The girls cackled with laughter in front of Char and me.

Right now, the contents of Fushimi Jinta’s body was a middle-aged mercenary who had survived battlefields while being forced to taste bitterness.

Therefore, I could swallow even this horrible experience.

But it must have been painful for Fushimi Jinta, who was still just a high school student.

Char remained looking down on the bench… This girl was secretly messing with some mechanical gadget in her hands.

(Remote hacking, huh. She’s extracting the contents of their smartphones.)

It was a hacking tool that Char had developed together with Elma.

It could disrupt surrounding smartphones with magnetism and then use strong electromagnetic waves to copy data to her own device within minutes.

She was probably planning to get dirt on everyone here.

It had been about five minutes since they had started talking?

She’d probably extracted everyone’s data by now, and Char would stay quiet like this until these girls left.

That’s what I thought, but Char muttered quietly while still looking down.

“…What’s so funny? He worked up the courage to confess… isn’t that admirable?”

(Char?)

Speaking up here wasn’t like Char.

Usually Char would keep her anger hidden in her heart and get double revenge on her opponents.

Something must have really ticked her off.

“Huh? What’s that, shorty, you got a problem?”

“Confessing takes a lot of courage. Even if you get rejected… I think it’s cool.”

When Char said this, the girls laughed.

“Pfft, lucky you, Fushimi! This girl’s totally head over heels for you!”

“She’s got a pretty cute voice~! You should do something about those bangs though lol.”

The gals laughed while slapping my shoulders.

Meanwhile, Yamashiro was the only one who didn’t laugh and let out a big sigh.

“Ugh, how boring. If she’s fine with him then let’s just leave them alone, right?”

“Eh~ Let’s play some more. Look, we’ve got tons of pathetic videos of Fushimi… huh? Something’s wrong with my phone?”

“Whatever, let’s go to karaoke. We won’t have time if we don’t hurry.”

Yamashiro said this and led everyone away.

When Char and I were alone on the bench, I spoke to her.

“That’s unusual. For Char to get angry like that.”

“Because… because… Fushimi Jinta summoned his courage to confess. Even though he thought he wasn’t good enough, while trembling…”

Saying this, Char gripped her skirt tightly at her knees in frustration.

“I can’t believe they’d laugh at something like that! Fushimi Jinta was admirable. I… couldn’t confess properly…”

Then, suddenly, Char grabbed my head as I sat next to her, pulled me close, and hugged me tightly to her chest like she was holding a ball.

“Hey?! Char?!”

“Sorry, Ryuji. Please bear with me.”

Held against Char’s chest and unable to move, I gave up and surrendered myself to it.

It seemed like some kind of emotion had become too much for her to suppress.

The thought crossed my mind that she was immature as a mercenary, but I guess that went for both of us.

“…You’re Ryuji, but Fushimi Jinta’s experiences remain too, right? Then your heart must surely be wounded.”

Char whispered in a gentle voice while stroking my head.

“So let me say this, you did your best. I would never laugh at you. You’re an admirable, good boy.”

“…Good boy, seriously…”

Was this payback for treating her like a child all this time?

That’s what I thought, but it seemed to be surprisingly effective therapy…

I felt the wounds in my heart healing from Char’s encouraging words.

It was as if the remaining essence of Fushimi Jinta within me was being saved.

“…Hey, Char. Let me go already.”

“Eh~ Just a little longer is fine, isn’t it?”

“No good. Release me.”

I persuaded Char to release her hold.

Honestly speaking, it had been quite a dangerous situation.

The afterglow of Char’s small chest pressed against my cheek still lingered, and my heart was pounding from her lingering scent.

Unaware of my feelings, Char proudly beat her own chest.

“I’ll get revenge for you! Leave it to me!”

“Don’t go overboard, okay? Those girls are still high school students.”

“I’m still a high school student too, so it can’t be helped if I accidentally go too far, right?”

Char said this with a devilish smile.

What she was actually planning to do was probably devilish indeed…

Well, that aside, there was one thing that bothered me.

(So Char had someone she liked too… If you had confessed, it definitely would have succeeded. Too bad for that someone somewhere who didn’t get confessed to.)

Thinking such things and laughing to myself, we headed home.