"Please Rate the Novel in NovelUpdates!"

Chapter 3

“You came, Saiki-kun.”

She turned her side to him, tilted her head, and gave him an intelligent look.

Her black hair, reaching her waist, gleamed even more beautifully in the sunlight, and the curves of her voluptuous body, which seemed too ample for her age, were further emphasized by her side profile. Her black hair swayed with a soft “shaa” sound.

While harboring the completely irrelevant thought that he was a little envious that her pose looked so polished, Kazuhiko was surprised but also slightly relieved.

Surely, she wouldn’t try to kill him. They hadn’t had any interaction lately, and he couldn’t imagine he had earned her enmity.

But why didn’t he consider that the very fact that his former childhood friend had no interaction with him now might be a source of resentment?

“Um… what do you need, Takane-san?”

“…”

When Kazuhiko asked, she lowered her face. Her black hair covered it, and Kazuhiko didn’t notice that she was biting her lip.

“…You’re being so formal…”

“Huh?”

Like a dense protagonist in a story—or perhaps, like a careless background character in a horror movie—Kazuhiko failed to hear Reika’s voice, which sounded as if it came from the bottom of a well.

Swoosh, she took a breath, then looked at Kazuhiko with the same beautiful, composed face as always, piercing him with her gaze. Kazuhiko was overwhelmed by her look of having made some kind of resolution.

—Wait? Am I really going to be killed?

The moment a shiver ran down his spine despite the spring sunshine, Reika plunged her hand into her skirt pocket.

—A survival knife?! No, is it the stereotypical fruit knife?!

The fact that Kazuhiko thought this indicated that he lacked a sense of real danger at his core. And what Reika pulled out of her pocket was her smartphone.

“There’s something I want Saiki-kun to see.”

“Ah, ah…”

—Something she wants me to see? I wonder what it is, a cat video? Just kidding.

While he was thinking about how old people text in a cringy way, Reika suddenly thrust the screen of her smartphone at him. On it, a spiral of pink and black lines was revolving round and round.

Upon seeing it, Kazuhiko thought:

—What is this? Looks like a shoddy hypnosis app.

It was the kind you often see in erotic comics. Thinking this, Kazuhiko—who surely wasn’t thinking at all—felt a rush of the old playful feeling from when they were kids and decided to play along.

While remaining standing, he faked a loss of strength, lowered his face, and put on his best blank expression. Was his acting truly convincing, or was the unobtainable flower actually a scatterbrain?

“Huh, did he really get hypnotized…?”

She looked naturally skeptical, but at the same time, her voice was full of expectation, showing she was half-convinced.

—Hehehe…

Just as Kazuhiko laughed internally,

Hyu!

Her two fingers came to an abrupt stop just shy of his eyeball.

Kazuhiko was so shocked that he couldn’t move. It was only natural. When faced with sudden surprises, some people jump up, while others freeze in a daze. Since it was so sudden, he was the latter.

Normally, he would have jumped back a moment later, but the words that followed made Kazuhiko decide to continue his feigned hypnosis.

“It seems you really did get hypnotized.”

“…”

—What the? This girl tried to poke a person’s eyeball to check if they were hypnotized?!… She’s a psychopath…

Bad news: the unobtainable flower is a psychopath. What happened while they were apart in middle school, or was she this kind of woman all along?

He didn’t know, but he was now too scared to admit he wasn’t hypnotized. …His injury is too deep now than a moment ago.

“Saiki-kun. …No, Kazu-kun.”

—Kazu-kun?!

“Spread both of your arms out to the sides.”

Addressed by his old nickname, Kazuhiko was flustered but did as he was told.

“Now, wave them up and down.”

Kazuhiko waved his arms up and down, as if to emphasize that he was hypnotized.