After Being Dumped With the Insult, “You’re So Clingy!” and Finding Her in Despair, I Kept Encouraging My Beautiful Classmate and as a Result, That Beautiful Girl Started Directing Her Heavy Emotions Toward Me Instead, but Since I Like Emotionally Heavy Girls, It’s No Problem - 21

Chapter 21: Being Suspected by a Friend

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Time passed, and it became lunchtime. I reached into my bag and took something out to eat. It was none other than “a handmade bento from Jujoji.” She had made it this morning while she was preparing my breakfast.

From the bento box wrapped in a heavy green drawstring pouch, a faint but pleasant aroma of food drifted out. My stomach growled in response to the smell. Everything Jujoji cooked was exquisite. This bento was surely delicious too.

…Up until now, my usual lunch had been a pitiful routine. I was too lazy to make a bento, so I would just buy some awful bread from the school store and munch on it. But thanks to her, I could eat meals that were delicious, filling, and packed with nutrition. I had found myself actually looking forward to lunchtime. I owed Jujoji immense gratitude for cooking for me!

…However, if I continued living like this every day, I had a feeling it would have a huge impact on me when Jujoji eventually recovered from her heartbreak and stopped taking care of me. That was how completely I was relying on her right now. The reason Jujoji took such devoted care of me was to heal the wounds in her own heart.

Which meant… Someday, this would come to an end. I really should prepare myself to handle things on my own for when that time came. But I had already said, “I’ll leave taking care of me to you, Jujoji,” and whenever I tried to do housework myself, she would make a sad face. That made it difficult for me to interfere.

Hmm… Well, whatever. I would think about it again when she actually stopped taking care of me. More importantly, I was hungry. I wanted to eat the bento she made as soon as possible.

“Ichika! Let’s eat!”

“Yeah!”

Holding up a convenience store bag in his right hand, Musashi came over to my desk. I usually ate lunch with him.

“Huh? Ichika, you brought a bento today? That’s rare.”

Musashi stared at the bento box in my hand as if he were looking at something unusual. Well, no wonder. Today was the first time I had ever brought a bento to school during my high school life.

…If people found out this bento was handmade by Jujoji, there would definitely be trouble. But I had prepared for that. During the fourth period, I had been thinking up an excuse the entire time.

“Yeah, I’ve been living alone for a while now, so I figured it was about time I learned to cook at least a little. That’s why I switched to bringing a bento starting today.”

“Oh? That’s impressive.”

Just as planned, Musashi seemed satisfied with that explanation. From tomorrow onward, even if I brought a bento, he probably wouldn’t find it suspicious.

This is a win! Hahaha!

“So, where should we eat?”

“The weather’s nice. Want to head to the courtyard?”

“Sounds good.”

I left the classroom with Musashi and headed toward the courtyard. The sky was perfectly clear today. On days like this, you wanted to eat outside.

“Kokonoe-kun!”

Someone called out to me just as we were heading toward the courtyard. I turned around at the sound of that voice. Jujoji was standing there. Feeling a bad premonition on my back, I responded to her.

“Do you need something?”

“Yes. Since we have the chance, would you like to eat lunch together?”

“Uh…”

Holding a cute pink drawstring pouch in one hand, Jujoji invited me to lunch. My brain froze for a moment at her words. There was no problem with eating lunch with her. The issue was that Musashi was standing right next to me. If she ate with me, then naturally, he would be eating with us too…

“Of course that’s okay! Ichika, you’re fine with that, right?”

“Y-Yeah…”

“Thank you very much. You were heading to the courtyard, right? Then let’s go!”

Before I could respond, Musashi answered for me. At that point, there was no way to refuse, so I went along with it.

…This might have just gotten a little complicated.

I hadn’t yet told Jujoji that we should keep our relationship a secret. Which meant, a single careless comment from her could expose everything. Thinking about what to do, the three of us headed to the courtyard. Fortunately, Musashi seemed so happy about eating lunch with the admired Jujoji that he walked a little ahead of us, humming to himself.

Figuring this was my only chance to coordinate, I spoke to her in a low voice.

“(Hey, Jujoji… about our relationship… let’s not tell other people too much.)”

“(Oh? And why is that?)”

She tilted her head at my suggestion, looking puzzled. How should I explain this? Did she not realize how popular she was with the boys?

“(Well… wouldn’t it be bad if other guys found out you’ve been taking care of me?)”

“(Is that so? I would actually prefer if people knew about my relationship with you.)”

“(W-What? Why?)”

To my surprise, she said she didn’t mind if others found out about us.

“We’re here! The weather’s great, so lots of people are eating outside. I guess everyone thinks the same thing.”

“Already?”

I tried to ask her why, but… Unfortunately, time was up. We had reached the courtyard. The distance between us and Musashi closed, so we couldn’t continue our secret discussion.

While praying so that our relationship wouldn’t get exposed, I faced lunchtime. Perhaps because of the nice weather, many students were eating outside, and most of the benches set up in the courtyard were taken. We split up to search for an empty one.

“Ah, that bench over there is open!”

Luckily, Jujoji found one. We sat down there with me in the middle, Musashi on my right, and Jujoji on my left.

“Alright, time to eat!”

Musashi rummaged through his convenience store bag and pulled out a rice ball. Now that we were here, I had no choice but to eat my bento too, so I untied the pouch and opened the lid. Inside were white rice, tamagoyaki, octopus-shaped sausages, a grilled salmon fillet, cucumber salad, and for dessert, apple slices with the peels cut into rabbit-ear shapes. It was a magnificent bento. As expected of Jujoji.

“Whoa!? Ichika, your bento looks seriously legit!”

Musashi peeked into my bento and let out an impressed voice. But right after that, he said something I hadn’t expected.

“You really made this yourself, Ichika? From the time you burned hamburgers in home economy class, you’ve improved a ton…”

“Ugh…”

“Kokonoe-kun made a bento…?”

As expected, Musashi’s comment reached Jujoji beside me.

“Ohh… I see…”

Hearing that, she looked at me with dissatisfaction written all over her face. Trying not to let Musashi notice, I desperately conveyed my apology with my expression.

“Well then, I’ll eat my bento too.”

For some reason, Jujoji raised her voice as if deliberately announcing that she was about to eat her lunch. She opened her bento lid. The moment I saw what was inside, a cold sweat ran down my back. Amazingly, the contents of Jujoji’s bento were… exactly the same as mine.

Come to think of it, I remembered that when she was making them, she had placed two boxes side by side. She must have prepared both mine and hers at the same time. If that was the case, it was only natural that the contents were identical.

“Whoa!? Futaba-chan’s bento looks delicious too. Huh? But isn’t this the same as Ichika’s…?”

Musashi leaned over her bento box and compared it with mine as he spoke.

“Why could that be~? Maybe I just happened to choose the same menu as Kokonoe-kun by coincidence?”

Jujoji replied in a deliberately innocent tone. At this point… Anyone with a sharp enough mind might have figured it out.

“…That’s one crazy coincidence, the two of you having the exact same bento. The odds might be lower than pulling an SSR in a gacha game on the first try.”

“Y-Yeah. Guess crazy coincidences happen. S-So, about the next class…”

Fortunately, thanks to Musashi being a bit dense, it seemed we avoided being exposed. I went along with him and somehow shifted the topic.

“……… ”

Jujoji glared at me with narrowed eyes.

…It looked like I should have a proper talk with her later.

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