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 - 59

Chapter 59: The Promise of the Future

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The squeaking of basketball shoes and the rhythmic thud of balls hitting the gym floor gradually faded into silence in the distance. A July evening. Carried by the heat-laden breeze from outside the windows, the lively voices of students finishing their club activities faintly reached all the way up to the rooftop.

I, Kazuma Sato, leaned my back against the fence bathed in orange light and felt my palms growing unnaturally hot. It had been about two hours since that “declaration of war” with Ichinose-san. To the single LINE message I sent, timing it for when her club practice would end, she had replied only briefly: 『I’ll be there soon.』

(I won’t run. I absolutely won’t run anymore.)

I took a deep breath for what felt like the hundredth time. The air filling my lungs carried the heavy weight unique to summer, stinging the back of my throat.

—Clang. The heavy iron door opened, shattering the silence.

The one who appeared was Rin Shinonome, dressed in her club T-shirt and half pants. The heat from practice had not yet faded. A faint sheen of sweat glistened on her pale neck in the evening sun, and her silky black ponytail danced in the rooftop breeze. She glanced around the rooftop, confirmed that I was the only one there, and then lightly shed her usual “Shinonome-san” mask before walking toward me with steady, confident steps.

“What’s up, Kazu? Calling me out all of a sudden. We promised to log in tonight, didn’t we?”

As usual, she approached with a mischievous grin, wearing her relaxed “Haru” persona. But… The moment she looked directly at my face, she stopped three steps away. Her large eyes wavered in confusion.

“Kazu? What’s with that face? Are you plotting something bad?”

“Sorry, for calling you out when you’re tired.”

“No, I’m fine, but…”

My voice was lower than I expected, yet it carried a sense of finality. The sunset cast her face in shadow, but I could tell. She instinctively understood the meaning of the tense air between us.

“Shinonome-san. No… Haru.”

The moment I changed how I addressed her, her shoulders jerked.

“Yesterday, I happened to see Ichinose-san inviting you to the summer festival.”

“Oh… really.”

She visibly swallowed, her gaze drifting awkwardly.

“Ah. Yeah. Saki invited me. I was going to tell you. But, you know, Saki was really excited about going with just the two of us. And I thought maybe you’d go with Kaito-kun and the others…”

“No. That’s in the past.”

“Huh? What do you mean—”

“Ichinose-san gave you to me.”

“………………What?”

Shinonome-san froze as if paralyzed. I didn’t miss that opening and stepped toward her.

“I talked to Ichinose-san alone before club practice. I told her everything honestly. That I want to have Rin Shinonome all to myself. It sounds bad, but even if it meant breaking best friends’ plans, I want to invite you as a man. I begged her.”

“Kazu, you said that to Saki?”

“Yeah. She teased me mercilessly. But in the end, she handed over the place beside you to me, along with the strongest warning: ‘If you make Rin-rin sad, I won’t forgive you.’”

I stood right in front of her. And before she could look away, I caught her retreating gaze and firmly—far more firmly than before—gripped her slender wrist.

“―!?”

“Haru. No… Rin.”

Her name. Her one true name. For the first time, I hurled it straight at her heart.

“I’m done covering up our time together with convenient words like ‘best friend.’ The day of the sports festival, when you grabbed my hand…. When you rested your head against my chest at the internet café… I knew it back then, too.”

Through the wrist I held, I felt her fierce heartbeat, as if our hearts were playing the same rhythm. Rin’s face turned bright red, her trembling lips pressed tightly together.

“You might think this is creepy, but I’m terrified, so terrified I could die, of someone taking you away. Every time I see some other guy confess to you, or every time we pretend to be strangers at school, my heart feels like it’s not even mine anymore… it gets all messed up.”

I tightened my grip until my fingertips turned white.

“So. Next Saturday, I want you to go to the summer festival with me. Not as my partner running errands. Not like that. I want you to go as something ‘special’ to Kazuma Sato. I want you beside me, just the two of us. …Is that okay?”

“………………”

Silence fell. The wind stopped. All unnecessary sounds vanished from the world. Under the orange sky, only our gazes intertwined, sparking against each other. Rin stared at me without a word. Then, in her eyes, a light I had never seen before flickered to life—sweet and burning hot.

“…………Hehe. Took you long enough,  you idiot Kazuma.”

Rin let out a small, weak laugh—yet one filled with happiness from the bottom of her heart.

“You’re way too late, Kazu. I’ve been waiting all this time…. For you to step out of that filthy cage.”

“Cage…?”

“‘Best friend.’ ‘Partner.’ You’re the one who kept pushing me away with those words to make yourself feel better, aren’t you?”

Rin slowly raised her free hand. Then she grabbed the front of my shirt with such force it was as if she might tear it.

“Fine. I’ll go to the summer festival. Just the two of us. I’ll leave behind the ‘Rin Shinonome’ signboard from school… I will leave behind everything. I’ll take the place beside Kazuma Sato as me, as Rin Shinonome.”

“………………!!”

My world, once painted in the colors of a July sunset, was instantly flooded with the dazzling brilliance of midsummer.

“Yeah. Thanks, Rin.”

“…………!! Hehe, you really love sneak attacks, Kazu. Calling me by my first name all of a sudden after always calling me Shinonome-san… Say it again.”

“No. I will only call you that just that once.”

“Idiot! Stingy Kazuma! But fine. I already got the best ‘buff’ today.”

Rin narrowed her eyes happily and gently rested her forehead against my chest. Her body temperature was slightly elevated since she had just finished her basketball practice.  The scent of deodorant, sweat, and her own sweetness overwhelmed every cell in my body.

Three years ago. Our story began through voice chat filled with static noise. The safe breakwater called “best friend” was now completely shattered by my own will and her desire. What remained was only our shared warmth, and the irreversible promise of a future carried through our intertwined fingers.

“Rin. We should head back soon.”

“Yeah. We can continue the rest during tonight’s login…”

Saying that, Rin smiled softly and tightened her grip on my right hand. Our days of being “more than best friends, less than lovers.” On this after-school rooftop, they opened the curtain on a “midsummer love story” for just the two of us, one no one could interfere with. In the sunset sky, the first evening star quietly twinkled, as if blessing the newly entwined fingers that bound us together.

“Kazuma. I love you. …As your partner. Okay?”

“Yeah. Haru… me too. …As your best friend.”

Saying that, we deliberately smiled at each other, as if confirming we still had an escape route. The words were spoken in trembling voices.

But our overlapping heartbeats…More honestly than any words… Began marking the rhythm of a brand-new season together.

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