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 6: The Sulking Silver-Haired Beauty Girl

Amamiya had been grinning from morning until evening at home, and his little sister pointed it out to him.

He had told her to fix her bitter smile, but he had not said to make it even creepier, so she scolded him pretty strongly.

Amamiya had not meant to do that, but the pointing out shocked him.

He tried to hold himself back as much as possible in his mind, but the events from the offline meeting the other day crossed his thoughts, and no matter what, his lips loosened up.

(That was not a dream; it was really Karina.)

He felt like a girl in love, and his chest throbbed so much that he could not sleep.

He had despaired, thinking he could never recover from being rejected by Tojo, but without a doubt, it was thanks to Karina that he could feel this calm now.

“Thank you for the meal.”

“Big brother, you eat so fast!?”

“Yeah, I want to head to school early. I’ll head out as soon as I finish washing my dishes, so please lock up, Anna.”

As he said that, Amamiya finished washing the dishes for his portion.

Anna, who still had half of her salmon uneaten, seemed to sense something, so she propped her cheek on her hand and smiled.

“I see, I get it. So finally, spring has come to my gloomy big brother.”

Amamiya, who had been about to leave the living room, stopped his feet and turned back to Anna, who was grinning at the dining table.

What an insightful little sister she was.

In front of Tojo, she had been doing cute little sister acts, but before he knew it, she had grown into an esper who could read people’s hearts.

In his lighthearted head, he wondered if she would become a mentalist in the future, and as he thought that, Amamiya said one thing.

“Your manners are bad, so do not put your elbows on the table.”

“Okay, got it.”

He smiled at Anna, who answered casually, and Amamiya headed to the entrance.

In his elated mood, he put on the new sneakers he had bought on Sunday, and he checked his hair, which he had set in front of the full-length mirror.

He had just tried to do it by imitating the methods introduced in videos and magazines, so the result was below third-rate.

But he would get used to it soon enough. As he thought about things as positively as possible, he opened the front door.

“…?”

The moment he stepped outside, a familiar girl’s back view caught his eye.

As soon as she noticed him, she hurried away in escape, but it was the back that Amamiya knew well.

Tojo Chika.

She had said she would not come around for a while, so why had she been in front of the house?

Thinking maybe, Amamiya checked the mailbox.

Utility bills, cell phone bill, and a pink-colored letter.

Tojo must have dropped it in.

“Have you reflected on it yet?”

Only that one line was written.

He could easily imagine Tojo standing with her legs apart, looking down at him arrogantly.

He had fault too for not putting in effort, and he was a guy who deserved to be rejected.

But he could not accept being blamed so one-sidedly like this, so Amamiya tore up the letter and threw it in the trash can at home.

Do not litter, everyone.

During his commute to school, Amamiya was worrying his head in his usual way.

With school starting, he finally felt the reality sinking in.

(At school, how should I talk to Karina?)

Karina at school was famous for her quiet and dry personality, but he had overheard her a few times from the seat in front, talking about outgoing people-like topics.

Something about a new product from a certain brand, or how a celebrity scandal was, or how so-and-so from an idol group was this or that.

All of them were topics that Amamiya was unfamiliar with.

He only watched the anime channels he subscribed to on TV, and terrestrial broadcasting was out of the question.

Even if he could talk to Karina, bringing up games was absolutely forbidden.

He would not say that games were a hobby only for modest Japanese boys like him, but in general, fantasy RPG online games were seen as otaku things.

There were surely a certain number of outgoing people who liked that genre, but few would bring it up on purpose.

Even for big hit titles, it did not mean everyone he knew was playing them.

If it was a topic only certain people understood, some people would not be able to follow.

In that case, talking about recent trends would avoid the risk of things fizzling out, and it would be more fun to get excited over common topics.

(If her classmates thought she was that kind of person, it would skew her image, and I do not want to cause her trouble.)

Just because they exchanged contact info did not mean “We are best friends now!” was jumping the gun.

There were patterns where you got friendly in a group during a school trip and then went back to being strangers the next day.

If he let his guard down, it would backfire.

He had to act carefully here.

To avoid getting carried away by himself and confessing to Tojo like that day.

Amamiya had gone through developments that would not happen if he just lived normally, like being rejected by his childhood friend or his online friend being Karina, but the classroom was the same as always.

Before homeroom, groups gathered to chat or study, and the usual daily life spread out.

(…Chika.)

His eyes met for a moment with Tojo, who was placing handouts on the teacher’s desk, but they both awkwardly looked away.

He would pretend not to have noticed the letter in the mailbox.

Even if he had noticed, he did not know how to talk to her.

Even if he apologized, he did not feel like they could go back to their previous relationship, and maybe it would be easier to just spend time as strangers.

Amamiya headed to his seat by the window in a depressed mood.

Kumagai was not in the front seat, and in the back, Karina was listening to music with headphones on.

Her face was turned toward the window, so she did not seem to have noticed him.

“Oh, good morning.”

“…”

Amamiya tried greeting her, but maybe because his voice was so low and mumbly, she did not hear, and Karina kept staring at the outside scenery with no reaction.

Karina’s close friend group, who had been chatting nearby, looked at Amamiya with eyes that clearly showed contempt, like “Why is that gloomy guy greeting Karina-chan?”

Amamiya felt embarrassed and sat down as if nothing had happened.

He buried his face in his bag and regretted his action from earlier.

(As expected, I am no good. For a bottom-feeder like me to talk to the super popular Karina in class was a mistake… A bottom-feeder should stay buried in the damp soil like a bottom-feeder, pretending not to exist.)

When tears welled up in his eyes and he almost cried, he felt a poke on his back with a finger.

When he slowly turned around, there was Karina, leaning over her desk and puffing out her cheeks in a sulky way.

“You are here, Takaaki-kun. Were you calling out to me maybe? It is okay; you have to tap my shoulder or rub it or something. I look like this, but I have a natural side, so I miss things more often than not. Next time, call out to me more actively, without holding back. I will do the same.”

“…”

Amamiya froze up because she talked to him so normally.

It was not just him. All the classmates fell silent, and the classroom was wrapped in quiet.

That made sense.

Nagase Karina, who was always curt and quiet, had spoken to someone of her own accord.

And she was talkative, sweeter than usual, in a tone like she was talking to a friend.

“Your reply?”

“Yes, Karina-san.”

When he replied in a daze, Karina flicked his forehead with her finger.

She seemed displeased with his way of speaking.

“You are using polite language; please use my name casually.”

“Uh, yeah. Karina…?”