Shikime Natsu watched as a visible flush crept across Himeno Yuki's delicate face — that expression which always read as cold thanks to her signature dead-fish eyes now betrayed her completely. Her gaze slid to one side, the corners of her mouth pulling down in a distinctly awkward grimace.
Connecting what he had just said to the girl's reaction right now, Shikime Natsu figured it out quickly enough.
He knew exactly what had made her flustered.
He had said he only needed to spend his time building good relationships with the people he cared about — which meant she had naturally assumed she might be counted among them.
Wow. One of life's great three illusions.
Though, in this case... it's not actually an illusion.
Recalling how he had gone out of his way to get her contact info and then proceeded to send her not a single message — not even one — to the point that Himeno Yuki had actually brought it up to his face, Shikime Natsu decided it was time to shift gears.
The corner of his mouth curved upward. Those pale gold eyes of his met Himeno Yuki's directly, and he said, in the most natural tone imaginable:
"By the way... you're one of the people I care about too, Himeno-san."
The impact of that line was, obviously, considerably greater than the vague earlier statement about "building good relationships with the people I care about."
Hearing Shikime Natsu say something so blunt — so straightforward it practically broke the rules of social propriety — Himeno Yuki felt the temperature of her face spike in an instant. That scorching heat spread all the way up to the tips of her ears.
She snapped her head up. Those dead-fish eyes of hers, for once, rippled with something — a flicker of genuine emotion — and she shot Shikime Natsu a glare that was equal parts embarrassed and furious.
"Ha?!"
"Wh — what kind of nonsense are you spouting?!"
Her comeback came out a jumbled mess, her voice deliberately low, but the frantic edge to it was impossible to hide.
"Saying things like that — things that wildly invite misunderstanding — is a really terrible habit, you know!"
"I strongly suggest Shiki-san cuts that out in the future!"
Seriously.
Could you be any more reckless?
How does someone just casually say "you're someone I care about" to a member of the opposite sex like it's nothing?
Is this what they call being a social butterfly? Is this the effortless composure that comes with sitting at the top of the class hierarchy?
Yet, for all that Himeno Yuki found Shikime Natsu's words careless — reckless, even — she noticed, with some unease, that she didn't actually dislike it.
Her gaze drifted upward, landing without permission on Shikime Natsu's face.
Himeno Yuki bit her lip.
...Was it this face? Was this face interfering with her ability to function properly?
If she couldn't see his face. If she didn't know who he was.
If some random person had said something that shameless to her...
She would have told them to get lost with the coldest expression she could manage, or simply turned and walked away — and then blocked and deleted them for good measure.
Or maybe...
Was it because Shikime Natsu had genuinely helped her escape the suffocating social nightmare that was Class B? Was that the reason she had even a fraction of tolerance left for him?
That had to be it.
Still...
Even if she didn't dislike it, the guy's personality was genuinely awful.
Saying something that misleading to a girl — that was reckless in the worst possible way.
Did people like him never stop to consider the feelings of others before opening their mouths?
Did they have any idea that a single throwaway line from someone like that could send a more sensitive person spiraling into all kinds of unnecessary hopes?
It was practically demonic. Toying with people's hearts like that.
Of course.
Himeno Yuki would absolutely never admit that she had started spiraling into all kinds of unnecessary thoughts herself, courtesy of that line.
Absolutely not.
She just felt... slightly warm in the cheeks. Probably because the weather was hot. Or maybe the oolong tea wasn't cold enough.
That was all.
Looking at Himeno Yuki — grumbling and complaining, yet showing not even the slightest urge to actually leave, the flush on her face stubbornly refusing to fade — Shikime Natsu confirmed what he already suspected.
Right. With someone like her — the prickly, just-a-little-bit-tsundere type — you had to be willing to go on the offensive.
That said...
Everything had its limits.
Too much of a good thing was still too much.
Push too hard, and she'd get embarrassed enough to turn into a cornered hedgehog, bristling and retreating entirely. That was the last thing he wanted.
Besides — this was only their second real private meeting. Her reaction tonight was already more than satisfactory.
He had a feeling he knew the two reasons she'd responded the way she had — and they happened to line up with what she herself had probably figured out: one was that the face helped, and two was that she owed him one.
Even so, he wasn't going to push further than this. Not tonight.
So Shikime Natsu smiled, and smoothly moved past the ambiguous topic he'd just opened — no lingering, no pressing the point.
"So then..."
He shifted to an easy, relaxed tone and looked over at her.
"What were you up to just now, Himeno-san?"
"Wandering the mall by yourself... just browsing?"
Seeing that he hadn't pushed further — that he was letting the previous topic drop entirely — Himeno Yuki felt the coiled tension in her nerves ease, just slightly. She let out a quiet, internal breath of relief.
Still...
His words — "you're someone I care about too" — were still echoing in her ears.
Which meant that even now, with the awkwardness hanging in the air, she couldn't very well just tell him to get out of her sight, or announce that she was leaving. That would make it look like she was flustered. Like it had gotten to her.
So she had no choice but to follow the conversation where it led.
She raised her head and looked at him, her tone recovering something of its usual coolness.
"And? Is there a problem with that?"
"I'm not exactly a key member of Class B."
"Taking a walk on the weekend... so what?"
"Of course there isn't."
Shikime Natsu nodded, his voice mild and unhurried.
"It's just that — at first, I would have assumed someone like you, Himeno-san, would prefer to stay in your dorm on a weekend."
"After all..."
He smiled, his meaning clear.
"Given your personality, you don't really strike me as the type who'd willingly venture out into a crowded mall on a weekend afternoon, do you?"
At that, Himeno Yuki let out a quiet, disgruntled sound and turned her head toward the nearby planter.
She had to admit — annoyingly — that this guy read people far too well.
"You're not wrong," she said, a touch reluctantly.
"I do spend most of my weekends in my dorm. Yes."
Of all the days to step outside, she had to pick the one day she'd immediately run into Shikime Natsu. She hadn't even gotten very far. Was this a coincidence or just rotten luck?
Shikime Natsu politely pretended not to notice the faint look of exasperation she cast his way, and kept his smile in place.
"Since you're already out, then — is there anywhere specific you wanted to go, Himeno-san?"
"If you don't mind the company... could you spare room for one more? I've got nothing going on anyway."
Looking at the shamelessly unapologetic expression on his face — the look of a man who had decided he was sticking around — Himeno Yuki opened her mouth to refuse.
The words died before they made it out.
She wasn't sure why.
Maybe it was the aftershock of that "I care about you" hit she'd taken earlier. Maybe it was the simple fact that there was no one else around right now, which meant the usual pressure was lighter than usual.
In the end, she just exhaled, accepting her fate with a tired sigh.
"I don't have a destination in mind."
"I'm just... walking around. That's it."
"Sometimes I'll stop in front of the cinema and look at the posters for a while. Or stand in front of a gift shop window and just... browse."
The words were barely out of her mouth before Himeno Yuki clapped her own hand over it.
A flash of mortification crossed her eyes.
Why did she just say all of that to him?
She had just willingly exposed the kind of bleak, socially barren lifestyle she lived day to day. To a person like him.
For someone who thrived at the top of the social ladder, that must sound completely incomprehensible. Maybe even laughable.
Watching the tiny storm of expressions play out on her face, Shikime Natsu couldn't quite suppress the smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth.
He ran a quiet internal comparison.
Himeno Yuki's haunts, huh. Actually pretty similar to Shiraishi Asuka's.
Shiraishi gravitated toward coffee shops and gift stores. Himeno Yuki, on the other hand, went to stare at cinema posters and peer into gift shop windows.
Looks like gift shops really were universally popular among a certain type of girl.
"Is that so."
"What a coincidence, then."
"Actually... I've been meaning to pick up a few things from the gift shop myself."
"I was just thinking it would be a bit dull going alone."
He looked at her and extended the invitation.
"What do you say?"
"Since you're just wandering anyway — want to check out the gift shop together?"
Himeno Yuki fixed him with a slow, skeptical dead-fish stare.
"Shiki-san..."
"Are you in primary school?"
"You need someone to come with you to buy a few things?"
"That's... a little pathetic, isn't it?"
Faced with her sharp tongue, Shikime Natsu remained entirely unbothered, smile fully intact.
"So."
"Would Himeno-san like to come along or not?"
Being looked at so directly, so unabashedly, made Himeno Yuki feel as though her jab had landed on a wall of cotton — all that effort, zero impact.
She was starting to run out of footing.
In the long, quiet staredown that followed, her resolve gradually, inevitably crumbled. She dropped her gaze first, ducking her head slightly to escape those eyes.
"...Fine."
She mumbled the word under her breath.
"It's not like I have anywhere else to be."
"But..."
She added quickly, clawing back a shred of dignity.
"Once you've bought your things, I'm going straight back to my dorm."
"Understood."
Shikime Natsu agreed without a second's hesitation.
The two made their way to the gift shop inside Keyaki Mall.
What greeted Himeno Yuki when they stepped inside was equal parts unexpected and delightful.
Outside of the staff, there wasn't a single other customer in the entire store.
A gift shop like this was normally swarming with girls — especially on a weekend afternoon.
Yet right now it was completely empty.
Strange as it was, for Himeno Yuki, it was practically a miracle.
She let out a quiet breath and felt her shoulders drop from where they'd been hovering near her ears.
Thank goodness.
If this place had been packed wall to wall — if anyone had seen her wandering around a shop with Shikime Natsu, the undisputed social king of Class A...
By tomorrow morning at the latest, the school forum would be absolutely on fire.
「SHOCKING: Secret Date Between Class A's Leader and Class B's Loner Girl?」
「An Unlikely Pairing That Defies All Explanation!」
Just imagining those headlines made her scalp crawl.
Being shoved into the center of the school's social gossip machine — the kind of life where everyone had an opinion about you — was the last thing she wanted. She was a background character by choice. She wanted it to stay that way.
Since there was no one around, Himeno Yuki allowed herself to relax a little, beginning to drift through the shop without any real purpose.
Shikime Natsu, meanwhile, walked directly to the stationery section.
He picked out a few blank bookmarks — clean designs, high-quality texture.
Himeno Yuki was pretending to look at something else, but her peripheral vision hadn't left him for a second.
When she saw what he'd chosen, a rare spark of curiosity made her speak up.
"Is that... a bookmark?"
"Buying blank ones... are you going to make them yourself, Shiki-san?"
"That's right."
Shikime Natsu nodded, his fingers running lightly over the texture of the bookmark.
"Something written by hand feels more meaningful than something printed, don't you think?"
He finished saying that — then turned his head toward Himeno Yuki and gave the blank bookmark in his hand a little wave.
"So..."
"Would you like one, Himeno-san?"
"If you want, I could make a custom one just for you."
"No."
Himeno Yuki's answer was instant. She even took a half-step back, her expression one of undisguised distaste.
"Absolutely not."
"Something like that just feels... heavy and bothersome."
"Besides, I don't exactly have books that need bookmarking."
Shikime Natsu had seen this coming. He wasn't fazed in the slightest.
He just smiled and dropped the bookmark into his basket.
"What a shame."
The two continued browsing through the stationery section.
And in the process, Shikime Natsu caught something.
A detail.
Himeno Yuki's gaze, for all that it looked disinterested, had a habit — every time she passed a particular shelf, it lingered just a fraction longer than anywhere else.
The shelf in question held a row of pens. Minimalist designs, cool muted color palettes.
For just a moment, something flickered in her eyes — the faintest, most fleeting trace of I want that.
But the flicker died almost as quickly as it appeared, buried under the mental equivalent of "eh, too much trouble" and "not worth spending points on."
She didn't reach out. She just looked for a beat longer than necessary, then made to walk away.
Shikime Natsu quietly looked away, giving no sign he'd noticed anything.
He walked over to the shelf.
And then, with a perfectly casual motion, he reached out and swept every single pen off the section of shelf that Himeno Yuki had been eyeing — every color, every style, every model — all of it, straight into his basket.
Clatter.
The sudden motion left Himeno Yuki blinking beside him.
"You..."
"Why did you buy that many pens?"
Shikime Natsu didn't explain. He just smiled.
"Stockpiling."
And then he walked straight to the register and paid without another word.
They stepped out of the gift shop.
The two of them stood in the slightly dim corridor outside.
Shikime Natsu stopped walking, turned around, and reached into the bag of pens he'd just purchased. He pulled out a handful.
Specifically — the ones Himeno Yuki's eyes had lingered on the longest.
"Here."
He held them out toward her.
"...?"
Himeno Yuki looked at the pens, then at Shikime Natsu. Her expression was one of complete bewilderment.
"What is this supposed to mean?"
"A thank-you gift. For keeping me company while I shopped," Shikime Natsu said with a smile.
"Pick whichever one you like. Or a few, if you want."
"Consider it compensation for 'monopolizing your precious wandering time.'"
"No."
Himeno Yuki frowned and refused once again.
"I only came because it was on the way."
"And I didn't help you with anything."
"You shouldn't accept something for nothing. Take them back."
Seeing her dig in with such determination, Shikime Natsu let out a resigned sigh.
"Since Himeno-san insists on being difficult..."
His smile faded. He looked at her with sudden, dead-serious eyes.
"Then I suppose I have no choice."
"If you won't accept one of these pens..."
"Then I'll take all those bookmarks I just bought, fill every single one of them with writing, and make them into 'custom special editions.'"
"And then..."
"I will personally walk to Class B's classroom door, and with your entire class watching, hand them directly to you."
"And announce, loudly: These are a gift for Himeno-san."
"So... what do you think?"
Hearing that threat — delivered in a voice so soft it felt like a devil whispering in her ear — Himeno Yuki's face changed completely.
Those dead-fish eyes went wide. Her pupils actually trembled.
If that actually happened...
If a figure like Shikime Natsu publicly delivered that kind of mortifyingly sentimental gift to her in front of everyone...
The resulting social death would be on a scale Himeno Yuki couldn't even begin to imagine. She'd be seriously considering a midnight transfer out of the school.
"You...!"
"You absolute..."
"Your personality is genuinely awful!"
"You're an actual demon! Don't you dare do that!"
She practically ground the words out through clenched teeth.
And then.
To prevent that nightmare future from coming to pass, she had no choice — swallowing the humiliation whole — but to extend her hand toward Shikime Natsu's offered selection.
She grabbed the one that caught her eye fastest and clutched it tightly in her fist.
"Fine! I'm taking it!"
"Happy now?!"
Looking at the girl's expression — incensed and indignant, yet completely out of options — Shikime Natsu nodded with great satisfaction.
"There we go."
"Now that you've accepted the gift, we're square."
Himeno Yuki carefully tucked the pen into her pocket, then looked up and shot him one last, complicated glare.
[Simple Pen (Himeno Yuki): While in use, will gradually and subtly improve the user's memory. Effect applies to Himeno Yuki only.]
"...Thank you."
"I'm leaving now!"
"I'm going back to my dorm!"
And with that, she turned on her heel and walked away at a brisk pace.
Shikime Natsu stood where he was, watching the girl's retreating back — a back that carried just a hint of someone making a strategic retreat — and quietly smiled to himself.
Then he glanced at the time on his phone.
Time to head back and start on dinner.
He returned to the boys' dormitory.
Shikime Natsu stepped into the kitchen and began preparing the evening meal with practiced ease.
While waiting for everything to cook, he took out his phone and sent messages — one each to Horikita Suzune, Sakayanagi Arisu, and Kushida Kikyou.
The content was simple: none of them needed to come over today, either.
Shikime Natsu thought to himself that he was being remarkably generous today — giving all three of them back-to-back days off from their maid duties, just like that.
Dinner finished, dishes cleared away.
Shikime Natsu walked into the bathroom.
It was almost ten o'clock now.
____
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