Squeak, squeak, the sound of metal squeaking. Hahh, hahh, the sound of gasps, intermingled together.
It was the last class of the day. The location? The gym, located a short distance from the main school building.
Treadmills, exercise bikes, shoulder-press and lat-pull-down machines… It contained all the standard gym equipment.
While I worked out my lower body on the leg press (building leg muscles by pushing a heavy plate in a seated position), I sneaked glimpses at the other students who were working out in activewear.
The Fundamentals of Muscle Training. Everyone was free to exercise using their own training regimen. The atmosphere seemed much more relaxed than in other classes. In this gym, you could pretty much do what you wanted.
Was this school really okay?
Laziness is the only way! Earning money while indulging in idleness… That was the supreme way of living! At least, that was my philosophy. So an environment like this was perfect for me. It was the others I was concerned about.
In a place like this, only those who took everything seriously could get ahead.
Incidentally, my lazy workout partners, Shiika and Akiba, had quickly gotten tired of running on the treadmill and were now reclining on a bench in the rest area by the vending machines.
Oh well. Shiika’s not used to exercise, I thought, extending and retracting my legs with a clunk and a clank.
Then I realized someone was standing over me.
(Hmm? That’s unusual.)
The leg press was relatively unpopular, and the machines had remained unoccupied the whole time.
Despite the fully equipped gym, this was a performing arts school. The students wanted to become actors, models, singers, and pop stars, not bodybuilders. Sure, building a nice physique was an important component of looking good, but there weren’t many students here fixated on muscles. They tended to focus on the more mainstream, popular exercises like training their abs and backs, running, and the bench press.
…Actually, I only chose the leg press because there were fewer people here. I enjoy being alone. It’s my happy place.
“Mind if I use this one beside you?”
“…Huh?”
I didn’t expect to be spoken to, and I grunted hoarsely in surprise.
I was even more shocked by the owner of the clear, female voice.
“Um, sure. Go ahead. Wait, what?!”
When I saw the other person’s face, I was so surprised that my eyeballs spun 360 degrees in my head.
The girl looked at me curiously, no doubt because of the way I was staring at her with such intensity.
“…Is something wrong?”
“Ah, no. It’s just that you’re super famous. I was just thinking how lucky I was that you wanted to use the machine next to me.”
“Heh. You sure don’t mince your words.”
She had an air of gravitas in her speech, but she smiled gracefully. Of course I knew her, this girl who exuded an aura of elegance, like she was draped in fine silks and furs. I mean, there wasn’t a single student in the school who didn’t know her.
Io Kanda.
She was the upperclassman who’d given the congratulatory address during the entrance ceremony. She was the top third-year student and one of the most influential people at Ryouran High. She was a first-rate actress, already getting professional roles.
When I saw her in the auditorium, she’d been wearing the school uniform, but now she was in workout gear. She wore a tube top that covered only her chest, revealing a tight midsection, and leggings that fit her perfectly, hugging the right places. I quickly averted my eyes from her healthy curves.
…Goodness, such a sight could turn me to stone.
“But you’re not lucky, you know.”
“Huh? What do you…?”
She sat down on the leg press beside me, put her feet against the plate, and adjusted her posture.
Clunk. Clonk. She spoke over the noise.
“It’s not a coincidence. I came here because I wanted to talk to you… Gakuto Ikebukuro.”
“Right… About my sister, huh?”
With her song surpassing a million views, Shiika’s popularity within the school had skyrocketed.
It wouldn’t be out of the question for some of the really hard-core students to recognize me as her elder brother.
But I couldn’t see anyone wanting to talk to me in particular. What was she after? A collaboration with Shiika, perhaps?
But her response surprised me.
“Nah. I’m not super interested in her. I mean, she’s really talented, don’t get me wrong. It’s you who I’m kinda interested in.”
“Me?”
“Don’t look so shocked. I’m not trying to hit on you or anything.”
“Just so you know, I’ll see through any tricks…”
Honestly, my guard was up.
I don’t do any of this school’s extracurricular activities like streaming. Yet here was a beautiful girl, approaching me and claiming to be interested in me. Was she just teasing me, or was she trying to get close to Shiika with nefarious intentions? Even though I stretched the rubbery mass you might call gray matter in my brain to a snapping point, I couldn’t imagine why this beauty would want to talk to ME.
“Ever since I happened to see you on campus, I’ve hoped we would get a chance to talk. Now seemed like a good time, so I took the plunge.”
“Ha-ha. Seriously? I’m a complete nobody. Like, the easiest fish to catch that no one would want to brag about anyway.”
“Really? The way you carry yourself, your physique… You seem very sophisticated to me.”
“You mean my ex-shut-in, loping gait?”
“You do martial arts, don’t you?”
“Yeah, like a total pansy. Chop! Hyaaa! Like imitating something from a comic book. If you call doing kung-fu pantomime like an overimaginative child martial arts, then…I guess anyone could practice it.”
“It looks like you weigh around a hundred and ten pounds.”
“Yikes, you can guess just by looking? That’s scary… But yeah, about that much.”
“At your weight, there aren’t a lot of people who could leg press four hundred and forty pounds.”
“…Really?”
“Really.”
Clunk. Clank. My legs stopped.
No one else was doing the leg press, so I’d had nothing to compare myself to. Was this really that heavy?
“I doubt a shut-in would have that kind of physical strength.”
“Well, I AM a shut-in. But I spend most of my time at home doing muscle training in my room. Ha-ha-ha.”
“I see, so that’s what it is. Interesting… Very interesting.”
She sounded convinced, but there was a flirtatiousness to her breathy voice. The sight of her toned abdominal muscles contracting was strangely thrilling.
Don’t look. Don’t think about it. Be an innocent boy. I tried to lecture myself, focusing instead on moving my legs rhythmically once more.
Seemingly unbothered by a silly matter like whether I was really listening to her, she continued in her singsong voice.
“With my work as an actress, I naturally get into the habit of observing people.”
“Huff… Hugh… Hnngh…”
“Basically, people live their lives thinking about what aspects of themselves to display and which to hide.”
“Hyuh! Hnung! Huffff!”
“But it’s not like we’ve only got two sides. We’re more like dice. We’ve got at least six sides. Some people are even more complicated than that…”
“Hah! Huff! Hoo!”
“There are some differences, of course, depending on the individual, but most men only show me the same sort of, let’s say, ‘face.’”
“Huff… Do…hah…they?”
“They want to hide their ulterior motives and showcase their attractiveness. Be it overt or casual, I can clearly see their intentions.”
She stopped talking.
I gave in to the temptation to look over and regretted it.
Now I was looking straight into Io Kanda’s translucent eyes.
“But you’re completely the opposite.”
Narrowing her eyes charmingly and giving me a big smile, she removed her legs from the leg press plate, turned in her seat, and wiped the sweat off her neck with her towel.
“You show your ulterior motives and stubbornly try to hide the fact that you work out. Consider my curiosity truly piqued.”
“Hah… You’re weird, you know that?”
“Well, thanks very much.”
“I mean… It wasn’t a compliment…”
“I think you’re weird, too, so maybe that means we can indulge each other’s…curiosity.”
“Yikes, what a conclusion to leap to…”
“If I see you around at school, is it okay if I talk to you like this again?”
“Just please don’t be obvious about it.”
“So you mean you’d be willing to meet in secret? All right, roger that.”
She was twisting all my words.
I was slightly annoyed and wondered what the heck was going on.
It almost seemed like she sought me out and was trying to get closer to me, but I considered her as someone I shouldn’t let my guard down around.
At the same time, she’s probably the single most influential person at Ryouran High. If I got on her good side, it might really work to our advantage, in terms of both Shiika’s future and securing collaboration partners to get those sweet, sweet numbers.
In that case, I had only one possible response.
“I’d like it if you’d become friends with my sister, too, er, Ms. Kanda?”