Yukino Yukinoshita nodded, looking as though she had just learned sothing new. She rarely ordered takeout herself, so she had no idea there were so many tricks behind food delivery apps.
"Whatever you want to eat, I’ll eat the sa. Just one condition—if there’s cilantro in it, don’t put any in my portion. Please. Really, no cilantro!"
"Heh heh. And who was it that lectured so seriously about not being picky when I said I didn’t want chopped green onions?" Kotomi Izumi gave a mischievous smile. After saying so much, this was the pit she had been digging, waiting for Little Yukino to fall into.
Yukino’s cheeks flushed slightly. Embarrassed, she turned her gaze aside. Of course she rembered telling Kotomi things like, "You can’t be picky," when Kotomi had said she didn’t like green onions.
She just hadn’t expected Kotomi to hold such a grudge... No, it didn’t feel quite like holding a grudge. It felt more like waiting patiently for the perfect mont to counterattack.
"You told before that being picky isn’t good, and I thought you made a lot of sense. So now, I think we should add extra cilantro to yours. Don’t worry, I’ll pay for the extra cilantro myself."
Kotomi said this with a wicked grin. At tis like this, she was nothing less than a cheeky little witch.
It was becoming more and more tempting to imagine how Shizuka Hiratsuka would feel if she found out that the white-haired little angel she once envisioned had now turned into such a mischievous little witch.
"I-I’m sorry. When I said that before, I didn’t try to see things from your perspective. You don’t like green onions the sa way I don’t like cilantro. I’m sorry."
Yukino’s face was red, and her voice trembled slightly as she forced herself to finish the sentence.
Yukino wasn’t the type to refuse to admit her mistakes. It was just that being "coerced" into apologizing by Kotomi like this felt strangely unsettling. Yet she couldn’t quite describe what was strange about it.
The most prominent feeling was probably embarrassnt.
Hearing Yukino say that, Kotomi finally nodded in satisfaction. She had dug so many pits and laid so much groundwork just to make Yukino say those words.
"Hmph. Let’s see if you dare call picky again next ti."
Kotomi huffed proudly. It wasn’t so great achievent, yet the pride in her tone was as if she were a hero returning after slaying a dragon.
After receiving Yukino’s apology, Kotomi didn’t continue to make things difficult for her. She began placing the order. When it ca to Yukino’s portion, she followed her request and didn’t add any cilantro.
Kotomi might not understand Yukino’s personality completely, but she understood a lot of it. If she truly pushed Yukino too far, Yukino would not hesitate to turn into a cold and tsundere black cat, brandish her claws, and retaliate fiercely.
So one had to know when to stop.
If Little Yukino scratched her face full of marks, Kotomi wouldn’t even know how to explain it to gumi Kato and the others after going back.
After adding all the dishes she wanted into the cart, Kotomi looked through it from top to bottom. Once she confird nothing had been missed, she tapped to confirm paynt.
By the way, although the dishes they ordered allowed cilantro to be added separately, Kotomi chose not to add it to any of them.
After all, she didn’t particularly love cilantro. She could accept it, but if a dish didn’t have cilantro, that was better. If it did, she could still eat it—she just wouldn’t spend half the al picking it out.
For example, when eating grilled cold noodles, she liked telling the vendor not to add cilantro or onions, because she preferred taking big bites of the noodles, egg, and sausage.
For Kotomi, cilantro and onions in grilled cold noodles were sowhat in the way.
After paying, Kotomi casually tossed her phone to Yukino and said,
"Take a look. I kept my word, didn’t I? I said I wouldn’t add cilantro to yours, and I didn’t."
"Well, thank you very—"
Yukino stopped halfway. She glanced at the total amount at the bottom of the order. Since Kotomi had paid for all three of them together, the price naturally looked a bit high. But she hadn’t expected it to be this high.
Even if Kotomi had a big appetite, it shouldn’t cost this much, right?
Yukino was about to complain to Kotomi and Yui about whether takeout in Kyoto was really this expensive.
But the mont she looked at Yui Yuigahama, she imdiately fell silent.
She rembered that earlier Kotomi had told Yui, "I found a place that’s cheap and delicious, and it’s not prepackaged als either. Even with the delivery fee, it’s very affordable, so let treat you."
But how did this price have anything to do with the word "cheap"?
Yukino knew exactly why Kotomi had lied to Yui. She also knew that Yui’s family wasn’t well-off. Everything depended on Yui’s mother, who ran a cake shop alone, waking up early and working late to make desserts to support them.
Even if they split this takeout bill evenly among the three of them, each share would still be expensive.
For Kotomi and Yukino, this amount wasn’t a big expense. Especially for Kotomi, the money she spent every month on various gas was several tis this amount.
But for Yui, it could cover half a month’s living expenses.
Kotomi had never ntioned this aloud, but every small, subtle gesture of hers was actually caring for Yui, not wanting to place even the slightest financial burden on her.
So every ti they went out to eat, before Yui could even take out her wallet to pay, Kotomi had already settled the bill. Don’t ask. If you did, she’d just say it was a habit to pay first.
To prevent Yui from feeling inferior about it, Kotomi even carefully controlled the frequency of paying. Whenever they went to a more expensive restaurant, Kotomi would always rush to pay first.
Whenever they ate at affordable roadside stalls, Kotomi would secretly eat much less and pretend she had forgotten about paying, giving Yui plenty of ti to "sneak off" and settle the bill.
That silly little dumpling, after successfully paying, would still think in her heart: This ti I finally beat Kotomi to it.
She had no idea Kotomi had deliberately let her win.
This way, Yui wouldn’t feel inferior, and she wouldn’t feel any financial pressure either.
Yukino looked at the paynt amount on the order, then secretly glanced at Kotomi and Yui. When her gaze fell on Yui in particular, her eyes were filled with envy.
She envied Yui for having a family that, though not wealthy, was warm and harmonious.
She envied her for becoming Kotomi Izumi’s lover.
Kotomi might be a bit of a scoundrel, a bit flirtatious, but there was no denying that her feelings for Yui were genuine, without a trace of falsehood mixed in. She loved her, cherished her, and spoiled her.
If Kotomi weren’t so scummy and mischievous, she would truly be a perfect girlfriend without a single flaw.
How ridiculous I am... How many tis have I had this kind of thought already?
On one hand, I hope Kotomi is a flirtatious scoundrel, so that when I steal her away from Yui, the guilt in my heart might lessen just a little.
On the other hand, I hope she is devoted and single-minded, a girl who would love only for her entire life.
Yukino Yukinoshita smiled bitterly and mockingly at herself in her heart.
Just as Yukino was about to return the phone to Kotomi Izumi, she followed her usual habit. Whenever she put a phone down, she would first exit the app interface before locking the screen.
It was a perfectly normal habit.
But the mont Kotomi realized this, she instantly panicked.
For no other reason than this—she absolutely could not let other girls see her phone wallpaper.
Because both her lock screen and ho screen were photos of herself together with Iroha Isshiki.
Kotomi knew very well that she needed to change her wallpaper. At the very least, on the phone she used most often, she couldn’t keep using a photo of herself and Iroha as the lock screen and wallpaper. If one day another girl accidentally saw it, the intensity of the situation would be no less than a "king ets king" shura field.
One careless mistake—and blood could flow like a river.
Kotomi understood the logic perfectly.
But she just couldn’t bear to change it.
It even made her hesitate about whether she should just buy a new phone.
Kotomi didn’t have any special requirents for phones. As long as the storage was large enough, the screen was good, and it could run gas smoothly, that was fine.
If anything, she actually disliked switching phones. There were simply too many risqué pictures saved in her album—tens of thousands of them.
Although modern phones all had data cloning features, setting aside how long the transfer would take—and how the phone would beco as hot as a teppanyaki grill—the most important thing was: what if so data couldn’t be cloned over?
But back to the matter at hand.
Seeing Yukino’s slender finger about to swipe and exit the takeout app, revealing the wallpaper on the screen, Kotomi moved at the fastest speed she could possibly muster and snatched the phone right out of Yukino’s hands.
She moved so fast that if she had gone any faster, there might have been a sonic boom.
After grabbing the phone, Kotomi imdiately shoved it into her pocket. As if that still wasn’t reassuring enough, she pressed lightly against it.
Yukino stared in confusion, utterly baffled by Kotomi’s sudden action.
As she thought about it, she began to suspect that Kotomi simply didn’t want her touching her phone at all. A trace of grievance welled up inside her, and she muttered softly,
"You were the one who tossed it to ... If you hadn’t, I wouldn’t even have bothered picking it up."
Even a cold and tsundere little tigress could feel wronged.
Kotomi could only smile helplessly. She had no idea how to explain herself to Yukino. After thinking for a long ti, she finally braced herself and said,
"Yukino, that’s not what I ant. I just... didn’t want you to see my phone wallpaper."
"It’s just a wallpaper. What’s there that I can’t see?" Yukino asked, completely puzzled.
Kotomi wasn’t being honest for the sake of confession. She was simply using a small truth as a stepping stone for a new lie.
It was one of the rhetorical techniques she was most skilled at.
Start with a harmless truth, then lead into a fresh lie.
Kotomi didn’t think there was anything wrong with doing this.
When they were young, teachers often taught them that good children must not lie and must always be honest.
But only after entering society did one understand that society was never a simple matter of right and wrong, black and white. It was gray—black and white repelling each other yet coexisting, maintaining a fragile balance.
Black contained white.
White was tinged with black.
Pure oxygen was harmful to living beings. Unfiltered truth could crush a person’s spirit. Only air composed of one part oxygen and five parts nitrogen was breathable. In the sa way, only by diluting small portions of truth with a bit of jest could people maintain a healthy mind.
Kotomi believed that when stepping from school into society, the first lesson one should learn was to mix truth and lies together when speaking.
Facing Yukino’s confusion, Kotomi rely smiled shyly.
"My wallpaper... is a selfie of ."
"If it’s just a selfie, what’s there that I can’t see?"
"It’s that kind of selfie. I got in the mood before, so in front of the mirror I..."
Kotomi’s voice turned soft and syrupy as she spoke, as though she were personally confessing sothing unbearably embarrassing. Her face grew even redder.
After saying it, she lowered her head deeply, as if wishing she could find a crack in the ground to crawl into.
At first, Yukino didn’t imdiately understand. She was about to press for clarification when she noticed Kotomi’s slightly open collar, her cheeks flushed so red it seed a light poke would make them bleed, and her head bowed low.
Yukino froze for a long mont. Then, in stunned realization, she gradually understood what kind of selfie Kotomi was talking about.
Her mouth slowly fell open in disbelief as she stared at Kotomi, who stood there blushing and looking down. Yukino’s eyes trembled uncontrollably. From ti to ti she let out small sounds like "Ah" or "Mm," as though countless words were stuck in her throat, yet it felt as if steel needles had pierced through it, leaving her unable to form a complete sentence.
Yukino raised a hand to clutch her head. She felt as if her mind could no longer contain what she had just learned, as though it might explode at any mont.
Fortunately, when Kotomi spoke, she had deliberately lowered her voice so that only she and Yukino could hear. Sitting not far away, Yui Yuigahama was sowhat curious about what they were saying, but she couldn’t make out a single word.
Kotomi didn’t continue speaking. She simply looked at Yukino with flushed cheeks, as though embarrassed by what she had just admitted, yet also as though giving Yukino ti to steady herself.
Kotomi had her own calculations.
If she stubbornly tried to hide it, she might only arouse Yukino’s curiosity further. So she might as well say that once, on a whim, she had taken that kind of selfie in front of a mirror and set it as her lock screen and wallpaper.
That was the plan.
But when she actually said it aloud, Kotomi still felt a trace of embarrassnt, her cheeks burning faintly.
After all, I, Kotomi Izumi, am a pure and innocent, gentle and virtuous, spotless and chaste good girl~
Kotomi declared shalessly in her heart.
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