Part-2 Ch-09 Ep-04

 Well then, I thought, shall we finally head home? With that in mind, we started walking together toward the classroom to pick up our bags.

Maki, walking beside me, seemed unusually restless, her gaze constantly flicking from one place to another.

Even our conversation felt distracted. When I asked her what was wrong, she only replied with vague answers like, “Yeah, just a little,” and offered nothing more.

We continued down the hallway in silence for a while. Then, all of a sudden, Maki stopped in front of a certain unused classroom.

Without the slightest hesitation, she reached out, grabbed the handle, and slid the door open. It rattled loudly, the sound characteristic of a sliding door.

“Ah, it really was unlocked.”

After saying that, she stepped inside without a trace of reluctance, which startled me.

“Eh, wait, hold on a second!”

Why would an unused classroom be conveniently unlocked like that?

I had been thinking this for a while, but is the school’s security management really okay?

“Hey, wait, Maki. You can’t just go in without permission… whoa!”

As I called out from the hallway, an arm suddenly shot out and yanked me inside with force.

Oh no. I’ve been dragged in.

This is bad. I have a really bad feeling about this.

“Just for a little bit. Okay…? …Please.”

Hearing Maki coax me in that sweet, cat-like voice, a sharp anxiety rose in my chest about what she might be planning.

“Uh, yeah……”

I answered hesitantly and braced myself. Maki, already standing close, shortened the distance between us even more.

Then, just like that, she slowly wrapped her arms around me.

I could not tell whether the deep breath Maki let out was simply a normal breath or if it carried some other meaning.

Either way, my body was completely tense.

“Haa…… It calms me down. You should relax a little more too, you know?”

“Being suddenly dragged into an empty classroom and hugged like this is asking a bit too much, don’t you think? Anyway, if we stay in a place like this, the teachers will get mad at us. Classrooms aren’t meant for doing this kind of thing.”

“Aren’t empty classrooms in school exactly for doing this kind of thing?”

“If that’s how you think, then your understanding is completely wrong!”

Even while we were arguing like this, Maki did not loosen her hold at all. She rested her chin on my shoulder, looking perfectly relaxed.

We were pressed together with no gap between us, at absolute zero distance.

From my perspective, far from relaxing, my heart rate was spiraling completely out of control.

“Mari, your heart is pounding so much. I’m happy.”

“Well, yeah……”

“I’m pounding too, you know.”

“……”

My arms hovered awkwardly somewhere near Maki’s back. Everything had happened so suddenly that I was overwhelmed by her actions.

To hug her back properly, I needed some mental preparation. And if I hugged her carelessly, it felt like something irreversible might happen.

Still, since her behavior had been strange from the start, I figured there had to be something inside Maki that made her want to do this.

Something like wanting to cling to me to calm herself down.

Fine then.

I steeled myself and gently placed my hands on her back.

Maki twitched in response.

“Mari……”

The moment she said my name, she hugged me even tighter, and her hand slid smoothly down my back.

“Hya……!”

“……Mari, what a cute voice,” Maki whispered right by my ear.

That voice somehow sounded dangerously seductive. See, I knew she would get carried away. Cold sweat trickled down my back.

I hurriedly tried to pull away, but she spoke again in an ominously gentle tone.

“Just a little. Just a little bit. I won’t do anything that hurts, I promise.”

“No, what exactly are you planning to do!”

“Just a liiittle something that feels good, bu—!”

Before she could finish, I pulled my upper body back and grabbed her face with both hands, pushing it away.

Her arms were still firmly wrapped around my waist, making it clear she had no intention of letting go.

Even so, right now I wanted as much distance as possible from this lust demon.

“Wait, Mari! That’s mean, that’s dangerous!”

“No, no, no, no. The dangerous thing is that way of thinking of yours! This is school! Do you understand? School!”

“No, Mari, you’re misunderstanding a little.”

“……Misunderstanding what?”

“The one who’s going to feel good isn’t me. It’s you, Mari.”

“I wasn’t misunderstanding anything! That’s not the point! I’m saying you should consider the time and place!”

I shouted that and struggled in earnest to break free, but Maki stubbornly refused to release me.

“Why are you so desperate!”

“Because you were fawning all over so many different people, and it made me anxious! Letting me touch you just a little is fine, isn’t it! I want to carve it into you that I’m the one who loves you the most!”

As she said that, her hand began gently stroking around my waist.

Carve it in? Into what? Into me?

And besides, I wasn’t fawning over anyone.

Well, okay, I might have gotten a little carried away being pampered by the juniors.

“It’s good that you’re honest about your anxiety, but you’re way too honest about your desires too! Anyway, haven’t you forgotten that we haven’t even kissed yet!?”

As I kept refusing, still holding her face while she whined “Why, why,” she suddenly tried to sweep my legs out from under me with a playful, “Yo, ho!”

I’d fall if she did that, you idiot.

No, actually, she probably wanted to trip me, make me lose my balance, and turn the tables.

“Stoooop!”

“Nooo waaay!”

We kept up that kind of back-and-forth for a while.

Completely forgetting that we were in an empty classroom we had sneaked into, the two of us were shouting at each other at the top of our lungs.

Then, from behind us, a low male voice spoke.

“……Um, you two. What exactly do you always do when you find empty classrooms? Your voices were echoing all the way into the hallway.”

“Huh!?”

We spun around at the sudden voice and saw our homeroom teacher standing there, wearing a troubled expression.

“You know, every time I see you two, aren’t you always fighting? Are you okay?”

Our homeroom teacher, who knows how close we usually are, probably did not mean it seriously, but his face genuinely looked worried.

Come to think of it, the last time Maki had cornered me in another empty classroom, it was this same teacher who stepped in to stop us.

From a certain perspective, the current situation really could have looked like we were grappling in a fight.

After all, I was still holding Maki’s face.

The one being held had her cheeks squished so her lips stuck out like an octopus.

Even so, the relentless determination with which she pressed toward me was almost admirable. Or maybe not.

At that moment, I was thoroughly confused.

“Th-this isn’t what it looks like!”

I hurriedly let go and tried to explain. The teacher simply laughed and said, “I’m about to lock up, so hurry home.”

“Ah, if Tobe-sensei hadn’t come, we could’ve gone a little further.”

“It wasn’t ‘a little further’ at all.”

On the way home from school, as I corrected Maki’s words, I reflected that we had ended up troubling the teacher again.

By the way, Tobe-sensei is just our homeroom teacher’s nickname.

It is a simple shortening of his last name with “sensei” added, and everyone calls him that.

“Well, yeah, that’s true…… Sorry?”

“It’s fine.”

After replying, I thought for a moment and then took the hand of the Maki walking beside me.

She glanced at me briefly, said nothing, and faced forward again.

Then, silently, she squeezed my hand back tightly.

“Hey, even after you start dating someone, the anxiety that the person you like might be taken by someone else never really goes away, does it.”

Maki murmured quietly.

Realizing that she had been thinking about the same thing I had, I also thought how there was absolutely nothing she needed to be anxious about.

A world without Maki is one I do not need.

That is how deeply I treasure her above everything else.

I wondered what I should say in response, but no good words came to mind.

She does not seem like the type to be convinced just by hearing pretty words strung together.

In that case.

I lifted our joined hands to my lips.

As if handling something precious, I pressed a heartfelt kiss to the back of Maki’s hand.

When I looked up at her, there was my cute girlfriend, her face bright red as she let out a flustered, “Ah, au……”

Even though she is usually so aggressively forward without a care, she is surprisingly weak when she is the one being pushed.

I smiled wryly to myself.

That weakness, shown only toward me, also filled me with a quiet sense of pride.

It was incredibly endearing, but if I let her get carried away again here, it would only lead to trouble, so I kept quiet.

“I’ll do my best not to make you anxious.”

I looked straight into Maki’s eyes and told her that much.

“Yeah……”

For the rest of the walk home, Maki was as quiet as a borrowed cat.

Chapter 9 End