Hozuki Nozomi didn't mind that Kirisu Mafuyu had driven to school without him.
He understood that Mafuyu-sensei still wasn't quite ready to openly accept the intimate relationship between them, at least not yet.
So he boarded the train and headed toward Sōbu High School with Sanshokuin Sumireko at his side.
Oh, and there was also Nichiji Sumire, the girl who bore an uncanny resemblance to Sanshokuin Sumireko.
The two braided, bespectacled girls flanked him on either side, drawing curious glances from the passengers around them.
Some of the onlookers stared at Hozuki Nozomi with envious, jealous eyes, silently branding him a shameless scumbag beneath their breath.
He was, after all, dating two girls simultaneously.
And judging by the near-identical faces of the pair, the two might well have been twins.
What a lucky bastard, was the shared verdict.
Hozuki Nozomi paid the stares no mind, and when the train finally pulled into the station, he stepped out with both girls in tow, making his way toward Sōbu High School.
...
The moment he crossed the threshold of his classroom, Miura Yumiko bounded forward with a bright smile and latched onto his arm.
His forearm sank into the soft, generous swell of the girl's chest, cushioned by the plush weight pressing against him.
Hozuki Nozomi couldn't help the flutter that stirred in his chest, nor the faint heat that pricked lower.
"Yumiko, what's the matter?" he asked with an easy smile, genuinely curious about her uncharacteristically bold display of affection.
Miura Yumiko replied in a sweet, coaxing lilt, her voice pitched just a touch higher than usual,
"Nozomi-kun, are you free this weekend?"
"Yeah, I'm free. Why?"
Since Yumiko rarely worked up the courage to ask him out directly, he certainly wasn't about to ruin her mood.
"Hehe~" The moment she got her confirmation, Miura Yumiko couldn't suppress her delighted little giggle.
She tightened her grip on his arm and puffed her cheeks out in a pout, whining,
"Nozomi-kun, I sort of accidentally promised my sister at home that I'd help one of her friends watch over their shop this weekend, and… well, minding a store all alone is really boring, so I want you to come with me."
"Just the two of us?"
"Yes, just the two of us! Is that okay?"
Miura Yumiko peered up at him with wide, glossy eyes.
Hozuki Nozomi surrendered on the spot, answering quickly, "Of course!"
Miura Yumiko let out a small cheer at his affirmative reply.
"Yay, that's amazing! I knew you'd say yes, long live Nozomi!"
Watching her bounce joyfully on her heels, Hozuki Nozomi couldn't resist reaching up to gently stroke her honey-blonde hair.
Miura Yumiko, in turn, wore an expression of pure contentment and gazed up at him with a tender, melting look.
This little scene earned Hozuki Nozomi the collective disdain of every boy in the classroom.
Of course, while they called it "disdain," what they truly felt was raw envy.
You see, Miura Yumiko was one of the school's acknowledged beauties.
Those who had once quietly admired her knew she'd carried a torch for Hayama Hayato, and out of fear of Hayama, none had dared to confess.
And now, that same great beauty, Miura Yumiko, was clinging shamelessly to Hozuki Nozomi.
It really was, to say the least, an enviable and infuriating sight.
Among them, it was Hayama Hayato who felt the most tangled inside.
Miura-san had once been his devoted admirer, but now she belonged, heart and all, to Hozuki Nozomi.
Watching the two of them behave so intimately made a distinctly uncomfortable knot tighten in Hayama's chest.
Without ever realizing it, he had lost an excellent girl whose eyes had held only him.
Still, Hayama Hayato talked himself down from the ledge quickly enough.
The reasoning was simple.
Even if he could rewind time, he still couldn't have given Yumiko the kind of romance she truly wanted.
So even if he had managed to preserve their friendship, he would have eventually lost her all the same.
Hozuki Nozomi's brazen behavior, though he privately dismissed the man as too much of a playboy and too shamelessly greedy, still landed on Hayama Hayato like a quiet blow to the ribs.
As his thoughts spiraled and a low unease began to prickle at him, Hayama Hayato caught the familiar voice of his good friend Tobe Kakeru buzzing in his ear.
"Hayato, did you hear? The succubus is going on a date with Yumiko! Does that mean I've finally got a shot at asking Ebina to a movie alone?"
Hayama Hayato offered an awkward, polite smile.
"Yeah, you can give it a try."
It's going to fail anyway, was the rest of the sentence Hayama Hayato only dared to finish in his head.
Sometimes, he genuinely envied Hozuki Nozomi's ability to shrug off the strange glances and focus wholly on pursuing the people he cared about.
But he was "everyone's Hayama," bound to his own carefully curated persona, and so he couldn't speak nearly as freely.
Tobe Kakeru, meanwhile, timidly produced two movie tickets and shuffled over toward Ebina Hina.
"Um, Ebina, I've got a pair of movie tickets here for you…"
"Oh, that's not really okay," Ebina Hina replied with a troubled little frown.
"It's fine, we're friends, right?" Tobe Kakeru said, forcing out his most generous smile.
Ebina Hina's face brightened as she accepted the tickets, chirping, "Then thanks, Tobe!"
Tobe Kakeru beamed, mouth already opening to suggest where they'd meet up this weekend.
Ebina Hina, tickets in hand, cheerfully skipped over to Sayu instead and grinned as she said,
"Sayu, look, these are for the movie you've been dying to see! Let's go watch it together!"
"Eh, really?"
"Of course! Let's go together!"
Tobe Kakeru: "… … …"
Like a salted fish stripped of its last dream, Tobe Kakeru let his shoulders sag and shuffled back to Hayama Hayato's side.
"H-H-Hayato… I… I not only lost two movie tickets, I didn't even get to say a single word…"
Hayama Hayato patted his shoulder in sympathy.
"It's alright. I'm used to it."
He was, unfortunately, quite used to Tobe Kakeru's chronic uselessness.
Tobe Kakeru looked ready to burst into tears on the spot.
How could Ebina do that to him?
She'd taken his tickets, skipped the movie with him entirely, and invited another cute girl to go in his place.
Tobe Kakeru began mourning both his lost yen and his lost tickets, radiating the pitiful aura of a thoroughly beaten stray.
Hayama Hayato shook his head and pointedly chose to look away.
Wasn't he, in his own way, also a beaten stray?
He had believed Kaguya Shinomiya's arrival would put pressure on Yukino Yukinoshita, and by extension on Haruno-nee.
The reality, however, was that the Yukinoshita family had earned the backing of the Shinomiya household, and the value of their family enterprise had climbed higher still.
...
Setting Hayama's quiet disappointment aside, we now shift back to Miura Yumiko's side.
She raised a triumphant eyebrow at Yui Yuigahama and crowed, "Yui, I did it!"
"Nozomi already said yes to me."
Yui Yuigahama immediately pouted, cheeks puffing out.
"Oh…"
Miura Yumiko regarded her with an amused, teasing tilt of the head, "You, aren't you usually the most talkative and lively one of us?"
"Why can't you be a little more proactive?"
"Even Yukinoshita has learned to be cute and act a little spoiled, so how are you ever going to get Nozomi to notice you?"
Miura Yumiko lectured with patient warmth, every word laced with encouragement, curling one blonde ringlet around her finger as she watched Yui shrink under her gaze.