“W-w-well we’re not talking about me right now.” Shiuka immediately went into a panic to quickly attempt to turn the conversation back on Rouko. However the latter was an expert when it came to controlling and taking advantage of other’s emotions for the sake of a good tease. Though this time she did so for a slightly different reason.

“Well, I’m not sure why you’re the one getting mad at me.” She countered with a coy smile. “You’re the one hiding something from everyone else.” The girl made a reasonable point. They wouldn’t be in this situation if Shiuka hadn’t attempted to prevent them from realizing the truth about her and Hakuta.

“And you’re the one who went and… Did stuff with him in his room… All by yourselves.” When Shiuka was considering the circumstances of how she failed to see her friend then. “Wait, were you…”

“I definitely would never consider NTRing my best friend of all people.” She crossed her arms with slight giggles. It was absurd to think she might’ve considered the possibility, but her actions spoke quite loudly. “And sure, if I was fooling around while you were in the room, that would be one thing. But last time I checked, he’s not your boyfriend.” And she had never told them about her interest in the boy. So therefore he wasn’t someone who was considered off-limits.

“Sure, he’s not.” She got all flustered and averted her gaze in an attempt to remain focused. “This still doesn’t forgive you from going into my house with him.”

“He was trying to protect you.” Rouko finally admitted the real reason for her visit. “I was being stupid, thinking he was trying to hurt you and Ninka.” She told her about the attempted blackmail she had done to the poor boy. How he had felt so backed into a corner that he didn’t know what else to do but to tell the secret he had kept for so long.

“That’s… That’s so crazy.” She was at a loss for words at this revelation, but this story was also so insane that it bordered on the line of imagination. “How can I believe you?”

“Because I still have the picture I was going to use to blackmail him.” Rouko had lied to the boy about her deleting the image on her phone. While she did so in front of him, she had also kept a backup on her cloud storage. Initially that was a mistake, as she had forgotten about this feature and only saw so later down the line. However, there was a level of mistrust she had gained after he told her about holding back on telling the truth. So she ended up saving it for later as a ‘just in case’.

“Wow.” She took the phone from her friend’s hand to take a closer look at the image. It definitely looked as though she was dating the boy at a nice cafe. Were she to get this image sent to her out of the blue, she would be angry at the apparent deception Hakuta had done to her by trying to date all her friends. Even if it didn’t make any sense after all the complaining he had done about gyarus, but he could’ve always been a tsundere for them.

However, taking a closer look at the image showed her all the hallmarks of her friend faking it. She always had on a certain joker face that she had learned to get used to whenever Rouko had wanted to be a bit of a trickster. It helped her avoid being fooled, but she still fell for things from time to time.

“We were going to tell you after this trip, I promise.” Rouko said again. “But I just want you to know that he was just trying to do the best for you and him.” When she had listened in on that conversation shared in his bedroom. She could tell how much he deeply cared for her friend, his housemate. “That boy’s done some real stupid things, but his heart’s in the right place.”

“Rouko…” Shiuka took a short pause to take in all this new information. “I believe you.” It took a bit of convincing, but she finally came to take her word for things. While things seemed nearly unbelievable, they had already been through too many unbelievable circumstances for her to suddenly become skeptical. “But I still need to talk to that boy.”

“So you can confess your dying love for him?”

“Yes.” She answered, assuming this was still on the matter about this newfound exposure to the secret. “Wait, no, that’s not what I’m doing!” She quickly denied it as her friend laughed at her loudly. It seemed once she knew she was safe, or at least believed so, she went back towards taking things in a lackadaisical manner. “I know you backed him into a corner, but he really didn’t need to just blurt delicate matters so easily.” If that was how he reacted to blackmail, then it only worried her for their future.

“What’s up with you?” Rouko asked, still trying to hold back her giggles. “He’s just a boy, you’ve dated plenty of them. So what’s with the whole shy and denying act?”

“I’m not trying to deny anything.” She attempted to push past the girl to move on from this. “He’s just a friend, and we just happen to live together. What’s so special about that?”

“I think everyone would consider that to be special all right.” She followed along, pestering her as they walked on the sand. “So what’s the problem? If you don’t work out, things will be awkward because he lives there?” Which made sense, except for the part where Hakuta apparently wasn’t forced to live with her anymore. So if things did go south, then he could get out of dodge without any issues. “Or is it because of Ninka?”

“She does like him too…” She replied, making a statement which only served to depress her more. “I mean, I did kiss him before she said anything about being interested.”

“You kissed!?”

“Can you stop saying all this stuff out loud!?” She gave her friend a good bop on the head for being so careless. At this rate, she believed her living situation was going to be exposed because this girl was an idiot. “And it wasn’t anything special. It was just like the one I saw you give him on camera.” So the idea should’ve been the same way.

“No one you accused me of making moves on him.” Rouko took this information in a different way. “You were just projecting on me.”

“Why does everyone always think that’s what I’m doing?” Shiuka was exacerbated to be accused of the same thing that Hakuta had done to her. Of course he did so in a manner where he was ignorant on the reasoning for her saying what she said. “I’m a perfectly secure girl.”

“Said the most insecure person I know.” She replied, taking an arm to stop her friend from continuing on. They were nearly back with the rest of the group. The pair were able to see Hakuta as he had been doing some weird thing with Iruka that would make more sense if they were given context.

Rouko knew that their conversation on this matter would end for the day once they came back. And she wasn’t certain on whether there would be another opportunity as Shiuka would easily just avoid the topic every time it came up. “Be real with me, I’ll stop making fun of you. What do you honestly think of him?”

“If we were to say I was interested in him.” She responded, still avoiding saying outright what was the truth. “I just don’t know if it’d work out. There’s just so much going on around us. From living together and Ninka, I just don’t see how we could even date in the first place.”

“You always were the most reserved out of all of us.” Which wasn’t saying much considering she was up against Ninka and Rouko, who were beyond pushy and open about their feelings. So Shiuka would still be more expressive than 95% of people. “Look, I can’t force you to do anything with the guy and I can’t really do anything about the Ninka situation either.” Though in their friend group, there was no gal code. If they all wanted the same boy, then he was free game until he accepted one of them.

It was surprisingly effective, even considering Shiuka’s jealousy. But this was the reason for her to not go nuclear on her friends. Along with the fact that he wasn’t her boyfriend, nor had she ever announced any intention to pursue him. “But if you confess to him, then you can smell that boy all the time.”

“Rouko!” She pushed her friend in embarrassment over the knowledge on her taking a sniff of his bed sheets. “Whatever, I’m going to talk to him.” Shiuka shook her head and returned back to her usual cheerful demeanor. While it might’ve seemed a bit fake from the circumstances, she was truly being genuine.

After learning the truth about the night encounter between Rouko and Hakuta, she felt a massive weight had been taken off her shoulders. “Now let’s go, today’s supposed to be a fun day, right?”

“You got that.” Rouko chuckled in her reply as she watched Shiuka run down the sand to rejoin the rest of the group. “Well isn’t this all interesting?” The girl murmured to herself, thinking about the circumstances. “I wonder what he’ll do?” There were many options and choices for Hakuta to make that would change his life along with the rest of the others. Would he fall for Ninka’s continuing courting? Would Shiuka get over herself to be honest with her feelings? Would his heart go for one of them, or for someone or even something else?

Only time would tell.