CH 76

Chapter 76 – Things That Never Happened

I was currently sandwiched between Shirona and Yuri as their autonomous meat-grilling machine. I would use the tongs to arrange the meat on the net, watch it closely so it wouldn’t be burned and flip it over when the time was right.

I was forced to do this because someone gotta pay for my tomato juice. Since I would do anything for tomato juice, I immediately agreed to do it. The only problem with this arrangement was that I had to sit next to Yuri.

Anyway, I always thought that girls would eat less meat. I always thought that Arina was the exception to the rule, but those girls had a surprisingly healthy appetite. Were all of them big eaters or was I wrong about girls’ true nature?

“You guys ate a lot, huh?…”

“Is that so? I didn’t eat much though?” said Yuri.

“Your stomach is just small, Sui.” said Shirona.

“No, no, my stomach is as big as the guy next door…”

Everyone moved their seats and chatted among themselves. The barrier called gender had long been broken. I thought that I would spend the rest of the party surrounded by high density testosterone while sipping my tomato juice but I was proven wrong.

“Ahh…”

Ah ah ah, I love you very much! I thought Yuri started singing the Doraemon opening and I felt a bit sympathy for her.

But sadly it wasn’t the case. This girl brought a piece of meat to my mouth and that ‘Ahh’ was said in a sweet voice. Yes, it was the legendary ‘feeding scene’ from anime, manga, or whatever fictions you’re usually jacking off to. It was a form of skinship between a man and a woman, normal people would see it as a reward. However, this kind of thing would only happen if there was a great amount of trust between the parties involved.

Let’s take a step back and think. Yuri was holding a piece of meat in her chopstick and offered it to me. This was where trust would come to play.

Should I lean over to take the meat from her?

Or will she feed it directly to my mouth?

If we didn’t trust each other and did both actions at the same time, the chopsticks would hit my front teeth and break them. The whole feeding scene would turn into an assault and we surely didn’t want that.

Of course, this kind of consideration wouldn’t happen between lovers. After all, lovers would understand what was going on in their partners’ minds. Maybe.

But Yuri and I weren’t lovers. In other words, there was a huge chance that things would go badly for me. Not only my teeth, there was a possibility that the chopsticks would pierce through my throat and kill me. I would also like to avoid that.

“Why are you ignoring me?” said Yuri, confused.

There was also another reason why this particular feeding scene was bad for me. Yuri previously ate with those chopsticks, which meant, the chopsticks were covered in her bodily fluids as they directly made contact with her mucous membrane. If I were to eat from those same chopsticks, this phenomenon called ‘indirect kiss’ would occur, a dangerous phenomenon that would only be allowed between lovers.

Of course Yuri didn’t see me that way, she was only trying to bait a reaction from me. After all, she didn’t have a speck of interest in me, I could tell because she didn’t act like a maiden-in-love, unlike the other two who were seated near me, Shirona and Ruka. Both of them had their hands clamped over their mouths while furiously blushing seeing her acts.

Wait, could it be…

Was Yuri testing me to see whether I liked her or not? If I got embarrassed, then it meant that I was conscious of her, but if I took it like a man, that meant I didn’t have any interest in her. Was it something like that?

If that was the case, there was only one answer to get out of this situation. Took it like a man. I snatched the meat from the chopsticks and indirectly kissed her. It was my first indirect kiss and it tasted like meat. Was this taste normal?

Ruka blushed at my action while Shirona yelped lightly. Tsuru laughed her a** off and Arina just stared at me dumbfoundedly while licking her ice cream.

Then, Yuri smirked and picked up another piece of meat.

I felt a shiver run down my spine.

You’re still going?!…

I thought my action was clear, I wasn’t interested in her! What was the point of this one? I give up, judge, please take me away from this place!

Was she really just making fun of me or was she just going through the motions? …Ah, right, she was Hiiragi Yuri, she was just messing with me.

While I was racking my brain, Ran poked my cheek with a spoonful of ice cream, trying to feed me. Wait a second, didn’t she use the same spoon to eat the ice cream? Did that mean I would kiss two girls indirectly at the same time if I take both?

Dear God, please forgive me.

I had a sinful pair of lips.

I had a sinful pair of eyeballs.

I was a bad person.

“…No, thank you. You guys should eat them on your own…”

I refused both of them.

I shoulda done this from the start. I mean, no matter what Yuri thought of me, my life would go on.

I guess I lost this psychological warfare.

“You looked like me when I was solving math problems.”

“Is that so? I’m calm though. I won’t be swayed by such simple acts.”

“Hmm~”

Yuri ate the meat that she had been holding.

W-Wait, that meat… Those chopsticks…

“Hm?”

“No, it’s nothing…”

“So you lied~ You were swayed after all~ Haha!”

“Hahaha! The giant is embarrassed! Look at your face, it’s so funny!!”

“Be quiet, peasant! At least try to not look like a fool!”

Tsuru was laughing hysterically to the point that everyone seemed troubled by it. Even Arina who sat next to her seemed troubled,

*   *   *

“By the way, it seems like everyone will take the liberal arts course, huh?”

Said Shirona.

“Well, I won’t.”

“I see. All the girls here will take liberal arts, you see…”

“I’ll take science, me and Gento both.”

“Honestly, that’s surprising. Isn’t the science course hard?”

“Not really, Shirona-san. Physics and chemistry are just many times better than anything the liberal arts course has to offer, at least for me.”

Who the hell invented classics and Chinese literature?

“The thing that annoys me the most is those two.”

I pointed at Arina and Tsuru.

“I was planning to ask those two if I got confused by something, who would have known that both of them would betray me like this. I’m hurt.”

“Stop acting like you have feelings.”

“Arina-kun, even a meat grinder like me has feelings, you know?”

Tsuru then raised her hand while yelling ‘Here, here!’. I replied, ‘Yes, Niwatori-kun!’

“Please stop flirting!”

“No one’s flirting!”

“Don’t rub it on our faces then!”

“What are you on about? Can’t you see that she’s bullying me?”

“In any case, I won’t give Arina to you that easily! I’ll curse your whole family if you lay your hands on her, Sui!”

“Over my dead body! I won’t let any harm come to my sister! I’ll fight to my last breath!”

“Woah, that actually sounds cool…”

“I told you that I’m aiming to be single for my whole life. I won’t let anyone enter my life and I won’t be close to anyone!”

“Lame.”

“So mean, I’m going to cry, you know?”

Arina stopped Tsuru from saying anything anymore and said, ‘He promised to donate his organs as fertilizers for the sake of all the farmers in this land, so go ahead and finish him off.’ Wait, when did I say that? I’ve never signed up for that. Did she fake my signature? I should sue her for that.

In the middle of that chaos, Shirona suddenly poked me and whispered, ‘Psst, Sui, can you tell me what’s going on between you and Arina-san?’

“W-What are you on about?”

I immediately rejected that. Yuri, who was sitting next to me, saw me panicking and took advantage of that situation.

“What is it, what is it? What are you guys whispering about?”

“Nothing! Don’t mind us and eat your meat! Meat is good for your growth, you know?”

“Don’t change the topic!”

“It’s really nothing! We’re just talking about an experiment! Have you ever wondered what would happen if two people with the same memory, body and experience wake up in separate buildings that have the exact same environment down to the molecular level? We’re talking about how to create a clone of ourselves that is identical to our real self in every single way possible to perform that experiment.”

“Okay, so why would Shirona even talk about that kind of thing with you?”

“Tsk tsk tsk. You said you’re a friend of hers, but you don’t know about this habit of Shirona? She tends to talk about nonsense like this, you know? I know about it because we’ve been friends since middle school!”

“I don’t have a habit like that!”

Shirona brutally cut me off.

“Anyway, don’t talk about such things here, okay, Shirona? There is a perfect place to have this kind of conversation, after all.”

“Eh, there is?”

“No.”

“Jeez, I just want to know about your love life…”

“I have no love life!”

Yikes, she said the word. Tsuru and Yuri immediately hounded me after hearing it.

“Love life? Your love life with Arina? C’mon tell me about it!”

“No, no! Why are you even mentioning Arina?!”

I desperately tried to defend myself. Arina’s eyes were as sharp as an apex predator. She seemed annoyed that Tsuru dragged her into this.

Tsuru then called out to Arina.

“Arina~ C’mon, tell me, tell me~”

“I can’t tell you anything even if I want to. I have nothing to do with that man whatsoever, nor do I want to have something to do with him. I mean, look at him, he looks like a giant praying mantis.”

So cruel.

“So she said, Sui. If you want to go out with her you have to beat me first, okay?”

“Ah, that sounds easy enough.”

“In test scores.”

“The hurdle became too high!”

Even Arina couldn’t beat her in that regard, let alone a lowly tomato addict like me.

I moved my seat again after that, now I shared a seat with three unfamiliar girls. It was the first time I’ve ever seen their face and I didn’t even know what class they came from. Maybe we saw each other at school once or twice but, even if we did, I simply couldn’t remember them. I felt like I went to a mixer.

“You are… Sakaki-kun, right? I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Said the girl with a ponytail.

“Huh? You know me?”

“Well, yeah. Aren’t you Arina’s boyfriend? The rumor went around for a while, so I heard a lot of things about you.”

“We are not dating! That’s a hoax! Seriously, everyone needs to do a fact check once in a while! I should report this to the student council…”

“Huh, you guys aren’t dating?”

“Yes, of course. I mean, think about it, no sane person would be able to get along with that girl. Yes, she looks pretty, but her insides are rotten.”

Arina held up her two middle fingers to me from a distance away.

“You get what I’m saying now? We aren’t together. Besides, I have a few screws loose, no reason to fall in love with someone like me.”

“Is that so? You’re tall and cool though, that’s enough of a reason, no?”

Those words struck me like lightning.

Cool? Me? No way… Ugin kept telling me that the only good thing about me was my height and her words were actually true?

This ponytailed girl was prettier than the other girls sitting around her. It was possible that she was only pretending to be nice and secretly mocking me in her mind, but that didn’t matter, I’ll play along with her for now.

“…By the way, what’s your name again?”

“Mugiyama Kaya from class 1.” (T/N: 麦山華彩, not sure about her name, may change later if the author gave a proper spelling for it)

Mugiyama Kaya from class 2-1. Distinguishable trait: ponytail. I’ll keep that in mind.

“I was Tsuru’s classmate back when we were freshmen, that’s why she invited me.”

“Good job, Tsuru-san… So you aren’t just a gluttonous bird, after all…” (T/N: The kanji to Tsuru’s name meant ‘crane’, that’s why he called her ‘bird’)

I’ve been surrounded by a lot of homo sapiens who loved to toy with me. Kaya-chan looked so radiant compared to them. Why couldn’t I meet her earlier? Before this, the only females who wouldn’t toy with me were my mom and Ugin but now, the Gods above had bestowed me with her presence. O Gods, your blessings came too late, but I thanketh thee.

“Kaya-san, are you in any club?”

“Yes, the cheerleaders.”

Dear Lord.

Cheerleader club? I heard about them, they were the top of the school caste in America. The Queen Bees. I should’ve joined the baseball club, that way she could’ve cheered on me and we could probably have a good relationship.

I always thought that the going-home club was the top among the school caste but her presence shook that belief a little.

I wonder how she looked like in her cheerleader outfit?

“Is that so? Too bad I’m in the going-home club. I can’t see you cheering on me…”

“I can do it for you if you want me to~”

Dear Lord.

Arina needed to learn from her.

Seriously, was I dreaming? How could someone as amiable as her exist in this world? I should tell Ugin about this.