Chapter 110: Skipping School ②

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Translator: Soafp

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Maybe Airi left it here on purpose.

…She really doesn’t leave anything to chance.

Unaware of it, Nagasawa-senpai continued speaking.

“You aren’t serious about Miyo anyway, are you?”

“I already told you. I’m not dating Kokoa-san.”

It was like he wasn’t listening to a word I said.

No, it didn’t even seem like he had any intention of having a real conversation.

How someone like him had managed to win over so many women was beyond me.

“Just so you know, Miyo may not look it, but she’s a very fragile girl. If you hurt her, I won’t let you get away with it…!”

Did he think he was Kokoa-san’s father or something?

Her real father, Burn-san, had entrusted her to me, telling me to look after his daughter.

I let out a deep sigh before answering.

“Of course I care about Kokoa-san. I’d never do anything to hurt her.”

After all, I was her sponsor.

I might spoil her, but I’d never neglect her.

“More importantly, there’s something I want to ask you.”

“What?”

“The person who jumped at school today… it was the club president, wasn’t it?”

“…”

Nagasawa-senpai didn’t answer.

He simply kept eating his noodles in silence.

“Don’t you feel anything?”

“…What if it was?”

“Even if she wasn’t your girlfriend, she was someone you slept with many times.”

“Hah. Not at all.”

He slammed his chopsticks onto the table with a loud crack.

A deep frown formed on his face as he glared at me.

“So you’re trying to lecture me now?”

“No. I was just curious.”

“Do you care how the pork in this ramen died? Would you mourn it from the bottom of your heart if you knew? No. You’d just eat it and enjoy it.”

So to him…

Women were no more than slices of pork in a bowl of ramen.

I was beyond disgust.

I couldn’t even find the words anymore.

Why had I ever felt inferior to someone like this?

“I see. So to you, Kokoa-san is just another slice of pork in a bowl of ramen.”

“W-What did you just say…? B*****d… what did you call her?”

“Why are you getting so worked up? If that’s how you feel, why not just coolly let Kokoa-san go, the way you always do?”

“M-Miyo is different! She’s the only thing I never lost!!”

The only thing he never lost…

His parents’ deaths.

His younger sister’s permanent injuries.

In the wreckage of his life, Kokoa-san had been the only constant.

That was why he clung to her so desperately.

(He probably convinced himself that Kokoa-san had disappeared from his life as well.)

That’s why he never actively searched for her.

Instead, he started targeting women who already had boyfriends and stealing them away.

Because he had nothing of his own, he wanted to feel superior to someone else.

His obsession with stealing other people’s girlfriends had never been about physical pleasure alone.

It was about the twisted satisfaction of defeating another woman’s boyfriend.

(And that’s why, when Kokoa-san reappeared before him, he came to see her as his only true emotional anchor.)

But none of that erased the crimes he had committed.

The evil he had piled up had simply come full circle and returned to him through Kokoa-san.

It was far easier for him to believe she’d been deceived by a bad guy like me than to admit she’d abandoned him because of his own actions.

“If you’d stayed nothing more than a pitiful man, Kokoa-san might have at least continued to pity you.”

“Ghh…”

Once again, I was reminded…

Doing evil never leads anywhere good.

Once Nodoka had calmed down a little, Airi quietly stood up.

Holding up her smartphone, she began an exaggerated performance.

“Ara, looks like I’ve accidentally been on a call this whole time. Miyoko-san, did you hear all of that?”

“…Eh? M-Miyo?”

Just as expected, Nagasawa-senpai’s eyes went wide.

“W-What do you mean? D-Don’t tell me… all of you heard everything I just said…!!”

“It sounds like you have something you’d like to say to Miyoko-san. Want me to hand you over? Hmm? You don’t need to? Are you sure? She’s your Miyo-chan, isn’t she? Oh? You don’t want that Miyo anymore?”

“Grr…”

Airi was definitely doing this on purpose.

Provoking Nagasawa-senpai any further seemed dangerous.

There was no telling what someone like him might do.

“You don’t want to exchange a single word with a man who sees girls as nothing more than slices of pork? I understand. Then should I let Ren-kun talk instead? Oh? You’ll contact Ren-kun directly? Got it.”

His face had turned bright red, veins bulging across his forehead.

Finally reaching his limit, Nagasawa-senpai shoved his chair back and stood up.

After shooting me one last glare, he walked out of the restaurant.

Airi smiled faintly.

“And yet he still finished every last bite of his ramen.”

“…That’s enough already. What if he decides to get revenge?”

“I figured this much would be fine. We have Kokoa-san on our side. Besides…”

Airi sat down beside me and continued.

“That piece of trash deserves to the same thing what he made others feel.”

The same thing?

…Did she mean she wanted me to steal Kokoa-san away from him?

Well, Kokoa-san had acted like that the other day, but that had only been for show.

It wasn’t like she actually had feelings for me.

“You don’t have to do anything in particular, Ren-kun. Just keep being yourself. That’s your greatest strength.”

“When you put it that way, it somehow makes me even more uneasy…”

Honestly, I barely had any desire left to get revenge on Nagasawa-senpai.

Yui had already done more than enough.

And after seeing how pathetic he’d become over the past few days, pity had started outweighing resentment.

“If you do bad things, you deserve to go to hell. Just like my father. Don’t you think?”

“…”

Why did she have to use that example?

◇

“Thanks for the meal.”

Takagi really did pay for everyone’s food.

Apparently he’d earned quite a bit working part-time over summer vacation.

Scratching his head awkwardly, he said,

“Man, I never expected that guy to be at the place I brought you to. Sorry.”

“That’s not your fault.”

Besides, the ramen had been really good.

Airi nodded in agreement.

“That’s right, Suzuki-kun. If anything, it turned out to be a good thing. It confirmed that piece of trash really doesn’t have a human heart.”

“Um… it’s Takagi. Is my name really that hard to remember?”

“Ara, sorry, Satou-kun.”

“So you just have no intention of remembering it at all! Well… I guess that’s exactly what’s happening!”

After parting ways with Takagi, we headed straight home.

I never imagined we’d be back this early.

I went into my room and lay down on the bed.

I wasn’t sleepy.

My thoughts were simply too tangled to focus on anything else.

But then—

“…Why are both of you here?”

Nodoka and Airi had followed me in as though it were the most natural thing in the world, slipping into bed on either side of me.

And somehow, Yui had already changed into her maid outfit and was sitting quietly on a chair.

Was it just me, or was she getting faster and faster at changing into that maid uniform?

The girls on either side began undoing the buttons of my shirt as they answered.

“W-We’re going to do naughty things!”

“Out of nowhere?”

“We’re going to do it a-a lot today so you won’t have time to think about depressing things!”

“That’s right, Ren-kun. Let’s be delinquents and skip school to fool around today.”

“…”

They had a point.

If I stayed by myself all day, I’d probably sink even deeper into my thoughts.

Maybe they were right.

Maybe today I really should spend my time focusing on something else.

…Not necessarily that, though.

Nodoka lightly licked my ear and whispered sweetly,

“The cosplay outfits we ordered the other day are arriving today too… s-so you’d better look forward to them!”

“What kind?”

“All sorts. Bunny girls, Chinese dresses…”

“So you really do like cosplay, Ren-kun. You reacted immediately.”

Nagasawa-senpai had changed so many things about my life…

But apparently this particular fetish wasn’t going away anytime soon.

◇

Skipping school and spending the whole day at home felt incredibly forbidden.

And with the three of us alone in a well soundproofed room, far from anyone’s eyes…

Things naturally escalated.

…Yeah.

We’d completely thrown caution to the wind.

Thinking that, Yui and I headed out together to buy groceries for dinner.

We left the cleaning up to Airi and Nodoka.

“It feels like it’s been a long time since it was just the two of us.”

“Yeah.”

“U-Um… are you really okay being alone with me?”

Yui looked at me anxiously.

“Yeah. It’s completely fine.”

The confidence I’d gradually regained thanks to Airi and Nodoka.

The changes Yui had gone through, including her new appearance.

And seeing Nagasawa-senpai in such a pitiful state.

All of those things together had slowly begun healing my trauma.

“I-I’m glad… I’ll keep trying not to be a burden.”

“You’re not a burden at all.”

After all, living together with Yui had been my own decision.

Regardless of who I’d originally done it for.

When we reached the first floor by elevator, we happened to run into the sailor-uniformed girl we’d been seeing around the building lately.

“Oh! What a coincidence, Ren-sama~”

Apparently she’d just gotten back from school.

Kokoa-san waved both arms energetically as she jogged toward us.

Watching her like this always reminded me of a small puppy.

“Where are you headed?”

“Just going grocery shopping.”

“Then can I come too? I need to do some shopping as well!”

“Of course.”

And so, quite unexpectedly, Kokoa-san joined us, and the three of us headed to the nearby supermarket together.