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 - 40

Chapter 40: The Two of Us in the Lingering Heat

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Rin’s POV

The air in the gym felt so thick and overheated that it seemed denser than oxygen itself. The girls’ basketball final. The score was 38 to 40. Less than one minute remained until the end of the game.

…Ah, damn it. …My shoulders feel heavy.

My breathing burned like fire. The friction between the soles of my sneakers and the floor rang sharply in my ears. Our opponents were a third-year select team. Bigger, more experienced, and armed with organized defense, they had stopped us again and again. I could see Saki Ichinose desperately carrying the ball, sweat flying everywhere.

“Rin! We can still do this!!”

Saki’s shout rang out. But my legs felt like lead, and my consciousness threatened to slip away. From the stands came a rain of voices filled with expectation.

“Rin-chaaaan!”

“Shinonome-san, do your best!”

…It was scary. If we lost here. If I failed to meet their expectations… Would my place as the “perfect school’s angel” crumble away with a loud crash? Just as that dark, murky anxiety reached out to clutch my heart…

–!!

A faint, yet unmistakable warmth returned to my right palm. Just a short while ago on the rooftop,  Kazu had tightly held my hand and pulled it against his chest.

『If anyone knows how strong you are, it’s me, your partner.』

That clumsy, tactless, yet unbelievably reliable knight’s voice—Kazu’s voice. The lingering sensation of his large hand still left in my right palm, iIt poured gasoline straight into my ice-cold soul.

…I won’t lose. …I can’t show anything pathetic in front of my partner.

I exhaled deeply and shifted gears all at once. My vision cleared.

The opponent’s center of gravity. The passing lanes. The shortest route to the basket. These were the eyes of Haru, the eyes that had spent three years on the front lines of online games, conquering overwhelming enemies side by side with Kazu.

“Saki! Over here!!”

I blew past one defender with a sharp drive and called for Saki’s pass near the free-throw line. The instant the ball hit my hands, three third-years closed in around me. There was nowhere to escape, but I could see it.

…Kazu. …Watch me.

The front row of the stands. There, Kazu was watching only me with more seriousness than anyone else. I deliberately feigned a reckless drive under the basket, then twisted my body midair. A decoy move, something Kazu and I had devised back in our gaming days to toy with bosses.

“Wha—!?”

In that single moment when they were thrown off, I slipped between the three defenders and backstepped out to the wide-open three-point line.

“Rin-rin!? You’re shooting from there!?”

Saki’s shocked voice rang out. Normally, this wouldn’t be the choice to make in this situation. But I knew. The buff I’d received from Kazu on the rooftop still lingered in my fingertips.

Higher. I leapt higher, beyond anyone’s reach. The ball left my hands, tracing a brilliant arc.

—Swish!!

The crisp sound of the net tearing through the silence split the gym. 41 to 40. A reversal. At the same time, the buzzer announcing the end of the game blared.

“…Huh?”

A single instant of blankness and then…

“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!”

A roar so loud it felt like my eardrums would burst shook the floor. Our Class Two classmates flooded onto the court in a wave.

“We did it! We did it, Rin-rin!! We won!!”

Saki leapt at me. The boys from our class erupted in celebration. But I pushed through the ring of cheers, breathing hard, and looked straight up at the stands.

……

Our eyes met. Amid the festival-like chaos, Kazu alone wore a quiet, gentle smile.

“Nice shot, Haru.”

I couldn’t hear his voice. But the movement of his lips told me everything.

“…Nihihi. …You idiot, Kazuma.”

So no one would see, I pressed my right hand to my chest. What lingered there was Kazu’s scent. And something I had never felt in all three years before, a sweet, heart-tightening taste of victory.

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Even as the closing ceremony began, my head was filled with thoughts of the reward time that awaited me. My hands no longer trembled as I accepted the certificate. But just thinking about Kazu made my cheeks burn, and holding my usual “perfect smile” became a little difficult.

“Rin-rin, you’re grinning way too much.”

Saki giggled beside me. I brushed it off with, “It’s hot,” but I couldn’t hide the nameless heat blooming deep in my chest.

And then, after school. I stepped into an empty classroom bathed in twilight. Waiting for me was my strongest partner… And my one and only selfish wish.

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Kazuma’s POV

The frenzied closing ceremony ended, and the excitement pooled in the gym slowly seeped away into the shadows of the school building. I, Kazuma Sato, returned to the classroom ahead of everyone else and stared at the “Third Place” badminton certificate propped up beside my desk.

…It’s really over, huh.

The sensation of gripping my racket still lingered in my fingertips. Even more vividly, the heavy, burning feeling of tightly holding Shinonome-san’s small hand on the rooftop clung stubbornly to my palm.

The classroom at dusk. The setting sun filtered through the windows, turning countless specks of dust into dancers in orange light.

Clatter.

The sound of a door opening echoed down the silent hallway.

“…Oh. …Kazu, you were already here.”

When I turned around, Shinonome Rin was standing there. Her ponytail was slightly undone, and she’d thrown a tracksuit jacket loosely over her gym clothes. It wasn’t the “angel” worshiped by the boys of the school. It was completely the Haru I knew.

“…Good work. …Nice shot, Haru.”

“Nihihi. …You were watching, weren’t you? …I knew you were in the front row, so I could jump that high.”

She scratched the tip of her nose shyly, then flipped the chair beside me, which was Kaito’s seat, around and sat down, staring straight at me.

“…Sato-kun. …I won, right?”

“…Yeah. You won the championship, I made to the top four. …No argument. it’s your win.”

When I admitted it honestly, she curled her lips in satisfaction. But in her eyes burned something more than just the afterglow of victory. An eager, heated expectation.

“…Then… I’m going to use it. …My selfish wish.”

“…Yeah. As long as it’s not a poetry recital, I’ll listen.”

I straightened my back, bracing myself. She let her gaze wander slightly, her earlobes turning red, and whispered softly.

“…Move your chair closer.”

I slid my chair a few centimeters toward hers. She let out a deep breath, then gently tipped her head onto my right shoulder.

“—!!”

My heart slammed harder than in any match that day, pounding so loud I could hear it in my ears. Her hair brushed against me, carrying that bittersweet, sweet scent of sweat mixed with soap.

“…H-Haru?”

“It’s fine. …This is my selfish wish. …Being ‘Rin Shinonome’ all day was really exhausting. …My legs are still shaking, you know?”

Sure enough, I could feel her slender shoulder trembling slightly. This… This was the true form of the hero who had made godlike plays and led the class to victory. I couldn’t say anything. I just stared at the twilight sky, feeling the pleasant weight of her head on my shoulder.

“…Good work. …You worked the hardest of all.”

“…Thanks, Kazu. …Hey, one more minute. …Let me stay like this. …We’re best friends. This much won’t cost anything, right?”

“…Yeah. That’s right. We’re best friends.”

I told myself firmly, over and over. This was friendship. A warrior’s rest between partners who had spent three years wearing down their souls together in the digital sea.

But…

Her steady breathing transmitted through my shoulder… The soft touch of her skin brushing my arm now and then… All of it mercilessly eroded the breakwater called “best friends” that we had built.

Was this love? Or was it dependence? I was afraid to name the answer. If I gave it a name, I felt like I would lose this comfortable front-row seat forever.

“…Nihihi. Kazu, your heart’s loud.”

“…Shut up. I just finished moving around. That’s normal.”

“…Liar. …But I like that about you too. …As my partner.”

Her voice was so gentle it felt like it might disappear at any moment. Without either of us saying it, we chose silence. The orange light slowly turned purple, and long shadows stretched across the empty classroom. For just these few minutes, this place was a sanctuary where only the two of us could breathe as our true selves.

“—Hey! Rin-rin! Kazucchi-kuuun!”

The sudden shout from the hallway belonging to the bomber girl made us jump apart. A moment later, the door burst open, and Saki Ichinose came rushing in, followed by Kaito holding up his phone with a map to the class’s after-party venue.

“Rin, Kazuma! I’ve been looking for you! Let’s hurry to the yakiniku place by the station! Tonight, everyone eats on Rin Shinonome-sama’s tab—no, on the class budget!”

Kaito shouted excitedly, then rushed off somewhere again. Seriously, what a busy guy he was.

“Nihihi! Were you two in the middle of something? …Well, whatever! Today’s star is Rin-rin! Come on, let’s go!”

Ichinose-san glanced at our unnaturally red faces and grinned, as if she understood everything.

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