“…” Yuji.
Looking at Kana in front of him with her hands on her hips and her spirits restored,
Yuji finally understood why this guy gave him the impression of a “Shiba Inu”.
For no other reason—
“Hey.”
“Hm?”
Kana looked over with a curious expression.
“You must be careful of some blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy in the future.” Yuji said in a very serious tone.
This really wasn’t a joke.
He had just said a nice word earlier, and the other party’s attitude had softened.
If this were left unchecked for the future, what would happen?
He was still somewhat of a reliable adult male after all, so it was better to remind her.
The tone was so serious that Kana couldn’t help but blink her eyes and curiously ask in return: “Why?”
“Because there are bad men in this world.
Not everyone is like me; they are especially good at tricking and deceiving naive little girls like you, making you fall for their scams.”
“How could such a thing happen?
In the first place, how could I fall for it stupidly like a fool?!”
Kana waved her small hand.
Yeah, although her personality was a bit twisted and she had a bit of tsundere tendencies, she wasn’t an idiot.
How could she be fooled around in circles?
Seeing her look so certain, Yuji narrowed his eyes.
To be honest, if he didn’t already know in advance that a certain red-haired loser would later be tricked around in circles by a bad man who became a drowned ghost, he really would have believed her words.
But Kana clearly didn’t take his heartfelt words to heart.
Sitting on the metal bench, she just swung her fair legs back and forth, and suddenly spoke as if thinking of something.
“Speaking of which, you keep calling me ‘hey, hey, hey’…
My name isn’t ‘Hey’!
I have a name!
My name is ‘Kana’!
Have you ever heard of this name?”
Yeah.
She had a real name after all, always calling her hey-hey-hey, who could stand that?
Especially being called like that by Yuji…
For some reason, it made her just a tiny bit unhappy.
“Heard of it.” Yuji nodded.
He wasn’t lying about this—lying would be completely pointless.
After all, as child actors, who hadn’t heard of the name of the genius child star Kana?
“Eh?”
Kana made a surprised sound.
She could tell that Yuji belonged to the type of person who had a very, very sharp tongue.
But what she didn’t expect was that this time the other party was unexpectedly frank.
Whatever!
Strike while the iron is hot!
Kana shook her head, then raised a finger, her expression smug: “Humph, considering that you helped me out with a small favor yesterday, I’ll specially grant you a privilege!
You can call me ‘Kana’, oh!”
When she reached this point, the smug expression on her face softened quite a bit.
Because she knew clearly in her heart that Yuji didn’t just help her with a small favor.
After all, she was completely lost at that time.
Should she pull out her Acting?
Or not pull out her Acting and cater to the adults?
This question had truly troubled her for a very long time.
The decline in popularity.
Work offers plummeting.
Countless pressures weighing down.
Little her was already finding it a bit hard to breathe.
Right when she had completely no idea what to do,
It was Yuji who stood up.
Even though his tone was very arrogant and annoying…
Yet those words truly and genuinely saved her.
This was also the most important reason why she, who originally couldn’t muster up any enthusiasm for this audition, ran over eagerly and took the initiative to strike up a conversation the moment she saw Yuji.
She…
really wanted to thank the other person.
But her personality just happened to be a bit awkward.
Clearly they should have been words of gratitude, but when they reached her lips, they turned out like this, and her expression also morphed into a gloating, triumphant smile——
“So go ahead and thank me!
This is a privilege, you know!
A privilege!
Be endlessly grateful to me!
I specially permit you to be my friend!”
As soon as those words left her mouth, the smile maintained at the corner of Kana’s lips began to twitch.
Deep down, she was frantically beating her own head.
Idiot, idiot, idiot!
Kana!
You really are a super invincible mega idiot!
Weren’t you going to thank the other person?!
Why couldn’t you just honestly say what you wanted to say?!
She let out a silent wail internally, her wine-red eyes nervously and conflictedly stealing glances at Yuji’s expression.
In her view, having her mouth shut with such a condescending tone, even Yuji would probably feel dissatisfied, right?
But the result once again caught Kana off guard.
Yuji slightly raised his head from above the script.
“Rest assured, Arima, I neither feel unhappy nor dissatisfied.
On the contrary, it’s really nice to see you so energetic today.”
With pitch-black eyes that seemed capable of seeing through all her insincere thoughts inside, he spoke thus.
These words actually carried a bit of the sense of achievement an adult feels when guiding a child out of psychological shadows.
But in Kana’s ears, it was completely not like that.
‘It’s really nice to see you so energetic today.’
The gentle voice drilled into her eardrums, seeming to leap within the folds of her brain.
Ungh!
The expression on her face completely froze.
Her petite palms covered her baby-fat cheeks.
Kana didn’t even need to think.
Her own face was definitely redder than the Grandpa Sun on children’s picture books!
What on earth is wrong with this guy?!
She covered her face.
Clearly this fellow’s tone was full of thorns before, showing utter disdain at every turn.
How is it that every time moments like this happen…
he always manages to throw her heart into complete disarray!
B-But——
A voice rang out.
“Don’t think you can brush this off just like that, you know.
I-I even let you call me Kana…”
Her fingers raised.
Gently pulling at the other person’s cuff.
Yet her head was lowered.
Because right now, her face…
Must definitely have that kind of blank, incredibly silly smile.
She definitely didn’t want him to see it!
(Ah—a newbie author begging for recommendation votes!)
(Ah—this chapter was slightly revised.
It’s not that I was dissatisfied with the previous version, I just felt it didn’t capture the feeling I expected!
So there’s that!)