← The Studious Boy and the Secret Account Girl
Volume 2
Chapter 13: A Daily Life That Hasn't Changed At All?
Chapter 13: A Daily Life That Hasn’t Changed At All?
At the center of the classroom, ‘Tachibana Matsurika’ was shining today as well.
Surrounding her, boys and girls alike, a fair number of classmates.
Slender limbs.
An unbalanced chest.
Over-refined features paired with a captivating smile.
A voice gentle on the ear, spun from her small lips.
Even keeping one’s distance, even averting one’s eyes, there was no escaping her.
Those who sighed, entranced by Matsurika, showed no sign of stopping—today as well, as always.
—Nothing’s changed, has it?
Having sat himself down and continuing to stare at Matsurika, Tsutomu muttered to himself.
Clutching a sense of wrongness at the scenery that had changed so little.
★
He’d saved Matsurika, who was being set upon by a guidance counselor in the staff room.
On the way back to the classroom, he’d enjoyed her figure from behind.
He’d harbored the suspicion that ‘RIKA’, his favorite secret account, might be Matsurika, and had obtained the answer from the girl herself.
The school idol, ‘Tachibana Matsurika’.
His favorite lewd secret-account girl, ‘RIKA’.
The two were, without a doubt, the same person.
He’d reached that fact, and reached that fact Matsurika had learned—and been told. He’d told her.
A number of days passed… and nothing had changed. Neither Matsurika in the classroom, nor ‘RIKA’ on SNS.
‘RIKA’ continued to post images at the same pace as before.
As if to say she didn’t care about being found out in real life.
Since she must know she was being watched, it could only look as though she were putting herself on display.
And Tsutomu, as before, kept collecting ’RIKA’s images.
—No, maybe something has changed.
The images posted remained, as ever, high-class erotic photos.
As before, she never showed her face, nor captured anything 18-plus.
But—Tsutomu had come to know ’RIKA’s true face, one no one else could ever glimpse.
That fact had changed the way he looked at the images. A filter that couldn’t be switched off had been installed.
Onto ’RIKA’s face, hidden by the photos, Matsurika’s face was automatically fitted.
As a result, in Tsutomu’s mind, every image had undergone a dramatic upgrade.
To put it mildly, it was dangerous.
The secret-account photos had been a healing item for Tsutomu. One might even call them a wonder drug for the heart.
‘RIKA’ might be somewhere in this country, but to Tsutomu she was someone he had no connection to.
Because he’d thought that, he could recklessly hurl his desires at her.
Everything had changed from that day on.
It had changed.
“Haa.”
Unconsciously, he let out a hot, heavy breath.
His heart, for some reason, wouldn’t settle.
★
Having finished class, he left the classroom.
He bought an iced cocoa from the vending machine, and stuck a straw into the paper carton.
Sipping it up, a rich sweetness spread through his mouth and soaked into his parched throat.
When he threw himself into his studies, his brain’s fatigue was, so often, severe.
For an exhausted head, sweetness worked.
The summer was still far off, but it was nearing the end of May, and the weather was ever more pleasant.
He usually moistened his throat with the barley tea he brought along, but it was that time of season when a cold cocoa sometimes grew dear.
“Tachibana’s place…”
“Something the matter, Kariya-kun?”
“Whoa!?”
Startled by the voice and turning around, there was Matsurika.
Black hair gleaming glossily in the sunlight, and white skin that never tanned.
A dazzling smile. At its center, black pupils sparkling as though they might swallow him if he stared too long.
He’d let Matsurika’s name slip thinking no one would hear, only for the girl herself to have heard.
Awkward as it was… it wasn’t as though he’d done anything wrong.
Deeming that here he should just be brazen about it, Tsutomu fixed the position of his slipping glasses and feigned composure.
“‘Whoa!?’—isn’t that reaction a bit much?”
“No, it’s normal. If you don’t expect to be overheard, that’s what you do.”
“Is that so. So then, was something the matter with me?”
Matsurika, deepening her smile, posed the same question once more.
It didn’t seem to carry any malice, but it was plainly a tease.
He couldn’t look away. There seemed to be no escaping.
“Nothing. I was just thinking how pretty you are again today, Tachibana.”
So—he answered his thoughts honestly.
Knowing that Tsutomu held her weakness, Matsurika remained unchanged.
He couldn’t glimpse her inner heart, but on the surface she stayed the classroom’s sun as always.
Then it would be best to counter with business as usual too. First, he threw a single jab with his words.
—That ‘thanks’ or whatever was still owed, too.
When he’d saved her from the guidance counselor in the staff room, she’d said something about ‘paying him back.’
Asked what he’d like, he’d failed to come up with a fitting request, and had let the chance to answer slip by.
He recalled it had been added that ‘she might not like men who hesitated to make decisions.’
Now that he knew Matsurika was ‘RIKA’, the things he wanted from her were countless.
Almost all of them were lewd things, so he simply couldn’t say them to her face.
Judging from the fact she posted revealing photos on a secret account and her attitude the other day, Matsurika seemed to have some understanding of that side of things…
“Cocoa, huh. You’re drinking something cute.”
Matsurika, peering in, said such a thing.
He couldn’t understand the logic of ‘cocoa = cute’, but the movement of her small lips was extremely bewitching.
“When I’m tired, something sweet does the trick.”
“That, I totally get! Maybe I’ll get something to drink too.”
Slipping past Tsutomu’s side, Matsurika put coins into the vending machine.
What the school idol chose was—strawberry milk.
He thought that side was the cuter one, but kept it to himself.
Matsurika likewise stuck a straw into her carton and brought it to her lips.
Her slightly pursed cheeks, and her lips drawing in the contents of the carton.
His eyes were somehow drawn to each one of her little motions.
“What is it, staring at me so intently like that.”
“Pay it no mind. I just thought how cute you look drinking your juice, Tachibana.”
“Since when were you that kind of character, Kariya-kun.”
Matsurika, pulling her mouth from the straw, furrowed her brows in suspicion.
“Sorry. I don’t quite know what to say in situations like this.”
“…Is that so?”
“That’s how it is.”
He wasn’t lying.
Having rarely been involved with girls, Tsutomu didn’t know how to deal with Matsurika, who’d suddenly up and spoken to him.
That said, he was also thinking of something entirely different in his head.
In truth… over the sight of Matsurika drinking her juice, he’d been layering a different scenario.
Matsurika, and Tsutomu’s——
“So, did you need something from me?”
Concealing the lewd delusion welling up in his mind, Tsutomu opened his mouth and let the question out.
It never occurred to him that coming to buy a drink after class and running into Matsurika here could be such a convenient coincidence.
“You couldn’t consider that I simply happened to want some strawberry milk?”
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that’s impossible, but I can’t see why you’d bother coming all the way here to buy it.”
Whether in or out of the classroom, Matsurika’s devotees were many.
Were she to so much as say ‘I want strawberry milk~’, those who’d race to the vending machine to be first were certainly among them.
She’d surely be aware of that herself.
“What’s that about. You trying to say I use my friends as errand boys?”
“No, that’s not it. Just that you have that much influence, Tachibana.”
“Hmm~. Are you trying to placate me with something convenient?”
That wasn’t far off the mark.
“Well, it’s true I do have something to ask of Kariya-kun, though.”
“So that’s how it is, huh…”
“How’s ‘that’s how it is’… hey, are you going to hear me out?”
“Only if it’s listening. I’ll say it up front—I haven’t thought of anything for your ‘thanks’ or whatever.”
“Ah, right, that’s still pending too. I’d be happy if you settled that one quickly.”
“Sorry. It’s just not coming to me.”
“How about a date with me?”
She curled up the corner of her mouth with a smirk.
She evidently hadn’t forgotten his jab that ‘calling a date a token of thanks is way too confident.’
“Just get to the point.”
He cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses.
Matsurika was looking around with a suspicious air.
That was unusual for her, who never concerned herself with drawing people’s attention.
While he was thinking such things——
“So, um… actually, I want to borrow something.”
“…Borrow what?”
“Kariya-kun’s notebook.”
Please!
Right before Tsutomu’s eyes, a small, white hand was pressed together.