My extroverted girlfriend has zero sense of boundaries — Is It really wrong to take her home right after we meet? - Episode 3

♠

‘How did it come to this…?’

Blood gushed steadily from his right knee, flowing down the drain together with the hot shower. Watching it, Kyousuke let out a deep sigh.

“Fujimura—!”

“Y-Yes!”

At the voice from beyond the frosted glass, Kyousuke straightened his back with a jolt.

“Wait, why the polite tone?”

“Ah, no, it wasn’t intentional.”

“…Well, whatever. I’ll leave a towel here. I’ll be waiting in the room.”

Ayano said『Take your time』as she exited the dressing room.

‘Waiting in the room… she’s waiting, huh…’

Those sweet-sounding words caused impure thoughts to creep into his mind. Immediately, he dunked his head under the shower again to wash them away.

This was a room in an apartment along a road about ten minutes’ walk from school. Ayano’s place.

After leaving school, Kyousuke had barely passed through the school gate when he slipped on some wet cherry blossom petals and fell spectacularly. It was his second fall of the day. His clumsiness was beyond laughable.

His school blazer was soaked in muddy water. The right knee of his pants was torn, and he’d gotten a wound that wouldn’t heal anytime soon.

『My place is right around the corner, so let me treat that! And while we’re at it, we can wash your clothes and dry them with a hairdryer!』

Kyousuke had hesitated quite a bit at that suggestion, but in the end, he nodded.

It wasn’t that far to his own house, but he didn’t have the courage to walk home with the front of his clothes caked in mud and blood dripping from his knee, practically advertising to everyone that he, a high schooler, had tripped face-first. More than anything, he felt bad brushing off her genuine concern.

‘I do wonder if letting a guy into your home so easily is really okay… but maybe that’s just how extroverts are?’

She was beautiful enough that it wouldn’t be surprising if she had a boyfriend or two.

Her tolerance for dealing with the opposite sex was probably several times higher than his.

‘I mean, normally this would be the other way around, right?’

As he wiped his body with a bath towel, Kyousuke sighed again.

Getting injured and ending up at the house of a classmate who lived alone. It was a typical development in manga or novels but usually, it was the guy taking care of the girl, doing the laundry, and lending clothes to the heroine.

Feeling slightly headachy from how pathetic he was being, he reached for her jersey.

When he unfolded it, he saw, written in big letters across the chest:『6th Grade, Class 2 – Sasagawa Ayano.』

It seemed to be something from her elementary school days.

“Th-That girl…!”

Sure, he was small. His height had stopped growing at some point, and his shoe size hadn’t changed in ages.

But he was at least confident he was bigger than elementary-school Ayano.

Biting his lip in frustration, he slipped his arms through the sleeves.

He’d show her how tight it was on him, make her regret treating him like a little kid.

“…”

Both the sleeves and the hem were too long.

♥

She placed the clothes and band-aids in the changing room and returned to the living room, collapsing onto the sofa with a soft boof.

‘I-I messed uuuuuup!!’

Roughly running her hands through her hair, she twisted her body like a caterpillar.

Pressing her face into a cushion, she let out a silent scream and flailed her long legs wildly.

‘If I suddenly let him into my house like that, he might totally get the wrong idea! St-Stupid, I’m such an idiot!’

The two of them had walked home together. While chatting about nothing in particular, he suddenly tripped and fell.

Shocked by the heavy bleeding, she had instinctively brought him home, but now a headache came over her as she realized how thoughtless her actions had been.

‘What if he thinks I’m used to this, and weird rumors start going around?’

An ominous future flashed through her mind.

A girl who lives alone and lets a guy she’s not even that close to into her home without hesitation.

If people started thinking that, if someone went around spreading it, her high school life would be over.

It would be a disaster far worse than anything she experienced in middle school.

‘I have to make sure he keeps quiet…’

A hundred thousand yen? Two hundred thousand?

She unconsciously started calculating the amount but snapped back to her senses at the sound of the wind and rain rattling the glass on the balcony.

She sat up and looked toward the entrance through the open living room door, where a soaking wet folding umbrella lay.

“Ahh… seriously, I’m such an idiot.”

Gritting her back teeth, she lightly punched the cushion.

Surely, he wouldn’t spread weird rumors. He wouldn’t even take money.

『And who exactly is『everyone』? Don’t just lump me in with them.』

That’s what he’d said during lunch today.

He was right. He’s not like everyone else.

No one else had ever turned down a thank-you gift. No one else had hurried back to her, out of breath, despite the slippery footing.

It was because he was that kind of person that she had stopped him on impulse.

Because she strongly wanted to be with him.

“…Phew.”

She let out a breath and looked up at the ceiling. The sound of the shower still hadn’t stopped. Her heart thumped just a little.

“T-That’s not it! That’s not what this is…!”

She slapped both cheeks with a pash! and scolded her racing heartbeat.

This excitement was just because she was happy to finally make a friend. Absolutely nothing weird about it. No ulterior meaning at all.

“Uuugh…”

She hugged the cushion tighter and rubbed her flushed cheeks against it, releasing that indescribable feeling along with an animal-like groan.

♠

When he left the changing room and opened the living room door, Ayano was sitting on the sofa with her knees pulled up to her chest.

In the roughly ten-tatami-sized space, typical home electronics and furniture were arranged. Cute little decorations subtly adorned the room, and a pleasant scent he had never smelled before heightened his nervousness.

“You’re swimming in it.”

“Shut up.”

As Kyousuke walked with the sleeves and hem rolled up, Ayano gave him a mischievous grin. He snapped back at her immediately, causing her smile to grow even softer.

“Why are you standing? Come sit down.”

She patted the spot beside her. Feeling awkward about where to look, he followed her lead.

She had taken off her school uniform and was wearing a white T-shirt and denim shorts. There was nothing unusual about the outfit itself, but her healthy white skin, exposed under the LED lights, stood out all the more for it.

“Does it hurt? Think you’ll be able to walk home?”

“I think I’ll be fine. It’s not that far.”

As he spoke, rubbing the band-aid on his knee, Ayano let out a sigh of relief.

She didn’t say anything more. He wondered if he should bring up a topic but besides today’s weather or tomorrow’s, nothing came to mind, so he kept quiet.

“Thanks.”

The voice that broke the silence made him glance to his right.

Deep blue eyes were looking at him. She tucked her side hair behind her ear with slender fingers, and her lips curved into a soft, melted smile.

“If it’s about the umbrella, don’t worry. It just happened to be in my bag.”

“Still, you didn’t have to go all the way back to school.”

“I just felt like being a good guy.”

“You’re really stubborn, Fujimura. If you made a big deal about it, you could probably demand a bunch of stuff from me.”

A bunch of stuff. As those words passed through his ears, Kyousuke’s mind instantly flooded with all kinds of fantasies.

No no no, he shook his head. It’s not like he wanted anything like that. And she probably didn’t mean it that way either.

“You’re wasting your chance. You should really try to get along with everyone more.”

“How I spend my time has nothing to do with you, Sasagawa-san.”

“Going shopping together, karaoke, it’s probably fun, you know?”

“I’m good. I seriously don’t need that kind of stuff.”

“I see.”

Ayano murmured, then immediately leaned her upper body toward him. 

Their eyes locked at close range. Hand to hand, shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh — they touched and heat bloomed between them.

“Then I guess I get to have Fujimura all to myself.”

Though she said it jokingly, her eyes—tinged with a bewitching glow—gazed softly at Kyousuke.

Her cheeks were flushed, and warm breaths escaped from slightly parted, pale pink lips.

Feeling his heart thudding in his chest, Kyousuke tried to banish his stray thoughts by imagining his mother’s face.

“…Huh?”

Something felt off.

“I’m gonna touch you for a sec” he said, then reached out to place a hand on Ayano’s forehead.

Ayano was breathing faintly, her eyes vacant and distant. Her forehead was damp with sweat, and the warmth against his palm was far from normal body temperature.

‘Now that I think about it… she did sneeze.’

He recalled the moment they stepped out of the school gate.

That face of hers, laughing with snot dribbling down, was still vivid in his memory.

“You okay? Feels like you’ve got a fever.”

“Eh?”

Ayano placed her own hand to her forehead. In that instant, the blood drained from her face.

“I-I need to take some medicine.”

She stood up abruptly, only to stagger and sway on her feet.

If she kept going like that, she’d hit her head on the TV. Kyousuke reached out, grabbed her arm, and steadied her.

“Just tell me where it is. I’ll bring it over.”

“But…”

“You seriously expect me to just watch a sick person wobbling around?”

Even he found his tone unfair, and Ayano fell silent.

He sat her down and had her check her temperature first. Exactly thirty-eight degrees. No wonder she was unsteady.

“Why does this always happen…”

He muttered under his breath, staring at the thermometer’s display with a sigh.

“You’re probably just worn out from starting a new routine. The temperature’s been swinging a lot since yesterday too.”

“But…but you know, Chisa-chan and Kaoruko-chan asked me to go somewhere with them tomorrow. That made me really happy…”

He recognized the names. If memory serves, those two girls Ayano often chatted with in class were also the ones badmouthing her after school.

Why would they invite someone they didn’t like to hang out? Most likely, they just wanted the status of being friends with a girl who worked as a model.

“What am I gonna do…”

Her voice was barely a whisper as she curled up, hugging her knees tightly.

Taller than him, already doing professional work, acting like an adult and always shining brightly around others—yet now, she was just a girl her age, small and vulnerable.

“For now, eat something, take your medicine, and go to bed. I’ll head home on my own.”

“…I wonder if I’ll be better by tomorrow.”

Saying『you’ll probably be fine』would be easy. Even if it’s just a comforting lie, if it helped ease her heart even a little, it was probably the right thing to say.

Her friendships were her own business. He had no obligation to get involved.

Even knowing that, he couldn’t help but recall those nasty rumors. It made his skin crawl.

“If it turns out you can’t go, then I’ll go shopping or karaoke with you instead. You said you were gonna have me all to yourself, didn’t you?”

He was painfully aware of how embarrassing that sounded.

Even so, giving her hope for tomorrow felt wrong.

He knew he was being self-righteous and arrogant, but she was better off not getting involved with people who pretended to be friends while laughing behind her back.

“Really…?”

“I’m not smooth enough to lie at a time like this.”

Maybe reassured, the corner of her lips curled slightly under her lowered gaze.

Gently, Ayano held up her left pinky.

Understanding what she meant, Kyousuke hesitated briefly, then extended his own pinky. Like they used to do as kids, their fingers hooked together.

“Yubikiri genman…”

Pinky swear, if I lie, I’ll swallow a thousand needles—pinky cut!

“H-Hey, cut it out, that’s embarrassing. You don’t have to sing it too!”

“But if we don’t do it properly, it doesn’t count as a promise…”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry, I’ll keep it, I promise.”

“If you break it, will you swallow a needle?”

“I’ll swallow it. I’ll swallow anything.”

“…Okay.”

As if trying to convince herself, Ayano nodded with a small bob of her head. She let go of his finger, then looked down, smiling like a little girl.

Kyousuke exhaled and pressed a hand to his chest.

His heart ached from this unfamiliar closeness with a girl.

Now he had even made plans to hang out with her—he felt dizzy from his own overly nice-guy tendencies.

“Huh? Wha—hey!”

In the span of less than a minute of silence, Ayano had started breathing softly in her sleep, still sitting on the sofa.

He called out to her, but there was no response.

Her expression was completely slack, fast asleep.

‘Don’t just fall asleep in front of a guy like that…’

Worried by her carelessness, his cheeks warmed as he looked at the sleeping face of a girl who wasn’t family for the first time in his life.

For now, he walked to the corner of the room and grabbed a front-zip hoodie from the hanger rack, draping it over her.

He figured he should probably move her to the bedroom, but waking her up just for that felt wrong.

“…Fujimura.”

Startled by the sudden call, he realized it was probably just sleep talk.

“All to myself… fufu…”

She gave a tiny smile and shifted slightly, then drifted into deeper sleep once again.

She looked so incredibly cute that—

“O-oh… heh…”

Overcome by a blend of shame and happiness, a spectacularly gross grin twisted across his face.

He immediately covered it with both hands and shook his head violently to get rid of it.

‘What’s wrong with me?! Idiot! Stupid! It was just sleep talk!!’

He quietly flailed around so as not to wake Ayano, and in the process slammed his pinky toe against the corner of the table, writhing in agony.

Only then did his impure thoughts finally vanish.

With a slightly clearer head, he looked at her again.

‘What’s so great about having someone like me all to yourself? Is this just how extroverts are? Their sense of personal space is completely broken…’

Still baffled by the incomprehensible behavior of the mysterious species known as『extroverts』he scratched the back of his head.