The School’s Top Idol Is Acting Like She’s My Childhood Friend for Some Reason and Just Keeps Closing the Distance on Her Own…?! ~Stop Getting All Gloomy on Me Just Because I Turned You Down!~
By the time the ceremony ended and we returned to the classroom, I was mentally exhausted.
But the real test was just beginning.
Once back in the classroom, we were given instructions for the class photo and an explanation of the upcoming schedule, leaving us with a little free time before we were to meet up with our parents. The students instantly relaxed and began chatting with those sitting nearby.
Naturally, people gathered around Hoshimiya Rino.
A few girls, a few boys.
Even the students who had kept their distance at first began to close in, perhaps feeling relieved now that the entrance ceremony was over.
“Hoshimiya-san, you’re really in show business, right?”
“I watched your drama.”
“Is it really not okay to take pictures?”
“Which middle school did you go to?”
The questions came thick and fast.
Hoshimiya Rino answered each one politely. She asked them to refrain from taking photos on school grounds. She explained that she couldn’t go into detail about her work due to agency policies. But she said she’d be happy if they got along with her as classmates.
It was perfect.
So perfect, in fact, that it was exhausting just to watch.
I stepped back a little from the circle and was putting my handouts away in my bag at my own desk. I wouldn’t get involved. Hoshimiya has her own world. Even though a strange connection had formed between us yesterday and this morning, there was no need for me to step into it.
That’s what I thought.
“Hey, Takahara-kun.”
Suddenly, a boy nearby called out to me.
I still didn’t know his name. He was tall, with neatly styled hair—the type of guy who seemed like he’d be at the center of the class. He was a different breed from me.
“Are you Hoshimiya-san’s childhood friend?”
Here it comes.
The question I’d been dreading came sooner than I expected.
A few people around us looked over. Even the girls gathered around Hoshimiya were listening in slightly. I could sense that she herself was gauging my reaction while continuing the conversation.
I took a deep breath.
I have no choice but to set the record straight now.
It’s not too late yet.
We’re not childhood friends. We just happened to run into each other yesterday. That’s what I should say. I just need to state the facts matter-of-factly. Nip any unnecessary misunderstandings in the bud. It’s a basic rule of crisis management.
“No, we’re not childhood friends—”
The moment I said that, Hoshimiya’s fingertips froze.
She was still smiling as she answered the girl’s question. But only her hands, resting on the desk, had stopped moving. Her gaze wasn’t on me. Even though she wasn’t looking at me, I could tell she was waiting for me to speak.
The bench yesterday.
The look on her face as if she wanted to ask my name.
Her voice this morning when I returned her hoodie.
Her hiding half a step behind me in the hallway on the way to the gym.
All of that flashed through my mind in an instant.
This is bad.
If I flat-out denied it here, Hoshimiya would probably make that face like she was swallowing something again. But that didn’t mean I could admit we were childhood friends. I chose my words more carefully.
“…It’s not exactly like we’ve known each other for a long time.”
“Which is it?”
The boy tilted his head. I really think he’s right. I don’t even know what I’m saying myself. Then, Hoshimiya quietly stood up.
The atmosphere in the classroom shifted again.
She politely excused herself to those around her and came over to the seat next to mine. She’s so close. How many times today will I have to experience this kind of proximity? There must be a proper “top idol distance” for humans.
Hoshimiya placed one hand on my desk.
Then, in a voice loud enough for everyone around us to hear, she said,
“To me, he’s like a childhood friend.”
It was a way of phrasing it that left her a perfect escape route.
She didn’t state outright that I was a childhood friend.
But to everyone around us, it was interpreted as almost exactly that.
Just like a celebrity. She’s good with words. No, this isn’t the time to be impressed.
The boys let out a meaningful “Huh,” and the girls exchanged quiet glances. I could hear the sound of yet another unnecessary label being added to my high school life.
Hoshimiya looked at me.
There was a hint of anxiety mixed in her eyes.
She wants to push through with this.
But she’s afraid of being completely rejected by me.
Those conflicting emotions were flickering behind her beautiful face.
I felt like clutching my head.
This girl is really a handful.
For a top idol, why is she trying to close the distance in such a reckless way? Why is she looking at someone like me like that?
“…I mean, sort of,”
I said, grasping at straws. It wasn’t a complete affirmation. But it wasn’t a complete denial either. Rino Hoshimiya’s expression softened just a little. The moment I saw that, I felt like I’d lost.
“Yeah. For now, that’s fine.”
For now.
There was an unpleasant undertone to those words.
Hoshimiya returned to her seat with a satisfied look. The classmates around us seemed to have found more than enough fuel for gossip in that brief exchange. Whispered conversations began to spread everywhere.
Takahara and Hoshimiya-san—there’s something going on between them.
They seem to be like childhood friends.
They seem to have known each other for a long time.
Information gets distorted in the game of telephone.
By noon, I’ll probably have been rewritten as Hoshimiya Rino’s first love or something like that.
No, what scares me most is that she might actually say something along those lines herself.
After that, we met up with our parents and took a class photo.
In the class photo, Hoshimiya Rino was naturally positioned near the center, and I happened to end up diagonally behind her. The moment the teacher in charge of the photo said, “Move in a little closer,” Hoshimiya Rino took a half-step back in a way that seemed deliberate, closing the distance between us.
Our shoulders almost touched.
I reflexively stepped back a little.
At that moment, Hoshimiya’s profile froze slightly.
Here we go again.
It’s that thing where it looks like I’m the one who did something wrong.
I reluctantly returned to my original position.
Her shoulder brushed against my arm ever so slightly. Even though it was just a slight contact through our uniforms, once I became aware of it, I felt incredibly uneasy.
The photographer raised the camera.
“Okay, I’m taking the picture!”
At that moment, Hoshimiya whispered softly.
“You didn’t run away.”
“It’s just a photo.”
“But I’m glad.”
The shutter clicked.
I probably ended up looking terribly awkward in the photo.
As for Hoshimiya, she’s surely captured with a perfect smile. Or maybe—just maybe—it wasn’t her usual, ad-model-like smile, but a face that was just a little closer to the real thing.
By the time the entrance ceremony was finally over, I was completely exhausted.
The parents began to leave, and the students gradually filed out of the classroom. Before meeting up with my mother, I decided to take a breather in a quiet spot in the hallway.
Just then, I heard footsteps approaching from behind.
I didn’t even need to turn around to know.
It was Hoshimiya.
She stopped a few steps behind me.
The spring sunlight streaming through the hallway window cast a soft glow on her hair. The perfect smile she’d shown in the classroom had faded slightly now. Maybe because there were fewer people around. The tension in her shoulders had eased just a little.
“Do you remember when you said you wanted to talk?”
“I remember.”
“Then, just for a moment.”
I looked around.
There were students and parents down the hall, but no one was paying attention to us. We weren’t completely alone, but it was enough to talk.
Hoshimiya stood by the window, looking at the cherry blossoms outside.
The wind blew, and a few petals drifted toward the schoolyard.
“I asked for your name yesterday, but you didn’t tell me, did you?”
“Well…”
“It was a little frustrating.”
She said that and looked at me.
She wasn’t angry.
But her expression was one of someone recalling something.
“I’m not used to being helped in situations like that.”
“You’d think that would happen a lot if you’re a celebrity.”
“There are people who help me. But everyone helps me as Hoshimiya Rino. The people at my agency, the staff, the fans, and my teachers. Of course, I’m grateful, and I don’t mind it. But yesterday, even though you knew my name, you pretended not to.”
It wasn’t so much that I was pretending not to know as that I really wasn’t sure.
But it wasn’t the right moment to interrupt.
Hoshimiya looked down at her fingertips. The hands that had held the manga yesterday. The hands that had straightened my tie today. They were hands that seemed to be trying to grasp something, yet kept missing the mark.
“That felt… really comfortable.”
The buzz of the hallway grew distant.
Only her voice reached me, with startling clarity.
“You didn’t ask my name, you didn’t take a picture, and it didn’t feel like you were going to tell anyone. You just picked up my manga and treated something I love with care. I guess I’m a sucker for that kind of thing.”
Toward the end, she smiled slightly.
It was the kind of smile that seemed to show she was a bit flustered herself.
I didn’t know how to respond.
It would have been easy to say, “That wasn’t my intention.” And actually, that was true. I’d simply seen someone in trouble right in front of me—there was no cool reason behind it.
But saying “that wasn’t my intention” felt like it would deny what she had received from me.
So, after thinking for a moment, I said,
“I didn’t really do anything special.”
Hoshimiya looked at me.
“But if I were in your shoes, I think it would have helped me. If someone had picked up what I liked without prying into my personal life.”
Her eyes widened just a little.
I looked away and gazed out the window.
The cherry blossoms were swaying.
Spring is too bright; it’s a little too dazzling for a conversation like this.
“So, you’re free to cherish what happened yesterday. But please stop making up stories about us being childhood friends.”
Hoshimiya fell silent.
For a few seconds.
She didn’t say a word.
I wondered if I’d said too much and glanced at her out of the corner of my eye.
Hoshimiya had her lips pressed tightly together. She wasn’t angry. She didn’t look like she was about to cry either. She was just breathing softly, as if she were tucking something deep inside her chest.
Eventually, she slowly opened her mouth.
“…If I stop, is it okay for me to talk to you?”
Her voice was different from when she’d been insisting on the childhood friend act in the classroom.
It wasn’t the voice of a top idol, nor that of a perfect classmate.
It was the voice of the girl who had asked me yesterday on the bench, “Can we meet again?”
I was at a loss for words.
It would be easy to refuse.
If I wanted to protect my quiet high school life, I should probably draw the line here. Getting involved with Hoshimiya would definitely make me stand out. I’d realized that all too painfully in just the past few hours.
But.
Watching her standing alone in the hallway, I was reminded a little of myself yesterday.
That feeling of being left behind alone at the mall exit after parting ways with my friends. A loneliness as if I were the only one with the volume turned down, even though I was in the middle of a crowd.
Hoshimiya is probably surrounded by people far more than I am.
Even so, there might be moments when she finds herself standing in a similar place.
“If you’re just going to talk to me normally, that’s fine.”
The moment I said that, the tension drained from Hoshimiya’s shoulders.
She rested her hands on the windowsill and looked down slightly. Her long hair fell across her cheek, half-concealing her expression. But I could see the corners of her lips curving up ever so slightly.
“Then I’ll just talk to you normally.”
“Okay.”
“Like we’re childhood friends?”
“Normally.”
“Less than childhood friends?”
“Normally.”
“A candidate for future childhood friends?”
“Please abandon that concept.”
Hoshimiya gave a small laugh.
This time, her laugh sounded more natural than before.
I started to feel a little relieved.
Immediately after that, she looked up and said casually,
“But I already told everyone in class that you’re like a childhood friend.”
“Please take that back.”
“If I take it back all of a sudden, people will think it’s weird.”
“What we’re doing right now is weirder.”
“Then, let’s keep up the act for a while.”
“Negotiations have broken down.”
Hoshimiya narrowed her eyes like a child who’d pulled off a prank.
Seeing that expression, I finally understood.
She wasn’t just a vulnerable girl.
She was pushy.
Quite pushy.
What’s more, she understood her own cuteness and her influence on those around her to a certain extent, and she used it just enough to skirt the line of abuse.
She was way too much trouble.
“Seita.”
“What is it?”
“Want to walk to school together tomorrow?”
“No.”
I answered immediately.
Hoshimiya’s smile froze.
Again, just for a split second.
After that, she smoothed her lips as if nothing had happened, but the tips of her fingers resting on the window frame were curled inward just a little.
I felt like clutching my head.
When she reacts like this, it makes me look like the bad guy.
“…If we’re going to talk at school, let’s just do it normally.”
When I offered this compromise, the look in Hoshimiya’s eyes softened just a little.
“Then, let’s talk at school tomorrow too.”
“Normally, mind you.”
“Yeah. Normally, like childhood friends.”
“Please look up the definition of ‘normal’ in the dictionary.”
From down the hallway, I heard my mother calling my name.
It seemed it was time to meet up with the other parents.
I gave Hoshimiya a slight bow and started to walk away.
Just then, she gently tugged at my sleeve.
This time, it wasn’t the kind of showy gesture she’d made in the classroom.
It was a faint pull, just enough to hold me back a little.
“Seita.”
I turned around.
Hoshimiya immediately let go of my sleeve.
She brought her hand back to her chest and interlaced her fingers as if hesitating.
“I returned the hoodie from yesterday.”
“Yeah.”
“Can I borrow it again?”
“If it’s cold.”
“Even when I’m scared?”
I couldn’t answer right away.
Hoshimiya was waiting for my reply.
Spring light streamed in through the hallway window, softly illuminating her hair. It was a more fragile light, different from the radiance she exuded as a top idol.
I exhaled.
“…If you need it.”
Hoshimiya narrowed her eyes.
Her expression was a little too quiet to call a smile. But it left a much deeper impression on me than the perfect face she’d been putting on just moments ago.
“Then I’ll go make a reservation.”
“For the hoodie?”
“No.”
She took a step back.
From the other end of the hallway, I could hear mother’s voice again.
I had to go over there.
Hoshimiya stood there, as if seeing me off.
And then, she said quietly, just before I left.
“Next to Seita.”
Before I could reply, she turned her back on me.
Her beautiful hair swayed, and her school skirt fluttered gently in the spring light. Across the hallway, several students were still staring at her.
Hoshimiya Rino, accepting their gazes, flashed her usual perfect smile.
But I already knew.
That beneath that smile was the girl who had been clutching a manga on the bench yesterday.
That there was a girl who was surprisingly ordinary, and surprisingly fragile—one whose heart would race just from being saved by a stranger whose name she didn’t even know.
And that this girl would likely continue to come and disrupt my peace without hesitation.
I let out a small sigh as I made my way to my mother’s side.
The first day of high school.
My plan to keep a low profile, avoid trouble, and live an ordinary life had been completely rewritten by the school’s top idol.
And that top idol hasn’t given up yet.
She’s determined to create a nonexistent past where we’re childhood friends.
I like romantic comedies.
I’ve even been saved by stories that felt like dreams.
But when that kind of thing comes running at me full speed in real life, does it really make my stomach hurt this much?
What’s going to happen to me starting tomorrow?
Holding onto that anxiety, I looked back just once.
Across the hallway, Rino Hoshimiya was looking this way too.
Our eyes met.
She put her index finger to her lips and smiled softly, as if sharing a secret.
Then, she mouthed the words without making a sound.
See you tomorrow.
I pretended I hadn’t seen it.
Even though I pretended I hadn’t seen it, it stayed firmly lodged deep in my heart.
This is the worst.
And my high school life has only just begun.
Maigetsu