“Here, I’ve brought you what you wanted.”

“Ah, I’ve been waiting for you!”

As I set the bag down on the floor, Yuika clapped her hands flippantly.
Today, Yuika was wearing a red jersey with three stripes on it. On her head, she wore a hachimaki that read “Do Your Best!” It was typical of Yuika to always start with the form.

As usual, it was a jersey from junior high school, so her chest stood out, with her F-cups squeezed so tightly that the zipper looks like it was about to pop.

But I can’t afford to stare now. I’m exhausted from lugging the heavy bag all the way here.

“Ah, you’re looking at my chest. That counts as the first glimpse of the day.”
“…Ah.”

…Sorry, I take back my previous statement.
It seemed that even if I am exhausted, I will still see what I wanted to see. It was the nature of a sad man.

“Hey, hey, hurry and bring it out! I’m going to workout so hard today!”
“Hey, hey, hey. Go ahead, train as much as you want.”

At the urging of the excited-looking Yuika, I opened the bag.
Wrapped in cushioning material, the bag contains a set of dumbbells.
One kilogram, three kilograms, five kilograms, and ten kilograms. Two of each, for a total of 38 kilos.
It was a lot of hard work to carry them up here, seriously.

But it was worth it. As soon as she saw the colorful and fashionable dumbbell set, Yuika shouted with joy.

“Wow, it’s amazing. And it’s cute! Souta has some good sense!”
“What do you mean!? I mean, it’s borrowed, so it’s not my taste.”

Well, let me explain.
Yesterday, when I was leaving this room, Yuika asked for dumbbells.
I’m sure she was influenced by some anime or something…Well, she was a recluse and didn’t get enough exercise, so it was good for her to work out.

Regular dumbbells are quite pricey, and with Yuika, there’s a good chance she’ll end up being a three-day monk. At first, I thought about filling a plastic bottle with water and bringing it with me, but fortunately or unfortunately, I had a little something in mind.

The manager of my part-time job, a woman, was an extreme muscle training fanatic.
I called her on my way home yesterday, and she said yes easily.

“That’s fine. Yuika-chan is the childhood friend of Souta-kun, right? It’s okay, it’s okay. I’ll lend you my flowered dumbbell set, so keep it coming. I, Onee-san, I love girls with macho enthusiasm. Get her all macho.”

“No, I won’t make her macho. Absolutely not. Thank you very much. I’ll stop by the store tomorrow.”

So after school, I stopped by my part-time job first, walked past the manager posing while serving customers, and borrowed some dumbbells, and came to this room.
Incidentally, Iori hadn’t come home yet. He’s probably taking a detour with his cute girlfriend.

“But why dumbbells again?”

I asked as I took the dumbbells out of my bag and laid them out on the floor, to which Yuika answered with a jersey chest.

“Because there’s a super funny anime on, of course!”
“I know that. I understand that without even asking everyone. But the normal Yuika wouldn’t go so far as to start working out. You’re a self-defeating princess.”

“How rude. Of course Yuika-chan is a diligent athlete. She never misses a single day of the week to complete her daily missions and complete her daily quests!”
“Playing games is not diligent, and you’re not an athlete, okay?”

I said to myself, still tired.
On the other hand, Yuika took out a rubber band from her jersey pocket and tied her hair in a hasty manner.

“Well, there’s a lot of reasons for that, in the end, the most important reason is that a strong spirit resides in a strong body.”
“Yeah sure…”

She was convinced that was the case.
Well, I had kind of expected it.
Shaking her completed ponytail, Yuika clenched her fists in a cute way.

“I’m going to work out a lot, get strong both physically and mentally, and go see Iori. I’ll tell him ‘Congratulations on your new girlfriend! I’m so happy for you as your sister!’”

I relaxed my shoulders and smiled.
This was a legitimate reason. It was worth it to bring the heavy dumbbells.

“You have to work hard at it.”
“Umu!”
“Just for the record, how’s your novel coming along?’
“I wrote it today and uploaded it. I’m afraid I haven’t looked at the views page or anything, though!”
“Well, that doesn’t quite fulfill your purpose of engaging with others. …Well, at least you’re continuing to upload, so that’s progress.”

“Then,” I said, pointing to the dumbbells I had lined up.

“You can start with any one you like.”
“All right, let’s start with the 100 kilograms.”
“No way! If I brought those, my arm would be torn off!”
“What, you don’t have any?”
“No. Beginners should start at about three kilometers.”
“Eh.”

With a look of disapproval on her face, Yuika quietly grabbed a yellow 3kg dumbbell. But.

“Wuuuu! …Ah, what? Wuuu! Huh?　Uggghhhh!”

She was holding a dumbbell in his hands, and she turned to me with a shocked look on hre face.

“Souta, that’s weird. This thing weighs over a ton!”
“It’s not. …Hmm, I guess even 3 kilos is too much.”

It was a good decision to borrow a 1 kilogram dumbbell just in case. It seemed that training with the lightest weight was appropriate for a princess who was extremely self-depraved.

For now, she won’t be using any dumbbells other than the 1 kilo ones for the time being. I didn’t want to leave them on the floor in case Yuika tripped over them, so I quickly put them away in my bag.
Then I heard an admiring murmur of “Heh…”

“It looks like it could weigh 10 or 100 tons.”
“If it weighed that much, it would have gone right through this floor to your mother’s place.”
“That’s true, but…”

She stared at me.
Yuika’s gaze was following me around my exposed arm.
The muscles are more present due to the heavy lifting.

“Souta is someone who works out…by any chance?”
“Hmm? Uh, well…a little bit.”

At my part-time job, the manager has a training machine for her hobby. At school, the club members are friendly, and I can borrow all the muscle training equipment I want in the morning and during breaks.
Thanks to them, my body was getting a good workout.

“Eh, you really work out? Why?　Souta, you don’t have any club activities, so there’s no reason to work out, right?”
“Well, yes, but…

Oh man, it was hard to answer.
Or rather, I don’t want to say too much.
These are the things that go unsaid.

The reason I’m working out was very simple.
The student council president at school laughed at me and said, “Your simplicity was very typical of Mikami,” and a junior gal at my part-time job said, “The directness of the boys is just too much.”

I know it was a simple reason.
But I can’t help it.

I’ve sworn to protect her for the rest of her life, and I want to have the power to protect her no matter what.

Of course I wouldn’t tell her that. It’s too serious, too embarrassing indeed.

But what I should be afraid of was the heart-to-heart communication between childhood friends.

While I was vaguely muddling my words, she came to me.
Yuika raised her voice in realization and lowered her eyes. Her face was red.

“…You’re doing this for me, aren’t you?”

I was silent.
Don’t bother putting it into words, I was protesting about my embarrassment with my silence.
But Yuika would not keep quiet. She looked at me with an embarrassed look of resistance over there.

“Somehow, Souta always…makes me swoon with surprise.”
“…Don’t know. This time, it’s your fault for asking me something unimportant.”
“It’s not unimportant. It’s very important.”

When she said that, she hugged me tightly on my arms.
Looking away, Yuika murmured with blush on her cheeks.

 

“…Thank you. You’re always thinking of me.”

 

I also nodded my head towards the day after tomorrow.

“…Ah.”
“…Training, you have to work hard too.”
“Yeah. I’ll do my best.”

Before I knew it, the atmosphere had become very embarrassing.
I’d like to make one more thing clear since we’re on the subject.

She had black hair in a ponytail, a red jersey, and a hachimaki on her forehead with the girlish words “Do Your Best! on her forehead. And she’s snuggled up against my arm.

My childhood friend was still very cute today.