Got Utterly Crused
Alice ran.
If she didn't, she felt she wouldn't be able to stand it.
It had been raining only a moment ago, and the air was still cool. Her head, though, was so flooded with heat that she couldn't think straight.
An uncharacteristically uncertain voice. That cautious question, so unlike Ryuzaki, refused to leave her mind.
...I-I've actually lost it.
No matter how she turned it over, that was the kind of line you used to confirm where you stood right before a confession.
This was Ryuzaki — the boy who normally just clutched his textbooks and smiled like the sun, insisting that studying was fun. For a guy like that to ambush her with those words out of nowhere was cheating. She thought her heart was going to drop clean out of her chest.
How long had she been running?
"Hah... hah..."
She hadn't actually been running that long. It was only Alice's terrible stamina that made it feel that way.
As she gasped for air, passersby's glances snagged on her — but she didn't have the luxury of caring. Ryuzaki had confessed. Well, if you wanted to be precise, it hadn't been a confession exactly. It had been a confession-adjacent line, though, and that was close enough.
The important thing was this.
...What even are Ryuzaki-kun and I?
What was he to her?
A friend? Yes. A friend — and one with the special distinction of being the first boy she'd ever been friends with. It hadn't even been a few weeks since they'd met. They'd only just become friends. Was it really right for things to develop like that in so short a time?
Alice twirled a lock of hair around her finger. And then her eyes snapped wide.
No. Were they really just ordinary friends?
Everything she had done with Ryuzaki flashed before her like a panorama. She had tailed him. Collapsed. Been helped back up. Woken in his bed. Hidden from her parents in a closet thick with his scent. Stayed at his place late into the night and even eaten ramen together. And today they had gone out, just the two of them.
...Did people normally do this with a guy friend? She'd never had one, so she wouldn't know.
Alice carefully drew out her smartphone and opened the search bar.
A moment later.
"......!"
Her face flushed in an instant. Because she had realized. Every single thing she and Ryuzaki had done was the kind of behavior you only saw between people who were into each other — or between an actual couple.
...Come to think of it. Hadn't she been the one who started all of this?
......
Did I... seduce him?
Her eyes started to spin.
The comments she'd tossed out all day — was your heart racing? are you falling for me? — those she could pass off as jokes. But this, she couldn't talk her way out of.
So... I-I... Ryuzaki-kun...!
Wh-what do I do?
At this rate, she would go down as the bitch of the century — the girl who made the first move, then dumped him the second he found the courage. And to a boy like Ryuzaki, of all people. Someone so sincere. Someone who worked harder than anyone.
"Haaah...!"
What was she supposed to do? Sh-should she say yes?
Alice swallowed hard and tried to steady her breathing...
...Damn it. Far from steadying, it was only getting worse.
Ryuzaki-kun... he looks a little scary, but... in a way he's reliable, too... and mature... and innocent, and...
A scene surfaced in her mind. Back when she hadn't been in her right mind — the words Ryuzaki had spat out as he caught both her arms.
Gulp.
...And he's got a wild side, too.
Saliva slid down her throat of its own accord. The more she thought about Ryuzaki, the dizzier her head became, and the shorter her breath grew. What was this? Was she coming down with something?
"Uuuugh...!"
Why was she like this?
"Mom. That girl's a fire truck. She's super red."
"Oh my. Don't stare, dear."
This feeling... she had never felt anything like it in her life.
I watched Alice recede into the distance for a long time.
Her last words kept circling in my ears.
"So we're not friends yet, then?"
I'd been hoping, inwardly. It stung a little. Still, she hadn't said no. It had sounded like she meant it was too soon, so I would take comfort in that.
I never knew making friends would be this hard. Subjectively, it was way trickier than studying for the college entrance exam. I should put off calling her a friend until we'd gotten a little closer.
Then...
I closed my eyes.
"......Hah."
I drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, quietly settling the excitement that had been bubbling all day from being with Alice. Then I opened my eyes again.
The irritating gaze came into even sharper focus.
They're still following me.
A gaze I'd been feeling for hours now — the exact same familiar sensation I'd felt when Alice had been tailing me. Who was it?
Alice had been with me all day, so she was out. Lee Sae-ah... she had no reason to follow me around. Even if she did, she wasn't the type. Other than that...
Nobody's coming to mind.
I was freshly reminded of just how pathetic my social circle was.
First, I started walking. Identifying anyone in a place this crowded would be nearly impossible. I left the downtown streets and headed for a quiet alley. After confirming that the crowds had vanished completely from my surroundings, I casually drew out my smartphone. Then, in a single instant, I flicked my gaze to the side.
Click.
I used my ability.
The moving world froze solid in an instant. And I saw her. In that stopped world, the one person still looking straight at me.
A beautiful girl with platinum-blonde hair and crimson eyes. She was a presence in which the air of a glass doll that might shatter at any moment coexisted, exquisitely, with a quiet, smoldering allure.
Someone who didn't exist in Ryuzaki's memories. But I knew who she was.
Beatrice. A secret agent of the Nexus Academy City branch that ruled the western district — the younger sister of the branch chief who could essentially be called the boss, and a villain who appeared as the main antagonist in the latter half of the original story.
That's right. The latter half.
Why is she showing up already.
Summer vacation hadn't even started yet.
The episode she appears in was definitely...
The story where Nexus tried to swallow Ryuzaki-kai, and the protagonist's group got caught up in the process.
...
Wait. Something felt off.
Don't tell me.
Are they trying to swallow Ryuzaki-kai earlier than in the original?
If that was the case, Beatrice revealing herself this early made a certain amount of sense.
Why is the timing different from the original?
I thought about it for a moment. The answer came faster than expected.
It was because of me.
Originally, Nexus at this point in the timeline couldn't carelessly touch Ryuzaki-kai. As long as Ryuzaki Genma was standing in their way, going head-to-head would have been too much of a burden. But now it was different. The rumor that I, the heir, had had a huge fight with Genma had already reached them. And if they succeeded in approaching and recruiting me?
They can swallow Ryuzaki-kai by going around the wall that is Genma.
That was why she was hiding like that, waiting for an opening. It was a solid plan, I'd give them that. The original Ryuzaki had been a lecher who couldn't resist a pretty girl. With looks like Beatrice's, charming him would have been nothing.
But I wasn't him.
Like hell I'd fall for that.
Honestly, I didn't care what happened to Ryuzaki-kai. But thinking about the aftermath that had unfolded after it collapsed in the original, I couldn't just sit back and watch it fall.
I released my ability. With a faint headache, the frozen world began to move again. Beatrice had already vanished in the blink of an eye. Without the ability, I wouldn't even have been able to catch a glimpse of her.
I didn't bother chasing her. If I just stayed put, she would come to me first. Putting on a casual front, I headed home with every nerve on edge.
Click. Click.
Before long, the rhythmic sound of heels reached my ears.
"You there."
The lovely Beatrice stepped into my path.
Beatrice, who had been secretly tailing her Target, revealed herself as if it were nothing.
This should be about right.
It had already been thirty minutes since the Target parted ways with that nameless girl. The afterglow of the time they'd spent together would have faded somewhat by now, so this was the most appropriate moment to approach.
"You there."
Beatrice drew closer with a faint smile. The boundary between a blank expression and a smile — a look in which haughtiness and cuteness coexisted exquisitely, the expression that had captured countless men in an instant...
"Yes? Is there something I can help you with?"
...Her trump-card expression nearly crumbled.
...Honorifics?
She'd heard he'd changed, but she had never imagined it would be this kind of change. Normally people just got more twisted. For a moment, Beatrice wondered if she'd been tailing the wrong person. But there was no mistake. Looking again, it was the same rough-looking face she'd confirmed in the photographs.
Stay calm.
This was Beatrice, who had seduced countless men and overturned every unfavorable situation. She wasn't someone who would be shaken by a variable of this level. Without changing her expression in the slightest, she took a step forward.
"Got plans tonight?"
"I don't, no."
"That so? Perfect."
Then she lightly pressed her index finger against the Target's broad chest.
Slowly sliding her finger downward, she looked up at him with alluring eyes.
"Aren't you bored?"
Beatrice was certain, inwardly. He was hooked. People might change, but their nature didn't. No matter how different he'd become, he wouldn't be able to keep his head straight in front of her charms. Now she just had to reel him in as planned...
That was when the Target took a step back.
"......?"
"I'll be going, then. Have a good day."
The Target bowed his head and walked right past her.
Beatrice was left standing there alone.
I got... rejected?
She couldn't believe she had gone toe-to-toe with a workbook and lost in spectacular fashion. A meaningful laugh leaked from her tightly frozen lips.
"...Ha."
Beatrice, the girl who had enchanted countless men. For the first time in her life, a man had turned her down.