Chapter 51: Aki Tomoya Loses His Cool!
Utaha's offer was extremely tempting.
Saku still refused.
He wasn't stupid. Anyone with eyes could tell that the atmosphere in the clubroom had become dangerous.
With this many people watching him, deliberately courting disaster now might genuinely get him killed.
"Thanks, but I'm good."
Saku glanced at the time.
"Club activities are basically over anyway. Let's pack up and head home."
「Utaha-senpai, what am I supposed to say to you? Can't you see Yukino looks ready to skin me alive? Whatever you want to do, save it for when we get home.」
Utaha actually leaned back in surprise.
She couldn't tell whether Saku was serious or simply thinking nonsense again.
They'd already been living under the same roof for an entire week.
Yet this guy, who constantly fantasized about being surrounded by girls in his head, had never once gotten handsy with her.
The moment he got home, he buried himself in code instead.
Utaha was beginning to suspect Saku belonged to the type who had plenty of desire but none of the nerve required to act on it.
Naturally, that made her somewhat skeptical of what he'd just thought.
Still, he had one point.
There were far too many people here.
Home would certainly be more convenient.
Even if Michiru lived there too, and Saki Saki dropped by practically every day.
"Fine."
Utaha smiled.
"You have a point."
She didn't push any further.
Instead, she lightly traced a finger along the side of Saku's neck before casually stepping away.
「Damn... You really know how to flirt! Who's supposed to withstand that?」
When it came to technique, Utaha-senpai really was on another level.
That feeling of being allowed to look but never quite touch was enough to make anyone restless.
Which raised a question.
How exactly had Aki Tomoya resisted her?
Was he even a man?
Saku genuinely had doubts.
...
The remaining club activities didn't last long.
Around five-thirty, Saku and the others packed up and left school together.
The awkward tension from earlier still hadn't completely disappeared.
Utaha and the other girls kept subtly watching one another, each clearly more guarded than before.
Saku noticed.
He was starting to worry that this strange competition might eventually interfere with teamwork, so he began thinking of some excuse to get everyone to relax and bond.
Before he could come up with anything, however, a bespectacled boy suddenly rushed out in front of them.
"Senpai! Michiru! I knew you were here!"
Black-rimmed glasses.
Plain clothes.
A clenched expression and gritted teeth that made him look somewhere between furious and helpless.
That was Saku's first impression of the boy.
"Aki?"
"Tomoya?"
Utaha and Michiru exclaimed almost simultaneously.
Neither had expected Aki Tomoya to actually find this place.
After all, when they'd left Toyogasaki, they hadn't told him where they were going.
"So you're the one who took them away from me?"
Tomoya swept his gaze over the group.
His eyes quickly narrowed onto Hikigaya and Saku.
Hikigaya's looks were above average, but his lifeless eyes made him resemble the very definition of a background character in Tomoya's mind.
Saku was different.
Clean features, sharp lines, and an unmistakably confident presence.
He looked like a protagonist at first glance.
So Tomoya immediately identified him as the culprit.
As for why he never suspected one of the girls?
He'd already done some investigating.
The security guard had told him the person they were meeting was male.
「Whoa. The victim actually came knocking on my door?」
Saku admitted he hadn't expected this.
Then again, it made sense.
He'd practically stripped Tomoya's entire team bare.
It would've been stranger if Tomoya didn't eventually come looking for him.
"I wouldn't say I took anyone away."
Saku spoke calmly.
"They made their own choices. I never forced anyone."
"That's a lie! Before you showed up, they clearly—"
Tomoya stepped forward, his anger rising enough to make him look almost ready to lunge.
Saku wasn't particularly worried.
The people around him were.
Before Tomoya could even finish, Michiru moved directly in front of Saku.
"Tomoya, that's enough."
She faced her cousin firmly.
"Saku's right. We all came here because we wanted to."
"Michiru, you..."
Tomoya stared at her in disbelief.
"You're my older female cousin!"
"When you ran away from home, I took you in. When your band ran into trouble, I promised I'd help solve it."
His voice rose.
"And now you're defending him?"
「All right, that's it. If anyone ever tells me Aki Tomoya is just some innocent otaku with no schemes in his head, I'm arguing with them on the spot.」
「He opens by putting a label on you, turning it into a moral issue, then immediately claims the high ground. You don't get this smooth without spending years arguing online.」
「Anyone who lives on online forums learns how to win arguments. If Tomoya managed to become an influential blogger, there's no way he was bad at this stuff.」
Saku had already realized that the people in this world couldn't be treated as perfect copies of their anime counterparts.
Otherwise, the changes he'd seen in so many personalities simply wouldn't make sense.
So he had never assumed a so-called "male protagonist" could only possess a gentle, kind side.
People were complicated.
No one consisted entirely of admirable traits.
Just because someone hadn't shown another side of themselves before didn't mean it wasn't there.
It might simply mean they'd never been pushed far enough to reveal it.
Tomoya was a perfect example.
Once emotionally cornered, the personality he displayed was almost completely different from the version normally shown in the anime.
Michiru, meanwhile, had been hit so cleanly by his words that she didn't know how to answer.
She was already losing ground when Saku's thoughts reached her.
Her eyes suddenly widened.
'Wait.'
'So that's what he's doing?'
"Tomoya, did we somehow fail to explain ourselves clearly?"
Utaha stepped in the moment she realized Michiru wasn't equipped for this argument.
She pushed the uselessly flustered Michiru aside and confronted Tomoya herself.
"Or are you deliberately pretending not to understand?"
"Senpai, what do you mean?"
Tomoya looked increasingly agitated.
"Did he put some strange ideas into your head? Is that why you've changed like this?"
「Wonderful. Another label. Are we going for a hat trick today? As long as none of the hats are green, I suppose we're fine.」
"Stop throwing labels around."
Utaha's expression turned cold.
"We already explained ourselves clearly."
"We came here voluntarily."
"If you want to pick a fight with me, fine. I'll deal with you."
Her eyes sharpened.
"But don't drag him into it."
Seeing one girl after another fiercely defend Saku only made the jealousy inside Tomoya burn hotter.
"Hiss..."
Hikigaya quietly drew in a breath.
'What the hell is going on here?'
He felt as though he'd somehow walked into the climax of a drama without seeing any of the previous episodes.
Unable to resist, he leaned toward the visibly nervous Yui beside him.
"Hey... what's the story here?"
"Well... um... it's..."
Yui stumbled over herself.
Hikigaya stared at her speechlessly.
Either you know or you don't.
What was this half-sentence, half-riddle nonsense supposed to mean?
"Don't stick your nose into other people's business."
Yukino crushed his budding curiosity immediately.
She didn't intervene herself.
For now, she wanted to see how Saku intended to handle Tomoya.
"Senpai!"
Tomoya looked back at Utaha.
"Have you forgotten your promise?"
"You know I need you!"
Utaha casually brushed her long hair back.
Her expression didn't change.
"I haven't forgotten."
"But I also told you that I'll help when there's actually something for me to do."
"If you don't even have a concrete plan, I'm not going to sit around wasting time with you."
"Wasting time?"
Tomoya looked almost offended.
"Thinking together and creating together isn't wasting time! That's what creators are supposed to do!"
He pointed toward Saku.
"You weren't like this before."
"But now you'd rather believe the sweet words of some stranger!"
Tomoya's finger remained aimed at him.
"Look at him!"
"He doesn't even dare face me himself."
"He won't step forward. He just hides behind you."
His voice sharpened.
"And you're sure this is the person you want to trust?"
「Three labels in a row. What did I do to deserve such special treatment?」
「He's right about one thing, though. I'm genuinely bad at arguing.」
「Maybe I should just punch him instead?」
「He's been standing there yapping nonstop anyway. He can explain the rest to my fist. When your fist is bigger, that's the argument!」
All the girls: '...'
Utaha had expected Saku to come up with some devastating counterargument.
Instead, his grand solution was apparently to abandon debate entirely and punch Tomoya.
She immediately made a decision.
Under absolutely no circumstances was she letting Saku handle this confrontation himself.
Not if she wanted to prevent the situation from escalating into an actual fight.
…