My Ex-Girlfriend Who Dumped Me, the Top Student, Is at Risk of Failing and Repeating a Year—but I’m Too Busy Tutoring a Former Shut-in Beauty To Get Back Together With Her - 29

Chapter 29: Tonight, Call Me by My Name

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Silence had returned to the riverbank where Rina Aikawa had departed. Only the sounds of the festival music from afar and the insects chirping in the grass remained. It was a stillness so profound I felt as though I could hear the slightly rapid heartbeat of Kotone Kisaragi, who was sitting beside me.

“……She’s gone, isn’t she?”

“Yeah.”

I gave a short reply and looked up at the night sky. Strangely, my heart was at peace. Even though I had been verbally abused and had decisively broken off with a woman I was supposed to have loved once, there was absolutely no sense of loss. This was because my hands, which had been empty, were now filled with a warmth more precious than anything else.

I gently pulled Kisaragi’s hand, which I was still holding tightly, closer to me.

“……Kisaragi.”

“What is it, Sensei?”

She looked up at me. Clad in her yukata, she was so beautiful she seemed to be glowing even in the darkness of the night. There was no longer any trace of the girl who had been clutching her knees in a dark room when we first met. There beside me, holding my hand and getting angry just for my sake, was a strong and beloved partner.

(I might have been wrong all along.)

Up until now, I had been making excuses to myself. I told myself it was because this was merely a “tutor work”. That she was just dependent on my “function of teaching her studies”. That she was a minor, a student, and our positions were different. By drawing lines like that, I had labeled her affection as a “misunderstanding” and ran away from accepting it head-on.

That was because I was afraid of getting hurt. I was simply wearing the safe armor of being a “Sensei” because I was afraid of being thrown away again for “having no value other than studying”.

But she was different. The girl named Kotone Kisaragi was always serious. While fighting the fear of her school refusal, she took my hand. She held my hand in front of the entire student body and she had declared to my ex-girlfriend that “I found Sensei”. She was seeking me with her life on the line. If that was the case, then as a man, I couldn’t keep running away into “playing teacher” forever.

“……Sensei?”

When I fell silent, Kisaragi lowered her eyebrows anxiously.

“What’s wrong? Are you worried about what Aikawa-san said earlier after all?”

“No.”

I cut off her words and turned toward her. I looked directly into her jewel-like eyes.

“I was thinking. ……About the things that have happened since you and I met.”

Two months ago. We met in that dim room. A tattered notebook and a girl who was in despair. When I drew a diagram and explained it to her, she told me it was “like magic”. She probably didn’t know how much that one word had saved me.

“I think I was confirming my own value by teaching you. Because you needed me when I had been rejected by my ex-girlfriend…… I was saved.”

“Sensei……”

“If you say you are dependent on me, then I’m the same. ……I can no longer imagine a daily life without you.”

Once I put it into words, it was an incredibly simple “answer”. It required no logic or calculation. I was just helplessly attracted to a single girl named Kotone Kisaragi.

Whistle……

A sound echoed, cutting through the night sky. Immediately after, with a roar that resonated in my gut, BOOM!!, flowers of light bloomed across my entire field of vision. It was the start of the finale.

The multicolored light illuminated Kisaragi’s face. She wasn’t looking up at the fireworks. She was looking only at me the entire time. What was reflected in those eyes was not the light of the fireworks, but only the figure of a small man like me. Kisaragi closed the distance by one step. The sleeves of our yukatas touched, and a sweet scent enveloped me. She cupped my hand with both of hers and pulled it toward her chest as if praying.

“……Sensei.”

She spoke quietly, yet loudly enough not to be drowned out by the sound of the fireworks.

“You know, by having you teach me, Sensei, I’ve learned many ‘correct answers’.”

“……Yeah.”

“But, you see, there was just one thing that wasn’t in the textbooks.”

She stood on her tiptoes and brought her face close. Her long eyelashes were trembling. It was the gamble of a lifetime for her.

“Neither this pain in my chest, nor this feeling that gets hot whenever I look at you, Sensei…… The answer to them isn’t anywhere in the reference books.”

A single tear spilled from her eye. It wasn’t a tear of sadness. It was a crystal of overflowing emotion.

“Sensei. ……I don’t want your ‘functions.’ I want the ‘person’ that is you, Sensei.”

“……”

“It’s okay if I can’t study. If you’re by my side, Sensei, I’m fine with staying an idiot. ……So,”

She looked straight into my eyes and declared.

“I love you. ……I love you more than anyone else in the world, Sensei.”

Boom! Crackle crackle crackle!

The sounds of continuous fireworks exploding. However, her voice clearly vibrated my eardrums, every single word without exception. I could probably pretend I didn’t hear and maintain our current relationship. I could probably dodge it by saying “studying is the most important thing for us right now”. But I wouldn’t do something so uncool anymore. She had bared herself this far. I, too, had to give my “answer” as a man.

I let go of our joined hands once. Kisaragi’s face distorted with anxiety for an instant. However, I immediately wrapped my hand around her waist and pulled her into a strong embrace.

“Kyaa……!?”

Kisaragi’s slender body pressed tightly against my chest. I wrapped my arms around her back, hugging her as if to leave her no way to escape.

“……Me too, Kotone.”

It was the first time I had called her name. I could tell she gasped.

“At first, I thought you were just a student. A troublesome child I had to protect.”

“……Mhm.”

“But I was wrong. I was the one being protected. I was just living peacefully in a comfortable place, indulging in your ‘love’.”

I whispered into her ear as if savoring each word.

“I love you, too. …Not as a teacher. As a man, I’ve fallen for the woman named Kotone Kisaragi.”

Those words destroyed the final brake inside me. Logic didn’t matter anymore. I wanted this girl. I didn’t want to give her to anyone else.

“Se-sensei…… Is that a lie, or is it true……?”

“Do I look like a teacher who would tell a lie?”

“No, you don’t. ……I’m happy, I’m so happy……!”

Kotone gripped my yukata tightly, buried her face in me, and began to cry. I gently lifted her chin and made her tear-streaked face look up. Her lips, illuminated by the light of the fireworks, were trembling like ripe fruit.

“……Let me correct just one thing.”

“Eh?”

“You said ‘it’s okay if I can’t study,’ right? That’s no good.”

I gave a mean-spirited smile.

“From now on, the two of us are going to aim for the top together. …If you want to stand beside me, you’d better be prepared, okay?”

“……Fufu, you’re a spartan after all.”

With tears still in her eyes, Kotone laughed in a melting way.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way. …My beloved Sensei.”

In the next moment, our lips overlapped.

A gentle kiss, nothing more than a touch. However, it condensed a heat and sweetness I had never felt before. The sound of the fireworks bursting overhead grew distant, and I fell into the illusion that there were only the two of us in the world.

After a long, long kiss. When our lips slowly parted, Kotone turned bright red and collapsed limply against my chest.

“……I might not be able to study anymore.”

“That would be a problem.”

“Because…… My head has become full of you, Sensei.”

She snuggled her cheek against my chest and whispered affectionately. I hugged her back and looked up at the night sky. Inside my arms, which had been empty after being thrown away by Rina. There was now the cutest “accomplice” in the world. Beyond the forbidden relationship of teacher and student, we had become one.

This was the beginning of our new relationship. I wouldn’t let anyone get in our way anymore. While holding these hands, we could walk anywhere together.

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