Indirect Kiss

"Huh?"

Ren was taken aback and stopped.

"What's wrong? Don't you want to eat?"

Seeing him not moving for a long time, Asumi pretended to not know anything and asked him.

"...I'll eat."

After hesitating for a moment, Ren opened his mouth and bit into the ice cream she was holding, feeling the refreshing sensation in his mouth.

Honestly, he didn't expect Asumi to use this method to give him the ice cream.

So much so that he felt an unexplainable déjà vu.

Because Gabriel had fed him like this a long time ago.

At that time, he also brought something, but what he ate wasn't ice cream.

"Don't just stand there. Keep walking. It's too hot to stand like this."

Pulling her left hand holding the matcha ice cream away from his mouth, Asumi urged him with a smile.

"I told you to eat ice cream and go home at the same time. It's not good if you stay in one place now."

"Yeah."

After responding, Ren took another step and continued walking forward.

On the other hand, Asumi followed him slowly, calling out to him from time to time and putting the ice cream in his mouth again, asking him to turn around and bite the ice cream again.

"By the way, Kouhai-kun, do you want vanilla ice cream?"

After walking for a while, Asumi saw the two ice creams in her hands and asked with a smile.

"It's fine. I can eat any flavor."

Ren never minded about this.

"In that case, do you want to try it?" Asumi asked with a smile.

Ren agreed, "Sure."

"But, I just ate a lot of vanilla ice cream. If you don't mind, you can try it~"

Seeing how easily he was fooled, Asumi handed him vanilla ice cream.

"Thank you."

Ren took a small bite, and after tasting it carefully, he commented, "It's good."

"Eh? You, you really... ate it?"

Seeing his action and confirming that there was indeed a little missing from her vanilla ice cream, Asumi was stunned.

"What's wrong? Can't I eat it?" Ren asked confusedly.

Just now, she strongly suggested that he try it.

"It's not that you can't eat it, it's..."

Asumi didn't know how to explain it better.

Because if she thought about it, Ren would never eat the ice cream she had eaten.

From what she knew about him, his character attributes were boring and somewhat tsundere.

As for both of those traits, no matter who it was, they would refuse to eat ice cream that had been eaten by someone else.

Moreover, eating it was the same as an indirect kiss.

Even the most foolish person could realize this and then refuse.

And if Ren was tsundere, it would be even more impossible for him to eat it.

Asumi even said that she had already thought of the sentence that would make Ren refuse it.

[I won't eat what you've eaten.]

Based on her understanding of him, Asumi teased him with such an immoral act, and even brought the ice cream to his mouth.

But she never expected him to actually eat it.

There was absolutely no trace of indifference or tsundere at all.

This caught her off guard.

"You can also try my matcha ice cream, it's good too."

After waiting for a long time, Ren said it very sincerely without waiting for the second part of her sentence.

"Ah, thank you."

In a flustered state, without realizing it, Asumi took a bite of the matcha ice cream in her hand.

"Hm?"

The coolness brought by the matcha-flavored ice cream immediately brought her back to reality.

"..."

Staring blankly at the matcha ice cream she had bitten into, Asumi's face flushed slightly, and even her white neck and ears turned red with a very obvious blush.

"What's wrong with you, Senpai?"

Finding that she was freezing in place, not moving for a long time, and her face getting redder, Ren asked with concern.

"N-nothing, it's nothing."

Asumi tilted her head to one side, trying her best to prevent him from seeing her current expression.

What happened to her?

They had just indirectly kissed each other, why didn't her mood change at all?

On the contrary, she made herself a little confused and didn't know what to do.

"In that case, let's go quickly."

This time it was Ren who said it.

"Oh."

With a soft voice, Asumi ate her own vanilla ice cream.

Trying to use the cold ice cream to relieve the tension in her heart.

As for the fact that she had just bitten into his ice cream?

That was no longer important.

"Kouhai-kun, are you really clueless?"

After finishing all of vanilla ice cream and continuing for a while, feeling that her mood had calmed down, Asumi asked a question that worried her.

Based on Ren's appearance now, he was not slow or tsundere at all, but just a natural clueless person.

"What do you mean by clueless?"

This was the first time Ren had heard this word.

"Perfect answer."

Now Asumi was 100% sure that Ren was truly clueless.

This was a conclusion reached by sacrificing an indirect kiss.

"It seems like I didn't answer?"

Ren asked hesitantly.

Clearly, he didn't even know what clueless meant, but Asumi said his answer was perfect.

This confused him.

"Sometimes not answering is also an answer." Asumi said this answer in an incomprehensible manner.

"Okay."

Although he still didn't quite understand, she said so, and Ren stopped asking.

"Hurry up and finish your ice cream!"

After ending the topic, Asumi handed ice cream to his mouth again and said cruelly.

"Yeah."

So Ren ate the ice cream as quickly as possible.

But because he was eating while walking, even though he wanted to speed up, he could only eat a little.

"Look at the road, it's going to turn."

Asumi took back her hand that was eating and reminded him.

"Um."

Ren focused his attention on the road.

As they turned the corner, they met a middle-aged man wearing a white shirt, tie, and glasses.

At first sight of this person, Ren recognized that he was Asumi's father.

"Eh?"

Seeing her father suddenly appearing in front of her, Asumi panicked immediately.

"...Asumi, what are you doing?"

Lifting his glasses and looking at the two people standing in front of him, Soujiro asked hesitantly.