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 5

Chapter 5

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The room had grown remarkably quiet.

Natsuki-san had really slipped under the covers with the door left wide open, and since then she hadn’t said a single word. In that silence—free of any taut tension—Sorato quietly went about washing the dishes from after the meal. The only sound echoing was the water splashing against the plates as it flowed away.

There was a wall clock hanging right next to the kitchen, so when he checked the time, it was 5:30 p.m. It felt like much more time had passed, but so much had happened in such a short span that his internal clock seemed to be lagging behind.

Did I push her a little too hard?

After finishing up and setting the dishes out to dry, Sorato wiped his hands with the towel that had been hanging there and glanced toward Natsuki’s now-quiet room while thinking that. Even if she was showing signs of recovery, as long as the fever hadn’t fully broken, she had to still feel miserable. She had probably been pushing herself quite a bit. Whether she had been doing so out of consideration for him or not, he had faintly sensed she had been pushing herself because of him and that was exactly why he’d wanted her to rest her body, even if it meant forcing her back into bed.

“I came to visit her, and I ended up making her worry about me… Seriously… Haah…”

If only he had been able to put what he was thinking into words more clearly and confidently, maybe he could have gotten her to rest in her room much sooner. No. If he weren’t such an introvert who felt a strange sense of guilt just from seeing a girl’s room, he could have carried the porridge in there and let her eat slowly under the covers.

Because it was quiet, regrets came flooding in all the more. His own pitifulness and her natural thoughtfulness pricked his heart like needles.

“No, now’s not the time to be getting depressed about this…”

So that he wouldn’t make her worry any more than she already had, he prepared to leave as quickly as possible. He took a memo pad out of his bag, grabbed a mechanical pencil, and began writing something down.

After organizing only the key points and writing them as clearly as he could, he finally stood up. He adjusted his sweater, pushed the chair back into place, and slung his bag over his shoulder. He put the get-well gifts he’d brought into an empty space in the refrigerator, and portioned the remaining porridge in the pot into small dishes so it would be ready to eat anytime.

“……”

Just as Sorato was about to leave the apartment, he suddenly stopped and turned back.

“Ah, right, Sorato-kun. Since you’re here anyway, why don’t you come up to my room? Oh? Even the gentlemanly Suzuya-kun is curious about the room of the prettiest girl in the school? Fufu.”

No, that wasn’t it. It wasn’t that he’d given in to base desires or was about to do something ungentlemanly. He’d simply remembered how, when he firmly refused to enter her room back then, she’d frowned just a little while looking lonely.

Just one last time… I’ll check on her condition. Just checking, that’s all.

Over the course of just one day, his impression of Natsuki-san had changed a great deal. Just as everyone said, she was charming and kind, someone whose sense of distance didn’t change no matter who she was talking to. But the one thing that differed was this. She wasn’t a naive child who scattered smiles thoughtlessly without any sense of risk management. She was a mature girl who properly accepted how she was seen and conducted herself with discernment among countless possibilities.

That was why he didn’t understand. He didn’t understand why she trusted him this much. At last, Sorato stepped into the room of the prettiest girl in the school he’d been hesitating over, and quietly walked over to the bed where she lay.

She was sleeping soundly on the bed without even covering herself with the blanket, her body curled in slightly. People showed their most vulnerable side when they were asleep and the same could be said about Natsuki. The girl breathing softly before him had let go of her consciousness like a sleeping princess while still retaining all of her usual beauty and charm.

“…Haah… You’re too defenseless for your own good.”

Letting out one final sigh, he gently pulled the blanket up over her body. Then, careful not to wake her, he slipped out of the room, muffling his footsteps. Leaving the door wide open felt wrong too, so he quietly closed it while feeling a strange sense of reluctance as he did.

The fleeting, sparkling moment he’d shared with the prettiest girl in the school came to an end there. He put on his shoes as quietly as he could and slowly opened the door. Outside, the sky was bathed in orange light, the sun already beginning to set. He had to get home before night completely swallowed the town.

As he waited for the elevator to arrive so he could head back, her teasing voice and expressions from earlier surfaced vividly in his mind, and somehow, he felt like he finally understood the loneliness Natsuki-san had talked about.

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“Man… I’m seriously exhausted.”

After walking about fifteen minutes from Natsuki-san’s place and taking the train two stops, he arrived in a quiet residential area. With no tall buildings and surrounded by open, visible hills, a slightly cool mountain breeze blew through, gently brushing his cheeks.

The sun had sunk lower than before, and relying on the evenly spaced streetlights, he walked down a narrow alley with no traffic. Lights shone from the houses, each one revealing the color of a different family’s life.

On his way home, all that came to mind were the events after school. When he’d gone to visit the prettiest girl in the school, he’d never imagined she would collapse right in front of him. After that, she’d grown oddly attached to him, too…

“…Haah…”

The traces and colors of everything that had happened moment by moment painted the sky as it darkened toward black. It felt like a dreamlike interlude.

“Then it’s fine if it’s Suzuya-kun, right? We’ve talked now, and I trust you too, don’t I?”

Her words echoed strangely in his head. Her cheeks, faintly flushed from the fever. Her gaze, fixed squarely on him. That gentle smile that refused to peel away. Thinking that the smile she showed to everyone had been directed at him alone in that moment—during that time—made his heart tremble ever so slightly. He was caught between a sense of being someone special to her and a sense of transgression.

The early-spring night breeze, which should still have been cold, brushed against his cheeks. But this strange feeling lingering inside him showed no sign of cooling off.

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