Chapter - 3

"...Crack!!!"

I desperately tried to hold back the facial nerves from going berserk.

But in the end, I couldn't.

"Puh-ha!"

Azusa, next to me, spewed out the plastic bottle of green tea she was drinking.

"Kollok, kollok...No, don't scare me, Kurumi! You suddenly made a scary face...!"

"Mi, I'm sorry..."

I apologize and try to regain my composure. Take a deep breath.

I suppress the urge to scream and try to think calmly.

...Gather. My heart is racing.

When it's about Mr. Yo, I can't stay calm.

"What the hell is wrong with you... look. There's a torn book there."

When pointed out, sure enough, the book I was holding in my hand was horribly torn.

It was torn by unconscious force. I didn't remember it at all.

Alas, what can I do, it belongs to the library. Should I repay it?

──No. That's an afterthought. Right now, Yo-kun is my priority.

I think back to what I saw earlier. My hands tremble with anger.

I was "watching" Yo-kun as usual.

He was sitting in his chair, staring blankly at the blackboard, tired of talking to the men around him.

And there he was, that blond, tiny, adorable kid who could only be described as "adorable."...

Oh no. My eyes turn bright red just thinking about it. My breathing becomes erratic.

I don't think I should be so jealous, but my blood rushes when a girl comes near him.

And that child. He and Yo-kun look at each other without a care in the world,

──I like him──

──I want a relationship──

It's a line that I've rehearsed behind my eyelids time and time again on nights when I can't sleep, consoling myself that I can't help it because Yo-kun is dull, and I've rehearsed it so many times that I swear I'll say it tomorrow, and I've glimpsed Yo-kun's sleeping face in the next room to calm my over-excited mind, and I've finally fallen asleep in peace, and the next day I've repeated what I couldn't say because I'm afraid of rejection, and the kid says it so coolly.

I hate it. And more than that, I hate it.

It's not just hot, it's a chill, and it's coming out of my gut.

Araki Maya──I know her. She stands out, and on top of that, she's had contact with Yo-kun.

Three times, as far as I know. There might be more.

When Yoh-kun is in the library, I'm in the archery center, so I inadvertently let my guard down.

I might have taken advantage of that and secretly met him, so I can't forgive him for saying that.

Unforgivable.

I can't forgive myself.

I was about to stand up when the bell rang, signaling the end of the break.

The annoying Westminster chimes. For a moment, I felt like clicking my tongue.

But oh well. As it turns out, the kid was leaving the classroom as the bell rang.

We'll just have to be nice to each other until the next class is over and it's time for lunch.

But I don't think I'll be able to concentrate in class in this state.

Alas, Mr. Yo is also looking puzzled. ...

"Hey, you're looking off into the distance again, what's wrong?"

"Oh, it's nothing."

As I gave a preliminary answer to Azusa, who was grumbling, I was thinking about what to do from now on.

It's called clairvoyance, the ability to see into the distance.

I was born with it.

I only became good at it when I was in elementary school.

I've always been told that Kurumi has good eyesight.

No matter how far away something was, if the angle wasn't too bad, I could read letters down to the size of a grain.

I've also heard that "Africans have a visual acuity of 10.0," but what is my visual acuity in terms of numbers?

I can see beyond the horizon, more than 4.5 kilometers away.

I don't think it's a matter of already having good eyesight or anything like that.

You know that I have good eyesight, and you probably remember that I'm good at finding things that are missing.

However, I thought it might be perceived as offensive if I mentioned my eyes, so I only said, "I can tell when something is missing."

My "eye" is near my chest.

I don't know if it's true, but when I'm using it, it has heat near it.

"You don't have to close your eyes to see with your eyes. You can see far away with both eyes open.

However, your focus will be tilted to one side or the other, so it's impossible to process both views at the same time.

When your consciousness is in the Second Site, your sense of the five bodies is diminished, and when you try to bring your consciousness back to your body, your "eyes" close.

It's convenient, but it's a kind of distraction, and it's very dangerous if you're not careful.

Whenever I had a moment, I used my eyes to keep an eye on Yo-kun.

When I first met Yo-kun.

I was proud of my special abilities and looked down on others.

I was an unpleasant child. A cartoonish villain who emits an aura around him along the lines of "Heh, lowly bugs."

At his previous school, he was extremely arrogant, and even when he met Mr. Yo, he spoke arrogantly.

When I think of him, I blush or turn blue.

I can't help but shudder. I want to go back in time and scold myself.

But Mr. Yo didn't hate me for that.

He responds to me in a way that I'm not sure if he knows or doesn't know, and no matter how much I mock him, he's always Maidong-style, nailing me with rice bran, pushing the curtain with his arm.

I would try to get them to talk back to me, and then I would use the power of my eyes to make them obey.

With such a plan in mind, I became impatient with Yo-kun's unresponsive demeanor.

I wondered why I was so insistent with him.

Every day, he would deliberately avert his eyes from the big question, and he would approach me in a challenging tone.

Eventually, I became unbearable and had a seizure and shouted.

I don't like that kind of thing, Yohei!

Then Yo-kun laughed.

"Kurumi tells funny lies."

He said. With a voice full of unquestioning conviction.

That's right. When she really dislikes something, she turns bright red and doesn't say it to your face.

I finally realized that it was me who was blushing.

I wanted attention. I wanted someone to care.

I was embarrassed to admit it, so I made fun of my loud mouth.

What was there was nothing special or anything, just a girl who couldn't be honest.

She was ashamed to be honest, and she was hiding the fact that she just wanted to get along with the boy next door.

But he had already seen through that──

I was ashamed of myself for bragging about my "eyes" that could see far away.

I had overlooked something important.

So I moved the apples to eat while they were still warm, while I was still working hard.

"I'm just giving them away, I just made too many... because..."

I knew it, but I couldn't bring myself to be honest.

Ever since then, I've been growing up watching you.

My "eyes" don't just see far away, they can also see over obstacles such as walls and roofs, so to speak, and include clairvoyance.

I knew I shouldn't invade his privacy, but many times I peeked into his room.

It was thrilling to see him relaxing in his room, unaware of prying eyes.

Even on holidays, I would do a 360-degree sweep of my surroundings to find out where he was.

He was always right there.

The reason I'm so confident in finding missing items is that if you orient yourself to what you think you see, you'll almost automatically find it.

We don't need to use cell phones to communicate with each other, and when I see him in town, I just aim for him and run.

I wanted to meet him as soon as possible.

"I was so focused on the snow that I rolled, bumped into a telephone pole, or fell into a ditch.

When I saw Yo-kun changing in his room, I became excited...

I used to blush and "look away" when I saw such scenes, but when I absorbed sexual knowledge through my friends, my physical interest in him deepened.

Even so, I'm too embarrassed to ask him outright to show me his naked body.

No matter what I said, I didn't have the courage to be that honest.

At most, I would playfully lean in and flirt, but that was it.

From there, I'd either get off school with Yo-kun and part ways at the entrance, or I'd run up the stairs like a rabbit and take off my school uniform, not even bothering to take off my uniform, and I'd stick to the side where Yo-kun's room was and watch him come up a little later than me, sighing languidly as he changed.

He still hadn't changed down to his underwear, but that was solved by timing his bath.

My "eye" can see any distance, but the angle is always the same.

My mom and dad thought it was weird that I was running around the house in the evenings asking for points to get the best shots, but I was persuaded by the unlikely reason that I was at a difficult age ....

I met Mr. Yo when I was 10 years old, so I never took a bath with him, let alone bathed with him.

I saw him naked for the first time...!

I don't know if it was nervousness or excitement, but when I saw my daughter shaking and drooling with excitement, I'm sure my dad or mom hesitated to reach for the receiver, saying, "She's at a difficult age...".

In many ways, it seemed that just as I was developing an interest in Yo-kun's nakedness, he was beginning to develop an interest in the opposite sex.

We moved on to junior high school, and his metamorphosis began.

It was books. His gaze was fixed on a book filled with suspicious photographs.

A naked, lustful man lusting after an unknown woman, and me peeking in on him.

Unable to resist, I rushed him as he brought the dirty book into the room and forced him to destroy it.

Yo-kun's efforts to think of a place to hide it are tearful, but he can't resist my "eyes".

There were a few times when I thought it would be unpleasant for him to be asked to dispose of his personal property, even if it was his own, but he didn't say anything, as if he was resigned to it.

I think he realized that I was very angry on the inside, even though I kept my face as impassive as possible.

Yo-kun is very good at inquiring about such a dull subject.

It's dull──yes, it's dull to the point where I feel that he knows my mind and is deliberately ignoring it.

Why is it that I'm interfering so enthusiastically, but he doesn't respond?

Shouldn't I be more blatant?