The room went quiet for three seconds.
Then Sato Kazuya's face collapsed completely.
He slowly lay back down on the bedding, facing the ceiling, motionless.
Tanaka Yuta poked him from the side.
"Hey, you okay?"
No response.
Tsushima Kagami also looked over at Sato Kazuya with a smile.
"Why's Sato so interested in romance talk today?"
Tsushima Kagami knew that Sato and Tanaka usually got along pretty well with Yamada Kenta.
Among them, Sato Kazuya was also a video-game junkie.
In class, too, every other word out of his mouth was about arcade machines, home consoles, and handhelds.
He'd never expected Sato to suddenly get so fired up about romance today.
By rights, in a boys' dorm at this hour, shouldn't the more popular topic be something raunchy?
At this point Tanaka Yuta spoke up from the side.
"It's because he's fallen for a girl lately."
"Who?"
"A girl from the class next door, what was her name again..."
Tanaka Yuta thought about it.
"I think it's... Ogawa? Ogawa Misaki?"
"And then?"
Yamada Kenta asked.
"And then..."
Tanaka Yuta's expression turned subtle.
He glanced at Sato Kazuya, lying on the bedding looking like he'd lost the will to live, who seemed to have no intention of stopping him.
So, grinning, he went on.
"And then it turns out that Ogawa Misaki seems to like girls..."
Yamada Kenta froze.
Tsushima Kagami froze too.
The room went quiet again.
Then all three of them looked at Sato Kazuya at the same time.
All three gazed at Sato Kazuya with sympathy.
"By the way, Sato, how do you even know?"
"Don't tell me you went and confessed straight to her?"
Yamada Kenta, beside him, asked.
"Last month I asked a classmate in her class that I'm on good terms with—I wanted to find out a bit about her hobbies."
"And that classmate just flat-out told me she likes girls."
"Afterward I asked several more people from her class too."
"Seems like everybody already knows."
"My condolences, Sato."
"Wouldn't spending the rest of your life with arcade machines be pretty nice too?"
"Look at me—aren't I living happily ever after with Comic Kairakuten right now?"
"Every month Xuanyaye-sensei swaps out a new waifu for me~"
With that, Yamada Kenta patted Sato Kazuya on the shoulder.
And flashed a rather adorable little smile.
"Isn't that pretty great too?"
At this point Tsushima Kagami and Tanaka Yuta both reached out and patted Sato Kazuya's shoulder as well.
"Sato-kun, you've got to be strong!"
The chirping of insects outside the window seemed especially clear at this moment.
Just then Tsushima Kagami suddenly spoke up again.
"Actually, it doesn't necessarily mean there's no chance."
All three looked at him at once.
"Really?"
"There's really still a chance?"
"Yukinoshita, please, teach me what to do!"
Hearing Tsushima Kagami suddenly say there might still be a chance, Sato Kazuya grabbed onto it like a drowning man clutching at a straw—he was practically ready to kowtow to him.
Tsushima Kagami leaned back against the bedding, staring at the ceiling, as if recalling something.
He thought back to his own university days.
Back then he'd known a few female classmates he was on decent terms with.
Maybe because of their families growing up, they tended to be more starved for affection.
So each one of them was practically born with a holy constitution for attracting scumbags.
They'd dated several boyfriends, all of them scumbags.
In the end, hearts thoroughly hurt and sealed away in cement, they decided to give up on love.
As it turned out, girls like this always had certain things in common.
Apart from all attracting scumbags.
They'd also always have a lesbian friend by their side.
And then the lesbian friend would seize the opening, gradually assimilating these wounded girls into lesbians themselves.
So Tsushima Kagami figured: since girls who started out with a normal sexual orientation could be assimilated.
Then it was equally possible that some lesbians could be pulled back over too.
The fact was, in real life he'd seen lesbians who got won over again by a boyfriend.
So in many cases it was actually an acquired psychological deficiency that caused it.
Mainly it came down to a lack of a sense of security.
Of course, the existence of bisexuals couldn't be ruled out either.
But girls who were truly born to like only women were really very few.
Thinking of this, Tsushima Kagami recounted these cases to the others as well.
He looked at Sato Kazuya.
"So the ones who are genuinely born into yuri are actually very, very few."
Sato Kazuya's breathing grew rapid.
"So I... I have hope?"
"Not necessarily."
Tsushima Kagami said.
Sato Kazuya's expression dimmed again.
Tsushima Kagami went on.
"If you really like her, then give it a try."
"Give it a try?"
Sato Kazuya was stunned.
"But... but what if I get rejected..."
"So what if you do?"
Tsushima Kagami looked at him.
"You don't even dare to pursue the girl you like head-on."
"And you still dare to say you like her!"
"Sato-kun, what a waste of all this talking I've done with you here!"
Sato Kazuya fell silent.
After a long while, he spoke.
"But I... I've got no money, no good looks—no decent 'modeling'—and no interesting soul either."
His voice was very small.
"Can someone like me really do it?"
Tsushima Kagami looked at him, looked for a long time.
"Do you know what all those things you just said are?"
Sato Kazuya shook his head.
"They're excuses."
Sato Kazuya was stunned.
"No money? You can work a part-time job."
"Besides, girls at this stage mostly aren't too materialistic."
"As long as you earn enough to split the bill when you eat together, that's plenty."
"Not good-looking? You can clean yourself up."
"As long as a guy stays clean and tidy, and tries to be a bit more cheerful and sunny, he won't come off too badly."
"You can't help the facial 'modeling' you were born with, so just work out more and build up your body's 'modeling'—that can attract girls all the same."
"Not interesting? You can read more books, watch more films, experience more."
"Oh, right—remember to read Dassai-ya-sensei's trilogy: The Setting Sun, No Longer Human, and Hear the Wind Sing."
"If you really do like her."
"Then starting right now, work hard to improve yourself and become someone worthy of her."
"That way, even if she still rejects you afterward."
"The self-improvement over this period is still solid and real."
"You yourself will actually have become a better person."
"Won't you?"
"Or could it be that even this much, Sato-kun, you can't manage?"
"Then you'd be better off not chasing girls at all."
"Pursuing girls and dating is in itself a very troublesome thing."
"Of all the sweet, sour, bitter, and spicy, the sour, bitter, and spicy will always outweigh the sweet."
"Without patience and perseverance, you might as well go on spending your whole life with your beloved arcade machines."
Beside them, Yamada Kenta and Tanaka Yuta both nodded along solemnly after hearing all this.
Sato Kazuya looked at him.
"But..."
"No buts."
Tsushima Kagami cut him off.
"Either improve yourself and strike head-on."
"Or give up on unrealistic fantasies."
Just those two options.
"You choose for yourself."
"I'm done talking to you."
"We've got to get up early tomorrow to visit Fushimi Inari Taisha."
"I need to sleep."
Having said this, Tsushima Kagami lay down and closed his eyes.
Yamada Kenta and Tanaka Yuta started chatting in low voices with the spaced-out Sato Kazuya.
Meanwhile, the eyes-closed Tsushima Kagami thought to himself that he'd never imagined a day would come when he'd encourage a classmate to chase after a yuri girl.
He just hoped Sato wouldn't get too badly crushed...
Still, getting him to work hard at bettering himself wasn't wrong.
Provided he could actually pull it off.
Tsushima Kagami, oh Tsushima Kagami.
Who'd have thought.
You're a naturally wicked yuri-breaker after all!
____
👻🔥Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: A Martial Arts Master Will Never Be Humiliated
🎯 100 Powerstones = +1 Bonus Chapter for everyone