A Date That Stands Out (3)

Flashbacks have a way of arriving without any warning at all.

Narita Airport.

It happened while he was seeing Hyun Toseong off — a man whose back, and nothing else, left you no excuse if you mistook him for a woman.

Hyun Toseong thanked Tae-il, and then he gave him advice.

"From here on, be as shameless as you can manage."

"Why's that?"

"Because that's your only way through."

Be shameless.

Had the man been reading faces? Fortunes?

It was strange advice, nothing like what any ordinary fortune-teller would offer, and Tae-il huffed a laugh as he asked.

"Well, sure. So how shameless are we talking, roughly?"

He had tossed the question off as lightly as anything. Hyun Toseong answered with a solemnity he had never shown before, utterly serious.

"...What?"

"Otherwise you're going to get knifed and die."

Hyun Toseong's eyes flicked past the shoulder of a Tae-il gone stiff with bewilderment.

Starting with Ayane, every last member of Tales Tale — a lineup anybody could tell was a harem — had tagged along, and over there they were squealing with Baekya.

It was the sort of sight that put a fond smile on your face whether you wanted one or not. Pleasant to look at, that much was true. Eavesdrop on the conversation, though, and even Hyun Toseong's expression turned a little hard to read.

"D-do they rent out maid outfits too?"

"Yeah. Maid outfits aren't just for cosplay beginners. Demand for them is huge all over the place, so the supply's pretty varied too. Never mind the embarrassment — they don't show much skin, ready-made ones are easy to find, and guys and girls both go for them."

"You know Ikebukuro, right? Go there and you'll find them no problem. The place is packed with cosplay shops."

"Th-then...!"

A rare chance to question an actual cosplay expert. Sakuya, still nursing a grudge from their last trip to Akihabara, when she hadn't gotten to wear a maid outfit, asked with her face lit up.

"D-do they have sexy maid outfits there too?"

"Plenty, I'd bet."

"Guys! They've got sexy maid outfits too!"

The moment Sakuya shouted it, thrilled, Iris jumped and clapped a hand over her mouth.

"Sh-shh! Everyone's staring!"

"Honestly. Trust a pervert to get excited over exactly that. Pervert Sakuya."

"S-sexy clothes... in front of Shin-chan... hic!"

At the girls' wildly mismatched reactions, Baekya covered her mouth and laughed as if they were adorable.

This was why cosplay was fun. The people doing it, and the people watching them do it — both reactions were nothing but endearing.

"Still. If it's too blatant, the embarrassment is the same either way, so the sexy stuff usually goes through custom work or mail order."

"C-custom work and mail order!"

"Yeah. I make mine myself, since it's a hobby, but..."

Pieces sold by mail order were usually poor quality unless they were made to order, she said, so she didn't strongly recommend them.

"But if it's just for an event, once or twice...?"

"Thank you!"

Watching Sakuya love it out in the open, and the others pretend not to care while very clearly caring, Hyun Toseong shut his ears.

Women were terrifying. It was a thought that had only grown stronger as thirty loomed right in front of him.

Anyway.

Back to the point: this was a crowd that had followed a man all the way to the airport when he was nothing more than a friend's acquaintance, on his way out.

They're not normal.

Hyun Toseong could see it. The fierce, invisible rivalry and love that belonged to the girls alone.

Well. I'm used to it.

In high school, like it or not, he had seen scenes like that until he was sick of them, thanks to a certain someone. He had thought that once you got older you woke up to reality and that kind of love cooled. He had learned there was a type for whom it didn't.

An announcement rolled through the terminal, telling passengers to hurry.

Hyun Toseong clapped Tae-il on the shoulder.

"Hang tough, Shin Tae-il."

"Huh?"

"They say a man's lower back is the most important thing he's got."

And with that — leaving behind a send-off Tae-il couldn't begin to parse — Hyun Toseong departed with Baekya.

Toseong-hyung...

Recalling it now, Tae-il smiled bitterly.

I wasn't even angry...

Having a member of his favorite band worry over him was wonderful. He had only grumbled that dragging street-shitting into the conversation was a bit much.

Not anymore.

If anything, he wanted to scold his past self, and curse him, for grumbling at Hyun Toseong — a sage of this age, blessed with foresight.

And at the same time, a feverish heat against his lips dragged him back into the present.

The air was stifling. Tae-il glanced left and right, and there were Sakuya and Rena, hanging off both his arms without a glance spared for who might be watching. These days they didn't even bother at school.

"Tae-il! Say ah. I'll feed you."

Between the main building of Yuuma High and the old school building, a small garden held a pavilion you might have expected to find in a park. Modest, but the flower beds were well kept, and couples loved the spot. Far off, a crowd lined up to try the haunted house, and a few food stalls had gone up, so it was an easy place to rest and look around — and now and then a scream laid itself down as accompaniment.

Kyaaaah!

"Hey, Sakuya? Even so, with everybody watching, that's a little..."

"Ahaha. What, don't tell me you're embarrassed?"

Sakuya laughed loosely and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠took a small bite of the takoyaki she had been holding out to him.

"See? It's cooled a bit, so it's not hot at all anymore. It's really good, I swear."

"No..."

Heat wasn't why he wasn't eating. Tae-il carefully rubbed at his uncomfortably full stomach, and into that gap Rena cut.

"Hey, Sakuya! You gonna keep being cheap like that?"

"Hm? About what?"

"You stuffed him with those earlier and burned the roof of Shin's mouth!"

Rena pushed Sakuya's takoyaki aside and held out the yakitori she had bought. In plain terms, chicken skewers.

"Eat this instead! Koreans like chicken, right? Or — Shin, should I, um... feed you too?"

"Ha, haha..."

A truly rare sight: Rena looking shy. And yet, why was it that Tae-il wasn't happy in the slightest?

Help me.

He sent a distress signal toward Ayane, who was watching from dead ahead with nothing but a finger in her mouth. The SOS never landed.

"Mngh..."

Ayane prided herself on being close enough to Tae-il that a look was enough to pass a heart between them, but today, of all days, she had no room to spare. Iris, who had been watching in silence, nudged her arm.

"If you're that jealous, just go feed him yourself. Even like that, if it's from you, he'll eat it just fine."

"B-but..."

Shoulders hunched, Ayane looked up at Iris with a pitiful glare. She had a sin on her conscience. On an ordinary day she would have cast a curt none-of-my-business and ignored the whole thing, but once she decided Tae-il's misery was her fault, she couldn't bring herself to cut in.

Iris looked at the fidgeting girl, shook her head, and sighed.

"You've got a secretly foolish side too. Is it because you take after Shin Tae-il?"

"Y-you think so? Ehehe."

"Don't tell me you like it even when I'm insulting you, as long as I say you resemble him...?"

"Yeah!"

"You really are... Never mind. You were always like this, weren't you?"

Soothing the sulking Ayane, Iris wore a wry smile, as if she couldn't quite believe her.

"Look at her and you'd swear love is secretly dangerous..."

Love was a disease, and a lethal poison. There was a reason people said men ruled the world and women ruled men. Affection past the allowable dose broke a person. Or maybe Ayane had been broken from the start — the way people soaked in radiation for years suffered every illness under the sun. Ayane was the oldest victim of Shin Tae-il exposure.

Well. Not like I have any right to talk.

Irradiated just the same, Iris let out a short laugh and instinctively touched her own lips. The memory rose in soft billows.

Her first kiss had not been as romantic as novels made it out to be. Sweet, they said. Electric, they said. All of it sat far from what Iris had felt.

Still, I liked it.

The sensation left faintly at the corner of her mouth as they traded saliva had been disgusting, and at the same time hopelessly addictive.

I want to do it again.

Without meaning to, she stared hard at Tae-il's pale lips. The tip of her tongue slipped out and licked her own — moist, and sticky. The pleasure of her brain melting, the pleasure she had felt when she licked with her tongue, stirred a thoughtless urge to pin him down. That first kiss, which had comforted her and soothed her until she wanted to keep him to herself for the rest of her life, kept prodding at a lust that had been dull beside her peers.

But I have to hold it back...

Iris called back the purpose she had forgotten. A major debut. Succeeding as a band, and securing their place. And last of all...

"Ah."

In a single instant, the life that was supposed to chase freedom was painted over in a lewd shade of skin. Her face burned. She was starting to feel ashamed that she, of all people, had thought something so impure.

G-get it together, Arisugawa Iris!

She shook her head in a hurry and flung off every indecent stray thought. Even so...

I'll just leave it on the wishlist for now...

Embarrassing, yes, but she had no intention of abandoning the dream outright. She was only setting it back for a while, for the sake of success.

So.

Iris smiled brightly and caught the hand of Ayane, who was still hesitating.

"All right! We're joining in too!"

"Eh? Ehh?"

"Hey, Shin Tae-il! Ayane says she wants to share some okonomiyaki!"

"I-I-Iris!?"

At Iris's utterly self-willed attitude Ayane startled — and quietly, because she was secretly pleased, the corner of her mouth climbed.

"You two as well...?"

To Tae-il, exhaustion written all over his face, Iris bent at the waist and thrust her face in as if to make him look.

"You have to eat a lot anyway, don't you? Am I wrong?"

"Who said that...?"

Lately, between exercise and playing practice, his stamina had been running short, and how much he ate had jumped. Judging by the way he had stopped nodding off during his part-time shifts at the rehearsal studio, it was clearly working. But that had been a choice he couldn't avoid. It had never been a matter of eating a lot on purpose.

Not noticing the change come over his face, Iris casually blabbed a secret.

"Sakuya said so, didn't she? That if you want to build your body up, you have to eat a lot..."

"Aaah! I-Iris! That's enough! Only that far!"

"Oh? Was that a secret?"

"..."

Build his body.

Tae-il, whose only goal had been stamina, stared openly at Sakuya.

"A-ahaha...?"

Reading the room at once, Sakuya popped the takoyaki straight into her own mouth and quietly looked away.

"Sakuya, you..."

The grumble, close to a sigh, lasted only a moment. In the end he meekly ate everything they pushed on him. Not even the takoyaki Sakuya had already bitten was an exception.

After a spread lavish enough that they could have skipped lunch entirely—

"Let's go."

Whatever else it took, an unhappy stomach needed digesting, so Tae-il stood up at once.

"Where first?"

Iris pulled out the pamphlet as if she had been waiting and spread it open. Naturally, Tae-il tilted his head and leaned in toward her to see it. His breath touched her ear. Pretending it was nothing, Iris tucked her hair behind her ear and inched the pamphlet the other way, so he would have to lean closer still.

"We have to go pick up Yuuya-senpai anyway, so..."

"The second-year classrooms?"

"Let's. Maybe because they're upperclassmen, it looked like they had more hands-on attractions than food."

Except for exactly one place, every attraction had nothing to do with food — a contrast with the first-years, who were thick with snack stalls, cafés, and food-related shows. The third-years leaned toward attractions that took a great deal of work, too, so preparing for the Cultural Festival apparently required a mastery of its own.

"Everyone all right with that?"

"Do whatever you want, Shin. Long as it isn't Class 1-8, I don't care where."

"Ahaha. Money-Shower Rena was kind of cute, though. Well, I've got no complaints either!"

"Sakuya, you're dead."

"Ahaha! Sorry, sorry. I'll apologize. But you were cute. Right, Tae-il?"

"Mm. For Rena's sake, no comment."

"Tch..."

Tae-il turned to Ayane, who had gone quiet on her own.

"What do you want to do, Ayane?"

"A-Ayane doesn't care where either, as long as it's with Shin-chan!"

"Thanks."

When he smiled, pleased, color rose in her face, and she quietly claimed his left arm again.

"Good. Then let's move."

Tales Tale left the flower beds and started in on the Cultural Festival for real.

And the moment they left the garden, stepped into the main building, and began, every one of them flinched at the stares driving in from all sides.

"Ahaha. This stings worse than the looks I get at Inter-High."

"I'm starting to get scared..."

"Feels like even more eyes than yesterday, doesn't it?"

"Our stage video's already up on the school iTube. That's why. It was in our Class 8 LINE chat, too."

"Ayane saw it too! Somebody posted it in our class!"

Thanks to that she had become an instant star in class, Ayane said, grinning loosely.

"Gloom Girl, weren't you already popular?"

"Yeah! But compared to before, the temperature of the friends who light up when they look at Ayane is different!"

Even a pretty, bright social butterfly had the wall of the public morals committee in the way. She was so busy it was hard to make time to be with friends at school. If you were already close, you met on the weekend and hung out, but if the relationship was ambiguous, meeting up like that felt a little strange.

Unlike Ayane, who had plenty of friends, Iris and Rena — whose contact lists were poorer than poor — blinked dumbly.

"I-is that so? What do you think, Rena-chan?"

"No. I don't really know either. I don't have anyone to meet besides you."

"We're kind of seriously hopeless at this, aren't we...?"

"Well. If we hadn't done the band, we really might have spent our whole lives knowing only each other."

"Whoa."

Whether she was picturing it or not, Iris's face went stiff at once and she shuddered. They say the contrast is what hurts most of all. The loneliness of someone who never had friends, and of someone who had them and then didn't, sat on entirely different levels.

Iris quietly wrapped herself around Tae-il's arm and threatened him.

"Shin Tae-il. If you leave us, you die."

"Excuse me?"

"Agreed. If Shin leaves us, he dies."

"Rena...?"

"Ahaha. Then shall we say Tae-il's life is mortgaged to us from here on? I vote yes!"

The moment Sakuya led the call, the rest lined up and voted yes in turn. Ayane gave a bitter smile.

"Shin-chan..."

"Why, at a time like this, aren't you getting mad — why are you looking at me like I'm pitiful, Ayane!?"

"It's okay. In exchange, Ayane will give her life to Shin-chan."

Tae-il dragged a hand down his face. Moving, sure. Not actually helpful.

And so, drawing every kind of interest and stare just by walking the hall, the first place they visited was Class 2-7. The class Mori Yuuya belonged to. Maybe because it sat awkwardly on the third floor, it was also — haunted-house-scale attractions aside — the spot with the heaviest foot traffic.

Fortunately, whenever Tales Tale moved, people cleared a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠path on their own. Needless to say, Tae-il's hate meter climbed every time they did.

He crackled. Not the fun kind of thrill — a real electric prickle, as if he had been infected with current. He felt like a tank whose aggro skill was a passive.

But that lasted only a moment. The instant they reached Class 2-7, the people around them thinned out with a pop. Nobody stayed. Everyone was busy hurrying past Class 7.

"This is it? But there's basically nobody here. Even with Yuuya-senpai around, I guess what they prepared isn't as popular as we thought?"

Sakuya glanced around the relatively empty surroundings.

"No matter how you look at this, it's a hidden-camera bit..."

Tae-il made a strange face at the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sign Class 2-7 had hung out front. No wonder. The exterior looked uncannily like the logo of Japan's most famous hidden-camera broadcast.

A candid-camera prank. In Japanese, dokkiri. Funny, when you were the viewer. A little ill-omened, if you were the one it happened to. Of course, it didn't actually say dokkiri.

A name that bizarre only managed, in reverse, to radiate distrust. Their sense for naming was hopeless.

"Shin Tae-il, what are you doing not going in?"

"Just a second."

When Iris nagged from behind, Tae-il steeled himself with a deep breath and stepped into Class 2-7.

"H-hello...?"

He carefully took in the inside, and with no sign of anyone, a bleak scene greeted him. What stood out most were the lights and the camera. The room had been decorated all cute, like a filming studio, but with nobody in it the place felt oddly hollow.

"Don't tell me this really is a hidden camera...?"

"Mind moving aside?"

Unable to stand it any longer, Iris shoved the fussing Tae-il out of the way and stuck her head in.

"Huh? There's nobody here?"

"That's what I'm saying."

Sakuya, tallest of them, scanned the quiet classroom from the very back and let out a breath of admiration.

"Don't tell me the prank's already started?"

"No, but who falls for a prank when they already know it's a prank?"

"Or the thing that isn't a prank is the prank...?"

"Are you an idiot?"

"I'll have you know I was second in the whole Liberal track on the midterms."

"Tch."

While Rena, who shrank whenever grades came up, clicked her tongue, Ayane pointed at the sign and raised a doubt.

"Like Sakuya said, what if the thing that isn't a prank is the prank?"

"Does that... even make sense?"

While Rena voiced the question, Tae-il reached for his pocket.

"I'll just call Yuuya-senpai."

That was when the partition separating the classroom from the lounge opened, and a red-and-blue duo in silk top hats, dressed like stage magicians, appeared.

"To our Class 2-7 Situation Reenactment Studio...!"

"Welcome!"

From behind them, what sounded like recorded fireworks went off bang after bang.

"Who...?"

"We are the guides of the Situation Reenactment Studio, Red and Blue!"

"Ta-da!"

The world contained a certain type, the sort that belonged among clowns: people who committed insane, mortifying acts without so much as a blink, perfectly calm. To Tae-il's eyes, at least, those two were that type.

Retreat. Experience said getting tangled up with clownish people was nothing but exhausting. On a quick judgment, he turned on his heel — and the top-hat duo shot over and caught him.

"Oho! And where do you think you're going, dear customer!"

"Don't go!"

"No, I think I might have the wrong class..."

"Our class's attraction is seriously fun! Just get got once, call it the price of being fooled!"

"Get got...?"

"Oops!"

When Tae-il stared, the girl who had slipped punched her own head with a fist and went tee-hee.

There was something here. Something unbearably troublesome. Before the situation could get any more annoying, Tae-il decided to ask only what he had come for, and roughly.

"We just came to find Yuuya-senpai."

"Oh! You came looking for Mori? Perfect!"

"Mori's finally deploying!"

"What?"

While an ominous feeling doubled inside him at the incomprehensible talk, the top-hat duo clapped.

"Now then, Mori, please take off the mask at once and come out onto the stage!"

"What concept is this, even..."

As if answering the shout, the partition they had popped out of opened again. And from inside it Yuuya appeared, looking as if she had been shoved out by the back.

Everyone stared.

"Whoa, that is Yuuya-senpai, right?"

"Whew!"

"Well. She's prettier than usual, I'll give her that."

"Mngh, Ayane has a bad feeling about this..."

The unkempt mop that looked as if nobody had been managing it was gone. At the sight of Yuuya with her hair neatly arranged, wearing a fluttering dress, each of them wore a startled face. Meeting Tae-il's eyes, she rubbed her pressed-together hands, flushed, and greeted him shyly.

"H-hi...?"

Fuyuko was the freest soul of all during the Cultural Festival.

Of course, she wasn't free without limit. Every year, without fail, students appeared who stayed at school in secret until late at night, saying they were preparing for the festival. But that was only when she was on night duty. During the day, while the festival was in full swing, she had nothing but time. The second day in particular, caught between the Eve Festival and the Finale, had no stage for Tales Tale, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the band she advised, so her routine amounted to holing up in the faculty office and yawning.

"Should I go see Yuuya?"

As a teacher, showing her face all over the attractions the students ran wasn't exactly desirable. Fortunately, she had a pretext.

"Sera, you about ready?"

"Of course, sis!"

"Well, well. You hated it so much when I first told you to come. Look at you, having the time of your life."

Yesterday, too, Sera had wandered the school hard, enjoying the Cultural Festival right up until the Eve Festival began. Not that anywhere was different, but a young, pretty student teacher was always popular, boys and girls alike. She had so many appointments that if you wrote out, receipt-style, the list of students who had asked her to visit, it would probably come out longer than Fuyuko's hair.

"Sis, Yuuya-chan's place is Class 2-7, right?"

"Yeah."

"What's Class 2-7 doing? I only went around the first-year classrooms yesterday, so I don't really know the second-years."

"From what she told me, a Situation Reenactment Studio."

"A Situation Reenactment Studio?"

"Yeah."

Apparently they had made a few extreme, pointlessly detailed situation courses and were enjoying them that way. A kind of stage for living vicariously. For example: if there was a scenario called A Date with a Girlfriend of Few Words Who Loves Animals, Yuuya performed the girlfriend.

"What even is that..."

"Right? What is it, really?"

As a biology teacher, Fuyuko wanted to dissect Class 2-7's skulls just once.

Unable to refuse the insistence of his upperclassmen, Tae-il sat side by side with Yuuya on a bench that had appeared from somewhere in the studio. The members, as it happened, had to wait outside the camera. According to the top-hat duo, they were to keep to the order. On their end, looking over the faces of Tales Tale, they seemed to think they had hit the jackpot. The people in question had not the slightest intention of staying long.

"S-sorry..."

The moment she sat on the bench, Yuuya apologized.

"Why are you apologizing, senpai?"

"Th-that's..."

She glanced toward the people glaring fiercely this way from the studio — more precisely, from the blind spot outside the camera.

"O-our classmates said they w-won't let me go if we don't fill the quota..."

"A quota...?"

"Yeah."

Tae-il let out a gasp. A quota, at a Cultural Festival where there wasn't even money in it. A festival version of the Norma system, plain and simple. A look that said pathetic turned toward the top-hat duo.

"That's it, Mori!"

"Acting worthy of Best Actress, absolutely!"

The two paid his gaze no mind. Camera and lighting reflector in hand, they busied themselves cheering Yuuya on by mouth — not her love life. Her acting.

"So. What are we supposed to do here now?"

"I-I don't really know either..."

Yuuya scratched her cheek and fidgeted with her fingers.

"What did the other people do?"

"Th-that's..."

"Yes?"

"Our class's attraction isn't very popular..."

Word had gotten around a few times about whatever they had done at the start, and then the customers had simply dried up.

"What were the scenario settings like?"

"Just a second..."

Yuuya fumbled a crumpled scrap of paper out of her clothes and read.

"What? What is that supposed to be?"

"I don't know either..."

Tae-il once again shot a this-is-pathetic look at the top-hat duo.

"Well. Anyway, senpai's role is 'a date with a girlfriend of few words who loves animals,' right?"

"Y-yeah..."

"That's just senpai as usual. Couldn't be bothered to think of something?"

Flushing, Tae-il looked at the camera that was recording and quietly turned things over.

First...

If they dragged things out here for no reason, there would be nowhere near enough time left to enjoy the Cultural Festival. In his head he ran a simulation shocking enough to open a gap in the other side.

Good.

After a rough plan, he called her.

"Senpai."

Yuuya, whose mind had been elsewhere while she watched the room, belatedly reacted and lifted her head.

"Y-yeah?"

All at once Tae-il yanked her up onto his lap. She was pulled to him limp as a doll and held just like that. He caught her head, and they pressed the bridges of their noses together as if they were kissing.

Their lips didn't touch. The pose, and the suddenness of it, were more than enough for someone else to misunderstand.

"Oh my!?"

"Ah!? This wasn't in the predictions!?"

They had asked for a situation scene, and he planted a kiss out of nowhere. On top of that, the two supposedly knew each other. They had already been shocked that Yuuya — famous for having no friends — had a male underclassman show up trailing a whole string of the school's most popular girls. And now a kiss.

"Wh-what do we do? Do we keep recording?"

"I-if we think about privacy, we ought to turn it off, right?"

"More than that, I didn't know Yuuya had a boyfriend!"

"Who would have!"

In the gap while the top-hat duo panicked and didn't know what to do, Tae-il signaled the Tales Tale members with his eyes. Iris, first to read the look, whispered to the others with admirable sense.

"Let's step out first."

"Huh? Ah, aah. So that's what it was? I got startled for nothing."

"And here I thought Shin had reached his wicked hands out to senpai..."

"Ehh!? It wasn't!?"

Ayane, who knew Yuuya's heart better than anyone, was thrown by Rena's reaction.

"Come on. Tae-il's not an idiot. You think he'd pile anything else on, here?"

"Shin-chan might be an idiot, though...!?"

"Must be nice, having the spare luck to worry."

With that, Sakuya dragged Ayane out, and only Iris glanced back and quietly winked.

Yuuya was flustered.

Wh-what's happening...

Hidden behind Tae-il's face, she couldn't see what was going on around them, but she could feel something urgent unfolding. Her thoughts locked. The embarrassment of their breaths touching, and a yearning that ached, collided violently.

"Senpai."

At his whisper, her mind snapped clear. He smiled, mischievous.

"When I give the signal, hold on tight?"

"Y-yeah..."

Leaning into him as if it were the most natural thing, Yuuya buried her face in his shoulder. Her heart pounded hard. All at once time moved slowly, and a wicked thought came to her: she wished she could stay held like this forever. As if to reassure her, his hand gently stroked her hair. Strands her classmates had forcibly slathered with conditioner and the like were soft to an awkward degree. In the cozy warmth her body went languid, and her eyes slowly closed.

"Now."

"Kyaa...!?"

Holding her in his arms, Tae-il shot to his feet. Startled, Yuuya clung to him.

The exercise had paid off. He moved legs that didn't shake, ignored the camera, and walked out of the classroom with his head high.

"Wai—!"

Even when the top-hat duo grabbed at him, he ignored them.

"Stop right there!"

"Our experience isn't over yet, you brat!"

But they were persistent. Tae-il sighed. Rather than hand her over, he set her on her feet — and still kept her hugged tight against him while he played innocent.

"The concept was a date with your girlfriend, you said."

"Uh...?"

"We're heading out to go on a date now. How about you senpais don't get in the way?"

It wasn't wrong. But that only held if it wasn't merely a concept...?

While the top-hat duo reeled, Tae-il pushed Yuuya outside.

"Eh?"

Sakuya, waiting out there, caught her dead-on.

"Nice! Yuuya-senpai secured!"

"Take care!"

Tae-il bolted right along with them.

"Ah, we got had!"

A beat late, the top-hat duo realized the entire act just now had been a con.

"Now that I think about it, that guy's lips were still pale!"

"Oops!"

They had even laid the lipstick on thick so Yuuya would look more grown-up. And yet the lips of Tae-il, who had supposedly kissed her, were still pale.

"Give us our actress back!"

By the time they realized they had been had and burst out into the hall, Tae-il and the others were already long gone.