by Takehaya
“Why not just be honest and say that it’s thanks to Satomi-sama?”
“...Even if I don’t say it, you will, right?”
“Heehee, that’s correct.”
After smiling at each other, Theia let go of Ruth’s hand and jumped off the bed.
“All right.”
“Your Highness?”
Upon landing softly on the carpet, Theia turned towards Ruth again and reached out her hand.
“There is something I have to do right away. Ruth, I need your help. Please lend me your strength.”
“...As you wish, My Princess.”
Ruth took Theia’s hand without any hesitation.
Valentine’s Day
Friday, February 12th
Kenji was hiding behind the water tank on the roof of the school, eagerly waiting for Koutarou to appear.
“...Kou did get that letter, didn’t he?”
“Yes, Master Mackenzie! We confirmed that Satomi read the letter!”
A few other boys were hiding behind the water tank with Kenji. They were all part of the unpopular boys alliance, but for some reason they were now working together with their supposed enemy.
Today was the final school day before Valentine’s Day. Since this year’s Valentine’s Day fell on a Sunday, valentines were being handed out today. Of course, Kenji had already received a copious amount of chocolate from various girls. He’d used some of the excess to bribe part of the unpopular boys alliance. He was going to use them to prank Koutarou, and to that end, they were all lying in wait now on the roof.
The reason for this was because Koutarou had been preparing to prank Kenji himself. But before he could pull it off, he was betrayed by some of the boys that Kenji had bribed. With the scheme revealed, Kenji avoided the prank and instead set up one of his own.
“Man, hurry it up, Kou... It’s not some girl waiting for you up here.”
Kenji, trying to keep his cool, was standing there holding a sign in his hand that read “Got you!” He couldn’t wait to see Koutarou’s dumb face when he jumped out at him with it.
When Koutarou came up to the roof, he didn’t see anyone else there.
“Huh? Nobody’s here?”
During lunch, Koutarou had gotten a letter from an anonymous sender. In girly handwriting on pink stationery, it read: “I will be waiting for you on the roof after school.” Koutarou figured he would find out who sent it if he showed up, but sadly there didn’t seem to be anyone around. Curious, Koutarou decided to hang around for a while.
“Hmm... I wonder who the letter is from...”
While waiting for the sender to show up, Koutarou examined the letter again. He didn’t recognize the handwriting on it. Harumi and Shizuka both had extremely neat handwriting, and Theia and Ruth couldn’t write this well yet. Yurika’s writing was terrible, and Kiriha’s was practically calligraphy. That seemed to leave Sanae, but Koutarou suspected her writing would have more fluff to it. She would add in things like hearts or stars. And just as Koutarou was racking his brain...
“Satomi-kun!”
Someone called his name. When he turned to see who it was, he spotted Harumi waving her hand over by the door to the roof.
“Sakuraba-senpai!”
Koutarou shoved the letter in his pocket and ran up to Harumi. Going to her would be faster than waiting for her to come to him.
“So this is where you were, Satomi-kun.”
Harumi greeted Koutarou with a smile, but it was somewhat forced. Seeing that, Koutarou realized that Harumi had some business with him.
“Is something the matter, Sakuraba-senpai?”
“W-Well, actually...”
Harumi blushed slightly and started digging through her schoolbag.
“I was looking for you so I could give you this...”
Harumi pulled two flat, square boxes out from her bag. They were about ten centimeters wide and two centimeters tall, just large enough to fit in either of her hands. Both of them were wrapped in red paper and white ribbon.
“Could this be chocolate?”
Even Koutarou could tell that the boxes were full of homemade chocolate.
“That’s right! Since you’re always helping me out, I made some for you and Matsudaira-kun!”
Harumi spoke quickly and seemed a little anxious as she presented the boxes to Koutarou. She held out her arms stiffly, as if she was receiving a diploma.
“Please give one to Matsudaira-kun.”
“Thank you very much, Sakuraba-senpai.”
Koutarou didn’t think much of it as he accepted the boxes from Harumi.
“An obligatory valentine from Sakuraba-senpai, huh? I’ll get to brag to everyone about this.”
Since both of the boxes looked the same, Koutarou naturally assumed that they were generic, obligatory valentines. There was surely no way that they’d both be true valentines, after all. But an obligatory valentine from Harumi was still special, and Koutarou was pleased to have gotten some chocolate.
“Oh... Your names are written on them, so don’t take the wrong one, okay?”
“Ah, okay. Thanks.”
Koutarou looked under the boxes, and sure enough, “Satomi-kun” and “Matsudaira-kun” were written on them respectively.
“I picked out things I thought each of you might like.”
“Thanks, Sakuraba-senpai. You didn’t have to go to all this trouble for us.”
“I-It wasn’t really all that much! I always prepare all kinds of chocolates for my parents and the children at the hospital anyway.”
“I see. How kind of you.”
Koutarou realized what she was saying. She had made various chocolates for other people, including the children she was close to. She’d just been nice and made some extra for Koutarou and Kenji while she was at it.
Phew... Thank goodness he didn’t catch on...
Harumi felt a wave of relief as she watched Koutarou putting the boxes of chocolate in his bag. Little did he know she hadn’t been entirely honest with him. The box for Kenji did indeed contain some extra chocolates from her candy making endeavors, but Koutarou’s box of chocolate was different. It contained the best of the dozen or so chocolate recipes she’d tried.
Harumi had processed the chocolate until it was creamy and packed it into a small plastic case. In the box were also marshmallows and crackers that could be dipped in the cream. It was something she’d made just for Koutarou. Something she thought would appeal to both his tastes and his playful personality.
Because of the time it took to make and the quality of chocolate it required, there was no way Harumi would have made it for anyone else. Contrary to what Koutarou suspected, Harumi’s gift was indeed a true valentine.
“Well, happy Valentine’s Day! I’ll be off now!”
Having successfully handed over her chocolate, Harumi was quick to flee the scene. She had some other things to do, and she would be too embarrassed if Koutarou opened her chocolate in front of her.
“Huh? What about our club activities?”
“Didn’t I tell you last week? I have to go to the hospital this weekend, so we’re postponing.”
“Oh yeah... Ah, and you’re going to give out chocolate while you’re there, aren’t you?”
“Heehee, that’s right. So see you later, Satomi-kun.”
“You bet. See you Monday.”
Harumi gracefully waved her hand and smiled as she left the roof. As soon as she stepped back inside, she quietly closed the door behind her. It wasn’t long, however, before it burst open again.
“Whoa!”
“Ah, there you are, Satomi-kun!”
Koutarou instinctively jumped back when the door flew open. The girl who emerged this time was his classmate Maki.
“A-Aika-san?”
Leaping from the doorway, Maki landed lightly on the concrete floor and pointed a finger in Koutarou’s face.
“Heehee, Satomi-kun, I have something nice for you.”
Maki then reached in
to the pocket of her school uniform and pulled out a long, slender box wrapped in indigo paper.
“Here, a true valentine!”
Maki shook the box two or three times in front of Koutarou’s face before presenting it to him. Despite the gesture, Koutarou stared at it suspiciously.
“...So how much are you planning on charging me?”
Koutarou knew that this wasn’t any ordinary chocolate. It was the treacherous to-order valentine that had led most of the unpopular boys alliance astray. And it didn’t come cheap.
“Why, I won’t charge you a thing!”
“You can’t fool me! Tell me the truth! What are you after?! Is it White Day? Ah, that must be it. You want a gift worth three times as much in return!”
Koutarou had never—to his knowledge—gotten a true valentine before, but he knew it was customary to repay the favor a month later on White Day, March 14th. Traditionally, a boy was supposed to buy a gift worth three times as much for a girl who’d given him chocolate on Valentine’s. Koutarou suspected that this was Maki’s ulterior motive.
“Why won’t you just accept it?! It’s because you’re like this that you’re not popular!”
“Leave me be! You wouldn’t understand how I feel! All you do is play with innocent men’s hearts!”
“I just happened to get a cancellation on an order, so I thought I’d be nice and give it to you for free!”
“Then give it here!”
“As if I’d let you have it now!”
Maki started sulking over Koutarou’s accusations and puffed up her cheeks in a pout.
“...Well, seriously speaking, if you worked that hard to make a nice valentine, then give it to whoever you get along with the best. It would be a shame for the chocolate to go to waste.”
“Satomi-kun...”
The moment she heard Koutarou’s serious words, the air in Maki’s cheeks escaped and she returned to her usual expression. After looking down and flashing a small smile, Maki presented the chocolate to Koutarou once more.
“Then I really will give it to you.”
“Are you sure?”
“You’re my number one friend after all. Well, just consider it an investment in next year.”
Maki, still smiling, gave the chocolate to Koutarou.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you should work hard so I’ll give you a real valentine next time around.”
“I hate to think what that’d cost me...”
“Jeez, why can’t you just say you’ll do your best?! That was your big chance to score a lot of points!”
“W-Was it?!”
But in the end, Koutarou ended up angering Maki. She stormed off, slamming the door behind her with the same intensity she’d opened it with when she first arrived. As it shut, a loud crash could be heard from the other side.
“Koutarou, come help!”
The very next moment, Sanae passed through the door. In a fluster, she was speaking quickly and frantically pointing towards the door.
“The door shut on Yurika and she’s not moving!”
“Wh-What?!”
Koutarou rushed immediately over. When he opened the door, he saw Yurika collapsed on the floor in front of him. She had a large bump on her head, indicating she’d crashed into the door with considerable force.
“We were about to come out on the roof when that Maki girl showed up with this really angry look on her face... Yurika tried to jump out of the way, but the door got her when it slammed shut...”
“I see... Sorry about that, Yurika.”
It seemed like Yurika had gotten caught in the wake Maki’s frustration, which meant that it was indirectly Koutarou’s fault for angering Maki in the first place. Feeling somewhat responsible, Koutarou picked up Yurika and sat her down on a bench installed on the rooftop.
“S-Shatomi-shan... the whorld... the whorld is shpinning...”
Even after being placed on the bench, Yurika still hadn’t recovered. She was clearly seeing stars as her head rolled in pointless circles.
“Let’s just give her a minute. So, what did you two come here for?”
Sanae was looking down at Yurika as she floated beside Koutarou, but when he asked about what they were doing on the roof, she clapped her hands like she’d just remembered something.
“That’s right! Koutarou, hurry on home today. I bought chocolate, so let’s eat it together!”
“Ah, I see. That’s what you’re after.”
“Yeah!”
Since Sanae was a ghost, she couldn’t eat anything herself. She’d need Koutarou’s help in order to taste it.
“Yurika, you too?”
“Ch-Chocolate... I bought shome too...”
Yurika still seemed dizzy, but she rummaged through her pocket and pulled out a piece of chocolate. Seeing it, Koutarou only had one word to describe it.
“...It’s so small.”
“Don’t say that. Yurika was going to buy a bigger one at first, but then she found a new flavor of instant noodles. That’s why this is all the chocolate she has.”
The new flavor of noodles, Kanto seaweed soy sauce, cost 78 yen a pack, and Yurika only had 100 yen. She was going to buy the ramen and two 10 yen chocolates, but fate was cruel. With tax, the total came to 103 yen, 3 yen over her budget. In the end, she only walked away with one chocolate.
“Valentine’s Day... shucks...”
“It must have been hard on you, Yurika... I know how you must feel...”
Upon receiving the chocolate from Yurika, Koutarou’s eyes began to tear up.
Yurika could only buy a single 10 yen chocolate. She couldn’t possibly give something like that to the boy she likes, so she gave it to me as an obligatory valentine instead. Poor girl...
Having misunderstood the situation, Koutarou sympathetically took her hand and nodded repeatedly.
“Yurika, I’ll eat your chocolate with great care...”
“S-Shatomi-shaaaaan... Aaauuuuuuugh!”
Nijino Yurika’s first high school Valentine’s Day ended in bitter tears.
“Okay! See you later, Koutarou. Make sure you hurry home, okay?”
Sanae had told Koutarou what she wanted to, so she was planning on heading home and waiting for him in the warmth of room 106.
“I know. Be careful on your way home.”
“Yeah! Come on. Let’s go, Yurika.”
“Hnnngh...”
Sanae dragged a staggered Yurika with her, though it was unclear if her moaning was crying or if she was just still dizzy.
“You don’t have to be like that. When we get home, I’ll give you half of my chocolate.”
“Really?!”
“...Actually, make that a quarter.”
“Whaaat?! You said half! Please make it half!”
As Koutarou watched Yurika now chasing after Sanae, he began worrying about her future.
“...Yurika, are you really okay with this? Is this really how you want to live your life?”
“If that’s how you feel, then you can just look after her yourself. I believe you would be a good fit as Yurika’s guardian.”
“Me?! Wait, what are you doing, Kiriha-san?”
“Oh, just playing around.”
After seeing Sanae and Yurika off, Koutarou realized Kiriha’s arm was wrapped around his. With their arms linked, they looked like lovers as Kiriha pressed herself up against him and smiled happily.
“I made a valentine for my love, but sadly I still haven’t been able to find him. I’d like you to serve as a substitute in his place.”
“I see, so that’s why you’re doing this.”
“That’s correct.”
Kiriha embraced Koutarou’s arm and drew her face closer to his. As she leaned in, her bountiful breasts pushed up against his arm, but strangely enough, Koutarou wasn’t panicking as much as he had in the past. If anything, he felt somewhat relieved. That was most likely due to the trusting relationship that they’d developed durin
g these past ten months.
“Please accept it, Koutarou.”
Kiriha presented Koutarou with a long, slender box. The box was brown and black, and had been wrapped in a cool-colored ribbon. Not only did Kiriha’s chocolate have a mature flavor, it came in a mature package.
“That’s not like you.”
However, Koutarou didn’t accept the chocolate. Instead, he pushed it back towards her.
“What do you mean?”
“Valentine’s Day is the day after tomorrow. It’s still too early to ask me to be your substitute.”
Today was February 12th. Kiriha still had two more days left to find her first love, so Koutarou couldn’t accept her chocolate now.
“Heh, now that you mention it... Since Shizuka is making a cake for today, I suppose it just feels like today is Valentine’s Day.”
“Landlord-san is making a cake?”
“Yes, it’s a chocolatey cake. She wanted to eat it with everyone, so she’s making a pretty large one. I promised I’d help her make it later.”
“I see. I’m looking forward to it. I don’t know how many years it’s been since I last had a homemade cake.”
Homemade treats like that were a rarity for Koutarou after he lost his mother, so he was excited at the chance to have one again.
“What about homemade chocolate?”
Kiriha presented her chocolate to Koutarou once again.
“I don’t know how many years that’s been either. But I won’t accept it today.”
“Then hold on to it.”
“Hey...”
“You’ll help me look tomorrow and Sunday, right?”
“...Well, I guess it’s okay in that case.”
“You really are stubborn.”
“You’re one to talk.”
“I won’t deny it.”
And so like that, Koutarou finally accepted Kiriha’s chocolate. With her hands now empty, Kiriha wrapped both of her arms around Koutarou’s and looked at him with her provocative eyes.
“So in that case... can I look forward to White Day?”
“Aren’t you asking the wrong guy?”
Koutarou smiled wryly and shrugged.
“Don’t be so cold... Can’t you just play along a little?”