← The Studious Boy and the Secret Account Girl
Volume 2
Chapter 25: Exams Over, a Celebration for Two - Part 2
Chapter 25: Exams Over, a Celebration for Two – Part 2
Though he’d never been to one, Tsutomu had at least some knowledge of a karaoke box. A place to sing.
Yet, despite over an hour having passed since he’d actually stepped in, invited by Matsurika, Tsutomu hadn’t sung a single song.
Maraca in his right hand, tambourine in his left. He clapped both in time to the rhythm. He’d played the part of pure accompaniment the whole time.
“~~~~~~~♪”
Beyond his lenses, there was Matsurika, singing passionately with a microphone in one hand.
She operated the machine with practiced ease, queuing songs one after another and belting them out.
Starting with hit numbers even Tsutomu, who only occasionally watched TV music shows, knew, and sometimes mixing in songs he’d never heard.
From up-tempo tunes to heartfelt ballads, the variety was wide, showing she was quite familiar with karaoke from normal times.
Her singing was—good. Tsutomu, unversed in music, couldn’t say much with a knowing air, but the voice that clearly rang out in time with the song was pleasant on the ear. That was enough.
Matsurika’s energy stayed high throughout, and apart from brief moments to hydrate, she never let go of the microphone.
—She’s got stamina…
For all her singing and singing and singing, Matsurika’s voice didn’t hoarsen.
No sign of fatigue in her rhythmically moving body, either.
Her white skin was flushed, perhaps from excitement, sweat glistening on her brow.
Lit by the dim room lighting, her figure had a different air from the one she showed in the classroom.
“Hey, Kariya-kun, are you enjoying it?”
Just when the singing stopped, Matsurika was right before him.
Maybe because he’d been lost in a daze, he hadn’t noticed her approach.
To the Tsutomu who leaned back, a microphone was thrust out.
Looking up—she wore a pout that seemed a different person from the one who’d just been singing merrily.
‘That expression on those too-refined features is a waste’ he muttered to himself in his heart. It wasn’t a compliment, so he’d refrain from saying it to her directly.
What he actually said was a completely different line, to answer her question.
“Yeah. I’m enjoying it.”
The safest of the safe.
Not a lie, but a reply neither amusing nor anything.
As expected, Matsurika’s expression didn’t clear.
“Really? I’ve been the only one singing, and your eyes have been really intense.”
“My eyes?”
“Yeah, seriously intense.”
He’d meant to be in a peaceful frame of mind, but his eyes spoke more than his mouth.
Her long, glossy black hair, her chest of great volume, her too-short skirt, and so on.
All sorts of parts of Matsurika were swaying, and he’d been desperate to follow them.
A fair-faced, well-grown high-school girl, with too many points of interest—a problem.
Which is why his gaze sharpened, so it couldn’t be helped… to say that to her face was beyond him.
Freeing both hands, he took off his glasses, closed his eyes, and gently pressed them with his fingers.
“R-right? Sorry about that.”
“It’s fine, you know. I’ve known Kariya-kun’s lewd all along.”
It was blatantly obvious. Or rather, it had been obvious for a while.
He’d known it was obvious. There was no helping it.
That said… even if he couldn’t hide it, he felt the need to cover it up.
“Wait, that’s not good.”
“Really?”
With his now-free hand, he blocked the microphone, signaling he had no intention of singing, and Matsurika sat herself down beside him.
Saying ‘a little break’, she brought her lips to the orange juice set on the table.
The gulp-gulp of her swallowing, and the movement of her throat back and forth. The smell of sweat drifting past his nose.
—This is… calm down. Get a grip, me.
No matter how many times he muttered ‘BE COOL’ in his heart, it was utterly without effect.
He trembled at the dreamlike situation—a beautiful girl at a distance close enough to see even bare-eyed.
When he put his glasses back on and took a big breath, he inhaled the suffocatingly sweet fragrance wafting from the Matsurika beside him, and in an instant his awareness and vision clouded pink.
“You not good at karaoke?”
“Singing… isn’t really my strong suit. And since karaoke’s a first for me, there’s also that I don’t know what to do.”
He was grateful to Matsurika, who, surely grasping his situation, asked something uncontroversial.
…Putting aside what kind of face she was making inside. He could easily imagine it, though.
“I see. If you’d told me, I’d have picked somewhere else.”
“It’s fine. Just watching you sing, Tachibana, is enough for me.”
He said what he thought.
Where he’d been looking, he deliberately didn’t say.
Even knowing his lewd nature was exposed, he deliberately put on airs.
“…You’re always saying that kind of thing.”
Matsurika blushed faintly and slurped her juice noisily.
He thought both ‘how unladylike’ and ‘how remarkably well it suits her.’
Contradictory yet not—a truly mysterious girl, that she was.
Unquestionably, she overflowed with a charm that reason couldn’t explain.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Having gone silent and stared, he was returned a dubious gaze.
To avoid the pursue, Tsutomu, too, brought the cola to his mouth.
The carbonation had gone and the ice had melted, leaving it almost sugar water.
Not tasty, but at least it’d stop his mouth.
“By the way, y’know.”
Taking her eyes from Tsutomu, Matsurika fiddled with the machine and muttered.
“I realize I hardly know anything about Kariya-kun.”
That voice rang, for a cramped private room, oddly lonely.
Though it was small, it reached Tsutomu’s ears clearly.
Tsutomu’s inner heart stirred with an indefinable mutter.
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. Until a little while ago, it was the ‘smartest person in school’, at most.”
“Is that so.”
“And… super lewd, and super lewd, and then super lewd.”
“Did you really need to say that three times?”
“Since it’s a very, very important thing, I said it three times.”
“…”
He couldn’t very well retort ‘that’s a terrible preconception.’
Compared to boys his age, he didn’t think he was especially perverted, but he did have a hobby of secret-account viewing, and knowing the identity of his favorite secret account was a classmate hadn’t stopped him—rather, it had egged him on.
It was just that, until now, there’d been few chances to be aware of it, and Matsurika’s harsh appraisal could almost bring him to consent it hit the mark.
_—But no, it’s only natural for a man to be perverted, right?
You know that too.
He’d wanted to retort that, but held it in.
Because there was a bit of energy back in Matsurika’s voice.
“And, cool.”
“…Who’s that?”
Considering the flow of the conversation, he could guess it was about himself.
Only, in the sixteen-odd years of his life, he’d never once been called ‘cool.’
He wouldn’t go so far as to disparage himself as ugly, but he had no confidence in looking good either.
So, feeling a wrongness at Matsurika’s words, he’d answered back without thinking.
His being the school’s most beautiful girl also fueled the doubt.
—I’ve had this before, haven’t I.
When he’d been drinking cocoa, he’d been told ‘cute.’ That, too, was a first in his life.
Having drawn near while teaching, he’d come to understand… though their vocabulary differed, their value standards didn’t diverge so much.
Which is why, all the more, it was hard to grasp her intent. Because he could tell ‘cool’ and ‘cute’ were said in earnest.
As he searched for what to say next, Matsurika curled the corners of her mouth and pointed a white finger at him.
“Of course, Kariya-kun. Because… well, look, you helped me, ready to be hated by the teachers and everyone else, you know.”
“That wasn’t my intent. I was just annoyed.”
The words that came out abruptly weren’t what he meant.
‘How ridiculous,’ a voice came from the corner of his mind.
“…Well, I’ll let that go. So, Kariya-kun?”
“Mmm?”
“How much did you know about me?”
Though her tone was light, the gaze of Matsurika, peering in, was entirely serious.