Chapter 2: Do You Like Mizushiro Shio?

After seeing Arai leave for club activities together with Sakurai, Akaishi finished his remaining classroom duties after a while. He then headed to the staff room to submit the daily summary report to his homeroom teacher.

“Huh, Akaishi? You’re by yourself?”

“Yes, that’s right. Is something wrong?”

“…Seriously, Yuki went off chasing after Sousuke again, huh.”

“No, it seemed like she had club activities, and there wasn’t much left, so I just took over the rest.”

The homeroom teacher, Kanna Miho, was a beautiful woman still in her prime. From her casual way of speaking, Akaishi instantly understood that this teacher was also acquainted with Sakurai.

Kanna frowned with clear displeasure, visibly annoyed that Arai hadn’t come, then shifted her gaze to Akaishi.

“Hey Akaishi, can you pass this to Arai for me? I thought she’d come by, so I missed giving it to her.”

“Kanna-sensei, how many times do I have to tell you to watch your language…”

Another teacher scolded Kanna for her overly casual tone toward a student.

“Tehe, sorry~”

Kanna lightly tapped her own head and stuck her tongue out playfully, then handed Akaishi a CD in a case.

“This is…”

“Yeah, it’s a pronunciation practice audio source for the broadcasting club.”

“I see…”

“That’s right… yeah. I want you to give it to Arai.”

“Understood.”

Since he was in the going-home club and had no particular reason to refuse, Akaishi accepted without hesitation. He bowed once and turned to leave.

“Alright, I’m counting on you~ Akaishi. Also, tell Arai to keep her lovey-dovey behavior inside the school building in check, okay~?”

Leaving Kanna’s voice behind him, Akaishi headed back to the classroom for now.

He returned to the classroom and picked up his bag. Since he had no other plans afterward, he judged that delivering the CD on his way home would be the most rational and efficient choice.

The walk from the classroom to the broadcasting club room was a bit of a detour, but since a teacher had asked him, he had no choice. He felt slightly annoyed, thinking that using a completely unrelated student as an errand boy might involve some personal feelings, but he consciously focused on heading to the clubroom and discarded the unnecessary thoughts.

As he approached the broadcasting club room, he spotted a female student ahead of him. She was peeking out from behind a wall with only her face visible and seemed completely unaware of Akaishi’s presence.

Suspicious.

He instinctively called out to her.

“What are you doing…?”

“Hyaa…! Y-Yes!”

The girl jumped in surprise, her entire face turning bright red as she spun around.

“Umm… well… that is… umm…”

“…?”

Upon seeing the flustered girl’s face, Akaishi immediately recognized her as one of Sakurai’s followers.

She had flowing, glossy long straight black hair with neatly trimmed bangs. Her cheeks were constantly somewhat flushed, her limbs were slender and beautiful, and every movement carried both feminine grace and cuteness. Her name was Mizushiro Shio.

She was considered the top beauty in the school, possessing both womanly charm and adorableness. Even Akaishi found himself slightly captivated.

However, he was extremely curious about what Mizushiro had been peeking at, so he also poked his head out from the wall.

“Ah… umm… this is… well…”

Beyond the wall, Sakurai was walking slowly down the center of the hallway with three other girls. In both hands, he held Arai and Takanashi, while chatting casually with another follower diagonally across from him.

Akaishi wondered whether he should be astonished that Sakurai hadn’t even reached the broadcasting club room yet, even though Akaishi had already finished his duties and was heading home. Mizushiro had apparently spotted Sakurai right after he left and wanted to talk to him, but seeing him already surrounded by three girls, she felt hesitant and ended up peeking from behind the wall.

“Umm… well… I was just thinking maybe there was something dangerous on the floor or something…”

With her cheeks growing even redder, Mizushiro tried to cover up the situation. Realizing it would be pointless to expose her crush on Sakurai here, Akaishi let out a small sigh.

“I see. Then you should be careful.”

“Y-Yeah! That’s right! Yeah! A-And please don’t tell anyone about this! It’s embarrassing! Nobody wants to be thought of as someone looking for dangerous things on the floor, right!”

Sensing that her clumsy excuse had worked, Mizushiro nodded exaggeratedly with slight excitement and rattled on.

“Well… anyway, by the way… why do you speak so formally, Akaishi-kun?”

“Ah…”

Without any particular intent to change the subject, Mizushiro suddenly asked him a question.

One reason for Mizushiro’s cuteness was that she didn’t put up walls between herself and others. This applied to Akaishi as well. Even though this was their first conversation, she already knew his name.

“Well… since it’s our first time talking, I thought it might be rude otherwise…”

“That’s not true at all! You should stop using formal speech right away!”

“U-Underst… Got it.”

Mizushiro spoke rapidly in an oddly enthusiastic tone and took a step closer to Akaishi. As the school’s top beauty and a person of good character, her popularity among the boys was immense. Akaishi’s cheeks flushed slightly as he took a step back.

At the same time, that familiar dark sediment deepened in his heart once again.

Why does someone like her like Sakurai?

Even now, Sakurai was casually chatting with three girls in the middle of the hallway, showing no sign of sincerity. One could call that kindness, but Akaishi believed that not rejecting someone isn’t true kindness — sometimes rejecting them is the kinder thing to do.

Akaishi didn’t know what was truly right or wrong. But he simply could not understand why Mizushiro would have feelings for Sakurai, who didn’t seem to be giving her his heart exclusively.

Chapter 2_ Do You Like Mizushiro Shio