I Confessed My Sexual Preferences to My Online Game Best Friend, and the Person Who Showed Up at the Offline Meetup Was the Cute Girl from My Class - 15

Chapter 15: Everyone Has a Dark Past

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Tuesday. Supposedly the cursed weekday when concentration drops the most but today, my focus, Kazuma Sato’s focus, was sharpened to more than three times its usual level. The reason was simple. I felt like my life was in danger.

Lunch break. Amid the noisy classroom, I was munching on a yakisoba bread from the school store with Kaito in the seat next to me. As usual, Kaito was utterly devoted to the class queen sitting diagonally ahead, going on about how “Shinonome-san is seriously a goddess again today.”

That was when it happened. Ichinose-san, who had been at the center of a group of girls, casually stood up. Pretending to head toward her locker, she passed right by my seat. And then…

…!

In the split second when our eyes almost—but not quite—met, Ichinose-san brought her index finger to her lips. Then she winked, snapping one eye shut. A perfect, secret signal—a wink. It was an absurdly calculated move, one that reminded me of the dangerously shady contract as a “secret advisor” we’d made behind the gym yesterday.

“…? Hey, Kazuma. Didn’t Ichinose-san just wink at you? …No, maybe I imagined it. Have my eyes finally started hallucinating?”

Kaito froze, eyes wide as saucers with yakisoba bread still stuffed in his mouth.

“…You’re imagining things. Probably got some trash in your eye.”

Wiping away cold sweat, I desperately pretended to stay calm. But the truly terrifying thing wasn’t my friend’s gaze.

Across the classroom. Shinonome-san, who was Ichinose-san’s best friend, was staring straight at me. Her eyes weren’t those of the “angel” she showed at school. They carried the sharp, cutting light of a top-ranked online gamer, precisely aiming for her prey’s weak point. Shinonome-san had definitely seen the secret signal Ichinose-san had sent my way.

That night. After getting home and taking a bath, I stepped onto a battlefield with no escape. I turned on my PC and put on my headset. The moment I logged in, a familiar voice, one I knew well, yet sounding just a little lower than usual, reached my ears. My partner’s real voice.

『Good work today, Kazu. Welcome back. Thanks for logging in early again.』

Just listening to her voice, I could tell it was the usual Haru. But I knew better. In moments like this, she deliberately came in with an overly bright tone.

“…Yeah. Welcome back, Haru. Practice must’ve been rough.”

『Mm, kind of. Saki was in especially great shape today. Her passes were sharp and everything. …Hey, Kazu?』

Suddenly, it felt like the temperature of the conversation dropped a few degrees. I could easily imagine what kind of expression she had on the other side of the screen.

『You know, Saki seemed really happy all day today. Since morning, even. At lunch, she was humming and skipping along. …Kazuma (Kazu), you wouldn’t happen to know why, would you?』

A straight pitch. An unavoidable 160 km/h fastball. To keep my fingers from trembling on the keyboard, I clenched my fist once on my knee. Playing dumb here and claiming ignorance would be a bad move. Since she’d seen that dangerously sharp wink from Ichinose-san, a perfect lie would only create cracks.

“…Yeah. …That. Actually, she talked to me a bit during lunch.”

『Oh? About what?』

“Well, yesterday… After school, after I split up with Kaito, I happened to see Ichinose-san getting confessed to behind the gym. We made eye contact.”

I mixed in half the truth.

“She told me, ‘Don’t tell anyone, okay?’ earlier today. I think that wink was her way of making sure. …Guess she’s more sensitive about that stuff than I thought.”

Okay, perfect. Or at least, it should be. Ichinose-san being in a good mood because of the thrill of sharing a secret made sense. The meaning of the wink lined up. And the fact that she’d been confessed to was something Shinonome-san would eventually hear directly from Ichinose-san anyway, so the story stayed consistent.

『………Huh. A confession. Well, that’s not unusual for Saki.』

From the voice chat came the faint clink of what sounded like a glass being set down. A few seconds of silence ensued between us. I was terrified my heartbeat might get picked up by the mic.

Why, why are these two beautiful girls both so insanely perceptive?

Ichinose-san’s “unintentional bomb-dropping” was scary enough, but Shinonome-san’s “partner-level lie detection” was on an entirely different level of terror.

『…Fine. I’ll let that explanation stand. Kazu, being tight-lipped is one of your good points, after all.』

Her voice carried a slightly testing edge. Sure, she had me by the throat with my fatal weakness known as “fetishes.” But if she thought I was just someone to be exploited one-sidedly, she was dead wrong. Three years ago, back when she’d just started online gaming and her character hadn’t quite settled yet… She’d had what could only be described as a “full-blown chuunibyou dark age,” so embarrassing it still made me writhe just remembering it.

Poems she’d written herself and sent me during late-night bursts of energy.

『Legacy of the One Wing Swallowed by the Abyss』

『Requiem to the Crimson Moon Engraved Upon Me』

…And so on. Just hearing the titles made my own old wounds ache.

Back then, she fully believed I was just “a male friend who lived in a distant city and would never meet her in real life.” That was why she’d poured out the darkness of her heart (lol) to me alone. She had shown me things she could never show anyone else. I had saved every last word of those poems in a hidden folder on this PC, protected by multiple layers of passwords.

Which would come first, me getting reported as a pervert, or the angel of the school being exposed as a “fallen angel of the abyss”? Our relationship rested on a dangerously delicate balance, like both of us having our fingers on each other’s nuclear launch buttons.

“…Yeah. …I’m prepared to take that dark poetry collection of yours to the grave with me.”

When I said that, I heard her gasp sharply through the speakers.

『…Delete it. Delete it right now. Erase it! Annihilate it! If even a single character is left, I’ll broadcast Kazu’s fetishes over the school speakers starting tomorrow!』

“If you can, go ahead and try. …As long as you behave yourself, I don’t want to reread that stuff either. Mutual destruction isn’t my thing.”

『…Tch. …Fine. I’ll trust you on that. …But…』

At the very end, Shinonome-san’s voice took on a slight edge.

『…Saki is an important best friend to me too. If you do anything weird, or make her cry… Haru-kun—that is, I—won’t forgive you. …Got it, partner?』

“…I get it. Your best friend’s too scary for me to even think about touching.”

『Nihihi. Good answer. …Alright, let’s check out today’s update details!』

At last, she was back to the usual cheerful “Haru.” I leaned back in my chair and let out a long sigh. I’d managed to get through it… probably.

Because it was voice-only, I’d avoided letting my expressions betray me but if this exchange had been face-to-face, I’d have already confessed everything, including the issue of my gaze drifting toward Ichinose-san’s chest. But my relief was blown away in an instant.

A notification on my phone. It was a LINE message from Ichinose Saki, who should never be messaging me during a nighttime login.

【Saki: Kazucchi-kun! Make sure you keep next Monday after school free! We’ve got an important “consultation” to have! Just the two of us! (๑>◡<๑)】

“…………”

Still clutching my phone, I stared blankly at Haru’s character on the screen. Right after being warned by Shinonome-san, this happened. It felt like the countdown had already started until my poker face collapsed, quite literally and physically.

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T/N: Do you guys have a dark past too?