Chapter 17 | The Truth About That Day

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During lunch, Reina came to my classroom with a bento box that she had made, and after we had eaten together, she returned to her classroom with a satisfied look.

It seems like from now on, she’ll be making lunch for me as well.

The side dishes that she had shared with me were all delicious, and I’m looking forward to the next one.

And so, after-school finally arrived.

“I’ve come to pick you up, Shinse.”

“Yeah… let’s go.”

The place where I was supposed to talk with Ria was the rooftop.

Originally, the rooftop is a prohibited place, and the door leading to the rooftop is locked, but it seems like it’s fine since Reina will pick the lock with a hairpin. Though, I don’t think that’s fine at all…

“Shiina-san, would you do me the honor of going with us?”

“…”

Ria silently nodded while making a displeased face at Reina.

I had been watching Ria the whole day, and every time Reina came to me, I would see that Ria was looking at me with a frustrated look.

I don’t know why she’s frustrated even though she was the one who cheated and betrayed me.

Maybe I’ll know the reason soon.

When we got in front of the rooftop door, Reina picked the lock with a hairpin.

I was impressed with how practiced her movements were.

Ria wasn’t surprised at all, though.

“Now then, where should we start our conversation…”

After going to the rooftop, Reina stood next to me and crossed her arms.

“Like I said yesterday, I’m going to talk about how I didn’t cheat.”

I couldn’t understand what Ria meant when she said that.

She didn’t cheat? What was she saying?

She was walking under the daylight, in broad daylight!

Or rather, like she said yesterday…

Did Reina already hear something from Ria?

When I made eye contact with Reina, she said definitively “It’s probably a lie anyway.”

“It’s not a lie. Okay? To begin with, the only time I went out with that guy alone was on that day.”

“That just means that you had a cheating date on that one day.”

“It’s not a date!”

Ria denied it while shouting loudly, but I don’t think there’s any other reason for a man and a woman to go out holding hands other than for a date.

“Even though you were holding hands and looking so happy, it wasn’t a date?”

“I was forced to hold his hand.”

“If you were forced, then why didn’t you shake him off?”

Reina was saying what I was thinking.

“If I did that, then it would become awkward. That’s why I had a forced smile on my face. And Shinse just happened to see that at the worst possible time.”

Even if she says that, I can’t possibly trust her.

“You were also forced to kiss Reina-san this morning, right Shinse? Even though you actually didn’t want to do it in front of everyone.”

“Eh…”

“I know. You always look around restlessly when you’re troubled. You were like that this morning.”

I was unexpectedly attacked back.

“…Shinse, you didn’t hate kissing me, right?”

Reina smiled sweetly. Though her eyes weren’t smiling.

If you were to ask if I hated kissing Reina, then I wouldn’t hate it at all.

Though that’s with the condition that she thinks about the time and place.

When I was suddenly kissed at the karaoke, as a high school boy in the middle of puberty, it was nothing other than a reward from a beautiful girl, so I didn’t hate it, I didn’t hate it though…

“I-I didn’t hate it…”

“Fufu, I knew it.”

Reina nodded happily.

I wonder if my eyes were darting around just now.

“Shinse, you’re just being forced to say that.”

“Did I say something?”

“It’s nothing…”

It’ll be painful if this topic is dragged on any further.

I have to get back to the main topic.

“Well, well, let’s get back to the topic… First of all, why were you alone with that flashy guy, Ria? To begin with, who is he?”

I couldn’t stop my voice from becoming forceful.

I couldn’t help but feel angry.

“He’s my childhood friend from when I used to live near my old house… He moved to a university nearby this year, so I was just meeting him for the first time in a while.”

Ria had moved to the town where we live during middle school.

That flashy guy was her childhood friend from the town where she used to live.

That’s if I were to believe everything that Ria was saying.

“Let’s assume that all of the things that you’ve said are true, Shiina-san…”

“I’m not lying.”

“Yeah, I’ll trust you on that, I guess.”

Reina made eye contact with me.

“…There are other reasons why I can’t trust Ria.”

“Other reasons…?”

Certainly, there is a possibility that I just happened to run into her at the wrong time, just like how Reina and I’s meeting was also too good to be true.

But, I have reasons why I think that Ria had been cheating on me from before.

“The time when you started dying your hair blonde and stuff, Ria, was probably around the time that your childhood friend had moved to a university nearby, right?”

Ria had started dying her hair blonde and wearing piercings after becoming a second-year high schooler.

“Yeah, but what about it?”

“That means… Isn’t it that you became a gal due to the influence of that flashy guy?”

I can’t think of it any other way.

That flashy guy had moved here this spring when he moved to a university.

At the same time, Ria became a gal.

I can’t think of that as just a coincidence.

“I just changed my image when I became a second-year high schooler. It’s not like I changed because of that guy’s influence.”

“That’s a lot of coincidences, isn’t it?”

“I know you’re suspecting me, but everything I’m saying is the truth! To begin with, I only reunited with him just last week.”

Ria glared at Reina.

“You reunited with him just last week and then you already went on a date with him? For someone who says that you haven’t met him for a long time, you two get along well.”

“It wasn’t a date, and childhood friends are close even if they haven’t met for a while, right? Shinse also looks like he’s having a lot of fun when he meets with Yui-chan.”

“Eh…”

I felt like I got unexpectedly attacked back again.

It felt like the atmosphere had suddenly frozen.

“…Shinse, Yui? Who is that?”

This time, Reina asked with a serious face.

“Y-Yui is… just a childhood friend who used to live nearby… She lives overseas now, but sometimes she comes back to Japan, so we meet each other at those times.”

We were so close with each other’s families that she had let me stay at her house when my parents were away when I was in elementary school.

“…Is she cute? That girl.”

“Eh? W-Whether she’s cute or not?”

“Her full name is Yui Amau, and she’s incredibly cute. Honestly, if Yui-chan was in this high school, then Futaba-san wouldn’t be the only one who is unusually popular like she is now, I think.”

I wish Ria wouldn’t say such unnecessary things.

Reina’s forehead was throbbing with a blue vein.

Reina clearly thought that a new rival had appeared and she was jealous.

Miori and I are not in that kind of relationship though.

I don’t know how much Reina is aware of my relationships with other people.

At the very least, she’s probably not as knowledgeable about that as Ria is, who I’ve been with since middle school.

If that’s the case, then will Reina become jealous every time a new woman appears?

“Hey Shinse. Between me and Yui Amau-san, who’s cuter?”

“…Huh?”

“…Who’s, cuter?”

Reina asked again quietly.

With a sad face, as if she didn’t have any confidence.

“O-Of course it’s Reina…”

“Then there’s no problem!”

Reina, who had suddenly become lively again, puffed out her big chest.

Her bountiful chest swayed with her movements.

“There’s no way a guy would say that the other girl is cuter in the current situation. Futaba-san, you’re actually quite simple, aren’t you?”

“Is it wrong? Is it wrong to be happy when the guy I like says that I’m cute?”

“…It’s wrong. After you took Shinse away from me…”

Ria turned a melancholy gaze towards me.

She slowly walked towards me.

“Shinse… if you know that everything that I said is the truth, then you’ll come back to me, right?”

“Eh, that’s…”

Right now, I think that all of the things that Ria said are lies.

That’s because everything she said is too convenient for Ria.

I can’t trust her when I can’t confirm what the truth is, and there’s no way that I can trust her.

“If that childhood friend stuff is true, then why didn’t you tell me beforehand? Every time I meet with Yui, I would always explain it to you, right? So that there wouldn’t be any strange misunderstandings.”

I would always tell Ria before I would meet up with Yui.

Ria would also occasionally meet up with Yui, and they would go shopping together.

Even so, why didn’t Ria report to me about her meeting with her childhood friend beforehand?

I can’t help but think that she was hiding something.

“It’s just that I forgot to explain it to Shinse.”

“No way… You forgot…”

If she says that she forgot, then I can’t say anything back.

I don’t know if it was intentional or not.

“That’s right. There’s an easy way for me to prove that I didn’t cheat.”

“Eh…?”

“In short, it’s fine if I can prove that I didn’t have feelings for him, right?”

“How do you plan on proving it?”

“I’ll tell him to not contact me ever again. Even this time, he had heard my contact information through someone and contacted me unilaterally to meet up with me.”

“Even if you do that, it’s meaningless unless we know what you were feeling when you met him that day.”

What’s important is what both of them were feeling when they met each other on that day.

If Ria had feelings of guilt towards me, then there’s a high possibility that she was cheating.

And, considering how he had forcibly held her hand and unilaterally contacted her to meet up with her, that flashy guy probably had feelings for Ria.

If neither of them had any feelings for each other, then I could have easily judged that it wasn’t cheating.

But in the end, it comes down to whether or not I believe in Ria.

And, I can’t believe in Ria, who probably cheated on me.

“If you say that, then there’s nothing that I can do. It’s true that it was my fault for doing something that made you think that I cheated. It can’t be helped even if you decide that I cheated. But even so, it’s cruel of you to not believe anything that I say…”

From midway, tears started to fall from Ria’s eyes.

I had never seen Ria cry before.

“Shinse… please… believe me…”

“…!”

It didn’t seem like she was acting, and I felt like everything that Ria was saying was the truth.

Whether it’s cheating or not, it depends on how the other person felt about it.

The judgment of whether or not holding hands with someone of the opposite sex counts as cheating differs from person to person.

I judged it as cheating because Ria was walking while holding hands with that flashy guy.

But, she was forced to hold his hand, and she hadn’t kept our meeting secret, but she had just forgotten to report it to me.

It was a situation that was caused by Ria, but I’m also at fault.

That’s because I didn’t listen to Ria at that time, and then had a relationship with Reina.

If I didn’t run away from Ria and had properly listened to what she had to say, then I wouldn’t have had a relationship with Reina at that time.

I wouldn’t have broken up with Ria…

“…Okay, I believe you.”

“Then, can we get back together?”

“That’s… impossible. Because I’m dating Reina now…”

“No way…”

It was at this moment that I realized that I had done something irreparable.

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