After I Started Living Alone, My Place Turned Into a Hangout Spot for Beautiful Girls - Chapter 7.2: Shizuru Mizutani (Part 7)

Chapter 7.2: Shizuru Mizutani (Part 7)

Sure enough, club activity kids often ate onigiri in the classroom on top of their bento.

As I placed the seconds of curry rice in front of Shizuru, I asked her about her track and field club life.

“You’re in the track and field club, Shizuru, but what events are you doing now?”

“Long distance and relays.”

“Long distance must make you hungry.”

“Seriously, morning practice days are brutal. After club, I eat an onigiri, but even then, I have to hold back my stomach during class so it doesn’t growl~~~.”

“So, you feel embarrassed if someone hears your stomach growling?”

“Hmm, the stomach growling is fine if someone hears it. But, ah, well, you know.”

Watching Shizuru speak passionately, I understood what she meant.

Yeah, that makes sense, I said with a wry smile.

“They might mistake it for a fart, right?”

When I said that, Shizuru leaned forward and chopped my head.

I wondered why, but Shizuru stated the plain truth.

“Don’t say dirty things during a meal!”

“…Sorry.”

“Ehehe~, I don’t mind at all. I just felt like scolding you for some reason. Oh, I chopped pretty hard, did it hurt?”

“Wait, ah… The curry’s on my clothes…”

Shizuru had leaned forward to chop me.

She must have caught it a bit in the process.

A curry stain had formed on the blue dress shirt of her uniform.

“Oops~, Mom’s gonna get mad about this. Bleaching is such a hassle! Or so.”

“Why not wash it lightly now while it’s still easy to remove?”

“Yeah. But first…”

Shizuru quickly finished off the remaining curry on her plate.

“Thanks for the meal! Thanks. The curry was delicious!”

“You’re welcome, hope it was to your taste.”

“Alright, I’ll borrow the sink.”

“Oh, the detergent and stuff are in the cabinet under the sink.”

“Thanks!”

Shizuru hurriedly dashed to the sink.

Alright, time for me to clean up the dishes too.

I tossed the dishes into the dishwasher with the drying function.

Yeah, nothing left to do.

“I guess I’ll go check on her.”

There was probably no need to worry, but I headed to check on Shizuru, who had gone to wash the shirt stain.

Without any hesitation, I opened the door to the changing area with the sink.

Shizuru was in her camisole, which clearly looked fine to be seen, vigorously washing the shirt she had taken off.

“How’s it going?”

“Surprisingly okay. If I wash it a bit more, I might not even need to bleach it.”

“Not just the stain spots, but you’re washing the whole thing vigorously—aren’t you going to wear it home?”

“Oh.”

It seemed she had forgotten she needed to wear the shirt home.

I thought her airheaded side was cute, but meanwhile, I opened the nearby washing machine with drying function and asked while searching for a school-specified shirt.

“I bought a few extra when I enrolled, so if you’d like, I can lend you one of mine?”

“Then, I’ll gladly borrow it.”

“Here it is, found it.”

I took a dress shirt from the washing machine and handed it to Shizuru.

Shizuru draped my lent shirt over her camisole and buttoned it up.

“It’s a bit big.”

“Sorry about that.”

“I’ll wash it right away when I get home and return it tomorrow!”

“I have plenty, so take your time. Oh, it’s getting late, so shall I walk you?”

Perhaps because we ate curry together, more time had passed than usual.

Shizuru smiled and said that was true, then began preparing to leave.

※

The next day after eating curry with Shizuru.

When I entered the classroom, Shizuru was being cornered by her friends.

“Shizuru-chan~, where’d you get that dress shirt from~?”

I perked up my ears, and that was what Shizuru’s friend was saying.

Dress shirt?

What did she mean? I thought, and looked at the shirt Shizuru was wearing.

It just looked like an ordinary dress shirt.

What was the issue?

Oh, no, looking closely, it was different.

I noticed by comparing it to the shirt of a female student near Shizuru.

The shirt design was slightly different.

Yes, the front buttons on Shizuru’s were on the right chest side, while the other female students’ shirts had them on the left chest side.

“Oh, from your little brother?”

“No, you don’t have a little brother.”

“Then, your dad’s.”

“It looks totally like a guy’s dress shirt from our high school. Come on, spill it. Where’d you get that him-shirt from~?”

“…I’m not telling.”

Shizuru was getting grilled by her friends for wearing a men’s dress shirt.

She said she’d wash and return it right away, so she must have grabbed the wrong one to dry and worn it by mistake.

If I’d known this would happen, I shouldn’t have lent her the shirt.

I watched Shizuru getting grilled from afar, somewhat like it was someone else’s problem…

“Look, the tag. Check the tag!”

Suddenly, sweat poured out uncontrollably.

At high school, since everyone wore the same shirts, most people wrote their initials on the tags with a marker to distinguish them.

But since I was lazy and didn’t, Mom had properly engraved my full name “Ieyiri Teruaki” on it.

Sorry, really sorry.

As I apologized to Shizuru in my mind, in an instant, her friends swarmed her and checked the shirt’s tag.

“Ugh~, there are traces of writing, but it’s faded so much I can’t read it!”

I breathed a sigh of relief.

The marker writing had apparently faded to the point of being indistinguishable.

And then, a few minutes later.

As the commotion died down, a message arrived on my smartphone.

‘Ehehe. In the morning rush, I accidentally wore your shirt that I had washed and planned to return today.’

Clumsy Shizuru.

I could only think of her as cute.