Chapter 31: Do You Like Suda’s Casual Talk? 1

Another ordinary weekday with nothing new arrived.

As always, Akaishi went to the station, boarded the train as usual, and walked from the nearest station to school.

On the night of the day he and Hachiya had tailed Sakurai, Akaishi received a message from Hachiya.

『Just as you said, it looks like Sousuke really did ask Shiorin to help him choose a birthday present for his little sister.』

Seeing the message, Akaishi confirmed that his prediction had been correct.

Still thinking about the fear he felt toward Sakurai and the need to understand his madness, Akaishi continued pondering even today.

He didn’t have absolute confidence that he was right. There was even the possibility that everything was just his own baseless suspicion.

But the strange terror he felt whenever he came into contact with Sakurai — wasn’t it caused by the madness Sakurai possessed?

Akaishi had also tried, as a normal male high school student, to get along well with girls and had made several attempts with hidden motives, but all of them had ended in failure.

Even though he wanted a girlfriend, he couldn’t take the appropriate actions.

Sakurai was probably hundreds of times better at it than him. That was why he could act like a proper rom-com protagonist.

Along with fear, Akaishi also felt a tiny bit of admiration.

He understood that he couldn’t do things as skillfully as Sakurai. He couldn’t maneuver as well as him.

“Yuu! Yo!”

A few minutes after leaving the nearest station on foot, someone called out to him.

He knew who it was without even turning around.

“Toki…… It’s rare for you to come this early. You’re usually cutting it close or straight-up late.”

“Heh…… My head’s unusually clear today……”

“You mean your eyes are unusually clear. I think your head is never clear.”

It was Suda Toki himself.

Suda got off his bicycle and walked beside Akaishi.

Unlike Akaishi, Suda commuted by bike. With the stamina and strength of the swimming club’s ace, long-distance cycling was no problem for him.

Pushing his bicycle, Suda looked at Akaishi.

“Yuu, what did you do during the two-day weekend?”

“Ah, I……”

He couldn’t say he had been tailing Sakurai together with Hachiya.

“I was doing muscle training.”

“Pfft…… You? That body doesn’t look like it does any muscle training!”

Suda lightly punched Akaishi in the stomach.

“What about you?”

“Me, huh………… Heh, prepare to be shocked. I……”

There probably hadn’t been any major events, but Suda paused for dramatic effect.

“In these past two days, I mastered cat’s cradle! I’ve become a cat’s cradle master!”

“Huh?”

Suda was a curious and inquisitive guy. He had a habit of jumping into anything that caught his interest and enjoying everything.

“Hey Yuu, hold my bike for a sec.”

“Sigh……”

Suda handed the bicycle to Akaishi and pulled a string for cat’s cradle out of his pocket.

“Ta-daaaah! Cat’s cradle string———!”

“For someone who calls himself a master, your string storage is awfully sloppy.”

“First, I’ll show you the technique I learned yesterday.”

“Go ahead.”

Suda began trying to create some kind of shape with the string.

“Oh………… Ohh, looking at it this way, you actually look a little intellectual.”

“Shut up, you’re breaking my concentration.”

“I’m doing live commentary, obviously.”

They chatted casually.

“Hup, hup…… hup!”

“Ooh.”

“Done!”

“…………”

Suda had tangled the string around all his fingers, creating a strange, chaotic shape.

“…What the hell is this?”

“It’s my original technique. I call it ‘Chaos’.”

“That’s way too deep in meaning. It’s got too much of an artist vibe for me to understand.”

“It just looks like a tangled mess.”

“It’s all tangled up, so rather than ‘Chaos,’ it feels more like ‘Human Relationships’.”

“There it is! Akaishi mode!”

“What do you mean ‘there it is’!”

It was a conversation with no malice whatsoever.

Suda had no hidden side as a person.

He had neither a front nor a back. There was no need to wonder if he was thinking something like Sakurai, or scheming something like Mizushiro.

When talking with Suda, Akaishi could rest his overthinking mind. As his childhood friend, Akaishi knew Suda’s straightforward personality very well.

The reason Akaishi had gradually started opening up to Hachiya was because he sensed that same lack of hidden sides in her.

Akaishi liked people who had no front or back.

“Sigh…… If even my masterpiece ‘Chaos’ doesn’t get through to you, I have no choice but to use my ultimate technique……”

“Only the way you say it sounds cool.”

Suda untangled the string from his fingers and held it in his palm.

“Hey hey hey, this is cat’s cradle, right? You’re supposed to take the string, right? If you take it off your fingers, it’s not cat’s cradle anymore. It’s just string.”

“People trapped by existing concepts cannot create anything new.”

“No, you’re way too free-form!”

“Just shut up and watch! Once you see my ultimate technique, you’ll be blown away.”

Suda crumpled the string in his hand into a ball, shaped it, and held it up in front of Akaishi.

“My ultimate technique………… Its name is ‘Earth’!”

“‘Earth’…………”

It had even deeper meaning than ‘Chaos’.

“Amazing…… To reproduce the grand scale of the Earth with a single string…… The complex, intricate way the strings are tangled inside the ball with proper spacing…… It reminds me of the countless plants and animals nurtured by the Earth…… 100 points! I want to punch the old me who was trapped by existing concepts……!”

“Hehe, stop it. You’re making me blush.”

“Are you perhaps a pro?”

“You noticed…… Well well, you got me there.”

“Especially fitting since it’s a single string (ito).”

“Oh, nice one!”

“Not really.”

“Well, with this I’ve officially become a cat’s cradle master……”

“No way. 0 points, 0 points. It’s just a crumpled ball of string. Rule violation.”

“Such a sudden about-face! C’mon…… at least give me points for creativity……!”

“I acknowledge the idea, but rules are rules.”

“You rigid rule-follower! One day you’ll regret letting a big fish like me get away!”

“Will I though?”

Both of them burst out laughing.

Chapter 31_ Do You Like Suda’s Casual Talk