"You dense idiot!" Kariu could no longer tolerate the dense idiot in front of her. She viciously threw her schoolbag at him, right at his face, with tremendous force.
"Ow!!"
Ōgami Kazuomi caught the schoolbag.
"Seriously! If you thought I looked like I was in danger, didn't it occur to you not to ask Lin Yan and figure out how to handle it yourself!? You're really unreliable!"
"No, it's just that even if I rushed in alone, it wouldn't matter if something happened to me, but I didn't want you to be unable to get saved too! It might've been lame, but I thought about it for a long time! I was really anxious back then!"
The moment he said that.
Kariu Rena's cheeks turned red again. She understood something: Ōgami Kazuomi had genuinely been worried about her, genuinely anxious for her. Her heart surged with emotion. Embarrassed and excited, she raised her schoolbag again to hide her feelings.
And Ōgami Kazuomi suffered for it.
"Ow!! Why are you hitting me!?"
"Well, thank you very much for that."
"Hahahaha!"
"What's with you!? You're getting hit and you're laughing!? That's terrifying!"
"No, it's just that we hadn't seen each other for a while after summer vacation started. It feels like it's been ages since things were like this! It's really fun."
"I see! You look happy, so that's wonderful!"
A thought suddenly surfaced in Ōgami Kazuomi's mind: he wanted to hold her hand. The impulse nearly drowned out all reason. A voice in his heart kept asking—Do you like someone now? Don't want someone else to take her away. Want to hold her hand.
Ōgami Kazuomi immediately thought of Lin Yan and sent him a message asking for help.
'What should I do, Lin Yan.'
'I like Kariu.'
The following Monday.