[Editor's note: This chapter has been edited to remove content that breaks our content rules.]
Chapter 29: Why Not Say You’re My Boyfriend?
The morning mist had yet to clear as Kageyama Sora and Haramura Nodoka walked side by side up the slope toward Kiyosumi High School.
Dew occasionally dripped from the plane-tree leaves onto their shoulders. Nodoka walked with her head lowered, kicking pebbles, while the penguin charm on her schoolbag swayed with each step.
Suddenly, a camera flash pierced the mist. Two reporters, a man and a woman, emerged from around the corner and called out to her.
“Haramura Nodoka!”
The press badge on the woman’s chest glinted in the morning light. “It’s been a year. The last time we met was when you won the individual championship at the National Junior High School Mahjong Tournament…”
She deliberately drew out her final words, but remained polite and kept enough distance not to make Nodoka uncomfortable.
“Huh?” Nodoka instinctively turned, bumping into Sora behind her.
“And who is this beside you…?” The male reporter turned his camera toward Sora’s composed profile. In the viewfinder, their overlapping shadows stretched across the ground.
“…Her older brother,” Sora answered, gently guiding Nodoka behind him.
As he lowered his gaze, his fringe cast a small shadow beneath his eyes, lending him an oddly mysterious air.
“Her older brother…” The female reporter drew out the words meaningfully, her pen scratching across her notebook.
Nodoka stared at the white laces of her sneakers and the tiny droplets of mist gathering on the leather. Hearing the rustle of Sora’s clothes, she felt inexplicably uncomfortable and changed the subject.
“…What did you want to ask me?”
Returning to business, the reporter immediately asked, “With the National High School Mahjong Tournament coming up, are there any players you’re particularly keeping an eye on?”
Miyanaga Saki immediately came to Nodoka’s mind, along with the way she won her hands.
But… she was her teammate.
“No.” Nodoka turned back to the reporter, her blue eyes steady beneath her bangs. “I don’t know much about the other schools, teams, or players, and I’m not concerned about them. I just intend to do my best.”
With that, she apparently decided not to prolong the conversation and headed toward school.
Sora promptly followed.
“That was a pretty cool answer, Nodoka.” A gentle smile, rarely seen by anyone else, curved his lips. He lightly brushed aside a strand of her windblown hair.
“…Mm…”
Nodoka suddenly kicked a pebble beside her foot and watched it roll down the slope. After hesitating for a long time, she finally asked about what was really bothering her.
“What you said earlier, about being my brother…”
“Oh, that.” Sora was perfectly frank. “I wanted to say I was your boyfriend, too. But if your family saw the report, wouldn’t that cause trouble?”
As he spoke, he glanced at her tightly clenched fingers. He was worried that his answer might have hurt her feelings.
“Is that the only reason?” Nodoka abruptly looked up, a little morning dew still clinging to her eyelashes.
Suddenly, it seemed to her that every cherry tree beside the slope was swaying, scattering petals over their shoulders.
“Of course.” Sora patted her head and deliberately lowered his voice to tease her. “If you don’t like that, next time I’ll tell them you’re my girlfriend. How does that sound?”
Her ears immediately turned red. She spun around and ran toward school, the penguin charm on her bag rattling softly. The sound faded into the thickening mist, along with the sigh he never voiced.
After watching Nodoka leave, Sora headed back to Ryumonbuchi High School for class.
The bell rang just as he entered the classroom.
He casually tossed his bag onto his desk and slouched into his seat.
At the front of the room, the teacher droned on about material he already knew by heart. Sora rested his chin on one hand and watched the branches swaying outside the window.
Rather than coming to learn, he was mostly there to keep Ryumonbuchi Touka from flying into another rage over his skipping class and wasting the effort she had put into arranging his enrollment.
Chalk scratched across the blackboard, but his thoughts were nowhere near the lesson.
The morning dew on Nodoka’s eyelashes and her reddened ears as she looked up and asked, “Is that the only reason?” replayed in his mind again and again.
Although he had explained himself at the time, it was still bothering him.
When the lunch bell finally rang, Sora grabbed his bag and immediately set off for Kiyosumi High School.
By now, he knew the way to its mahjong club well. The elderly gatekeeper merely smiled and nodded when he saw him, treating him like a regular visitor.
Sora pushed open the clubroom door to find Takei Hisa alone, leisurely leafing through a magazine.
“Where’s everyone else? Why are you the only one here?” he asked, pulling over a chair and sitting down.
Hisa lowered her magazine, a knowing smile tugging at her lips. “One of the servers at Mako’s family café took the day off, so Nodoka and Saki went to help.”
“I see…” Sora nodded. “Everyone in your mahjong club gets along pretty well.”
“It’s a maid café,” Hisa added, leaning closer with a mischievous gleam in her eyes.
“Maids?” Sora raised an eyebrow.
Before their conversation could continue, the door banged open and Kataoka Yuuki burst into the room, still wearing her maid uniform.
“I made a point of coming back in this!” she announced, striking an exaggerated pose.
“…Yuuki.” Hisa pressed a hand to her forehead, looking utterly exasperated.
Yuuki laughed heartily.
Once the commotion had settled, Hisa returned to the subject. “There are mahjong tables at Mako’s family café. Customers and people from the neighborhood come in to play every day.”
“Then won’t Nodoka and Saki just keep winning?” Sora smiled as he thought of Nodoka’s skill.
“Right, but… there wouldn’t be much point if they won every game, so I asked someone very strong to help.” Hisa checked her watch. “Judging by the time, she should be there by now.”
“Someone strong? Did you invite someone to… teach them a lesson?” Sora leaned forward, intrigued.
He was suddenly eager to find out who could give Nodoka a challenge at mahjong.
Chapter 30: Haramura Nodoka and Miyanaga Saki, Café Maids
When Sora left Kiyosumi High School’s mahjong club, the afternoon sunlight slanted across the street.
After walking two blocks, he spotted the sign for the maid café run by Someya Mako’s family.
In the display window, a doll wearing a ruffled apron held a cup of coffee. Through the misted glass, Sora immediately spotted Nodoka sitting at a mahjong table.
She wore a pale pink maid uniform and a white lace headband. A few loose strands of hair hung beside her flushed cheeks.
Her head was lowered as she arranged her tiles, her eyelashes casting a small shadow beneath her eyes.
Saki, also dressed in a maid uniform, sat with her head tilted, absentmindedly turning a mahjong tile between her fingers. A small bell in her hair swayed gently with her movements.
Across from them, a woman with short purple hair and Gothic-style clothing was enthusiastically devouring a bowl of pork cutlet rice.
Opposite the woman, a middle-aged man in a suit was rearranging his tiles with a miserable expression, tiny beads of sweat forming on his forehead.
Presumably, the purple-haired woman was the person Hisa had invited to help.
As it happened, Sora recognized her. She was a professional mahjong player known as the “Queen Who Drags Down the Leader,” active in both the professional league and corporate teams. According to the mahjong player cards, she ranked twenty-third nationwide.
Of course, this was a case of him knowing her, not the other way around.
After all, how could someone who developed mahjong software not be familiar with professional players?
Still, he hadn’t expected Hisa to be able to invite someone of her stature.
Smiling, he pushed open the door, setting the wind chimes jingling.
Amid the maids’ calls of “Welcome back, Master,” he went straight to the mahjong table and gave the middle-aged man a polite smile.
“Excuse me, sir. May I join?”
Looking as though he had just been granted a pardon, the man immediately stood and surrendered his seat. Before leaving, he even patted Sora on the shoulder.
“Good luck, buddy.”
Clearly, he had lost badly enough to be nearing his limit and simply hadn’t found an opportunity to leave.
Nodoka froze when she saw Sora.
For a moment, she didn’t know whether she was more startled by his sudden appearance or embarrassed to have the boy she liked see her in her work uniform.
Saki reacted much more directly, springing to her feet.
“Huh? Kageyama! What are you doing here?”
Sora gave her a friendly smile. “I went to see Nodoka, and they told me you two were here, so I came over.”
Nodoka’s face reddened further.
Fujita Yasuko looked up from her meal and studied Sora, a knowing smile forming on her lips.
“Are you in the mahjong club, too?”
Sora pulled out the chair and sat down, his fingers idly brushing the cool tabletop.
“I’m a student at Ryumonbuchi High School… If I had to explain my connection to Kiyosumi’s mahjong club, I suppose it would be that… I’m Haramura Nodoka’s… boyfriend.”
As he spoke, his gaze settled on Nodoka. She finally raised her head, and the instant their eyes met, the tips of her ears turned pink.
It reminded her of what he had said when they parted that morning: if calling himself her brother made her uneasy, next time he would introduce himself as her boyfriend.
The announcement surprised not only Yasuko but Saki, who became thoroughly excited.
“What? Your boyfriend? When did you two start dating?”