I’m a Telepath, but It’s Tough Because the Cool Beautiful Girl Next to Me Is Having Pink Thoughts - Chapter 32

I’d had a vague feeling this was coming, but it was clear now. Kisara must’ve planned this whole situation from the start.

“See? I knew it! Rio-chan, you and Itsumi-kun are close!”

“Since when? Come on, tell us, since when?”

“I can’t believe Tatsuki would actually fall for a guy!”

The questioning had been going on for a while now.

Since Tatsuki showed no sign of speaking up, I decided to just keep playing dumb. But I hadn’t expected that a few of the other girls in class would jump in to help Kisara.

They swarmed around Tatsuki like a pack of hungry beasts, firing off questions one after another.

I wasn’t surrounded as badly, but with so many of them pressing in at once, Tatsuki looked completely overwhelmed.

“U-um…”

Her eyes spun like a dizzy chess piece, and her face turned red like a boiled octopus as her lips fumbled with words.

Anyone would be flustered in this situation, but for someone as socially awkward as Tatsuki, the confusion only grew worse.

“So? Since when did it start!?”

“U-um… about a m-month ago… maybe…?”

“What was it? What made you fall for him!?”

“Um… b-because he’s kind, and… being with him calms me down…?”

I had no idea what kind of nonsense Kisara had whispered to them beforehand, but they were firing questions as if Tatsuki had gotten herself a boyfriend. Flustered to her limit, Tatsuki still stammered out answers.

I couldn’t stop them. There was no room for me to jump in.

If my telepathy worked right now, maybe I could’ve slipped her a quiet word of support. But without any of that, I was nothing more than a useless bystander.

…Still, maybe I could at least try to ease her confusion a little.

“H-hey, maybe that’s enough—”

“““You stay out of this!”””

The words hit me like a slap, and I shut my mouth right there. Useless. That’s me.

Not that I didn’t have my reasons.

For all I knew, Tatsuki might not even want to keep things between us a secret. Maybe she actually wanted to say something. If I interrupted now, or tried to cover for her, I might end up causing an even bigger misunderstanding.

With that thought, it was hard to stick my neck out.

“Haha. You have tough luck, man.”

“…Haa.”

Chihiro slapped me on the back with a grin.

He hadn’t joined in on the interrogation, but Chihiro did throw in the occasional question, almost like adding footnotes, and he seemed to enjoy watching our reactions. That didn’t exactly make him an ally. Still, maybe he was just trying not to ruin the mood with his usual quick thinking.

“But hey, what about you? What’s the deal with you and Tatsuki?”

So he was going to press me too.

Well, I guess this was Chihiro’s way of playing along with the situation.

“…What do you mean by that? There’s nothing for me to say. Whatever Tatsuki-san says, that’s the truth.”

I made it clear I had nothing to add.

But the one who responded wasn’t Chihiro; it was Kisara. She was grinning from ear to ear like she knew everything.

“Wow, letting poor Rio-chan do all the talking? That’s pretty cold of you, Itsumi-kun.”

“…”

She stood up from the bench and planted herself in front of us, arms folded, as if daring us to deny her.

“Neither of you wants to talk… Well, that’s fine. Because I know something… a little story about the two of you being oh-so close.”

She dragged out the words so close with deliberate emphasis.

To be honest, when it came to Tatsuki and me, there weren’t many things I could say with confidence that hadn’t been noticed. But what exactly did she know?

“Ehh!? Tell us, Kisara-sama!”

“Don’t hold back!”

“Calm down, calm down… Though it’s not really that big of a deal.”

Even as she pretended to downplay it, Kisara’s confident smile didn’t waver.

“You two studied together before the tests, didn’t you?”

“Eeh, seriously!?”

“No wonder they skipped out on the study group with us!?”

Kisara said it like she was dropping some huge revelation, and the girls around her squealed in surprise.

Even I widened my eyes a little… though that was honestly one of the things I’d expected to get found out.

After all, we were meeting at school. If anything, it was strange that it hadn’t come up sooner.

The library wasn’t exactly crowded, but going there together for a whole week was bound to get noticed eventually. Looking back, maybe we should’ve chosen someplace less obvious.

“…So you were watching.”

“Of course. Did you really think no one would?”

Kisara gave me a sly smile, but I forced myself not to let it throw me off.

“Of course not. If there was anything like that, we wouldn’t be studying at school of all places.”

“Then why not just admit it?”

“I’m leaving that up to Tatsuki, san… if she wants to say something, she can. Besides, I don’t think it’s really worth bringing up.”

“If studying together isn’t worth mentioning, then that must mean they’ve done something way more intimate!” The other girls let out a chorus of gasps.

It was meant as a way of shutting them down, but… maybe that had been a bad move on my part.

“Yeah, exactly. You must’ve done something way bigger than just that.”

Kisara stood firm, not flinching in the slightest.

…What gave her that kind of confidence? Did she think she’d actually seen everything? …No way.

“Come on~ tell us, tell us!”

“Rio-chan, just spill already!”

Riled up by Kisara, the girls pressed in with even more force as their voices overlapped. Honestly, they were so simple-minded it was almost funny.

“…Haa.”

“At this point, wouldn’t it be easier to just spill everything?”

“Yeah… maybe so.”

And they weren’t wrong. But if I told them everything, who knew what would happen to me afterward?

Even without mentioning sleepovers or trips together, just admitting that Tatsuki trusted me enough to spend time with me would be enough to draw murderous glares from the other guys in class.

That’s how untouchable she was. They didn’t call her the Ice Princess for nothing.

“… Hey, hey, where do you think you’re going?”

I suddenly stood up, but of course, Chihiro wasn’t about to just let me walk away.

“Hey, hey~ no running off!”

“We’ve still got tons of questions for Itsumi-kun, too!”

“…I’m just going to the bathroom.”

It was half true, half a lie.

I wasn’t tough enough to stay calm in a situation like this. I just needed a moment to cool my head.

Though honestly, Tatsuki probably wanted that even more than I did.

“… Don’t push her too hard, okay? Tatsuki-san, I mean.”

I figured it would be heartless to just abandon her, so I tossed out that little warning. But the moment I did, the girls let out a drawn-out “Ooooh~!”

Yeah. Another misstep. All I ever do is step on landmines.

—

With the girls’ teasing cheers ringing in my ears, I headed for the bathrooms on the back side of the school yard.

Being on the first floor, where there were no classrooms, the place hardly had any traffic to begin with. Add to that its location near the deserted back garden, and the number of people who actually used it could be counted on one hand.

For me, it was one of the few places I could escape to. A quiet refuge, far away from the noisy chatter of telepathy.

The hallway I walked down was the complete opposite of the lively courtyard, dim and hushed, with only the sound of my own footsteps filling the air.

I was thinking I might just stay here for a while… when,

“This is a nice spot. Hehe.”

A voice suddenly called out from behind me.

I recognized it instantly, though I had no idea why she’d followed me.

“Really, I’d say it’s the perfect location.”

I turned, and there was Kisara, standing there as if she’d just popped into existence.