NOVEL NEXT Chapter 410
My face turned bright red, but whatever, it was a good thing.
Yuka had a look on her face as if she had something to tease me about for the next ten years. Shii was laughing at me, but after all, we were gathered here to talk about the stalker issue.
And that stalker was Sota’s… um, childhood friend. Though she had a lot of downtime in between.
Did they meet again around middle school in the original story? I couldn’t quite remember.
It felt a bit wrong to just chat on the street, so we entered a nearby family restaurant and took a seat. We ordered fries and some drinks before diving back into a more serious conversation.
“So… you’re saying she lives next door?”
I nodded at Nakahara’s words.
Nakahara refers to the girl in front of me, Nanami Nakahara. The surname I had trouble remembering was ‘Nakahara.’
If we were to be friends, I preferred to introduce myself with a name from the start. After all, the surname I’ve been using until now is a fake one.
Since I was back in the loop with that Kosuzu person, I thought it would be okay to fix it slowly. Unfortunately, since we were already in middle school, if I changed it now, it would make everything look weird. Unless we ran away again, I needed a valid reason to change my name.
I was contemplating whether to do the same with Nakahara, but it seemed like she was having a hard time viewing me positively right now.
First love from childhood. It’s been a long time since we met again, but there was another girl next to her.
…No, that image was certainly true, but still…
“So she lives next door and commutes to school together?”
Sota and I nodded again.
“And she occasionally drops by?”
Sometimes we’d bring a game console over and play games together, and she had even brought food she’d cooked if it turned out well.
We would sometimes gather as families for meals, and on important days like Christmas, we’d invite her over to our house. So, to say she just occasionally dropped by was an understatement.
But if I talked about that situation here, Nakahara would definitely get extremely angry, so I nodded vaguely.
“So, that means there’s no special relationship, right?”
Yeah. It’s suspicious.
But if I let it be a misunderstanding, I’d just get irritated. Sota would too.
To reiterate, we were practically siblings. And sibling relationships are naturally competitive. I don’t know what happened in the evolutionary process, but human siblings always fought while thinking of each other as family.
“And Sota knows all the girls here?”
“……”
At Nakahara’s words, Sota made a truly pitiful face. I can somewhat understand this. If there were girls openly clinging to him like in the main story, it might have been different. One was me, another was my twin, and the last one was my little sister. Plus, Yuka wasn’t particularly close to Sota.
Anyway, it’s true they all knew each other, so in the end, Sota nodded.
Nakahara seemed to ponder for a moment.
“So, is that really true? You’re not dating or anything?”
“Yeah.”
Finally unable to hold it back, I answered decisively, and Nakahara looked straight at me. Feeling a bit twinged under her gaze, she spoke as if she wanted to confirm once more.
“If Sota gets a female acquaintance or a girlfriend, it doesn’t matter to you?”
Of course, it wouldn’t. If I thought about it seriously, Kagami would definitely invite that girlfriend when inviting Sota. It doesn’t seem like they think of him as their own son fully, but they definitely put in that much effort.
Kagami, who had a tough childhood. They probably think of their own childhood when they see me, Sota, and Shii.
What a saint of a mother.
Seeing me nod without a care, it seemed like Nakahara gained some certainty. After all, there was really no reason to hide it this much.
My hostility towards her had lowered a bit. It wasn’t completely gone, but at least it seemed we had reached a level where some rational conversation could happen.
Nakahara stood up from her seat and suddenly reached out her hand towards me.
I blinked once, stood up, and grabbed her hand.
Nakahara shook my hand vigorously and said,
“I’m Nanami Nakahara.”
“…Kuninura Koto Ne. Just call me Koto Ne.”
“Really? Then I’ll also call you Nanami!”
Seeing her face light up, it seems her personality was actually quite nice. After all, she had that popular and sociable image in the novel.
In these kinds of stories, the protagonist usually has otaku tendencies, but Nanami was practically clueless in that regard.
“Let’s get close from now on!”
While saying that, there was still a hint of wariness in her eyes.
Did she say that because she thought I had a lot of information about Sota? If that was the case, it’d be more advantageous for her to stick to Shii. The truth is, I didn’t really know much about Sota’s preferences or anything.
And reflecting that thought, Nanami also shook hands with Shii.
With Yuka and Koko too.
“Waa?”
Koko, who had been diligently eating fries, tilted her head when suddenly grabbed.
“She’s cute!”
Aren’t you just like me?
Well, I don’t exactly say stuff like that.
“Wow?”
Seeing Nanami gently patting her head, Koko seems to have recognized her as a good person. After all, unless Koko was threatened with a knife, she would generally consider someone a good person, so maybe that’s not entirely wrong.
…
What should I say, I thought there would be a problem with the stalker and I would have to deal with it, but now that it ended like this, my feelings are a bit complicated.
Plus, it feels like the human relationships I knew got a bit tangled. Precisely, the relationships from the novel.
They said childhood friend, but in this situation, wouldn’t I technically fall into the childhood friend category too?
…Since those childhood days, I had been planning to survive by using Sota and the people around me. Nowadays, I think we are just friends, but that goal itself hasn’t disappeared yet.
Should I tell them someday?
Sota and Shii still don’t know that such a world exists. Eventually, they will have to find out, but…
If after all that is over, I end up talking about it…
Will I be able to be forgiven?
“……”
Watching the noisy kids, I quietly fell into thought.
I thought it’d just be fine if only Kagami and I could live, but…
Now, I have people around me I can’t just discard.
“Koto Ne.”
“Yeah?”
When I called Koko as we returned home, she called my name too.
“…Koko.”
“Koto Ne?”
Hearing Koko’s answering voice made me feel good.
People say it doesn’t feel good to hear what you say from an objective third-person standpoint, but Koko cancels all that out with her looks and behavior.
“I just called you.”
“Just?”
As I smiled and said that, Koko tilted her head while walking, and then,
“Koto Ne.”
She called me again.
“Koko?”
“Koto Ne.”
“Koko?”
“I just called you for no reason!”
Seeing Koko say that with a bright smile made all my earlier gloomy thoughts vanish in an instant.
I smiled back at such Koko and gently patted her head.
We walked together towards home. It wasn’t far at all.
When I rang the bell, Kagami came out with a smile, welcoming us.
Yeah.
I’m happy.
For now, let’s live wrapped up in this happiness.
As Yuka said, worrying about things that can’t be solved right now is meaningless.
If possible, let’s think about the meaningful things and keep living.