The Neighboring Aarya-san who Sometimes Acts Affectionate and Murmuring in Russian - Volume 2 - Chapter 4.1

CHAPTER 4

I could only taste the cream. I’m serious.

“All right, that should be enough for today. First-year students are free to leave.”

“Wait. Are you sure?”

“Yeah, we second-year students still have to meet with a few teachers, and it could take a while, so don’t worry about us and go. Good work today!”

“See you tomorrow…”

Yuki was going to wait until her ride came to pick her up, so it was only Masachika and Alisa who did as Touya said and retired from the student council room.

Now, then… How am I going to do this?

Masachika pondered how he was going to initiate the conversation as they strolled along on their way home from school. It wasn’t like he had anything especially important to discuss. He simply wanted to talk about their campaign plans for running for student council president and vice president next year. Nevertheless, Masachika still felt a little uncomfortable after what had happened that morning. It didn’t help that Alisa had been acting sort of strange ever since she got back from that meeting with Yuki, either. He was at a loss, anxious about how she might reply.

Yeah… Yuki did something to her.

Yuki seemed to have taken a liking to Alisa (in a bad way) the other weekend when the three of them had hung out. Teasing someone as serious and competitive as Alisa must have been like a dream come true to her. She probably saw Alisa as the perfect friend (toy?), so it was easy to imagine her employing her ladylike silver-tongue to mess with Alisa.

Sigh… There’s no use wondering “what if.”

He inwardly sighed as he walked alongside Alisa, who was completely silent and frowning a bit, but before long, he saw a familiar restaurant and mustered up the courage to break the silence.

“Hey, Alya?”

“Yeah?”

“Want to grab something to eat?”

“Huh…?”

Alisa looked stunned as Masachika pointed at the restaurant.

“Oh, uh… I thought we could discuss our strategy for student council elections next year.”

“…Oh.”

She narrowed her eyes and half-heartedly nodded.

“Sure, that’s fine.”

“Great.”

Masachika swiftly began heading over to the restaurant, relieved that she didn’t turn him down, but the moment he placed a hand on the door…

“<So it isn’t a date…>”

…he was stabbed from behind by a Russian whisper.

Gwah! O-only a coward would attack from behind!

Internally, he shouted like a samurai being attacked by an assassin, but he latched on to the door handle with wobbling knees and dragged himself inside the restaurant. After being shown to their table, they sat across from each other and ordered drinks.

“Uh… I’ll have the café au lait.”

“I’ll have the melon soda and the chocolate parfait.”

“…?!”

“…What?”

“Nothing…”

He couldn’t hide his astonishment. Ordering a sweet melon soda with an already supersweet chocolate parfait was blasphemy. Alisa’s expression twisted uncomfortably after realizing how weirded out he was, so she added:

“I’m just really tired, mentally. I won’t be able to think straight without something sweet. You know?”

“Uh-huh… Anyway, that’ll be all for us.”

The sweet part wasn’t the problem. The combination of foods was the problem. Masachika, however, dropped it and told the waitress they were done ordering.

“So, uh…did something happen between you and Yuki?” he hesitantly asked, wanting to clear up any doubts as they waited for their drinks.

“…Nothing, really.”

Her reply was brief, but she swiftly averted her gaze, which made it obvious something did happen.

Yukiii!! What did you do to her?!

Masachika turned his head while he shouted at Yuki in his mind, and Alisa briefly glanced at him before looking away once more.

“…I just told her that I was going to run for student council president with you. That’s all,” she mumbled.

“Oh…”

Although he knew that was clearly not the whole story, he hesitated about whether or not he should pry.

“Hey.”

But after stealing a few more glances at him, it was Alisa who spoke up first with a look of grim determination.

“Hmm?”

“Are you and Yuki…dating?”

“No way,” Masachika answered without delay and a dead serious expression on his face. Of course they weren’t dating. While it may have seemed like a legitimate question to Alisa, who didn’t know they were siblings, the ridiculous question made him want to scream, “What do you think this is, a dating sim?!”

“…You’re not?”

“Absolutely not.”

Her eyes wavered, so he continued with a sigh.

“I don’t know what Yuki told you, but we’re…like family. We don’t have any romantic feelings for each other.”

“But Yuki said…”

“Sigh… Listen. Don’t take everything she says so seriously. She may look like some proper gentlewoman, but she’s not. She’s teasing you because she likes to see you get all worked up.”

“…”

Alisa stared at him as if she wasn’t satisfied with his explanation, but it was too late. The waitress returned with their order, so Masachika decided to get down to business.

“So…about next year’s election…”

He took a sip of his café au lait as Alisa drank her melon soda, and they looked into each other’s eyes.

“I’m going to be honest with you. We’re going to lose to Yuki at this rate.”

“…!”

One of Alisa’s eyebrows twitched at his blunt statement. She immediately placed her drink down and sent Masachika a piercing gaze.

“…You sound really sure of yourself.”

“Because I’m right. Yuki has pretty much already established her position as the next president.”

Masachika shrugged, unfazed by Alisa’s sharp glare.

“Don’t you think it’s strange that we don’t have enough first-year members in the student council? Usually, we’d have at least three pairs wishing to run together for president and vice president. During the first semester of middle school, there were six pairs including Yuki and me. In other words, there were twelve members.”

“Twelve?! That’s a lot…”

“Sure is, but most of them dropped out during the preelection debate, so only three pairs ended up actually running for president.”

“Debate?”

“Yeah, a student conference. Oh, right. It’s only been a year since you transferred, so I guess I should explain what a student conference is first.”

A student conference was essentially a debate held in the auditorium to solve problems when the persons concerned weren’t able to come to a conclusion themselves or when general students had topics they wanted the student council to discuss. Each representative would then express their opinion, and the audience would vote. Every student would be a witness to what the student conference decided on, which gave the student council the power to execute and enforce those decisions.

“For example, if we hadn’t managed to solve the problem between the soccer team and the baseball team yesterday, we probably would have ended up having a debate in the auditorium. Making such a big deal out of it would have probably created a few grudges, though, so we usually try to find a point of compromise between the parties involved instead. We only hold student conferences as a last resort.”

“Oh, wow… I knew they were doing something in the auditorium from time to time, but I had no idea they were having debates.”

“The student conferences are organized by the student council, but, well, the president and vice president do most of the work, and we peasants mainly handle the application forms and help out with little odds and ends.”

“Interesting… But what do these debates have to do with the election?”

“Hmm? Oh… Student conferences are a little different when multiple presidential candidates are involved.”

In a lot of cases, they would hold a conference to address a clash of opinions about how the student council was run. It was essentially a debate. They would argue until there was a clear winner, so the debaters would be rated and judged by their performance.

“Once you’ve been judged for your magnetism, persuasiveness, and the like at a debate, it’s nearly impossible to change anyone’s mind. You’d be defeated before the election begins. I mean, think about how emotionally challenging it’d be to continue working with someone who just owned you in a debate, right? So most of the time, the losers end up leaving the student council on their own.”

“Now it makes sense…”

“So usually, you knock one another out of the race like this until there are only three or four pairs left. Not all people who run for president start as members of the student council, but even then, things are clearly unusual this year.”

Yuki and Alisa had been the only first-year students before Masachika joined. A few other members had joined temporarily, but each and every one of them eventually quit. In other words…

“Everyone has already given up because they know they won’t able to beat Yuki in the race. That’s just how confident people are that she’ll become the next president.”

“…”

“I don’t need to explain the merits of becoming the student council president at this school, right? The value of the title alone is huge. There was apparently widespread ballot manipulation a few years ago during the election…”

With mixed feelings, Alisa watched Masachika speak in an uncharacteristically earnest tone about the election. She was so used to scolding him for loafing around all the time that seeing him take his work in the student council so seriously threw her for a loop. It made her feel…off. Plus, she didn’t like the fact that Masachika seemed indifferent about being in a restaurant alone together.

Tsk. Acting all smug like this is nothing to you…

Since Alisa never had many frie— Since Alisa always had her guard up, this was actually the first time she had ever gone to a restaurant alone with someone of the opposite sex. She was even willing to admit to herself that the Russian she’d whispered at the door came from the heart. She’d assumed that being invited to a restaurant after school meant a date, thanks to Maria filling her mind with romance-comic knowledge. She was restless. Should she sit across from him? Next to him? What would they do if someone from school saw them? Would someone just happen to walk by and see them if they sat by the window? Countless worrisome scenarios ran through her mind, and yet it was like she was the only one who cared.

What’s his problem? Is he used to taking girls out to restaurants like this? I mean, I guess there are other girls he’s close to besides Yuki.

Alisa recalled his promise when they shook hands on the way home the day before, rekindling her fury. She tried to drink her melon soda and not think about it, but the frustration still didn’t go away. All of a sudden, she felt something sharp poke her tongue and opened her mouth in shock, only to discover that she had unknowingly chewed on the straw so much that it had completely flattened. No wonder I was hardly getting any soda, she thought, embarrassed by her childlike behavior.

“…But, well, thanks to that, our elections are supposedly clean now.”

Sitting across from Alisa, Masachika was still talking earnestly about the election, but everything went in one ear and out the other. Despite feeling obligated to listen, she couldn’t concentrate. At all.

“Oh, really? Interesting.”

“Right? So instead, candidates battle things out through a debate where—”

Alisa gave a half-assed reply without any thought before taking a bite of her parfait. The sweetness of chocolate and vanilla ice cream spread through her mouth…when she suddenly bit down on something hard. It was her spoon, which she swiftly pulled out of her mouth in a panic.

“Alya? You listening?”

“…!”

She felt a warmth in her cheeks stemming from humiliation and embarrassment as the person she usually scolded for not paying attention stared at her skeptically.

“I’m listening. I was just preoccupied with my parfait for a second. That’s all.”

“…Uh-huh. Well, it does look tasty.”

He half-heartedly nodded as if he understood, yet his dubious gaze was saying, “But is it really that tasty?” And her cheeks turned even redder.

What’s your problem?! The only reason I’m so distracted today is because of you, you know?!

Internally, she vented her extremely unreasonable anger and unjustified resentment, then looked away from his skeptical gaze. That was when she saw the parfait out of the corner of her eye and suddenly came up with a wonderful (?) idea.

Heh… Heh-heh-heh… Let’s see how focused he still is after I make him feel the same way I’m feeling!

Her own thoughts ignited her competitive side for some reason, and she grinned mischievously.

“Would you like a bite?” she said with a devilish grin.

“…?! Oh, no. I’m fine…”

“But you said it looked tasty, right? Don’t be shy,” she casually added while scooping up some whipped cream with chocolate syrup on top, then she shoved it right in his face, leaving him no room to escape. “Here, have some.”

The height at which she was holding the spoon made it obvious she wasn’t handing it to him, and while she didn’t say, “Here comes the airplane,” it was still obvious she was trying to feed him.

Huh? What’s going on? Am I locked in Alya’s route now? Wait. No. It’s not like we were flirting or anything…right? When did I trigger this route’s flag??

Masachika couldn’t contain his uneasiness, just as Alisa expected. His shock wasn’t as interesting as she had been hoping for, though.

“Oh, uh… Let me ask the waitress if she can bring us another spoon.”

“Don’t waste her time with something like that. Plus, you’ll just be giving them more silverware to wash.”

“But…”

What kind of humiliation fetish was this? Masachika unconsciously leaned back, but that only made Alisa further extend her arm.

“Hurry up and take a bite… This is normal in Russia.”

“Wait. Seriously?”

Most of what he knew about Russia came from movies and books instead of the motherland itself, so he thought that perhaps “indirect kissing” wasn’t a thing in Russia…

Okay, she’s clearly lying.

He immediately came to that conclusion when he shifted his sight from the spoon to Alisa, whose face was all types of mischievous at a glance…but after a closer look, he noticed that the tips of her ears and even her fingers were red. Her fair skin made it all the more visible.

What has gotten into her? Why would you do something like this if it embarrasses you?

After collecting himself, Masachika became more worried about her rather than being self-conscious. His expression made that clear, too, so Alisa came to her senses as well.

What am I doing?

She was immediately overcome with embarrassment once reality set in. Her entire body felt like it was on fire, feeling as if everyone in the restaurant was staring at her, and she couldn’t take it any longer. But she knew that backing down now would only embarrass her even further, so she kept the spoon in position while somehow managing to maintain her expression.

“Come on… The cream’s going to melt.”

“Oh, uh… All right…”

Masachika suspected she couldn’t back down now, either, so he gave up trying to convince her to stop.

I wasn’t expecting to have an indirect kiss here…but it won’t be a problem. I already prepared myself and toyed with the idea with Masha once before!

He may have jumped to conclusions previously, but the situation wasn’t that different. Feeling embarrassed meant losing, and he wanted to be a winner—which meant remaining calm and finishing this in style!

The only thing different this time is that the paper cup is now a spoon. That’s it… That’s—that’s a big deal! This is a spoon we’re talking about. Something that was just inside Alya’s mouth, touching her tongue. Putting that in my mouth wouldn’t be just any indirect kiss. It’d be…an indirect French kiss?!

Calmly assessing the situation ended with him unable to remain calm anymore. Right as his eyes drifted toward her lips, she said:

“Open wide. ♪”

There it was. As Alisa spoke, he caught a glimpse of her gorgeous white teeth and red tongue.

Ahhh!! Don’t show me your tongue! That’s way too graphic! My body can’t take any more! Ahhhhhh! Thank you for letting me know that beautiful girls have beautiful mouths, too!

On the inside, he writhed in agony. Perhaps it was his base instincts, but he obediently opened his mouth like a hungry baby chick would for its mother.

“A-ahhh…”

The spoon glided into his mouth, and he reflexively wrapped his lips around it. The plan to only use his front teeth to scrape the sweet dessert off the spoon completely left his mind.

Gwaaaaaaahhhhh?! I just had an indirect French kiss! We indirectly French-kissed!! Is it just me, or are we moving too fast?! Way too fast?! …Moving too fast for what?! What am I even talking about?!

Masachika imagined slamming his head against the concrete sidewalk outside and Yuki staring at him with a sleazy grin. “Heh. How did Alya taste?” she would say in the sleaziest of voices while patting him on the shoulder sleazily. Masachika would then stop hitting his head and get up just so he could backhand her in the face. She was a pain in the ass even in his imagination.

“…It’s sweet,” Masachika briefly commented, too flustered to say anything else.

“…Oh.”

But Alisa didn’t have it in her to criticize his reaction, so she simply pulled back her arm.

In fact, the entire mood is sweet! …This is all your fault, stupid sweet atmosphere!

How did it come to this? We were having a serious conversation up until a few moments ago. Wait… Nobody saw us, right?

Masachika darted his eyes about…until he thought he saw someone he recognized outside the window.

Is that…Taniyama?

He began to wonder if it really was her until Alisa cleared her throat, dragging him back into reality. After he returned his gaze to Alisa, she stared right into his eyes with a dignified expression.

“So how do you think we could beat Yuki in light of all that?”

Her eyes were firm as she continued to move forward in spite of the difficult situation. That’s what astounded him—the blinding glow of her soul as it lit up in the face of adversity.

You’ve gotta be kidding me! “How do you think we can beat Yuki?” Heh. Alya, you can’t just switch into serious mode and pretend like none of that just happened!

He may have been joking in his mind, but he kept all those thoughts locked away and played along since he wanted to avoid any more awkwardness.

“Heh… We just need to take a different route.”

“A different route?”

“We don’t have a chance of winning if we try to fight her head-on…which is why we need to change our method of attack and appeal to the students in a different way than Yuki does.”

“…Could you be more specific?”

“Hmm…”

Masachika’s eyes wandered for a few moments.

“It’s just like when people vote for their favorite idol in a pop group. You need everyone cheering for you in order to beat the lead vocalist—to beat the best.”

“…What are you talking about? Everyone already votes for who they like the most, right?”

“Not necessarily. While the student council presidential election is a popularity contest for the most part, fans don’t need to go register for their right to vote, unlike when voting for pop groups. Everyone in the entire school has to vote…which means people who don’t really care who becomes the next president will vote for the ‘safest’ option. In other words, they’ll vote for the former president in middle school, who already has results and is someone they trust. To tell the truth, I did the same thing during the last election. I chose the former president…and I was honestly surprised when someone else won.”

“Yeah… Now that you mention it, Kenzaki wasn’t even a member of the student council in middle school.”

“Right? And if the same two people elected in middle school run together in high school, there’s apparently a seventy percent chance they’ll be elected again, which makes it all the more impressive that Touya won when you think about it. Anyway, he had a story that gained the support of his peers and made people want to vote for him,” Masachika commented as he took a stack of papers out of his bag. It was a school newspaper from last year, which had been published by the school newspaper club. He flipped to a certain page and pointed at an article inside. “See the small featured segment here?”

“…Huh? ‘Touya Kenzaki, Path to Victory: Episode Five’?”

“Yep. A member of the newspaper club at the time found it interesting that an underachiever like Touya was trying to become the next president, so he interviewed him. Touya apparently gave the guy the okay to use his real name in the feature story, too, in order to keep himself motivated as well.”

“Hmph… I suppose you can’t let your guard down if you feel like you’re constantly being watched.”

“Yeah, I’m sure the guy who interviewed him was half teasing him, but anyway, over time, his appearance clearly started to change, and his grades improved. It began to actually look like a real success story, which got all the readers on his side and eventually led to his win.”

“So that’s what you meant when you said he had a story that made people want to vote for him? In other words, he showed the other students his struggles and hard work?”

“You catch on quick. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

Masachika smirked at his partner with evident satisfaction while lifting up his cup of café au lait to take another sip…but his mind had been focusing on something else the entire time.

So…what is she going to do with that spoon?

The spoon she had just shoved in his mouth, that is. It was currently lying on a napkin in front of Alisa, but she still had more than half of a parfait to go, and it was going to melt if she didn’t start getting to it soon. Did she not notice? Or was she pretending not to notice? Meanwhile, Alisa was diligently running her eyes over the copy of the newspaper that Masachika had brought…or at least, she was pretending to read while thinking about something else.

What am I going to do with this spoon?

…They were thinking the exact same thing. Now that she had calmed down, Alisa was dying from embarrassment. Not even she knew why she’d been acting so competitive earlier. I should have started eating the parfait right after feeding him, she thought. She could have casually gone back to using the spoon after teasing Masachika, and that would have been it. But after putting it down for whatever reason, it was getting harder by the second for her to pick it back up.

It’s Kuze’s fault for sticking the entire thing in his mouth like that… Have some tact, you creep!

Alisa glanced down at the spoon and was quick to blame Masachika for what had happened…when she suddenly noticed some markings on the spoon made from leftover cream, and she swiftly looked away.

H-his lips left a mark… I—I can see where his lips touched! His liiiips!

She got a little dizzy as she panicked. That was when Masachika hesitantly spoke up:

“Hey, uh… Sorry, but do you mind if I order something?”

“Huh?”

As Alisa blinked in confusion, Masachika looked around, then smiled somewhat bashfully and somewhat bitterly as well.

“The smell of food started to make me hungry again… I guess I shouldn’t be skipping breakfast, huh?”

“Oh… Knock yourself out.”

He opened the menu and flipped through a few pages until something caught his eye. A few moments went by after pressing the call button, then the waitress finally showed up.

“How may I help you?”

“Oh, I wanted to order something else. Is that okay?”

“Go ahead.”

“Uh… Could I get the sautéed spinach with bacon, the Szechuan mapo tofu, a side of rice…and two waters, please?”

“Sautéed spinach with bacon, Szechuan mapo tofu, a side of rice, and two waters. Correct? Anything else I can get for you?”

“Oh, I was just wondering if you could make this mapo tofu…extra hot?”

“Of course.”

“W-wait. Are you serious?” Alisa commented as she shrunk back. The waitress smiled cheerfully at her, then looked back to Masachika.

“You can get it double spicy, triple spicy, five times spicier, or even ten times spicier. What will it be?”

“Exactly how hot is ten times spicier?”

“Well, uh…”

After glancing to her left then right, the waitress lowered her voice and continued:

“…it’s honestly extremely spicy. I’ve tried it once, and I could only take one bite of it. It will destroy your stomach.”

“It will, huh? Nice.”

“What sounds nice about that?” Alisa interrupted with a straight face, but Masachika ignored her.

“Let’s go with ten times the spice, then.”

“Sure. Will that be all?”

“Oh, uh… Do you think we could get another spoon, too?” Masachika asked, pointing at the spoon in front of Alisa with his eyes.

“Of course. I’ll be right back,” the waitress replied without prying. After making sure she was gone, Alisa looked at Masachika, who was placing the menu down on the table.

“That wasn’t necessary,” she complained.

“You talking about the spoon? I’m embarrassed. That’s all. It might be normal in Russia, but Japanese guys can’t handle stuff like that.”

“Uh-huh…”

She seemed hesitant at first, but then her lips twitched up provocatively.

“I just can’t believe something like this bothers you, Kuze. You must be a lot more inexperienced than I imagined. I thought you were used to doing stuff like that with girls.”

One of Masachika’s eyebrows twitched in frustration, since he’d only been looking out for her.

“If you ask me, I’m more surprised that you don’t care. Indirect kisses must be rampant in Russia,” he hissed with a tense smile, causing Alisa to frown with her brow knit in silence. After a few moments went by, she complained:

“<I wouldn’t do it with anyone else but you, you jerk.>”

Achievement unlocked: You just scored Alya’s first indirect kiss! Congratulations, Masachika!

Thanks… Am I going to die today?

Masachika gazed out the window as he listened to the sudden announcement in his mind, but he was brought back to reality when the waitress suddenly returned with a new spoon.

“Sorry to keep you waiting. May I take your old spoon?”

“Oh… Thanks.”

After Alisa accepted the new spoon, Masachika turned his distant stare toward her and urged:

“Come on. It’s going to melt if you don’t hurry up and eat it.”

“…You’re right.”

She righted her awkwardly tilting parfait and began to stir everything from the whipped cream on top to the cornflakes at the bottom before taking a bite. She continued to eat like that for the next few minutes in silence, then clasped her hands together to express her thanks for the food before wiping her mouth with a napkin.

“By the way, I couldn’t help but notice how much you eat,” Alisa mentioned.

“Huh? …Oh.”

Masachika realized she must have thought he was snacking in between meals, so he decided to clear up the misunderstanding.

“This is actually my dinner.”

“…I’ve been wondering this for a while now, but don’t you need to call home to tell them you’re eating out? They aren’t surprised when you go back already full?”

“My parents aren’t there right now.”

“Oh…”

Plus, Masachika was usually the one who ended up cooking most of the meals at the Kuze residence, where he and his father lived. He normally cooked for himself while his father was out for work, too.

“Yeah, it’s just me tonight, and I don’t feel like cooking.”

Technically, he did have a little sister who would stop by unannounced and demand food from time to time as well, but she wouldn’t visit his place two days in a row…so he decided not to even think about it.

“…Wait. You can cook?”

Alisa was genuinely surprised. Masachika shrugged.

“I can only make easy things, though. You know, ‘hassle-free cooking’ or meals you can prepare in a few minutes, so I can’t make anything complicated.”

“I’m still surprised. I didn’t think you had the patience to cook.”

“Well, I won’t deny that.”

It wasn’t like he actually enjoyed cooking. He simply felt it was his easiest option. When he first started middle school, he’d have some type of savory bread he bought the day before, he’d have lunch at the school cafeteria, and at night, he’d have some sort of premade dinner that was sold at the convenience store. It only took a month until he got sick of bread, and shopping every day got old fast as well, so one day, he randomly decided to make a small meal he saw on TV. That was when he realized that the time he spent going to the store every day took no longer than it did for him to cook and wash dishes. Plus, his dad would give him two thousand yen per day for food on days he wasn’t going to be home, and whatever money was leftover would be money in his pocket to do whatever he’d wanted, so cooking for himself was a good way to save money. Put simply, he’d decided to cook for himself after weighing the pros and cons.