Staff A: "Ah~ isn’t that Shirakawa over there... he seems to have quite the stamina, not getting crushed under a girl’s weight in such a situation."
Staff B: "Hey... can we not apply the breakup situation of those couple to everyone? Generally, a guy should be able to carry a girl, right! Those ones from earlier don’t even belong in the category of girls anymore! They’re heavy artillery!"
Staff C: "Yeah, those male students were already pretty pitiful! And they still had to face a breakup, it’s too much!"
Staff A: "You guys, seriously! Being held like that by a boyfriend is many girls’ dream, you know."
Please try having both the looks and the weight level of the girl next to Shirakawa before you say such things! If it’s a girl like that, I wouldn’t mind carrying two!
Shirakawa Sawahei walked outside and Ise Yu Yuzhijin, upon hearing voices, timidly looked around before jumping off him.
"I was scared to death, I thought my life was over."
"It’s just a cultural festival, not a murder scene..." Shirakawa Sawahei said speechlessly, "Are you really that timid?"
"No! It’s just that today... is a bit special!" Cute little Ise Yu argued, "I’m actually pretty brave usually."
Shirakawa Sawahei obviously didn’t believe her words.
"So, what’s next? Are you planning to meet up with your friends?" Shirakawa Sawahei checked the time. There was still some time before the competition started, which could be used to freely explore the cultural festival.
But he wasn’t really interested in wandering around aimlessly.
"I made plans to hang out with Miss Kaori and the others... Shirakawa, do you want to come along too?"
"Giving you another chance to jump on me and strangle me to death?" Shirakawa Sawahei mercilessly teased.
Ise Yu Yuzhijin’s little face blushed: "That was an accident... Other cultural festival booths won’t have such situations, okay!"
"Forget it, you go have fun with Tachibana and the others." Shirakawa Sawahei waved off Ise Yu Yuzhijin’s suggestion.
At the moment, he wasn’t interested in exploring the cultural festival; what mattered more to him now was finding his first study partner, Hayakawa Kashi.
Even though this cultural festival competition wasn’t organized by him, he always felt that the student council president, Mita Takuma, wasn’t quite giving up yet. If that guy recklessly planned to confess again, Shirakawa Sawahei couldn’t guarantee his system wouldn’t malfunction and make him intercept with five different confessions to Hayakawa Kashi.
His current relationship with Hayakawa Kashi could barely be considered acquaintances...
No, calling them friends was too soon; maybe just familiar acquaintances.
Since they were already quite familiar, it was naturally impossible for Shirakawa Sawahei to rudely reject her. At least, he should explain things first.
Otherwise, when rose petals fell once again, he would be in a bind whether to confess or not.
After parting ways with Ise Yu Yuzhijin, Shirakawa Sawahei went to Hayakawa Kashi’s class to look for her, but found she wasn’t there at all.
People in the class also seemed unclear about where Hayakawa Kashi had gone.
Hesitant at the news, he turned and walked up to the rooftop.
Sure enough, there stood Hayakawa Kashi, overlooking the campus. The wind tousled her long hair along with her skirt, giving her a kind of inexplicably chilly aura from afar.
Or put more plainly, she looked just plain pretentious.
"I knew you’d be here."
Shirakawa Sawahei couldn’t help but marvel at the type of person Hayakawa Kashi was, a woman who’s either being pretentious or on her way to being pretentious.
Had he not been the overconfident type himself, he might not even have had the chance to speak to her this way.
"Was Shirakawa looking for me?" Hayakawa Kashi gently tucked the stray hair blown loose, asking lightly.
"Yeah, I wanted to discuss something with you privately."
Hayakawa Kashi chuckled lightly: "Is it again one of those things that suddenly become unimportant?"
Shirakawa Sawahei felt awkward upon hearing that. It seemed that Miss Hayakawa still bore a grudge from his first meeting with Yuri Hime and Azusa Ishihara. However, he indeed was at fault and didn’t argue.
"It’s not a small matter... it pertains to you."
"Hayakawa and I are now, at least, familiar acquaintances, right..."
"Just acquaintances?" Hayakawa Kashi raised her pretty eyebrows.
"...Then... perhaps, friends?"
Miss Hayakawa turned her head away, leaving Shirakawa Sawahei with an alluring side profile: "Shirakawa doesn’t seem willingly happy about this... well, acquaintances then."
Shirakawa Sawahei: "..."
"Anyway, we’re already acquainted... There might have been some misunderstandings between us before, so I wanted to take the chance to explain to you."
"Shirakawa wishes to explain that those previous dramatic gestures leading up to a seeming confession, which then resulted in nothing, giving the impression that I’m unwanted... all those instances actually portrayed Shirakawa as the victim?"
Seeing his first study partner’s tone bearing an offended hint, Shirakawa Sawahei explained: "Not entirely..."
"But I am indeed a victim..."
Hayakawa Kashi: Ha ha.
She didn’t look at Shirakawa Sawahei, merely responding lightly: "Forget the past, I’m not really a vengeful person."
Lies! You are extremely vindictive.
"Just make sure coincidences like that don’t happen again."
If it were a normal unjustly accused protagonist, he would certainly swear it would never happen again. But Shirakawa Sawahei couldn’t, as his current capabilities couldn’t overpower the system’s plans.
"Hmm?" In Hayakawa Kashi’s eyes flickered a hint of danger: "Shirakawa can’t manage that?"
"Or are you saying that all those events were orchestrated by Shirakawa?"
Shirakawa Sawahei outright denied it; he wasn’t ready to let the system off the hook for that blunder.
"I just think coincidences... if controllable, wouldn’t be called coincidences."
Hayakawa Kashi’s bright eyes met his, her dark gaze inexplicably made Shirakawa Sawahei a bit uneasy. After a while, she retracted her gaze, vaguely acknowledging with a nod.
"I’ll try my best to see it as a coincidence."
"I’ll also try my best to stop such coincidences."
After each leaving an ambiguous statement, they stood face to face a moment, then Hayakawa Kashi broke the silence.
"Has Shirakawa finished talking?"
"Then why don’t you leave?"
Wearing an amused smile, Hayakawa Kashi lazily quipped: "Staying here, do you want to invite me to the cultural festival?"
"I at least have enough self-awareness." Shirakawa Sawahei declined.
Kidding, who wouldn’t want to invite Hayakawa Kashi, the school beauty, to the cultural festival. Yet she might just have ascended the rooftop to escape those eager boys?
Although Hayakawa Kashi rejected people without guilt, a larger crowd can be annoying. There’s always some guy who thinks he’s special, rushing in like moths to a flame, only to burn in Hayakawa Kashi’s purgatorial inferno.
"No worries, if self-awareness is lacking, I’ll give you some."