← The Studious Boy and the Secret Account Girl

Volume 2

Chapter 26: Exams Over, a Celebration for Two - Part 3

Chapter 26: Exams Over, a Celebration for Two – Part 3

“How much did you know about me?”

Asked by Matsurika, Tsutomu was at a loss for reply.

Her jet-black pupils, standing out even among her refined features, sparkled with curiosity.

The deep black, reminiscent of the still sea on a new-moon night, seemed to sway with waves of unease.

Tsutomu, taking that gaze head-on, bid his heart be wary: ‘no careless answer here.’

Taking his eyes from Matsurika, he crossed his arms and searched for words in his head, carefully.

After being stared at point-blank through a period of pensive silence, Tsutomu spoke again.

“Let’s see. I barely knew anything about Tachibana, either.”

‘She’d be angry, right?’ he thought, but Matsurika said nothing.

Her two eyes silently urged him to continue.

“Since enrolling, I heard there was an amazing pretty girl in the same grade.”

“Uh-huh.”

“The famous one who won the school festival’s beauty contest, popular, and…”

No matter how deep he dug into his memory, the words that came out were only praises of her looks and position.

That he’d barely considered ‘Tachibana Matsurika’ as an individual, her temperament and character, until the secret-account matter surfaced, he was made to realize.

It was also evidence that he’d thought of her as a person far from him. In fact, among his same-age peers, he had no one close, Matsurika aside.

An exception was his stepsister. Since family didn’t count in such matters, that was only natural.

“Haven’t you ever seen me, Kariya-kun?”

“No, from a distance, a few times.”

He answered honestly.

Saying ‘I never looked’ or ‘I wasn’t interested’ was unlikely to be believed.

Matsurika was sensitive to people’s emotions. And they were alone together, at a near-extreme close range. No escape.

Unpursued of this suspicion in such a situation, at that, he truly couldn’t evade it.

“You didn’t want to see me up close?”

“That crowd, give me a break.”

As one adolescent boy, he’d had a desire to see the famed beauty once.

But the barrier was no laughing matter. ‘Men are stone walls, men are castles’—Matsurika castle was too hard to assault.

To add to that, even if he broke through the gate and reached the keep, he wouldn’t have known what to do.

He couldn’t be so forward as to pound on the gate blindly, nor was he so idle.

“To be frank, this current situation, I can’t really believe it’s real.”

One-on-one with the school idol in a sealed-off karaoke room.

Sitting side by side, chatting. It’s just like a date, isn’t it?

He’d never been on a date, so whether that comparison was apt was doubtful.

In any case… if he time-warped back a year and told his past self ’you, a year from now, will be alone with that ‘Tachibana Matsurika’ at karaoke’, he’d probably get reported to the police as ‘have you gone mad from studying too much?’

Or perhaps, with the same face, he’d be doubted to be a different person. He’d like to think at least the police wouldn’t be called.

“…Am I a bother?”

Anxiety oozed from that voice.

Even Matsurika, not a long acquaintance, must have seen that Tsutomu was poor at interacting with others.

Though she didn’t seem to mind normally, perhaps there was a part that caught at her somewhere in her heart.

…Of course, all of this was just Tsutomu’s conjecture, but he didn’t think it was way off.

He felt, strongly, the need to sweep away the doubt nesting in her heart.

So he declared it, all the blunter for it.

“Not at all. As if that’d be the case.”

“Really? Then that’s good.”

Seeing Matsurika’s relief as she patted her chest, Tsutomu, too, let out a breath.

Certainly, he sometimes found interacting with others to be a hassle.

But he worked normally at his part-time job, and there was Shiro at school.

He wasn’t passing judgement on everyone and distancing himself.

—Tachibana… where does she stand, I wonder?

Asked himself, the ‘YES’ vote in his brain-meeting passed unanimously.

He didn’t want to distance himself from the girl sitting beside him.

But… asked the reason, he couldn’t answer at once, that much was certain.

How he viewed ‘Tachibana Matsurika’—he’d no certainty about it even himself.

At times like this, he was made to know how undeveloped his interpersonal skills were.

“Well, Kariya-kun is lewd, after all. No way you’d leave me be.”

“That confidence, where does it come from… ah.”

“Hm? What?”

“Lewd.”

“Kariya-kun?”

“Matsurika.” T/N: that’s like this on the original, he’s using her first name here

“Mm, can’t deny it.”

Matsurika pouted, but she didn’t seem to be angry, exactly.

Being the owner of an erotic secret account, even if she wanted to deny it, it was plainly something she couldn’t.

His countless memories of being led around by her came back to life, and he felt a satisfaction at having landed one back.

‘How childish of me’ he was exasperated.

—I was going on about exhibitionism and all, wasn’t I.

While telling Matsurika ‘lewd’, on the sly he recalled her words from before, and gulped his saliva.

At the time, laughed off as a ‘joke’ and brushed aside, but how was it, in truth?

Worried whether anyone had heard the swallow, he stared Matsurika over, up and down.

Her glossy black hair. Her wet lips. Her well-fleshed legs stretching from the short skirt.

Her full chest was surely held in place by underwear, yet he was seized by the illusion that it swayed.

Alone with the school’s most beautiful girl in a dim private room. The distance was nearly zero. His head started to spin.

At the same time, the more he got involved, the deeper the mystery grew.

Why would such a charismatic beauty have a secret account… and so on.

The doubt he’d harbored when the secret account surfaced reared its head.

“Hey… Kariya-kun.”

“What?”

His replies to Matsurika had grown short for a while now.

He hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol, yet his tongue wouldn’t move properly.

He was, by nature, not good at multitasking. He put off the doubt that arose in his head.

He judged it right to deal with the problem before him now. The air Matsurika wore naturally made him think so.

“I—”

“…Yeah.”

Matsurika, hesitating slightly, suddenly leaned in close.

No time to draw back. He felt lips at his ear.

“I want to get to know you more, Kariya-kun.”

A voice so melting.

The mere sound of it threatened to melt his brain.

Tsutomu’s mental defenses collapsed in an instant.

“Yeah. I want to know more about you too, Tachibana.”

His true feelings slipped out, ridiculously easily.

The more he learned, the more he wanted to learn about Matsurika.

A movement of heart he’d never known before.

…There was bewilderment, but it wasn’t unpleasant.

“Hehe, same. Then…”

Matsurika leaned in to peer at him.

He felt nearly drawn into those jet-black pupils.

“Let’s be friends.”

“…”

“No good?”

Tilting her head, a follow-up.

A quiet voice, tinged with a dampness.

Saying ‘that’s not like you’ would be rude, but it was a tone hard to imagine from her usual brimming-with-confidence self.

“Friends… friends, huh.”

“Yeah. Friends.”

Matsurika nodded.

A sweet scent tickled his nostrils.

If he let his guard down, it seemed his mind would be taken.

—Friends, huh.

In his mouth, in his head, he rolled the word ‘friends’ around over and over.

‘Kariya Tsutomu’ had almost no one he could call a friend.

At his current point, a second-year in high school, there was just one: the lighthearted handsome man ‘Amakusa Shiro.’

And Tsutomu’s relation with Shiro was by no means deep. Nor shallow.

Their distance was governed, largely, by Shiro’s doing—Tsutomu had never acted on his own initiative.

That’s why… even becoming ‘friends’ with Matsurika, he couldn’t know if it would go well.

“Yeah. No problem. Let’s be friends.”

There was unease, but no reason to refuse.

“That’s good. Thanks, Kariya-kun.”

There was a version of himself relieved at the smiling Matsurika.

There was a version of himself disappointed at the smiling Matsurika.

Both were emotions equally present within Tsutomu, and he himself couldn’t judge which was his true feeling.

Leaving the anguished Tsutomu be, Matsurika took the microphone again. Her over-refined face was brimming with life.

“Okay, break’s over. From here, back to a high! Ready?”

He nodded silently, and took up his maraca and tambourine.

…Praying that no one would catch his inner turmoil.