ALL NOVEL Chapter 69
“‘Sup.”
“Morning, Shishido.”
“Mornin’.”
Summer vacation was over, and the second semester had begun. When Ryuichi entered the classroom after the considerably lengthy holiday period, he was greeted back by his classmates who had arrived earlier.
“How did you spend your holiday, Shishido?”
“Isn’t it obvious? He must’ve flirted around with Shizuna.”
“…Damn you, you normie.”
“Well, you aren’t wrong in saying we flirted.”
Ryuichi was deeply moved to be approached by both boys and girls. When Shizuna’s name was mentioned, she, who had been speaking with her friends as well, immediately made a dash for Ryuichi.
“I feel like I heard my name here.”
“Yeah. We were just talking about how you and Shishido-kun must’ve spent your summer vacation flirting around and being lovey-dovey with each other.”
“That’s right. Isn’t that supposed to be obvious by now?”
“………”
Shizuna said this with her hands on her hips, as if it were a matter of course. When it came to matters concerning Ryuichi, it was becoming more and more common for her to confidently speak of her relationship with him like this, but that just meant that her feelings for him were so strong to the point where she was strongly declaring it like this.
“‘Sup guys!”
As the class was already getting lively first thing in the morning, Makoto also entered the classroom. He seemed to be the same as usual, and Ryuichi immediately decided to ask him about what had been weighing on his mind.
“Hey, Makoto.”
“Yeah?”
“I saw you the other day. Weren’t you with that girl with the glasses we met that one time?”
“Ah, you saw that?”
It seemed he had no intention of hiding it.
“I’m pretty sure you said that girl had a boyfriend, didn’t you?”
“Huh? Wait, did you lay your hands on a girl who’s already taken?”
“Nah, there’s a really deep and profound reason for that, you see.”
It didn’t seem to be anything particularly serious, as he was laughing and smiling as he spoke. After all their classmates except Shizuna had returned to their seats, Makoto explained to them what had happened.
“To tell you the truth, it looks like she was cheated on by her boyfriend, y’know? …Well, she sorta had first row seats to the crime.”
“Huh…”
“Cheating…”
It seemed Shizuna clenched her fists tightly at the word “cheating.” Although he understood to some extent what she was imagining, he took her hand to reassure her that, at least with the current him, she had nothing to worry about.
“Stop flirting so naturally.”
“Shut it. So?”
“Right.”
Makoto continued.
“That girl isn’t a beauty by any stretch of the imagination, but her sister has absolutely killer looks. So, when she went to her boyfriend’s house, she saw him fucking her own sister.”
“I see.”
“That’s horrible…”
However, in this day and age, it was neither surprising nor uncommon for one’s own sister to have a relationship like that with their boyfriend.
She may have wanted to harass her little sister whom she considered inferior to her, or she may have had some other purpose, but as far as Ryuichi was concerned, it was probably not a good one.
“She wasn’t very assertive in the first place, so not only did her sister run her mouth at her, her boyfriend also told her he was no longer interested in her, apparently. That was when I saw her walking around with a downcast look on her face.”
So that’s kind of drama there was with that girl, huh, Ryuichi thought. And so, she told everything to Makoto, who had approached her before, albeit to pick her up, and Makoto, upon hearing this, took her around to various places to get her to smile.
“So even you’ve got a soft spot in you, huh.”
“Oi, what are you trying to say with that?”
Ryuichi’s shoulders trembled as he laughed, but he looked into Makoto’s eyes firmly and continued with the following words.
“It was just a figure of speech. I know you’re a good and kind friend.”
“…That was off-kilter.”
Makoto embarrassedly scratched his cheek and looked away.
He had had his suspicions because the Makoto he saw, though by chance at the time, also seemed to be enjoying himself, but apparently they weren’t in that sort of relationship.
Ryuichi’s intuition was that Makoto was still a flamboyant guy at heart, so that girl was likely outside his strike zone… But, well, one could never know if he’d had a change of heart like Ryuichi did.
Time passed, and after school, Ryuichi was hanging out with Shizuna in the city. It was a leisurely date with no particular aim, but to tell the truth, Shizuna had not said much since they left school, as if she was thinking about something.
“What’s wrong?”
“Ah…well.”
When Ryuichi turned his gaze at her to see what was troubling her, Shizuna spoke to him.
“I was just wondering how it must feel to cheat on someone.”
“Hmm?”
Ryuichi listened to her words, although he couldn’t help but feel that he’d heard something similar before.
“According to Makoto’s story, the sister didn’t think well of her sibling and went out of her way to steal her boyfriend away from her by blatantly having sex with him… I’m not her sister, so I don’t know what she’s thinking, but I can’t imagine giving my body to a man for that sole reason.”
“…Well, I think that’s a normal sentiment to have, y’know?”
What Shizuna was saying wasn’t wrong in the slightest and was perfectly normal. However, it was true that there were a certain number of people in the world who had such broken and warped sensibilities, and if anything, Shizuna was probably in the slightly eccentric category herself.
“I guess it all comes down to the kind of thoughts and intentions you have behind it, but then again, you’re also doing something that would make normal people tilt their heads, y’know?”
“Eh?”
She confusedly tilted her head to the side.
“You and I are formally dating, yet you allow me to continue my relationships with Chisa and the other girls, so in that regard you’re an outlier too. But, well, so am I.”
“T-That’s… Muuuu.”
One-on-one relationships were fundamentally the norm. Ryuichi wasn’t particularly bothered by their current arrangement, but it wasn’t uncommon for him to suddenly agonize over it either. After all, he was doing nothing more than taking advantage of the kindness of Shizuna, Chisa and the other girls.
“It’s fine when it’s you, Ryuichi-kun! Everybody wants this, after all!”
It was precisely because she said things like this that Ryuichi ended up presuming upon their kindness. It was certainly an important matter, but both Ryuichi and Shizuna decided to shelve the thought for the time being, as overthinking it would only tire them out.
“…But you know, I never would’ve expected you to say something like that.”
“Huh?”
Seeing as it was a good opportunity, Ryuichi decided to bring the following matter up.
“How would you feel if you were in a relationship with someone other than me and I showed up to break you two off?”
“I’d be happy?”
“…Err.”
Ryuichi wanted to say, “No, that’s not what you’re supposed to say,” but Shizuna’s heart was already biased toward Ryuichi when he made this analogy, so it seems that such words came naturally for her.
“I know hypotheticals are one thing, but…to be honest, I can’t imagine myself dating a man other than you, Ryuichi-kun.”
“That makes me happy to hear.”
“Right, right, so that’s why I can’t really answer your question… And besides.”
“?”
Shizuna looked down a little. Having reddened all the way to the tips of her ears, she quietly whispered.
“…You made me realize, didn’t you? About my own sexual dispositions, or rather, my rather sinful fetish.”
“…Ah~.”
“I can’t ever show that side of me to anyone…not that I have any intention of doing so! I’m the kind of woman who, even before we were dating, got off on fantasies where I was attacked by you.”
Shizuna was pure and innocent… Again, to be clear, Shizuna was pure and innocent. But it was Ryuichi’s influence that had made it possible for her to say things like these, and it was also Ryuichi who had brought out her hidden masochistic side. Ryuichi didn’t really think much of it, but it seemed Shizuna in particular was ashamed of how sloven and disheveled she was in bed.
“It’s too late for that now, if you ask me. Besides, being able to make a beautiful woman like you look that disheveled at my hands alone is pretty pleasing.”
“But there should be limits… Especially when it comes to that…that face!”
The face that Shizuna mentioned must’ve been referring to the one in the picture she’d seen earlier. No matter how beautiful her face may be, when she was in a state of pleasure, her expression became slovenly and debauched, revealing a vulgar, panting face. In a way, this was reminiscent of the Shizuna who’d begun getting corrupted in the manga, but in Ryuichi’s opinion, this was also one of her charms.
“Don’t worry about it. You can get as debauched as you want with me. I love each and every part of you.”
“Guh… It frustrates me how those words make me happy and excited at the same time!”
It was useless for her to resist, since her body was already sensitive in the first place. It was an overly obscene conversation to have while walking around town, but of course, considering that there weren’t many people around, no one had heard them.
Shizuna also seemed to have a lot of worries and concerns herself, but Ryuichi whispered those words in her ear to reassure her and paint over those worries too.
“Hnng… I wuv you~. ♪”
But, well, it was probably more apt to call her current expression something other than that of ‘reassurance.’