“Oh, but you don't gotta worry, Shirogane—she’s just a friend, so it’s not like u—”
“Shut up!” Koyuki shouted and covered his mouth with her hand. Everyone was shocked by her action, including Koyuki herself.
What? Did I read her wrong?! he questioned himself. Although he possessed such a useful ability, in the end, it was up to him to suss out the cause of said emotions. It was clear as day that Koyuki was jealous of Yui, so he had tried to nip it in the bud early on. He hadn’t expected her to react the way she had, and, to make matters worse, he was currently having difficulty reading her.
“Are you freaking clueless or what?! What if Natsume likes you, huh? She’d be so hurt by what you just said!” Koyuki protested.
“But she doesn’t like me, though!” he replied.
“You don’t know that for sure! Come on, Sasahara! You two are childhood friends!”
It seemed Naoya had been totally off the mark—he had expected Koyuki to see Yui as a rival, but it turned out the opposite had been true. She got angry for Yui’s sake instead... That’s cute as hell.
“Come here for a sec!” Koyuki exclaimed, yanking Naoya closer in an attempt at getting some privacy. Yui was only about two meters away, though, so she could easily overhear everything if she wanted to.
“I can leave if you guys wanna talk,” Yui added.
“What are we fighting about, guys?” Tatsumi made his belated entrance.
Yui waved at him lightly and said, “Oh. Hey, Tatsumi. Hope the extra classes weren’t too bad. Was Naoya taking them too?”
“‘Sup. And yeah, it was a blast,” Tatsumi replied jokingly.
“Haha, sucks to be you.”
“Um, Sasahara, who is this?” Koyuki asked. Her anger had managed to subside somewhat with the new arrival.
After giving it some thought, Naoya found it a bit strange—she must’ve seen the two friends together before. Maybe she just didn’t remember.
“This is Tatsumi Kouno,” Naoya answered. “He’s from my class.”
“Oh, and he’s also my boyfriend slash childhood friend, I guess,” Yui explained.
“Nice to meet you, Shirogane,” Tatsumi greeted her.
“Nice to meet you to—wait! Boyfriend?!”
“Yeah. Look,” he said while linking arms with Yui.
“Get a room, you two. You’re freaking Shirogane out,” Naoya joked. He turned to a rather befuddled Koyuki and explained, “So yeah, us three are all childhood friends. These two are going out, and I’m basically the third wheel.”
“Hm. I see. Mhm,” Koyuki nodded multiple times, seemingly in deep thought as she stared at the couple.
“Are you feeling okay now?”
“I felt fine before. It’s none of my business what you choose to do with other girls. Why would I care? Don’t go around acting like I’m some jealous girlfriend—it’s disgusting,” she spat out. It appeared she was back to her usual self.
Naoya let out a sigh of relief. He was glad to have made it out of that interaction without any misunderstandings.
“By the way, what are they doing?” Koyuki asked, pointing to Naoya’s friends.
The couple had, at some point, moved away from them and were having a covert conversation near the vending machines. They were obviously all too familiar with Naoya and his excellent hearing, so they chose a faraway spot. Naoya stared off in their direction, wondering what exactly they were talking about. Despite how far away they were, he could still catch snippets of their hushed discussion here and there.
“Those two are... Definitely...”
“But... seems like...”
“Oh, so...”
“Oh yeah... Nice, good idea. Let’s do that.”
“Yeah, let’s get ‘em.”
Koyuki, for her part, remained cool as ever. “She’s doing a hell of a lot better than you, isn’t she, Sasahara?” she remarked. “She’s the same year as me, and she already has a boyfriend. That’s pretty... amazing.”
The couple returned, all smiles. They showed no concern as Naoya glared at the two of them.
“Shirogane, you doing anything after this?” Yui, who appeared to be in good spirits, asked.
“Um, no. Why?”
“Great timing! It just so happens that I have four coupons for that crepe store in front of the station! You guys wanna tag along?”
Koyuki looked quite intimidated by her offer. She replied with great caution, “S-So you’re inviting me to hang out with you?”
“Yeah,” Yui affirmed. “If you can’t right now, that’s totally fine. I’ll just invite you some other time.”
Koyuki grew even more overwhelmed by Yui’s considerate accommodation.
Looks like she really wants to go, Naoya thought to himself. Yui knew that Naoya always kept other girls at arm’s length, so she was probably incredibly interested in this new female friend that Naoya was suddenly getting along with. Girls did tend to like talking about relationships and such, after all.
“Yeah, like, they have all these crazy ingredients,” Yui enthusiastically continued. “You can get all kinds of stuff. Come on, Shirogane, it’ll be fun!”
“Ummm...” Koyuki hesitated, withdrawing into her veritable shell more and more.
Naoya, yesterday’s incident still fresh in his mind, knew he had to act quickly before the dreaded “Queen of Thorns” made her appearance
“Yeah, we can eat crepes and have girl talk!” Yui exclaimed cheerily.
“G-Girl talk?” Koyuki repeated the word quietly to herself as if digesting it. Suddenly, she snatched a coupon from Yui’s hand. “I’ll take you up on that! Let’s have some girl talk!”
“Hell yeah! That’s the spirit!”
“I don’t really get the fascination with gossiping myself...” Naoya chimed in.
“Women, man...” Tatsumi grumbled.
The two exchanged tired looks while the two girls began hyping themselves up.
When they arrived at the crepe place, they were pleasantly surprised to find only a few other people there. Perhaps it was because it was getting somewhat late in the day, but they had thankfully managed to avoid the after-school rush hour.
Yui surveyed the menu outside the store with great scrutiny. “Last time, I had a strawberry crepe, so maybe this time, I’ll go with something that has chocolate in it. What do you feel like having, Tatsumi?” she asked.
“I don’t have your sweet tooth, so, uh, do they have any side dishes?”
“They have tuna salad and some other stuff... Oh! Says here that the staff recommend natto and daikon radish! Should I get that?”
“Nah, that sounds too heavy right now. Just gimme some rice.”
The couple were deciding on their crepes together, as expected. Naoya and Koyuki stood awkwardly behind them, watching the scene unfold.
“Sorry about this, Shirogane. You’re not bored or anything, are you?” Naoya asked.
“No, not at all. I was free today, so I don’t mind this too much,” Koyuki demurred. In spite of her placatations, her face was a mess of anxiety. “It’s just... I haven’t really done this kind of thing before, so I’m a little nervous.”
“Oh yeah, the whole ‘not having any friends’ thing.”
“That’s a pretty dickish way to put it, but you’re not wrong,” Koyuki mumbled. She looked at Naoya and sighed. “I’ve never been to a crepe store before or experienced ‘girl talk’ before, so... I don’t even know if I can do this.”
“It hasn’t even started yet. No need to get so worked up about it now,” he tried to reassure her.
Shirogane is being pretty nice today, he noted. It wasn’t just with him either—she had managed to reign herself in with Yui and Tatsumi, too. She must be grateful that they invited her here... Or... Another possibility occurred to Naoya. He gulped before asking, “You aren’t... worried because of everything I said yesterday, right?”
“What are you rambling on about? The crap we talk about goes in one ear and out the other—I forget most of it the next day. What, do you think I obsess over everything we talk about? Gross. But, yeah, you’re right,” Koyuki mumbled the last part, her eyes dropping to the ground. “I’ve always wanted to do stuff like this. I mean, I don’t really like gossiping, but I like sweet food, and...”