"Painting the red light district redder, my friend's sister's got her foot up our asses!"
When I came home from school and went into my bedroom, the first thing I saw was a pair of thighs.
There was a familiar girl lying stomach-first on my bed, kicking her feet to the beat. She'd helped herself to the new volume of a boys' manga from my bookshelf, and it looked like she was having a whale of a time reading it.
This girl was Kohinata Iroha. She was a first-year at my high school (I was a second-year).
Her hair was a bright golden color, and the way it fluffed up, as well as the headphones around her neck, made her look like an emperor penguin. Her short-sleeved uniform looked like it was keeping her cool in the humid heat of early summer, along with her short skirt. Without her socks, the line of her long, slender, pale legs was unobstructed from view. She was the epitome of a high-school girl, without the piercings or embellishments that would make her stand out as belonging to a particular subculture.
"Fill your ass to burstin', then you're on the floor! But that underwear of yours is to die for!"
She was the kind of girl who only needed to smile at you to make you think she was into you. And that blessed girl who preyed innocently on those tragic boys was now taking over my bed like she owned the place. If she were just sitting there quietly, maybe I wouldn't mind so much.
"Don't care if you're a virgin, just know that this sister—"
Without a word, I pulled her headphones out of the jack on her phone and plugged them into the stereo.
"Aaaargh! Turn that rap music down right now!"
Leaping and flailing like a stranded fish, Iroha flung her headphones across the bed. She continued to whine, wail, and flop around on the bed, clamping her hands over her ears. After all this time (what was it, like a month?) she finally understood how I felt.
"H-How could you, Senpai?! What if my eardrums burst?!"
"I'd marry you to make up for it, of course."
"Huh?"
"Just kidding. You don't need to worry about that; that stereo has a
volume limit when you plug headphones in so it doesn't damage your hearing. Those headphones of yours probably won't output more than a certain volume, either."
"Hey, you're right. Actually, my ears feel fine now!"
"Yup. I'd never spend so much money on something without making sure it's good quality, too."
"Y'know, I never thought about how good they were."
"It's easy to take stuff for granted, I guess. Though you can use them however you want, of course."
Turning off the stereo, I picked up the headphones which ended up at the end of the bed, and handed them to Iroha.
It was about a year ago that these were delivered to my place. The feel of the leather and its worn color had changed a lot since then. It was proof that they were much loved.
"At least you haven't been keeping them in a box all this time." "'Course not. I need them to study my passion!"
"Right. If you just wanted to practice acting, all you'd need is yourself.
But if you wanna excel, you gotta look to how those more experienced than you perform. Since you weren't ever allowed to watch TV or anything, though—"
"Yup! Listening to all these explicit rap lyrics has really helped boost my acting skills! Thanks so much for getting these for me, Senpai!"
"Joking around like that just makes you sound ungrateful."
"I'm joking around because I'm grateful! That's just how girls work!" "Girls are humans too, right? And when humans are grateful, they just say
'thanks' without all the crap you just added."
"It's kinda hilarious to hear a robot talking about how humans are s'posed
to act." Iroha cackled.
Since she was supposed to act like a perfect honor student at school,
Iroha kept her headphones at my place. You read that right: my place, not hers.
That was fair enough, though. This was the only place she could practice
her skills or listen to samples from other voice actors. If her mom ever caught a whiff of anything to do with the world of entertainment, there was no telling how she'd react.
Iroha took the headphones from me before placing them around her neck as usual. Sitting back down on the bed, she began to kick her legs like a kid on a swing.
"Y'know, I really like you. That's why I'm so jealous of Mashiro- senpai."
"Quit trying to mess with me."
"I'm being serious! Y'know when we went to the mall? I was all hyped up about how I wasn't gonna let her steal you away from me and stuff."
"Uh-huh, so how come you agreed to be her friend at the end? Who ever heard of rivals becoming friends?"
"Well, I went in guns blazing, but then I realized how sweet she was, and how gross those bullies were, and it just made me wanna get back at 'em! Ugh! Those two're such a waste of space!" Iroha's face crumpled into a frown.
Grumpy as her expression was, I could tell that she didn't regret her actions and that she felt no resentment towards Mashiro at all.
This was Kohinata Iroha: The most annoying, kindest girl you could ever hope to meet. That was why I had a hunch that she and Mashiro would end up getting along with each other. Even if they seemed like total opposites at first glance, they had a lot in common under the surface.
"So anyway, I'm gonna stay here for the whole rest of the day, okay? Just to make up for my loss on Saturday."
"I have no idea what you're talking about." I sighed.
I turned my back to her and tossed my school bag to the floor, then sank down into my desk chair. Since Mashiro was tolerating me now, I had no doubt that the rest of our fake relationship should be a cakewalk. Tsukinomori-san would have nothing to worry about.
Just then, my phone buzzed in my pocket. From the vibration pattern, I could tell it was a LIME message. Someone in the Alliance had probably found a meme or something. I pulled out my phone to check.
"Lemme see!"
"Hey! Get off me!"
"I gotta be this close or I can't see! You should get a bigger phone!"
The moment she sensed me getting my phone out, Iroha was clinging to my back like a baby monkey. This was just one of her many annoying behaviors, but not one that bothered me too much. I felt bad that she wasn't in the group chat otherwise. I often let her see our conversation so that she wouldn't feel left out.
"It's probably just Murasaki Shikibu-sensei posting some shota shit, or Makigai Namako-sensei raving about another terrible movie, right? 'Cause Ozuma doesn't really post much. Lemme see." Iroha peered forward, wriggling cheerfully.
With her face right next to mine, the soft feminine scent coming off her was strong. It put me on edge a little. I tried to ignore it as both of us stared at the screen.
There was silence. We both stiffened at the name of the sender and the contents of the message. This had nothing to do with the 05th Floor Alliance's group chat, and it definitely wasn't a meme.
It was from Tsukinomori Mashiro. Her new account, which I had to fight tooth and nail to get her to share with me. The message at the bottom of the log barely managed to penetrate my skull, it was so unbelievable.
"She... She... What?"
I don't think I'd ever heard Iroha's voice falter like that.
Maybe I should've seen this coming, given the situation. I was completely
blind to it all, determined to focus only on the Alliance and enjoying the present so we could all have the future we wanted. I locked myself away within the Alliance, blocking myself off from any interference that could come from without. It was all for the sake of keeping our relationship harmonious, and our creative powers in tip-top shape.
Though I guess history has shown that when countries try and cut themselves off, it never ends well. Eventually, a stronger country will show up with its fleet and force them to open themselves up, exposing them to foreign culture which paves the way for a huge cultural restoration.
I couldn't read the emotion in Iroha's widened eyes as she stared at my phone. I could see that single word reflected in them. A word which changed everything. It was a long time before my brain finally came to grips with its definition. Far too long for a word I was reading in my native language.
One simple word.
"I love you. More than anyone else in the world."
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