“Hey Shiuka.” He greeted her back as if nothing was wrong. Hakuta held on with him a bag which contain this new swimsuit. “You want to check out my new trunks?”

“No, that’s fine.” She was certain he only picked out a plain one that fit him perfectly. “It’ll probably be great when we head out to the beach. I already picked out a couple I think are cute.”

“That’s cool.” He was about to head up to his room to put away his things and rest up for a bit, but she stopped him.

“Oh, um.” She struggled to think of what to say. Shiuka couldn’t say she was angry with him, so this wasn’t a matter of blowing up in his face about this new information she gained. But it also made it a challenge to want to confront him right as he had gotten home. “Are there any girls you’re interested in?” She immediately kicked herself mentally for bringing up a stupid question that only related to this.

“That’s pretty direct.” He replied, feeling the slight embarrassment in talking about his feelings to another girl. “If it’s about Ninka, I already told you not to worry about her. I’m not into her, even though that doesn’t seem to be enough to get her to give up.” Personally, he was hoping she’d just meet another guy while they were at the beach and fall for him instead.

“I don’t just mean with Ninka.” She clarified, trying to find something in the house so she could talk without it seeming like she was mainly focused on the conversation. This needed to be natural so he wouldn’t get suspicious. “I mean, you’re a boy in high school. You’ve probably met tons of girls by now.” She settled on a nearby broom to pretend she was sweeping up some nonexistent dust.

“It feels like you should know me a little better than that by now.” He replied, walking up the stairs. She followed him up as the boy went and tossed his bag into his room. It wasn’t lost on him that she was particularly interested in this aspect of his life, but it didn’t tip him off as to why she was curious. “Is this about Ino? Because I know you weren’t really fond of her.”

There was a period of time where he noticed that Shiuka appeared to hold some disdain for their class representative. Mostly because she had complaints about how often it seemed he was asked to help that girl, but he also figured she might have a bit of a grudge on learning how much Ino disliked her for who she was. “It’s probably a little weird that I wasn to go back to her, but that’s just what I want to do.”

The boy had decided he really did want to be friends with her, even considering the unfortunate part about the dislike between the girls. Sure, that would put him in the middle, but he wanted both, not one or the other. “I’m not interested in her, and I doubt she’d ever want to date me seeing as we’re friends.”

“Sure, you’re not wrong there.” She conceded. This attempt towards getting him to fess up was going much poorer than she anticipated. “But you really aren’t interested in anyone?”

“Ah, I know what this is all about.” She tensed up as he apparently came to his revelation. “You’re projecting.”

“How so?” Shiuka asked with concern.

“Look, we probably can’t deny that you’re a pretty popular girl in school.” She was also very cute, pretty, and many other words that boys might describe her while infatuated with the girl. “And I know you talk to a lot of boys in class all the time.” It was abundantly clear to him most of those guys were trying to test the waters and flirt with her. Perhaps maybe build things up so they could ask her out with a high success rate.

Given all these interactions, he was willing to bet she had grown more interested in those boys as well. After all, they got closer after spending a lot of time together. So it was possible there was one who caught her eye. While he might have some personal feelings on the matter where he wasn’t certain if it should happen or not, Hakuta wasn’t going to be the one to deny her. “So don’t forget that I did say you shouldn’t worry about me.”

“Right.” She remembered what he had said a while ago. “Just because we live with each other, doesn’t mean we have to hold back with dating.”

“Yeah, as long as you tell me about the guy, I can work some things out so he doesn’t find out.” Hakuta was more than willing to bend over backwards for her sake. Though he hoped he wouldn’t have to deal with seeing whatever boys came along often at all if she would go out and date.

“You would do the same with me, right?” She realized this was her opportunity to strike. There was a way to weave in his apparent relationship with Rouko into this conversation so that she wouldn’t come off as suspicious. “If you started dating someone, you would tell me, right?”

“Obviously.” He answered, which was the truth. Though Hakuta couldn’t help but feel that he was lying to her considering Rouko’s knowledge of their lives. While she definitely wasn’t a romantic interest for him, the boy was hiding something from Shiuka. “I promise if I ever do date a girl, I’ll let you know.” Of course, during his planned time in high school while living here. The boy had no intentions of dating any girls at all.

“That’s good to hear.” She replied, ending her brooming session where all she did was sweep the same exact spot throughout most of their conversation. “Anyway, I need to do the laundry.”

“You haven’t done that yet?” He was a bit disappointed in her supposed procrastination on the chore. If only he knew the true reason for her being late on it. “Oh well, at least that means I can just throw in my bed sheets in with the rest of it too.”

“You were just waiting til it was my turn to make me do all the work.” She sighed as he brought along his bed sheets and blanket down with her to the laundry room. “Just know you owe me.”

“Yeah sure, whatever.” He left her alone to allow the girl to finish the job. She still knew he had to be lying, yet his response to her seemed genuine. In fact, he seemed to be oblivious that there was even a possibility of him dating someone. Which would be odd if he was sneaking around with Rouko behind her back.

But he had to have been, she had seen it on video. This wasn’t something someone just told her for the sake of spreading rumors. There was no possible way she could be wrong in what she say. No way that video was faked at all.

As the girl loaded in the clothes for laundry, she found herself holding up the bed sheets he had handed her. Shiuka remembered there was one piece of information she had yet to find out when it came to Ruoko’s apparent visit. Which was the matter of where she was while she was here.

The girl had come right before Shiuka had returned. According to the camera, she didn’t leave until after she had come back for quite a while. Which surprised her seeing as she had talked with Hakuta in his own room, but didn’t notice anything weird.

Except for the fact of him acting rather strangely. Along with him laying in bed despite all the lights and his computer being on. Now that she was aware of the truth, those actions did seem more weird to her than anything else now. As if he was trying to hide something.

This was when she looked at the bed sheets she held in her hands. He had just given them to her without a care in the world, but what if they held the answer to the question she had been asking. If so, then it might confirm to her something which she wished wouldn’t be the case.

All she would have to do was sniff it to see if that was true. Shiuka looked over her shoulders to ensure he wasn’t nearby to see her. What she was about to do was wrong, creepy even, but knowing that didn’t stop her. Slowly, she put the sheets up to her nostrils to take a wiff of the bed sheet.

It certainly had his scent left on it. Not an amazing scent, yet one she couldn’t say was one she disliked either. Shiuka had gotten more than used to his smell, but getting a close aspect of it make her feel a bit excited.

But there was also something else which killed the excitement in an instant. For there was another scent to his sheets, one that she could tell wasn’t his. Not only that, but she quickly knew whose this belonged to as it was a scent she had gotten used to knowing over. The scent of Rouko’s perfume.

Shiuka immediately was taken aback from the bed sheets. There was no way she could be wrong, but at the same time she knew what it had meant. Her best friend Rouko had laid in the same bed as Hakuta at one point. In a rush, she shoved it along with the rest of the laundry, as if trying to clean the thoughts out of her mind as she hastily poured in the detergent and set it to wash.

How could she go about confronting them over this matter? With their beach trip right around the corner, she didn’t want to ruin the fun for everyone else, but what else could she do?

Though Shiuka felt a mix of anger and betrayal, she knew she couldn’t just be mad at him. While he had gone behind her back and lied about going out with Rouko. She should be happy if two of her friends were together and enjoying each other’s company. Yet she felt that nagging part of her wanting them to break up. Which only served to make her more guilty on the matter, preventing her from wanting to speak up.