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 49-50

Chapter 49

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“Ahh~! The view was great~! And I even got to enjoy talking casually with Suzuya-kun!”

“Right? The lake in the middle was way too beautiful, so I ended up asking Kohaku-kun to take tons of photos.”

“…I also loved that view. No matter how many times I see it.”

“Haa… Haa… It shook way too much near the end, I seriously thought I was going to die…”

“You said you enjoyed chatting… Right? Then why do you look so completely wiped out?”

“We’ve been here a few times before, so we were just taking it easy and reminiscing.”

After roughly eighteen minutes of sightseeing, the four of them regrouped and sat at a parasol-shaded terrace table of a nearby character-themed café, sipping coffee while watching the bustling flow of passersby.

…Huh, it’s already this late?

When Sorato checked the watch on his wrist, there were forty minutes left until the meeting time. The amusement park field trip that had only just begun felt like it was already nearing its end. Even the attraction wait times that had seemed long slipped by in the blink of an eye.

I never thought spending time with everyone would be this fun. I hadn’t really interacted much with Hiiragi-san or Kaede-san before, but they were both really nice people.

The girls still looked like they hadn’t finished talking through all of today’s vivid memories, chattering excitedly while holding their smartphones full of photos. Beside them, the three guys—including Sorato—had briefly shared their impressions of the day, then fell quiet, neither fiddling with their phones nor particularly doing anything together.

They simply savored their coffee while soaking in a bit of sentimentality. The silence lit a calmness in their hearts, like a winter fireplace with a faint trace of unease.

Today was fun.

On a whim, Sorato pulled his phone out of his pocket and opened the group chat, scanning through the many photos Kaon and Saki had sent. There were shots of Kohaku stuffing his cheeks with a bone-in chicken from a food stall, and of Sorato himself on the roller coaster—his face so utterly distorted it bordered on the impossible, taken by the amusement park staff.

Photos of Kaede and Kohaku sharing food with that unmistakable childhood-friend closeness, and of the three girls walking side by side down a wide path with headbands on their heads. Just looking back, the memories of the entire day came vividly flooding back. Even the photos that captured nothing more than trivial conversations during wait times carried the unmistakable freshness and youth unique to students.

“Hey, hey, boys! Let’s all six of us go somewhere together again sometime!”

“Oh, that sounds good. Next time, let’s go to the beach in the summer.”

“Kohaku, just because you want to admire girls in swimsuits doesn’t mean that’s okay.”

“I’ve heard the phrase ‘painfully honest,’ but… I didn’t think you were this stupid.”

“So that’s your true intention, Natani-kun?”

“That’s not it!? If I wanted to see swimsuits, I’d put a bit more thought into how I invited people, okay?!”

“Huh… Then does that mean all of Natani-kun’s ‘appealing’ invitations are actually… Like that…?”

“I don’t have ulterior motives, okay!? Natsuki-san? You’ve got the wrong idea~!”

“Hey, Kohaku-kun! You’re scaring Kaon-chan!”

“H-hey! It’s you guys! You guys are the ones who said weird stuff and made this complicated, damn it!?”

Because Sorato—and Tenma, who jumped in with him—had said some strange things, Kohaku ended up receiving cold looks from the girls. He hadn’t meant anything by it at all, but even Kaon, who usually laughed off any joke, gave him a slightly awkward smile.

As Kohaku desperately tried to explain himself, the two instigators watched with faces buried against the table, desperately holding back laughter at how flustered he was. The girls, of course, knew it was a joke, but Kohaku’s reaction was just too funny, so they couldn’t help teasing him.

“Oh, isn’t it almost time to meet up? We only have thirty minutes left. Should we head over even though we will be a bit early?”

“You’re right. It’s a shame to leave, but it’s probably better to gather early.”

“Then let’s head out once Sorato-kun finishes his coffee!”

“Hm? I already finished. Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“Where was the meeting place again?”

“If I remember right, it was the parking lot where we got off the bus at the start. I think we can get there in about a few tens of minutes from here.”

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“Alright~! Everyone’s on board, right~? Even if someone’s not, I’m not checking~!”

“What a completely inappropriate behavior for a homeroom teacher…”

After Sorato’s group boarded the return bus ahead of time and the rest of their classmates gradually gathered, their homeroom teacher, Tanaka-sensei, finished the roll call in a slapdash manner and returned to his seat. Unlike on the way there, Sorato and the others were seated apart. That was because Kaon’s friends had asked to sit together on the way back, and they had readily agreed.

“Hey, you guys were in the same group as Natsuki-san, right? Tell us all about it~.”

“Hm? I think it was pretty much the same as everyone else. We just rode attractions and went to a café and stuff.”

“That’s exactly what I wanna hear! Come on, tell us already!”

“Yeah, yeah!”

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Chapter 50

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Diiiing~ Doooong~ Diiiing~ Doooong~

“Haah~! I really wanted to keep playing at the amusement park forever…”

“What are you saying? Kohaku, you’re an idiot, so if you don’t study you won’t be able to get into college, you know?”

“Fun things always end in an instant. It can’t be helped.”

The fun field trip had ended, and the next day arrived. Longing for the enjoyable moments that had already passed but were still burned into his mind, Kohaku had been melting into his desk like a slime since morning.

While not to the same extent as Kohaku, the other two also seemed to still have their minds scorched by memories of how much more fun the amusement park had been than they ever imagined. At first, Sorato had been wrapped in anxiety and a back-straightening tension from being in a mixed-gender group, but once it actually started, it felt like the best, most enjoyable time had passed in an instant.

“And on top of that…! I finally ended up in the same group as Natsuki-san, but I couldn’t talk to her at all! Not at all! Not one bit! I was hoping we might end up alone together for a bit, or that I’d have more chances to talk than usual! And even on the Ferris wheel, Sorato was the one she chose…!”

He sighed before adding…

“…Well, it was Natsuki-san’s choice, so it can’t be helped.”

He added at the end to calm himself down, but his true feelings hardly seemed settled. To begin with, the premise behind deciding the pairs this time had been to give a push to Saki-san’s long-standing feelings for Kohaku, so that kind of pairing could be called perfectly natural.

However, from Kohaku’s perspective, it looked like the person he loved hadn’t chosen him—who had been desperately trying to approach her—but the friend standing beside him. His anger was understandable, and given the circumstances, Sorato couldn’t easily reveal the truth, leaving him unable to prove his innocence and feeling frustrated as well.

“But I still wonder why Natsuki-san chose Sorato. If she was going to be alone with a guy, I thought she’d pick someone she could talk to easily… Ah, I’m not saying that to put you down or anything, Sorato.”

“It’s fine. I get it… But honestly, I don’t really understand it myself either. They said same-gender pairs wouldn’t work because the numbers were odd, but thinking about it now, couldn’t we have just ridden with three guys and three girls? It was a four-person Ferris wheel, after all.”

“Yeah, that’s true, but… Uum, you probably don’t know since you hadn’t arrived at school yet, but… The one who suggested pairing up in twos was me.”

“Huh? Was it? I just assumed it was something Hiiragi-san suggested…”

“No, Kohaku was betting on a faint hope like, ‘Maybe I’ll get to be alone with Natsuki-san,’ so he suggested mixed-gender pairs. And then, unexpectedly, everyone else was pretty into the idea too.”

…I see? From Hiiragi-san’s point of view, who wanted to get alone with Kohaku somehow in the first place, that worked out perfectly… Things really went smoothly, huh.

Apparently, the girls hadn’t expected the suggestion to come from Kohaku himself, but they seized the opportunity without any room for discussion, determined not to let it slip away. However, because Kohaku’s goal and the girls’ goal completely missed each other, his objective wasn’t fulfilled, and it seemed the knot in his heart still hadn’t fully unraveled.

“Come on, come on. Sorato didn’t have any bad intentions. And besides, you couldn’t work up the courage to invite her yourself and just kept dithering.”

“Wha—!? Don’t say that!”

“Huh? Was that really how it was?”

“Yeah, yeah. He couldn’t muster the courage to ask her himself, and while he was hesitating, Saki-san spoke up and invited Kohaku. You should seriously be grateful, you know? …And if you’re going to resent anything, resent the you from that moment who even briefly thought, ‘Maybe Natsuki-san will invite me instead!!’”

“I mean, I am grateful to her, but… But… Aaaargh! I should’ve worked up the courage back then! Why is some plain guy like you enjoying one-on-one time with her!? And Natsuki-san looked pretty happy after getting off the Ferris wheel too! Damn it! I should’ve just said something myself instead of clinging to some faint hope…!”

“Hey. For the record, I was just the one who got chosen, okay? Being alone with such a beautiful girl made me feel so inferior I wanted to die too, you know?”

“Like I care! Aaaah! I’m so jealous!”

“Haah…Good grief. This is hopeless. Let’s leave him alone for a while.”

“Yeah… Kohaku… Tough luck!”

Seeing Kohaku finally regress into something like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum over a toy, Tenma let out a deep, weary sigh. Even though no amount of regret could ever bring back what had already passed, Kohaku was on the verge of being crushed by thoughts like “I should’ve done this” or “I should’ve done that.”

Of course, all the resentful words he had hurled at Sorato weren’t born of genuine hatred or anger, but they undeniably contained envy. It was the gaze of someone watching a friend get invited by the most beautiful girl in the school, a girl who hadn’t invited him no matter how hard he had tried.

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