Liar, Liar - Volume 5 - Chapter 3.2

“I swear…Shinohara, you’re just so…so…”

So.

When I woke up around two minutes later, I was sitting down on the seat of the car, getting lectured by both Himeji and Saionji, one on either side of me. And…yeah, I was clearly the bad guy this time. I apologized with everything I had, and thankfully, they let me off the hook just before the car reached the bottom.

“All right,” Saionji said as she set foot back on solid ground. “I failed to stop you on the Ferris wheel. And with the shopping thing, you could easily do that right now, if you know how… I’m not liking my chances. But if this goes on to the third and final quest, I’m showing you no mercy. None.”

Saionji’s ruby eyes glistened as she gracefully walked ahead of me. The quest still wasn’t decided yet, but I guess she saw no way to keep me from winning.

And she was right. We could check the shopping box in a matter of seconds. After all, there was nothing saying we had to do it at a clothing store. All anyone had to do was “try on something,” and that could mean a lot more than clothes. In fact, in a theme park like this, there was all kinds of stuff to try on.

So, once Saionji had stalked off, we went to the nearest merch stand…and there we saw two familiar-looking Ohga students.

“Hmm, which of these would look good on Sarasa, do you think?”

“These cat ears, of course! Mee-yow!”

I complimented them on their souvenir purchases, and then my checklist was complete.

Now I had everything I needed to wrap up the second quest. However…

How’s Asamiya doing with her side of this? It looks like holding someone’s shoulders and lifting them up count as “embracing” well enough, so hopefully it’s working out well for her…but if not, I guess all four of us will have to take another trip up the wheel. Really hope I can avoid that if possible…

I dwelled on this as Himeji and I waited for them to return. After ten minutes or so, the two of them finally appeared at our agreed-upon meeting spot…but something didn’t seem right. Enomoto had that usual sourpuss look on his face, but Asamiya looked almost in distress, as if her head was full of uncertain, confusing thoughts.

“…Sh-Shino, um, c-come… Come here!”

“Huh? …Whoa!”

Before I could check my device, she pulled me by the arm and dragged me a short distance away from Enomoto. Bringing her well-defined face close to mine, she began rattling on at high speed.

“L-listen to me, Shino! Just now, um, when we were on the Ferris wheel, there was this really strong gust of wind from above, right? And I…just a little, teeny bit… I got a little scared, okay? So I closed my eyes, and the next thing I knew, Shinji was right there, holding me by the shoulders! All, like, whispering ‘Just stay still, stay still’ into my ear! …And that’s not even all!”

“…It’s not?”

“Once I caught my breath, I said thank you and all, and what do you think Shinji said to me? He said, ‘It’s only natural to protect the people who you care about…so don’t ever leave me again.’ That…! Isn’t that crazy?!”

“Wha…? Are you serious?”

“Totally!”

My thought process stopped for a moment at this very sudden development. After a few seconds, I took my device out, and sure enough, Asamiya’s checklist was completely filled in. And no wonder. Enomoto hadn’t just given her a hug—he’d basically told Asamiya he loved her. It was perfect. If he didn’t earn a check for that, it would’ve had to be a bug in DearScript.

So both our lists are complete. We’ve won the second quest. But what compelled Enomoto to do something like that out of nowhere? Has this whole thing made him realize how much he cares about Asamiya…?

Any thrill of victory I was feeling was greatly overshadowed by my curiosity. Then my device let out another quick burst of vibration. It was, of all things, a message from Enomoto. The timing was so perfect, I frowned at it at first, but then I decided to open the text anyway.

This is what you wanted, wasn’t it, Shinohara? I hadn’t noticed anything. Even so, this just felt like what needed to be done. What a ridiculous charade it all was… Me and Nanase are the furthest thing apart from boyfriend and girlfriend.

“…”

I read through the shocking message a few times over before looking back up. A mess of emotions ran through my head as I looked at Enomoto, standing just a little away and looking peeved as usual. Nothing about his face indicated that he had suddenly awoken to love.

So, after all this time, he still hasn’t noticed Asamiya’s advances at all? He just surmised with perfect accuracy what my orders were and then assisted me with them…? Is he the sharpest or the dullest knife in the drawer? Which is it?!

I felt all the energy drain from my body, and I suddenly felt like my head was spinning.

“So Hiroto came back to win the second quest. It’s one to one in the Unique Star competition, and we’re moving on to the final quest, huh…? Yeah, things seem to be going well. The way the Game’s developing, and everything else about this, too. It’s all exactly like I planned it.

“But Hiroto sure has a lot of amazing people around him, doesn’t he…? A lot of cute girls, yeah, but they’re all seriously talented. I guess a Seven Star naturally attracts people like that. Fate at work, sort of.

“Hmm… Maybe I’m a little jealous.”