"Ayaka, do you want to train with us?" Miyajima Sakura asked.
"No, no need…"
"Indeed."
Miyajima Sakura wiped the sweat from her rosy cheeks with the back of her hand and smiled innocently, "You still have work, and you're tired enough. But don't neglect to relax during the summer vacation, or it won't be good if the junior students catch up to you when school starts."
Kobayashi Ayaka twitched the corner of her mouth.
She thought, apart from that Kase Masafumi kid, probably none of those brats in the Kendo Club would maintain high-intensity training during the summer vacation.
When school started, it would already be good if they weren't so weak in the knees that they couldn't stand up.
Kobayashi Ayaka stood on her tiptoes, her eyes glancing over Miyajima Sakura's shoulder and into the room.
Hayato was lying sprawled on the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling, lost in thought. His already pale and somewhat sickly complexion now seemed even more ethereal.
Damn it.
This girl is a pervert.
She dragged him out for a long run first thing in the morning. Hayato thought, fortunately, he had been well-trained during the morning exercises at Shirakari High School before. Otherwise, he would have collapsed halfway today. In fact, his stamina… at least his stamina for running, was completely inferior to this Miyajima-senpai. However, even though his fingertips felt the wooden sword was incredibly heavy, he was still able to defeat her, which showed how terrifyingly versatile the "Swordsmanship MAX" skill was… But he was so tired.
He breathed heavily.
There was a sense of beauty in being completely drained.
"Ayaka? What's wrong?" Miyajima Sakura asked, "Are you looking for Murae-kun for something? Do you want me to leave?"
Hearing this, Hayato, who was lying on the bed questioning his life, finally seemed to notice someone at the door and straightened his back slightly.
"No, nothing!" Kobayashi Ayaka immediately raised her voice, speaking in a sharp tone. Only afterwards did she realize her tone was too high-pitched, and she chuckled awkwardly, "I… I just happened to be passing by. What… what could I possibly want with him?"
"Hmm, then I'm going to take a bath. Do you want to come along?"
"…Th-this," Kobayashi Ayaka hesitated, her eyes glancing into the room again. Hayato had already resumed lying down as if enjoying his twilight years. "…Okay," she said.
No, it wasn't her fault.
Kobayashi Ayaka grumbled to herself. She had originally planned to open her heart and be honest with Hayato.
But… who knew Sakura would suddenly appear?
It was all Sakura! She messed up her plan.
The core idea of her plan was, "I'm very cute, so there's no need to worry about that kid not forgiving me"… But when she saw Sakura's pure and innocent smile, Kobayashi Ayaka gradually realized the truth.
—Where the hell am I cute, damn it!
And even if she really was that cute, compared to Sakura, it was like a firefly trying to outshine the bright moon. It couldn't be called evenly matched; it was simply no match at all.
If Sakura's cuteness was one hundred points, then she herself only had eighty points at most—even if it wasn't bad compared to others, and was even a very high score, but… that kid just faced Sakura, and after getting used to one hundred points, then switching to eighty points—the gap, in his eyes, she was at most at a sixty-point level.
Don't make a fool of yourself; wait for his resistance to cool down.
Kobayashi Ayaka told herself.
After Miyajima Sakura left, holding her arm, Hayato looked up again.
He looked at the doorway, first clicked his tongue, then let out a breath.
After a short while, he also got up.
"I'll go take a bath too," he muttered.
He was covered in sweat.
Hayato walked into the men's bath in his casual clothes.
...And then walked out.
He shook the water from his hair, then tugged at the collar of his bathrobe, his cheeks flushed with the warmth of just having emerged from the steam.
As Hayato walked, he used the white towel on his head to wipe the dampness from his hair.
"My hair seems to have grown a bit more…"
He murmured to himself, the strands of his bangs already starting to poke his eyeballs. He held a purple hair tie in his mouth, then gathered the hair at the back of his head. Just as he was about to tie it up, he saw Miyajima Tsubaki walk out of her room.
Hayato's room was very close to Miyajima's mother and daughter's room, right on the same path.
Miyajima Tsubaki also happened to notice him and paused her steps.
In fact, ever since the previous Miyajima Sousuke incident, Tsubaki had been unsure how to face the young man in front of her.
Logically, he should be the young man her daughter liked.
But emotionally, he seemed to be more than just the young man her daughter liked. He was also… the savior of the entire Miyajima family… And, even if she didn't want to admit it, Miyajima Tsubaki couldn't forget that he and she had also had several rather ambiguous and intimate encounters before.
Every night, these past events were like light scratches from a cat's paw, disturbing Miyajima Tsubaki's heart.
Miyajima Tsubaki constantly wavered between facing and avoiding these two choices.
This trip to Yaso Inaba was originally meant to relieve this pressure and relax her mind.
Yet, she never expected such a coincidence, to actually encounter this young man in such a place.
Miyajima Tsubaki truly didn't know what kind of expression to show… But ironically, while she was so conflicted, this young man seemed to have already let go, never mentioning the past events again, nor speaking another word to her, as if she were merely Miyajima Sakura's mother.
This is good too, Miyajima Tsubaki told herself. At least it won't make her heart more confused.
But…
Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.
Why did her heart still beat so fast when she met this young man alone?
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