Gulp.

Well, aforementioned, my childhood friend.

… You could learn to have a poker face a little more.
I thought with all my heart.

“By any chance… do you want to eat me too?”

The day someone says something like that to me with a face full of fondness, you, are like, you know…

“Yuika-san.”
“… What is it?”

After a beat.
My eyes lit up with excitement.
Wow, I did it! I was able to recreate the mysterious luminescence phenomenon that Yuika sometimes does!
I shouted with excitement.

 

“Of course I want to eat that!”

 

I took an economic lupine dive.
I didn’t actually jump, but that’s how I felt.

“Kyaa!? Souta is attacking me like a beast!?”

Eh? Seriously? She turned her head away with an apologetic expression.
Of course, there is no mercy. In other words, I am like a beast because my heart has been stolen.

However, a handful of righteousness was left in me.
Just before my hands touched Yuika’s shoulders, I—

“Gghhh! —Calm down, Souta. Remember the duty ugghhhhh!”

I summoned the hero of my mind, and just barely managed to hold on as I said the lines.
She was in a hold-up position with her wrists flipped back and sweat pouring down her face.
She closed her eyes tightly and slowly opened her eyelids when she realized that she was not going to be pushed down. Then she blinked her eyes.

“…Ah, eh? … You stopped? Has the beast acquired reason?”
“…We must never let our guard down. There is always a little monster lurking in the human heart. But don’t be discouraged. We will never be defeated by monsters. Each of us has the courage to stand up to the monsters and do what is right.”

“Let’s see… I don’t understand. What exactly do you mean?”

“I can still see your cleavage, so hurry up and hide it, please, while I hold the monster down!”
“It’s amazing. I can feel Souta’s lack of composure in the fact that his character is not stable at all…”

Showing some sympathy, Yuika quietly pulled up her T-shirt. I breathed a sigh of relief as the sight was fixed. No, seriously, that was a close one…

But even now, the distance is close.
My childhood friend stares at me while we can feel each other’s breath.

“Hey, in this case, if I say you’re spineless… you’ll probably cry?”
“In fact, I’d rather tell you that it’s a sign of courage to have said that, and then silently ironclaw you.”
“I see, I don’t like that…”

She looked really uncomfortable and pouted.
However, Yuika immediately looked away somewhat sulkily.

“I… was a little prepared for it.”
“You’re lying. You were screaming ‘kyaaa’ with all your might. It brought me back to my senses.”
“Hmph, Souta doesn’t know anything.”
“Wha-what do you mean?”

“You know what they say, you can like something as much as you can dislike it.”

“…!?”

I froze. My childhood friend doesn’t seem to realize.

“…? Souta? What’s with the face?”
“…………………”
“?　?　?”
“…………………………..”
“………………………………………Ah!”

In an instant, Yuika’s face turned red as if she had been splashed red.
Whawhawhawha, she waved her hands and started to panic.

“No, i-it’s not like that! That was just a figure of speech, okay?”
“I know, I know. I get it, I understand.”
“You don’t understand! You’re grinning like you don’t understand at all! It’s not like that!”

Petch, petch, petch, she hit me on the chest. Of course, it didn’t hurt at all.
Yuika was already in tears. Even her ears are red. To be honest, it’s very cute. So I’ll put it into words properly.

“Hahahaha, my childhood friend is very cute again today.”

“Oi, you’re making fun of me! You’re definitely making fun of me! No matter how much I try to take control, Souta is making fun of me!”
“No, no, no, I’m not making fun of you at all. In fact, I’m shivering because that was the most critical hit of the day.”

If I lose concentration for even a second, I would blush even more than she was blushing right now.”
Therefore, I must not lose my composure. I’m definitely going to defend it at all costs.

“Hey, hey, calm down. Let’s just eat the cookies. I’ll feed you. Here you go, say ah.”
“I’m not going to let that fool me! But, I’ll eat the cookies though! Ah, it’s the best when Souta feeds them to me!”
“Now that I think about it, Yuika is pretty choleric towards me.”
“—What? Wha-wha-wha-what do you mean?”

So I alternated between making her angry and feeding, and somehow made it through the day.
Also, as a side note, I suddenly heard a scream coming from her younger brother Iori’s room sometime after this.

“What is this!? Why is there a huge pile of burnt cookies in my room!?”

Of course, there was no way that Yuika, who had never cooked or made sweets before, could succeed in one shot. I heard that she pushed all of her failures to her brother’s room.
Thanks to this, I was only able to eat the finished product, a delicious cookie.

… Iori, thank you for your precious sacrifice. I’ll buy you a DVD of “ToLove Ru” next time, please forgive me. Thank you.