Seeing the look of realization on Imaizumi Keita's face, her eyes uncontrollably welled up with stinging tears.
Looking at the man before her, she finally gave up her resistance and pleaded in a small voice:
"P-please... Imaizumi-san... p-please don't... tell anyone... about this..."
"I-I'll do anything..."
Seeing her pitiful state as if she were about to cry, Imaizumi Keita sighed helplessly in his heart.
Am I really that much of a bad guy...
Besides, eating lunch in a restroom...
That's just too pitiful.
Thinking this, he didn't say anything particularly sweet to comfort her, but spoke to Komari honestly: "I say, Komari."
"...Yes."
"That's a bit too pitiful."
Imaizumi Keita looked at her face, which was full of "I'm sorry, I'm just this useless," and finally couldn't bear to continue bullying her with words.
He reached out, pulled the bothersome kraft paper bag from her arms, and then gestured with his chin towards the courtyard.
"Forget it. I know a place where no one goes. Want to come along?"
...
Ten minutes later, on a bench in the corner of the courtyard.
Komari Chika sat uneasily at one end of the bench, maintaining a distant space from Imaizumi at the other end.
From the kraft paper bag, she took out a cream bread roll—'the kind sold cheaply in packs of six at convenience stores'.
She ate large mouthfuls, her gaze fixed on her knees, not daring to look at the man beside her.
Imaizumi glanced at Komari Chika, and seeing how she ate, he made a judgment about Komari's financial situation.
In the air, only the rustling of leaves in the breeze and their faint chewing sounds remained.
After a while, Komari Chika spoke up proactively.
"Th-that... Imaizumi-kun."
"Hmm?"
"Yesterday... you, you were... d-dumped by Yanami-san... r-right? S-serves you right."
Imaizumi Keita swallowed the bread in his mouth, turned his head, and glanced at her.
"Of course not, she just said she needed some time to calm down."
"S-still stubborn."
Komari Chika took another big bite of the cream bread roll, her brows furrowing inadvertently, then continued to speak to Imaizumi.
"And, Imaizumi, you want to be happy alone, that's too, too presumptuous."
"Senior Tamaki and Senior Tsukinoki are already happy, aren't they..."
"Th-they, they're not, not the same..."
"Because you got dumped because of them."
"S-stop it!"
Imaizumi Keita watched Komari Chika's agitated reaction with schadenfreude, then warned Komari.
"However, if you keep gloating like that, Komari, I'll kick you out of this courtyard."
"S-sorry!"
Komari Chika immediately bowed her head in apology and quickly spoke.
"Th-that... thank you... Imaizumi-kun. For letting me... use this place."
"Mm."
Imaizumi Keita nodded, accepting her thanks.
His gaze once again fell on Komari Chika's lunch, then on the kraft paper bag.
She had finished the first cream bread roll and was taking out a second one from the bag, still a cream bread roll.
Besides that, there wasn't even a bottle of water or a drink.
This really...
A familiar urge, named "feeding," once again surfaced from the bottom of Imaizumi Keita's heart.
He unscrewed his unopened bottle of barley tea and pushed it, along with a piece of fried chicken cutlet from his bento that he hadn't gotten around to eating, towards Komari Chika.
"Doesn't eating only that kind of thing make you feel choked?"
His voice was still calm, showing no emotion.
"Here, this is for you."
-------------------------
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