"Kouhai, I don't eat people. Why are you all the way over there?"
Haruno came back to herself to find Mio had already put a solid two meters between them, watching her with undisguised wariness.
"...That look just now was kind of scary, senpai."
"What look? I'm always perfectly sweet to you. And we're both girls — it's not like I'm going to eat you."
"Who knows~"
The dismissive answer drew a wounded pout from Haruno. "You were so much warmer when we first met. What happened to that cute, soft kouhai?"
"She got comfortable around you. True colours and all that."
"I love both versions of you — the sweet one and the prickly one~" Haruno closed the gap in two steps and linked their arms again.
Maybe it was that being close to Mio set something stirring inside her — a feeling she couldn't quite put into words — but Haruno was finding she liked closing this distance more and more.
Mio didn't fight it this time. She'd learned that fighting Haruno was pointless. Better to just... lean in.
Besides, she thought, Haruno really does have a killer figure. Especially when she's clinging to your arm like this.
Cough cough.
Right on cue, the System spoke in her ear: "Because the host's been drooling over someone else's body: Haruno Yukinoshita's conquest rating toward the host increased by 1 point."
"...???"
"That counts?!" Mio muttered under her breath, exasperated.
Well. It's not wrong. She'd definitely had a moment. Fine. She had no grounds to complain.
She let out a quiet sigh and steered them both toward a nearby café.
They'd come in hoping to rest a while and grab a drink — but the place was packed. Not a single free seat, just a wall of couples and the almost visible, sour stench of romance hanging in the air.
Mio and Haruno could have fit right in, if there'd been anywhere to sit. Since there wasn't, they retreated to the park nearby.
The snow had turned everything silver-white. It was genuinely pretty — especially to Mio, who hadn't grown up around snow.
They were looking for somewhere to rest when Haruno felt Mio stop walking.
"What's wrong, kouhai?"
"The view's nice here, isn't it? Let me take a photo of you~"
"Sure. What pose do you want?"
"Hmm, let me think~"
Mio put on a theatrically thoughtful expression — then circled halfway around Haruno. Once she was behind her, she shot a quick kick at the tree beside them.
She'd been caught.
Before Mio could so much as dart away, Haruno had already grabbed her — pulling her in and burying her face against Mio's chest.
Oh — turns out my kouhai's got quite the figure... was Haruno's internal, somewhat startled observation.
The snow dumped over both of them.
Mio shivered as the cold hit her face. "S-senpai... how did you figure that out so fast?"
"You randomly offered to take my photo out of nowhere, in this specific spot." Haruno looked up with a satisfied smile. "It wasn't that hard to guess."
Compared to the snow-dusted Mio, Haruno had gotten off lightly — she'd had her face tucked against Mio the whole time, and only had a few snowflakes in her hair.
She brushed Mio off first, then cleared off her own coat.
"When I was little, I used to pull this trick on Yukino all the time. I don't even remember when I stopped."
"Huh."
"Why is my kouhai so completely unbothered when I'm being nostalgic?"
"I'm just deciding whether to believe you."
After the amusement park incident, Mio had learned to be skeptical about anything Haruno claimed to remember from her childhood.
"I'm not making it up this time. Ask Yukino yourself if you don't believe me."
"Fine. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. This once."
······
"Good afternoon, is this a table for two?"
Haruno smiled at the waitress and produced the coupon. "We've got this — the discount voucher I won in the raffle. Does it apply here?"
The waitress took a look. "Yes — that's 30% off for you today."
"But it says couples get 40% off?"
"That's right, however—"
Before she could finish, Haruno put an arm around Mio and kissed her on the cheek.
The waitress stared.
Even Mio stared. Haruno had floated the idea of playing at being a couple on the way in, and seeing how into it she was, Mio had figured refusing was pointless and gone along with it — expecting they'd just act a little cozy for a few seconds. She had not expected an actual kiss. Even just on the cheek, it was enough to short-circuit her brain completely.
Haruno watched the waitress blink back into reality and smiled. "Does that qualify? If not, we could always kiss on the lips~"
"N-no, this is fine!"
The waitress snapped back to her professional smile — though anyone paying close attention would have caught the tiny spark of excitement in her eyes.
Two gorgeous girls... as a couple. She was absolutely straight. Totally. But if she could somehow date either one of them, she might be open to a small amount of flexibility.
She reeled in her runaway imagination, seated the pair, and turned back toward the counter.
"Tomoya-kun, table thirteen needs their order taken, if you don't mind."
······