My Childhood Friend Who is My Girlfriend was Stolen by My Best Friend. From Now on, I'll Flirt with My Ex-Best Friend's Little Sister! - Chapter 25

The Reason I Like Senpai (1)

I finished dinner and took a bath.

There was a faint sense of guilt as I enter the bath after Rinka…but so far, there are no major problems has happened.

I’m confident in my self-control and rationality, but if I let my guard down, things can easily spiral out of control.

It’s almost bedtime now.

“Should we go to sleep?”

“Y-Yeah…”

There is a strange tension in the air, but I’m not going to do anything to Rinka.

All I need to do is keep my composure and deal with the situation calmly.

As I reach to turn off the light, Rinka gently tugs on the sleeve of my pyjamas.

“What’s the matter?”

“Can I sleep in your bed, Senpai?”

“Sure, I’ll sleep on the futon then.”

“W-Why would you sleep on the futon!?”

When Rinka says so, her cheeks blush in red.

“Why…? Eh, do you mean you want to sleep together?”

“Yes! I think you need to be a little more sensitive, senpai!”

“No, no, that’s not okay…I won’t be able to control myself…”

“…It’s fine. I don’t mind.”

Rinka says so as she hugs her pillow tightly and looking up to me.

A jolt of electricity runs through my body.

S-Seriously…?

“But we just started dating…it’s too soon for something like that…”

“Hmph, it’s a shame for a man to not take what’s offered to him!”

“E-Even if you say so, I didn’t prepare anything…”

Rinka’s gaze turns to the bag from the convenience store earlier.

“It’s okay. I’ve bought it.”

Even I, who is slow at reading between the lines, immediately understand what she means by that.

“B-But still, this is not right!”

My cheeks are flushed red and I panic.

Rinka who still blushing, looks at me intently.

“Are you the kind of protagonist who can’t kill the final boss at a critical moment and ends up letting them escape?”

“That’s a terrible analogy!”

“Or perhaps…you don’t like me, Senpai?”

“No, not at all…”

Isn’t she being unfair? She’s completely blocking my escape route.

I didn’t see this situation coming. Is this really okay…? But…

“Besides, that futon is the one Tsukimiya-san used yesterday, right?”

“Ah, yeah.”

“Then I don’t want to use it, and I don’t like the idea of you sleeping in it either. So, why don’t we just sleep together?”

“…yeah.”

Agreeing with Rinka, we decide to sleep in the same bed.

It’s a slightly bigger bed. Since Rinka is petite, there’s enough space for the both of us.

We turn off the lights and lay down on the bed, both staring up at the ceiling.

We spend some time in silence.

Suddenly, Rinka turns to her left and meets my gaze.

“Haha…this feels a bit weird, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, it does…”

“Have you ever slept next to Tsukimiya-san like this before, Senpai? Ah, I’m just wondering, I don’t mean anything deep by it.”

“Yeah, we slept together like this when we were in kindergarten, but I barely remember it though.”

“I see.”

“Is there really any point in asking that?”

“I can’t help but to be curious about your ex-girlfriend. A part of me doesn’t want to know about it, but another part of me is curious about it. It’s a complicated feeling.”

If Rinka has an ex-boyfriend, I might feel the same way.

I don’t want to know, but at the same time, I’m curious—it’s a strange kind of dilemma.

“By the way…”

“What is it, Senpai?”

“Why do you like me, Rinka?”

“Eh?”

Rinka sounds surprised.

I look into her eyes and say,

“Today, um, your friend…”

“A-chan?”

“Yeah, that girl. She asked how I managed to win you over. At that moment, I couldn’t answer. I realized I have never actually asked you the reason yet.”

I’ve skipped over an important detail. Of course, I’m curious why Rinka likes me.

“You’re right…okay, I’ll tell you why I like you, Senpai.”

Rinka chuckles softly and snuggles closer to me.

Even though we use the same shampoo, an unfamiliar sweet fragrance fills the air.

Rinka hesitates for a moment, deciding where to begin.

Then, Rinka starts telling me a story from the past.

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Rinka’s POV

I found out that I’m not biologically related to my mother in March of my fifth-grade year.

My blood type is A, while my mother’s is O and my father’s is also O.

With just a little bit of knowledge, this would be something you could figure out easily.

I should have noticed sooner, but up until then, I had been told that my mother’s blood type was A.

However, one day, we got into a car accident while going out as a family, and my mother was taken to the hospital by ambulance.

At that time, when the hospital staff asked for my mother’s blood type, my father said ‘O’.

That’s when I realized I’m not biologically related to my mother.

As a child, that truth was shocking to me.

It affected me so much that I couldn’t even bring myself to visit my mother in the hospital.

And then, almost at the same time, I had to transfer to a new school.

The car accident has nothing to do with me transferring to a new school—it was something that had been decided beforehand.

In my unstable emotional state, I couldn’t make any new friends at my new school.

But I didn’t feel like going home either, so I would always sit alone on a bench in a desolate park that had nothing but a slide.

It was during that time that someone appeared in front of me.

“Are you Rinka-chan?”

—it was you, Senpai.