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Chapter 77 – The Fickle Rose
After spending some quality time with the nice pony-tailed JK, I returned to the boys’ seat.
They gave me a dish called ‘meat rice’, a huge pile of meat with some rice. It wasn’t originally on the menu, they just invented the thing for me.
“What’s with this barbarous dish?”
The bowl was filled with so much meat to the point that I couldn’t even get a glimpse of the rice. They also put a lot of sauce in there for some reason.
“This is the proof of my feelings for you. Take it.”
Said Gento.
Your feelings? I see, you wanted me dead.
“…I-I’ll dig in…”
I started eating slowly. It was painful. I felt my tongue slowly going numb.
“Can I ask you something?”
Said Gento, ignoring my pained state.
“What kind of person is Hiwa?”
Ahh~
So he was the same kind of guy as Makoto and the others. The part of the crowd who were attracted and curious about our dear poisonous rose.
He shoulda known that Arina was a mutated human. She had this power to make a soundproof barrier near both of her eardrums. How did she do it? Who knows.
“She hates people. She enjoys humiliating people in public and is a devout believer of might makes right.”
There was a painful story behind the former, but the latter involved me heavily because I was her primary victim. I couldn’t even count on how many times she had stabbed and punched me. One time, I tried to hug her jokingly and she slapped me out of nowhere.
“If that’s the case, how did you?…”
“I had to go through all that for months. Nowadays, she’s beginning to open up a little. She can interact with the other girls normally now. Just look at her.”
I pointed my chin toward Arina’s direction. She was wiping Tsuru’s mouth with a napkin. If I were in Tsuru’s position, she woulda rip my lips off my mouth with a cutter before roasting it.
“See?”
“Yeah…”
“I’ll give you an advice, Gento. Don’t go after her, you’ll just end up hurting yourself.”
“I won’t. I’m just curious about your relationship with her. How did you get along with her?”
“I don’t think ‘get along’ is how you could describe our relationship…”
“She’s much more amicable now after she got involved with you. I’m sure of this because we used to be classmates.”
“That’s rough, buddy…”
“Back then, she would reject anyone, regardless of gender. She was a beautiful girl, but she was pretty much unapproachable, her existence was like Pandora’s box.”
“I understand what you’re talking about…”
I couldn’t finish the meat, so I gave my leftovers to Shinji. This wasn’t something that someone could finish by themselves. I was thinking of giving it to Makoto, but he was still flirting with Ruka, so I refrained myself. Seriously, he should be thankful to me.
“Sui, do you like her?”
“Huh? Of course not. Yeah, sure, she is pretty but I’m not going to hit on her or anything.”
“Then, why did you approach her?”
That would be a long story.
It all started because Akakusa-sensei told me to rehabilitate her.
Then it was discovered that she had Dual Personality Disorder and the one who asked for Akakusa-sensei was her alter ego. Things didn’t end at that, I found out that she was a victim of abuse and she lost her memories.
Only Arina’s mom, Akakusa-sensei, Kazawaguchi-senpai and I were the ones who knew about her condition. Tsuru noticed something about her when her personality switched, but she didn’t pay it much attention and probably had forgotten about it already.
Anyway, I had to find a way to avoid this topic.
At that moment, Ugin suddenly came to mind somehow. I racked my brain to find a way to get out of this conversation.
After a while, I found it.
“My sister is indebted to her. To repay her, I became her servant temporarily.”
“Servant?”
“Yes. Rather, I’m pretty much her sl*ve.”
Yikes, Arina heard me. She glared at me.
“Living as her sl*ve is hard… She’s abusing me every single day, I can’t even complain…”
“That sounds rough…”
After that, Arina called me over. Your average boys would wag their tails and come to her side, hoping that she would give them a passionate kiss on their cheeks. But sadly, I wasn’t your average boy. I immediately ran away to the bathroom.
I won’t fall for that pretty face. Going there would be the equivalent of jumping into the dragon’s lair.
*   *   *
After a while, the party was finally over.
Tsuru ended everything with her new year’s greetings and a cheer with everyone.
I had a good time. Yes, I was treated like a slave by a certain young lady midway through the party, but she looked like she was enjoying herself, so I didn’t mind it.
Everyone was free to go home after the party ended, except for me. Yesterday, Ugin was mad at me and to calm her down, I made a promise that I would buy her a souvenir. I brought it to myself, so I had no choice but to fulfill that promise.
After I said my goodbyes, I went to the commercial district alone.
Ugin loved food, so I decided to buy her some. I’ll probably buy her some cream puffs, that thing always could make her smile.
I went to a dessert shop and bought two cream puffs and a cafe au lait. But, just when I thought that everything was finally over, I bumped into Arina.
“Y-Yo.”
“What a coincidence. Are you following me?”
“Of course not! I’m here for my sister!”
“Is that so?”
Then, she suddenly burst out laughing. I thought she lost her mind but I noticed that the way she laughed was different than usual. I realized that something was up with her.
“So it’s you.”
“You noticed?”
She was the other Arina, the lovely one.
“Did you bump into Aki-senpai?”
“Nope. I asked Arina that I wanted to go out for a moment, that’s why I’m here.”
“Huh… I thought the trigger for your personality change is meeting old acquaintances… So you could just do it if you asked?”
“I don’t know. I just had a feeling that I could come out if I asked, so I did. Ah, of course I’m not asking her directly, I just conveyed my feelings to her, something like that.”
“…This is confusing…”
“To be fair, I don’t understand it myself either~”
I wonder how it feels to have another personality residing inside of you? I felt like it would be awkward. I mean, you couldn’t exactly hide things that you wanted to hide from your alter ego, no? Well, I didn’t have one, I was just assuming things so, who knows?
“Speaking of which, Arina, you are so pretty right now.”
“W-What?! What are you on about?”
“The gap between you two is amazing. Anyway, why are you out? Something on your mind?”
“Mm. I was looking for you, actually.”
“Me?”
“Mhm. I want to thank you for everything.”
She bent her waist and bowed.
“W-What are you doing? C’mon, raise your head, don’t bow to me like that! Only arthropods should bow to me.”
“Thank you for listening to my selfish request… Thank you for always supporting Arina. Back at the festival, I told you that I’ll be fine and you could stop but you still take care of me earnestly… Thank you very much, Sui-kun… I hope you can take care of me next year too!”
She smiled before bowing again.
“…You’re so kind… It’s the first time in a while that someone treated me like a human being.”
“Is that so? Arina told me to be more stern, but I can’t do that…”
“That sounds like something she would say, yeah.”
“I can’t change myself that easily, you know?”
“I figured.”
“Mhm!”
She took a few steps back, her hands were hidden behind her back.
“I hope that we’ll be in the same class next year!”
She went away after saying that.
I wished the same. Deep inside my heart, I wanted to be in the same class as her but, unlike her, I was unable to say it out loud.
“Both of us are such simpletons…”
*   *   *
When I got back home, the first thing I did was give Ugin her souvenir.
“Thanks~ What is this?”
“Some cream puffs and a drink.”
“Yay~”
“Enjoy.”
She seemed happy. She immediately went to the kotatsu and did her things there.
I went to my room, wore my pajamas and went back to the living room to warm my body in the kotatsu. When I got there, Ugin was still eating her cream puffs, all smiles.
At that moment, my phone rang. Arina messaged me.
[Forget everything.]
She sent me those two words. This should be from our lovely poisonous rose. She probably became embarrassed recalling what the other Arina had said and done.
“What are you grinning at? Disgusting.”
“Look at my face closely once again before saying that. We look similar, so your grinning face is probably similar to mine, you know?”
“Can I vomit now?”
[I won’t forget it], I replied to Arina.
Not long after, a reply came from her. [I see. Happy new year]
Seriously, I failed to understand what was going on in her head.