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Volume 9, Chapter 6: “Something Vague” Part 5

Even after school, the rumors continued to spread with no end in sight.

“Wait! W-wait wait wait! What’s going on Kiyotaka!!”

While spending some leisure time after getting home from school for the day, I got a call from Kei.

“What do you mean ‘what’s going on’?”

I already knew what she was getting at, but I wanted to ask anyway.

“Stop with the ‘what do I mean’! T-there’s, uh, well, a rumor going around that you have a crush on me! How could you not notice!?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“N-nonono. Do you think I can ignore it just cus it’s a rumor??? How did it end up like this in the first place!?”

She started speaking so loudly that I started to hear a painful ringing sound from the inner part of my ear, so I moved the phone away from my head for a moment.

I pressed the button on my phone to lower the volume of the call.

“Maybe Hashimoto spread it after what happened yesterday. Or maybe some other student saw us together.”

“Eeee~!”

Kei let out a quiet scream.

“Well, it’s fine, isn’t it? It would be terrible for you if our positions were reversed.”

“R-reversed?”

“A rumor like ‘Kei has a crush on me’ would be pretty troublesome, right? If it ended up like that, I think everyone would be much more suspicious of you than me since you just broke up with Hirata.”

“…I-I guess so, but…”

“Just don’t worry about it. Rumors always tend to fade away with time.”

“For real?”

“That being said, thanks to this rumor, it should be easier for the two of us to get in contact with each other moving forward. If I start talking to you now, people will assume that it’s because of the rumor, and we could leave it at that.”

It all just depends on how we think about it.

I never had any intention of talking with her in a conspicuous place in the first place, but this rumor could act as insurance just in case I needed to at some point.

“Nonononononono.”

This time around, she repeated the word ‘no’ several times more than she did earlier.

“If we’re seen alone together, people will totally look at us weirdly, right!? Absolutely weirdly, right!?”

Is repeating yourself like this becoming some kind of trend? What a strange way of talking.

This was the type of information that I was indirectly planting for Hashimoto as he followed me.

“Anyway, don’t worry about it.”

“Even if you say that……… No, it’s still absolutely impossible!”

After a long silence, she still ended up deciding that it was too difficult.

After quietly grumbling about something else for a little while, Kei gave up and ended the call.

(Part 5 End)