“You’re one of those rental girlfriends, aren’t you?”

“Eh? What are you talking about, Ruka? What do you even mean by rental… girlfriend?”

Ruka doesn’t say anything to Chizuru and walks past her to the bathroom, leaving Chizuru there.

‘What the fuck?’

…

Kazuya was halfway up to his climb to the top when he heard a panicky voice call out to him.

“K-Kazuya…”
He looked down and saw Chizuru with her fists clenched and her face looking like she’d been through a war.

‘What’s wrong with her?’

He doesn’t waste much time and jumps down to the soft bed below.

“Everything all right?” He holds her hand and brings her to the seating area, looking at her with concern.

“She knows!”

“Chizuru… take a deep breath, calm down and tell me the situation from the start.” He tried to calm her down since he could tell that she was panicking

Chizuru is quick to follow his advice as she speaks with a calmer voice this time, “She knows that I’m a rental girlfriend.”

“What exactly happened?”

“We were walking to the bathroom and suddenly, she stopped and told me that I’m one of those rentals.”

“She told you? Damn, how sure does she have to be to act like that? What did you do after that?”

“I denied all of her claims. What else was I supposed to do?”

“All right, let’s think this through calmly. She was certain that you are a rental, right?”

“Right.”

“Why would a girl even know about the existence of the concept of a rental girlfriend... It’s not exactly a popular thing… Unless my joke ended up becoming true.”

“What joke?”

“I have a lot of doubts that Kuri could land someone like her. She’s either a prostitute or a rental. I’m gonna go for her being a rental, prostitutes aren’t that classy. At least ones that Kuri can afford.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, “You seem to know a lot about prostitutes.”

“It’s all stuff that I’ve heard from others and media.” Kazuya looked away and raised his hands.

Talking about the problem with Kazuya who helped her calmly analyze it, Chizuru was now much more relaxed and in the capacity to make jokes herself.

“Well, if she’s a rental then things are much easier.” Kazuya took out his phone and spent a few minutes searching for her online.

“I guess…” 

“Well, this proves at least one thing…”

“Stop making things suspenseful and tell me.” Chizuru pulls at his arm and shakes him.

“All right, all right. Geez. Look,” Kazuya shows Chizuru Ruka’s profile on her agency’s website.

“Motherf…” Chizuru stopped herself from screaming out when she saw that Ruka was also a rental.

“I’m reporting her. How dare she threaten a co-worker-“ Chizuru was about to furiously start typing on Kazuya’s phone before he pulled it away from her hand.

“All right. Let’s not make any hasty decisions. I’m sure that if she did this, she doesn’t give a shit about her contract being breached.”

“But-“

“It’s fine. You just need to calm down and leave it to me. I’ll go and take care of Ruka.”

She narrows her eyes and says, “Why does it sound like you’re about to go murder the girl?”

”If nothing else works, that is our last option.” Kazuya says with a dead serious face.

“What the hell?” Chizuru is terrified and starts stepping back from him.

He smiles evilly and steps closer to her. Quickly grabbing onto her waist, he pulls her toward himself and turns toward the wall, trapping her between him and that wall in an inconspicuous corner.

Gently bringing his hand to her hair, he tucks one side behind her ear. Chizuru is completely frozen like a deer caught in headlights and is unable to comprehend what is happening.

“Do you get it now? You pretty much delivered yourself to a serial killer on a silver platter.” He whispers while looking into her eyes with an evil look.

When Chizuru finally gets back to reality her first instinct is to utilize her self-defense training and try to knee Kazuya’s balls.

Knowing that something like this was bound to happen after the time at the beach restroom, Kazuya quickly closes his legs tightly, trapping Chizuru’s knees between his thighs.

‘Phew… That was close.’ He inwardly sweats.

“Such a bad girlfriend, trying to hit your boyfriend like that.” At this point, Chizuru was feeling completely helpless in front of Kazuya but somehow she wasn’t averse to it.

Instead, she was feeling a little anticipatory toward his next course of action.

Kazuya then forcefully kissed her. It was nothing like the last time at the ferry when he was as gentle as possible with her. This time he wanted to dominate her to make her feel his passion completely.

She thought that he’ll let her go after a little peck like last time but when he didn’t pull back and instead deepened the kiss, Chizuru wasn’t able to do anything to stop him since he was just that good at it.

After a few seconds Chizuru started actively responding to his actions.

Soon, her arms were around his neck and he felt her up while getting more aggressive in the kiss.

A few minutes later, he pulled his face back from her as she took deep breaths after finally being let free. He’d only pulled back his face and Chizuru was still completely trapped as he got close to her again.

“Try not to resort to violence so much with me. I don’t usually do anything with you because I like you, but if it was anyone else, there would be hell for them to pay, understand?” Even though he just got a hot makeout with Chizuru, his face was completely impassive.

Kazuya wasn’t joking here, he was just playing around with her and wasn’t going to do anything, but her act of trying to hit him was a minor trigger for Kazuya. Once or twice was going to be fine for the sake of it being funny but if this kind of thing became a regular thing he wasn’t going to tolerate it.

“Then don’t startle me like that… With the rental thing that I do usually. I get… jumpy when I get startled.” Chizuru says to him in a soft voice while looking down.

“…I understand… But I just hope that you can let down your guard around me if you trust me.” He says in a soothing gentle voice.

“But try not to be so violent with me. Consider this your first lesson. Next time this happens, I might give you a spanking for real.” He uses the same tone that he used on that day when they did their impromptu role-play and brings out a blush from Chizuru as she recalled their trip in the hot springs.

“So you guys are truly together… I see. I’m sorry for trying to ruin your date by accusing your girlfriend.” Suddenly they are both interrupted by a girly voice.

“Who?” Chizuru is startled and tries to move to look at her. And fails.

“Let me go!”

“No.”

“Why?”

“You did something bad. The least you could do is apologize.” Kazuya acted as if that voice just now didn’t even exist and continued talking to Chizuru.

“But…”

Kazuya doesn’t say anything and keeps looking at her.

The iron lady finally decided to back down since she realized that she was really in the wrong in this situation and she was a bit of a bitch to someone who was one of her only real friends, if not more.

“I’m sorry for trying to hit you. Repeatedly.” She looks down guiltily.

“That’s my beautiful girlfriend.” Kazuya gave her a loving kiss on her forehead and finally pulled back, letting her go.

Just as he let go, Chizuru realized that the both of them did all this in a public place and wants to hide in a corner.

She completely forgot about the person who called them both out.

’So… This chick seems like some sort of interruption magnet. I should keep her away. From everything.’ Kazuya turns to look at Ruka who was looking away since their actions were utterly jealousy-inducing.

“Ruka? What do you mean by what you just said?”

“Well about that… You see, Mizuhara-san here is a rental girlfriend, so I thought that -“

“You thought that she can’t have anyone who would appreciate her for who she is? That’s presumptive.” Kazuya is pissed at Ruka since she pretty much ruined both his and Chizuru’s date today with her bullshit.

“No, I-“

“You think that she’s a rental so she doesn’t deserve love?”

Ruka doesn’t say anything and walks out of the place without looking back.

“Shouldn’t we stop her? She might tell someone.”

“I doubt Kuri will even be talking to her anymore. She’s a rental and she just walked out on a customer.”

“I guess you’re right.”

Soon Kuri came back from where ever he’d gone and asked the two of them if they saw Ruka. 

Kazuya told him that he didn’t see her and Kuri walked out after saying his goodbyes since the time was pretty much up anyway.

“You still in the mood to continue our date?” Kazuya says with annoyance after this bust of a double date.

“…Well, I already freed up my day and don’t have anything to do. So, can we? Please.” She looks at him with big puppy eyes.

“Can’t say no to those puppy eyes now can I.” 

They both change up into their date clothes from the sporty outfits they’d worn for the rock climbing.

“Shall we?” He extends his hand to her.

“We shall, hehe.” She cutely giggles as she grabs his hand.

“We’ll need to take a detour, I want to drop off our bags at our apartments,” Kazuya told her.

“No problem.”

“Where are we going anyway?”

“We still have quite a bit of time so I was thinking that we could hit up the trampoline park.”

Chizuru narrows her eyes at him, “Why do you want to go to the trampoline park?”

“Cause it’s fun jumping around and playing on a trampoline?” Kazuya says to her as if he was asking her with an innocent expression.

“You don’t have any other intentions?”

Kazuya’s gaze involuntarily drops down to her chest for a microsecond before he pulls himself up, “Of course, I don’t.” He speaks in a righteous tone.

She scoffed with a “Yeah right.”