Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo:Volume 4 Chapter 1

Chapter 01 – Sakurasou’s Culture Festival

Part 01

With the light of the sunset shining down on them, Sorata Kanda was standing face to face with Mashiro Shiina at the observation deck of Narita Airport.

“What happened to me.”

As if she was trying to suppress her nervousness, Mashiro clenched her hands that were resting on her chest. The action gave off such a slender and detailed feeling; making Mashiro appear to be even more fragile than she is.

“Hey, Sorata.”

Her usually certain voice now sounded somewhat weak.

“W-What is it?”

“Is this…”

Mashiro’s cheeks glowed red as she looked down. Sorata could feel that it wasn’t just because of the sunlight.

“S-Shiina?”

Sorata wanted to speak further, but when Mashiro looked at him with her crystal clear eyes, all he could mutter out was her name.

“…”

The sudden silence was hard to put up with so Sorata gulped. However, no matter what he tried, his heartbeat wouldn’t slow down and neither did Mashiro back off.

“Could …”

“… Shiina.”

“This be…”

“…”

His heart screamed out for Mashiro to stop, but no sound escaped from his lips. However, a short sound squeezed out from Mashiro’s thin lips.

“Love.”

A quiet sound. It was a quiet yet certain voice. Sorata’s heart was beating crazily and every cell of his body was raging. His emotions suddenly lit up.

“I- I…. I…”

A voice inside him echoed ‘Say it… just say it’

“… Sorata?”

“I- I’ve thought of you… that’s, uh….”

Say it. Just speak out our thoughts boldly…

“I… like!”

“I know.”

“Huh?”

What do you know?

“I know how Sorata feels.”

“Shiina…”

Shiina wore a natural smile that took away all of Sorata’s strength. She looked at him with a loving gaze. His heart beat uncontrollably and he wanted to jump up and down.

“I- I!”

Just when Sorata had gathered enough courage to say it, Mashiro stopped Sorata with her hand.

“But I can’t accept Sorata’s feelings.”

“…Huh?”

What did Mashiro just say?

“W-What are you saying? W-we feel the same way, right?”

“Right.”

“T-Then why?”

“A painful past is necessary to pilot Nyaboron.”

“… Huh?”

What was Mashiro saying.

“But it’s OK.”

“No, no. I don’t think your head is OK at all.”

“By losing my precious Sorata, my negative engine will forever go on.”

“Yep, you’re not OK at all!”

“I will destroy every single Nyangolownians out there.”

“Saying that doesn’t make me feel any better!”

“Then, farewell.”

“No, wait…!”

Chasing after the disappearing figure, Sorata grabbed her shoulders and turned her around.

“Huh?”

As if using she used magic, the person who had been Mashiro until just now, turned into his school senior, Misaki Kamiigusa.

“W-What happened?!”

“That’s so unmanly of you, Kohai-kun! For you to be this weak! Straighten yourself up for the sake of humanity!”

Misaki widely swung her hand around.

“Ah, hold on, Senpai!”

“No!”

With a manly response, Misaki presented Sorata with a strong slap. The clear slap sound rang out.

“What the hell~!”

Shouting ‘What the hell~!’ at the nonsensical development, Sorata regained his senses. Until now, he was at the airport but the sight that he saw was his familiar 3 tatami sized room.

Sakurasou, one of the dorms of Suimei High School of the Arts. And this was the Room 101. Exciting sketches of 「Galactic Cat Nyaboron」 covered the walls and the seven stray cats that he picked up were sound asleep on the bed.

It was a room that Sorata knew quite well.

“… So I’ve been dreaming ‘till now and this is the reality.”

He was somewhat glad but he was also feeling let down at the same time.

“Anyhow, to think that I slept while standing.”

When Sorata opened his eyes, he was standing up inside his room for some reason. But it wasn’t that strange to him because he didn’t have time to sleep over the past week due to the production of 「Galactic Cat Nyaboron」 in order to meet the deadline.

His eyes teared up when he loudly yawned. It covered his eyes.

He was able to come back from the dream world for now, but he felt like sleeping again.

“And what was I dreaming about in the first place…”

Even if all of his focus had been on the production, to think that Nyaboron would take over his dreams…. And the same could be said about Mashiro. What was he making her do in his dreams. Things between them has gotten awkward ever since Rita, Mashiro’s former roommate, tried to take her back to England…. Thinking about the time Sorata shouted “Don’t go” as he hugged Mashiro tight still made him blush furiously. After that dream just now, it’ll be even harder to face her again.

“Kohai-kun, you awake?”

He rubbed his closing eyes. The one who spoke to him was the alien from Room 201- Misaki Kamiigusa. Now that he thought about it, Misaki slapped him in his dream. No, he could feel his left cheek still throbbing.

“This may be a sudden question, but how did you wake me up, Misaki-senpai?”

“I woke you up according to the customs of the land.”

“I don’t think waking someone up by slapping him can be considered to be a custom of any land!”

“I didn’t slap you! I was practicing my signature!”

Misaki spouted out some nonsense as usual.

“Signature?”

“Here, mirror.”

Sorata unwillingly checked his face’s reflection on the hand mirror that Misaki handed over.

“We~ll, this is how it looks on the front, so what do you think?”

Sorata decided to ignore the hair salon-like act. That was because he had something to say to her.

On his left cheek, there was a handprint of sticky red paint. Of course, Misaki’s right hand was covered in red paint as well.

“Who do you think you are to have a signature like this! And don’t have a signature like this in the first place!”

“I’m glad that Kohai-kun is happy.”

“I’m not happy, I’m being angry because I was slapped!”

“It was Kohai-kun’s fault for sleeping while standing up.”

“Giraffes in savannas sleep while standing still! Don’t look down on nature!”

“They sleep while wrapping their neck around in the zoos!”

“That’s because they’re being lazy since there are no predators after them! They lost the nature’s touch!”

“I get that you’re a professional when it comes to giraffe trivia, so pipe down. I can’t hear anything.”

The one who told Sorata that was the person who was checking the screen of the TV- Jin Mitaka. He was the handsome third year who lived in Room 103 and was the childhood friend of Misaki. The reason why his eyes were glued to the screen was because he was in the middle of debugging 「Galactic Cat Nyaboron」’s drama parts.

“And go to school, Misaki. You need to promote our work and make the preparations.”

“Yep! I’ll come and pick it up at lunch, so finish it by then!”

Misaki ran out as soon as she finished saying that. How can she have that much energy. Just like Sorata who was tired enough to sleep on his feet and Jin who was yawning every 3 seconds, Misaki hadn’t slept either. Did she have an unlimited energy source in her? If she did, it would be nice if she used it for the good of human kind.

As Sorata watched the door that Misaki just went out of, Jin muttered to himself.

“I never would’ve thought that we would finish this off on the day we present it…”

“I feel the same way.”

Sorata agreed with Jin and slumped down next to him.

Today was the 7th of November.

It was the 5th day into the culture festival, which started on the 3rd of November. The culture festival which was held along with the associated university lasted for a whole week.

「Galactic Cat Nyaboron」 should’ve been completed nearly 10 days ago…. No, according to the schedule, it should’ve been completed 10 days ago. However, Misaki ordered for the 3D model data to be rewritten because she wasn’t satisfied with the quality, and that fired up Mashiro to increase the scenes for the drama part. When Ryuunosuke should’ve stopped the two, he said that there was a shadier technique that he wanted to try out so he extended the deadline as well…. They were going to present it on the opening day of the festival, but 「Galactic Cat Nyaboron」 still hasn’t been completed yet.

Thanks to that, the sleeping hours of the Sakurasou tenants decreased each day, ever since the start of the culture festival. Needless to say, they couldn’t participate in the festival at all.

However, all of their hard work was finally going to pay off. After a few hours, the 「Galactic Cat Nyaboron」will finally be done, and they will be able to present it.

Having said that, they were already worn out, and they were just about to be tempted to sleep even at the slightest whisper.

“Jin-senpai.”

“What is it?”

“I want to let my upper and lower eyelids reunite sometime soon.”

“Go and wash your face to wake yourself up. Get that leaf off your face while you’re at it.”

“Ah, you’re right. I forgot about it.”

Sorata couldn’t sleep yet. When Jin finishes debugging the drama part, it was Sorata’s time to shine and check for the battle parts by doing a test run. He then had to hand over the results to Ryuunosuke, who was silently typing away on the keyboard, so that he can do the final fix.

If the final production was up to a satisfactory level, their work 「Galactic Cat Nyaboron」 would finally be complete- after 2 months of desperate efforts.

Reflecting back on it, it has been a long, yet short time. A lot of things happened especially during October.

One day, Sorata got into a heated argument with Ryuunosuke over the battle parts.

“Kanda’s suggestion of adding extra movement isn’t considering the crowd at all. It goes against the director’s heat. So it’s refused.”

Sorata was completely looked down upon like that, and when Misaki was pouring out countless of suggestions and ideas,

“It would be great if we can do all that, but we can’t do it because the lack of time!”

And lost himself like that.

One time, they had to remake the graphic the data due to missing the ordering of them, and there has been an instance when an important part of the production wasn’t completed on time. They were able to be where they are now after all those efforts.

Thinking of those days, Sorata let out a

“Hupp,”

Sound and walked into the hallway.

Swaying while walking, he leaned on the wall and went inside the bathroom. Not thinking that someone would be occupying the bathroom, Sorata opened the door without thinking.

“Kyaa.”

Hearing the short yell, Sorata looked up and made eye-contact with the tenant of Room 203, Nanami Aoyama. Facing her back towards him, Nanami hugged her shoulders with her hands and covered her chest up. She didn’t have anything on her as she stood on top of the scales. Her school uniform was heaped up in a small mound on the floor. Since it was only normal to take off clothes from the upper layers first, a pair of sky blue underwear were placed at the top.

“K-Kanda?”

Switching to her dialect, Nanami looked at Sorata in surprise.

“H-Hey.”

Even if they were on friendly terms with each other, Sorata had to be formal. He greeted her first.

“…”

But unfortunately, Nanami didn’t answer back. Instead, her well developed figure started to tremble and she breathed in deeply.

“Whoa~! Hold on, Aoyama!”

Sorata’s attempt to stop her and Nanami’s yell took place at almost the same time.

“Kyaaaaaaaa!”

As expected of a voice actress student. The yell that came from the stomach was strong enough to make the atmosphere tremble.

If he didn’t block out his ears by instinct, he would’ve been stunned by that yell.

“W-What are ya looking at~!”

Blushing bright red, Nanami grabbed a washing basket near-by and threw it at him.

Sensing the danger, Sorata quickly caught it with both of his hands.

“Good.”

“D-Don’t catch it~!”

“O-Oops!”

He should’ve backed off a long time ago.

“S-Sorrry!”

Shivering from the rage and the embarrassment building up inside her, Nanami let out a scream again.

“Kyaaaaa!”

“I’m really sorry!”

Sorata quickly closed the bathroom door. He apologised to Nanami again through the door.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t do it on purpose!”

“I-If an apology is enough, then why are there the police force!”

“That’s a good point… but the sign that says it’s being used by girls isn’t on!”

“No way, that’s… wait… because I didn’t plan to take my clothes off….”

“Huh? Then why were you all naked?”

Sorata remembered that Nanami was standing on the scales. He could guess why she was naked.

“I-It doesn’t concern you, does it.”

“Did you lose a kilo after taking your clothes off?”

“I-I gained a bit because I haven’t weighed myself in a while, so it’s not like I’m blaming my clothes. I-It’s not like I gained weight anyway! It’s just all in the head…”

Nanami was fairly desperate. It seemed like she wasn’t able to see the figure that she wanted to see even after weighing herself stark naked…

“There’s an urban myth that says that you’ll weigh less if you lift up a leg.”

“…”

As soon as Sorata jokingly said an advice that no-one would believe, Nanami quietened down for a moment.

“… Aoyama?”

“Y-You liar! It increased instead!”

“Isn’t it because you shifted your centre of gravity?”

Imagining Nanami trying to balance herself on her leg… while standing on the scales stark naked, Sorata couldn’t help but to laughed out loud.

“D-Don’t laugh!”

The readings on the scale must’ve been very important to Nanami.

After waiting for a while, the bathroom door opened from the inside. Nanami came out after wearing her school uniform. She was certainly discomforted. No, she could be just embarrassed.

“What’s with your face?”

She pointed at the handprint on Sorata’s face.

“I was attacked by the alien.”

Nanami didn’t ask for anything else. She must’ve thought that it was going to be a pain to listen to it.

“Uh… sorry about before.”

“It’s all right…. Actually, it’s not all right…. It was my fault for not hanging up the sign…. But it’s not all right… but it was my fault….”

She looked at Sorata with the accusing look while pouting.

“Could you do something about that face?”

“I was born like this.”

What did she dislike so much about his face?

“Aoyama’s upset because you didn’t make a move on her even after seeing her naked, Sorata.”

The one who approached them while yawning was Jin. He was probably getting sleepy as well, because he walked inside the bathroom first and the splashing sounds could be heard as he washed his face.

And when he was done, he wiped his face as he walked out and poured out

“But I guess it’s too much to ask a 16 year old single youth to take the main stage.”

Cruel comments like above.

“W-What do you mean, main stage! Mitaka-senpai, please don’t say those things!!”

“Then sex.”

“T-That’s even worse!”

Blushing up to her ears, Nanami retorted, but Jin paid no attention to it. “A boy in his teens is simple enough to fall for a girl who’s simply willing to hold his hand, so why don’t you start from that?”

Jin straightened his glasses, which he had taken off before.

“What are you saying! Also, I’m not that simple!”

“So he says. Aoyama, Sorata seems to be over himself, so I’ll leave the rest to you.”

Messing up the mood like that, Jin yawned again and walked into Sorata’s room, where they were debugging.

“Geez, that person is really… right, Aoyama?”

“…”

Aoyama was looking at her hand with a serious expression.

“He~y, Aoyama~.”

“W-What is it?”

Even after coming to her senses, Nanami avoided Sorata’s gaze.

“Are you all right?”

“Y-Yeah… I’m fine.”

Something wasn’t right.

“T-That’s right, it’s time to wake Mashiro up!”

“Ah, yeah. You’re right.”

“Now, hurry hurry!”

In the end, when Nanami urged him on, Sorata wasn’t able to go into the bathroom and walked up the stairs to wake Mashiro up without washing off his humiliation.

The room placed at the centre of the second floor. Room 202 was Mashiro Shiina’s room.

Standing before the door, Sorata knocked on the door.

“… No answer.”

She must be fast asleep.

“I’m coming in.”

No response came from the room again, so Sorata opened the door. As usual, an astonishing amount of clothes and underwear were scattered across the floor. Making sure that he isn’t stepping on anything, Sorata made his way to the fascinating animal which was fast asleep under the desk and shook its shoulders.

“Shiina, wake up.”

“… I’ll let Sorata wake up.”

“I’ve been awake for 48 hours already!”

Mashiro showed her puffy unsatisfied face. She crawled out from the space under the desk.

“It’s morning. Hello.”

“…”

Mashiro silently looked at Sorata.

“W-What?”

When Mashiro looked at him like that, Sorata’s heart started to beat faster. After all, that did happen just a month ago… he was still thinking about what Mashiro said on the observation deck.

Although he wasn’t able to hear what she had said after due to the sound of the airplanes, nor did he ask her what she was going to say, he knew that Mashiro certainly was going to say 「- Love」…. And being fully aware of that made it difficult for him to control his emotions.

Since he was already busy enough with the culture festival preparation, he was able to distract himself from the issue but in situations like these, he couldn’t look at Mashiro’s face properly.

While still troubled, Mashiro touched Sorata’s cheek.

“It’s Misaki’s signature.”

“Huh? How did you know?”

Mashiro extended her hand towards a piece of coloured paper on the desk. On it, there was a small handprint, and the name 「Misaki Kamiigusa」 was written on it. It was truly like her to do so.

“What’s with that?”

“She gave it to me.”

“… I see.”

Well, let’s not ask for the reason. There probably wasn’t a significant reason for Misaki or Mashiro.

“Shiina, we have no time, so just hurry up and get changed.”

He passed the uniform set to Mashiro. In a dazed state, Mashiro started to undo the pyjama buttons in front of Sorata.

“I don’t mean get changed right now! … Not that you’ll listen to me anyway!”

Sorata tried to act nonchalant and fled the room while sighing. Closing the door behind him, he leaned on it.

“Haaa…. How should I say this, this is quite hard on many levels.”

A deep sigh escaped from him again.

Ignoring the immense pressure that he was feeling from his shoulders due to the lack of rest, he tried to summarise the things that he had to do that day.

Today was the fifth day of the culture festival. It was also a Sunday. The reason they chose that day to present Nyaboron was because there were going to be a lot of people since it was the weekend.

And the reason why they were only going to present it for a single day was because they haven’t received permission from the school to participate.

“Well, it can’t be helped…”

They had the chance to receive permission from their school. After all, Nanami did secure a proposal slot with the student council of both the high school and the university. However, due to some circumstances, they lost their only chance and Sorata wasn’t able to give his proposal presentation.

Afterwards, Sorata bowed his head and begged for another chance, but they wouldn’t listen to him.

“I guess I really shouldn’t have said 「Shut up! Keep your mouth shut!」 to the president of the school council…”

As he was thinking these thoughts, Mashiro’s room door opened from the inside.

“Oops.”

Sorata quickly distanced himself from the door and turned around.

When Mashiro, wearing her school uniform, walked out of the room, she was holding a piece of thin cloth in both of her hands for some reason.

“What’s with those?”

“They’re panties.”

“I can tell!”

“Which one do you prefer, Sorata?”

The one in her right hand was pure white with lacings on it which made it appear to be neat yet sexy. The one in her left was pink that gave off a cute feeling, yet the shape of it made it appear to be erotic.

He’d already seen countless of Mashiro’s panties over the last few months, but Sorata had never seen those two before.

“So, what are the panties meant to be?”

“Battle panties.”

The atmosphere froze.

“…”

“…”

“What?”

“They’re battle panties, Sorata.”

It seemed like he wasn’t hearing things.

“Why are you showing your battle panties to me today!”

“Today is an important day.”

“What are you going to trying to do?!”

“…”

Mashiro glanced towards Sorata.

“D-Don’t tell me….”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Y-You’re going to confess or something?”

Sorata blushed at his own words and looked away from Mashiro. The scene at the airport a month ago replayed itself in his head just like how it was in his dream.

“Today’s the Nyaboron presentation day.”

However, Mashiro’s words were against his expectations.

“Huh? ... So, what was important was that?”

“Nyaboron is important.”

“Well, yeah, that’s true.”

“So, battle panties.”

“I get that we need to raise our spirits up for the presentation, but don’t speak so ambiguously! And you’re misunderstanding what battle panties are!”

“Panties that are worn on important days. That’s what battle panties are.”

“That’s enough…. So, where did you get those panties?”

They seemed to be brand new. It didn’t appear to be worn by anyone before.

“Rita gave them to me.”

Mashiro turned her head and looked at a small parcel in her room. Now that Sorata thought about it, a parcel came yesterday from Rita- Mashiro’s roommate back in England who stayed at Sakurasou about a month ago. The contents of the parcel must’ve been the battle panties.

To think that she would send something like that.

“Rita taught me.”

“… About the battle panties?”

“Yes, she told me to wear it on important days.”

“… I see.”

Although he didn’t know what exactly Rita was hoping for, but Mashiro probably wouldn’t be able to figure out the true purpose of battle panties with her level of understanding.

“Sorata, which do you prefer?”

Mashiro appeared to be indifferent as she shoved the two panties into Sorata’s face.

“But aren’t you already wearing panties though?”

“I’m not.”

“Why not?! You should’ve worn panties yesterday after showering! Did they disappear while you were sleeping? What kind of mystery is that!”

“They were taken off by my pyjamas.”

“You mean you took them off!”

“You could say that.”

“That’s the only way to say it!”

“So, which one?”

“H-How should I choose your battle panties! And why are you asking me to choose!”

“Because Sorata always chooses them for me.”

“You’re making me sound like a pervert!”

“I’ll wear the one that Sorata prefers.”

“What does my preference have to do with it!”

“It’s important.”

“Then will you show them to me when you put it on?”

“What will you do when you see it?”

“I’m going to get hyped up!”

“Sorata’s already hyped up.”

“Whose fault do you think this is, hah!”

“Someone who’s not me.”

“No, it’s your fault!”

As if she couldn’t understand what Sorata was saying, Mashiro tilted her head to a side.

“Anyways, just choose one yourself.”

Mashiro looked at the panties on the right for a while and turned her head to look at the other one in her left hand. Sorata expected her to choose one, but she simple threw both of them back into her room.

“I can’t be bothered, so it’s OK.”

“I thought you might do that! Pink! Just wear the pink one!”

Sorata walked into Mashiro’s room, picked up the pink one off the floor and handed it to Mashiro. He thought to himself ‘Is it really OK for a guy to give battle panties to a girl?’….

“If you liked the pink one, you should’ve said so from the start.”

“S-Shush!”

“Sorata, your face is red. Do you have a cold?”

As soon as she finished talking, she quickly touched Sorata’s forehead with her own.

At the sudden close contact, Sorata backed off hurriedly.

“Sorata, you’re hot.”

“It’s your fault!”

“Why?”

“Because, I-I’m! I’m a guy! And you’re a girl! S-Shiina, you’re too defenceless! What kinds of thoughts do you think will go through my head if you do something like that!”

He said more that what was necessary out of the excitement.

“What kinds?”

Mashiro asked blankly.

“Y-You don’t need to know!”

“Sorata, you’re weird.”

“… It’s understandable that anyone would go weird in a situation like this.”

Sorata whispered that to himself.

“Sorata is….”

“W-What?”

With his back turned on her, Sorata replied bluntly.

“Sorata is a guy.”

“…”

“I’m a girl?”

“I-Isn’t that obvious?”

“… Yeah.”

In the end, Sorata couldn’t see what expression Mashiro was wearing as she said that.

“Mashiro! We need to go to school!”

They heard Nanami’s voice from downstairs.

“Let’s go.”

“Y-Yeah.”

Part 02

After seeing Mashiro and Nanami off, Sorata head into the bathroom to wake himself up. He was able to wash off Misaki’s handprint easily with some water, but his tiredness wasn’t so easy to wash off.

When he was feeling slightly better, he returned to his room which was being used as the debugging room.

Sitting down next to Jin, Sorata watched the screen as the drama part was being created at great speed. The images were being stringed together to form flash animation and with the addition of slide movements, BGM and theme music, it was starting to have the real anime-like effects.

“Hey Sorata.”

“Yes?”

“Today’s the fifth day of the culture festival.”

“I guess so.”

“We couldn’t participate a single day of it.”

“I guess so.”

“Hey, did you know that there was a beauty contest yesterday? And this year, it was held at the pool and the outfits were obviously swimsuits.”

“I heard that a popular idol band done a live show at the gym on the opening day.”

“The acting club from the university apparently held some girlfriend lending café thing. They pretend to be your girlfriend when you walk in. Asami invited me to go and have a look.”

“The food venders from the shopping district were great as well from what I’ve heard. The Hashimoto Bakery showoffed their newest 「The Greatest Melon Bread」 as well.”

“I want to go around the festival while eating. Yakisoba, okonomiyaki, takoyaki and oden…. Apparently they have represented dishes from the individual districts.”

“A~~ah, I really wanted to go to the special seminar yesterday. I could’ve listened to the game creator Kazuki Fujisawa who’s an alumni of Suimei University of the Arts. …. The culture festival must’ve been really fun as well this year….”

“… Haa, too bad we don’t have anything to do with it.”

“That’s right. We need to finish Nyaboron…. But let’s stop talking about this, Jin-senpai. I’m about to cry!”

“OK, we’ll refrain ourselves from talking about the culture festival.”

Sorata and Jin continued to work on debugging the drama parts while talking about other things. They didn’t take their eyes off the screen even for a moment.

“So, did something happen between you and Mashiro?”

At the unexpected question, Sorata coughed like crazy. He had to regain his breath.

“Something’s not right between you two.”

“Shiina is always like that.”

“I’m talking about you.”

“R-Really?”

“Hm~mm, something’s not right.”

“Not right?”

“Uh huh.”

Even Ryuunosuke, who had been typing away at the keyboard wordlessly until now, piped in.

“To be precise, it feels like you’re desperately trying to hide your feelings about Mashiro.”

Jin was spot-on.

“If you can tell, then just leave me alone!”

“Can’t do that.”

“Why!”

“Don’t you think its fun to tease someone who’s worrying about these trivial matters?”

“Whoa~! Don’t analyse it like that!”

“And whenever I look at you, I really feel like doing something. So that’s why I’m calming that urge down by doing these things to you, got it?”

“T-Then don’t you feel shy around Misaki-senpai at all?”

“Being all shy whenever I looked at her face was a long time ago. There was even a period of time when I didn’t even talk to her. Must’ve been in my first year in middle school. I didn’t talk to her for nearly half a year, or at least, I didn’t try to talk to her first.”

Sorata expected Jin to avoid the question, but Jin answered more than he thought.

“And when I finally matured, Misaki was always by my side and the people around us noticed that. Since then, I just didn’t want to think of Misaki as a woman, sort of.”

“What does it feel like to be a childhood friend of hers?”

“I guess it’s a status that’s too distant because it’s too close…”

“That seems to be exaggerated.”

“It’s quite appropriate.”

Jin quietly laughed as if he was trying to hide his real thoughts.

“How should I know what I mean to Misaki. We’ve been together for this long. Misaki exists even in my longest memories. Even when I look at photo albums, no matter which page I turn to, there are always pictures of me and Misaki together… that’s who she is to me.”

“But she’s different to your family though.”

Jin did think of Misaki as someone of an opposite gender. The same could be said about Misaki as well.

“That’s why it’s so complicated.”

“We’re chatting a lot today.”

“Only because I think I might fall asleep if we don’t. Can I sleep?”

To wake himself up, Jin stood up and stretched his body.

“Of course you can’t. What are you saying.”

However, as soon as Sorata said that, Jin’s eyelids closed. After a second, Jin’s rhythmic breathing could be heard.

“Senpai, don’t sleep on your feet!”

Jin opened his eyes straight away.

“Hmm? Ah, sorry. Then I’ll take your offer and lay down to sleep.”

“What a positive way of thinking! But you can’t! If you lay on the bed, then you won’t be able to return!”

Jin showed no signs of listening and he lay down on the bed.

“I’ll leave the rest to you, Sorata.”

“No! We’re just getting started!”

“Not to worry, the fun part of the culture festival is the preparation, so I’ve already enjoyed the festival to the fullest. And Sorata, you were the one who told me not to sleep on my feet.”

“But I didn’t mean that you can sleep while laying down!”

“Hey, hey. Don’t be rude to your senior.”

“I’m at my limits since I’m tired as well. But we have no time.”

“Why don’t you use the same mentality to take down Mashiro?”

“I’ll say the same to you, senpai.”

“You’re letting me take down Mashiro?”

“I’m talking about Misaki-senpai!”

“How long do you plan to waste time with your girl talks.”

Ryuunosuke cut in again.

“But it’s the most important topic to us.”

With a cry, Jin lifted himself up.

“What about you, Ryuunosuke. How’s it going with Rita?”

“Please listen to me, senpai.”

“Hey, Sorata, I’m talking to Ryuunosuke now.”

“Akasaka made the Maid to reply to every single email that Rita sends. So the complaints end up with me!”

Rita’s emails were extremely formal, but when reading between the lines, the sentences emitted poisonous aurora. Sorata could imagine Rita typing heavily on the keyboards as she wrote the emails with a smile on her face…

“Tell her to be grateful that I’m not blacklisting her.”

“Why don’t you?”

“So that it doesn’t affect us with our productions. I’m being generous to her.”

As promised, Rita helped to develop the Nyaboron game. The illustrations for the drama parts that Sorata and Jin were looking over just now where drawn by Rita.

“Yeah, that’s very like you.”

“Hey, don’t you have anyone that you like, Ryuunosuke?”

“I don’t.”

“Then why don’t you just date Rita? It’s rare to meet a beauty like her. Her boobs are big as well.”

Sorata could agree with those points.

“I have no interest. I don’t like women.”

“I’ve wondered for a while, but do you have a reason to hate them, Akasaka?”

It probably wasn’t because he was vulnerable to women, and it was strange to hate women without a reason- enough to faint when one touches him at least.

“It’s got nothing to do with you, Kanda.”

“Is that so.”

“Then don’t you ever wish for a girlfriend?”

“I don’t.”

“Amazing. Sorata, you always wish for one, don’t you?”

“Well, as a healthy, male high school student, I do.”

“See, that’s what it means to be a normal male. Don’t you have any sexual urges, Ryuunosuke?”

“I can suppress it by eating tomatoes.”

“Tomatoes can’t do that much!”

“Enough of the chit-chat. It’s done.”

“What’s done….”

“Kanda, this is the last test play.”

“Okay, leave it to me!”

Translation Notes

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