I’m an Introvert, but After Taking Care of the School’s Most Beautiful Girl Who Lives in an Apartment When She Was Sick, She Became Attached to Me and Started Inviting Me Over to Her Place! - Chapter 17-18

Chapter 17

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“…Hey, hey, Suzuya-kun?”

“What is it?”

Before they realized it, their intimate conversation had fallen into silence. Time passed, and both of them became absorbed in the worlds of their respective novels, completely focused. Even so, Natsuki would occasionally break her concentration and glance sideways at Suzuya, who was sitting right beside her.

Sometimes she would idly stroke his fully relaxed back for no particular reason, or absentmindedly knead Suzuya’s large, sun-warm hand. And the person being teased accepted it indulgently, without complaint.

At one point, she broke the calm stillness, tugging lightly on the hand she was holding to draw him closer and turn his face toward her. Suzuya, who had been immersed in his book, slid his finger between the pages as a bookmark and listened to Natsuki.

“Is that novel interesting?”

“Hm? Yeah, it’s interesting. It’s a different genre from the one you’re reading, though… Haha.”

As he firmly marked his page with his finger, Natsuki gently lowered her gaze to the novel. Suzuya answered her question with a smile, then glanced at her face a few more times before bending his eyebrows into a playful arch.

“What… Why are you laughing…?”

“Hahaha… No, it’s just that you suddenly stopped hiding it. You really are like a dog.”

“…Shut up. This is only for now…”

Seeing her face, who suddenly became so good at seeking affection from the smallest trigger, Suzuya let out a soft laugh. Meanwhile, Natsuki, caught off guard by something she herself had vaguely suspected, found her face instantly flushing apple-red with a mix of awkwardness and embarrassment.

Feeling the rise in her own heat, she covered her mouth with the blanket she’d been using as a lap throw. And as she tried to resist while hiding her expression, Suzuya delivered the final blow with his next line, completely robbing her of that resistance.

“Oh~? If you say things like that, maybe I should let go of this hand~ In fact, maybe I should let go right now and head home~?”

“Ah…!? I—I don’t want that… Please keep holding my hand…”

“Yes, very well done. Though, I should head home before dinner.”

As he said that, Suzuya glanced at the digital clock displayed on his smartphone. The time was 6:02 p.m. More than two hours had already passed since Suzuya had come into the house. Neither of them had been particularly conscious of the time as they shared the space, but that meant they’d been reading novels while holding hands for nearly an hour.

This small action had naturally melted into their awareness, to the point where neither of them felt any sense of discomfort anymore. Dinner would be around 7:30 p.m., so there was still plenty of flexibility. But as time went on, something else began to sprout within Suzuya. Even without thinking too deeply about it, the current situation—being alone in a room, holding hands with the most beautiful girl in the school—was objectively not good. Even if he’d been drawn in by her vulnerability at the time, he might have misjudged the proper distance between them.

“…I really need to make sure this doesn’t get found out…”

“Hm? What can’t be found out?”

“Eh?! N-no, it’s nothing… Whoa-?!”

“Liaaaar! You were definitely thinking about something! Teeeell meee!”

“Nope~ I’m not telling youuuu.”

What he’d meant was “so it doesn’t get found out by our classmates,” but for some reason Natsuki misunderstood and seemed to think he was hiding a secret from her. Without letting go of his hand, she closed the distance and pressed in closer. However, if she realized he was worrying over something this trivial, he’d definitely be teased for it. So Suzuya sealed his lips, sticking out his tongue with a mocking grin. Natsuki, provoked without understanding why, couldn’t back down either and desperately pressed him with words.

Well, I’m sure it’ll work out somehow.

Just sharing time together made it feel like anything could be managed. Simply watching her bright smile made his own trivial, insignificant introvert worries seem utterly meaningless. For now, he just wanted to savor the warmth of this hand that would soon slip away.

“…No, wait. This really might be kind of gross.”

“Huh!? You just called me gross—!?”

“Wait, hold on. Aren’t we about to cross a line that we couldn’t return from?!”

The space the two of them shared—truly like an older brother and younger sister, or perhaps an older sister and younger brother—no longer held even a trace of the awkwardness from before.

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Chapter 18

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“…Mmm. Huh?”

“Oh, good morning for the second time, Natsuki-san.”

When I opened my eyes, Suzuya-kun’s face appeared beside me, turned sideways as he looked back at me with a novel in hand. His long bangs, which should have been swept up, had quietly fallen while I was sleeping, hiding his beautiful eyes.

“I think I was sleeping really deeply just now.”

“…Yeah, probably. When I went to call my mom and came back, you were already asleep.”

Listening to Suzuya-kun say that so cheerfully, I gradually began to recall the scene from before I’d dozed off. I gathered my faint memories—like tiny shards of glass—and somehow organized my thoughts. Right. I was sure Suzuya-kun went to contact his parents to tell them he’d be coming home late, and while he was gone, I got a little bored, lay down in the futon… And fell asleep just like that.

It had been days since I’d fallen asleep this easily. Ever since I caught this cold, nights had been spent repeating a cycle of falling asleep and waking up for hours on end, plagued by terrible headaches that throbbed through my head whenever I spoke and asthma that surfaced no matter how much I tried to sleep. The astonishingly refreshed feeling of waking up snapped my consciousness fully awake, and I quickly sat up in bed. Suzuya, who had been watching my condition closely, noticed the clear improvement in my health and gently spoke to me.

“Oh, don’t you look kind of refreshed?”

“…Nnngh! You’re right… haa~! I’ll check my temperature real quick.”

~・~・~

With a refreshed expression, Natsuki stretched her back firmly. Perhaps because her condition had improved and her mood had lifted, she cheerfully picked up the thermometer resting on the table near the bed.

Meanwhile, when Natsuki sat up, Suzuya seemed to notice something. His gaze wandered restlessly before he looked away awkwardly. Should he say it, or should he keep quiet? However, as a gentleman, this was something he had to say.

“Uh, hold on a second, Natsuki-san? Um, th-that is… y-your clothes…?”

“Huh?”

Just as Natsuki took the thermometer out of its case to measure her temperature, Suzuya stopped her while averting his eyes. His flustered, introvert-style stammer came out in full force again, but he managed to convey what he needed to say. Reaching the limit of how awkward it felt, Suzuya could no longer explain it with words and instead pointed—his fingers trembling—straight… There. Natsuki looked down at her chest and froze.

“-!? N-nyaaahhh?!”

The buttons on her—Natsuki’s—pajamas had come undone down to around her chest. Her generously developed curves were emphasized in a way even more stimulating to a man than before, stripping away large chunks of Suzuya’s gentlemanly self-control. Only then did she finally realize it herself. For just an instant, it felt as if the air itself had frozen as Natsuki looked at her appearance. She immediately hugged herself as if to hide her body and collapsed face-down into the futon.

She must never have imagined her appearance had become this disheveled. By fully unleashing one of the weapons she possessed without compromise, she succeeded in completely defeating the boy in front of her, Suzuya.

“…D-did you… Did you see?”

With her face buried in the pillow, Natsuki softly asked Suzuya in a thin voice like sunlight filtering through leaves. Even without seeing her face, the heat carried in those fragile words was obvious, accompanied by her beautiful sky-blue eyes peeking out from the pillow. An average guy would have had his reason utterly destroyed in an instant. Fortunately, Suzuya was so overwhelmed by awkwardness that he couldn’t bring himself to look her in the eyes, and Natsuki’s man-killer move never fully reached him.

And so the space was filled with both of them looking down and averting their gazes in opposite directions. After a pause of a little over ten seconds, Suzuya answered her question in a small voice.

“…Just…Just a little…”

“Geeeez! I’m such an idioooot!!”

Having finally reached her limit, Natsuki let out a shrill yet adorable shout straight into her pillow after hearing her classmate’s painfully awkward reply.

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