Mom: Nanami-san said that she wanted to drop by to take care of you, so I gladly accepted. I’ll try to be home early.
Dad: I gave Nanami-san the spare key. Don’t be too shocked when you wake up.
Otofuke: Nanami said she’s gonna visit you. You all right? Let her take good care of you, okay?
Kamoenai: You have a cold, so let Nanami spoil you more than usual!
Hitoshi: Just because you’re alone with Barato, don’t do anything that’s gonna get your temperature up lol
I felt like a soldier arriving too late for the battle. Rather, of course I wasn’t going to do anything weird, especially when I was so sweaty and dirty.
Sweaty...right. Jeez, I wonder if this is even okay.
“What’s wrong?” Nanami asked, tilting her head as she held another spoonful of jelly up to my lips.
I laughed awkwardly and took the jelly in my mouth. I chewed on the jelly blob a few times before swallowing it, as if trying to delay my response. Then, somewhat hesitantly, I opened my mouth and said, “It’s just, I’m kind of sweaty...so I wondered if maybe I smell bad or something.”
“Mm...no, you’re fine,” Nanami said, bringing her nose closer to me without missing a beat and sniffing me.
“Nanami?!” I yelled. Getting sniffed like that gave me a very strange feeling that caught me off guard.
Nanami must have gotten her fill of my scent, because she finally shifted away from me and flashed me a peace sign. I was relieved for a moment that apparently I didn’t smell bad, but then...
As if she’d suddenly thought of something, Nanami placed the peace sign she was making on her chin. I didn’t even realize that she had placed the cup of jelly on top of the desk.
Um...?
Nanami then moved both her hands in a suspicious manner and, smiling bewitchingly, said, “Or, should I have said instead...‘It smells so bad’?”
“Nanami-san?!”
Shoot, that was really loud. Still, what the hell is she saying? What is this weird atmosphere? More importantly, where does she learn this kind of stuff?! Haven’t there been too many examples lately of the kinds of terrible lessons that Nanami has been getting?!
I felt like my fever completely went away in that single moment. I was in so much shock that I completely recovered from my cold...er, no, I still felt bad.
But no, there’s no way Nanami would say something like that. This must be one of those dreams that you have when you have a high fever. It must be a dream—it’s gotta be.
“Where did you learn about a phrase...or, a situation like that?” I managed to ask.
“Huh? Oh, from Kotoha-chan...”
Shirishizu-san, again?! What the hell is that stink eye class rep doing?! Ever since she started going out with Teshikaga-kun, she’s been totally out of hand!
“And from the girl I mentioned earlier that likes to cosplay,” Nanami added.
Another one?!
Wait, it’s gone up. You’ve gotta be kidding me. The number of people who teach Nanami weird things increased without me even knowing it. What the hell was wrong with our class?
With me absent because of my cold, that meant an entire day passed by where Nanami was with the rest of our classmates without me. That meant that things had happened in class that I wasn’t privy to.
It wasn’t uncommon to be put on a random committee while you were absent, or to be given some kind of an important task because you weren’t there to refuse it. I had heard about those things, but how could I have imagined that what would really happen was that people would plant seeds of indecent knowledge in my girlfriend’s brain while I was absent from school?
At least, I couldn’t imagine that at all.
Yu-senpai, Shirishizu-san, and the nameless cosplayer. At present, these three seemed to be the only persons of interest. But even knowing that still didn’t give me the means to prevent questionable things from reaching Nanami’s ears.
This is no good.
“I think that kind of stuff is a pass for me,” I finally muttered.
“Yoshin’s not into that kinda stuff. I shall not forget this,” Nanami replied.
Why does Nanami sound like some kind of supervillain learning from her mistakes? Though I guess it’s good for my preferences to be clearly stated no matter what. And I’m pretty sure Nanami would never do something that would make me uncomfortable. I mean, I’m honestly not into stuff like that...though if Nanami was the one who said it, maybe I’d kind of like it? Or maybe... No, wait—what am I feeling conflicted over, exactly?
While I kept going back and forth in my head, Nanami must have noticed the subtle change in my emotions, because she closed in on me and asked, “Are you...maybe actually kind of into that sort of thing?”
“No, um, uh...”
I felt cornered and didn’t know what to say. Nanami would never do anything that I disliked; that also meant that if I didn’t dislike it, she would. In fact, if it was something that I was the slightest bit interested in, she would definitely try it on me. After all, we would never truly know if we liked something until we tried it.
Yeah, no. This fever is probably making me delirious. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves and start something we can’t finish.
“Tee hee, I’m kidding. No need to look so serious,” Nanami said, smiling with satisfaction because she got to see me so flustered. Her smile was so innocent, that one would never guess she had been talking about something so inappropriate just a moment ago.
But hearing that she was just teasing genuinely made me sigh in relief.