Chapter 333: It hurts, really hurts
In the café, Sakurai Saki covered his face, feeling like he really didn't have the face to see anyone anymore.
His love history being overheard by others was seriously humiliating.
"What kind of expression is that? You kissed me and now you don't dare admit it?" Nakano Itsuki's words only made things more complicated.
"Can you not say it like I'm some kind of person who collects other people's first kisses? I'm really not!"
At this moment, Sakurai Saki just wanted to find a hole to crawl into.
It hurts, it really hurts!
Nakano Itsuki, why!? Why did you betray me!
"Ara~ if you say you're not, then you're not." Itsuki chuckled softly a few times.
Itsuki: (≖⩊≖)
Sakurai: (っ˃̣̣̥ -˂̣̣̥ς)
"Stop teasing me." Sakurai Saki sighed.
Itsuki also had her little devil side, a long time ago, when he came to wake her up, she once pushed him against the wall and did a "kabedon."
"Sakurai-kun, here's your coffee." The owner brought the coffee over.
"Thank you, owner." Sakurai Saki said with a smile.
"Sakurai-kun, did something troublesome happen?" The owner was a very warm-hearted person.
Well, it made sense. To be able to put up with a weirdo like Gabriel, if he wasn't gentle, that would be strange.
Working only two days a week, and Gabriel still hadn't been fired, it really was a miracle!
"Umu, a bit troublesome. After I quit my tutoring job. Recently, one of my students got upset and ran away from home." Sakurai Saki said while chatting.
He lifted the cup of coffee and took a sip: "The owner's blend coffee always makes me feel at ease."
He used to work here part-time, partly because the coffee was good, and he could drink it for free.
"That's tough. Back when I was a student, there were also kids who often ran away. Most of them mixed with delinquents outside of school." The owner recalled the past.
"Oh right, owner, Gabriel isn't coming today?"
"Tenma-kun? Recently she hasn't been coming much. Last time she came, she almost scared me to death." The owner thought for a moment.
To scare a middle-aged man that much, it must have been something terrifying.
"That day, Tenma-kun's hair was unusually neat, and the uniform she was wearing didn't even have a single wrinkle."
Okay, that really was scary.
Gabriel went that far just to escape from her sister?
The two hadn't talked for long when the owner returned to the counter.
After he left, Itsuki curiously asked: "Gabriel? Is she a friend of Sakurai-san? A foreigner?"
After all, her name was Gabriel. Japanese parents wouldn't name their child like that.
"Let's just say so."
From Heaven — does that count as a foreigner? Probably.
Or calling her someone from another world would be more accurate.
"Looks like there's a lot about Sakurai-san that I don't know." Itsuki recalled the time when she lost weight because of that giant crab. She knew Sakurai Saki wasn't an ordinary person, but that was all she knew.
"What? You want to step into my inner world?" Sakurai Saki joked.
"Uh, sorry, but you really do fit my aesthetic type. But your personality is kind of a pity."
"At Shuchiin, I'm at the top of the list of 'the boys girls want to date the most.'"
"General Affairs Sakurai, 'the one untouched by worldly dust,' actually cares about such things? Truly eye-opening." Itsuki said in an exaggerated tone.
"Huh? Since when did I get that title?"
Sakurai Saki thought he was pretty approachable. When interacting with ordinary students, he always greeted them with a gentle smile.
"The girls all say, General Affairs Sakurai always has a gentle face, but when they get close, there's this strange sense of distance."
Itsuki explained.
Just like some kind of celestial being untouched by mortal dust.
"Arbitrarily labeling others, I think that's a rather arrogant act." Sakurai Saki smiled faintly.
I've been treated like an idol now, huh?
Even though those girls weren't wrong, he really did always wear a social mask.
But that wasn't necessarily a bad thing — lies that don't hurt anyone, only the truth is the sharp blade. If he treated those other girls the same way he treated Shinomiya Kaguya, their doubts about their lives would be nothing compared to that.
Sakurai Saki would absolutely not tolerate sentimental remarks or foolish behavior from those girls.
"They're not wrong, are they?" Itsuki said, her cheeks slightly flushed. "The way you treat them and the way you treat the five of us are completely different."
How should one put it—
Even though it wasn't exactly gentle, the distance between them had narrowed a lot.
Compared to the image of "General Affairs Sakurai" at school, Itsuki preferred Sakurai Saki in the role of a tutor more.
"When treating others and treating someone you're closer to, it's a completely different state." Sakurai Saki added.
Even with Chika and Ai-chan, no matter how unreasonable their requests were, he would always try his best to fulfill them.
"So clear-cut, Sakurai-san~" Itsuki smiled. "Then what about the person you've kissed, would you be a bit more lenient with them?"
Hearing that, Sakurai Saki showed a helpless expression and changed the topic: "About what just happened earlier, you should talk to Nino directly."
As for whether he would continue being their tutor or not, even if he didn't say anything, Itsuki would definitely tell the other sisters anyway.
"No way! What if she vents her anger on me? I don't want to walk into that myself!" Itsuki felt like she was getting dragged into this for no reason.
It was clearly a battle between Miku and Nino, so why did they have to drag her into the battlefield too?
In fact, she had already realized — it seemed like Miku also liked Sakurai Saki, that's why this conflict had arisen.
"Do I really have to be the one to go? I already tried to persuade her, it's useless. Besides, you just said you're carrying the responsibility of being the mother."
"…That's true, but even mothers get angry too." Itsuki stuck her fork into the cake, took a bite, her face showing a happy expression.
She looked just like an adorable hamster.
"If every mother were this quick to get angry, no kid in the world would live past three years old." Sakurai Saki made a sarcastic remark.
In his mind, a mother represented tolerance.
"Alright, I'll go talk to her. Send me your address!" Itsuki mumbled with her mouth full of cake.
If she kept getting angry, she'd just look petty herself.
No need for that.
Sakurai Saki sent the address to her through LINE, then messaged Hayasaka Ai.
Around this time, Ai-chan was probably with Nino working on baking recipes. Lately, the two of them had gotten along quite well, often exchanging cooking techniques.
After finishing the coffee at the café, during that time Sakurai saw Itsuki eat five slices of cake in a row.
This girl completely ignored the law of conservation of mass — eating that much, yet her stomach was still flat.
For now, he put the matter of the five sisters aside.
...
"Can this house really withstand an earthquake?"
Sakurai Saki looked up at the old apartment in front of him — the place where Gabriel was living.
In Japan, earthquakes happened frequently, and a building on the verge of collapse like this would probably crumble with just a shake.
Taking out Gabriel's spare key, Sakurai Saki unlocked the door and stepped in.
"Didn't expect it to be this tidy? Vignette must have cleaned up." He mumbled as he looked at the entrance.
He walked to the living room.
Finally, he saw Gabriel.
She was wearing loose loungewear, lying sprawled out on the sofa, moving lazily.
She didn't look like a girl in her youth at all — more like a forty-year-old uncle.
Gabriel turned her head to look at Sakurai Saki.
"You're here?"
"Your pantsu is showing." Sakurai Saki pointed out.
"It's fine, it's not like it's the first time you've seen it."
"You may not care, but I do!" Sakurai Saki said irritably.
"And at your age, wearing something like that…"
Hearing that, Gabriel instantly blushed and shouted: "What's wrong with teddy bears? They're cute!"
"I seriously don't understand your sense of shame."
Though honestly, it really was cute.