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 - 33

Chapter 33: A Battle of Slip-Ups

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“…Alright. I finally understand this formula.”

The physics textbook lay open across the study desk in my room. Shinonome-san, sitting beside me, pointed at the equation with the tip of her mechanical pencil and nodded in satisfaction.

“That’s good. Sato-kun, your fundamentals are solid, so if you just grind through some applied problems, I think you can avoid makeup classes.”

“…Yeah. Thank you, Shinonome-san.”

I answered as calmly as I could, careful not to let her notice how wildly my heart was pounding. At the edge of my vision was her smooth black hair flowing down, and from right beside me drifted her distinctively sweet, clean scent, mixed with the fresh May breeze. Watching the two of us from the floor while she was teaching Kaito math—, chinose-san looked up with a grin.

“Nihihi! You two totally look like a teacher and her student! Rin-rin, you’re good at teaching, aren’t you?”

“…Yeah, you explain things clearly. How’s Kaito doing?”

As I tried to change the subject, Kaito stayed slumped over his notebook, groaning something that barely qualified as language.

“I’m dying… sine, cosine, grim reaper…”

“Kaito, pull yourself together! If you can’t solve this, you won’t get to see Rin-rin’s heroic moments at the ball games tournament, you know!?”

“…!! I’ll do it! I’ll do it!!”

At the word “Rin-rin,” Kaito sprang back to life like a zombie.

That level of simplicity is honestly terrifying.

Thanks to that, Ichinose-san’s attention shifted fully to Kaito. Relieved, I stood up to quench my thirst.

“…I’m going to grab some drinks from downstairs. Shinonome-san, do you want something too?”

“Oh, then cold tea—”

Shinonome-san started to say, then suddenly her eyes stopped on something beside my desk.

“Oh, Sato-kun. …Why don’t you use that blue coaster at the back of the shelf? You’ll get water droplets all over the desk otherwise.”

“…Huh?”

My movements froze as if iced over.

..She messed up. She really messed up. The coaster she pointed to was usually hidden behind the bookshelf, not somewhere a first-time visitor to this room would notice. Yeah. That was exactly where I’d casually put away my mom’s “favorite” coaster last week, when Shinonome-san had come over.

“…Rin-rin?”

Ichinose-san’s voice dropped an octave. She set down her pen and stared intently at Shinonome-san’s face.

“Why do you know where a coaster that far back is? …This is your first time in Sato-kun’s room, right?”

“—!!”

A cold sweat ran down my back. When I looked over, Shinonome-san’s face had stiffened too. But as expected of the school’s top heroine, she activated a perfect deflection in an instant.

“A-ahaha! No, Saki, it’s just that I happened to glimpse it through the gap over there. My eyesight’s pretty good, you know. …Right, Sato-kun?”

“Y-Yeah, that’s right! Shinonome-san’s been observing all the figures in my room really closely since earlier! She probably saw it then!”

I desperately backed her up. Kaito even nodded on his own, muttering.

“As expected of Shinonome-san… even her observational skills are goddess-level…”

…But Ichinose-san still narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

“Hmmm… …Well, whatever! Oh, Sato-kun! Saki wants a cola!”

“…Got it. I’ll bring it.”

I fled the room. As I went down the stairs, I tried to calm my violently pounding heart.

That was way too close. This ‘pretending to be strangers’ mission is beyond lunatic difficulty.

When I reached the living room, Futaba was in the kitchen, humming while baking cookies even though she was supposed to be standing guard to keep our mom away.

“…Futaba. What happened to standing guard?”

“…Oh, hey, Onii. …Ichinose-san said, ‘Want me to retie your ponytail, Futaba-chan?’ and I stopped caring about everything. Ichinose-senpai is seriously an angel. I’m so glad you didn’t brainwash her.”

Well, Mom still wasn’t here, so we were safe.

“…Your loyalty is about as fragile as a chocolate snack.”

I took drinks out of the fridge and placed them on a tray. Futaba casually added freshly baked cookies on top.

“Give the biggest one to Shinonome-san. …And be careful not to slip up, okay? Onii, your face basically has ‘I’m hiding something’ written all over it.”

“…Shut up. I know.”

Carrying the drinks and cookies, I headed back upstairs. When I opened the door, for some reason, the room was filled with an even stranger atmosphere than before.

Shinonome-san was writing something in a notebook at my desk, while Ichinose-san hugged her from behind as she looked on.

…And Kaito was somehow trying to peer under my bed, only to be glared at by Shinonome-san with a cold look (a reward).

What are you doing, you idiot!?

“Welcome back, Sato-kun. …Oh, cookies? Did your mother bake them?”

The word mother came from Shinonome-san’s mouth.

…

………

“…Rin-rin?”

Ichinose-san froze again. This time, Shinonome-san herself realized what she’d said and clapped a hand over her mouth.

“…Why did you assume they were baked by his mother? Futaba-chan could’ve made them, or they could’ve been store-bought.”

“Eh—ah, no! I just smelled something nice from the kitchen, so I thought his mother, I mean, Sato-kun’s mom was probably baking something!”

“Rin-rin… Your honorifics have been weird for a while now, and it’s kind of… Could it be that you and Sato-kun were actually close even before this?”

Ichinose-san’s probing finally reached the core. Even Kaito lifted his head at that point, laughing.

“No way. Kazuma and Shinonome-san? That’d be like the sun being friends with an earthworm.”

But Ichinose-san’s eyes weren’t laughing.

“(Kazu, help me…!)”

Shinonome-san sent me a silent distress signal with her eyes. I set the tray of cookies down on the table with a thud and put on my best exasperated face.

“…Ichinose-san. Shinonome-san just knows my family situation, so she made a reasonable guess. …And do you seriously think Rin Shinonome-sama gets any benefit from being close to a background mob like me?”

“Benefit…?”

“There isn’t any. To Shinonome-san, I’m just ‘the guy in class who knows a bit about games.’ That’s all. …Right, Shinonome-san?”

By thoroughly belittling myself, I emphasized the boundary between us. For just a moment, Shinonome-san looked sad then immediately let a bold light shine in her eyes, the confidence of “Haru,” and matched my act.

“…Yes, that’s right. Sato-kun is just a ‘convenient guy’ who can explain stuff I don’t understand to me …Right, Saki? If you’re that suspicious, should we make Sato-kun’s test prep even more hardcore starting now?”

Eeh… Isn’t that going too far? That hurts.

“Eeh!? That’d be too cruel to Kazucchi-kun!”

At that, Ichinose-san finally seemed to relax, laughing as she reached for a cookie.

“…Saved…”

I let out a sigh of relief inside my heart. I had no idea how many times that had happened now. Under the desk, where no one could see, Shinonome-san lightly tapped the top of my foot with hers.

(Thanks, Kazu. I’ll repay you later for being my ‘explanation guy.’)

The soft touch made it feel like I could almost hear that voice. Ichinose Saki, the great detective. Rin Shinonome, the greatest liar. And me, caught between them, steadily shaving years off my life.

The battle against the midterms was pushing my sanity to its limits for reasons that had nothing to do with studying.

“Alright! Energy replenished! Let’s go, second half!”

Ichinose-san’s lively voice echoed through the room after the storm had passed. But…

As she munched on a cookie, she narrowed her eyes for just an instant, as if measuring the distance between Shinonome-san and me. I didn’t miss it. It seemed that to completely fool this “great detective,” the two of us still knew just a little too much about each other.

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