"Huh? Ai, why is your face so flushed? Are you running a fever?" Hiko suddenly noticed Ai's face was red.
"No, it's just too hot in here," Ai replied upon hearing Hiko's words.
"Just listening to a concert can make you feel hot?" Hiko found Ai's words strange and planned to touch her forehead to see if she really had a fever. "Let me see."
"Don't," Ai refused Hiko's idea of taking her temperature. "I know my own situation; I don't have a fever!"
"You just said you needed to take care of your body; it's hard to be convincing like this," Hiko worried about Ai's flushed face. If it had been from him teasing her earlier, he wouldn't have thought anything of it.
But he had been sleeping the whole time, so it was impossible for him to have teased Ai.
A mysteriously flushed face, could it be a high fever?
"If you don't cooperate nicely..."
The more Hiko thought about it, the more he felt Ai was likely sick, so he said in a firm tone, "Then I won't be polite!"
"I'm not sick!" Ai heard Hiko speak in such a forceful tone and felt he might pounce on her at any moment, so she stood up, maintained her guard, and backed away.
Not wanting him to know she was just blushing, she said, "Don't come any closer!"
The passersby who were leaving the venue just then heard Ai's words and all looked toward her location, staring at Hiko.
Some male passersby even saw how cute and beautiful Ai was, and if Hiko made even the slightest inappropriate move, they planned to step forward and subdue the young man.
Too young to be behaving badly?
Hiko felt that as Ai's words fell, the surrounding passersby's gazes all turned to him, and he even felt a chill.
Absolutely no physical contact with Ai, otherwise these guys will definitely come and hit me!
Hiko instantly understood his predicament, put on a weak and helpless act, raised his right hand in front of him, and said to Ai, "Ai, I won't take your temperature. Could you pull me up? I feel completely sore and weak right now; maybe this is the after-effect of catching up on sleep after staying up all night. Please~"
Ai also noticed at this point that her slip of the tongue had caused the passersby to become hostile toward Hiko.
She knew Hiko was faking it, but she couldn't refuse.
Otherwise, if others misunderstood that they didn't know each other and he got beaten, she would feel very guilty.
Ai could only offer her small hand for Hiko to hold.
'Annoying young couple!'
The onlookers, seeing this scene, cursed under their breath and then stopped paying attention to the two, leaving on their own.
Hiko felt the danger had passed and breathed a sigh of relief. Although he now had combat mastery, he was afraid the passersby would swarm him. As the saying goes, two fists are no match for four hands; there had been at least a dozen people watching them just now.
He held Ai's outstretched small hand with both of his. "Pull me up, please~"
Ai noticed the passersby had left and tried to pull her hand back, but found that Hiko, that scoundrel, was holding her hand with both of his, which made her attempt fail. "Don't push your luck! Baka! Let go!"
This time, she deliberately lowered her voice to avoid another incident of loudly causing a commotion among passersby.
"You pull me up then," Hiko leaned back limply in his chair, waiting for Ai to pull him up.
Seeing that Hiko still wouldn't let go, Ai said, "Don't you find yourself acting so coquettishly disgusting right now?"
"Not really," Hiko thought about it and felt this might be a bit much, so he said, "Isn't it just pulling me up? Why are you so reluctant? Huh?"
As Hiko spoke, he felt as if something had changed in his palm.
And while Hiko was surprised, Ai also pulled him up with force at that moment.
Bang!
Saito Hiko, whose body was already relaxed, was instantly pulled up by Ai, and then, due to kinetic energy, he knocked Ai to the ground.
"Ugh!"
"Ah!"
Both of them couldn't help but cry out in pain.
"Get off me! You're crushing me, it hurts so much!" Ai wailed from beneath Hiko.
Saito Hiko, before he could fully recover, heard Ai's words. Before he could feel more of the warm, soft, and fragrant sensation, Ai pushed him away.
"Baka! Baka! Baka! Hentai!..." Ai laboriously pushed the dazed Hiko away, muttering softly.
'Damn it! If I wasn't worried that scolding him too harshly would hurt our relationship, I would absolutely scold him to death. And not just use such simple words!'
Ai considered Hiko's feelings and didn't use more excessive words to scold him.
Hiko had only intended for Ai to pull him up, but he hadn't expected to be ambushed by her due to his distraction, leading to this incident. After standing up, he apologized to Ai, "Sorry, I didn't mean to. It was an accident."
'Didn't mean to? Accident? I think you did it on purpose!' Ai felt angry when she heard Hiko's words.
But because the incident happened due to her carelessness, she couldn't blame him.
'How annoying!'
Ai stood up without a word, gave Hiko a resentful look for a moment, then turned and left.
Hiko saw Ai's resentful little eyes and how she turned and left without saying a word to him, feeling that she must be angry.
'I even apologized to her, why does she seem even angrier?'
Hiko didn't stand still in a daze; as soon as he saw Ai turn, he immediately chased after her.
"Ai? Are we going to buy snacks now?" Hiko asked, walking beside Ai.
"No," Ai replied, sulking.
"If not, then where are you going now?" Hiko pressed.
"Home," Ai answered simply.
"It's still a bit early. How about we go buy some snacks or something?" Hiko couldn't quite understand the root of Ai's anger and tried to change her objective.
Ai considered her words and replied, "Now, it's not early."
She was cooling down.
Hiko heard Ai's third reply and felt that her anger wasn't actually that great, so he struck while the iron was hot and continued, "Didn't we agree earlier? After the performance, we'd go buy delicious food, and I'd pay. If we miss this opportunity, it won't count."
Hiko deliberately set his treat as a limited-time offer. He did this to make Ai realize that the opportunity was rare.
As soon as Ai heard this, she immediately became a little anxious. "You didn't say there was a time limit for treating me before, did you?"
'She took the bait!'
Hiko saw that Ai was no longer silently sulking and clearly realized that his plan had succeeded.
He thought for a moment and said thoughtfully, "..."