[Sad News] Living Together with the Unattainable Beauty—Her Overwhelming Affection Is Way Too Calculated - 38-39

Chapter 38: Maybe I Have a Chance Too? (Misaki Tanaka’s POV)

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Miyazuka-kun had changed. It wasn’t just me who felt it. Even the sparkly, popular girls in the classroom whispered to each other.

“Hey, doesn’t Miyazuka-kun feel different lately?”

 “Isn’t he kind of cool now?” 

I overheard them while pretending to read a light novel with my head down on my desk.

Thick glasses, neatly braided pigtails. Always trying to make myself invisible in the corner of the classroom—that was me, Misaki Tanaka. Even someone like me, practically part of the background, could clearly see that he had changed.

Until then, Miyazuka-kun had been a “comrade” to me. He liked to stay in the corners of the classroom just like I did, and during breaks he happily talked with his friends about anime and games. I thought of him as someone from the same world as me.

But lately, he had been different. He started fixing his hair and paying attention to his clothes. It was as if the coolness that had always been hidden beneath his gloomy aura had finally come to the surface.

And more than anything, what had changed was his expression. The timid, insecure look he used to wear had all but disappeared. In its place, from time to time, was a pensive profile that seemed to gaze off into the distance. And I found myself irresistibly drawn to it.

I had a vague sense that he was in some kind of special relationship with the class’s brightest, most radiant girl—Fujigaya-san. The atmosphere between them whenever they were together was clearly different from that of ordinary classmates.

So I had given up. But that day, when he naturally talked with me—a plain, awkward otaku girl—about anime, as if it were the most normal thing in the world… That memory became my treasure.

One afternoon, while I was secretly carrying that faint crush inside me, my homeroom teacher asked me to take a huge stack of handouts for the whole class to the staff room. The pile was so heavy I could barely see in front of me.

And of course, right at a hallway corner, I bumped hard into someone.

“Kyaa!”

The balance gave way, and the stack of papers I had been carrying scattered mercilessly, like an avalanche across the floor.

“I-I’m sorry!”

Panicking, I bowed and apologized. The person I had run into turned out to be one of the popular boys from class. 

“Watch where you’re going, ugly!”

He clicked his tongue in irritation, then spat out insults at me before laughing with his friends and walking off. The other students nearby pretended not to see. No one offered a hand.

Frustrated, sad, and miserable, tears welled up in my eyes. This was reality. This was the place of someone at the bottom of the caste. I lowered my head and began picking up the scattered handouts with trembling hands, all alone. That was when—

“…Are you okay?”

A kind, slightly low voice fell from above my head. I looked up, and there stood Miyazuka-kun. Without saying anything more, he crouched down right beside me and began carefully gathering the papers one by one.

“Ah, um, Miyazuka-kun… It’s fine, I can do it myself…”

“It’s fine. It’s too much for one person, right?”

He said it curtly, but his profile looked almost angry. Maybe he was upset about the way that boy had treated me. And that thought made me unbearably happy. The two of us quietly picked up the papers together. That silence felt so warm to me.

When everything was gathered, he handed the stack to me gently.

“Here. …Tanaka-san, you’re always getting stuck with this kind of chore, right? Next time, I’ll help you.”

“Eh…?”

“Don’t try to shoulder everything alone.”

He said that, then scratched his head a little awkwardly and went back toward the classroom. I stood frozen in place for a while. My heart was pounding. My face felt hot. His kindness. His clumsy words. They pierced deeply into the softest part of my heart.

This was no good. It wasn’t just that I had “noticed” him. That was a lie. I really liked Miyazuka-kun. I didn’t want to give up, not even if Fujigaya-san was the one by his side.

Maybe I had a chance too. No—not maybe. I would make one. How could I talk with him more? How could I spend more time with him? At that moment, my eyes caught on a faded notice posted on the bulletin board near the classroom entrance:

『Cultural Festival Committee Members Wanted! One boy and one girl from each class!』

This was it. This was the only way. If I became a committee member, I could work with him after school. With a shared goal, even someone like me might be able to talk with him naturally. I gripped the stack of handouts in my hands tightly. Tomorrow, I would invite him with a trembling voice.

『Would you like to be on the Cultural Festival Committee with me?』

My small, but certain, love was now about to truly begin.

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Chapter 39: The Cultural Festival Just for the Two of Us (Kanoko Fujigaya’s POV)

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“Hey, did you hear? Miyazuka-kun and Tanaka-san became the cultural festival committee members.”

“No way, seriously? With that plain Tanaka-san? What an unexpected pair—wait, or maybe they’re a good match since they’re both otaku?”

The lively classroom after school. While chatting excitedly with my best friend Ami and the others about our class’s cultural festival project, those casual words from some girls in class cut into my ears as sharply as a knife.

In that instant, something icy cold ran straight down my spine.

Committee members? Gen-chan? With that Tanaka-san?

A deafening alarm blared in my head. Committee members. That meant spending time together after school, just the two of them (well, maybe not always alone, but dangerously close to it)—a perfect excuse wrapped up in the legitimacy of committee members duty.

That girl, Tanaka-san… I had completely underestimated her as just a quiet, plain otaku girl. Never did I imagine she would pull such a direct and effective move. This was no coincidence. It was far too blatant. That girl was seriously aiming for Gen-chan.

My instincts as a woman screamed it at me. I suddenly felt ridiculous for feeling smug the other day, when I used Yamada-kun to make Gen-chan jealous. That shallow, flashy firefly? He was irrelevant. The real problem was Tanaka-san.

She shared the same hobbies as Gen-chan, the kind of person he could easily open his heart to—a true “rival.” There was no way I could let them stroll off to their little after-school “committee meetings” (disguised as dates) without doing something.

“…Ami, can I talk to you for a second?”

Keeping the perfect mask of a smile plastered across my face, I tugged lightly at Ami’s sleeve. I led her to the corner of the classroom, then whispered in a small but unmistakably commanding voice:

“I need a favor. I want you to work Gen-chan to the bone during the cultural festival preparation.”

“Huh? Gen-chan? Why all of a sudden?”

Ami tilted her head, puzzled.

“Just do it, please. Whatever happens, don’t let him go to those committee meetings. Keep him tied down to this classroom.”

Perhaps sensing the icy aura radiating off me, Ami smirked with the wicked grin of a co-conspirator.

“…Ohhh, I get it now. Countermeasures against that plain girl, huh? Got it, leave it to me! This is getting interesting!”

The plan was immediately put into motion. Our class’s project was the cultural festival classic: a maid café. There was an endless list of tasks to be done.

First, Ami casually laid the groundwork with the class’s leader-type girls.

“I heard Miyazuka-kun’s actually really handy, you know? Wouldn’t he be perfect for helping in things like posters or decorations?”

“Really? Oh, that’s great! Then let’s ask him!”

That afternoon after school. As expected, Tanaka-san timidly approached Gen-chan’s desk and began talking to him—surely inviting him to the committee meeting. And just as Gen-chan was about to nod to her invitation…

I cut in at the perfect timing.

“Miyazuka-kun! Sorry! Could you help me with something real quick?”

I called out to him with a beaming smile, flawless and cloudless.

“Eh, ah, yes. What is it, Fujigaya-san?”

“This café sign design, which one do you think is better? Since you like anime and stuff, I figured you’d have good taste in this kind of thing. I want your opinion.”

“Wha—me? Good taste!?”

He leaned in, looking over the designs I held out with an unexpectedly serious expression, clearly not displeased. Ami pounced on the opening.

“Oh, Gen-chan, perfect timing! Can you help move that desk in the corner over there? It’s too heavy for us girls.”

“O-oh, sure! Leave it to me!”

One task after another piled onto him. Sign-making, desk moving, wall decorations, drafting the shopping list for supplies… He had no idea that my clever strategy had bound him to the classroom. On the contrary, he even seemed happy, thinking, “Fujigaya-san and everyone are relying on me!”

That lovable obliviousness only fueled my dark possessiveness more and more. In the end, that day, he never even set foot in the committee meeting.

From the classroom window, I happened to glance outside. There stood Tanaka-san at the school entrance, waiting alone, looking lonely. Surely, she was waiting for Gen-chan.

Sorry, Tanaka-san. But I’m not giving him up. Gen-chan is mine. I don’t care who the opponent is, I will never hand him over.

This year’s cultural festival would be something special, something only for Gen-chan and me. In my heart, I coldly declared those words to my pitiful rival outside the window.

This is war.

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