Chapter 54

“Ehe, ehehe, ehehehehehehehehehehe…”

I felt like I was looking at something forbidden.

I was stroking Yuzu senpai’s hair, feeling the silky texture of it all over my palm as she sat on my lap.

The body heat of Yuzu senpai felt throughout my entire being was more than enough to make me forget the heat of June.

I shouldn’t dwell on the fact that her clinginess was to a degree where she didn’t seem like the same person who had been all dizzy from clinging too much yesterday.

Happiness.

Cute.

Any thoughts other than that had shut down.

…No, wait.

It was an emergency situation, to the point where if I didn’t suppress it with brain-dead focus, my reason would probably snap.

“M-More headpats…”

Because, look at this?

A completely melted Yuzu senpai was sitting on my lap.

Sweet words went straight from my ears to my brain.

Away with worldly desires! Away with worldly desires!!

Somehow keeping my ego intact, I converted the shaking of my thoughts into a barrage of New Year’s Eve temple bell rings inside my head.

To say it again, Yuzu senpai is cute.

Having the cute person you like sitting on your lap and patting her head was a tight squeeze between supreme bliss and sheer endurance.

Heaven and hell, creation and destruction, carrots and sticks, senpai and kouhai, Yuzu and chair.

“U-Um… Yuzu senpai?”

“Ehehe, what is it…?”

Her bouncy voice was cute.

“Isn’t Yuzu senpai… pretty cute?”

“Eh? Oh, you’re making me blush…”

I tried to make her blush to take a brief intermission, but it failed.

It seemed like Yuzu senpai had built up her cute-tolerance from enduring things earlier in the day.

…What even is cute-tolerance, anyway?

“Do you act this spoiled at home too?”

“At home?”

Guh!

A cute counter-attack out of nowhere pierced straight through me.

I somehow managed to get away with just a fatal wound.

“No, well… you could say you’re used to being spoiled…”

I think there are times when you regret things right after saying them.

Right now was one of those times.

I was digging my own grave with a question that came purely from simple curiosity.

What if… just what if… she acted this spoiled around a future father-in-law I had yet to meet—I definitely wasn’t thinking about anything like that.

“Nope. I’m an older sister, you see…”

“Eh!? Yuzu senpai, you’re an older sister?!”

“Eh? Didn’t I mention that…?”

“This is the first time I’m hearing it!”

Yuzu senpai has a younger sibling… H-How enviable.

What kind of virtue do you have to accumulate in a past life to become Yuzu senpai’s family?

“I have a younger sister, you know?”

“Is that right?! Siblings, how nice. I’m an only child so I’m jealous.”

Pat-pat.

While having that casual everyday conversation, I stroked the head of Yuzu senpai, who turned out to be an older sister after all, resting on my lap.

The mystery of why getting my head patted by Yuzu senpai sometimes made me feel so happy was finally solved: it was because Yuzu senpai was an older sister.

Still, Yuzu senpai’s younger sister, huh…

She’s probably cute, just like Yuzu senpai.

“Mmph.”

“Eh, what’s wrong?”

A voice of displeasure.

I felt like I had been hearing it a lot lately.

I definitely wasn’t thinking of it as an animal sound.

Cute.

“You were thinking about something else just now.”

“Eh? No, no, I was just thinking that Yuzu senpai’s sister must also be cu— gyaah!?”

A sharp pain in my side.

I got pinched. Yuzu senpai pinched me.

“F-For today… just look at me.”

“Y-Yes…”

Yuzu senpai looked up from inside my arms.

If you don’t call this cute, what else could you possibly call it?

“I only get this spoiled with Kakeru-kun, you know…”

Cute-accelerator, heart at full throttle.