Chapter 46: Have You Ever Heard of Adolescence Syndrome?
As usual, Azusagawa Sakuta stopped by the Science Club after school to chat with Futaba Rio and, while he was there, watch Kunimi Yuma play basketball.
He didn't exactly have many friends.
At the moment, those two were basically it.
More importantly, Sakuta happened to know that Futaba had feelings for Kunimi.
When one friend liked another friend, he couldn't exactly pretend he hadn't noticed.
Unfortunately, Futaba was painfully passive when it came to romance. Even with Sakuta acting as a bridge between them, she and Kunimi barely spoke.
Waiting for Futaba to confess on her own was probably less realistic than hoping Japan would suddenly stop having so many earthquakes.
As for Kunimi, Sakuta could tell he didn't have any romantic feelings toward Futaba.
To him, she was probably nothing more than his friend's friend.
That left Sakuta in an awkward position.
He couldn't expose Futaba's feelings, and he couldn't force the two of them together.
All he could do was occasionally bring them into the same space and give them opportunities to interact.
In other words, Sakuta had put an unreasonable amount of thought into those two.
Today, however, matchmaking wasn't his only reason for coming.
He was simply frustrated and needed somewhere to clear his head.
Ever since morning, he'd repeatedly considered finding Mai and saying hello.
Unfortunately, he'd badly underestimated her popularity.
He'd gone to the third-year classrooms several times, but all he'd seen were crowds of students packed around the halls.
Actually getting close enough to see Sakurajima Mai herself was nearly impossible.
Sakuta knew he was sick.
He'd caught the disease called love, and apparently there was no cure.
With nowhere else to vent his frustration, he'd come here.
What he never expected was to find the very person he'd been longing to see.
The moment the laboratory door slid open and that familiar figure quietly entered his field of vision, Sakuta felt as though someone had injected adrenaline straight into his heart.
In that instant, he fell for her all over again.
His body moved before his brain had time to think.
And then, without hesitation, Sakuta blurted out the confession he'd rehearsed countless times in his head.
If you loved someone, they should know.
"Sakurajima-senpai, I like you. Please go out with me!"
Mai froze just inside the doorway.
Futaba's eyes widened dramatically.
Even Kunimi, who had been smiling nearby, let the basketball slip from his hands.
For a moment, time itself seemed to stop.
An unnatural silence settled over the laboratory, broken only by students practicing sports in the distance, completely unaware of what had just happened.
Mai's surprise lasted less than a second.
Then her usual composure returned.
She'd heard countless fans tell her they loved her before, so words like these weren't exactly unfamiliar.
The difference was that even her most enthusiastic fans normally maintained a certain social distance.
Very few people would confess this directly.
And as an actress, Mai was exceptionally skilled at reading subtle emotions.
What she sensed from Sakuta wasn't admiration from a fan.
It was something much closer to genuine romantic affection.
Countless students had expressed their fondness for her since she'd returned to school today.
Sakuta was the only one who'd been bold enough to say it this plainly.
Most boys instinctively held back because of the difference in social status between them.
They admired her from afar.
Sakuta didn't.
In that sense, he really did stand far above the others and left Mai with a distinct impression.
'Thinking about it that way, I suppose there was a reason the original me eventually fell for Azusagawa Sakuta.'
At the very least, he knew how to stand out.
But that was the Mai from the original story.
The current Sakurajima Mai already had someone she loved.
If the question was who was more unusual, nobody Mai knew was more unusual than Saku.
And when it came to ability, she doubted there were many high-school students in all of Japan who could even compete with him.
With someone like Saku already setting the standard, it was difficult for anyone else to stir Mai's heart.
Even the supposed "male protagonist."
"Thank you for liking me," Mai replied calmly, with a hint of distance in her voice. "But I already have a boyfriend."
The words pierced Sakuta's heart like a needle.
For a moment, the pain was almost enough to make breathing difficult.
He hadn't honestly expected his confession to succeed easily.
Still, hearing the truth hurt far more than he'd imagined.
Yet Sakuta wasn't ready to give up.
Celebrities sometimes fabricated romances for publicity.
A "boyfriend" could simply be part of a marketing strategy.
Mai had never relied on that sort of thing before, but that didn't mean she never would.
She'd also been underage until recently, which made the absence of romantic rumors perfectly reasonable.
Now she'd become an adult and suddenly had a boyfriend.
Maybe it really was nothing more than publicity.
"Mai-senpai... isn't that boyfriend just a rumor?"
Sakuta's voice was no longer as steady.
His fists clenched, his body trembled slightly, and even his tone wavered.
Clearly, he was terrified of hearing the answer he didn't want.
Mai, however, had no intention of dragging this out.
She didn't even want to leave him the slightest false hope.
Crossing her arms, she answered directly.
"A rumor?"
"I, Sakurajima Mai, wouldn't casually use my own relationship as publicity. That would be disrespectful to me and disrespectful to him."
Then she looked him straight in the eyes.
"So I'll say it again."
"I have a boyfriend."
"And I like him very much. I might even say I love him."
"That's why I can't accept your feelings."
The final thread of hope was cut cleanly.
Sakuta gritted his teeth.
After a long internal struggle, he finally forced himself to let go.
"...I understand, Mai-senpai."
"Call me Sakurajima."
Mai corrected him immediately.
"We aren't that familiar."
'So this is the male protagonist?'
He certainly had impressive initiative.
But compared with Saku, Mai couldn't see much advantage in his appearance or anything else.
She normally had no interest in comparing people so directly.
Unfortunately, Sakuta wasn't just anyone.
According to Saku's thoughts, this was the supposed male protagonist and the man who would've spent the rest of his life with her in the original story.
Naturally, Mai couldn't help examining him a little more closely.
But comparisons could be cruel.
Once someone had a clear standard in mind, whoever fell short tended to look even worse than they otherwise would.
Sakuta couldn't escape that effect either.
Mai soon lost interest and shifted her gaze toward Futaba.
"I'm here to see her."
She gestured toward Futaba.
"Could you give us some privacy?"
Being rejected by the person he liked obviously hurt Sakuta.
But considering Mai was a major celebrity, part of him also felt the result wasn't exactly unbelievable.
He forced himself to recover and put on a smile, even if a faint shadow still lingered behind it.
"Sure."
Then he turned toward Kunimi.
"Yuma, let's go play basketball."
Sakuta walked to the window and climbed through it in one smooth motion, landing outside.
He immediately hooked an arm around Kunimi's shoulders and dragged him away before the other boy had fully processed what had happened.
He even remembered to retrieve the abandoned basketball.
Watching Sakuta leave so decisively, Mai had to admit he was an interesting junior.
But that was all.
A moment later, she closed the window and pulled the curtains shut.
The laboratory fell quiet.
Only Sakurajima Mai and Futaba Rio remained.
Mai turned toward the bespectacled girl.
"Nice to meet you, Futaba-san. I'm Sakurajima Mai."
Then she asked the question she'd come here for.
"Have you ever heard of Adolescence Syndrome?"
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