How to Talk to a Guy (4)
…Fucking psycho bitch.
Watching Yozora burrow into my arms and nuzzle her face against me, the words climbed all the way to the back of my teeth. But we weren't alone. Han Sua was standing right there past Yozora's shoulder, perfectly lucid, and I could hardly say a thing like that. What actually left my mouth was the same sentiment, wrapped in something far more polite and genteel.
"That's enough, Student Yozora."
Meaning: keep this up and I won't indulge your tastes anymore, so quit the bullshit and get off me.
"Puhaha…! Yozora? Student Yozora… pff-hihi…"
Far from catching my meaning, Yozora was too busy rocking up onto her heels and back down again, giggling like a fool.
Yeah. I knew it'd be like this. It wasn't as if this were the first or second time I'd seen her dead drunk. Nothing for it. Give up. Push any further and I'd end up blowing my own cover.
"Haaah…"
I was going to lose my mind. I had no idea how to get through this, and the world in front of me was going dark. I let out a heavy sigh, stroked the head of the girl who'd thrown herself at me like some oversized dog, and met Han Sua's eyes over Yozora's shoulder.
A person's gaze carries more than you'd think. And if you had to name what fills most of that space, it's emotion, hands down—the feeling of being unsettled, of being happy, of being sad. Unless you've had special training, an ordinary person can't help letting a little of it show. So Han Sua's softly glowing golden eyes held a faint feeling of their own.
"Heheh… sniff… You didn't even, sniff, put on any cologne, huhhh…"
"…?"
"…"
What I read there was, unexpectedly—
Curiosity.
"Hehe… Now my clothes are gonna smell like booze. Mm…"
"…"
Yozora had been grinding against me with her chest crushed hard to mine, and my shirt had bunched and ridden up in wrinkles because of it. She clung in my arms as if she were my girlfriend. To anyone watching, it had to be a thoroughly undignified sight—and we weren't even somewhere private. We were doing it in the hallway of an officetel. Most people would have stood there gawking, their eyes full of why the hell are they doing that here? God, this is disgusting. That was as far as my thinking went.
"So why'd you cooome…? You never even said you were coming…"
"…"
Han Sua's characteristic half-lidded, indifferent eyes were the same as always, and so was the cold, chilly air that gathered around her on its own, the kind that made it hard to approach her carelessly. But her hands, gathered below her navel, were fidgeting. She kept trying to turn her head, as if she thought she shouldn't look, and still her eyes flicked this way again and again. Above all, there was the faintest blush warming her cheeks—there and gone, barely visible.
From that, I could more or less tell. Han Sua was embarrassed. And at the same time, she was more than a little curious about the sight of me and Yozora.
"You came 'cause you wanted to see meee! Pffhihi… Say iiit…"
Why was she embarrassed? The answer came more simply than I'd expected. Sure, it was possible she was just ashamed to be watching this happen in a hallway. But Yozora had said it with complete confidence, and I'd confirmed it myself in the middle of treatment: Han Sua was an innocent girl who'd grown up barely exposed to anything lewd, who didn't even know what masturbation was. So even seeing two people of the opposite sex embrace could be enough to fluster her—complete with a how indecent! of the sort you'd only get in a Japanese anime.
The second part, though. The curiosity…
"…"
She was acting like some puberty-struck schoolgirl who'd just had her eyes opened to sex, and it did seem to be the dirty manga Yozora had recommended that had her like this. Right now, though, dealing with the disaster in front of me looked more urgent than worrying about that.
"Oh, and I was just feeling up Sua's ti— mmph, mmph…!"
I clapped a hand over the mouth of Yozora, who'd been chattering away to herself, and looked at Han Sua with as troubled an expression as I could manage.
Pretending to be the neighbor next door—discarded immediately. Things had come to this; I needed a plan a little more shameless, and a little more dangerous. The worry was that I'd thrown it together in under thirty seconds, so the odds of it being sloppy somewhere were high. If I just talked my way through it cleanly, it ought to be fine.
…Probably.
"S-sorry you had to see something so strange."
"…Huh? Ah, n-no, it's okay…"
Ignoring Yozora, who was mmphing and sulking against my palm, I spoke with care. Formal speech makes the other person feel this is a proper setting, one where at least a minimum of courtesy is being observed. Say the same thing, and it would land as more persuasive than tossing it off casually the way I used to.
"It's nothing else. The truth is…"
"Mmph, mmph!"
…It'll be fine. She only looks put-together. Get to know her and she's a girl with screws loose all over the place. I let my voice out slowly.
"Yozora and I…"
A deliberate sigh, folded in.
"Mmngh…?"
And just like that, I'd said it. I'd tacked on a clause I didn't like, but with this I could make every thoughtless thing Yozora had just blurted click into place at once. It would also explain, naturally enough, why a school nurse happened to know her exact address. Honestly, if she just hadn't started talking about dicks, I wouldn't have had to play such a strong hand.
I hid how conflicted I felt and smiled, as awkward as I could manage. The feeling of I tried to hide it, and got caught anyway.
"…Ah. Okay…"
Fortunately, Han Sua parted her lips just a little—the tiniest bit—and gave a meek nod. I'd been bracing for a headache if she asked when we'd started dating, but she was taking it more easily than I'd feared. Was the politeness her mirroring me, because I'd used it first? I let out a silent sigh of relief and met the eyes of Yozora, gone quiet in my arms.
…Quit licking my palm. You're not a puppy. And why are you looking at me with eyes that bright? We're not actually dating. We're just going to act like it in front of her, you idiot.
She was a little airheaded, sure, but she hadn't been completely lacking in sense. It had to be the alcohol. Wait a little longer and she'd play along with the lie on her own. I swallowed the ticklish feeling, tightened my hand as if cupping her small face, and went on. From here, it wasn't time for explanations. It was time for something else.
"More importantly, why are you here…"
In Go terms, I'd just saved a large group that had been one move from capture. What came next was the reversal—defense into offense. So I caught hold of Han Sua, who could have left right then without it seeming strange at all, and forced the conversation onward. So I could lead her back inside that apartment. So I could thoroughly satisfy the curiosity she'd been feeling while she watched us.
"I, um… I came to… t-talk? With Yozora…"
"Ah. To talk."
Was it because I'd helped her last time with that practice in making a guy-person friend? She could have given some half-answer and fled, but Han Sua, stammering all the while, actually took up the thread. When I smiled gently and nodded along even at something so trivial, a smile bloomed briefly on her lips as well.
She called it talking, but right up until a moment ago she'd probably been getting sexually harassed by Yozora inside the apartment. She'd fled, and run smack into me. That bit Yozora had started to say about tits must have meant exactly that. I could roughly picture what had happened before I arrived: Yozora lunging lecherously at those huge breasts, Han Sua shrieking and scrambling away. Something like that.
"She drank a lot yesterday, so she can't be in her right mind. This must have been rough on you."
"Um… yes… She did, a little while ago, to me… …mm…"
"Once she's fully drunk, she turns into a different person. I suppose you could say she gets a lot clingier."
"…Ah. Aha…"
She'd gone quiet under my hand, so it seemed she'd caught on to what I was doing. I took it away. Fortunately Yozora only licked her lips with the tip of her tongue and said nothing else. When I hugged her affectionately as a test, she grinned mischievously—only for me to see—and wrapped her arms around me.
Thinking about it, she really was a crazy bitch. I'd just assumed she'd followed me into the academy so we'd run into each other often. To think she'd been planning to train Han Sua herself and offer her up. Then again, her own tastes ran toward wanting a man to rape her whether she liked it or not.
Crazy bitch. Yeah.
"Well then… shall we…"
"…"
"…Ah. Standing around talking out here isn't quite the thing, so shall we go inside?"
"…Huh? I, um…"
Han Sua couldn't even refuse properly, and here I was, wearing a mask of kindness, doing something deeply suspicious—while Yozora stayed nestled in my arms, snickering like she knew exactly what I was up to.
Crazy bitch. Yeah.
"And since we've all ended up together anyway, I could help with that 'practice' as well… Ah, one moment. Yozora doesn't know about it, does she?"
"I-I didn't tell her, but… it doesn't really matter if…"
"Practice for whaaat…"
"Practice talking. Making friends, really. She asked me to help the other day."
"Th-that, um, yes…"
"Mmm… Then if I show her how you become friends, that'll dooo, right…?"
"…Right?"
And then she piled on, casually proposing to me just how to deceive Han Sua, how to manipulate her, how to train her, and how to fuck her.
Crazy bitch. Yeah.
"Great! Then I'll demonstrate!! How to make a friend!"
"H-huh?"
Yozora slipped out of my arms and, pronunciation curling at the edges, caught Han Sua by the wrist. Then she marched straight into the apartment. Their shoes tumbled into a pathetic heap in front of the entryway, tangled together as if they were having an orgy of their own.
"A girlfrieeend? Or a boyfrieeend? Or, um… a guy-person friend, was it? There was some weird Korean for it."
"…Any of the three is fine, it doesn't really…"
"Then I'll teach you all of 'em!"
Her pronunciation snapping back to normal now and then. Her gait, too. She seemed somewhat sobered up. Was I imagining it? Still, for now, playing dumb and keeping my mouth shut was the better move. I watched the two of them from behind, then stepped inside without a word.
Click. The sound of the lock sliding home rang out, louder than it had any right to.