Episode 6: Don’t Just Go Deciding We’re That Kind of Thing!

“Not very senpai-ish… what do you mean…”

I fumbled for something to deflect with, but Sasaki-san tilted her head in puzzlement and sniffed again.

“I don’t know, it’s sort of sweet, and a little grown-up…”

Her eyebrow twitched. The look of someone rifling through a drawer of memories.

“Hang on, this smell, isn’t it…”

Stop. Don’t remember.
I was screaming it inside my head — and that was the exact moment it happened.

Thud.
Without warning, someone’s weight landed on me from behind.
A soft warmth, and that cloyingly sweet musk, enveloping me entirely.

“Mayaaa. Morning~”

A voice murmured at my ear, languid, carrying a low smoulder of heat.
In public. At the school gate, of all places.
Of all people, Asahina Hiyori had draped herself across my back like a second skin and was rubbing her cheek against mine like a cat.

“Wh…?! A, Asahina, everyone’s watching…!”
“Hiyori. …Right?”

Still resting her chin on my shoulder as though it were the most natural thing in the world, she corrected me from a distance close enough to nibble my ear.
I glanced at Sasaki-san. Her eyes had gone completely blank.
Not surprising, really. The fact that we were at each other’s throats was already common knowledge, even to the underclassmen.

“Um, er… w-were you two always… l-like this…?”
“Hm? Oh, we became friends just yesterday. Didn’t we, Maya.”

Hiyori tightened the arm looped around my waist, locking me in place so I couldn’t escape.
Every student in the vicinity swung their gaze toward us at once.

“So yesterday, after school, I got nabbed by Maya and had her breathing down my neck the whole time I wrote my reflection in the discipline room. And we just, like, totally clicked over a shared interest.”

Clicked over a shared interest.
…She wasn’t lying.
Well, in a sense it was the truth — but the misleading implications were catastrophic.

“And like, she was giving me guidance from the kind of distance where our bodies were practically pressed together. …Oh, is that why my smell got on Maya? You do smell a bit sweet, don’t you~”
“P-practically pressed together…?”

The colour drained from Sasaki-san’s face.
Hiyori pulled me closer still, burying her face against me as if to cut off any avenue of escape.

“Exactly. Like this, all pressed up, bodies together…”
“That’s, that’s indecent! Asahina-senpai! That’s improper!”
“Wow, Maya’s junior is really well-trained, huh~ Just kidding, just kidding, nothing improper happened at all, right?”

Overlapping Hiyori’s amused voice, her friends came noisily pouring in to join us.

“Hiyori~ Morning!”
“Wait, why are those two together? That’s broken. You’re literally clinging to her, I can’t—”

“I wasn’t—”

My attempt to deny it was cheerfully steamrolled by Asahina’s voice.

“Listen to this~ We went and became friends just yesterday. Apparently Maya’s had feelings for me this whole time, and today she’s already bossing me around, telling me to stay by her side under the guise of punishment. Isn’t that a bit intense?”
“…I never said that!”

My desperate cry was swallowed up entirely by the gyarus’ laughter.

“Hang on, ‘stay by her side’ is basically a confession!”
“Yamami-mama pulling moves like that, who knew.”
“That’s wild, are they basically getting married. I can’t, I’m dead~!”

Married? Dead??
How did those words even enter this conversation.
My mind had gone white with panic, and into it Hiyori whispered at my ear, in a temperature meant only for me.

“Same time after school today — I’ll be counting on you for more guidance.”

That was the signal. The Yuri Friends game, beginning.
The smile she wore was so guileless it made my head spin.

She hopped off my back in one motion and vanished into the school building with her friends.
In the calm that settled after the storm, her warmth still clung to my back like a curse.

“…Y, Yamami-senpai… did you really… say that to Asahina-san because you… like her…?”

Sasaki-san was looking up at me from beside me with eyes of inexplicable devastation.
The look of someone whose faith in their trusted discipline committee chair had just taken a catastrophic blow.

“No, no, no! Absolutely not, Sasaki-san! Wait, you’ve got it wrong! This is…!”

My frantic denial reached no one’s ears.
My perfectly ordered daily life was being thrown into irreparable chaos — perfume and all.

◇◆◇◆◇

“Hey, Maya, come with me to the bathroom. Going to fix my makeup.”
“Let’s go to the vending machine. I’ll buy you a juice.”

Every break period without fail, she made a special trip to my desk and linked her arm through mine as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
Going to the bathroom, moving between classrooms, even the school shop.
With one excuse after another, she spent the entire day plastered to me at a distance close enough for her chest to press against my upper arm, and would not be shaken off.

“Hey, what are you doing…?! Get off me…! I can’t walk like this!”

The rumours raced around the school in no time.

Apparently the two of them, sworn enemies, had staged a dramatic reconciliation.
They’d become friends. No, more like parent and child by now.
Not that — they were bound by something more like a sisterly connection.
No no, apparently they were already dating and had even made promises of marriage.

“The discipline committee chair who finally tamed Asahina Hiyori.”

The looks people gave me were different from before.
Yet rather than ‘contempt’, more like the curiosity of watching someone who’d domesticated an unknown and dangerous beast, with a hint of warmth mixed in.

Wrong.
The one being domesticated was me.

◇◆◇◆◇

After school.

Despite having no committee duties that day, I was sitting alone in the discipline room chair, spinning my pen with barely concealed irritation.
I wanted to go home as quickly as possible.
But the fear of having the video sent out if I ignored her morning declaration was something I couldn’t overcome, no matter what.

The evening sun through the window dyed the room red, just like that day.
Not waiting for someone. Here because I can’t leave.
And yet — finding myself watching the clock, unable to help it. I was pathetically, hopelessly miserable.

The door slid open without ceremony.

“Ugh, so drained… that cleaning duty was genuinely the worst…”

In came the person behind all the rumours, batting dust from the hem of her skirt.
A faint dustiness to her, but the cloyingly sweet musk smell painted right over it, filling the evening discipline room.

“…You’re late. How long are you going to keep me waiting.”
“Wait, you actually stayed? That’s impressive, honestly.”

The hem of her pleated skirt still had smears of something white, like chalk dust, clinging to it.

“…Hold on. You’ve got something on you.”
“Hm? Where?”
“There. Don’t move.”

I sighed and, before I’d thought about it, found myself crouching down in front of her. Pat, pat. Brushing the dust from her skirt, carelessly but carefully.
In that moment, I felt Hiyori’s shoulders give a small startled jump.

“…Thanks.”

Hiyori’s eyes went wide for just a moment, before she quickly arranged her expression back into its usual composed smile and looked down at me with that melting gaze of hers.

“Maya really is a mama, isn’t she.”
“…! Th-that’s not what this is! I just happened to notice it was dirty, that’s all…!”

I snapped and stood up, but it was already too late.
The fact that my hands had touched her seemed to be nothing but fuel to embolden Hiyori further.

“Also — Maya waited properly. Good girl. …Were you lonely without me, maybe?”
“…Don’t be ridiculous. I had to put up with weird rumours all day because of you.”
“Hmm, but it’s true though. We became friends, didn’t we~”
“…Doing that in front of everyone, being all over each other, causing that kind of misunderstanding…!”
“Ahaha, but Maya’s reaction today was perfect, honestly.”

Completely unbothered by my protests. Hiyori counted on her fingers with evident delight, leaning in to peer at my face.

“A committee chair getting all flustered when some girl with no sense of personal space gets in her face… love that for me. That little worried frown of yours. Absolutely delicious.”
“…! Hiyori, you did that on purpose…!”

I couldn’t hold back, and stepped toward her.

“Everyone saying we’re ‘dating’ and ‘getting married’ and…! Stop smirking and deny it! We’re just ‘Yuri Friends,’ aren’t we?!”

My desperate protest made Hiyori blink in genuine surprise, then laugh softly in her throat.
She brought her face close and whispered at my ear — cold as ice, but in a sweet voice.

“…Deny it? Why? There’s nothing in it for me.”
“Wha…”
“Who cares. If everyone around us goes on assuming we’re girlfriends or basically married, nobody’s going to get in the way when I drag Maya off somewhere, right?”
“…!”
“That’s the trick to an efficient game of pretend. …Isn’t it, Maya?”

I couldn’t find a single word.
She’d intended this from the start.
Every part of it calculated — the chain called “Yuri Friends” had been fastened around me with full deliberation.

“And the perfume — if I’m next to you all the time, it just counts as the smell rubbing off, doesn’t it. …I’ll stay right by your side from now on, so you can relax.”
“That’s so…”

As I stood there at a loss, Hiyori narrowed her eyes with sudden mischief, as though something had just occurred to her.

“Besides… you’re already calling me ‘Hiyori’ without even thinking about it, so you’re clearly into this too, Maya.”
“…Huh?”

It hit me like a blow to the head.

…I had called her by name. Without any resistance at all.
The sound that must have come from my own mouth felt suddenly, deeply foreign, and something caught in the back of my throat.

“Th-that’s not… it’s just because you keep insisting…!”
“Makes me happy, knowing it’s already feeling natural on your tongue.”

Maybe it wasn’t only fear of the video being sent.
My own tongue, my own body — they’d already accepted her game of pretend without my noticing.

She really was a devil.
And a particularly nasty one, at that.

“Well, I’m tired from all that cleaning. Time to be comforted, I think~”

Hiyori did an abrupt about-turn, and held both arms out loosely in front of me, like a small child demanding something.

“What do you want now…?”
“A hug. …Come on. Come here.”
“You want me to hold you…?”

One more step toward getting the video deleted.
Even telling myself that felt unbearably hollow now.

The perfume on my ankle drifted up, faint and soft.
On trembling legs, I stepped forward into her outstretched arms.