A Mob, Desperate After Being Ntr’d by a Coworker, Attends His High School Reunion for the First Time in 10 Years, and for Some Reason Is Approached by Four Beautiful Girls
When I got home, I took off my suit and when I was taking things out of my pockets, I found a card I got from Akamura-san.
Ah… What should I do with this?
Should I contact her in case?
I tried to call her, but as I thought, I couldn’t get through.
If she is as popular as Akamura-san, she must have been at the after-party or something.
The commonality of the card suggests that Akamura-san may have been the sender of the letter….
No, it’s not possible…
Well, let’s not think too deeply.
I took a quick shower, changed into a nightclothes and fell asleep like I’d fainted.
◇Monday 9 September
I wake up to a beep-beep-beep alarm on my mobile phone.
The time is… …8:15.
….8:15!
Huh! I’m late, aren’t I! I jumped up, but I relieved that I take a day off today
If I can’t do much work and if I’m late, it’s really over.
A good subordinate and a strict boss… Being caught between the boards is really tough.
Then I looked at my mobile phone again and found seven incoming notifications on it.
All of them were from Akamura-san.
… Seriously. Is this the one I didn’t answer?
But I can’t even call her back this early in the morning…
As I was thinking that, my mobile phone rang again.
What was displayed was Akamura-san’s phone number.
What should I do…? I reluctantly picked up the phone
“…. H-Hello?”
“Ah, Natsuki-kun, right?”
“Y-yeah…
I’m sorry I didn’t answer the phone. I fell asleep…”
“I’m sorry too!
Even yhough you contacted me..And…
I gave you a bad time yesterday, didn’t I? I’m sorry about that too..”
“Oh, no… I’m used to it. Don’t worry about it.”
I used to get that sort of thing at company drinking parties. Like, ‘Wow, he’s here’.
I haven’t heard from anyone since the beginning of the class reunion…
“So, um…
I’d like to talk to you alone.. is that possible? Like today if you don’t mind.”
“…
Talk? I’m off today, so it’s fine…”
“I see.
Then that’s good… Well… I have something important to tell you.”
Important talk…?
Could it be that that letter was written by Akamura-san after all…?
“…
I understand. Where should I go?”
“Well, do you still have yesterday’s paper?
I want you to come to the address written there!”
Paper… Paper…
Check the paper I was given yesterday.
“Well… Um, there it is. Do you want me to go here? What time should I be there?”
“Any time…
Any time around lunchtime! I’ll leave it to you!”
“…
All right.”
Then she hung up the phone.
… This is… What is going on?
No, don’t get carried away…
It doesn’t necessarily mean that yet…
Even as I told myself this, I was a little excited by my good fortune, which was enough to make me forget all the bad things I’d been doing recently.
I chose the most fashionable clothes I could, set my hair properly and headed for the address written on the paper.
◇13:10
It was supposed to be around noon, so I arrived a little after 13:00.
The address written on the door was a designer flat near the station, which seemed to have been built quite recently.
“… Amazing house.”
No, she normally has a boyfriend.. No, even husband. No, I guess she’s got one, right?
even a child…
When I think about it, my stomach starts to churn.
The gap between her life and my own is making me mentally ill.
With this in mind, I fearfully enter the room number into the auto-lock intercom and press the call button.
[Beep, beep]
Then, immediately, ‘Yes! Ah, here youey are! You can come in!’ and the door opens.
As it is, I tell myself to accept reality, get into the lift and press the intercom for her room.
“…Yees”‘
[Illustration]
https://kakuyomu.jp/users/tanakamatao01/news/16818093089281425621
What came out was Akamura-san, wearing glasses, a hoodie and jeans, dressed quite roughly.
“Sorry to keep you waiting! Sorry, I called you out suddenly…”
I was embarrassed at myself for having come dressed up in style.
Or rather, I was convinced that no matter how I looked at it, it wasn’t the flow of being told she liked me, so I visited her house with a sense of disappointment.
“.. S-sorry to bother you…”
The house was stylish but not that spacious.
This is… Living alone… Right.
As I sat on the sofa, scurrying around and waiting, Akamura-san brought me two cups and said, ‘Sorry to keep you waiting~’
“So…
What’s the story?”
“Well…
Well, where should I start? Well, I have a lot of friends, don’t I?”
“Huh?
Uh, yeah…”
How do you start a conversation?
“Well… So, your name is Serizawa Kana chan, right? Natsuki-kun’s ex-girlfriend. She’s a friend of a friend of mine.”
Unexpectedly, I am stunned by the name of the ex-girlfriend that came out unexpectedly.
“… Well… I heard about it. The fact that she’s going out with Natsuki-kun…. I also heard what happened… That’s why I was really worried… I wondered if you were okay. Yesterday, you seemed really down. So… I want you to tell me if there’s anything I can do.”
So that’s what she meant.
No, it’s more like that.
She’s always been a good person, gets on with everyone and reaches out to people she’s never met before.
You haven’t changed, Akamura-san.
“… Yeah. I’m fine. Already.”
“Did you cry properly?
Did you talk to someone about it? Have you found someone you like?”
“..
No. I don’t want to do that anymore… In the end, I’m sure the reason she cheated on me was because of my inadequacies. If I can’t even see the reason for it, then it’s no wonder she cheated on me.”
“…
Do you really believe that?”
I look at her face involuntarily at those words.
She looked me in the eye as if she could see right through me and said again.
“Do you really think so?”
I’m an idiot
There’s no need to lie now. Or did I want to be cool?
Did I think that perhaps we could get back together again through Akamura-san?
How stupid am I?
Biting down hard on my back teeth, I speak my true feelings.
“… No The truth is… I hate it so much…”
Emotions explode at the worst possible time.
It’s as if it happened yesterday, and begins to boil over and re-boil in the pit of my stomach.
I should have cried properly somewhere.
If I had done that, I’m sure it wouldn’t have happened.
“It’s… It’s okay, don’t think about anything. Let out everything you’re thinking.”
With such sweet words, I let out my words as I felt them.
“I thought of him as my best friend too…! Why, why! Did I do something wrong ?I wonder if he was always laughing inside! I…seriously…I loved her…”
“…yeah”
Akamura-san didn’t deny the dirty words coming out of me, she just nodded at everything and gently rubbed my back.
A few months have passed, and the feelings I’ve been putting off will come back one day.
I think I probably cried for almost an hour.
After I finished crying, I felt a sudden rush of embarrassment.
A 28-year-old, mobbed-up man who seriously cries because his girlfriend has dumped him.
Oh, it hurts… This hurts…
While I feel such awkwardness, Akamura-san doesn’t seem to mind at all and talks to me normally.
“Do you remember Yuri? Yuri recently got married and had a baby. Seeing her like that makes me think that I want a boyfriend soon too, or maybe I want to get married.”
“Oh, really…You don’t have a boyfriend, Akamura-san?”
“No, I don’t. I had an ex-boyfriend about three years ago.”
“I see. “
‘Surprising, isn’t it?’ she said that with a mischievous laugh.
“Well… It’s certainly surprising.”
“Right? I’m popular. Well, when you’ve been popular for 28 years, you can usually tell when you first meet someone. What kind of person that person is. What do they see in me? Is it my body, my face, my heart?”
I can’t empathise, but I kind of understand.
Incidentally, what does she think in me?
“…That’s a secret,” she said, as if he could see right through my heart.
After that, we didn’t do anything in particular, just watched TV together somehow, talked from time to time, and time just passed.
The next thing I knew, it was evening, and I thought it was time to go home, so I started preparing to go home.
“Ah, I’m going home soon… Thank you so much for today.”
“Huh? Are you going home? Let’s have dinner together.”
“Eh? But… Isn’t that a nuisance?”
“‘It’s not a nuisance. You’re being too careful. We’re friends”
Friends…
But I appreciate her putting it into words like that.
Perhaps this kind of distance is her experience.
“.. Yeah. Then, dinner… Shall I have some?”
“Yes.”
Then she started cooking as she was used to doing.
After about 30 minutes, what came out was an omelette rice.
It was a fluffy omelette rice, just like in a restaurant.
The omelette rice had this written on it in ketchup.
[LOVE]
[Illustration.]
https://kakuyomu.jp/users/tanakamatao01/news/16818093089300700987
“I’ve only ever cooked for my boyfriend.”
…the person who has been popular for 28 years was still on another level.