After dessert, Hyuga Bin and Kurenai went for a walk down the street to aid their digestion.
"Bin, could I ask you to do me a favor?" It was only when they were nearing a fork in the road that Kurenai cautiously asked Hyuga Bin.
"What is it?" Hyuga Bin did not immediately agree.
Before knowing whether he could do it, Hyuga Bin would not blindly agree to someone else's request.
"Well... I want you to be my boyfriend." After saying that, seemingly afraid Hyuga Bin would misunderstand, Kurenai hurriedly added, "The kind where you only pretend to be my boyfriend temporarily."
"Kurenai, do you want me to help you deal with Asuma's confession?" Hyuga Bin understood what Kurenai meant. She wanted to use him as a shield.
He had never expected such melodramatic plotlines, usually found in television dramas, to happen to him.
If things developed according to television drama logic, wouldn't he and Kurenai end up becoming real after pretending for so long?
"You could put it that way." Kurenai did not deny it.
"Kurenai, I can't agree to this." Hyuga Bin did not follow the usual television drama script and immediately rejected Kurenai's request. "I know you said you don't like Asuma, and even after you rejected him, Asuma kept pursuing you, which has been bothering you. But I don't think pretending to date someone in order to get rid of Asuma's pursuit is right.
"You can tell Asuma more clearly that his pursuit makes you feel burdened, and ask him not to keep focusing his attention on you. I believe Asuma will understand. He isn't the type to keep clinging to you."
"I'm sorry, Bin. I was being too presumptuous and didn't think it through." Faced with Hyuga Bin's reasoning, Kurenai did not get angry. Instead, she looked at him apologetically.
"Kurenai, you don't need to apologize. I just couldn't help you." Hyuga Bin pointed at the fork before them. He and Kurenai headed home in different directions. "All right, let's leave it here for today. See you tomorrow."
"Mm, see you tomorrow." Kurenai nodded and watched Hyuga Bin leave.
Kurenai had a little secret. She had actually had a crush on Hyuga Bin since their days at the Ninja Academy.
Of course, she did not like Hyuga Bin merely because he was handsome. She was not such a shallow girl.
Back at the Ninja Academy, she had watched Hyuga Bin. He was more mature, sensible, polite, gentle, hardworking, diligent, and self-disciplined than the other boys in class... and handsome, too.
It was hard for her to imagine how a boy could possess so many virtues. If Hyuga Bin had not occasionally roughhoused with the other boys, she would have thought his perfection was unreal.
Unlike the other girls in the Ninja Academy, who focused their attention on the two "star students," genius Hatake Kakashi and the Hokage's son Sarutobi Asuma, she preferred to pay attention to Hyuga Bin, who sat in the row ahead of her.
Later, she realized that she had secretly fallen for Hyuga Bin and enjoyed watching his every move.
But she did not dare confess to Hyuga Bin, because he only saw her as a classmate.
Even after graduation, when she had not been assigned to the same squad as Hyuga Bin, she could only occasionally hear about his deeds.
Yet not seeing Hyuga Bin for such a long time did not make her crush fade.
Over the past two years, many of their classmates had started dating, and the feelings she had long suppressed began to stir with longing.
A young girl's heart was always full of romantic yearnings.
Shyly, she sought out her cousin Yūhi Meiko, who had been in love many times, hoping to get some help from her.
Yūhi Meiko truly deserved her reputation as a romance expert. Upon hearing that Kurenai had a crush on a boy, she immediately devised a whole series of plans for her.
They included the first "chance encounter" at the dessert shop, the failed second "chance encounter" at the training ground, the third "chance encounter" at the dessert shop, and a series of moves after the "chance encounter": feeding Hyuga Bin a small cake, wiping his mouth, and asking Hyuga Bin to pretend to be her boyfriend.
However, Hyuga Bin was a transmigrator who had dated quite a few girlfriends. Not a single one of the tactics Yūhi Meiko taught her worked; each time, Hyuga Bin's rejection became more decisive.
The moment she got home, Kurenai collapsed onto the sofa, looking as if life held no meaning anymore.
She had played all her "cards" today, yet none of them had any effect. She could not help wondering whether she had no charm at all in Hyuga Bin's eyes.
After slumping there for more than ten minutes, Kurenai went to find her cousin Yūhi Meiko again.
"Didn't you run into the boy you like today?" Seeing Kurenai so dejected, Yūhi Meiko put an arm around her and asked with a smile.
"I did." Kurenai sighed.
"If you ran into him, why do you still look so downcast?" Yūhi Meiko could tell that Kurenai was in a bad mood.
"Big Sister, the methods you told me about didn't work at all. Today at the dessert shop..."
Kurenai told Yūhi Meiko everything that had happened between her and Hyuga Bin that day.
"How could that happen?" Hearing Kurenai's words, Yūhi Meiko could not help feeling surprised.
When she had used these methods on boys before, they had always worked without fail.
There had never been a boy she wanted to win over who managed to escape.
"I think he doesn't like me at all." After being rebuffed again and again, Kurenai began to think that way.
"No. Even if he doesn't like you, faced with someone as cute as you, he should still have the physical reactions of a normal boy." Yūhi Meiko did not agree with Kurenai's conclusion. She even came up with a bold guess. "Could it be that he doesn't like girls?"
"He probably isn't." Kurenai instinctively felt that Hyuga Bin was not gay.
"How about this? Aren't you attending a class reunion with him tomorrow? Big Sister will teach you one more ultimate move. As long as he's a mentally normal boy, you'll definitely win him over this time!"
Yūhi Meiko leaned close to Kurenai's ear and whispered, "Kurenai, listen carefully. When the time comes, do this..."
Before you continue