My Stepsister is My Ex-Girlfriend - Volume 6 - Chapter 5.07

11:06 A.M.: The Extreme Genius Is Targeting My Chastity for Some Reason

Yume Irido

Just as Mizuto and I left the classroom, we heard a creaking sound from behind us.

“W-Wait!” I sharply whispered, slowly turning back towards the room. “Is...someone there?”

“Huh?”

Just as soon as Mizuto knit his eyebrows, we heard the creaking sound again. We looked at each other and tiptoed back to peek through the classroom door’s window.

A guy and a girl crawled out from behind the podium.

“Phew, that was close. Ha ha ha.”

“Give me a break, Kurenai-san...”

There were people there the entire time?! They saw me let Mizuto touch all over my foot?! The bigger surprise, though, was that we knew both of them. The girl was the vice president, Suzuri Kurenai, which was obvious from her asymmetric hairstyle. Judging from his naturally curly hair and glasses, the guy was the treasurer, Joji Haba, who was always not too far behind her. Were those two hiding in that small space under the podium together?

“Wh-What’s going on? Why were they hiding there?”

“Obviously it’s because they were in a compromising situation.”

Huh? What kind of situation would that be? A compromising situation between a guy and girl alone in an empty classroom? Kurenai-senpai patted down the back of her skirt and sat at a desk by the window, crossing her legs.

She was a small-framed girl, but her figure was very distinct and feminine. In short, she had—and I’m sure there are better words to describe this, but—the perfect body for childbirth.

Her thighs were thicker than I had expected—her short skirt and crossed legs made it hard not to ogle them. Well, Haba-senpai was avoiding looking at them, so I made Mizuto do the same.

Kurenai-senpai put her hands behind her, making her look defenseless, as if to spur on Haba-senpai. “Well then, Joe, now that you’ve thoroughly absorbed my scent, would you like to continue?”

“I have not, and I would not,” Haba-senpai clearly stated.

This was the first time I’d heard him speak so much. But more importantly...continue what?

Kurenai-senpai chuckled. “Truth is a virtue. When you lost your balance and fell face-first into my chest, your nostrils widened by two millimeters. I apologize. If I’d known that was going to happen, I wouldn’t have worn a bra.”

“Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t get why you’d wanna seduce a guy like me.”

“Is it so hard to understand? There is no greater enjoyment than seducing the guy I’m infatuated with.”

I-Infatuated?! My ears aren’t deceiving me, right?!

Kurenai-senpai loosened the ribbon on her uniform. “Or perhaps my virginity isn’t worth exchanging yours for?”

V-Virginity?!

“Should we really be watching this?” Mizuto whispered.

“J-Just a little more! Just a little more, okay?!”

Haba-senpai had his back to us, so I couldn’t see his face, but I could tell that his ears had turned red.

“I’ll say this as many times as I need to—I’m the unworthy one in this exchange. I don’t know what kind of flight of fancy this is for you, but you can do so much better, Kurenai-san.”

“You’d really call someone’s first love a ‘flight of fancy’? I’ll say this as many times as I need to—you’re not as small a person as you seem to believe. After all, I have approved of you.”

“I’m just a little good with technology. I’ve got no other redeeming—”

“Everyone—and I mean everyone—has an ideal version of themselves, whether they’re aware of it or not,” Kurenai-senpai suddenly declared. Even though we weren’t in the room, her voice strangely reverberated within me. “I believe that one’s beauty lies with how deeply they treasure that version of themselves. Joe, your ideal self is beautiful, and that’s precisely why you look down on who you are right now. It’s because you treasure who you could be that you minimize who you are. That attitude of yours is beautiful to me.”

Haba-senpai fell silent. Even Mizuto held his breath. Our ideal selves... I had an ideal self. That’s why I’d grown out my hair, overcome my shyness, made friends, and...why I’d confessed. Did Mizuto have an ideal self? In middle school, I’d always thought that he was some kind of omnipotent hero. Even now, I found him strangely incredible; he rarely seemed to need help. Could someone like him have a goal he felt he couldn’t achieve?

“Even so...” Haba-senpai was quiet most of the time, but now he spoke firmly. “My ideal self is not the kind to lose control to poorly executed seduction by his intelligent but vulgar classmate while the rest of the school is working their asses off.”

“I see...” Kurenai-senpai fixed her ribbon and lightly hopped off the desk. “I’d read in reference materials that taking advantage of the commotion would conversely serve to heighten the pleasure, but it seems that it was my misunderstanding.”

“I don’t know what you’ve been reading, but you should toss them immediately.”

“Oh well. Looks like I need a new idea. It’s tough falling for a guy with such high ideals.”

“Could you maybe come to the realization that it’s a lot tougher dealing with a weird girl who’s got a thing for you?”

Oh no. They’re coming this way! We quickly and stealthily moved away and mixed into the noisy halls of the festival. Only then did we finally exhale.

“Phew... I always thought there was something between them, since they’re always together, but I guess they really are close like that.”

“‘Close’ doesn’t even begin to cover their relationship,” Mizuto countered.

He had a point. It was kind of on-brand for Kurenai-senpai to have a different approach to romance, but I also got the feeling that she wasn’t very good at it.

“I feel for Haba-senpai,” Mizuto mumbled.

“Huh? Why? Kurenai-senpai’s kinda out there, but she’s cute and overall an amazing person.”

“Being with someone too amazing comes with its own set of problems,” Mizuto said before walking off.

I tried to decipher what he’d said. Did he mean that she was out of Haba-senpai’s league? True, that might be hard to deal with—Haba-senpai had pretty much said the same thing too—but it shouldn’t matter. After all, hadn’t we dated, despite not matching each other at all?