Rokujouma no Shinryakusha!? - Volume 13 - Chapter SS

Bonus Short Story

Harumi’s Knitting Circumstances

A year had passed since Satomi Koutarou joined the knitting society, and his knitting skills had improved considerably. At first he struggled with even a muffler, but now he was able to knit one beautifully so long as he stuck to standard knitting techniques. That said, he still had a lot of room for improvement. And when it came to curved surfaces or knitting in complex patterns, he still struggled. Simply put, Koutarou’s skills had yet to move beyond the basics.

That’s why he was receiving guidance from Harumi again today as well. The early summer sun shone in through the opened window and lit up the club room, and Harumi was beaming in much the same way as she passionately instructed Koutarou.

“Satomi-kun, that’s not how you do it. You do it like this.”

“Like this?”

“No, that’s not it either. Hmm... How should I explain it?”

There were a couple of reasons for Harumi’s enthusiasm. First and foremost was her wish to be of use to Koutarou. After spending so much time together, she had developed feelings for him. He was so nice to her that she wanted to return the favor in her own way. She wanted to be useful to him; she wanted him to need her.

Koutarou wanted to get good enough at knitting to make a sweater. It was all so that he could complete the half-knit piece his late mother had left him, so that he could put his past behind him and to move towards a better future. Fortunately, Harumi prided herself on her knitting. She had a special talent for the exact skill that the boy she loved wanted to learn. Sensing fate at work, she was quite passionate about teaching Koutarou how to knit. While there were plenty of ways to phrase it, in the end, Harumi loved him dearly and this was an expression of it.

In addition, Koutarou was almost always busy and surrounded by other people. Harumi loved all of his friends too and she admired their energy, but there were times where she felt that they were a little bit too energetic for her. It was simply a difference in their personalities and dispositions, and it didn’t at all affect how Harumi felt about them, but she was glad to get in some peace and quiet every now and then with just her beloved Koutarou at her side. The knitting society was perfect for that.

Moreover, chances were high that Koutarou would become the next president of the society, so she needed him to be good enough at knitting to take the job. And since Yurika had joined the other day, Harumi now had to teach her knitting as well. So when it was just Harumi and Koutarou, she wanted to teach him as much as she possibly could. For all these reasons, Harumi had become especially spirited when it came to her lessons with Koutarou. Sometimes so much so that she was oblivious to her surroundings. This was one of those times.

“I’ve got it! Satomi-kun, could you stand up for a moment?”

Harumi clapped her hands together and smiled. She had been thinking about how to teach Koutarou a complex knitting technique, and had just now come up with a brilliant idea.

“Oh, yeah. Sure.”

Koutarou stood up like Harumi asked. When he did, she excitedly walked up to him and had him hold his arms out. He stood there, arms outstretched, with a knitting needle in either hand.

“Is this okay?”

“Yes, that’s it. I think it’ll be easier to understand like this.”

Harumi pressed her back against Koutarou’s chest and pulled his arms in closer. She then put her hands over his and began moving the knitting needles in his hands for him. This would show him the movements and help him understand how to do it for himself. It was a brilliant idea indeed, and an extremely effective way of teaching. However...

“You just need to move your needles like this. It’s easy once you understand.”

“Um, Sakuraba-senpai, I really... I get how it works, but...”

“Yes?”

Harumi stopped moving the knitting needles and slowly turned around.

“Isn’t this arrangement, well, kinda... y’know?”

“Huh?”

Harumi froze. They were standing so close together that they could each feel the other’s breath. Koutarou could even see himself reflected in Harumi’s eyes.

“...Um...”

It wasn’t until she turned around and saw Koutarou standing right there that Harumi slowly began to process the situation she’d put herself in.

“I-I-I, u-um...”

Harumi’s face blossomed into a rosy blush. Her eyes opened as wide as they could in an expression of astonishment. She’d been so focused on teaching Koutarou the technique that she hadn’t realized what she was doing. Regardless of the reason, Harumi had entrusted her defenseless body to Koutarou and had him embrace her from behind. It looked like something a couple would do.

“This is, u-um, not what I meant... at all...”

“I-It’s okay! I know! You’re not the kind of person who would do something like that all of a sudden!”

Koutarou was flustered as well. He was already caught off guard by her inadvertently bold move. And now that she was blushing, she looked even more girlish than usual. Combined with her wavering eyes and the gentle warmth he could feel from her body, Koutarou was shaken to his core.

“I’ll let you go right away!”

He hurriedly went to unwrap his arms from around Harumi. However, she instinctively put strength into her hand to stop his.

“Sakuraba-senpai?”

“Ah...”

Harumi immediately realized what she was doing and blushed even more. She was embarrassed to be clinging to Koutarou. But at the same time, she was still a little reluctant to let him go. Her feelings were complex as she wondered if there was something else she should be doing.

“U-Um, Satomi-kun, I... I...!”

“Y-Yes?”

Tension filled the room and time seemed to stop. As far as either of them were concerned, the whole world only consisted of the person standing in front of them right now—each other. The relationship that they had knit together had brought them this close. Something special was about to happen.

And that, of course, was the door opening with a loud bang.

“I, Nijino Yurika, will give my all for the knitting society’s club activities today as well!”

Yurika, who had come late today since she was on classroom cleanup duty, barged into the room without so much as knocking.

“Uwaaaaah!”

“Kyaaaaah!”

“Hmm? What’s wrong, you two?”

Panicked, Koutarou and Harumi jumped away from each other. Yurika watched this in confusion. Fortunately, it seemed she hadn’t seen what they were doing before.

“I-It’s nothing. We were just surprised when you came barging in like that.”

“Yes, what Satomi-kun said.”

“Really? I’m sorry. I’ll be more careful next time.”

Yurika unquestioningly apologized. With that, both Koutarou and Harumi sighed in relief. That relief, however, wasn’t because Yurika hadn’t seen anything. Rather, it was because they both knew they might have said something unbelievable if she hadn’t shown up.