“Nogami-san, more pork.”

“Here.”

“Nogami-san, cabbage.”

“Here…”

“Nogami-san, ”

“Let me finish first, you idiot!”

“Nogami-san, hungry. Rice.”

“Are you five!? Want me to rub your tummy after lunch too!?”

And so, their lunch continued in a flurry of bickering and laughter. It took about twenty minutes, leaving nearly fifteen to spare before class.

Harutaki licked his lips contentedly, packed up the lunch box, and stood to return it to the cafeteria.

He hadn’t eaten quite his fill, but being fed by a beautiful girl? That was an experience no cafeteria meal could offer.

What a straightforward girl, he thought, smiling as he glanced at Nogami rinsing her mouth.

She’d noticed his little trick, of course. But the funny thing was, that was exactly what he wanted.

After all, Nogami wasn’t hard to read.

If you wanted to stroke this prideful cat the right way, you just had to set her high on her pedestal, feed that ego, polish that self-importance.

And most importantly, earn her recognition… not as some dumb toy, but as an equal.

“Wait a sec.”

“I still need to return the lunch box and utensils. Something wrong?”

Just as Harutaki reached the classroom door, Nogami’s voice stopped him cold. His foot froze mid-step, and a flicker of unease ran through him.

That tone… uh oh. Was this her way of saying she was about to settle the score?

While he was busy imagining various forms of retribution, Nogami’s calm, deliberate voice broke the silence with something entirely unexpected.

“Turn around. Look this way.”

He turned, puzzled, only to see her lifting her phone, camera aimed straight at him. Reflexively, he brushed at the corners of his mouth and his cheeks.

There wasn’t any sauce, right? No rice grains stuck to him?

“Smile.”

He forced a grin, stiff, awkward.

“Be natural! Can’t you think of something happy?”

“You’re not planning to upload my picture to a gay dating site, are you?”

“You, ugh, what’s wrong with your brain? Can’t you think of anything normal for once?”

Nogami shot him a disgusted look, as if she were staring at a piece of filth.

Of course, he knew she wouldn’t actually harm him now. But asking him to think of something happy…

Happy, huh?

His mind wandered back to just earlier, Nogami, face flushed with reluctant irritation, feeding him bits of tonkatsu while pretending to be annoyed… but her eyes sparkling faintly with something close to expectation.

That memory alone tugged his lips into a small, genuine smile.

“…That’s a gross smile, Hoshikawa. What kind of perverted things are you thinking about?”

Crap, how’d she read that so fast!?

Harutaki quickly straightened his expression, switching to the practiced, professional smile he always used at social events.

“How about this one?”

“Fake, but… tolerable, I guess.”

As expected from Nogami. Her eye for detail was brutal. One glance and she could see straight through his forced expression, something even his old coworkers and clients had always praised as “natural.”

Click.

The shutter sounded softly. She tapped the screen once, and his portrait was captured, now safely stored in her phone gallery.

“What’s that for? Planning to stick it on a straw doll and jab pins into it? If so, please avoid the lower half, I beg you.”

He wasn’t giving up on figuring out what this was about.

“Tch. I’m not doing anything bad, okay!? Not gonna do bad things, period!”

She shoved at his back before he could ask again, pushing him clean out of the empty classroom.

“Not doing bad things? Then what do you even need my photo for!?”

Completely lost, Harutaki could only shelve the question for now and head toward the cafeteria to return the borrowed lunch set.

…

Around three in the afternoon, classes ended.

Harutaki went straight home to prepare material that might help Nogami escape her bullying situation.

Meanwhile, Nogami herself took a detour on the walk back to her apartment, stepping into a quiet 7-Eleven.

Since it wasn’t rush hour, the place was mostly empty. Only three middle-school girls in matching uniforms stood near the dessert shelf, chatting and giggling about which sweets to buy.

“Okay… then this, and this…”

With a soft beep, her payment went through.

From the side of the aisle came the gentle hum of the store’s printer. It swallowed an A4 sheet, whirred for a few seconds, and finally spat it back out, now bearing a freshly printed, slightly enlarged portrait of Hoshikawa Harutaki.

The print quality wasn’t studio-level, but it wasn’t bad either.

She bent closer, checking for blurs or ink smudges, when suddenly, a bright, youthful voice chirped from behind her.

“Whoa, Minami, Ryoko, look, this guy is super handsome!”

“Lemme see! …Wow, you’re right! He’s better-looking than half the idols out there!”

“He’s smiling so gently too, ahh, my heart!”

The three middle-schoolers who’d been by the dessert shelf had somehow gathered around her, all eyes sparkling as they craned to peek at the printed photo in her hand.

“You…”

“Eh? You’re a senpai, right? That emblem, Nichiya High, isn’t it? That school’s super elite! And you’re so pretty, like an actress! And your figure’s just, wow!”

She’d meant to snap at them to back off, but their bubbly compliments were so relentlessly enthusiastic that she found herself… flustered.

And then, one of Harutaki’s teasing “lessons” echoed in her head,

Make lots of friends.

“…You girls are…?”

“Sorry for bothering you, Senpai! We’re third-years from Futaba Middle!”

“Um, Senpai, the guy in the photo, he’s your boyfriend, right?”

“O-Of course not!”

She had no idea why she denied it so fast. Maybe it was the instant reminder of all the things that idiot had done to her, the teasing, the mixed signals, the half-hearted rejection the night before…

What a jerk. What a total jerk!

“Then… is he your crush?” one of the girls asked brightly. “You’re so pretty, Senpai! If you just confessed, that senpai would totally say yes!”

He didn’t.

“…Sort of,” she admitted weakly.

What else could she say?

Printing a boy’s picture alone in a convenience store, if she didn’t say it was a crush, what else could possibly justify it?

Better to be a girl in love than… something worse.

“By the way, why did you think I liked him? And aren’t you three a little too fearless, getting this close?”

The girls exchanged startled looks, thinking they’d angered her. They immediately stepped back and bowed.

“S-Sorry, Senpai! We didn’t mean to intrude!”

“N-No, that’s not what I meant…”

Her hands flailed a little as she tried to calm them.

“I mean… Don't you think I’m scary?”

“Scary?”

The three glanced at each other, confused. Then one scratched her head and laughed sheepishly.

“Well, your eyes and aura are kinda intense, Senpai, like Minami’s dad!”

“Minami’s dad’s a superintendent at the police HQ,” Ryoko explained. “When he frowns, he can make little kids in the neighborhood cry.”

Minami quickly waved her hands. “But you’re not scary like my dad, Senpai! You’re really pretty! You must have tons of boys chasing after you!”

“I think you and the guy in that photo totally match,” another chimed in. “You two look like a couple already!”

“Yeah, Senpai, you really didn’t notice?”

The leader blinked her big blue eyes curiously.

“When you were looking at that picture, your eyes looked kinda scary at first… but also really gentle.”

“That’s why we figured you liked him.”

L-Like him?

“He’s just… an obnoxious scumbag, that’s all…” she muttered under her breath, voice trailing off.

“Huh? A scumbag?” Ryoko tilted her head, studying the photo.

“Well, sure, good-looking guys can be scumbags, but… what’d he do? Cheat? Two-time you?”

“H-He doesn’t even have a girlfriend! He’s still… uh… a virgin…”

She had no idea why she’d blurted that out. Maybe it was those innocent eyes, since they’d called her “gentle,” she couldn’t bring herself to lie.

It's all Hoshikawa Harutaki’s fault…

“VIRGIN!?”

All three middle-schoolers shrieked in perfect unison.

“No way! A guy that hot, still a virgin!?”

“Senpai, that doesn’t sound like a scumbag at all!”

“M-Maybe not…”

Flustered, Nogami couldn’t think straight.

How could she explain? That she suspected he might like her too, but he also flirted with another heiress and her own two best friends?

That he’d declared right in front of them that he liked “blonde busty girls”?

There was no way she could say that to three bright-eyed middle-schoolers.

“C’mon, Senpai, tell us the truth!” said the girl called Minami, grinning. “What do you really think of him? We can help! I’m famous in class for being a love detective!”

Her accent turned adorably regional, making Nogami blink.

What she really thought of him…

Her mind went back to that infuriating self-introduction of his:

“Handsome and brilliant, cunningly sharp, athletic, mature enough to stay calm through anything, brave enough to stand in front of danger for a girl, gentle and fearless all at once…”