I Got Cheated On, so I Thought I’d Cheat Back and Went to a Group Date, I Ran Into a Classmate Who Used to Boss Me Around and Now We’re Living Together

A month after I started college, I, Shiraki Sousuke, got my first girlfriend.

Her name was Io Rinne, the same age as me, and we met in the same seminar class. She was cute, with a short bob dyed chestnut brown, and I honestly thought she was way out of my league. But one day in mid-June―

“―Ahh♡ ahh♡”

When I came back to my apartment, I found Rinne having sex with some stranger in my room. I couldn’t believe it.

While I stood frozen in shock, Rinne and the guy hurried to put on their clothes, and he slipped out quickly. Rinne cried and begged me for forgiveness, but I couldn’t bring myself to forgive her.

Then she suddenly snapped at me, shouting something I barely listened to, and stormed out. That was a few days ago.

Since then, Rinne hasn’t shown up at school and hasn’t contacted me at all. It’s not that I care. I suppose we’re technically still dating, but my feelings for her have completely vanished.

So―

“Hey, Sousuke, can you come to a group date tonight? We’re short one guy.”

When my friend Ogata asked me, I said yes without thinking twice.

After all, she cheated on me. Yeah, my relationship with Rinne isn’t officially over yet, but I figured there’s nothing wrong with going. Honestly, I even felt like finding a new girlfriend.

Maybe that makes me no different from Rinne. Looking for someone new before ending things. But sometimes, the only way to get even is to sink to the same level.

The world doesn’t work on pretty words alone.

◇

The group date started at a karaoke place in the city.

The girls there were from another university. They were all different ages and majors, so it was a pretty mixed group.

And in the middle of it, I froze. One of the girls looked familiar. She had cute black hair in a wolf cut, shaking a tambourine while waiting her turn to sing. If I wasn’t mistaken… She was Machida Nene, a classmate from middle school.

I had some bad memories with her.

…I was her errand boy back then.

In middle school, I was gloomy and awkward. Even now I lean that way, though in high school I worked hard to blend into the outgoing crowd, so I got a little better. But back then, I was a nobody. And Nene was the one who teased me and made me run errands for her.

It wasn’t really bullying, not exactly. She just teased me a lot and treated me like her lackey. She’d send me to the school store, make me massage her shoulders. Stuff that might have even looked like we were close friends to others.

But for me, it left a scar. I hated myself for putting up with it, for being a girl’s lackey.

Nene didn’t seem to recognize me tonight, but I recognized her, and my stomach started twisting in pain.

“I’m sorry, Ogata… I’m gonna leave. I don’t feel well.”

“For real? Well, we’ll be fine without you. If you have to go, then go.”

With that, I slipped out of the karaoke box quietly.

Why does bad luck keep piling up on me? I’m not even old enough for a midlife crisis, but I got cheated on and now ran into a ghost from my past. This is just awful.

The pain in my stomach eased as I walked farther from the karaoke place. But when I reached the station and was waiting on the platform―

“―Why’d you leave?”

“…Ack!”

A sudden voice from behind me. It was directed at me, and I knew that voice. My stomach started hurting all over again.

So, she noticed me. She just chose not to speak up back there.

I turned around. Why had she followed me? What did she want? All those questions filled my head as I faced her―

“Heyyy. If you were trying to run away from me, that’s pretty mean, you know?~”

Machida Nene stood there, smiling with a mischievous look in her eyes.