Looking at the girl before him — that eccentric, frequency-shifted beauty who always wrapped herself in one strange persona or another — now pressed hard against the rough wooden wall, her delicate face flooded with a shyness and panic she couldn't begin to conceal, Shikime Natsu felt the corner of his mouth curve upward of its own accord, tracing a line of quiet, unhurried pleasure.
He didn't step back to give her space. Instead, he tilted his head slightly downward, and in a tone laced with teasing mockery, spoke at his own unhurried pace.
"My, my. Officer Morishita really is quite pure, isn't she."
His voice rang especially clear in the stillness of the small cabin.
"You just said it yourself — that it was nothing more than a simple cheek kiss, a perfectly ordinary greeting by Western etiquette standards. If it really is that innocent a thing, then how on earth did Officer Morishita's face manage to go quite this red? You look exactly like a perfectly ripened little tomato."
At those words, a faint, involuntary mist rose in those amethyst-clear violet eyes of Morishita Ai's.
This guy — Shikime Natsu — was absolutely insufferable!
He had taken the very excuse she'd hastily ad-libbed to save face, and lobbed it right back at her, word for word!
The words were identical. The logic was identical. And yet the damage they did to her was multiplied several times over.
Because she knew — she knew perfectly well — that the two situations were fundamentally different.
When she had kissed Shikime Natsu's cheek just now, it had been entirely accidental: she'd been spacing out staring at his face, and her brain had simply seized up and misfired.
But when that infuriating boy had kissed her — that had been completely, unambiguously deliberate.
The practiced ease of his movements. The way he'd closed in with that suffocating, deliberate pressure. That large hand settling against the back of her head. Every single detail had announced, without a shred of ambiguity, that he had absolutely no good intentions whatsoever.
He'd wanted to see her embarrass herself. He'd wanted to watch her flounder around with no idea what to do.
And yet, right now, Morishita Ai couldn't manage a single word of rebuttal. She couldn't accuse him of anything — not out loud.
Because that ridiculous "Western cheek-kiss greeting" excuse was something she herself had invented and said first, in a desperate attempt to salvage her dignity.
If she acted like it mattered to her now, wouldn't that be as good as confessing? Wouldn't it indirectly prove that when she'd kissed him, she'd been harbouring some secret, decidedly impure motive?
The bitter, suffocating feeling of having dropped a rock on her own foot left Morishita Ai deeply, profoundly miserable.
But at the very least — verbally — there was absolutely no way she was going to admit to being rattled. Not this easily. Not to him.
She drew a slow breath, working hard to keep her voice as flat and unbothered as usual, and forced herself to press on.
"Suspect Shikime Natsu, please refrain from over-interpreting Officer Morishita's reaction. This is simply because you took it upon yourself to shut the cabin door just now without permission, cutting off air circulation in this already cramped space. It's just a little stuffy in here. That's all."
Morishita Ai tilted her still-flushed face upward slightly, doing her very best to project an air of supreme indifference.
"And besides — as I said — it was only a cheek kiss. As a mature, worldly officer who has seen and done it all, I personally am not remotely bothered the way you seem to be, Shikime Natsu. Not in the least. Perfectly calm. Not a ripple."
Watching her dig her heels in — trembling eyelashes and all, every inch of her screaming nerves, and yet stubbornly refusing to back down — Shikime Natsu couldn't help it. A low, quiet laugh escaped him.
A mischievous glint passed through those pale golden eyes of his.
"Oh? Is that so? Officer Morishita isn't bothered at all, you say."
The moment the words left his mouth, Shikime Natsu suddenly stepped forward again — half a step, his tall frame surging closer in an instant with an almost suffocating weight.
He tilted his head down and brought his face in close to Morishita Ai's again, angling deliberately toward the other cheek — the one that hadn't been "attacked" yet — as if about to lean in and kiss it.
That sudden, unexpected movement wiped Morishita Ai's mind completely blank.
"Eek!"
A tiny, strangled sound escaped her. Her body reacted on pure instinct — she lurched sharply to the side, stumbling out of the way of Shikime Natsu's advance in a thoroughly ungraceful scramble.
She'd moved so abruptly that her shoulder slammed hard into the wooden wall again.
Watching the girl skitter sideways like a startled bird, Shikime Natsu pulled back and laughed softly.
He turned his head and looked at Morishita Ai — poised like she was bracing for an imminent threat — his voice saturated with amusement.
"Didn't Officer Morishita just swear up and down that she wasn't bothered in the least? If she's not bothered, then why did she just dodge?"
Caught red-handed, Morishita Ai felt the heat surge back into her face all over again, completely beyond her control.
She snapped her expression back into something rigid and composed, forcibly locking herself into character — iron-faced, impartial, unyielding — and fixed Shikime Natsu with an extremely severe look as she spoke in a tone of utter seriousness.
"Shikime Natsu, let me make something very clear. If it happens once, then from a standpoint of etiquette, it can — barely — be called a cheek kiss. However, if the same physical contact occurs twice or more without the other party's explicit consent, then by Officer Morishita's official standards of judgment, that constitutes blatant sexual harassment!"
Watching her deliver that with a perfectly straight face, Shikime Natsu laughed again.
He spread his hands wide, arranging his features into an expression of absolute, wide-eyed innocence, and drawled leisurely,
"My, how unreasonable. I had no idea such a strange rule even existed."
Morishita Ai furrowed her brow and pressed on.
"Then Suspect Shikime Natsu should now be perfectly aware. Please cease your dangerous conduct immediately."
Shikime Natsu stroked his chin, putting on the expression of a man who had just been enlightened.
"Ah, I see. Duly noted."
Morishita Ai gave a firm, emphatic nod.
"Obviously. It's common sense."
Watching her hide behind rules in a desperate attempt to paper over the chaos in her heart, the amusement in Shikime Natsu's eyes gradually settled into something quieter.
He looked at Morishita Ai with unhurried interest.
"But... even though Officer Morishita is calling it sexual harassment, I couldn't help noticing earlier the way Officer Morishita kissed me first..."
He paused deliberately, then asked, word by deliberate word:
"Officer Morishita — do you like me?"
The moment those blunt, impossibly direct words reached her, every thought in Morishita Ai's head simply ceased to function.
In those violet eyes, an unstoppable mist welled up — thicker than before, denser, threatening at any moment to spill over.
That little face, already flushed, burned so deeply now it looked like it might bleed, strikingly vivid even in the dark of the cabin.
Morishita Ai felt her heart about to hammer its way out of her chest.
She'd been seen through.
Completely, entirely, utterly seen through by this infuriating boy.
But years of practiced pretense — and the last surviving shred of pride belonging to an eccentric, frequency-shifted girl — triggered the most primal defensive response she had.
Morishita Ai yanked her burning face downward and fired back at Shikime Natsu in a voice that was stiff and just a little sharp.
"I would ask the suspect not to be delusional at a time like this! Don't be so full of yourself. And stop being so narcissistic."
In her desperation to sound convincing, she threw whatever words she could find at him.
"I'll have you know, Shikime Natsu — the idea of adding the noble Officer Morishita Ai to that ridiculous so-called harem of yours is an absolute impossibility!"
She jabbed a finger out into the darkness as she spoke, pointing at nothing in particular.
"Right now, your score in Morishita Ai's internal rating system has crashed to an all-time historic low. Your current value is extremely low — extremely — just like..."
Her gaze swept through the dim room, and landed on an object in the corner.
"Just like that wooden chair sitting in the corner of this cabin! Completely without appeal!"
As she said it, she pointed emphatically at the lone, forlorn chair, using the comparison in a frantic attempt to bury the feelings that were threatening to overflow from somewhere deep inside her.
Faced with that torrent of words, Shikime Natsu showed no sign of anger whatsoever.
He didn't react to her attempt to draw a hard line between them. He simply kept looking at Morishita Ai, the faint smile still resting at the corner of his mouth.
He said quietly,
"Morishita-san — do you really believe that?"
With those words, Shikime Natsu moved again.
His tall frame, carrying that indescribable weight and presence, stepped half a step closer to Morishita Ai once more.
Watching him close in again, every alarm bell in Morishita Ai's mind went off at once.
She hurriedly threw up the most textbook-perfect defensive stance she could manage, crossing both arms tightly over her chest.
She tilted her chin up slightly and answered him in a tone of forced, iron resolve.
"Th-that's — obviously! Officer Morishita's judgment is never wrong!"
What happened next was entirely unexpected.
This time, Shikime Natsu did not press forward the way he had before.
Upon hearing her answer, he stopped.
Not only that — he actually took a deliberate step back, putting distance between them in an instant.
Shikime Natsu spread his hands in a gesture of resigned acceptance.
"All right."
"Since Morishita-san has said as much, then I'll respect your wishes. From here on out, I won't harbour any thoughts toward Morishita-san that cross a line. I won't do anything that makes you uncomfortable again."
Morishita Ai went completely still.
She stared at Shikime Natsu where he stood, just a short distance away, searching his face desperately for any trace of a joke — any hint of that familiar, wicked teasing she'd come to expect from him.
There was none.
Nothing at all.
Shikime Natsu's expression was perfectly calm — genuinely, completely settled — as though he had truly let everything go, with not a single note of performance in it.
In that instant, Morishita Ai felt something clench around her heart without warning, like an invisible fist squeezing tight and refusing to let go.
Somehow... she felt strangely, inexplicably panicked.
That feeling — one she had never felt before — crashed over her like a wave and swallowed her whole.
Hearing those words from Shikime Natsu — words that sounded like a door being shut, a boundary drawn in permanent ink — Morishita Ai found that even breathing had become difficult. A deeply unpleasant, thoroughly sour ache spread through her chest.
Why?
He'd just kissed her with such confident, deliberate intent. He'd just asked her if she liked him. So why — just because she'd stubbornly refused with a few hard words — had he given up this easily, with such casual indifference?
Crushing disappointment and blind panic tangled together inside her. And yet that wretched pride of hers still refused to stand down.
She bit hard on her lower lip, forced herself to look at Shikime Natsu with a steadiness she didn't feel, and tried to bluff her way back into control through provocation.
"S-so... is Shikime Natsu really this lacking in perseverance?"
Her voice trembled faintly, but she fought to hold on to that imperious posture she always wore like armour.
"The moment you hit a little resistance, the moment you face a little rejection, you just give up that easily — if that's the kind of spineless attitude you carry around with you, Shikime Natsu, then Morishita Ai thinks there's really no way you'll ever successfully run that so-called harem of yours."
Hearing the transparent bravado behind that taunt, Shikime Natsu only smiled faintly.
"I'm not someone who gives up easily, Morishita-san. It's just..."
He paused, and met her eyes directly.
"Morishita-san, didn't you just say it yourself — that no matter how hard I tried, there would be no way for me to win you over, no way to bring you into my harem? Since you've already given me such a definitive answer, wouldn't continuing to push just make me the real harasser here?"
His voice drifted through the dim cabin, and every word landed like a blade slipping precisely through a gap in armour.
"I'm not the type to pin all my hopes on one person who doesn't want me there."
He continued, his tone carrying a kind of ruthless, unsparing honesty.
"If Morishita-san is really so unwilling, then of course I won't force anything. After all, I'm not so unreasonable as to coerce a girl who has absolutely no feelings for me — who values me about as much as a broken old chair — into being part of my life."
Those words hit Morishita Ai like a physical blow. She faltered.
Those violet eyes in the dark swept frantically over Shikime Natsu's face — tracing his brow, his nose, the firm set of his lips — back and forth, searching desperately.
She was looking for even the faintest trace of teasing. Any crack in his expression that might reveal he was playing a long game — that this was all just a calculated act of playing hard to get.
But there was nothing.
He was serious.
Shikime Natsu... was actually serious.
Was it possible...?
Had she actually — with those stubborn, face-saving words she'd thrown out in that moment of weakness — completely played herself?
If it was really true...
If from this moment on, Shikime Natsu truly crossed her off whatever special list he kept — treated her like any other ordinary classmate, never again aimed that wicked smile at her, never again dragged her into some strange, ridiculous roleplay, never again pressed a kiss to her cheek...
If it really came to that, Morishita Ai thought she might genuinely die of regret.
A wild, ferocious panic tore at something deep inside her.
All this time, she had thought of herself as the detached observer — perched high above the whirlpool of Shikime Natsu's romantic entanglements, yet still entitled to the special treatment that came with proximity to the eye of the storm.
She had assumed that no matter how stubbornly she refused, no matter how many times she pushed back, he would do what he always did — patiently, methodically, with that masterful composure of his, dismantle her defenses one layer at a time.
She had been wrong.
No. No, no, no.
Deep inside, Morishita Ai screamed at herself without a sound.
Wait — it hadn't gone that far yet!
She hadn't left yet. That cabin door was still closed. She still had time to fix this!
Those small hands that had been crossed tightly over her chest slowly, slightly relaxed — her fingers tangling restlessly together instead.
The crimson that had stained her face with shyness and indignation had drained away completely. In its place was a pallor born of pure, cold panic.
She drew a slow, deep breath. Her voice trembled.
"Shikime Natsu... did you mean what you just said?"
"Of course I did."
He added one more sentence after that — a final line that shattered the last illusion Morishita Ai had been clinging to.
The moment she heard it, Morishita Ai's pupils contracted sharply, and something inside her chest convulsed with a violence she couldn't suppress.
That feeling was terrible. Absolutely, devastatingly terrible.
In those amethyst eyes, a faint mist rose again — appearing, as ever, as though from nowhere.
Only — unlike the misty shimmer brought on before by shyness and the shock of being kissed, that previous haze that had carried embarrassment and indignation with it...
This time, the mist rising in the dark held something else entirely.
It carried a trace of genuine sorrow.
This couldn't happen.
Absolutely, categorically, this could not happen.
Morishita Ai told herself so, with all the force she could muster, deep in the private chambers of her heart.
Morishita Ai — you are a noble observer. How could you let yourself get unceremoniously knocked out of the running over something as ridiculous as your own stubborn mouth? How could you sink to being some pitiful, tail-between-her-legs loser?
Watching other people fall in love was one thing. But when she could feel this particular feeling actually slipping through her fingers — that heart-wrenching, chest-tearing sensation — was something she absolutely could not endure.
This could not be allowed to happen.
Morishita Ai's gaze fixed on Shikime Natsu.
Her mind was running at full speed.
Shikime Natsu had made it clear just now — he respected her wishes, and he wouldn't make any more moves.
Which meant: if she really did have feelings for Shikime Natsu, and if she truly didn't want to lose him, then there was only one option left.
She would have to be the one to move first.
Reach out and grab him.
With that thought burning in her chest, Morishita Ai took a long, deep breath, and something in her eyes turned absolutely, unmistakably resolute.
The next second.
Without a moment's hesitation, she stepped forward — one decisive stride.
That small frame of hers unleashed a burst of force that even she didn't know she had, and like a missile, she launched herself directly at Shikime Natsu.
She threw her arms out and clamped them tight around his waist.
And she didn't stop there — she rode the momentum of the tackle and threw her weight forward, bearing into him with her whole body, fully intending to knock this man flat onto the floor.
In the limited catalogue of Morishita Ai's romantic knowledge — cobbled together from light novels and sparse hearsay — in situations like this, if a girl threw herself at the hero hard enough, he would always tumble obligingly to the ground, and the two of them would end up in a deliciously ambiguous tangle that cleared up every misunderstanding between them.
She'd been fully expecting Shikime Natsu to go down under the impact, sprawling across the cabin floor.
She had, however, drastically underestimated just how solid Shikime Natsu actually was.
Instead, accompanied by a dull, fleshy thud — Morishita Ai felt, unmistakably, as though she had just run face-first into an indestructible brick wall made of muscle.
Shikime Natsu didn't budge. His legs stayed planted. His entire body was like a load-bearing pillar that someone had reinforced with concrete — completely, utterly immovable.
Even though the girl had thrown every last ounce of strength she possessed at him — even drawing on reserves she didn't know she had — she could not knock Shikime Natsu over by even a single millimetre.
She clung tight to his waist, her cheek pressed against the warmth of his chest, listening to the strong, steady beat of his heart coming through from inside.
That scent that was uniquely Shikime Natsu's wrapped itself around her completely in an instant.
Morishita Ai tilted her head back. The little face that had gone pale with panic had flooded crimson all over again.
She looked up at him, cheeks burning, her voice carrying just a hint of petulant frustration and embarrassed indignation.
"You... I can't believe how impossibly stubborn you are, Shikime Natsu, you criminal! You're exactly like some immovable pillar that refuses to cooperate — not even a little!"
In that moment, Shikime Natsu, caught entirely off guard by the girl's sudden, wholehearted leap into his arms, went still for just a beat.
He looked down. In those pale golden eyes of his, the reflection of her face stared back — crimson-red, caught between indignation and shyness, refusing to give an inch.
He had just been about to say something — but in the instant he looked down at Morishita Ai, something shifted in those violet eyes of hers.
A flash of light.
She rose suddenly onto her tiptoes, both hands seizing the front of Shikime Natsu's shirt in a tight, white-knuckled grip, using that upward pull to haul herself the remaining distance.
And then, with Shikime Natsu completely off guard — her soft, faintly cool lips pressed against his.
"Mm—!"
The instant their lips met.
Shikime Natsu's eyes went slightly, involuntarily wide.
He hadn't expected any of this. Just a moment ago, he'd simply thought she was being too impossibly stubborn, and had decided to play a mildly wicked little game of playing hard to get — just to tease her.
He never could have imagined that one small joke would cause Morishita Ai to become this bold — to do something like this.
This was the first kiss Morishita Ai had ever given to anyone.
That softness. That warmth. That lethally, dangerously magnetic sensation, spreading outward from her lips and flooding through every inch of her.
Her heart slammed furiously inside her chest.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The thundering of her own heartbeat drowned out every last coherent thought she had.
Her lashes trembled violently.
Her eyes stayed screwed shut — she didn't dare look at Shikime Natsu's face.
That vivid flush burned down from her cheeks to her neck, and even the pale curve of her collarbone had taken on a soft, rosy glow.
____
👻🔥Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Uchiha Reborn in Jujutsu Kaisen: The System Thinks I'm in Konoha, but I'm Not
🎯 100 Powerstones = +1 Bonus Chapter for everyone