“Onee-sama, please… please try the bento I made!”
The one standing before Yurika right now was someone she knew.
If Yurika’s memory wasn’t scrambled, this delicately featured girl with long black hair, who could even wear the Tokiwadai uniform with the air of a proper Yamato nadeshiko, should be her kouhai, and one of the more enthusiastic members of her faction.
Her name seemed to be Nanahara Nadeshiko, even the name was steeped in the air of Japanese aristocracy.
Watching Nanahara Nadeshiko hold out a bento box wrapped in a pink bento cloth, her whole face shy like a maiden in the throes of first love, Yurika couldn’t help but sigh.
The old her would definitely have coldly turned down this kind of bento offered right to her face, then gone off to eat at the Tokiwadai cafeteria on her own.
But times had changed.
The Tenshouin Yurika of today was no longer the famous daughter of the illustrious Tenshouin conglomerate.
Even just continuing to attend Tokiwadai was a strain now.
So after hesitating for a moment, Yurika made a choice she never would have made before:
“All right, then. Thank you, Nanahara-kouhai.”
“N… no need to thank me!! Getting to give Yurika-sama a bento is my honor!!”
Nanahara Nadeshiko apparently hadn’t expected Yurika would actually accept the bento she’d brought.
Seeing this, Nanahara Nadeshiko first blanked for a moment, then her whole face instantly turned as bright red as a freshly cooked crab, red enough that Yurika couldn’t help worrying she might pass out the next instant from sheer overheating.
But before long, Nanahara Nadeshiko managed to collect herself.
Her cheeks were still faintly flushed, and there was an obvious smile at the corners of her mouth she couldn’t possibly hide, but at least she was no longer babbling incoherently.
Watching Yurika take her bento, Nanahara Nadeshiko couldn’t help showing a look of delight:
“But I really never thought Yurika-sama would accept my bento. Honestly, I was about to give up…” Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
Yurika, who was reaching out to unwrap the bento cloth, paused when she heard Nanahara Nadeshiko’s voice.
Come to think of it, every year when the term started a lot of kouhai would come fawn over her, but basically, after she coldly turned them down, they’d stop these meaningless gestures and join her faction, still supporting her, but at least not as ardently as before.
Nanahara Nadeshiko, though, had insisted on bringing her a bento every single day starting from her very first day of enrollment.
Even though Yurika turned her down every day, sitting down and tallying it up calmly, the bentos Nanahara Nadeshiko had prepared for her alone already numbered over a hundred by now…
(Have I maybe been a little too cold to them…) As if losing her status as the Tenshouin heiress had shifted Yurika’s thinking to a different angle, it was only now that Yurika understood just how inhumane the things she’d been doing all along really were.
“But still… I’m so happy that Yurika-sama accepted my bento today…”
The thoughts running through Yurika’s mind didn’t interrupt Nanahara Nadeshiko’s murmuring.
With a blissful smile, Nanahara Nadeshiko gazed at Yurika’s face.
“I knew it, Yurika-sama is so gentle… Yurika-sama, you couldn’t bear to keep refusing me after I’d been bringing bentos for so long, isn’t that it?” (No, no, no, you’re thinking way too highly of me…) Yurika inwardly winced.
She had to admit her faction was a pack of rabid fangirls, every single thing she did would get prettied up by them.
The truth of why Yurika had accepted Nanahara Nadeshiko’s bento, she knew better than anyone, and it left her with the distinct sense of deceiving a pure, innocent girl.
“There’s no need to be shy, Yurika-sama. We all see your gentleness with our own eyes…”
Seeing Yurika lower her head, Nanahara Nadeshiko assumed Yurika was just being shy, so she leaned in closer, gazing at Yurika with hazy eyes.
“Yurika-sama…” (Hey, hey, hey… this atmosphere is getting dangerous…) Feeling Nanahara Nadeshiko’s body leaning in toward her own, the corner of Yurika’s eye twitched.
It was noon right now, and unlike at other schools, Tokiwadai students generally didn’t eat their bentos in the classroom.
They’d usually head to the rooftop, the shade of a tree, or somewhere similar to dine in little groups.
So at this moment, the classroom was empty save for Yurika and Nanahara Nadeshiko.
But that also meant someone who’d finished eating could come barging into this classroom at any moment.
Seeing the cold sweat and tension all over Yurika’s face, Nanahara Nadeshiko slowly spoke those words as if possessed.
(Wait! That line sounds way too suggestive!) Although nothing too panic-stricken showed on her face, Yurika’s heart was already in chaos.
Watching Nanahara Nadeshiko’s face slowly close in, Yurika steeled herself, reached out, and pressed a hand to Nanahara Nadeshiko’s chest, just about to push her away…
“Excuse me, is Tenshouin-san here?”
The classroom door was slowly pushed open, and a head of light-brown short hair poked in through the gap, and then the way Yurika and Nanahara Nadeshiko were positioned was seen, crystal clear, by this unexpected visitor.
Half of Nanahara Nadeshiko’s body had basically toppled onto Yurika’s, their faces extremely close, their lips almost touching.
And between their bodies, Yurika’s hands were planted, squarely and unmistakably, on Nanahara Nadeshiko’s soft breasts, paired with Nanahara Nadeshiko’s nearly bewitching expression…
“I’m so sorry to interrupt!!!!!!”
Tossing out an apology loud enough for the entire hallway to hear, the light-brown short-haired girl slammed the classroom door shut in an instant, then fled this room filled with a suggestive pink atmosphere.
“This is bad…”
Yurika’s heart lurched.
No longer caring just how ambiguous the position she and Nanahara Nadeshiko were in had been, she hurriedly shoved Nanahara Nadeshiko away and bolted out in pursuit.
She hadn’t gotten a clear look at who that person was just now, but if they went around telling people about her and a girl getting intimate in the classroom…
Yurika knew very well that this kind of thing wouldn’t lower her popularity.
On the contrary, it would only boost it.
But that would also mean even more people pestering her from then on.
Yurika could even foresee that if this rumor really did spread, the rabid fangirls in her faction might start doing more than just pestering her.