Chapter 90. Christmas Eve, Operation: To Kill A Mockingbird’s Love (2/8)

Today, my first target was lunch. Rosa helped Alicia to cook again, but it was still ultimately Alicia that did the strenuous work.

As for Irene, she’d requested long in advance to use her paid vacation at her workplaces to have Christmas Eve and Christmas off. I was the only one in the house that had to work today and tomorrow.

Nevertheless, it didn’t change the fact that I’d completely destroy Rosa’s plan to have Alicia confess.

While sitting together at the dinner table having lunch together in their dining room area, everybody was chatting amicably. I maintained my silence and patiently awaited my first opportunity to strike. 

“Rosa, did you listen to the song I recommended to you before? The new one that came out recently? Bad habits. What did you think about it?” Alicia suddenly asked about the song the two of us had listened to before. She really did like that song though. I’d seen her listening to it recently. She always looked quite happy when she did. Her head would often be bobbing around with her eyes closed and a wide smile on her face.

“Oh, now that you mention it. That’s the song you’ve been listening to a lot recently, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Yeah. It’s really good.”

“Sorry, I haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet. I’ll listen to it now.”

“Really? Gre-”

“EHEM! EHEM!” I rudely cleared my throat loud enough to interrupt their conversation before I said, “Irene.” I looked her in the eyes then rolled my eyes.

It was… embarrassing as hell to do that! I want to die. Please let me crawl into a hole and die. I didn’t even think of what to say. I’d just barely worked up the courage to strike off the one I viewed as the most troublesome one first.

When I saw Irene’s reaction, she was flustered and confused.

“Huh? What? Eh?” Her eyes were visibly confused. ‘What the hell was that supposed to mean? Was that a signal for something? I’m so confused! Be more clear! Why the hell can’t I understand your intent!’

I felt those were the sorts of questions she had swirling about in her head right now.

Honestly, the room had turned dead silent and awkward with my random action that made little to no sense. Even Rosa didn’t understand. She was asking me with her eyes, ‘Was that part of your plan to fulfill my request? I’m so confused! I don’t get it at all!’

As for Irene’s little brother. His reaction was one of wariness, ‘What is he trying to do here? Is he plotting something?’

And lastly Alicia. Ah, yes, the one who I was trying to make dislike me. She simply maintained an innocent look on her face. What I’d done, looked like it hadn’t bothered her in the slightest. She simply stared at me curiously a bit before she opened her mouth and asked, “Did you dislike the song?”

A bit caught off guard by her blunt question, I ran through my list of things to make her hate me in my head. Be a bore who can’t read the mood. “That song is terrible. Utter rubbish.” 

“Hahaha. Oh please, you’re just embarrassed because of what happened that one time and you wanted to change the topic, right? It was the first song we heard together and even danced to, right?”

When she brought that up I wanted to die. One of my greatest weaknesses.

“Oh~! So it was about that? I did walk in to see you two dancing that night after all. It does seem he is pretty bad at dancing.”

“B-Bad at dancing? Who, me? N-Never.” With this opportunity, I decided to invoke the card I’d labeled as a banned forbidden move. With this trump card, I was sure I could make Alicia lose all interest in me all in one go. Though it required a huge sacrifice, an offering in blood so great that even Gods would tremble when confronted by my overwhelming conviction, I resolved myself.

I stood up with my phone in hand while I sported a look so serious one might mistake me for a man headed off to war on a blood-stained battlefield. I played the song she’d just spoken of and broke out into a dance.

Yes, my ultimate forbidden move, ‘Dance with enthusiasm when nobody else is dancing.’

Everyone sat there for a moment as they watched me stupified. Everyone except… Alicia.

She stood up and started dancing on her own when she heard the song.

Don’t! Please! Stop! This is too much for me! Don’t actually get up and dance too! It was embarrassing enough for me to do this. I was ready to bash my head against a wall.

In the end, after only a minute I stopped from the overwhelming sense of shame and defeat I felt.

I collapsed onto my hands and knees and clutched my heart. The pain. It hurts. It hurts so bad. All the muscles in my body were convulsing and trembling. Why is this girl so weird! Why would you just get up and randomly start dancing when you hear a song? Do you have no shame, woman! Do you not know what the word embarrassing is?

Unable to take it I collapsed onto my side and started to twitch. That single minute of using my forbidden technique had taken a much greater toll on me than expected. I could only use that technique once per lifetime. Yet she’d deflected it effortlessly. Who was this monster? She was a foe I could not take lightly.

“Hey, Ran, why’d you randomly start dancing on your own?” Rosa squatted down beside me and asked.

“It’s all part of my plan to defeat you, Rosa. All… part of the plan…”

“It looks like Alicia thought it was fun though.”

“Kill me. Just end my pathetic existence right now, Rosa.”

“If it’s that embarrassing for you, then don’t do it.”

“If I’m not allowed to run away and keep my distance from her, the only way I can ensure she doesn’t confess to me is to make myself look as lame as possible. To completely kill off the idea in her mind entirely, and cut it off by the roots, I will need to suffer greatly.”

“Hmmmm… well, do your best, I guess. I’ll naturally be working against you though.”

“Ran, are you okay?” Alicia who had her eyes closed while dancing and enjoying the song only now realized I was collapsed on the ground.

As for Irene, she just watched quietly in amusement as I suffered on the ground.

Alicia’s little brother… his right eye simply twitched, unable to process the situation. ‘Is this also part of some nefarious plot that is umpteen layers deep? Just how deep does this rabbit hole go?’ Perhaps that was what he was asking himself right now. He really was convinced I was the devil. But no, this wasn’t anything deep. It was not 4D chess or anything of the sort, this was just a pitiful man trying to make a girl not become romantically interested in him.

Yet… somehow I felt like I was failing to do so.

What was next?

I rose to my feet unsteadily and made my next move. “Alicia, don’t you think your outfit is a bit bland and boring?”

She looked down at what she had on before she looked back up and said, “You’re right! I should change into something more in the holiday spirit! Good catch, Ran!”

What! No! No no no! That’s not it! That’s not it at all! That was my move, ‘Tell her how bland and boring her outfits are.’

When she ran off I knelt down onto one knee while I held onto the side of the chair to avoid collapsing again. This was damaging me not physically, but mentally. Every single move I made had been flawlessly defended against. This girl had no weaknesses. She was too strong a foe.

When Alicia got back she’d changed into a Santa girl outfit with a short revealing red skirt. I’m dead, was my first thought when I saw it. Of course an attractive popular girl would have one of these. Why did I even try? Am I an idiot?

“Oh! That’s really cute, Alicia!” Rosa cried out when she saw it.

Kill me. Please, just end me now. How am I supposed to say that looks bland and boring when she looks so good in it?

Irene gave me a ‘How’s that?’ sort of look. Alicia’s little brother, ‘So that’s what you were after all along!’

No! No it’s not, damn it!

Well, I never smiled when I saw it. Rather I put on a disgusted face and maintained my silence.

“Jeez, Ran, acting like you’re disgusted when you secretly think she looks really good in it. I get you don’t want to make me jealous by ogling her, but it’s fine you know.” Rosa loudly interpreted my expression in whatever fashion she wanted. My card, ‘Never smile at her’ was effortlessly countered by Rosa’s remark claiming I was being mindful of her.

Rosa similarly ended up changing into her own Santa girl outfit that Irene had from when she was younger. 

I was ready to just jump off a cliff and die. Christmas just wasn’t my battlefield, it was like playing an away game and I was severely disadvantaged by my social ineptitude.