All the Heroines Who Showed Their Overwhelming Emotions on Me Have Mentally Broken Down and Gone Insane, so Now My Only Choice Is to Pamper Them Endlessly to Avoid Total Chaos — Sweets Work Best on Lovesick Heroines - Chapter 3: The Considerate Childhood Friend and the Hikikomori Yandere Little Sister

Chapter 3: The Considerate Childhood Friend and the Hikikomori Yandere Little Sister

After school. The moment homeroom ended, I bolted from the classroom.

My escape skills had improved dramatically over the past year. Probably enough to outlast everyone on that famous evasion variety show.

But the world was not that forgiving, apparently.

“Kaname! Let’s go home together!”

The strongest hunter awaited me at the shoe lockers.

Of course, it was Raimu Tendo.

“Sorry, but I have something to do today…”

I had no obligations as a member of the go-home club, but I tried to brush her off anyway.

“Then I’ll go with you!”

“It has to be just me.”

“You’ll be in danger alone! What if something happens to you? I have to protect you! Here, now you’re safe!”

She clung to my arm with some incomprehensible logic.

You are the biggest danger…

But suddenly, the weight vanished from my arm.

“An ugly bug is swarming around you, Kaname.”

Yami-senpai had appeared out of nowhere and peeled Raimu off my body.

This woman was elusive in her own right.

“Yami-senpai…”

Raimu made no effort to hide her displeasure.

“I’ll give you a ride to your destination, Kaname. I have a car ready.”

“A car?”

“I prepared a limousine. It’s quite comfortable.”

As expected of the heir to the Ayakura family.

It was overkill for shuttling a high schooler.

But I would not ride it.

“Kaname is going home with me! Don’t get in the way!”

“You are the one in the way. Kaname promised to go home with me.”

“I did not.”

I corrected them just in case. But neither one was listening.

“Kaname is mine!”

“Mine.”

“Mine!”

“Mine!”

After a prolonged staring contest, they started grappling at the shoe lockers.

Raimu yanked at senpai’s hair, and senpai pinned Raimu’s cheek.

The surrounding students scattered as if to avoid invoking divine wrath.

Now was my chance. While they tussled, I slipped out of the shoe lockers.

Then I sprinted at full speed. Without looking back, I ran all the way to the station, gasping for breath.

I passed through the gate with my commuter pass and climbed to the platform.

A train was just arriving.

“–Ah. Kaname.”

Someone called my name from the line of people on the platform, and I spotted a familiar figure at the end.

A gentle smile and soft, rounded eyes.

Her hair, which reached her shoulders, swayed in the spring breeze.

She was a head shorter than me, and from a distance, her petite build made her look like a middle schooler.

“Iori.”

Iori Ototsuka. My childhood friend from kindergarten through elementary, middle, and now high school.

Out of everyone I knew at school, Iori was the only one with any common sense.

Unlike those weirdos, she was a soothing presence for me.

“What, running away again?”

“You catch on quick.”

“It’s written all over your face.”

The train arrived.

The doors opened, and we boarded together.

“Kaname!”

The voices made me turn around. Raimu and Yami-senpai were racing down the platform stairs.

The train doors closed just in the nick of time.

Safe…

The two of them glared at me resentfully through the window, left behind.

“Whoa…”

A few seconds after departure, my smartphone buzzed wildly in my pocket.

Bzzz, bzzz, bzzz—a barrage of vibration notifications.

I knew who the sender was without looking.

I turned off the power without checking the messages.

I stood beside Iori near the doors.

It was rush hour on a weekday, so the train was crowded, but inside it was quiet.

“You have it rough, always.”

“You’re the only one who says stuff like that. The only one with any sense.”

My classmates had already accepted this bizarre situation as their everyday normal.

That was why hearing someone acknowledge how tough it was felt so relieving, even if that was all it was.

“I’m on your side, Kaname.”

Come to think of it, back in middle school, she had always looked out for me when I was a loner.

I should thank her properly.

“Thanks, always.”

“You’re welcome. But you know…”

Iori’s voice shifted to a serious tone.

“You can’t keep indulging Raimu-chan and the student council president like that. If you don’t like something, you have to say no. You have to speak up about what bothers you.”

“I know. But…”

I looked out the window.

I gazed absently at the passing scenery.

“If I push them away, it just makes things worse. And besides…”

Was it annoying? No, I did not think it was. It was a hassle and a pain, but if someone asked if I truly despised it from the bottom of my heart…

This was probably my own flaw.

“And besides?”

“Nothing.”

As if she had seen right through my hidden feelings, Iori sighed in exasperation.

“Your kindness can be poisonous sometimes, Kaname.”

“Poisonous?”

“For them and for you. It’s like the carrot and the stick.”

What was that supposed to mean.

I had no intention of whipping or offering candy.

The train jolted with a clunk.

Iori stumbled, and her head bumped into my chest.

“You okay?”

“…Thanks. But seriously, you should quit that habit of being nice to everyone.”

“Yeah…”

I felt guilty.

I averted my eyes.

“I like it when you’re nice to me, though.”

Iori followed up my pathetic self with her usual tolerant kindness.

If only those two could be this thoughtful…

“I’ll do better.”

“Doing better is not enough. You have to actually do it.”

Her words stung more than anything.

The train pulled into my station.

The doors opened, and I went with the flow of people getting off.

“See you later.”

“Later.”

I raised my hand lightly in response to Iori’s wave.

＊

It took about ten minutes on foot from the station to get home.

I slipped off my shoes while saying “I’m home” and headed up to my room on the second floor.

When I reached the top of the stairs, the door to my little sister’s room opened.

“Welcome back, big brother.”

My little sister, Kokoa, poked her head out.

Her hair, which reached her back, was unkempt and messy right now, lacking its usual care.

With her childish features for a third-year middle schooler and her pajamas, she could pass for an elementary schooler.

“I’m home.”

“Why didn’t you text me?”

I swallowed a sigh with effort.

Don’t demand reports, contacts, and consultations from me in everyday life…

“I sent messages, but you didn’t even read them. Being ignored unread is worse than read and ignored.”

“Sorry. I had my phone off.”

“Show me.”

“Huh?”

“Show me your phone right now. If there’s even a weird gap, I won’t forgive you.”

“…………”

In other words, she wanted to confirm it was really powered off.

I took my smartphone from my pocket.

Kokoa watched my every move intently as she took it.

She tapped the screen a few times.

“It really is.”

“I told you.”

“But why did you turn it off? You’re all I have.”

Kokoa had been absent from school.

According to her, there had been trouble with friends during summer break of her second year in middle school.

She had not gone to school once since then, even now in her third year.

With only family as her conversation partners these days, her claim that “you’re all I have” was not entirely wrong.

“I get it.”

“You don’t.”

She gripped my sleeve with her fingertips.

Kokoa looked up at me.

“If you’re not here, I’ll really be all alone.”

“It’s fine. You can make it on your own in life, surprisingly.”

“That’s not the point.”

“I’ll be more careful next time.”

At home and at school, I was hounded by possessiveness every day.

I had no sanctuary anywhere.