Chapter 180: Love Actually
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 180: Love Actually
Afterward, Ryuji took off after the fleeing Yaguchi.
Thanks to him, the three high school girls, their mood completely ruined, announced they were leaving and turned away coldly.
"H-Hey, wait! If you leave, what about all this food I bought?!"
Satoru, his hands full of food, tried desperately to stop them, but with Ryuji gone, Kobayashi’s attitude had turned icy. She waved a dismissive hand.
"That's your problem, Oppa. Let's go, girls."
"Bye-bye♪ It was fun, Satoru Oppa~"
"...Goodbye."
The trio of high school girls walked away, leaving Satoru with a look of utter despair.
"My name isn't something out of Pallet Town..."
Satoru fell even deeper into despair upon realizing that the girl who had been his partner couldn't even remember his name correctly.
I walked over and put an arm around the shoulders of Satoru, whose mental state had been ground to dust.
"...Hey, hang in there."
Your soulmate will show up someday.
At my clumsy attempt at consolation, Satoru nodded weakly.
"...Thanks."
Ah, cruel youth!
March on, Momochi Satoru!
Until that long-awaited day you finally get a girlfriend!
Just as an auditory hallucination, like the deep voice of a narrator in a rom-com, echoed in my head, and Satoru and I were sharing a moment of strong male friendship, a voice cut in.
"So, what on earth happened?"
The Class President, one of the two who had remained, asked for the full story.
"Oh, well, you see..."
I was about to answer her question when I realized there was still a large crowd of onlookers and shut my mouth.
A good number of them were kids from our school.
"Can we talk somewhere else first? There are too many eyes on us."
The Class President pushed her glasses up with her index finger. "Let's do that. I know a good spot," she said.
"Sounds good. Satoru, let's go."
"...Where to?"
"Where do you think? Somewhere with no people, obviously."
I forced the guy, who was sitting dejectedly on the ground, to his feet. Satoru stood up with a reluctant expression.
And so, avoiding the crowd, we headed for the Watchtower Rest Stop in a corner of the Movie Village.
*
"By the way, Hattori, why are you here?"
"Aww, you're only asking that now? I'm hurt."
Hattori said this with an expression that didn't look hurt at all as she picked up a french fry from the pile of food Satoru had bought.
A high school girl and french fries. A rather fitting combination.
"I told her she could stay. It's not like this is something we can hide at this point anyway," the Class President said.
"True."
By now, the rumor of Ryuji and Yaguchi's love quarrel had likely spread far and wide.
The kids at our school were especially crazy about gossip.
"So, can you explain what happened now?"
I nodded at the Class President's question and explained everything that had happened today, not leaving out a single detail.
Our grand operation to pick up girls, a desperate struggle to find a girlfriend for Satoru, who was feeling particularly lonely now that it was autumn.
After hearing the whole story, the Class President let out a deep sigh.
"Haaah—so the fight really did start for a stupid reason."
"Hey, that hurts, you know?" Satoru, who had been listening quietly due to his guilty conscience, protested timidly. The Class President shot him a glare.
"Are you going to be quiet?"
"Yep."
Once Satoru, who was more or less the cause of the fight between Ryuji and Yaguchi, shut his mouth, the Class President pressed her fingers to her temples as if nursing a headache.
"Honestly, there's nothing we can do right now. This whole incident was brought on by their ambiguous relationship, so they need to use this as a chance to make things clear. Either they start dating or they don't."
Hearing this, Hattori asked with a surprised look.
"Huh? Weren't they already dating?"
I asked back, dumbfounded.
"Were you even listening? They're just normal childhood friends."
"Hehe... I was messaging someone right then."
Hattori, looking sheepish, clapped her hands as if remembering something.
"More importantly, since we bought all this food, shouldn't we eat it before it gets cold? We haven't had lunch yet."
It was a bit random, but her words made a forgotten hunger surge through me.
-Grrrrowl!
Hearing the thunderous roar from my stomach, the Class President sighed softly.
"Right, let's eat first. Unlike the person who bought it, the food is innocent."
As the saying goes, dumplings over flowers. Solving the case would have to wait until our stomachs were full.
Hearing the girls' consensus, Satoru spoke with a look of resignation.
"Fine. Eat up. It'll all get thrown out if there are leftovers anyway."
With the owner's permission, we sat down and devoured every last bit of the food Satoru had bought.
*
To me, Yaguchi Maiya was a childhood friend who was like family.
She didn't say much, but she was always by my side.
From a young age, that felt so natural that I never once questioned it, not even through middle school.
But I was wrong.
It was something I naturally came to understand as I got older and more mature, but to Maiya, the guy named 'Sakamoto Ryuji' wasn't just a childhood friend, but someone she liked as a member of the opposite sex.
Even knowing that, I'd always pretended not to notice Maiya's feelings.
Because I had Chiaki, to whom I'd promised marriage when we were kids.
I was grateful for Maiya's affection, but I couldn't accept her confession, so I never said anything.
I just hoped that, someday, she would give up on her own.
「You idiot, Ryuji! How are you going to apologize to Maiya now?!」
"Shut up. I'm thinking about it right now."
I retorted bluntly to Chiaki, who was fuming beside me as if it were her own problem, but I didn't stop running.
I don't know how far she got in that short time, but there wasn't a trace of her in sight.
Pant—pant—pant—pant—
I was quickly out of breath. Stopping in the middle of the street, I bent over, hands on my knees, and gasped for air.
Lifting my head for a moment to look around, the entire street was bustling with people, as expected of a famous tourist spot.
Finding Maiya in this crowd was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
「So, are you going to give up?」
It was Mahes who asked, watching me silently with his arms crossed.
"No."
But I shook my head, answering firmly.
「Then get up, Ryuji. Surely my contractor is not tired from such a short run, is he?」
"...Mahes, sometimes you're way too strict."
Still—
"This time, I can't say I don't like it."
As I said that and scratched my cheek, Mahes turned his head away. 「Hmph. That's more like my contractor.」
That guy... such a tsundere.
"Alright then... I've rested enough."
Thanks to the encouragement from these two who couldn't be honest with their feelings, I steeled my weakening resolve and straightened my body.
But unless I was imagining things, my body felt significantly lighter than before.
"No way."
I did a light jog.
It wasn't my imagination. My physical abilities were definitely enhanced.
"Mahes, was this your doing?"
「...It was frustrating to watch, so I'm just helping out a little.」
Normally, he would have said, "This is frustrating, I'll do it myself," and taken over my body. This was the first time he'd only lent me his power, so I was honestly surprised.
"Thanks."
Figuring a long-winded speech would be uncool, I kept it to a single word. I immediately used my enhanced physical abilities to scale a wall and get onto a roof.
"Mom! That guy! He's a ninja!"
"Wow!"
The gazes of the people walking around naturally fell on me.
But I couldn't care less about that.
In an instant, I reached the top of the tallest building in the area and scanned the entire Movie Village with my enhanced vision.
I was sure I could find her from here.
Especially since it was Maiya.
And then—
"Found her!"
Far in the distance, I spotted Yaguchi running toward Nihonbashi, a bridge near the lodging village. I immediately began leaping from roof to roof.
Thud, thud! Thump!
The surrounding scenery flew by.
It was practically acrobatics, but my body, drastically enhanced by Mahes's power, handled it as if it were nothing.
It was so incredible that even I, the one doing it, was amazed.
「Ryuji! The moment you see Maiya, you apologize! If you don't, we're done for life!」
"I was going to apologize even if you didn't say that, so don't say such scary things!"
To anyone else, I would have looked like a crazy person shouting at thin air, but I didn't have time to worry about that.
Soon, I leaped from the roof onto the red-painted bridge.
"Maiya! Please, listen to me!"
I shouted at the top of my lungs.
Maiya, who had been running ahead, turned around near the middle of the bridge.
Her face was stained with tears.
Sasha, who had belatedly followed Maiya to the entrance of Nihonbashi, muttered in shock.
"How...?"
"Pant—pant—I can't run anymore..."
Leaving the half-exhausted Kishimoto and Sasha behind, I slowly approached Maiya, who had stopped in the middle of the bridge.
"Don't come any closer!"
But Maiya, still fuming, shouted as she backed away hesitantly.
I ignored her words and strode toward her.
And then—
In an instant, I was right in front of her.
The moment I saw her tear-streaked face, I realized it.
My feelings for her, which I had ignored until now because I thought I didn't have the right.
The people passing by on the bridge were staring at us curiously, but none of that mattered anymore.
Pouring all of my honest feelings into my words, I bowed at a perfect ninety-degree angle to the girl standing before me.
"I like you. Please go out with me."