Chapter 782: Chapter 782
For the past few days, Yamamura Miki had been unusually distracted.
Even while walking, she would occasionally start replaying what had happened that night and nearly wander straight into a tree. Fortunately, Ai caught her arm before she could collide with one.
"Yamamura Miki, has your presence become so faint that even trees can sneak up on you now?"
Miki’s face turned red at Ai’s teasing. She knew perfectly well how ridiculous she was acting, but there was no way she could explain the reason. All she could do was lower her head and mumble incoherently.
"Were you thinking about Mitoma Kaoru?"
"Eh?!"
Miki’s head snapped up, her eyes widening.
She clearly had not expected Ai to suddenly mention his name.
The moment their gazes met, however, Miki hurriedly looked away again, heat spreading across her cheeks.
"Oh?"
Ai rubbed her chin.
"That reaction is extremely suspicious."
She had only thrown the guess out casually.
"Come to think of it, you’ve been like this ever since Kaoru stopped traveling with us."
"I-I haven’t."
Miki denied it at once, despite knowing perfectly well that Ai had hit the mark.
She really had been thinking about him.
"Ara, ara~"
Ai suddenly smiled in a way that made Miki even more nervous.
"So we’ve finally fast-forwarded to romance talk? I’ve been waiting forever to discuss something girly. This exam is way too boring otherwise."
Miki’s face turned scarlet.
"I-I don’t understand what you’re talking about!"
Even so, the moment Ai mentioned romance, her heart began pounding.
Airi’s earlier words echoed in her ears again, leaving her restless and painfully embarrassed.
"This is exactly why people think you’re gloomy, Yamamura Miki."
Ai sounded dissatisfied, almost as though she were lecturing a hopeless student.
"Liking someone isn’t shameful. You should just say it openly. If you keep acting like this, you’ll never make many friends!"
Ai spoke with tremendous confidence for someone who hardly possessed an enormous social circle herself.
"Although..."
She paused.
"The person you like is certainly a little unusual. Falling for a pervert obsessed with feet is questionable."
With Kaoru absent, Ai showed absolutely no mercy.
"If you date him, he’ll probably fuss over your feet every day."
She stopped.
Then her eyes brightened.
"Wait. That actually sounds hilarious. You should definitely date him."
Just imagining Kaoru doting on the shy Miki was apparently enough to awaken Ai’s desire to watch the chaos unfold.
"Uu... h-he isn’t that kind of person."
Despite her embarrassment, Miki still gathered enough courage to defend Kaoru.
In her eyes, he was nowhere near as ridiculous as Ai made him sound.
"You aren’t even dating him yet and you’re already defending your boyfriend?"
Ai looked dissatisfied.
"However you look at it, Kaoru definitely has weird tastes."
Miki stammered helplessly.
Unfortunately, that particular accusation was difficult to refute.
And thinking about him only brought back that night.
Her first intimate encounter with him had been a complete accident.
She and Airi had secretly entered his tent while believing he was asleep, only for everything to spiral horribly out of control.
When Tsubasa suddenly appeared outside, Kaoru had hidden them under his jacket in the cramped darkness. Miki had panicked, unable to see anything, trapped between Airi and Kaoru with no room to escape.
What followed had been so embarrassing that she still wanted to disappear whenever she remembered it.
She had barely understood what was happening in the darkness. By the time she realized how compromising their position had become, moving would have risked exposing all three of them to Tsubasa.
So Miki had frozen.
Her heart had hammered wildly, her thoughts had gone completely blank, and the entire experience had left her too mortified to look Kaoru in the eye afterward.
Even now, she could remember the strange closeness, his warmth, and the helpless panic of being unable to move without revealing herself.
That was already humiliating enough.
"Are you thinking about something dirty?"
Ai suddenly leaned right into Miki’s face.
Miki nearly jumped out of her skin.
"N-no! I wasn’t thinking about anything!"
Tears almost appeared in her eyes.
The memory alone was enough to make her want to dig a hole and bury herself.
"Did you really not do anything strange with Kaoru?"
Ai’s instincts were disturbingly accurate.
"For the past few days, he keeps trying to talk to you, and every single time you run away. That looks incredibly suspicious."
"D-does it?"
Miki stubbornly refused to admit anything.
"You look exactly like an angry girlfriend."
Ai described what she had observed.
"The boyfriend approaches because he wants to make up, but the girlfriend refuses to listen, lowers her head, and starts walking faster and faster."
"Eh?"
Miki looked genuinely shocked.
She had not realized she appeared angry.
"Isn’t that what’s happening?"
Ai tilted her head.
"If you aren’t angry, why do you keep avoiding him?"
"I-I’m not angry! I just... I just don’t know how to face him."
Miki immediately became anxious.
The last thing she wanted was for Kaoru—or anyone else—to think she was angry with him.
What had happened had been incredibly embarrassing, but she did not hate him for it.
If anything, she was more worried that Kaoru might be angry with her.
After all, she and Airi had been the ones who secretly entered his tent in the middle of the night and started causing trouble.
Maybe Kaoru now thought she was some shameless girl.
That was precisely why she fled whenever he tried to approach.
She was afraid he wanted to confront her about what she had done.
"Did one of you confess?"
Ai immediately became interested.
"Who said it first?"
"I-I already told you, nothing happened between Kaoru and me!"
Miki herself had no idea what their relationship could even be called.
"H-he probably wouldn’t like someone like me anyway..."
As she spoke, her confidence suddenly collapsed.
She could not think of anything about herself that someone would genuinely like.
Expecting Kaoru to choose her seemed even more impossible.
"You’re way too sensitive. No wonder your presence is so weak."
Ai complained.
"If he disliked you, he wouldn’t keep looking at you."
"L-looking?"
Miki blinked.
"You seriously didn’t notice?"
Ai spoke with great authority.
"Kaoru secretly watches us all the time. He even looks through the clothes in my backpack."
"Th-that’s because you make him carry your backpack."
Miki sounded slightly annoyed.
"You keep defending him!"
Ai stared at her.
"He looks at you too. I’ve caught him glancing your way plenty of times."
Then she looked Miki up and down.
"Besides, wearing a jacket doesn’t magically make you invisible."
Miki’s face became completely red.
Kaoru was not like that!
"E-even if he did look, I-I wouldn’t care!"
She sounded almost angry.
Ai examined her carefully before shaking her head with exaggerated pity.
"You really like him that much. I seriously don’t understand what’s so good about that pervert."
Miki puffed her cheeks.
For someone normally so timid, this practically counted as furious.
There was nothing especially impressive about her anyway.
If Kaoru really had noticed her, she would probably be more embarrassed than offended.
"Th-then what kind of boy do you like?"
Miki launched a tiny counterattack, completely failing to notice that she had effectively admitted Ai was right.
Ai actually stopped to think.
After a moment, she answered uncertainly, "At minimum, someone whose personality matches mine."
Then she added mercilessly, "Someone as stupid as Yamamura Miki would be my least favorite type."
Miki took the insult directly to the heart.
"I-I’m not stupid..."
"You are."
Ai continued without hesitation.
"Kaoru has lots of girlfriends, and you still want to like him. How is that not stupid?"
She began counting off the obvious problem.
"If you date him, he won’t only hug you. He’ll hug other girls too. Someone as soft as you would probably let him tease you constantly."
Then Ai carelessly delivered the fatal blow.
"And if he eventually got bored of you and threw you away, you’d probably just cry quietly by yourself."
The courage Miki had finally begun gathering vanished instantly.
If Kaoru really treated her as something disposable...
She would be devastated.
The thought connected with everything she had done that night and everything that had happened since.
Her chest began hurting more and more.
Ai noticed the tears forming in Miki’s eyes and froze.
She had not expected to genuinely make the nearly invisible girl cry.
"Idiot. Don’t take that seriously."
Ai immediately tried to recover.
"He’s a pervert. He probably wouldn’t let you escape even if you wanted to."
Miki seemed not to hear her.
Her thoughts were still sinking.
She had already acted so shamelessly that night.
Maybe whatever image Kaoru once had of her had been completely ruined.
"Stop thinking about it."
Ai became irritated—not really at Miki, but at herself.
Normally she might have bowed and apologized properly, but seeing Miki like this made her strangely restless.
"I went too far. Sorry. There, I apologized. Happy?"
"I-it isn’t your fault. It’s mine."
Miki turned her face away so Ai could not see her expression.
Ai puffed out her cheeks.
They had finally gotten to have a proper romance conversation, and naturally anything involving Kaoru had immediately become absurdly complicated.
The atmosphere between them fell silent.
Ai walked ahead without speaking.
Miki followed behind with her head lowered.
Then rustling came from the nearby forest, and several figures emerged, breaking the awkward silence.
"Ah! Hello! I didn’t expect to run into anyone here!"
Ai looked over.
Ichinose Honami, Horikita Suzune, Shiina Hiyori, and several others had appeared.
Honami was the one who had spoken, greeting Ai and Miki with her usual cheerful smile.
"Eh?!"
The moment Miki recognized Honami, she let out an embarrassingly startled sound.
Then she instinctively tried to hide behind Ai.
After everything Airi had told her, seeing Kaoru’s first publicly acknowledged girlfriend suddenly appear made Miki feel horribly guilty.
She reacted like a mouse spotting a cat.
Ai could no longer watch.
She grabbed Miki’s wrist before the girl could flee.
"Sorry! Did we scare you?"
Honami looked confused by Miki’s reaction and assumed their sudden appearance had startled her.
"No. She’s just timid."
Ai answered casually.
Perhaps because they had just been discussing Kaoru, she now found herself unusually conscious of Honami as well.
"Yamamura-san hasn’t changed much."
Hiyori smiled gently.
"It’s been a while."
Only then did Miki notice her.
Her expression brightened with surprise.
"L-long time no see, Shiina-san."
Kaoru had introduced them the previous year, and Hiyori had once recommended several novels to Miki, so the two could reasonably call each other friends.
Meeting again here made Hiyori briefly think that fate could be surprisingly interesting.
Then again, they were all trapped on the same uninhabited island.
Running into one another was hardly miraculous.
"It looks like we’ve found someone you know."
Honami smiled.
"You two are from Class A, right?"
Ai nodded and introduced herself and Miki.
At the same time, she quietly studied Honami.
This was Kaoru’s first publicly acknowledged girlfriend.
’Wow.’
Even Ai had to admit Honami was striking.
"So you’re Morishita-san!"
Honami immediately looked delighted.
"I think Kaoru has mentioned you before!"
Suzune, standing beside her, almost sighed.
What did she mean, think?
Honami had learned that Kaoru was traveling with Ai’s group on the very first day.
She had even been mildly jealous at the time, complaining that as his actual girlfriend, she should have been there too.
"What did he say about me?"
Ai immediately became suspicious.
Had Kaoru been badmouthing her behind her back?
Or spreading even more ridiculous rumors?
"Hehe. He said Morishita-san was cute."
Honami smiled a little sheepishly.
"I was slightly annoyed when I heard it."
"But now that I’ve met you, I understand why he said it."
"I am extremely cute."
Ai nodded solemnly.
Only she and Fūka could probably say something that shameless with completely straight faces.
Miki quietly moved a little farther away from her.
After they chatted for a while, Honami asked, "Are you two heading to a task?"
"Yes. There’s a two-person task at C4."
Ai saw no reason to hide it.
Judging from their direction, Honami’s group was probably heading there as well.
"Then we’re going the same way."
Honami seemed pleased.
Then she asked, "By the way, have you noticed anything strange recently? Or met anyone suspicious?"
"Someone strange?"
Ai tilted her head.
Did Kaoru count?
"One of your class’s groups was attacked by that so-called ghost, wasn’t it?"
Suzune finally spoke.
"We’re investigating the incident."
Two days had passed since the ghost incident, yet Honami and the others still had not identified the culprit.
"G-ghost?!"
The moment Miki heard the word again, she visibly tensed.
"Yes. The ghost."
Honami became serious.
"There haven’t been any more incidents over the last few days, but if the culprit is still somewhere on the island, they could interfere with other students’ exams again."
Ai found the entire situation strange.
"Isn’t that something the school should handle? Why does it have anything to do with you?"
Besides, the victim had belonged to Class A.
Shouldn’t Honami and her allies be pleased that a rival group had been weakened?
"It does involve us."
Honami answered as though the reasoning were obvious.
"What if they strike again? Class A happened to be the victim last time, but the next target could be us."
"Whatever their reason was, deliberately sabotaging another group like that is going too far."
Ai fell silent.
No wonder everyone considered Ichinose Honami such a good person.
She practically behaved like some kind of wandering champion of justice.
Still...
The investigation did sound rather interesting.
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