“I was about to fall asleep.” He answered, praying that she wouldn’t notice the oddly large bump on his bed. It would be a hard time trying to explain that one away to her. “So go away now.”

“But you were about to forget to turn off your lights.” She pointed over to how far away the switch was from his bed. “Not to mention you left your computer on too.” She stuck her head in deeper to see the screen still illuminated on the home screen.

“I was going to get to that.” His further attempts to shoo her did little to dissuade the girl from entering his room. Hakuta’s position with Rouko meant he couldn’t just get out of bed to force her out, since that would leave a notable bump on hid bed which would reveal the girl. “You don’t need to worry about me.”

“Actually I was hoping you’d worry about me for a bit.” She laughed, sitting at his desk to shut down the boy’s computer for him. “Ugh, I need to talk to you about something.”

“You can’t wait until tomorrow?” He asked, suggesting it so she’d get out. “I really was about to go to bed.”

“But you always are up for chatting.” She wondered what was wrong with him today to make him do something completely different than he normally would. “Is something wrong? I didn’t make you mad at me this time, did I?”

“No, nothing wrong here.” He did his best to keep his eyes from wondering where Rouko laid. Things were already bad enough as they were with this girl being here. Since that meant she knew the truth about them and he’d much rather Shiuka not be aware of this fact.

However the worst part of all this would be the position they found themselves in. It would be even more challenging to explain why Rouko was laying with him in the same bed while they tried to hide her presence away from the girl. At this point, Shiuka might get the wrong idea and think he was going after her friend instead.

Which would be a bit funny considering the perception of their relationship. Neither of them are viewed as close to each other. So the idea of them actually being a secret couple would’ve been a shocking twist. Well, this would be funny if Hakuta wasn’t stuck in the middle of what might potentially ruin his relationship with everyone else.

Meanwhile, Rouko was doing her best to stay silent. It took every muscle within her just to lie still considering the awkward position she laid in under his sheet. It was getting hot, owing to the fact there were more people on this bed than it was rated for as well as his real nice blanket. The girl certainly got all the scent of this boy, which was mostly just sweating from him freaking out in trying to hide away from Shiuka, who was sitting right on his desk.

“Anyway.” Shiuka continued to stick around. They were lucky she hadn’t been looking directly at them, instead laying back in his chair while facing the computer to talk. “I just wanted to talk about Iruka.” The name caught Rouko’s attention. Why would they be talking about one of their friends?

Since she wasn’t around when they talked with each other privately in Shiuka’s house. The girl was unaware of what their personal conversations were like. Perhaps Shiuka wasn’t that nice girl outside of their friend group and had some nasty words to say behind their backs. “You know, she almost blew our secret during dinner at Ninka’s.”

“Really?” He responded, shocked. Rouko was equally shocked and nearly gasped in reaction to his hearing this new. She covered her mouth to continue to try and hide her presence from their conversation. “How?”

“We were just talking with her parents at the dinner table and they asked why she moved here. Obviously it was because of her dad, so she said he works for my dad now.” This seemed normal, and while somewhat weird to others, wasn’t information either of them took issue with her divulging. “But then she almost told them it was cool since it meant she got to hang out with you all the time.” If Shiuka hadn’t stopped her by stuffing a bunch of food into that girl’s mouth, then they would’ve been done for.

“Thanks for letting me know.” He shook his head in disappointment. “I’ll definitely need to give that girl a piece of my mind later.” While it was nice to hear Iruka enjoy spending a bunch of time with him while her father was working. He knew her boneheadedness was going to catch up to them eventually. At some point they needed to figure out a plan of what to do with this girl.

Rouko couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Iruka had known all along about their secret as well. Now that she thought about it, did this have an impact on the way Hakuta treated her? She remembered he had originally said he didn’t want to be friends with her, but then appeared to change his tune for no apparent reason. Perhaps he was influenced to stick with her since she was aware of their living arrangements and neither of them wanted her to expose it.

“You know, sometimes I get really worried about us.” She sighed, leaning her head down. “I mean, we both just kind of agreed to keep this a secret so people wouldn’t get the wrong idea. But it’s kind of more than just that, right?”

“Well, I never thought I was going to meet other people’s parents.” He said, thinking about Iruka’s father or the fact that he met Ninka’s family. “With our classmates, I always figured they’d just harass us.” Which was likely to be true considering what he knew of the people he went to school with. They might be normally nice, but more outlandish ideas might get their mocking. That would be something he could live with, but didn’t want to have happen to Shiuka.

Ironically, she figured she could deal with whatever harassment came their way, but didn’t want him to deal with it either. “But I think after I’ve met them. Adults might feel a bit different on the matter.” It might’ve been a funny idea to teenagers. Especially as it sounded like something straight out of a romcom manga. But adults are a bit more practical than that.

Sure, their dads were more than fine with the arrangement since it allowed them to do whatever it was Shiuka’s father called a business. The same went with Iruka’s dad, and presumably her mom since they’ve never met her, who seemed to think it more of a funny situation instead. Perhaps it was because they trusted their own children, which made sense as they knew them better than anyone else. But everyone else outside of their lives would view this as massively irresponsible and someone might get in trouble for allowing this to happen in the first place.

“I guess I started feeling this way after what you told me.” She said. It was a piece of information that normally Hakuta would be the one to bring up. However he didn’t want this out when he was aware that Rouko could hear everything. “How you said you wanted us to live together for the rest of high school.”

The hidden girl’s eyes lit up upon hearing this. He was the one who wanted to continue to live with Shiuka? If she still held her previous poor beliefs on him, which she still somewhat she. Rouko might get the idea that he could be wanting to get closer to her friend and try and break her heart. But he lived here, so that would be stupid to do. Then what were his intentions.

“Maybe what I want just isn’t possible.” He replied, a bit disappointed in the truth. “But that’s just something we’ll have to talk to our dads about.” Hakuta figured they would be smarter about the whole deal anyway. Sure, his own dad was an idiot, but surely her dad wasn’t as dumb as him. If so, then there was no explanation as for how they managed to survive their trips.

“I guess you’re right.” She sighed, dissatisfied with the result of their conversation. “You know Hakuta, I have to say thanks that you’re always there for me when I need it.” Shiuka got up from his chair, but instead of leaving the room she got closer to his bed.

“That’s cool.” He might’ve reacted more positively if he wasn’t in complete fear about her seeing Rouko. The girl hiding also felt her getting closer, as she tightly tucked herself underneath the boy as best she could to avoid being seen or noticed.

He could feel her doing so too up against his back. This would easily be the closest a girl had been to his body ever in his life. And to do so in his bed should be a memorably moment, but in this case in all the wrong ways. “What are you doing?”

“I just wanted to do this.” She patted him on the head as if rewarding the boy. Only he was a human, not a pet, so he felt it a bit strange. “Hm, I guess you really were about to head to bed.” While she noticed a small bump next to him, the girl only assumed it to be a pillow for him to hug. There was no reason for her to suspect there to be another person, so it didn’t even cross her mind. “Anyway, good night.”

Shiuka finished up giving him that pat and headed out his room. She took care of the light for him and closed the door on her way out, leaving him in complete darkness.

After a short moment, Rouko shoved her head out from underneath the blanket and took a major gasp of fresh air. She breathed heavily for a bit as they both tried to calm down from this close call.