───● The Energetic College Girl Is a Master Tactician ●○●
“Wait, is it true you’ve had a girlfriend before, Masato?”
“Yeah.”
That was about three months ago, if memory served.
I had asked him on the train when it was just the two of us, on our way home after taking a class with Koumi.
I’d already heard from Koumi that Masato had actually dated someone before—setting aside how terrifying her eyes looked when she mentioned it—so I brought it up purely out of curiosity.
“Huh! That’s actually pretty surprising!” I gasped.
“Are you making fun of me…?” he asked, pouting.
“No, no! Not at all, I assure you!”
I quickly denied it as Masato, sitting beside me, shot me a doubtful look.
What surprised me wasn’t the fact that he’d had a girlfriend…
It was the fact that he was no longer with her.
After all, if I were in her shoes, there’s no way in hell I’d ever let go of a guy like Masato.
Besides, Masato is so sweet that if she’d cried and begged him to stay, I figured he wouldn’t have been able to say no.
If someone told me “Let’s break up,” I’m pretty confident I’d throw a full-blown temper tantrum and wail with everything I had.
Not that having confidence in something like that is anything to brag about…
Anyway, setting that aside.
“So what went wrong with your ex? For Masato-dono to dump someone, she must’ve done something pretty terrible, right?”
I’d asked out of curiosity, and maybe just a tiny bit because I wanted to know more about him.
But the response he gave me was utterly unbelievable.
“Huh? Ah, no, no. She’s the one who dumped me.”
“…Excuse me?”
It took me a solid five seconds to process what he’d just said with such a casual smile.
“Wait, wait, wait, hold on a second! I could’ve sworn I just heard you say your girlfriend broke up with you, but I must be mishearing things, right?”
“Nope, you heard right,” he replied, tilting his head in confusion.
“Huh????”
“Did we really need to repeat that exact exchange twice???”
Even though I understood the words, I still couldn’t wrap my head around it.
I mean, I know I sound crazy right now!
Dumping… Masato?
She was actually dating Masato and initiated the breakup herself?
“…Did someone threaten to kidnap her parents unless she broke up with you?!” I gasped in horror.
“No, no, no! Nobody blackmailed her! Don’t give me that ‘Aha, it all makes sense now!’ look?! She gave me a proper reason!”
“W-What kind of reason was it?”
I asked timidly.
Masato rested his chin on the black backpack he was holding and sighed.
“She told me, ‘You’re just kind to everyone, aren’t you?'”
“…I… see?”
Riding the swaying train, I mulled over the words he’d been told… and it started to make a little bit of sense.
She probably wanted Masato to treat her as special.
But since he was kind to everyone without exception, she must’ve felt like she was just another face in the crowd… or something like that.
“Even when she said that, honestly, it’s not like I can just change my personality overnight. So I guess dating or having a girlfriend just isn’t meant for me…”
“…I see.”
The evening sun streaming through the train window illuminated Masato’s profile.
While it made me a little sad that he felt that way…
I remember feeling genuinely happy that I’d gotten to learn more about him.
Which brings us to the present.
“Um… I’m Masato-kun’s ex-girlfriend.”
“Huh…?”
Dusk was settling in over the cafe attached to the university campus, and the streetlights outside were beginning to flicker on.
Matching the darkening sky outside, the atmosphere inside the cafe seemed to plunge into gloom the moment the woman spoke.
“Masato’s… ex-girlfriend?” Koumi asked, freezing up.
“Yes,” the woman replied.
The woman who introduced herself had short black hair and stood right between me and Koumi in height.
With a round face that leaned more cute than glamorous, she was undeniably pretty enough that it wouldn’t have been surprising at all if she had dated Masato.
Beside me, Koumi was frozen solid… and a dark, ominous aura was already starting to ooze from her, so I decided to step in.
“N-Now, now, why don’t we sit down and talk first? Mizuho-chan is getting super thirsty!”
“Ah, sure.”
Standing around talking wasn’t great, and since Koumi’s behavior was getting increasingly suspicious, I ushered us over to a table.
Fortunately, the table Koumi and I had been using was a four-seater, allowing us to sit down smoothly.
“Um, what was your name again…?”
“I’m Okano Yuriko.”
“Okano-san, got it! I’m Tonosaki Mizuho, and over here is Igarashi Koumi!”
Okano-san draped her navy blue long coat over the back of her chair.
Since Koumi and I were both feeling a bit tense, we took a sip of our drinks to compose ourselves.
Alright, time to get some answers.
“So, when you say you want to see Masato…?”
“Ah, um… I wanted to apologize to him for how things ended between us.”
Wait… from what Koumi and I had heard, Masato was the one who got dumped.
What on earth did she mean by wanting to apologize for that?
“We’ve heard a little bit about it, but wasn’t it Okano-san who broke up with him…?”
“Actually… yes, that’s true.”
I wondered if maybe Masato had just misunderstood the situation, but no—there was no mistake that she was the one who dumped him.
If I remembered correctly, the reason Masato mentioned was that he was “kind to everyone.”
Did she mean she regretted phrasing it so harshly, or something?
I decided not to bring that up myself, though, since Masato might not want her knowing he’d talked to us about it.
I kept a firm hand on Koumi, who was making an absolutely terrifying face beside me.
“Um, so why exactly do you want to apologize to him now?”
It was a question I asked casually enough.
But the answer she gave was beyond shocking.
“Well… while I was dating Masato, another guy confessed to me. And… I chose him instead.”
“…Huh?” Koumi spat out, her voice dangerously flat.
“Koumi, stay! Stay, stay!” I shrieked.
Before I could even process my own disbelief at Okano-san’s words, holding back my best friend was an absolute stroke of genius on my part.
And before either of us could say another word, Okano-san kept talking.
“Are you two… Masato’s girlfriends?”
“Huh? Ah, well… not as of right now, no,” I replied with a nervous chuckle.
“So he doesn’t have a girlfriend at the moment?”
“Huh? Uh, yeah, that’s right. He doesn’t.”
“Thank goodness…”
Okano-san muttered, letting out a deep, relieved breath.
Thank goodness…? Hm?? This atmosphere is starting to smell seriously fishy.
“Ummm…?”
“Ah, I want to apologize to Masato, and then…”
Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, Okano-san declared:
“I came here to ask if he’d date me again.”
Snap.
An audible vein popped on the forehead of Koumi, who had already been looking like a vengeance-seeking ghoul for the past few minutes.
“Excuse me~~ But didn’t you choose someone else over Masato?” Koumi asked, a tight smile pasted on her face.
“? Yes, that’s right.”
“And because things didn’t work out with that guy, you’re trying to get back together with Masato?”
“It’s more like I was tricked! That guy was never serious about me, but I was stupid enough to fall for it… so that’s why I want to apologize to Masato.”
Before she could even finish her sentence—
“Isn’t that just a little bit too convenient for you?”
Koumi said with a bright, sweet smile.
Your smile is terrifying, Koumi-chan!
“I admit it might sound a bit selfish… but my feelings for him were real.”
“If you really loved him, I don’t think you would’ve picked someone else in the first place.”
“N-Now, now, Koumi. Regardless, it’s up to Masato to decide.”
“I know that, but…”
Honestly, I was just as annoyed with this Okano-san as Koumi was.
However, as long as neither of us was Masato’s girlfriend, anything we said would probably just get ignored anyway.
…Besides, looking at Okano-san sitting in front of me… I had a certain conviction.
“If you’re looking for Masato, he should be working his part-time job around this time~”
“A part-time job? Where is he working?”
“At a bar near a station just a short train ride from here.”
“Mizuho, you don’t need to tell her all that…” Koumi protested softly.
“Come on now, she goes to a different university, right? It’d be awful if she came all this way just for a wasted trip~”
Our campus is a fifteen-minute walk from the station, after all.
That uphill walk is seriously brutal, sob sob.
I took off my phone case, pulled out a slip of paper tucked inside, and handed it to Okano-san.
“If you go to the place written on this, you’ll probably be able to meet him~”
“Thank you so much!”
Grabbing the paper, Okano-san threw on her coat and quickly left the cafe.
Safe travels~!
“M-Mizuho, are you sure about that?”
“Hmm~ Why not? Like I said earlier, the final decision lies with Masato-dono anyway.”
“Well, yeah, but…”
“Besides~ don’t you think so too?”
There was one thing I was absolutely confident about.
Striking a peace sign at Koumi, I declared:
“There’s no way in hell our Masato-dono would ever fall for a woman like her.”
Koumi blinked at me, utterly stunned.
H-Huh? Wait, I thought I sounded pretty cool just now?!
After a brief pause, Koumi let out a soft laugh.
“You know, Mizuho… have you gotten a lot tougher lately?”
“Well, I’ve been through my fair share of romantic carnage, after all!”
“Don’t boast about self-deprecation.”
She landed a sharp karate chop on my head.
I giggled bashfully.
“Should we get going too? Mizuho, aren’t you going to be late for work soon?”
“Whoa! You speak the truth, de gozaru! Let’s go, let’s go!”
Glancing at the wall clock inside the cafe, it was almost time for me to leave campus.
It takes fifteen minutes to walk to the station from our campus, remember! (Second time mentioning it!)
Outside, the sky was completely shrouded in darkness. Night falls so early in winter.
Taking a long, deep stretch under the flickering streetlights, I started walking down the slope.
“Still, was it really okay to tell her where his bar is without asking?”
“I’ll shoot Masato-dono an apology message about that later~…”
“Wait, why did you even have a piece of paper with Masato’s workplace on hand so quickly anyway?” Koumi asked, giving me a suspicious glance.
Since Koumi was eyeing me with suspicion, I decided to reveal the true identity of that paper.
“I just keep business cards for Masato’s bar inside my phone case at all times, you know?”
“…Mizuho, you’re surprisingly calculating behind that cheerful face of yours…”
“Ehehe~ Flattery will get you nowhere~!”
“Then all the more reason—was it really okay to just hand one over to her?”
“I still have a few more cards left, and besides—”
Smirking back at Koumi’s exasperated look, I gave her a sly grin and added:
“Once she finds out he works at a boys’ bar, she might just give up on her own, right?”
“…Yep, you’ve definitely gotten tougher, Mizuho.”
“Nyahahaha!”
If she gives up that easily, all the better!
Laughing brightly, I looked up at the sky.
A beautiful full moon hung low in the dark night sky, glowing brightly.
…Truth be told, besides my absolute faith in Masato, there was one more thought on my mind.
I secretly hoped that this incident might serve as a little push to help Masato come to his decision in March.
Reaching a hand out toward the moon, Mizuho-chan—who was usually on the receiving end of Masato’s encouragement—silently harbored that little wish.