flash me a toothy grin. Not that this was about winning or losing.

“Anyway, what I was saying was, were you okay when you played basketball against Shoichi-senpai then?” Nanami asked.

“Oh, true. I was somehow okay then?” I wondered out loud.

That might have been the only time I’d ever played sports in front of Nanami. She was right to point out that when that happened, I was actually okay despite all the attention I was getting. Why was I okay in that situation, even though I absolutely hated playing sports at school?

I glanced over at Nanami as I contemplated the possible reasons for it. The only thing unique about that situation was...

“Maybe because I was doing it for you,” I said without thinking.

It was true, though: I was getting pretty worked up back then because senpai and I were fighting over Nanami. I mean, I was guessing this in retrospect, but maybe, in that moment, my anger had won out over my complete and utter distaste for sports.

If that was the case, saying that it had been for Nanami certainly sounded nice, but that also meant that Nanami had been the cause of the incident.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to reference you like a variable in some weird experiment of mine,” I said.

“Oh, no way, why are you apologizing? It makes me so happy to hear you say that you did it for me,” Nanami replied.

I guess that’s good. I feel kind of relieved to hear that.

“If that’s the case, it sounds like your dislike for the sports festival is more of an emotional thing. Would you be more willing to participate if there was some kind of reward in it for you, like when you were studying for exams?” Nanami suggested.

“Oh, maybe. But didn’t you say that it wasn’t always good to use the reward system?” I asked, perking up upon hearing the word “reward.”

“Just this once! If you work hard at the sports festival, I shall reward you appropriately!” Nanami declared, tilting her head slightly as she picked up on the change in my attitude.

A reward...reward, huh? I glanced at Nanami’s lips again, then shook my head violently from side to side. No, no. That won’t do.

“I’ll think about it,” I muttered instead.

“Oh, come on! You can ask for anything,” Nanami insisted.

“You shouldn’t say things like that. What are you gonna do if I actually request something totally inappropriate?” I asked.

“Huh? But I really am willing to do anything,” Nanami mumbled.

I had to suppress the urge to ask, “Really?” Nanami was starting to scare me because right then she really did seem like she was willing to do anything for me.

Still, if she herself was saying “anything,” then maybe she really meant it.

Inside me, a conflict began to brew. The words “reward,” “regret,” and “Nanami’s lips” swirled about in my head. They formed a string of signifiers but were devoid of anything signified.

As I remained unable to say anything, the two of us seemed to be stuck simply staring at each other. What’s going on here, exactly...?

“Guys, you know you’re still at school, right?”

Those words snapped us back to reality.

When I turned, I saw that Hitoshi—along with several of our other classmates—were looking at us. Oh, right—we’re just on break between periods.

“Well, uh, it’s still passing period, right?” I managed to say.

“We can’t help listening in on your conversation. For crying out loud, practice some self-censorship, man,” Hitoshi remarked.

“By which you really mean...?” I asked.

“Your conversations are like poison to me because I’m single! Just give me a break man, you’re killing me!” he shouted.

I’d never heard anyone describe a conversation as poison. I guess I’d never thought of this possibility because no one had said anything like that until now, but...

“Could it be that you’ve been thinking that this whole time?” I asked.

Hitoshi nodded fervently several times. The other guys and girls in the class looked sheepish too. Some of them had wry smiles on their faces.

“I like listening to couples who are really close, so I don’t really mind it,” one person said.

“I’d sit there being kind of jelly...but then I also file away what you say in my mind for future reference,” another added.

“When I hear you guys talking while I’m having a fight with my girlfriend, it makes me go and apologize to her,” someone else piped up.

“Actually, I’d appreciate it if you’d tone down some of the sexy stuff,” someone murmured.

“Well, you guys are the celebrities of the class,” a fourth person declared.

People continued sharing their various opinions of me and Nanami’s conversations. It was pretty embarrassing to hear what everyone really thought of us.

Wait, what do you mean, “celebrities of the class”? That makes it sound like the conversations Nanami and I have are like some kind of restaurant special.

These were all assessments of us we’d never heard before, but being told them now really was pretty embarrassing.

“In that case, I’ll do my best to hold back a bit in the future,” I said.

“Wait, you’re gonna hold back?”

“Huh?”

“Oh...”

There was an unexpected voice of protest from our midst. It came, of course, from Nanami. As soon as I reacted to it, though, she covered her mouth—as though she’d let her thoughts spill out unintentionally.

When I remained silent because I didn’t know how I was supposed to respond, Nanami took her hand away from her mouth and pinched the hem of my uniform.

Seeing her like that made up my mind.

“I guess I won’t hold back after all,” I said.

Someone murmured, “Yeah, I thought so.” The voice sounded slightly exasperated, but I couldn’t help it.

But still, I reminded myself to later consider which conversation topics might be best discussed when Nanami and I were alone.

♢♢♢

I didn’t have the first clue about where my aversion to sports festivals came from, but fortunately for me, the possibility of a reward from Nanami actually had me thinking more positively about it.

The problem now was figuring out what event to compete in. I actually didn’t even know what events the sports festival held. A marathon, maybe? Wow, that sounds terrible.

“Speaking of, what did you compete in last year, Nanami?” I asked.

“Me? I think I did basketball and the chicken fight, and then maybe the cheer competition too?” she replied.

“You did that many? Wow, that’s impressive.”

“Heh heh, then praise me! Give me a pat on the back for a job well done!” Nanami said.

She was sitting very close to me, probably because she and I were alone in her room. She rubbed her head against my body like a cat marking its territory.

I tried out patting Nanami gently on her head. Touching Nanami’s hair always made my heart pound. She half closed her eyes too, seemingly out of pleasure, but I thought I was the one getting all the benefits from the situation.

After I petted her for some time, Nanami seemed to remember something. She took out her phone and started waving it around.

“You wanna watch a video we got of last year’s sports festival?” she asked.

“Huh? You have one?” I asked.

“Yup. Hatsumi and Ayumi got it and sent it to me. Oh, but you can keep petting me.”

I thought maybe I was supposed to stop petting her head since she was going to show me the video, but apparently I was wrong. Nanami began tapping away at her phone as I continued stroking her hair. I wondered if I was supposed to keep doing this while I watched the video, but once Nanami finished fiddling around with her phone, she moved away from my hand and sat down next to me. With her shoulder touching mine, she turned her phone to landscape orientation.

“See? This is from last year,” she remarked.

“I see. You seem kind of different here,” I commented.

What appeared on-screen was a video of Nanami from the previous year, when she was a first-year. It must have been the middle of a basketball game, because the video showed her dribbling a ball.

Wow, Nanami seems really good. She’s dribbling, taking shots, and actually making them. I had no clue she was this good at sports.

She had her hair in a ponytail and was wearing a jersey over her PE clothes. Her ample chest warped the number on her jersey, making it hard to read.

“We lost really early on in basketball though. I was in a few other events too,” she said, swiping out of the video and displaying a number of other matches that she had also participated in. In addition to the ones she’d mentioned earlier, it seemed she had taken part in several other events as well.

She had participated in the beanbag toss too, with one video capturing her as she grabbed at beanbags on the ground and hopped up and down to throw them into a basket affixed to the top of a tall pole. I didn’t even know our sports festival had such an event.

“You look like you’re having so much fun, Nanami. It’s so cute when you jump around like that,” I told her.

“Tee hee hee. But didn’t you do the beanbag toss too? I’m pretty sure that was mandatory for everyone,” she said.

“Huh? There was a mandatory event?” I wondered out loud.

Nanami was surprised that I didn’t remember at all. I, on the other hand, was shocked that Nanami remembered things like this in the first place.

A mandatory event? Was there such a thing? Well, I guess so...

I didn’t remember it because I either had zero interest, or my entire class had zero interest. If I asked Hitoshi, would he know?

Nanami was watching the video and smiling, as though recalling all her pleasant memories. If I got to see Nanami make such pretty expressions on her face, then maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing to revisit the past like this.

Just as the thought crossed my mind, though, Nanami suddenly narrowed her eyes.

Bewildered by her sudden change in expression, I kept looking back and forth between the phone screen and Nanami’s face. What’s wrong?

I couldn’t tell if Nanami had picked up on my perplexity, but she began tapping at her phone screen with her fingertip. She paused the video she was watching, rewound it a bit, played it again, then paused it once more.

What’s going on? Did she see something strange in the video?

“Isn’t this...?”

Nanami pointed at her phone screen after pausing it at a particular frame. The scene displayed was an ordinary one, where Nanami was seen slightly in the distance surrounded by several other people.

It didn’t seem like anything that should draw Nanami’s attention. What she said next, though, wasn’t something I expected.

“Isn’t this you?” she asked me.

“Huh?” I blurted out.

Nanami was pointing at a male student who appeared on-screen.

He was standing there with sleepy eyes and a disposition that seemed to suggest zero investment and zero motivation for anything that was occurring in his vicinity. It was the kind of student who seemed to be the textbook example of one who had no desire to engage whatsoever.

Yup, that’s definitely me. So I guess I was