I Drink Every Night With a Lookalike of a Popular Idol on the Riverbank
The December streets were buzzing with the excitement of year-end parties. After the first round and second round, I was finally free. Beside me, Chisato Narumi, staggering drunkenly, was clinging to me in an unusually cheerful mood.
“Hey, Aikawa! You hear me? One more bar! Come with me! It’s lonely going alone, you know!”
“Yeah, yeah. The last train’s almost gone, so walk properly… I’m walking you to the station…”
“That’s fine!”
Her slurred reply. I couldn’t even count how many times I’d heard it before, and a sigh mixed with laughter escaped me.
We were walking through the crowd heading towards the station, exchanging our usual banter, when it happened.
A familiar figure approached, head slightly bowed as if avoiding the crowd. A cap pulled low over her eyes, her face half-buried in a white scarf.
“Ah, Nanase-san.”
When I called out, she snapped her head up, eyes widening slightly in surprise. Then, seeing Narumi leaning against a utility pole beside me, her expression shifted to one of further confusion.
“Wh-what… Yosuke? What are you doing here?”
“Freeing a drunk. Had the company year-end party today.”
“Huh… So you’re carrying someone home, then?”
“It’s not like that!”
Nanase-san shot Narumi a glare. But then she looked at Narumi and gasped, “Ah…”
“Nanase-san, you know Narumi? She’s my coworker.”
“Hehehe~! Nice to meet you~! You’re his girlfriend~? Hmm… Huh!?”
Nanase-san stared at Narumi’s face as if she could bore holes through it. Her drunken, glazed eyes suddenly widened wide open, as if she’d seen something unbelievable.
“Wh-what? No way… Nagi—!?”
Her shrill voice nearly echoed through the night streets. My body moved before my mind could process it.
I clamped my free hand over Narumi’s mouth just as she started to scream.
Then, grabbing her arm, I practically dragged her into the nearest dimly lit alleyway.
A startled Nanase hurriedly followed us.
“Phew! Wh-what are you doing, Aikawa?!”
“Don’t yell like that out of nowhere. You scared me.”
“Bu-but…!”
Under the dim alley light, Narumi seemed to have completely lost sight of me. Her eyes were fixed solely on Nanase-san.
“…Um… could I, um, shake your hand?”
Taken aback by the sudden request, Nanase-san hesitated but gently held out her hand. Narumi grasped it reverently with both hands, as if touching a precious treasure.
Then, a few seconds later. Still holding her hand, Narumi murmured in a trembling voice.
“…………It’s real.”
“That’s why I said she’s a lookalike… Drunkard. If you call her name loudly, she might panic…”
Just as I made that retort,
For a split second, Nanase and Narumi seemed to exchange something with their eyes. Narumi desperately pleaded with her moist eyes, while Nanase quietly, yet firmly, seemed to restrain her. Was it just my imagination?
The next instant, Narumi snapped back to reality and exclaimed dramatically.
“No way! But you really do look just like her! Amazing! I totally get why Aikawa said that!”
“Ah… ahaha… I hear that a lot. I’m honored.”
Nanase also forced a somewhat strained smile, playing along. Still, it seemed she understood, which was a relief.
But Narumi’s excitement didn’t subside there.
“Wait… so that means…?”
She kept switching her gaze back and forth between my face and Nanase-san’s, over and over. She’d open her mouth as if wanting to say something, then close it, open it again, and close it once more.
Her eyes looked terribly confused.
Eventually, she started muttering to herself in a low voice, as if trying to convince herself.
“…My ido’ls happiness is the most important. My ido’ls happiness is the most important. My ido’ls happiness is the most important—”
“Na-Narumi? Are you okay?”
When I leaned in, genuinely worried, to look at her face, Narumi suddenly smiled brightly, as if she’d made up her mind.
“Y-Yeah. I’m fine. But…”
Narumi cut herself off there. To fill the silence, Nanase-san turned to me and asked, “What are you doing after this?”
“I’ll walk her to the station, then walk home myself.”
“Hmm… Well, I’ll help. Want to walk together?”
Nanase-san said this and wrapped her arm around Narumi’s. The three of us, with Narumi sandwiched between us, started walking toward the station.
“Oh… oh… Nagi-Nagi… this is…”
“I told you that person is someone else…”
I calmly called out to Narumi, who was on the verge of becoming a full-blown otaku.
“What’s your relationship with Yosuke, Narumi-san? Lovers? Not quite?”
Nanase-san asked Narumi with a smile, but her voice carried a certain pressure.
“Huh? Just colleagues. No way this guy is that.”
“Hmm…”
Nanase-san grinned, reaching around from behind to poke my back with her fingers.
Completely drunk and mistakenly thinking she was leaning on her favorite idol’s arm, Narumi seemed utterly oblivious to Nanase-san and me playing around behind her, making eye contact.
“Fufu… She hasn’t noticed, has she?”
Nanase said that, pointing at me with a laugh.
“She’s over here, isn’t she?”
I pointed at Narumi as I replied.
Nanase shrugged and said, “Well, yeah,” then turned to face forward.
Maiasa