Ch. 71.1 - Hair Too Pt1
Seeing Chouko looking utterly lifeless, like her soul had left her body, Harutaki paused at his desk, wondering if he should really throw out the final prop.
But… he’d already gone this far. Leaving the last step of a prank unfinished always felt like stopping a sentence halfway. And ending things with this should be just right, just enough to wrap it up, not enough to genuinely anger her, while still giving her a graceful way out of being teased.
He reached for the sheet of kitchen paper, stained bright red, and forced his grin into something that wasn’t outright laughter as he offered it to the girl slumped weakly against the headboard.
“Shihou-san, look. This is proof of your first night~”
“……”
Chouko slowly turned her head. Her neck moved like an old rusted gear that badly needed oiling, stiff, mechanical, absurdly pitiful.
Her pale gold eyes, thin and soft like the last rays of sunset, followed his voice… and locked onto the paper in his hand.
Her first-time blood…
She stared for a few seconds, completely blank.
Then she jerked upright, face flushing red as she pointed at him in outrage.
“Hoshikawa-kun is pranking me again! Do you really think you can fool me like I’m stupid?!”
This…this amount of blood was more than she lost on her period!
Sure, she didn’t know exactly how much blood came out during someone’s first time… but painting an entire sheet of kitchen paper solid red was obviously ridiculous. If she’d really bled that much, she shouldn’t even be able to stand right now.
And also, who the heck bleeds their first-time blood into a heart shape?!
But… huh?
If nothing happened, if he didn’t rough her up at all, then why did her neck and back feel sore?
It reminded her of when she was small, falling asleep on the bare floor after playing too long, only to wake up with her whole neck and back aching like punishment from heaven.
Ever since then, she refused to sleep on anything that wasn’t properly padded.
“Tsk tsk. It’s true I didn’t violate you, Shihou-san. But… while you were fast asleep, I did secretly take a bunch of embarrassing photos~”
Harutaki dangled his phone in front of her, stepping into phase two of his “impression deepening” prank plan.
He’d warned her so many times to watch herself, but not only did she ignore him, she even drank extra like a stubborn kid just to spite him.
Did she not understand that if something really happened, the one who’d get hurt would be her, and the people who cared about her?
“Eh… hehe… H-Hoshikawa-kun, you’re just joking again, right?”
Chouko’s gaze followed the swaying phone like it was a hypnotist’s pendulum, her eyes drifting nervously.
She was trapped in a swirl of panic and denial.
Based on Hoshikawa’s personality, he could be teasing her.
But then she remembered the unfamiliar sleepwear on her body… the missing uniform… and dread crept up her spine. What if, what if, he really had taken compromising photos while she was unconscious?
And if, if, Hoshikawa had photos of her shame… and used them to make her do this or that…
“Guuu…”
“And there’s one more thing.”
Harutaki pressed the attack, stabbing her directly while she was mentally collapsing.
“Shihou-san… you’re actually Kinako, right?”
I’m dead, dead dead dead, !?
She screamed internally, clawing at her skull, but the years she’d spent honing her fake composure barely kept her face together.
“Wh-What Kinako? Heh… hehe… I’m Chouko. Chou-ko. Hoshikawa-kun, the prank is going too far!”
She forced a smile so stiff it was practically a grimace, her tiny beauty mark trembling with her lip and completely betraying her. The comedic timing was perfect.
I’m dreaming. This has to be a dream.
I must be dreaming because I’ve been around Hoshikawa-kun too much.
That’s all. That’s it.
Didn’t she dream just the other day about him pushing her into a bathroom… onto a desk… against a corridor wall, guuuh…
A day this horrible could only be explained by nightmares.
“Let’s see… the mole on the upper left of your lip… the girls’ uniform and ribbon unique to Nichiya High… and in the world of high-schoolers, that impossible F-cup…”
“Enough enough enough! Stop talking! I admit it, okay?! I admit I’m Kinako! There! Happy?!”
The more he listed, the more she unraveled, until her smile melted like ice under a blazing midsummer sun, gone, utterly gone, leaving only a flushed, adorable mess of a girl.
Clutching the rolled-up blanket into a ball, she wiped away the tears at the corners of her eyes before he could stop her.
Thirty seconds later.
…I wanna die…
Why did she shove her face into the blanket?
She didn’t ask, and Hoshikawa didn’t tell her, but judging from the very obvious scent clinging to it, she suspected that she’d been carried here by him… and that this was the blanket he used every night.
He doesn't sleep naked, does he?
It was her first time in a boy’s room.
First time lying on a boy’s bed.
And she was hugging the very blanket he slept with every night…
She should throw it away immediately…
So why did she… kind of… want to hold it for just a little longer?
Just a little…
The soap-clean smell of the Biore The Body wash he used…
The faint lavender from his fabric softener…
And, tingling and unmistakable, the warm, masculine scent that belonged only to Hoshikawa Harutaki,
“Siiiiip… ”
“Shihou-san? The duvet cover can be removed and washed, you know. But the inner comforter is a bit of a hassle.”
Mid-sniff, she froze.
Her mind rebooted.
What the hell was she doing?!
She was wearing thin sleepwear…
On a boy’s bed…
In a boy’s room…
Sniffing his bedding like it was treasure, !!!
“I’m sorry, Hoshikawa-kun… I lost my composure…”
She gently brushed her messy bangs to the left, murmured an apology… then puffed out her cheeks a little and muttered in a sulky tone:
“It’s all your fault anyway. You keep teasing me. You just like laughing at me. Tch. Mean, annoying guy.”
“Oh? And yet even knowing I might have your photos on my phone… you still dare talk to me like that?”
“Then w-what do you expect me to do…?”
She stared at the phone raised in his hand, bracing herself on the mattress, like a cat ready to pounce and snatch it away.
But that movement… was very much not safe,
“Shihou-san PLEASE stop, poor Mister Button is about to give out!”
The sleepwear Ayaka bought was a bit looser than usual. It fit Nogami perfectly when she borrowed it last time. But now…
Yes. Shihou-san could definitely compete with Minako in that department.
Harutaki’s gaze drifted, unbidden, to the girl’s generously rising chest. Instantly, his brain conjured an image of several girls lined up, comparing figures.
Damn it. Why did his memory have to be so sharp in this type of situation!?
The pajamas weren’t tight enough to actually pop a button, but after she’d wrestled with the blanket earlier, the fabric had shifted, leaving a small gap between two buttons, just wide enough for his eyes to slip through.
Through that gap he could clearly see soft, pale skin… and a tiny mole in almost the same spot as in her selfies.
“Hehehe… Hoshikawa-kun really is interested in my body~”
“You’d better have some self-awareness.”
This airheaded idiot princess…
She was on a boy’s bed, with a boy she wasn’t even dating.
And she dared to joke like that?
Renewing his resolve to teach her a lesson, Harutaki rose from his computer chair and walked to the bed, closing the distance between them to barely more than an arm’s length.
“Yeah. You guessed right, Shihou-san. I am very interested in your body.”
“E-Eh…? Eh?”
The LED ceiling light cast a large shadow over her. Darkness swallowed her vision and she instinctively shrank, arms bracing as if to retreat.
But before she could move, a pair of strong hands clamped down on her shoulders, forcing her down onto the bed with surprising force.
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