"You don't have to hold on so tight, I won't run away."
In the hallway of the club building, Asakura spoke with a bit of helplessness to Chibaya Anon, who was death-gripping his arm.
"That won't do. Asakura said you hate troublesome things very much, and if I don't hold on tight, there's no telling when you might vanish."
Chibaya Anon immediately refused.
"But it's really uncomfortable like this, and it's hot..." Asakura muttered.
"It's not like Yuigahama-senpai and Yanami-senpai, so I'm really sorry." The pink-haired girl grumbled with a pout.
"Why bring them up?"
"Because it feels like it would be more comfortable to hold them since they're fleshy."
"No, I just simply feel this posture is a bit awkward, and besides, it's summer. It's bound to be hot being stuck so close. You don't need to be so self-deprecating; at least you haven't reached the level of a 'cleaver,' right?" Asakura comforted.
"I don't feel comforted at all. A cleaver or whatever... that's basically just being a boy, right?"
"Apologize to Yukinoshita and Mishiro Aya for me!"
"Setting aside the fact that Yukinoshita-senpai was inexplicably brought into this conversation, who is that latter one? Someone I don't know at all has suddenly appeared!"
"It's a cleaver."
"...I always feel like Asakura-kun will be stabbed one day because you can't understand a girl's heart."
"That won't happen."
"Oh? Does that mean Asakura-kun is very good at analyzing and conquering girls' hearts?"
"No, I'm saying I have [Scale], so it doesn't matter..." Asakura said proudly, puffing out his chest. "Whether it's a kitchen knife or a cleaver, they're all ineffective against me."
"Defense in a physical sense?! No, the point is the first half of the sentence—you don't understand a girl's heart!"
Chibaya Anon sighed: "Just why did I ever..." The girl began to mumble in a somewhat dejected tone that even Asakura, standing right there, couldn't hear clearly.
"Speaking of which, Anon, did you get a Holy Grail?"
Asakura asked curiously.
"I got one, the chocolate almond flavored one from the shooting gallery." Chibaya Anon nodded.
"Are you good at shooting? I remember the air rifles at that stall had a pretty large deviation." Asakura was somewhat surprised.
"As long as there are enough [Mirrors], one of the replicated bullets will eventually hit the target representing the Holy Grail. You should blame that stall for having so many cheap glass crafts as prizes!"
Asakura seemed to have asked about the girl's proud point. Chibaya Anon said with a face full of pride: "If it weren't for the sake of keeping the supernatural a secret, I could have swept up all the prizes with a single shot."
It seemed the girl had suffered quite a few losses at shooting stalls during shrine festivals since she was a child.
"I remember saying you shouldn't abuse mystical items, right?" Asakura narrowed his eyes.
"This doesn't really count as abuse, right?" The girl replied sheepishly. She stopped in her tracks and suddenly asked: "Asakura, have you eaten anything today?"
"I guess I have..." Asakura was just about to answer that he had eaten, but thinking back carefully, he realized he had been a bit dizzy with busyness today and hadn't really had a proper meal. He had just grabbed a CalorieMate for lunch and hadn't eaten anything for dinner yet. "Uh..."
"I knew it." The girl said crossly with her hands on her hips. Then she took out a piece of chocolate wrapped in foil, carefully peeled it open, and held it to Asakura's mouth: "Here, say 'ah'~"
"This piece of chocolate looks a bit strange in shape?"
"Because it's the remains of the Holy Grail."
"..."
Actually, Asakura was still within the range of the House-elf, so theoretically he could have the house elves prepare whatever he wanted to eat.
However, seeing the girl's somewhat expectant and nervous expression, as well as her hands that were trembling slightly despite her best efforts to hide her tension, Asakura ultimately said nothing and accepted the feeding from his junior.
Instantly, a lovely smile bloomed on the girl's face. She looked at her fingertip, which was stained with a bit of Asakura's saliva, and then asked nonchalantly: "Is it good?"
"Too sweet." Asakura's expression looked a bit puckered. "I'm not used to eating things this sweet. I feel like my insulin isn't doing so well."
"Honestly, a boy shouldn't say such selfish things!"
The two of them walked toward the playground while talking about such trivial things.
Unlike the playground's usual state, a simple bonfire stand had been set up in the center, and a magnificent bonfire was burning fiercely within it.
Although for safety reasons, all students were ordered not to approach at will and needed to maintain a relatively safe distance from the bonfire stand, one could tell from the excited expressions on the faces illuminated red by the firelight just how much this giant bonfire stand lifted the atmosphere of the entire event.
One could only say that the fondness for playing around a bonfire might be encoded into the underlying DNA of humanity.
"I didn't expect they could actually get permission from the school and the fire department. At first, we thought this segment would just be handled with some ambient lights." Asakura lamented.
"It seems the Student Council has been working hard too." Chibaya Anon, who had served as a student council president for a time in middle school, said softly. "I always used to think President Amakusa was just an entertainer who liked making dirty jokes."
"In a sense, that's not wrong." Asakura evaluated. "I heard that her initial motivation for wanting to do a good job with the school festival was to gain more speaking power in the school, and then shorten the length of the girls' skirts by about five centimeters."
"Wow, that bit of admiration I just felt vanished instantly..."
As Chibaya Anon spoke, her voice suddenly stopped, as if someone had pressed the pause button on a radio.
Asakura looked at her in confusion and found that the girl's gaze seemed to be drawn to something in the corner of the playground.
So he followed her gaze and saw a boy who seemed to be planning to take advantage of the heated atmosphere of the bonfire party to confess to a girl he liked.
"That guy... seems to be a classmate of mine? Is he called Maru Shoyo or Kobe Shoyo..." Asakura murmured.
"The readings of those two surnames are completely different..." Anon retorted.
"Ah, he was rejected by the other party."
"After all, it's quite reckless to rush into a confession just because you're pushed by the atmosphere."
"Is that so?" Asakura turned his head back with a beaming smile.
The warm light of the bonfire cast an orange glow on that face so familiar to the girl's heart. His right eye, which had not yet healed, seemed a bit more lively than usual at this moment, as if there was light dancing inside. His lips were slightly upturned, forming a curve that made the girl's heart flutter. Clearly, at first glance, he didn't have that "Whoa, handsome guy!" feeling, but the teenager's face was unexpectedly durable; it was the type that looked better the more you looked at it, the kind that was difficult for girls who had been hit in their "type zone" to resist.
At this moment, the girl once again confirmed the throbbing in her heart.
Sure enough, I have a heart of adoration for Asakura...