After I Confessed to My Childhood Friend and Got Rejected, I Threw a Game Offline Meetup to Cheer Myself Up, Only to Find Out My Long-Time Gaming Buddy Was Actually the Quiet, Silver-Haired Swedish Beauty Who's the Cutest Girl in School - Chapter 4: The Day of the Offline Meetup and the Identity of the Friend

Chapter 4: The Day of the Offline Meetup and the Identity of the Friend

Because he had gone to bed as early as possible last night, Amamiya woke up before the alarm on his clock went off.

Yawning, he headed to the bathroom, washed his face, and brushed his teeth.

Normally, his childhood friend Tojo would kick the door open and come into the room, but since the day he confessed, he had not been in contact with her.

The ordinary daily life of going to and from school together, talking at school, and eating meals together at home had crumbled away.

Seeing his pathetic figure reflected in the bathroom mirror, Amamiya felt nauseous and rushed to the toilet.

Just recalling that day brought back the trauma, and his mood turned bad.

When he went down to the floor below, Anna, who had made breakfast for him, sat on the sofa with a lonely expression on her face, watching an anime that was being broadcast in the morning.

When she noticed Amamiya, Anna put on a caring smile and sat down at the dining table.

It had been a long time since they had a meal just the two of them at the table.

“Sorry, Anna. Because of our fight, I made you feel lonely…”

That day, Tojo had ditched the promise to make curry for dinner, and Anna had been shocked.

It had taken quite a while to comfort her.

Anna did not know why the two of them had fought.

“No, it’s okay. Friends fight more when they are close, right? It just happened by chance. You and Chika sis will make up someday.”

“Y-yeah. Yeah, I hope so…”

Tojo had said “for a while,” but at this rate, she might never come to the house again.

He did not feel like he could confide the reason for the fight to Anna, who looked up to her like a big sister.

“Bro, you had some plans today, right?”

“Ah, yeah. I’m meeting up with a friend.”

The other person might be a senior, or a working adult, or even an elderly person.

Thinking he could not go in a sloppy outfit, Amamiya had prepared carefully for this day.

He set his hair with unfamiliar wax and spray, wore a polo shirt and pants bought from a specialty store, and tried to maintain a clean and tidy appearance as much as possible.

“Maybe it’s a girl…?”

Anna stared at Amamiya with a sullen look while drinking water from her glass.

She seemed to suspect a bit that that might be the cause of the fight.

“No way, it’s a guy. Do I look like I have any female friends besides Chika?”

“You do not have many guy friends either.”

Amamiya gave a wry smile at Anna, who hit him where it hurt.

It goes without saying that afterward, Anna scolded him to practice a more refreshing and attractive smile.

He was finally going to meet in real life with his great best friend Dragon Head, whom he had only interacted with online until now.

When he was invited, he was not enthusiastic, but to distract from the trauma of being completely rejected by Tojo, now he was looking forward to it instead.

It had been since elementary school, when he was a mischievous kid, that he played with friends on a day off.

Amamiya arrived at the meeting spot in front of the fountain in Takaba Street and checked the time by opening his cell phone.

(Still 10 minutes early… I should email anyway.)

As expected for a Saturday around noon, the area in front of the fountain was bustling with couples waiting for their dates.

With the high rate of handsome men and beautiful women that were incomparable to himself, Amamiya felt out of place and moved a bit away from the fountain.

He typed and sent an email: “I have arrived at the meeting spot☆”

If he ran into a classmate by chance, it would be embarrassing, so he wanted to meet up quickly and leave this place.

He waited for one minute with a serious expression like a child waiting for a shot.

Noticing that the opposite side of the fountain was unusually noisy, Amamiya shifted his gaze there.

“Is that girl Japanese? She is super cute!”

“Her skin is so white and lovely…”

“Why is she standing there alone? Maybe waiting for her boyfriend? Lucky~”

“How about we try to pick her up?”

“Rejected, look closely. Whether she is used to being hit on or not, she looks normal at first glance, but there is an extraordinary ‘no thanks’ aura emanating from her. It is a waste to even talk to her.”

Was there a famous celebrity or something? A crowd had gathered.

Regardless of gender, everyone was blushing on their faces and raising excited squeals.

Amamiya also started to get curious, moved to the opposite side of the fountain, and blended into the crowd.

He stretched to see which celebrity was attracting attention—

“Eh!?”

Amamiya hurriedly crouched down and hid behind the back of a foreigner who was impressed, saying, “Cosplayer?”

Because the one standing in front of the fountain was a classmate he knew well.

Moreover, she was that beautiful half-Swedish girl who always sat quietly in the back seat of their class.

(K-Karina!?)

To avoid being seen, he stretched again to confirm.

Even her school uniform was beautiful, but a white blouse that stood out against her white skin, a cute ribbon, a black long skirt that reached below the knees, and boots.

She was probably meeting her boyfriend.

She was usually quiet, but with her beauty, it would not be strange if she had one or two boyfriends.

It was not anything surprising.

(I am jealous, but it has nothing to do with me…)

While he was entranced by Karina, who was dressed up more than usual, his cell phone rang.

It was a reply from Dragon Head.

“I have arrived too, but where are you, Rain-san?”

It was an arrival report, but there were too many people.

Judging that it would be hard to find a specific person in the crowd drawn to Karina, Amamiya sent an email about changing the plan.

“Too many people, how about changing the meeting spot to the cafe we planned?”

“Got it, understood.”

Amamiya, relieved by the immediate agreement, headed to the cafe alone.

He occasionally looked back, searching for someone who seemed to be heading to the cafe like him, but because the crowd suddenly started to disperse, it became even harder to find.

(Is he really coming…?)

Looking around the cafe, it was couples, couples, couples as far as the eye could see.

Groups of girls devouring cakes, and ladies in expensive clothes.

It felt awkward.

Like at school, it was a window-side table, so passersby could peek in from outside, which was embarrassing.

Since a guy would sit across from him, he probably could not avoid drawing attention.

They would think it was a gay couple.

Why did Dragon Head choose this shop?

Amamiya held his head.

Still, it was a situation where he could not back out now.

He could not pretend to be asleep to get through it.

He had no choice but to sit up straight like a boyfriend waiting for his girlfriend and act confidently.

“Welcome. Would one person be okay?”

He heard the sound of the shop’s door opening from behind, and Amamiya’s shoulders trembled.

(He came already?) he thought, and right after, just like at the fountain, excited squeals rose from men and women in the shop.

He doubted his ears at voices saying “So beautiful~” “So white~”

There is no way such a coincidence would happen, he thought, and put on the wry smile that his sister had just scolded him about.

“I have arrived at the shop. I do not know which seat you are at, so can you raise your hand?”

It was an email from Dragon Head.

The time had finally come to meet face-to-face with the friend who shared joys and sorrows, his great best friend, his irreplaceable partner.

Trembling with tension, Amamiya slowly raised his hand.

“Sorry for keeping you waiting. I could not get out of the crowd, so I was late…”

As a soft good fragrance wafted, the one who casually sat in the opposite seat was not a man.

Not a dog or a cat, it was a girl.

Moreover, it was the owner of silver hair and skin as white as snow that Amamiya knew well.

With his eyes wide and frozen, the other person was also opening her mouth in surprise.

That gesture was so cute and endearing, like a picture. “…Amamiya-kun!?”

“K-K-K-Karina-san!?”

Unbelievable.

He rubbed his eyes thinking it was a dream, but it was reality.

The true identity of the friend he had been playing with all this time was the unattainable flower he thought he had nothing to do with.

The half-Swedish girl who had captivated many male and female students.

She was the school’s number one beautiful girl, Karina—