The Story Of How I, A Gloomy Guy, Ended Up Surrounded By the Top-Tier Beautiful Girls In Class After A Seat Change - Chapter 118-119

Chapter 118: Memories And Sweet Moments

I get into the bath.

When was the last time I felt this excited about doing something as simple as taking a bath?

No, wait—this is the first time.

In all 17 years of my life, this is the first time I’ve been so thrilled to take a bath.

Back in junior high, during the class trip, my classmates joked about how the water from the girls’ bath flowed into the boys’ bath, so it was like we were sharing the same bath. I just laughed at their childish theory back then.

But now, things are different.

“This is…the bath Airi used…”

After rinsing myself thoroughly under the shower, I stand naked before the small bathtub.

In front of me is the leftover bathwater from a girl in my class.

Any guy in his teens would be thrilled to dive right into this.

Huh? Most normal guys wouldn’t even think of doing that?

Well, sorry, but I’m getting in. Naturally, as a gentlemanly pervert would.

“Well then…it’s time.”

I suppress the urge to dive in like Lupin and slowly ease myself, starting from my toes, into the tub.

“Ah, it’s so warm…It feels like Airi is wrapping me up from behind.”

This is the power of teenage imagination.

But since this is the water Airi used, the feeling of being embraced by her isn’t entirely off the mark.

“This place is like…everything that belongs to Airi now.”

☆☆

After spending about an hour enjoying the bath, I return to the attic room with a satisfied smile.

“Ah, welcome back, Ryota.”

“Yeah. Thanks for the bath…wait, what?”

In the attic, two futons are laid out side by side. It seems Airi took the time to set them up while I was away.

“S-Sorry, Airi. You didn’t have to lay out the futons for me.”

“Hey, no need to apologize! We’re close enough not to worry about such things, right?”

Airi pats me on the shoulder with a smile.

“Y-Yeah, thanks, Airi.”

“Well, I did insist on you staying over tonight, so this is the least I can do. By the way, how was the bath?”

“The bath? It was amazing…Definitely the best bath I’ve ever had.”

“Wow, Ryota, you’re making such a big deal out of it! But was the water too hot? I didn’t actually get in, so I wasn’t sure about the temperature.”

“…What?”

The moment those words left Airi’s mouth, I dropped the clothes I was holding.

Wh-What?

“Huh? What’s wrong, Ryota? Your mouth’s wide open.”

“W-Wait a second! What did you just say? You didn’t get in the tub?”

“Yeah, I just took a shower and didn’t use the bath.”

“W-What? Why didn’t you use it?”

“Well, I thought you might not like using the bath after me.”

“Gah!”

W-Wait…What did she just say? Airi didn’t use the bath?

Then…what I felt in that tub—the warmth of Airi’s embrace—was just my imagination?

“And you know, I didn’t want to surprise you with my long hair floating in the bath, so I was a bit embarrassed…”

Airi shyly smiles as she says this.

Despite how carefree she seems most of the time, she was being so considerate of me…

Damn it! And look at me! Smiling like an idiot in what I thought was Airi’s leftover bathwater (which was just regular water), thinking such perverted thoughts! Am I not ashamed of myself? As a human being?

Consumed by my embarrassment and guilt toward Airi, I begin to feel remorse.

“Ryota? Why are you biting your lip?”

“N-Nothing, Airi. It’s just…I’m a failure as a man.”

“A failure? I don’t really get it, but hey, Ryota. Why don’t you sit down on the futon so we can…do it together?”

Huh? On the futon…together?

My lower body reacts at the speed of light.

“Wait, you mean…se—”

“Tada! I brought some cards and a b○l○room game! Let’s play, okay?”

Hearing that, my excitement quickly subsided.

Airi, with a big grin, pulls out an unnecessarily large b○l○room game from her suitcase.

She actually packed this massive thing into her suitcase? It’s so absurd that I don’t even have the energy to comment on it.

“Sigh…Airi really is Airi, huh.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? C’mon, let’s get super excited and play!”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Hoping for something more intimate, I ended up playing b○l○room with Airi until she was satisfied.

☆☆

Midnight.

Airi and I lie next to each other on the futons.

There’s no air conditioning, but since it’s relatively cool in the countryside at night, we hang a wind chime by the window and set the fan to “high,” which manages to keep the heat at bay.

However, the fan’s blades are chipped in places, causing it to make a loud buzzing noise. It sounds almost as annoying as the bees that led me to a lucky pervert moment earlier.

“I’m turning off the lights, okay?”

“Y-Yeah.”

Once Airi turns off the light in the attic, the only thing illuminating the room is the faint glow of the moon through the window.

Alright…I’m exhausted from everything, so I’ll just sleep now.

“Hey, Ryota, are you still awake?”

“Of course I’m awake. It’s only been two minutes since you turned off the lights.”

“Y-Yeah, right.”

Airi’s voice comes from the futon next to me.

“It’s kinda like a class trip, huh?”

“…Yeah, I guess. But on a class trip, boys and girls usually sleep in separate rooms, and the fact that we’re lying here together like this…it’s a bit problematic, don’t you think?”

“It’s fine! I know you wouldn’t do anything to hurt me, Ryota.”

Saying that, Airi turns toward me, gazing at me as she lies there.

She’s wearing a T-shirt and hot pants, though I’m not sure if that qualifies as pajamas. The cow printed on her T-shirt is stretched out like a dachshund due to how tightly it clings to her chest.

Sexy.

“Hey, Ryota.”

“W-What? Why so serious all of a sudden?”

“There’s something I wanted to tell you. I couldn’t say it during the cultural festival.”

“W-Wha…?”

Something she couldn’t say during the cultural festival?

Could it be…a confession?

“I think…the boy who gave me that wafer back when I was little might’ve been you, Ryota.”

What Airi said took me by surprise.

“…Huh? A wafer?”

“Remember? I told you about the time when I was sitting on the bench at the candy shop because I was poor, and a boy gave me a wafer.”

Oh, right. She did mention something like that at the candy shop before.

“And you think that was me?”

“Yeah! The blue bag the boy had looked just like the one I saw at your house. And didn’t you say you used to buy that kind of wafer a lot when you were little? When we went to the candy shop together, you reminded me of that boy.”

“S-Seriously?”

“Yeah! But it’s not like I have solid proof, and you don’t even remember it, right?”

“Well…I’m sorry, I don’t.”

Just like with my memories of Rui, I don’t clearly remember a specific day from my childhood. While the person who was helped might remember, the one who helped tends to forget such things.

If I were a protagonist in a light novel, I’d conveniently remember everything and say, “It was you!” But reality is harsh.

“But, you know, it’s okay even if I’m wrong! I want the boy who gave me that wafer to be you, Ryota. I’d like to think it was you…”

Airi’s cheeks flush slightly as she speaks with sincerity, then she turns her back to me.

“A-Airi?”

“Hehe…That sounded a bit like a confession, didn’t it?”

“Eh? Y-Yeah, I guess so!”

“Just kidding. Sorry for talking so much. We have to get up early tomorrow, so let’s get some sleep, okay, Ryota?”

“Y-Yeah!”

Airi said something that got my heart racing, and I was completely flustered.

What did she mean by “sounded like a confession”? Isn’t this the kind of sweet scene you’d see in a teen romance manga?

Maybe Airi really did confess to me?

The more I think about it, the more my head fills with thoughts of Airi.

As I was lying there, my heart pounding, my phone suddenly buzzed with a Lime notification…wait, what?

When I checked my phone, my eyes nearly popped out of my head.

“Kuroki: Hey, Ryota-kun? I stopped by your house after track practice today and heard from your mom that you won’t be home tonight. Is everything okay? Are you staying at Airi’s house?”

This…this is really bad.

I just got out of the bath, but now I’m breaking out in a cold sweat.

The last person I wanted to find out about this sleepover…found out!

—

Chapter 119: Sleeping With Airi♡ And the Truth About the Sleepover is Revealed

Airi is sleeping next to me, softly snoring with a “buzz” sound, while my hand holding my phone trembles, my eyes wide open.

In the attic room, now completely wrapped in silence, my heart was pounding.

This isn’t some sweet moment from a shoujo manga like “You can hear my heartbeat.” No, this is more like the “zawa zawa” from Gambling Apocalypse.

(Out of all people, how could it be Rui who found out about the sleepover…?)

Rui, who’s saved me twice from sticky situations, has developed some kind of mysterious attachment to me.

She sends me selfies, trying to charm me, the “pervert,” and thanks to one of those selfies, I’m now in the ridiculous position of becoming the vice president.

If Rui finds out that I stayed over at Airi’s house, who knows what will happen…No, I really have no idea.

Now that it’s come to this, it’s a total misunderstanding to be seen as if something happened when nothing did, and for my own honor, I should just be honest and explain everything.

If I tell the truth, it should be fine, right? Probably.

I boldly opened the chat window that I had been sneakily checking without marking as read.

Where should I start…?

“Kuroki: Hehe, Ryota-kun, you finally opened the message♡”

As soon as I open the chat, a message from Rui arrives.

(Is…is she seriously monitoring whether I read her message? This is almost horror-level stuff.)

If she’s been watching me this whole time, I have to be honest and fast, or she might think I’m making excuses.

I muster all my courage and type out a response.

“Actually! They say it’s better to catch beetles early in the morning, but since there were no buses in the countryside, I had to stay at Airi’s grandma’s house! And just so you know, we slept in different rooms, okay? Don’t get any weird ideas.”

Phew, this should be good. Perfect.

I told a little white lie at the end, but that was just to emphasize that nothing happened. I was honest about 90% of it, so it’s not really wrong.

Now she should understand that the sleepover was purely for bug-catching. It was unavoidable…or at least that’s what I thought.

“Kuroki: Hmm, I see. But the last part…is a lie, isn’t it?”

For some reason, she immediately saw through my lie.

H-how could she know that…is she bluffing?

“How do you know that?”

“Kuroki: You know, earlier I acted like I didn’t know about the sleepover, but actually, I had already been messaging Airi on Lime. When I asked her about it, she sent me this photo.”

A photo? …What!?

The picture Rui sent showed me and Airi in the middle of cleaning up after a bath, with two futons lined up side by side. Airi was flashing a peace sign, looking straight at the camera. She must have sneakily taken it while I was cleaning.

“Kuroki: Two futons side by side. Clothes I assume you took off before your bath on one of them. Two sets of luggage in the corner. Are you still going to insist you were in separate rooms?”

I messed up. I underestimated her perfect insight.

“Kuroki: Everything’s out in the open, Ryota-kun.”

A-Airi!!!

I glared at Airi, who was fast asleep beside me.

I really shouldn’t have tried to lie to Rui.

“Kuroki: Since you lied, when you get back, you’ll need a proper punishment, won’t you? Goodnight, Ryota-kun.”

Rui ended the conversation after saying everything she wanted, without listening to my excuses.

Punishment, huh…

If it’s something like a spanking, I’d gladly take it, but knowing Rui, it won’t be that simple.

As if being bossed around by three beautiful girls all summer wasn’t enough…now there’s punishment on top of it…

“Haa…I should just sleep.”

With thoughts of running away and living in this countryside forever, I slowly closed my eyes.