The girl was cute, and she was willing to be his girlfriend—willing, even, to fulfill every duty and obligation that came with the role.
Lin Ye knew this. Rui Tachibana had made her feelings clear before.
If he asked her as her boyfriend—no, even if he demanded it—Lin Ye figured Rui Tachibana would almost certainly not refuse.
She would agree to satisfy that particular request of his.
But—
Lin Ye wasn't that kind of man. He didn't covet her body, didn't scheme for it. So he didn't need to make her any promises just to get it.
Tap, tap, tap...
Footsteps echoed steadily.
Rui Tachibana had her back turned, but she recognized the familiar footsteps at once and turned toward the sound. The moment she saw Lin Ye, she regarded him with a calm, level gaze.
But then she seemed to remember her current relationship with him—she was his girlfriend now, and it wouldn't do to be so cold—so she forced a smile onto her face.
Only,
it didn't match the flat, expressionless look she usually wore in public.
Which made this particular smile come out looking distinctly strange.
Seeing it, Lin Ye was, if anything, a little taken aback.
How could he possibly miss a girl's smile, her attempt to be friendly?
"Good afternoon, Student Tachibana," he said.
"Good afternoon."
She took two steps toward him, and quickly, realizing her smile had come out unnatural, she added, "I thought you weren't coming."
But the moment the words left her mouth, Rui Tachibana felt they'd been terribly inappropriate.
Still, lacking experience talking to boys, she'd put everything she had into finding something to say.
"I'll do what I promised," Lin Ye said. "Where do you want to go after this? Any ideas?"
He left the choice to her.
"Anywhere's fine."
But she promptly tossed the question right back at him. Her dazed, helpless expression made Lin Ye think she genuinely didn't know how to choose, rather than simply being too lazy to.
"Then... how about all-you-can-eat beef hot pot?"
Lin Ye had suddenly found himself craving it today—wanted to eat his fill.
"Okay," Rui Tachibana agreed immediately.
All-you-can-eat required a good appetite, and she wasn't sure her stomach was up to it today. But since Lin Ye had suggested it, she'd see it through to the end.
She also wanted to see just how big his appetite was, so she could plan his meals properly from now on.
By now the blue-haired girl had fully thrown herself into the role of Lin Ye's girlfriend, thinking of him in every little thing.
Lin Ye and Rui Tachibana walked side by side to the train station and took the train to the shopping street.
At that hour,
a scattering of boys and girls in Sobu High uniforms could be seen around the shopping street.
After school let out,
Sobu High students still liked to stop by the shopping street to pick up a little something—milk tea, sweets, that sort of thing.
Occasionally there'd be a boy-girl pair among them.
Rui Tachibana was quite pretty, drawing plenty of male attention, and as for Lin Ye, he was already something of a celebrity at Sobu High.
The sight of the two of them together drew a fair amount of notice, and speculation soon followed.
Lin Ye was Miura Yumiko's boyfriend, was pursuing Yukino Yukinoshita, and now here he was, alone with yet another girl at the shopping street. Something about that just looked wrong.
One girl quickly typed up a message and sent it to a friend she knew, and eventually it reached Miura Yumiko.
—Your boyfriend's out shopping with some other girl! Get over here, quick.
"Is it Yukinoshita?" was Miura Yumiko's first thought.
Besides Yukino Yukinoshita, the only other name that came to mind was Iroha Isshiki.
But whoever it was, some small, nagging discomfort stirred in her—annoyance, real annoyance.
They hadn't even fully broken up, and he was already out on dates with someone else.
Dating was one thing, but couldn't he at least avoid getting caught by classmates? And now he had been, and word had already reached her.
If she ignored this, more rumors were bound to spread.
Something like—
Miura Yumiko, as his girlfriend, turning a blind eye while her boyfriend cheated and went on dates with other girls.
The tragic tale of the blonde school beauty, one everyone would feel obliged to gossip about.
Miura Yumiko, reduced to a thoroughly pathetic blonde loser in love.
However she looked at it, Miura Yumiko felt a sharp wave of displeasure.
Yes,
she was upset, unhappy, and she felt she needed to do something about it.
—Get over here quick, Yumiko, I'll keep watch and follow them for you.
A photo came along with the message.
Miura Yumiko opened it.
She'd assumed it would be Yukino Yukinoshita, or maybe Iroha Isshiki—she'd even considered Yui Yuigahama, since Yui was pretty too, with a great figure, and that generous bun of hers had caught the attention of who knew how many boys.
On that point,
Miura Yumiko was quite certain of Yui Yuigahama's charm—the kind of charm that could easily draw Lin Ye in.
But—but—
"Who... is this?"
Miura Yumiko stared at the unfamiliar back of the blue-haired girl in the photo, utterly baffled.
There was a faint sense of familiarity, but she couldn't quite place it.
"Has this jerk gone and hooked another girl now?"
Following the next message, Miura Yumiko learned that Lin Ye and this girl had gone into an all-you-can-eat beef hot pot place.
That wasn't cheap.
She'd never even been there herself.
"Ahem, ahem, I shouldn't think like this."
Miura Yumiko was well aware that, though she was Lin Ye's girlfriend in name, several people close to the situation knew perfectly well that she and Lin Ye weren't actually a couple.
And now, she had no real right to demand anything of Lin Ye on the basis of that title.
As for what more she could do,
what could she even do?
Reason told her, in this moment, that she should do nothing at all. But message after message kept coming in, forcing her to wonder if she really should do something.
Yes,
she really felt she needed to do something.
Once she'd made up her mind, Miura Yumiko instantly felt lighter.
She decided to go find Lin Ye.
"I'd actually like to see just how much of a stunner this girl is."
Miura Yumiko got to her feet and sent back a message saying she was heading over now, and asked her friend to keep an eye on them for her.
"Beep, beep."
The reply came back—no problem at all.
She said goodbye to her classmates and left Sobu High.
"Something's up with Yumiko, don't you think?"
"She's not going to go settle a score with Yukinoshita, is she?"
For a moment that thought got everyone excited, but then they shook their heads.
Both yesterday and today, Miura Yumiko hadn't blown up at Yukinoshita even once—hadn't even muttered a harsh word. There was no way she'd suddenly go do that now.
She was probably just off dealing with some other urgent matter.
Amid the murmured chatter, Miura Yumiko's figure had already disappeared from view.
Meanwhile,
in the Service Club—
When Iroha Isshiki arrived, she didn't ask right away why Lin Ye hadn't shown up. But after a good while, she couldn't hold back any longer. "Yukinoshita-senpai, you must know where Senpai went, right?"
"You can just ask him yourself," Yukino Yukinoshita said, tossing the question back at her. She had no interest in answering directly.
"I did ask, but he hasn't replied. Ugh, ugh, he hasn't taken Tachibana-senpai to a hotel, has he?"
Iroha Isshiki floated the theory out loud.
Though it was, admittedly, about the least likely scenario there was.
Even Iroha Isshiki didn't believe it herself. After all, if Senpai were really the type to covet a girl's body, he'd have taken her long ago, instead of never once making a move even now.
Just from that alone, it was practically guaranteed Lin Ye wouldn't be taking Rui Tachibana to a hotel to do anything grown-up.
But that didn't mean Iroha couldn't bring it up—if only to see how Yukinoshita-senpai would react.
Just as she'd expected, Yukino Yukinoshita showed no reaction whatsoever—not the slightest ripple.
The one who actually reacted the most was Yui Yuigahama, his girlfriend in name only, who found herself experiencing an oddly complicated feeling.
"Yuigahama-senpai, are you worried Senpai's taken Tachibana-senpai to a hotel?"
"Uh, ah, n-no, no way!"
Yui Yuigahama shook her head furiously, denying it with everything she had, terrified of being misunderstood.
Her first thought was that Iroha suspected she had feelings for Lin Ye—but she really didn't! She really felt nothing for him at all.
"Really? You're awfully worked up. Can't bear the thought of losing Senpai? Who would've guessed!"
"No, really, no! Iroha-chan, don't go jumping to conclusions! I'm just, I'm just embarrassed, that's all!"
Whenever love or anything remotely related to sex came up, Yui Yuigahama really did react like the picture of innocence.
Of course,
Iroha Isshiki wasn't exactly much better herself.
Of the three of them present, it was oddly the pure, cool-looking Yukino Yukinoshita—Sobu High's aloof beauty—who was actually closest to that particular line.
One could even say she was a hair's breadth from crossing it, if only Lin Ye hadn't held back.
Meanwhile Yui Yuigahama, the most easily embarrassed of the three, was actually the furthest from it, the most innocent of them all.
There was something almost darkly comic about that.
"If my girlfriend went around thinking about other men, I wouldn't be happy about it," Iroha said.
Her words sent Yui Yuigahama's brain grinding to a complete halt.
She was completely lost.
Wait, weren't you the one who wanted me to team up and become Lin Ye's girlfriend with you before? So how are you suddenly against it now?
She couldn't wrap her head around it.
"Now is now, before was before. My opinions can change any time. As my girlfriend, Yuigahama-senpai, all you need to do is follow whatever I tell you to do right now."
Iroha Isshiki laughed cheerfully.
Yui Yuigahama spoke up. "I promised Lin Ye—I'm definitely going to stop you."
At that, it was Iroha's turn to freeze awkwardly.
She was actually declaring that outright?
Wait, that's not right—this isn't right at all!
"I'm your boyfriend. Listen to me. Don't do this."
"I promised Lin-kun. I have to do this," Yui Yuigahama said, gripping onto that point and refusing to budge.
Iroha Isshiki tried several times to change Yui Yuigahama's mind, but every attempt ended in failure.
She gritted her teeth, but she knew there wasn't much point in trying to talk Yuigahama-senpai out of it—there was no changing or stopping her resolve at all.
"Senpai, you're wasting your breath."
"We haven't even tried yet, so who's to say it's wasted," the pink bun retorted, her attitude firm, showing not the slightest willingness to give in. She paid no mind to whatever Iroha had to say.
When it came to promises, Yui Yuigahama took them very seriously indeed.
"Senpai, Yukino-senpai," Iroha said,
"Don't drag me into whatever's going on between you two," Yukino Yukinoshita said, cutting ties with the matter immediately.
She wanted nothing to do with getting pulled into this.
"Ugh, Yukino-senpai won't help me either, won't even tell me where Senpai is right now. Ugh, ugh, ugh, Senpai likes you so much, and now he's off with some other girl, and you're not the least bit worried, not the least bit anxious?"
"It doesn't concern me much."
"It does concern you, though," Iroha Isshiki said quickly. "If we go now, we can still stop it. Based on how well I know Senpai, if he really were planning to take Tachibana-senpai to a hotel, it wouldn't be now—right now they're probably just wandering around, taking a walk, grabbing a meal. If it's a hotel, that wouldn't happen until at least nine or ten at night."
"So we still have time to stop it."
But Yukino Yukinoshita gave no response at all.
Faced with that silence, Iroha Isshiki gradually gave up.
Fine, then.
Nothing to be done.
It really looked like there was no talking her into it.
"Hmph, Senpai's always flirting around with everyone, so why won't he ever flirt with me!"
That was the one thing that genuinely bothered her.
Everything else, honestly, didn't matter much anymore.
Or rather, she'd already grown used to it.
She'd grown accustomed to Lin Ye keeping a certain ambiguous closeness with other girls—after all, Lin Ye and Ryou Fujibayashi had already slept together.
She wanted that too, so badly.
If she and Senpai ever reached that kind of relationship, surely his attitude toward her wouldn't stay the way it was now, would it?
That was what Iroha Isshiki thought.
A few minutes later, she typed out and sent another message to Lin Ye.
She got a reply, but it didn't contain the specific location she was hoping for.
"I... really want to go on a date too!" Iroha Isshiki sighed.
Hearing that, Yui Yuigahama flinched immediately, terrified that Iroha might set her sights on her instead.
"Yuigahama-senpai, my dear girlfriend, come on a date with me later!"
Since she couldn't find Senpai, Yui Yuigahama would have to do—that was Iroha Isshiki's line of thinking now.
"Uh, okay, fine."
She wanted to refuse, and shot a pleading look toward Yukino Yukinoshita, but Yukino gave no reaction at all, which made it clear to Yui that she'd have no choice but to spend the rest of the day with Iroha.
Otherwise, Iroha would pester her without end.
"I knew Yuigahama-senpai would say yes. If Senpai agreed too, the two of us could go on a date with him together—how great would that be! But no, he won't have it."
Iroha Isshiki still hadn't let go of her resentment toward Lin Ye.
This whole business
genuinely frustrated and irritated Iroha Isshiki.
Plenty of men wouldn't have refused what she was offering, yet Lin Ye had turned her down—not once, but again and again.
She really couldn't make sense of it.
If Senpai were still a virgin, she could understand it. A virgin, however curious he might be about girls' bodies, however much he liked them, might still hesitate to cross that particular line.
But Senpai wasn't a virgin—not by a long shot, not after doing it more than once or twice.
In fact, it had probably happened seventy, eighty, ninety times by now.
In any case, based on Iroha's understanding of that kind of thing, once someone crossed that threshold, they'd only crave it more and more, hardly able to control themselves.
Senpai was young and in his prime, right at that age—how could he possibly hold back?
There was no way Senpai was faithful to just one person; if he were, he'd have devoted himself entirely to Ryou Fujibayashi, instead of keeping this ambiguous closeness with other girls.
So if he couldn't stay emotionally exclusive, then physically, he definitely wasn't either.
Iroha simply didn't believe someone could be unfaithful emotionally but somehow faithful physically.
Which meant Senpai chose his physical intimacy based on the person, not on some blanket rule.
And clearly,
she wasn't within that circle yet, which was why she hadn't managed to break through emotionally either.
If, one day, she and Senpai made a breakthrough emotionally, then the physical breakthrough wouldn't be far behind.
Of course, the reverse held true too, Iroha figured.
But the latter path was a little tricky.
She hadn't found the opportunity—last time, at the Fujibayashi home, had probably been her best shot.
Back then, if Ryou Fujibayashi could do it, surely she could have too.
Of course,
reviewing it now in hindsight, if it actually came down to taking that step, Iroha still felt a good deal of hesitation.
After all,
she was inexperienced, and this would be her first time.
Handing herself over so casually—of course she'd hesitate.
She could think about it that way now, in the abstract, but in the moment, she knew she'd still hesitate.
"What a terrible man!"
Senpai really was a deeply sinful, terrible man,
Iroha sighed.
How had she even ended up drawn to a man like that, and why couldn't she let go of him even now, showing no sign of wanting to give up?
Part of it was longing for something she couldn't have; part of it was pure stubbornness.
Something she, Iroha Isshiki, had wanted, had put this much effort into pursuing, and still hadn't gotten—she couldn't accept that.
And it was precisely that obsession driving her forward, pushing her to keep going, all the way up to now.
"Student Lin has his own boundaries, Iroha-chan. Don't judge him by your own standards," Yui Yuigahama began, trying to talk her down.
She was urging Iroha to give up—this was the thing she'd promised Lin Ye she'd do, and she was doing it now.
"No way, I, Iroha Isshiki, am not giving up. And Yuigahama-senpai, you're awfully quick to come lecture me the moment you've made your promise—now I'm really, really annoyed. Get ready for our date later, be prepared."
Those words made Yui Yuigahama's heart sink.
Later,
this wasn't going to be pleasant, was it.
Yui Yuigahama wanted to call for help, but after thinking it over, she figured she just needed to learn to get used to it, so she gritted her teeth and resolved to face whatever came next.
"Mm," she said simply, a short answer that conveyed her resolve.
That answer made Iroha Isshiki inwardly groan that this was bad news.
She knew Yui Yuigahama well enough—this senpai was probably dead serious about keeping her promise to Lin Ye.
...
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