Hearing that familiar voice, both girls turned around almost simultaneously.
"Ah... Shiki-san."
There was a hint of surprise in Yamamura Miki's voice, and those pretty eyes of hers were full of delight — she clearly hadn't expected to run into Shiki Natsu here, of all tis and places.
Morishita Ai, anwhile, dropped whatever strange pose she'd been holding a mont ago, crossed her arms over her chest, and looked Shiki Natsu up and down with those violet eyes of hers. Her expression remained perfectly blank as she spoke with characteristic indifference.
"Well, if it isn't Shiki Natsu."
"For soone who already has three girlfriends, instead of being off cuddling with them and doing all sorts of shaless things right now..."
"Why are you wandering all the way out here to chat with the two of us?"
At that, she tilted her head slightly, her tone taking on a perfectly deadpan seriousness.
"Don't tell ... Shiki Natsu thinks three isn't enough, and wants to add Yamamura Miki and to your harem as well?"
That was about as blunt as it gets — one might even say it crossed the line into shalessness.
If anyone else had heard Morishita Ai say sothing like that, they'd probably have been mortified — feeling like they'd walked headfirst into a wall of their own making. After all, how was that any different from telling soone to get lost? Since when do girls talk like that?
Standing nearby, Yamamura Miki went rigid the instant Morishita Ai's jaw-dropping words landed.
Her face flushed a deep crimson all at once; her hands twisted together anxiously as her gaze darted back and forth between Morishita Ai and Shiki Natsu, as if terrified that the words had left the situation beyond salvaging.
"Mo... Morishita-san..."
She quietly tugged at Morishita Ai's sleeve, trying to stop her incorrigible friend from saying anything further.
And yet.
The man in question, Shiki Natsu, showed not the slightest trace of embarrassnt.
He continued walking over at his unhurried pace, that sa easy smile on his face as always — treating Morishita Ai's words as casually as if she'd just said "good afternoon." Well, you'd need thick skin to run a harem, and thin-skinned people needn't apply.
He stopped a few paces in front of the two of them, eting Morishita Ai's gaze with those light-gold eyes of his, the corner of his mouth curving upward as he shot back:
"And what if..."
"I said yes?"
"?!"
Those words hit Yamamura Miki like a thunderbolt. She froze completely.
Her pupils contracted slightly; the flush on her face spread all the way to the tips of her ears in an instant. She was thoroughly enveloped in steam, utterly at a loss.
Shiki Natsu... he's — he's joking, right? He has to be joking.
But... what if it wasn't entirely a joke?
In an instant, the quiet, unassuming girl's mind turned into a swirling ss. She fumbled and stamred but couldn't get a single coherent sentence out.
Morishita Ai, on the other hand, had been relatively composed up until those words — but the mont she heard them, her expression turned deadly serious. She fixed Shiki Natsu with a look of righteous indignation and delivered her verdict in a grave tone:
"Shiki Natsu... I never would have thought you'd turn out to be such a greedy, insatiable man."
"How utterly disappointing. It seems I had you completely wrong."
She then whipped her head around, locking those sharp eyes onto Yamamura Miki — who was already too mortified to lift her head — and interrogated her with equal gravity:
"Yamamura Miki!"
"Don't tell ... in the face of such an outrageous demand, you actually have thoughts of your own on the matter?"
"?! I... I..."
Blindsided by Morishita Ai's sudden interrogation, Yamamura Miki fell into an even greater panic.
She waved her hands frantically, eyes darting every which way, desperate to explain herself but not knowing where to even begin:
"N-no..."
Taking in the scene before him, Shiki Natsu let out a quiet laugh and turned to Morishita Ai, speaking in an unhurried tone.
"Alright, alright."
"Morishita-san, stop teasing Yamamura-san already."
Having said that, Shiki Natsu shifted the topic back to what the two of them had been doing before he arrived.
"So... what were you two up to out here?"
"That pose just now... were you practicing so kind of new strategy?"
After all, in that laser tag ga before, Shiki Natsu had essentially dominated — only "accidentally" losing to Yamamura Miki — while Morishita Ai had been the very first one he'd eliminated.
Hearing Shiki Natsu's question, Yamamura Miki — who had finally recovered a little — seized the opening.
She explained quietly:
"Um... Morishita-san, she..."
"...was in the middle of a roleplay."
"Oh?"
Shiki Natsu raised an eyebrow, his gaze settling on Morishita Ai, his tone carrying a hint of amusent:
"Isn't Morishita-san always in the middle of so roleplay or another?"
"So... were you just locked in a life-or-death struggle against so imaginary alien monster?"
"Shallow."
Morishita Ai shot him a sidelong glance and retorted with mild irritation:
"I am not so hopeless chuunibyou case."
"If anything, Shiki Natsu, you're the one whose chuunibyou delusions seem to run pretty deep."
At that, she tapped her chin thoughtfully and mused:
"Could it be that now that you've started dating, your head is so full of dirty fantasies that even the chuunibyou virus inside you has mutated along with them?"
Listening to Morishita Ai's increasingly outrageous comntary, Yamamura Miki once again felt a wave of profound helplessness wash over her.
She mustered her courage and offered a feeble protest:
"Um... Morishita-san... that's... that's a little much, isn't it?"
"Hm?"
Morishita Ai snapped her head around at those words and stared Yamamura Miki down.
The sharpness in that gaze made Yamamura Miki instinctively take half a step back.
"Yamamura Miki."
Morishita Ai asked in utmost seriousness.
"Whose side are you on, exactly?"
"The side of your comrade Morishita Ai, who has always been by your side and protected you..."
"Or the side of that Shiki Natsu, whose head is stuffed with nothing but dirty thoughts?"
"Choose. Right now."
"?!"
That was way too much to ask?!
Yamamura Miki looked at Morishita Ai with a pitiful expression, then glanced over at Shiki Natsu, who stood to the side with a quiet smile, saying nothing.
Her heart was in a genuine tangle, pulled helplessly in two directions at once.
On one side was her best friend; on the other was Shiki Natsu — soone she admired and respected, and... maybe liked just a little...
But after her gaze lingered on Morishita Ai for a mont, it drifted, almost of its own accord, toward Shiki Natsu — and stayed there, on that gentle, handso face, for noticeably longer.
She hadn't said a word.
But that single unconscious action spoke volus all by itself.
"Tch."
Morishita Ai had clearly noticed too.
She pursed her lips with a hint of displeasure, sensing that she'd sohow ended up at a disadvantage.
So, with a quick shift of her eyes, she abruptly changed the subject:
"Since Shiki Natsu has so much free ti on his hands..."
"How about you show us that ability of yours again?"
"The ability to control animals."
Hearing this, Shiki Natsu let out a quiet laugh and corrected her:
"It's not the ability to control animals, Morishita-san."
"It's... the ability to communicate with animals."
"Communicate... with animals?"
The bashful expression Yamamura Miki had been wearing was replaced by pure curiosity in an instant.
She widened her eyes and stared at Shiki Natsu in disbelief, asking softly:
"Really... you can really communicate with animals?"
If it had been Morishita Ai saying this, Yamamura Miki would have assud she was just bragging, or had gotten lost in one of her strange roleplays again. Morishita Ai was always saying bizarre things, after all.
But...
Right now, it was Shiki Natsu saying it.
Which ant... she had no choice but to believe it.
A girl's intuition told her that what Shiki Natsu said was definitely true. In her experience, he had never been the type to say things he didn't an. If he said it, he could do it.
"Of course I can."
Shiki Natsu nodded with a smile, his tone utterly certain.
His gaze swept the surrounding area and quickly settled on the trunk of a large tree not far away.
"Co, follow ."
He beckoned the two girls and walked straight toward the tree.
Morishita Ai and Yamamura Miki exchanged a glance, then dutifully followed.
They reached the base of the tree.
Shiki Natsu pointed to a colony of ants busily at work on the trunk, then extended one slender finger and rested it gently against the bark.
His eyes settled on three of the crawling ants, and he spoke in a calm, gentle voice:
"You three."
"All of you — co to my fingertip."
At this sight, Yamamura Miki was completely dumbfounded.
If you're going to communicate with ants... shouldn't you use the language of ants? Or so kind of special frequency?
How... how is he just speaking to them in Japanese?!
Can... can ants even understand that?
And yet.
Just as she was questioning the very fabric of reality.
Sothing utterly unexpected happened.
The three ants that had been scrambling about in every direction — upon hearing Shiki Natsu's words — actually acted exactly like soldiers receiving an order. They imdiately reversed course, lined up in a perfectly neat formation, and marched straight up onto the tip of Shiki Natsu's finger without a mont's hesitation!
"That..."
Yamamura Miki gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes blown wide.
It actually... actually worked?!
"Pretty impressive, Shiki Natsu."
Morishita Ai raised an eyebrow too, a genuinely interested look crossing her face.
Mimicking Shiki Natsu, she extended one finger and rested it against the trunk, then addressed several other ants nearby in an equally authoritative tone:
"Hey, you lot!"
"Get over here for this Morishita Ai!"
However.
The ants paid her absolutely no attention, continuing their busy work as if she didn't exist. One of them even crawled right past her finger without so much as a pause.
The mont was exquisitely awkward.
Morishita Ai withdrew her finger with obvious dissatisfaction and turned her suspicious gaze back on Shiki Natsu:
"Strange..."
"We basically said the sa thing..."
"So why do these ants only listen to you and completely ignore ?"
At that, as if she'd just uncovered so great cosmic truth, she pointed at Shiki Natsu and declared loudly:
"Just as I thought!"
"You're a fraud, aren't you, Shiki Natsu?"
"What you have is literally a superpower to control ants — not this so-called 'communication'!"
If it really was control...
Yamamura Miki thought quietly to herself:
Wouldn't that be even more impressive than re communication?
In the face of Morishita Ai's accusation, Shiki Natsu simply smiled, gave his finger a gentle flick, and returned the three ants to the trunk.
"Not at all."
He spread his hands with an expression of perfect innocence:
"I genuinely just have the ability to communicate with ants, nothing more."
"As for why they listen to and not you..."
"Probably because my words have a certain warmth to them. They just happened to understand."
That brush-off of an explanation clearly didn't satisfy Morishita Ai — his explanation last ti hadn't been satisfying either. Sure enough, this guy Shiki Natsu was sothing else entirely, hiding depths she couldn't quite see through.
She narrowed those lovely violet eyes slightly, studying Shiki Natsu with a thoughtful, appraising gaze.
After a mont, she spoke up again:
"So..."
"Can Shiki Natsu communicate with all animals?"
"Yes."
Shiki Natsu nodded without hesitation and looked at Morishita Ai with a playful gleam in his eyes, as if to say: Well? Jealous? This is sothing you can't do, you know.
Picking up on that obvious provocation, Morishita Ai puffed her cheeks with mild indignation.
"Hmph."
She turned her head away and muttered under her breath:
"Shiki Natsu is so childish."
"A high schooler showing off tricks like this — honestly, it's elentary school behaviour."
Of course, if she herself had an ability that impressive, Morishita Ai would absolutely have shown it off without a second thought — proclaiming herself the next great Animal Whisperer, a living bridge between the animal kingdom and humanity.
Casting aside the jumbled thoughts in her head, Morishita Ai turned back to Shiki Natsu and picked up where the conversation had left off:
"Getting back to the point..."
"Since you're not off spending ti with your three girlfriends, and instead wandered over here to kill ti with the two of us..."
"You really are incredibly idle, Shiki Natsu."
"At a ti like this..."
"Couples are supposed to be all over each other shalessly, aren't they?"
For so reason.
As Shiki Natsu listened to Morishita Ai say this, he couldn't shake the feeling that there was a heavy undercurrent of resentnt and displeasure buried in her voice.
Like... a child who'd had a favourite toy snatched away.
A low chuckle escaped him.
Shiki Natsu couldn't hold back a laugh as he looked at her.
"Morishita-san..."
"It seems like you have so complaints about ."
"Quite a lot, actually."
Morishita Ai nodded without the slightest hesitation, crossing her arms over her chest again and speaking with complete seriousness.
"Because of your sudden appearance, Commander Shiki..."
"You interrupted the progress of the ga I was playing."
"And made get a Ga Over."
"Now..."
"If I want to clear it, I'll have to start all over from the beginning."
The corner of Shiki Natsu's mouth twitched slightly.
Was she talking about that "roleplay ga" she'd been playing by herself, swinging at thin air, just a mont ago?
But...
Since when did roleplay have a thing called "ga progress" and "Ga Over"?
That was ridiculous.
Still, looking at how utterly earnest Morishita Ai looked, Shiki Natsu chose not to call her out on it.
He smiled and played along.
"In that case..."
"As an apology for inadvertently ruining Morishita-san's mission..."
"Let treat the two of you to a al."
"As compensation. What do you say?"
"Really?!"
The mont those words reached her ears, the displeasure that had been written all over Morishita Ai's face vanished in an instant. Her violet eyes lit up brilliantly, and she looked very much as though she found this new proposal of Shiki Natsu's to be extrely appealing.
She fixed those violet eyes intently on Shiki Natsu and confird:
"That's what you said, right? Shiki Natsu."
"Not a single false word."
Shiki Natsu nodded with a smile:
"I did say that, yes."
"Then..."
He turned to Yamamura Miki, who had been quietly listening throughout, and glanced over at Morishita Ai as well:
"What would you like to eat?"
Yamamura Miki didn't say anything, instinctively deferring her gaze to Morishita Ai — making decisions entirely on her own was still too difficult for her. She was far more accustod to looking to others first.
She wondered what Morishita-san would decide to have. The school cafeteria? Or one of the restaurants at Keyaki Mall?
Under both their gazes.
Morishita Ai crossed her arms over her chest once more, tilted her chin up slightly, and spoke with an air of complete entitlent:
"Since Shiki Natsu has already said so..."
"Then I won't stand on ceremony."
"I want..."
She extended one finger, pointing it directly at Shiki Natsu, and spoke with deliberate emphasis on every word.
"A al personally prepared by Shiki Natsu himself — and it absolutely must be delicious."
"?!"
Yamamura Miki's jaw dropped in shock. Going straight to the source and asking Shiki Natsu himself to cook?
If they were going to Shiki Natsu's dorm room... wouldn't they run into his three girlfriends? That could be incredibly awkward.
And besides... Kamuro Masumi was on good terms with them. If Kamuro Masumi saw the two of them having Shiki Natsu cook for them, what would she think? Probably nothing good.
After all... asking soone's boyfriend to cook a private al for the two of them was a bit too presumptuous, wasn't it?
Whether Morishita Ai didn't know or simply didn't care, she looked at Shiki Natsu with an utterly earnest expression and said:
"Shiki Natsu, you need to properly fulfil your duty as Chef Morishita Ai's personal cook — understood? If you want to win a girl over, you have to win her stomach first. So if you want to add Yamamura Miki to your harem, you're going to have to satisfy her appetite."
Yamamura Miki once again transford into a walking steam engine. How did the topic circle back around to her so quickly?
____
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