"And that absolutely does not include kissing, right?!"
Asakura Mio immediately latched onto her guilty shiftiness, her tone firm and resolute as she emphasized the point, trying to strangle that dangerous notion in its cradle.
She'd even slipped into a lecturing tone without realizing it.
"That was an accident! Friends absolutely must not kiss! And they definitely shouldn't do anything more extreme or intimate than that!"
"If you, Amaori-san, want to maintain just a friendship with Oozuka-san, this is a line you absolutely must not cross! Understood?!"
"I know that! I'm not an idiot, you know!"
Amaori Renako retorted loudly, her face flushed red with a mix of embarrassment and indignation at being looked down on. She subconsciously hugged the cushion beside her tighter, burying half of her burning face into it.
After a few seconds of silence, however, as if she couldn't help herself, she mumbled a small, additional justification under her breath, her eyes drifting away.
"But... well... it's not like only couples can kiss, right?... When I was little... I kissed Haruna on the cheek..."
Her voice grew smaller and smaller, almost dissolving into incoherent muttering.
"Pfft—Cough! Cough!"
Asakura Mio, who had just taken a sip of tea, nearly choked on it.
She forced it down and coughed violently several times before finally catching her breath, staring wide-eyed at the shocking words uttered by Amaori Renako.
"Th-that's completely different!"
Asakura's voice rose slightly in her astonishment, and she waved her arms as if trying to straighten out the chaotic logic.
"You said it yourself, it was when you were little, and it was with your little sister! Even if having a little sister doesn't mean you have to kiss your little sister, kissing your little sister is definitely not the same as kissing someone else—especially kissing a beautiful, non-related girl who just confessed to you!—The context is totally, completely different!"
She felt her own train of thought was about to be derailed by Amaori Renako.
"Oh... okay..."
Amaori Renako nodded, seeming to understand yet not fully, burying her face even deeper into the cushion. A muffled voice emerged.
"I get it.... So, basically, as long as we don't kiss, it's fine... right...?"
Maybe it was her imagination, but Asakura Mio seemed to catch an extremely subtle hint of disappointment in that muffled tone.
But she had no concrete evidence, so she could only shake her head vigorously, chalking it up to her own overactive imagination.
I definitely misheard!
However, after this conversation, the three parts worry originally in Asakura's heart instantly skyrocketed to eight.
This girl... can she really figure out where the so-called 'friend' boundary is?
Can she really hold herself back in this dangerous, ambiguous 'mode-switching' plan she herself proposed?
She doesn't actually think those ambiguous tropes from light novels can be applied so casually to real life, does she?!
Looking at that pink head almost completely hidden behind the cushion, Asakura Mio took a deep, deep breath, beginning to seriously doubt whether her earlier decision to 'watch the show' rather than 'firmly stop it' was a colossal mistake for the history books.
--+--
After listening to Amaori Renako's plan, which was full of holes and practically a 'suicide mission,' Asakura Mio found an excuse—'it's getting late, I should head home'—and practically fled the Amaori household.
Walking home, the evening breeze gently brushed against her, but it couldn't disperse the complicated feelings in her heart.
One part was worry about whether Amaori Renako could smoothly implement, or rather, implement without getting herself burned, that plan of hers.
The other part, however, was an irrepressible, intense anticipation for the interactions between Amaori Renako and Oozuka Mai after tomorrow.
If this had nothing to do with her, knowing the inside story, she'd absolutely be shipping them like crazy!
But now that she was on Amaori Renako's side as a friend, she couldn't help but worry about the potential hiccups in Renako's plan.
"Being a friend is such a troublesome role. If I hadn't been forced into this 'friend' position, I should be purely, happily looking forward to tomorrow's 'performance'..."
Just then, her stomach betrayed her with an undignified grumble.
Asakura Mio belatedly remembered that because of her talk with Sena Ajisai at lunch, she'd barely eaten any of her lunch. And just now at the Amaori house, she'd only downed a bellyful of tea, eating almost no snacks.
Now that she'd relaxed, the hunger surged forth violently.
She looked up at the sky. If she went home now, dinner probably wouldn't be ready yet.
Rubbing her empty stomach, her gaze was drawn to a delicate-looking dessert shop by the roadside, emanating warm light and a sweet fragrance.
'I'll just buy a little cake to tide me over...' Holding that thought, Asakura Mio pushed open the glass door of the dessert shop.
Ding-a-ling—
The wind chime above the doorframe let out a clear, pleasant sound.
"Welcome—"
A cool, slightly familiar greeting voice followed.
"Could I get—"
Asakura Mio began, looking up as she spoke, but her words cut off abruptly when she saw the figure behind the counter.
There, behind the counter, wearing a well-fitted shop apron and tidying the display case with her head lowered, was none other than their classmate, Koto Satsuki!
That always expressionless, delicate profile seemed a bit softer under the warm-toned lighting, but it still carried her characteristic aloofness.
Asakura Mio was completely stunned.
Koto Satsuki seemed to sense the customer's unusual stillness and lifted her head.
The moment their eyes met, a clear flicker of astonishment and surprise passed through her calm, unrippled eyes.
This shop was quite a distance from Ashigaya High. If not for her trip to the Amaori house in the opposite direction today, Asakura Mio would never have passed by here.
This coincidental encounter had led her to stumble upon a secret that clearly shouldn't be known by a classmate—Koto Satsuki had a part-time job.
And it was well known that Ashigaya High's school rules explicitly forbade students from working part-time during extracurricular hours without special permission from the school.
Koto Satsuki's presence here was most likely hidden from the school. Whether she'd lied about her age or used some other method, this wasn't something a classmate should have witnessed.
In that split second, Asakura Mio's brain raced. Seeing the rare, fleeting panic on Koto Satsuki's face, she immediately reacted.
She raised her hand and dramatically tapped her own forehead, putting on an exaggerated expression of sudden realization, her voice pitching higher.
"Ah! This isn't the bookstore! I thought it was that new bookstore that opened! Sorry, I came to the wrong shop! My mistake!"
'Before this gets any more awkward, run!'
After spewing the words out at high speed, she didn't dare look at Koto Satsuki's expression again, practically spinning on her heel and bolting outside, her heart pounding like a drum.
--+--