Chapter 4
"I... Is this what they call a confession of love?"
"T-This is truly embarrassing!"
"M-Mineo-kun, how can you act like this... w-we haven't even met yet..."
Looking at the reply from Mineo, Erina's pale face was, to put it simply, burning a deep shade of crimson.
At this moment, she didn't even dare to type a reply!
After tossing her phone to the side, Erina immediately buried her head deep into her pillow.
However, at that very moment, a voice that was just as melodious and clear as hers rang out from outside the door.
"Erina, what are you doing?"
"I'm waiting for you to come eat!"
After the bedroom door swung open, a girl with short, shoulder-length silver hair and an incredibly beautiful face walked in slowly.
The girl possessed skin that was exceptionally fair; she was Erina's cousin, Alice Nakiri!
Dressed in the Totsuki Academy school uniform and white over-the-knee socks, Alice had originally been waiting for Erina to go out for a meal together.
After waiting for a long time without seeing Erina emerge, she had come upstairs to check on her.
As a result, as soon as she entered, Alice saw Erina acting like an ostrich, burying her head beneath the blankets.
This piqued Alice's curiosity.
"Erina, what are you doing?"
"Are you feeling unwell?"
"I-It's nothing..."
Erina quickly scrambled to sit up.
Seeing how Erina's face had suddenly become so red, Alice sensed that something was definitely amiss!
Her gaze flickered, and she instantly spotted the phone lying beside the bed, its screen not yet fully dark.
The next second, Alice's small hand moved like a flash of lightning, snatching the phone up immediately.
"Erina, are you hiding a secret from me...?"
"Alice, give it back! Don't take my phone!"
Seeing Erina's desperate scramble to reclaim her device, Alice was instantly certain that Erina was indeed hiding something from her.
Therefore, like a nimble little fox, she quickly darted out of the room.
"Erina, it's true after all! You have a secret you're hiding from me... This Young Lady wants to see exactly what you've been doing behind my back!"
Closing the door behind her, Alice quickly scanned the messages on the phone.
As soon as she read them, she was shocked beyond belief.
By the time Alice finished reading the contents of those messages, her emotions were in a complete whirlwind!
Erina had already caught up by now and managed to snatch the phone back from Alice's hands.
The next second, Erina glared at Alice with a gaze filled with a mix of anger and embarrassment.
"What are you doing, Alice!"
"Why are you peeking at my phone!"
"If I didn't peek, how would I have known what you've been doing secretly behind my back, Erina?"
Alice stared back at Erina without even a hint of fear. A moment later, Alice lightly bit her lip and said:
"It turns out, Erina, that you're in love!"
"Mineo-kun!"
"How nice..."
"I only stopped talking to him for a few days... and he's already flirting with you, Erina!"
"What do you mean flirting? Alice, it's not what you think at all... d-don't misunderstand!"
"Whether I'm misunderstanding or not, I'll ask him myself!"
Alice puffed out her cheeks. She crossly grabbed her own phone from the dining room and, the next second, sent a message to the friend with the profile name "Mineo-kun."
"Mineo-kun! What is the meaning of all this!"
"Why are you going around confessing your love to my cousin?"
"And besides, if you have such an amazing dish, why did you have to teach it to my cousin first? Am I, Alice, no longer attractive to you?"
Mineo, who was still busy devouring his instant noodles, saw his phone light up again.
He picked it up.
Wow, Alice was sending him a message too!
Have these two cousins really gone too far into their role-playing?
This online friend named Alice was also someone who had suddenly appeared on Mineo's phone a few years ago.
At the time, he felt curious and asked if she knew Erina, to which Alice immediately replied that Erina was her cousin.
Mineo figured this pair of cousins must have gone a bit crazy from watching Shokugeki no Soma. They were cosplaying as Erina and Alice so intensely that they couldn't separate themselves from it anymore—they couldn't tell reality apart from fiction!
But Mineo didn't mind too much. Since the cousins were so deep into their "disguises," Mineo simply played along as if it were all real.
When chatting with Alice, Mineo was always bragging too!
Every day, Alice would talk about how incredible her Molecular Gastronomy was, so Mineo would occasionally look up various methods related to Molecular Gastronomy on the internet just to discuss them with her.
As time went on, after so much time had passed, the friendship between Alice and Mineo had also grown very close.
Looking at the text Alice had sent, Mineo replied with a smile:
"Alice, what are you talking about?"
"When did I ever confess my love to your cousin?"
"Don't scare me... as far as I remember, I've never done anything like that!"
"Mineo-kun, you did it but you're not brave enough to admit it? You already praised my cousin as a peerless beauty... does that mean in Mineo-kun's heart, I, Alice, still can't compare to Erina?"
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