Kanzaki Nao (2)
Class 1-3 of Uminosaki High School.
Before morning homeroom, the classroom was absolute chaos, no different from a bustling street market. Someone was fooling around throwing erasers in front of the blackboard, while a group by the window heatedly discussed the late-night anime they had watched yesterday.
It was a peaceful yet noisy, utterly ordinary morning scene.
Yet, in stark contrast to the lively chatter, the scene at the very back of the classroom was exceptionally tragic.
"Waaah...!! It's over, I tell you! My youth has ended before it even began, sir...!!"
In a dark corner of the desk where the sunlight didn't reach.
Kanzaki Nao, who would normally be giggling and chatting away with her friends with her usual relaxed, sleepy-looking eyes, was slumped over her desk, wailing sorrowfully.
It felt as if an invisible dark cloud was hanging heavily over her head.
"What's wrong with her this morning? Did she eat something bad?"
Sitting backward on the chair in front of Nao, Karin asked indifferently.
Resting her chin on the backrest with her face buried in her portable gaming console, her eyes were fixed solely on the fighting game on the screen.
Tap! Clack-clack! Click, click, click!
Karin's fingers tapped the Joy-Cons rhythmically as if executing a combo, without a single hint of hesitation.
"No idea. She's been slumped like that ever since she walked through the back door."
Sitting next to Nao, Chihiro replied nonchalantly, holding a small hand mirror and curling her eyelashes with an eyelash curler.
Click, click.
Chihiro, expertly curling her lashes, didn't even take her eyes off the mirror.
It was a highly realistic morning scene of high school girls, completely unbothered by their friend's desperate cries.
"Waaah... How could this happen, sir? How... My one and only healing potion... My precious morning routine...! What in the world was that pink, lovey-dovey tension, I ask you?!"
Nao's groans hovered over the desk like a vengeful earthbound spirit.
It was at the exact moment her lamentations, accompanied by her flailing arms, reached their peak.
Slip!
"Ah, damn it..."
Losing her split-second concentration due to Nao's relentless wailing, Karin's thumb slipped off the Joy-Con.
"Nao! You kept whining right next to me, and my thumb slipped off the Joy-Con!"
Having lost her ranked match thanks to Nao's persistent background wailing, Karin slammed her console onto the desk with an annoyed look.
Frowning deeply, she poked the crown of Nao's head, which was sprawled across the desk like a puddle of slime.
"Ugh... I'm sorry, ma'am..."
Rustle.
At Karin's poking, Nao slowly raised her head, her bangs completely messy from being pressed against the desk.
In that instant, both Karin and Chihiro froze.
Not only were Nao's eyes—usually closed in a sleepy, relaxed squint—wide open, but her red-rimmed eyes were also brimming with tears.
"Whoa."
"W-What? Are you actually crying?"
Startled by Nao's genuine tears, the two girls' eyes wavered in panic.
Did someone bully her?
Or did something bad happen at home?
Just as Karin sat up straight, her protective instincts kicking in, and Chihiro was about to set down her hand mirror.
"Sh-Shun-senpai...!"
"...Ah, Shun-senpai."
"...Sigh. Is it about Ueda-senpai again?"
The moment that name left her lips.
The tense expressions on Karin and Chihiro's faces deflated instantly, like popped balloons.
Their faces openly displayed a mixture of deep exhaustion and disappointment, as if to say, Of course it is.
Karin picked up her console again and sighed.
"What is it today? Did his profile look like a scene from a youth film while he stared out the window with earphones in? Or was the timing of his breathing sexy?"
"I-It's nothing like that, ma'am! Today, I felt a serious threat to the very survival of my youth!"
"Survival?"
As Karin asked back in disbelief, Chihiro's hand paused as she was zipping up her makeup pouch.
Putting away her eyelash curler and tidying her bangs, a look of curious interest crossed Chihiro's pretty face.
Nao continued to wail, her cheek squished against the desk.
"Right next to Shun-senpai... there was this gorgeous girl I've never seen before, clinging to him, sir! They were even commuting to school together!"
"Oho."
"What, so he got a girlfriend. Honestly, for someone like Ueda-senpai, it'd be weirder if he didn't have one, right?"
"Guh...!"
Thud!
Karin's perfectly logical retort pierced Nao's heart, leaving a gaping hole.
"But... but she wasn't just any pretty girl. She was super-duper pretty, and beautiful, and pure, and..."
"Hey, how are we supposed to picture that?"
"Super-duper-duper-duper pretty, and beautiful, and pure, sir...!"
"Geez. Tell us the details, like her hairstyle, eye color, or skin tone."
At Karin's annoyed scolding, Nao sniffled and began to describe her haltingly.
"*Sniff*. She had jet-black hair in a hime cut... her eyes were this incredibly mysterious purple, and her skin was so pale it was almost translucent..."
Recalling the lovely figure of the black-haired beauty she had seen on the train, Nao brought her hands to her chest and drew a large circle in the air.
"And most of all... her chest was this big, sir! It had enough destructive power to make the buttons on her school blouse look pitiful! And yet, her waist was like an ant's! She's completely disrupting the ecosystem!"
"What kind of description is that? Is she a light novel heroine?"
"It's the truth, ma'am! And when the train shook, Shun-senpai grabbed her and pulled her close! The atmosphere between them was super pink and lovey-dovey... Waaah!"
Remembering the close-contact indirect hug from this morning, Nao had pressed her own self-destruct button.
Her mental state shattered into dust, she collapsed back onto the desk like a puddle of slime.
Listening to her desperate wails, Karin let out an annoyed sigh. Meanwhile, Chihiro, who was applying lip balm next to them, paused for a moment as if something had clicked.
"Wait, is there even a beauty like that in our school? Is she a second or third-year we don't know?"
"She was wearing our school uniform, so she must be, sir... But there's no way someone with those looks wouldn't have caused a rumor by now."
"Nao."
"Yes, ma'am?"
"If she's that gorgeous, I'm kind of curious. Did you sneak a photo of her?"
...
The air around the sobbing Nao instantly froze.
Nao, who had been sprawled on the desk, snapped her head up. The playfulness vanished from her tear-streaked face as she turned dead serious.
Even with tears welling in her eyes, her expression was incredibly firm and solemn.
"Taking photos without consent is a crime, Karin-chan."
...
"No matter what, I, Kanzaki Nao, would never do something so shameless as to take secret photos of someone, sir!"
"Ahaha. Karin-chan, you just became a criminal trying to corrupt an innocent soul."
It was a needlessly resolute declaration.
Karin's face instantly soured as if she had chewed on a bug, while Chihiro giggled, covering her mouth with her hand.
"This stalker is really asking for it."
"Ugyaaah?! Ow, that hurts! I surrender! My-my head—!"
"Why did you make me curious then, huh? Why did you get my hopes up?"
"Ow-ow-ow! My brain is rattling, sir!"
Karin ground her knuckles into Nao's head without mercy while Nao flailed wildly.
Resting her chin on her hand, Chihiro calmly dropped a truth bomb.
"But, you know... the fact that you take the inbound train all the way up to Numazu every morning just to ride in the same carriage as Ueda-senpai already makes you a full-fledged stalker, Nao-chan."
"Ugh...!"
Nao protested, her face turning bright red.
"I-It's not stalking, it's pure fan love, sir! It's just a humble hobby of watching from afar to get energy for the day! And besides, I wasn't even in the right state of mind to take a picture! Shun-senpai's face was so red it looked like it was going to explode...! Where did the usual cool, alpha-male senpai go? He was acting like a total glitching robot...!"
"Ueda-senpai got flustered? Now that's rare."
"That guy barely even reacts to girls," Karin muttered, fiddling with her console again.
Chihiro also rested her chin on her hand as she packed her eyelash curler and mirror back into her pouch.
"But from what you're saying, we don't even know if they're dating yet, right? It's just your assumption, Nao-chan."
It was a perfectly rational point, but it brought Nao absolutely no comfort.
"You're wrong, ma'am."
Nao pressed her cheek flat against the desk again, mumbling resentfully. Her cheek was squished like a steamed bun against the wood, muffling her words.
"...It's one hundred percent—no, two hundred percent, sir."
"What is?"
"Shun-senpai... was completely, utterly whipped for that girl, sir. I just know. That was definitely not the look you give someone who's just an acquaintance..."
As she mumbled, the scene inside the train replayed in slow motion in Nao's head.
The swaying, crowded train. The two of them blushing while carefully avoiding each other's gaze. Shun's firm arm wrapping around the girl's slender waist, and the shy look in the black-haired beauty's eyes as she was held close in his embrace.
No matter how you looked at it, it was the highlight scene of a youth romcom that was just beginning.
Within that fresh, sweet, pink frame, there wasn't even a single square inch of space for an ordinary first-year junior like Kanzaki Nao.
"My unrequited love... ended before I could even confess, sir... Waaah..."
Nao wrapped her arms around her head again and began to sob.
Watching her with amusement while playing with her phone, Chihiro's gaze stopped on a chat window in her messenger app.
"...Nao-chan. Is it this person by any chance?"
"...?"
The smartphone screen was suddenly thrust in front of Nao's face.
Nao, who had been lying face down, poked her tear-stained face out and stared at the screen.
There were familiar faces on the screen.
Shun-senpai, along with the other two of his trio, Suzuki and Kenji-senpai. It was a proof shot of the three of them sitting side-by-side at a Saizeriya table.
And sitting quietly right next to Shun was—
"Y-Yes, that's her, sir! That's the person!"
Nao, who had looked half-dead just a moment ago, sprang up like a coiled spring and snatched Chihiro's phone.
The unrealistic beauty she had seen on the morning train was shining brightly even on the small screen.
Despite the poor quality of the photo, her elegant, pure beauty and violently voluptuous figure seemed to burst through the screen, impossible to hide.
Her squinty eyes wide open, Nao shook Chihiro's shoulders vigorously.
"H-How do you know her, sir?! Chi-chan, do you know who this is?!"
"Ah, I knew it. Then she's that second-year who transferred to our school last Friday."
"A t-transfer student...?!"
Chihiro sighed softly and gestured with her eyes to the barrage of long text messages sent by her older brother, Suzuki.
Clicking her tongue in sheer disgust for her brother, Chihiro casually added:
"Oh, by the way, she's not Japanese. Apparently, she's Korean."