Chapter 9:

Seeing the doorknob about to be unscrewed, Naoko cried out anxiously, "Wake up! Mom, don't come in yet—"

She tried to shove Amemiya into the closet.

The small closet certainly couldn't fit an overgrown adult male. Amemiya's face showed no shame, and he even had the leisure to tease her, "

Naoko, why are you so guilty? We haven't done anything excessive... at least not yet."

Thankfully, Ms. Kawase Misato just chuckled, expressing understanding. "Well, I should have understood sooner. Naoko-chan is old enough to have her own little secrets. All right, then, come out quickly."

The footsteps faded, and she finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Otherwise, she didn't know how she would explain to her mother that such a grown man like Amemiya had appeared in her room.

It looked like Amemiya wouldn't offer her an explanation.

When she turned around, she found Amamiya-kun staring at her with a scrutinizing gaze. "Naoko, you don't have any little secrets from me, right?"

"Is this the time for you to be worrying about that? You should be thinking about how to leave my house without Mom noticing—especially in your pajamas."

He still looked nonchalant. "Then don't leave. Naoko, just remember to feed me on time."

"Go away! I don't want to."

"Naoko."

"Hmm?"

He sat down beside her, his left hand reaching behind her, supporting her on the bed, so close that Naoko could feel the subtle rustle of his breath against the air.

"Hey, Naoko,"

she said impatiently. "Just tell me what's going on."

"Naoko, you want a relationship, right?" He stared into her eyes, a hint of indescribable uneasiness in his expression—it was a strange thing to see such an expression on Amamiya Tomie's face in her lifetime.

"..."

"It doesn't matter who it is, right? Naoko, just date me."

A loud bang echoed through Naoko's mind, leaving her dazed. "Huh, what, what?"

"You heard that, didn't you? I said," he repeated in a sickeningly sweet voice, leaning close to her ear. "Naoko, just date me."

Her overloaded mind rebooted several times before finally succeeding. "Amamiya-kun, you're probably starving, aren't you?"

Naoko didn't think she had the kind of charm that would make her a popular figure, so she dismissed it as just another of Amamiya's wicked tricks.

She stood up and hurried to the bathroom to wash up. "Okay, I'll sneak you breakfast in later. There are disposable towels and toiletries in the cupboard, so help yourself."

As Naoko closed the door, she could still hear Amamiya's faint, sneering laugh.

Hmm...did I piss him off again?

While her mother wasn't looking, she secretly hid a few steamed buns. When she brought them into the room, Amamiya-kun was nowhere to be seen.

Terrified, she crouched over the windowsill and peered down. Thankfully, there were no pajamas-clad corpses.

It looked like they'd successfully climbed down the pipe again.

She breathed a sigh of relief.

But she could have gone through the main door, right?

Could this be Amamiya-kun's hidden hobby?

A few days ago, Naoko received a new game cartridge.

It was a highly praised otome game, and one of the male protagonists was one of her favorite gentle types.

She'd played a trial and was hooked. Finally, the weekend arrived, and she decided to play all day.

It was a way to comfort herself from

her broken heart. Even thinking of Irie-senpai still brought a pang of pain.

Speaking of Irie Reo, Naoko actually received a message from him the next moment. Sadly, it was about Amamiya-kun.

She managed a few replies, but seeing she couldn't get any more information, he stopped reading the message and didn't reply.

It wasn't a complete heartbreak, but this situation was definitely more heartbreaking than a broken heart, like someone falling in love with their best friend at first sight.

Though slow to react, she sensed Irie-senpai's attempts to distance himself from her. For example, his address had changed from the affectionate "Kawase-chan" and "Naoko-chan" to the cold "Kawase."

Should she blame Irie-senpai or Amemiya-kun for this?

She couldn't quite figure it out.

While lovers can change, Amemiya-kun had become almost like family to her. No matter what, she couldn't truly be angry with him.

And sometimes, meeting his serene eyes, she would feel a sliver of guilt deep down.

Call her weak or foolish, she simply couldn't completely banish Amemiya-kun from her life.

Even though he could be quite extreme at times.

When Naoko logged back into her social media, she saw that Amemiya-kun had cursed Irie-senpai again.

But he seemed to be enjoying it, and the two of them were chatting animatedly—if Amemiya-kun wasn't being abusive.

She didn't dare to look any further and quickly closed her phone.

Life as a geek is so dull. Naoko spent two days, sleepless nights, completing all five endings of that game.

By the time she went to school, even her steps felt unsteady.

"Naoko, come back to life." A hand waved before her eyes, trying to call her back to her senses.

Amamiya-kun had returned to his usual attitude towards her, as if the weekend incident had never happened.

She, in turn, treated the incident as a dark part of Tomie Amamiya's past, tucked away deep in her heart, ready to bring it up whenever he upset her.

Just like how Amamiya-kun always brought up the time when she, as a child, dressed up as a bride and snuck into his bed during their arguments.

"Stop shaking, I'm dizzy,"

he cupped her face and rubbed it. "This is all because of your excessive gaming, right?"

Naoko didn't even have the energy to resist as he half-dragged, half-carried her to the academy.

As she entered the gate, she spotted a familiar figure in the distance, standing behind the bushes, cautiously looking in her direction.

It was Irie Reo, who had been waiting for her for who knows how long.

Amemiya didn't seem to notice him, and pulled Naoko's backpack to change her direction: "Go this way."

The crowd quickly surrounded them, and Senior Irie was drowned in the crowd, so she gave up the idea of going over to say hello.

However, during the afternoon physical education class, when she was left alone, she was stopped by Reo Irie who suddenly appeared.

He looked a little haggard, with bloodshot eyes and a circle of unshaved stubble around his lips. He was completely different from the high-spirited senior before.

"Kawase."

She almost didn't recognize him: "Senior... Irie?"

"Can you give me Amemiya-kun's contact information?" She

hadn't given up yet!

She glanced around and didn't notice Amemiya approaching, so she whispered, "I'm sorry, Irie-senpai, this is Amemiya-kun's privacy after all, I can't..."

Before she could finish her words, a loud bang erupted in front of her - Irie Reo suddenly went crazy and pushed over the entire row of tables and chairs.

"Kawase Naoko, you did this on purpose, didn't you?"

"Huh? What?"

"You want to monopolize Amemiya-kun, right? That's why you don't want me to get close to him, right?"

As her mind was processing the complicated scene in front of her, Naoko felt a familiar force coming from behind, pulling her into a corner.

"Ha, Naoko, why didn't you come to see me for so long? It turns out you came to see someone like this."

"No... I just came to get some papers and happened to run into you by chance..."

Naoko looked at Irie, only to see him licking Amemiya-kun's whole body with his eyes, even his fingertips trembling with excitement.

His bulging eyes gleamed with a certain greed, and he kept licking his lips and swallowing, as if he was about to pounce and bite someone at any moment.

She shuddered.

"Alright, let's go," Amemiya pushed her. "You'll be late if you're late."

"But these tables and chairs..."

He didn't even turn around. "Whoever made them should be responsible for restoring them to their original state."

Only when they reached the open playground did Amemiya begin to scold her. "If I'd been two minutes later, Naoko, you'd have been beaten."

"How could that be?" she retorted without thinking. "Irie-senpai is different from you. He's very gentle."

He sneered. "Ha, so, Naoko, have you ever been beaten by my violent temper?"

"That...that's not the case,"

he snorted, without replying.

Come to think of it, Amemiya-kun not only never hit her, but he'd saved her several times.

Huh? Why did she say "several times"?

Naoko frowned, racking her brains to dig out these things from her memory, but without exception, she failed.

"Amemiya-kun, do you remember when we went to the lake when we were seven years old?" She pressed her chest and thought carefully, "It seemed to be raining... and then I slipped..."

As the words left her mouth, her heart ached as if someone was squeezing it, and she could hardly breathe.

Amemiya-kun's expression also became very strange. He squinted his eyes and stared at her, as if he was thinking about something.

After a while, he held her head and snapped his fingers in her ear: "There is no such thing. Have you forgotten? Naoko, you are a landlubber who is afraid of water. How could I take you to the lake?" She

didn't know if it was a psychological problem, but after this crisp snap of fingers, she felt that the stone that was weighing on her heart had disappeared.

Amemiya-kun was right. Naoko was very afraid of water and couldn't even get close to the edge of the swimming pool. However, this should have started after she was seven or eight years old.

Because sometimes Ms. Kawase Misato would joke: "You used to love playing in the water. You always begged Amamiya and me to take you to the lake, didn't you? Now you don't even dare to take a bath in the bathtub."

"I didn't think I was afraid of water before?"

Two hands fell on her shoulders, and she was forcibly straightened up, meeting Amamiya's gaze.