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Having gotten home earlier than usual, Harutaki still had some time before his sisters returned from school. He’d already set the rice cooker, washed the ingredients for dinner, and was now lounging lazily on the fabric sofa.

From his phone’s speaker came soft jazz, the smooth, flowing notes of a saxophone melted into the spring evening like warm mercury.

The “Nogami situation” was nearly wrapped up.

The merchandise he’d asked Tazaki to resell had all sold out, earning him around 1.15 million yen.

During lunch break, he’d enjoyed a lap-pillow massage from a cute girl and got to experience Nogami’s disgusted face while she fed him,

Aside from that one fatal hit he’d taken, wasn’t this exactly the kind of youthful, passionate, ridiculous life worth working for?

Still, rest and recreation were just as important. To savor youth properly, one needed both drive and downtime.

Crossing his legs leisurely, he began thinking about how to clean up the whole anonymous forum fiasco.

Public opinion was always a double-edged sword, it could cut both others and yourself. Starting an online mob was easy, but cleaning up after one? That was another story. One wrong move and the fire would only spread.

If the whole mess had gone viral online, there’d be no way for him to handle it alone, he’d need PR teams, bots, the whole works.

But since it was contained to the school’s anonymous board, and the posts had been deleted quickly, the situation hadn’t leaked outside. Most Nichiya students had enough pride in their school to keep quiet.

With such a small, contained audience, fixing things wasn’t nearly as hard as starting the fire.

Still… he’d need Nogami’s cooperation.

Thinking that, he pulled out his phone, found her number, the one he’d asked for before school ended, and hit call.

Brr, Brr,

Click.

The screen lit up with a small line of text: Call connected.

“...Hello, ”

“WHAT!?”

Hsss…

The moment Harutaki lifted the phone to his ear, a shout so loud it nearly burst his eardrums came blasting through the speaker. He flinched, nearly dropping his phone to the floor.

“Um... sorry for calling out of the blue. Nogami-san, are you busy right now? I can always call back later, ”

“N-no! I mean, no, it’s fine! Go ahead, huff, say whatever you need to say now!”

“You sound... a little out of breath. Are you okay?”

The faintly distorted voice on the other end made him frown. Something about it didn’t sound right.

“I’m just... huff... exercising... nghh... that’s all...”

“Then maybe I should call later. You shouldn’t be talking while working out, you’ll get a cramp at this rate.”

In his mind, there was no rush. Solving a bullying incident and a small online scandal could wait a few minutes; no point in risking her pulling a muscle, or worse, holding it against him later as an excuse to “get even.”

“Hahh... if you hang up on me, I’ll block your number!”

Her breathing grew heavier, ragged even. He figured her stamina must be near its limit.

Was she running laps? Doing yoga? Or maybe some kind of rhythmic gymnastics, something high school girls liked to dabble in?

“J-just... say it already!”

“It’s about fixing the situation with the bullying and the anonymous forum. There’s one part that requires your cooperation.”

“Coo, cooperation? How... ngh~... exactly?”

“Are you sure you’re alright?”

He couldn’t shake the feeling that her tone was getting stranger and stranger.

“Stop fussing! Just spit it out already!”

Well... that sounded like her usual attitude. He dismissed it with a shrug.

Guess that light, fluttery tone earlier really had been his imagination.

“All you have to do is, ”

“Wait... ngh... wait a sec!”

“...?”

“Should I just call back when you’re done?”

“Say, say, ‘I want to be Nogami-sama’s dog,’ and then bark like one at the end!”

...What kind of insane demand was that?

How did a serious talk about harassment control turn into a dog roleplay request?

“That kind of thing is absolutely against a man’s will and dignity.”

“One lap pillow.”

“Two.”

“Deal.”

His change in attitude was instant, practically quantum speed.

“I want to be Nogami-sama’s dog. Woof.”

“Mmh, ahhh...”

...To think just saying that over the phone could earn him two lap pillows from a beautiful girl, he almost felt guilty.

It was like ordering one meal from delivery and having the restaurant send you two.

And besides, iPhones didn’t record calls by default, and Nogami wasn’t exactly the type to fumble with tech; this call had been completely spontaneous.

So if she somehow planned all this out in advance? Fine, he’d take the loss gracefully.

Right now, they were in their little “honeymoon of diplomacy,” with shared interests on both sides. They were smart enough not to sabotage each other, it wasn’t worth it.

“Woof. I wanna lick Nogami-san clean from head to toe like after a bath. Woof, there, bonus line. Generous enough?”

“Mmhh! Haah... hhh... haaah...”

Honestly, he had wanted to refuse something that humiliating. But when the deal was this sweet, how could he resist?

That girl was seriously dangerous, who even thought up a request like that, and then lured him in with lap pillows as bait? Evil to the core.

“So, about that cooperation part… ”

“Ngh, cramp! My leg, talk later, bye, ”

Beep, beep, beep.

The busy tone cut him off mid-sentence.

He sighed, shaking his head with an amused smile.

“See? Told you not to talk while exercising.”

Still, he couldn’t help but feel a little smug about it. With her personality, she probably needed a few of these lessons to calm down.

It wasn’t that Harutaki was some naive, pure-hearted boy, far from it.

It just never crossed his mind that Nogami might be doing... anything else.

A proud, highborn girl like her, always looking down on others, wouldn’t possibly do something weird, right?

Aside from her friends or the rare person she didn’t consider “beneath” her, she barely tolerated anyone.

Sure, she could be insufferably arrogant.

But she was still a proper young lady of a respectable household... right?

…

...Can you throw a plushie into the washing machine?

Nogami steadied herself against the edge of the bed. After kneeling for so long... “playing” with the Shiba Inu plush, her legs had gone numb. She wobbled to her feet, stretching her sore calves before looking down at the plush again.

Its fur was all rumpled and sticking up in tufts, a total mess, but still as stupidly cute as ever.

Among her whole collection, only this tan Shiba Inu was perfectly cylindrical, ideal for hugging during sleep or squeezing like a pillow. There was no way she could just throw it out now.

As for the crumpled, half-torn sheet of printer paper... yeah, that definitely wasn’t surviving a second use.

“What an annoying guy…”

Her thoughts drifted back to those three middle-school girls at the convenience store. The memory made her chest tighten with a strange, frustrated heat.

Grabbing a neon highlighter from her desk, she took the photo of Harutaki and,  doodle doodle, added two tiny “bean eyebrows” like the Shiba Inu’s. Then a tongue sticking out.

Still not quite right.

So she added two whirlpool swirls on each cheek, like little ramen naruto patterns, and finally, a big round pig nose.

When she finished, she stood back, crossed her arms, and nodded in satisfaction.

“There. Much better.”

Honestly, what was the point of looking that handsome anyway?

Just to go around charming middle school girls?

Absolutely unforgivable.

—-

(Note: At this point, Nogami doesn't really like Harutaki yet— it’s more like a twisted sort of flutter in her heart)