Hearing the discussion mixed in with the street noise behind them, Sasaki glancing at Nanao Akane, who was completely unaware of anything, squeezed her hand, drawing her curious gaze, and smiled softly.
"Let's let go here. I said just for a little while. If someone you know sees us, it'll be trouble."
As he spoke, he pulled his hand away from their intertwined fingers.
The sudden loss of warmth from his hand made the girl instinctively clench her fist, as if unconsciously trying to hold onto the lingering warmth.
Even she wasn't sure why, when Sasaki's hand left hers, her heart felt like a piece of it was missing.
Was it reluctance?
Not entirely clear about her own feelings, Nanao Akane rubbed her fingers and was about to respond when a somewhat nervous voice called out from behind.
"Uh, hi, Nanao... Nanao, the manager."
Turning their heads together toward the direction of the voice, Sasaki and Nanao saw a boy of average build with a face that could barely be called handsome.
The girl hadn't expected to actually run into someone from the club.
Her breath hitched, and she greeted him with an unnatural smile:
"Hello, Shibata-kun."
Nodding nervously, Shibata, who rarely spoke to girls and had only approached on impulse, wanted to chat with Nanao for a while.
But he was also dying to know who the guy next to her was.
These two conflicting thoughts made him open his mouth but fail to say anything.
Knowing that his response was crucial for Nanao, Sasaki didn't cause any trouble and took the initiative to introduce himself. "Hello, you're from the same club as my sister, right? I'm her older brother, Nanao Tachibana. She must have caused you all a lot of trouble in the club."
"Uh, hello, I'm Shibata Matsukatsu."
Hearing the tall guy's self-introduction, Shibata relaxed a lot.
He then became quite enthusiastic, chatting with Sasaki.
"No, no, it's always been Nanao-san helping us with the logistics. If anything, we've been the ones causing her trouble..."
"Um, so, Nanao-kun, are you also from our school? Are you..."
The conversation continued, but neither Sasaki nor Nanao paid much attention.
They occasionally responded with a vague hum to keep up appearances.
Sasaki winked at the girl, who also looked relieved, and mouthed.
"How are you going to thank me?"
He didn't make a sound, but the shape of his words was simple enough for Nanao to understand.
She gave him a coquettish eye roll and glanced at the classmate who was still talking as she shifted slightly and whispered:
"If you hadn't wanted to hold hands, he wouldn't have come over."
Nanao was a head shorter than Sasaki, so if he wanted to whisper to her, he had to bend down.
But bending down would be too obvious and might draw attention.
Sasaki casually agreed with something the classmate said and subtly took Nanao's hand, tracing words on her soft palm. "Don't say that. He clearly came over because he wanted to talk to you. Holding hands was just a catalyst, not the main reason."
"..."
She wasn't Shibata, so how would she know why he had approached?
However, the way Sasaki was teasing her palm made her heart itch.
Nanao Akane knew he was using this as an excuse to demand a reward.
Though she found him a bit shameless, he had helped her, and that was a fact... So hearing his request and considering it wasn't too much, right?
Using the excuse of not wanting to owe Sasaki, the girl leaned closer to him, hiding their hands as they intertwined again, and whispered.
"What do you want?"
"I want to!"
?
For a moment, Nanao didn't understand what Sasaki was writing on her palm.
It took her a while to realize he was making a dirty joke.
She really couldn't stand this guy whose mind was always in the gutter.
Blushing, Nanao tightly clenched the fingers he had slipped into her hand, trying to punish him.
Well... calling it a punishment was more like a shy girl's way of acting coquettish to Sasaki.
Because of his dirty joke, Nanao didn't ask him what he wanted.
And since they had arrived at the izakaya, their hands quietly separated again.
Entering the izakaya and reaching the private room their club had reserved, Sasaki said to Nanao.
"Go in. Just like we discussed earlier."
Knowing he was referring to the plan of sending him regular updates, the girl nodded. "Okay."
Seeing that Nanao's "brother" wasn't planning to go in, Shibata asked:
"Nanao-kun, aren't you coming in? One more person won't be a problem."
Well..he obviously couldn't go in.
After all, he was here to pick the fruit, and the fruit wasn't ripe yet...
Smiling, Sasaki replied. "It's Akane's class gathering. It'd be awkward for me to join. I'll wait outside for her."
Then, he turned to the girl and said:
"Message me when you're done. I'll come pick you up, okay~?"
...It wasn't the first time he had called her by her first name, but it was the first time he had done so in front of others.
Even though they weren't lovers, they had done so many things together that she hadn't even done with Shou-kun.
Unable to describe the feeling in her heart, Nanao pursed her lips and nodded.
She then stood at the entrance of the private room, watching Sasaki disappear around the corner of the hallway.
Shibata, standing nearby, saw how attached the girl he admired was to her "brother" and said with a hint of envy:
"Nanao, you and your brother seem really close."
'Were she and Sasaki-kun really that close?'
...Even though her lover was just a door away, someone was saying that she was close to another guy... Nanao should have refuted it, or even gotten angry.
But... lap pillows, feeding, massages, holding hands... protecting her...
She couldn't bring herself to deny it, so, she looked away from the hallway and nodded slightly.
Without saying anything else, Nanao slid open the door and entered the room.
Inside the private room, with several tatami mats laid out, a long table sat in the center.
Around it, on several cushions, sat the club members she knew.
The baseball club had over forty members.
A regular private room naturally couldn't fit that many people, so the shoji door on the left was open, revealing other club members inside.
As for the door on the right, it led to another guest's private room.
After briefly surveying the surroundings, Nanao met the gazes and greetings of the members and saw Tougou sitting at the front seat with Katase Shouya below him.
Well..Tougou, needless to say, still had that ugly, fake smile on his face, and his gaze was as disgusting as ever.
As for Shou-kun... well... he was hanging his head, not looking at her...
Was he still angry?
Seeing his behavior, Nanao Akane sighed with a sense of disappointment and stopped paying attention to him.
Pretending not to hear Tougou's greeting, she put on a sweet, fake smile and nodded to everyone present before taking the only remaining seat,
Which happened to be directly across from Katase Shouya.
Due to Shou-kun's reaction and the resentment she felt from being ignored for days, Nanao didn't even glance at him, even though she was sitting right across from him.
When the boy lowered her head, his eyes flicked up, however, noticing how Nanao was treating him like a stranger, Katase Shouya bit his lip tightly, and his hands under the table clenched into fists.
His blunt nails pressed into his palms, hoping to suppress the pain in his heart.
It had only been a few days... His lover... his Akane, was treating him like a stranger... It... hurt so much he could barely breathe.
Katase Shouya didn't want to accept this, didn't want to stay here, didn't want to face the girl, who was looking at him with the eyes of a stranger.
Standing up in a daze, she patted the shoulder of a guy he was close to and swapped seats with him.
Sitting at the head of the table, Tougou saw his pathetic behavior and cursed under his breath.
What a spineless loser.
No wonder someone else had stolen his girl.
...To have the duck right at your mouth and still let someone else take it... What a...
Not noticing Tougou's twisted expression, Nanao Akane, who had also seen Katase Shouya's behavior, felt both hurt and disappointed.
What did it mean that he didn't want to sit here?
Did he really hate seeing her that much?
Or, in his eyes, had her leaving the baseball club meant cutting ties with him completely?
And... he knew she had always been wary of Tougou... yet he still left her alone here...
Her feelings for him were being worn away by his actions.
Nanao glanced at Tougou's twisted expression and silently whispered Sasaki's name in her heart.
Unaware of how his girlfriend and his coach viewed him, Katase Shouya stared blankly at the teacup in front of him on the table.
The cheerful chatter around him seemed to be in another world.
Normally, the teammates sitting around him would have noticed the ace of their club acting strangely.
But they were all distracted by the conversation happening across the table, so no one paid him any attention as he sat there in a daze.
At the same time, the name mentioned in the conversation across the table made him look up.
"Are you sure the guy next to Nanao is her brother?"
One of the two boys who had noticed Nanao holding hands with someone earlier looked at Shibata with a strange expression as he explained.
"Huh?"
Not understanding why he was asking, Shibata frowned and said. "That's what the guy said, and Nanao didn't deny it."
"You can't just start imagining things because she was holding hands with her brother."
It wasn't strange for a brother and sister to hold hands... but the way they had been whispering to each other earlier didn't seem like siblings at all.
"Tch~ He didn't say it was her real brother. Maybe it's her lover brother..."
Katase Shouya didn't listen to the rest of the conversation...although he had never been physically close to Nanao Akane.
But during their past conversations, he knew Nanao didn't have a brother... So the "brother" they were talking about... was most likely a lover...
The thought of his girlfriend spending the evening with another guy made his heart ache even more.
And after dinner... would they do the same thing as last time?
Taking a deep breath, Katase Shouya clenched his fists, his face pale.
...