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 - 25

Chapter 25: Flaunting It at Lunch Too

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I took Futaba to the infirmary and had the school nurse examine her ankle. It was a little swollen, but apparently the injury wasn’t that serious. She said it would heal quickly if we just put a compress on it. After receiving a compress from the nurse, we thanked her and left the infirmary.

“Good grief… it’s dangerous to look away while you’re exercising. But I’m relieved it’s nothing serious.”

“Hehe… I’m sorry. I wanted to show Ichika-kun my good side.”

Futaba stuck out her tongue playfully as she apologized for what had happened earlier. The gesture was so cute that I lost the will to stay angry.

Ding-dong-ding-dong!

“Oh, the third period is over.”

“Yeah.”

As we were talking, the bell signaling the end of the third period rang. I looked toward the gymnasium through the hallway window. It seemed their class had already ended, and our classmates were streaming out of the gym in groups. After Futaba’s treatment, I had been thinking of returning to the gym once, but judging from the situation, it would probably be better to head straight back to the classroom.

…No, before that, I had to take her to the girls’ changing room.

“Futaba, I’ll carry you on my back to the girls’ changing room.”

Since Futaba had sprained her ankle, I tried to piggyback her to the changing room. I bent down and waited for her to climb onto my back. But no matter how long I waited, I didn’t feel her getting on, so I turned around to check on her.

“Um… Futaba?”

“Ichika-kun, would you mind carrying me in a princess carry again?”

“Huh, again?”

During PE earlier, we needed to show the students there what our relationship was. So I had interpreted Futaba’s excessive behavior, cheering loudly and asking for a princess carry, as her staging an act to show that we were lovey-dovey.

In fact, after seeing that, the popular guy from the soccer club probably gave up on Futaba. But right now, no one was watching. There was no need to put on an act.

“No one’s watching now, so it doesn’t have to be a princess carry…”

“A moment of carelessness could be fatal. When you took me to the infirmary, it was a princess carry, but if you take me to the changing room piggyback, wouldn’t that be strange?”

“Hmm…”

She had a point. Since we were doing this to show off how lovey-dovey we were, acting differently on the way back might make people suspicious.

“Alright. But don’t you hate being carried in a princess carry by me?”

“No, rather, I’m happy—ahem! No, it’s nothing. Come on, if we don’t hurry, we’ll be late for the next class.”

“O-Okay…”

With an excited smile, she held out both her arms to me. I lifted her in a princess carry.

“Hehe♪ Please take care of me, my boyfriend♡”

In high spirits, Futaba wrapped her arms tightly around my neck.

…How should I put this… I understood that this was all an act to deceive those around us, but her acting was so convincing. More than that, she pressed herself so close against me that I almost started to misunderstand. I had to be careful not to let that happen.

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The fourth period ended, and it was lunchtime. At Futaba’s suggestion, we decided to eat our lunch in the classroom. She probably wanted to show off our relationship by eating together. Of course, the lunch was handmade by Futaba.

Since she had sprained her ankle, I moved to her seat instead and got permission from the girl sitting next to her to borrow the seat. Then we pushed our desks together so they faced each other as one. After we sat down, Futaba took out two lunch boxes from her school bag and handed one to me.

“Now then, shall we eat? I put extra effort into making this for you today, Ichika-kun!”

“I’m looking forward to it. What’s in today’s lunch?”

“Hehe♪ That’s a surprise until you open it♪”

Futaba was a great cook. I used to not care much about food and thought anything was fine as long as I could eat it, but ever since she started cooking for me, meals had become something I looked forward to. From another perspective, you could say my stomach had been trained by Futaba… Well, that was probably overthinking it.

Excited, I opened the lid of the lunch box.

“Oh? Oooh…?”

The first thing I saw when I opened it was white rice with a giant heart drawn on top in pink sakura denbu. It took up about two-thirds of the box. The remaining third was packed with side dishes like fried chicken and rolled omelet. As I stared in shock at the contents, some nearby classmates leaned in curiously to peek inside.

“Whoa!? It’s a heart-shaped lunch!”

“And they’ve got matching ones!?”

“Did Futaba-chan make this? Nice!”

“That just shows how much she cares about Kokonoe.”

“What a lovey-dovey lunch.”

…Naturally, this was the kind of reaction we got. To think she would even use the lunch as part of the act… Futaba was terrifying. And astonishingly, she launched another attack on top of that. She opened her own lunch box, picked up her chopsticks, scooped up some rice, and then—unbelievably—held it out toward me.

“Ichika-kun, please open your mouth♪”

“Huh…?”

“It’s the usual thing. Here, say ahh!”

The classmates grew even more excited at her actions.

“So this is the number one thing people want to do when they get a lover—the ‘ahh’ feeding!”

“She said ‘the usual.’ That means they normally do stuff like that…”

“Is it just me, or is it hot in here?”

“I suddenly feel like drinking coffee. The air in this classroom is way too sweet…”

“What’s wrong, Ichika-kun?”

My classmates were in an uproar, and yet Futaba, completely unfazed, smiled and held out her chopsticks toward me. The classroom was wrapped in chaos. She had fed me once before when I had caught a cold, but doing it in front of everyone was, as expected, embarrassing.

…But I couldn’t refuse this. Right now, I was playing the role of Futaba’s boyfriend. And if I was her boyfriend, I had to respond to her “ahh” motion.

Here goes nothing!

I put the chopsticks she held out into my mouth, chewed, and swallowed.

“Is it good?”

“…Yeah. Futaba’s cooking is the best in the world.”

But because of my extreme nervousness, I could barely taste the lunch. Somehow, I managed to squeeze out just those words. After that, ignoring our classmates who reacted dramatically to everything we did, we continued eating our lunch.

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