[Sad News] Living Together with the Unattainable Beauty—Her Overwhelming Affection Is Way Too Calculated - 52-53

Chapter 52: The Decisive Sight

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Fujigaya-san had come back. She’d been gone for only two days, and yet the relief that warmed my heart felt like the end of a long, long winter and the arrival of spring.

When she had said “I’m home” with tears in her eyes, my heart had jumped wildly. I was surprised at myself for answering “Welcome home” so naturally. We hadn’t wanted to part, so we’d stayed in the living room for no reason.

Helping her with her masturbation had cost me my calm, but seeing her happy made my heart feel warm — and, to be honest, it had felt so good I’d nearly forgotten everything else. I couldn’t forget the feeling of her ass.

Since that day, the heavy, suffocatingly awkward atmosphere that had drifted between us had vanished as if it had never existed. In those two days apart I had painfully come to understand my feelings clearly. I’d realized how irreplaceable she was to me.

From that day on I stopped running away from her. At school and at home, I tried to look at her face and talk to her as much as possible. Of course I still got nervous. My heart thudded loudly, and sometimes my words choked and I stammered.

But I no longer looked away. I wanted to etch as many of her smiles as I could into my eyes. I wanted to hear as many of her voices as I could with my ears. With only these two months left — such an unbearably short time — I spent gentle days that felt fragile and bittersweet like glass.

One afternoon after school, I was in the library returning a light novel I’d finished over the weekend. I glanced out the window and saw Fujigaya-san walking toward the courtyard, laughing with her friend Ami. Just watching that sunlike smile warmed me through.

Maybe I should head home soon, too.

I left the library and headed for the school entrance, and that was when I saw Ryou Yamada walking toward me from ahead. He still put off that breezy, confident aura — the exact opposite of me. I tried to hide, but it was too late. Yamada didn’t even notice me; he walked past and headed straight for the courtyard where Fujigaya-san had gone.

A bad feeling crawled up my chest. My heart made a cold, uneasy sound.

There’s no way… But…

My legs moved without my consent and I followed him. I kept to the shadows, careful; my heart pounded an ugly rhythm. And then I saw it. At the back yard near the old equipment shed — a dim place people usually avoided — Fujigaya-san stood alone. Ami was gone and Yamada stood before her.

He didn’t have his usual flirtatious, carefree look. He looked serious — more serious than I’d ever seen him. He stared at Fujigaya-san with a look I’d never seen before. She looked troubled, complex, unable to run away.

I pressed my back to the cold wall of the equipment shed and held my breath, hiding. From my spot I couldn’t hear their words clearly, but the tense air made the situation obvious. It was a confession. Not one of his usual silly confessions. Yamada was about to confess seriously to Fujigaya-san.

No. Please don’t. Don’t look. Go home, me.

A siren blared inside my head, but my feet wouldn’t move. It felt like I’d been rooted to the spot. I could only watch, swallowing hard. Yamada spoke passionately. Fujigaya-san listened silently. Then he took a step closer to her. His voice — plaintive, but clear — drifted on the wind and reached my ears.

“Am I still no good? I’m serious. I want to tell you how I feel, one more time.”

The world slowed. My heart froze. Of course. Of course that was it. The words I least wanted to hear. The scene I least wanted to see.

What would Fujigaya-san answer? Her cherry-colored lips moved slowly. I was terrified to hear it, but I had to. This was reality. I couldn’t run away anymore. I couldn’t even shut my eyes. I just stared at this decisive sight.

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Chapter 53: I Was First

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“Am I still no good? I’m serious. I want to tell you how I feel, one more time.”

Yamada’s words, so desperately earnest, kept replaying over and over against my eardrums. Someone in my head seemed to sneer them back at me on a loop. There was no way she could turn him down. Why would she turn him down? A perfect, sparkling, sunlike guy like him saying he was serious and that he liked her—there was no woman who would refuse that.

Ah, it was over. My foolish, naïve little crush. This miraculous, dreamlike cohabitation. All of it—right now, in this moment—ended.

Despair crawled up from my feet like cold black water. My body wouldn’t move. I couldn’t make a sound. I could only accept the cruel reality in front of me. Fujigaya-san nodded at Yamada’s confession. They took each other’s hands. They walked together into a happy world I didn’t belong in and didn’t even know about. That future image was too clear.

Then, from the very bottom of my heart, an intense, hot, uncontrollable feeling erupted like magma.

Don’t joke with me!! The heck with this guy?! Why is he barging in now?!

He didn’t know anything about Fujigaya-san. He didn’t know what anime she liked, what games she obsessed over, what silly things made her laugh until she held her stomach, or what private worries she had. He knew nothing. He’d come close on a whim because she was cute, because she was a model.

No. That wasn’t right. The one who knew Fujigaya-san best was me. From when she was small and got lost and cried with a snotty face, I’d been there. I had watched her all that time.

Her awkward kindness, her hidden loneliness, the times she put on a tough front, even the lewd sides she showed sometimes…I knew all of it. I was the only one who knew it all.

I  love her first.

The feeling formed into words and solidified in the center of my heart. In that instant I understood everything.

Oh. I’m in love with Fujigaya-san.

Not just as a friend, but as someone irreplaceable, as a girl—romantically. I had been helplessly drawn to her. Up until now I had kept a thick lid clamped shut. I’d told myself, “Someone like me… Yeah, no way,” and lived cowardly, turning my face away from my true feelings.

Her obvious kindness, her blatant appeals—I’d forced myself to treat them as “misunderstandings” or “my convenient fantasies.” But I couldn’t fool myself anymore. I couldn’t hide from it.

She was going to be taken. Yamada would steal her. That intense panic shattered the last limiter in my heart.

I love her. I love Fujigaya-san.

I didn’t want to give her to anyone. Her smile belonged only to me. I would protect her. Jealousy, inferiority, self-hatred—everything blasted away in the face of that blazing possessiveness. What remained was one thing: a helplessly pure, selfish “I love you” for her.

I clenched my fist tight in the shadow of the equipment shed. I lifted my head. I wouldn’t look away anymore. No matter what cruel ending might await, I decided I would never run from this love again.

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