[CG 59: Mischievous (Nishikawa Ryouko)]
[She has a slight, secret wish to see him — always so polished and composed — stumble into an awkward moment for once.]
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At the sound of the system notification, Shikime Natsu couldn't help but feel a flicker of surprise. Another girl with a CG?
And on top of that… she wanted to see him get flustered?
Natsu had never been the type to put his weaknesses on display. He turned toward Nishikawa Ryouko, taking in that slightly impish smile curling at the corners of her lips.
This girl — she'd outright admitted she couldn't promise to keep quiet, and yet she still had the nerve to ask him that question so directly.
Any ordinary person, faced with a question that could torch their reputation and bury them in drama, would clam up without a second thought. After all, nobody wanted their offhand remarks spreading through the entire class — or worse, the entire year.
Especially anything to do with "girlfriends." In a fully closed-off school like this one, once that kind of rumor got out and people started embellishing, there was a good chance no one would let it go for the next three years. And since they didn't reshuffle classes here — or even if they did eventually — the moment word spread, the ripples would run deep and far.
Natsu simply smiled, those pale gold eyes of his meeting Ryouko's gaze without wavering.
"What does Nishikawa-san think?"
He didn't answer directly. Instead, he lobbed the question right back at her with the most casual air imaginable.
Ryouko had half-expected Natsu to show at least a flicker of awkwardness — or at the very least, a moment's hesitation. But his expression hadn't shifted in the slightest. That easy, unhurried smile was still in place, that unshakable composure still perfectly intact. Her words, it seemed, had barely grazed him.
A small pang of defeat worked its way through her. She pushed it aside just as quickly, and that sly little smile crept back to the corners of her mouth.
"So you want me to guess?" she said.
She leaned in a fraction, her tone taking on a playfully devilish lilt, those pale golden eyes blinking up at him.
"If I guess… even if Shiki-san thinks I've got it wrong, I'll go ahead and take it as the truth, you know~?"
The smug-brat energy was practically radiating off Ryouko at this point.
Natsu genuinely hadn't anticipated this. He'd figured that within Class A, Sakayanagi Arisu was the one and only girl who indulged in that particular flavor of mischief. He hadn't counted on there being another little devil type lurking in the same class.
His expression didn't change. Not even the angle of his smile shifted by a degree.
"That's fine with me."
He met her gaze, a glint of amusement surfacing in his own eyes.
"I'm curious, too — in Nishikawa-san's view, who exactly do I have my sights set on?"
Hearing that Natsu was actually inviting her to guess, Ryouko's lips curved with satisfaction. She struck an exaggeratedly pensive pose — one slender index finger resting lightly against her chin — and let her gaze drift thoughtfully over Natsu's face, as though she were giving it genuine consideration.
A moment later, she produced two names.
"Hmm… Morishita-san, and Yamamura-san?"
She offered her reasoning along with the names.
"Because those two are always going to lunch with Shiki-san, aren't they? And they're both quite adorable girls, on top of that."
She punctuated that observation with a playful wink in Natsu's direction, a note of certainty woven into her tone.
"If Shiki-san is going to make a move, surely he wouldn't overlook the two cute girls right at his side? So — did I get it right?"
Ryouko was fairly confident in her guess. No glaring flaws that she could see. And yet, no matter how hard she looked, she couldn't find a single trace of surprise on Natsu's face — no shock, no startle, not even that faint, guilty flicker that people got when someone guessed correctly.
Natsu simply offered a mild smile and said nothing more.
Ryouko, naturally, had no intention of letting it drop. She pressed him again, relentless.
"Shiki-san — did I get it right?"
Natsu smiled and let his gaze settle on her once more, his voice unhurried.
"What does Nishikawa-san think?"
Watching him bat the question right back to her again, Ryouko didn't get annoyed. If anything, her smile only grew.
"All right, if Shiki-san insists on putting it that way — then that's exactly what I'll assume."
She drew out her words with deliberate slowness, then continued on her own initiative.
"Shiki-san's next targets: Morishita Ai and Yamamura Miki."
She kept right on going, her tone carrying a note of breezy confidence.
"And honestly, I think Morishita-san and Yamamura-san will fall for Shiki-san's charms quite quickly."
"After all — they already know Shiki-san has a girlfriend, and they still keep that close to him. That can only mean they're already rather fond of him."
At that, Natsu turned his gaze to Ryouko, those pale gold eyes of his glinting with quiet amusement.
"And what about Nishikawa-san?"
He asked it suddenly, his tone carrying just a hint of pointed intent.
"Nishikawa-san already knows I have three girlfriends, doesn't she?"
He tilted toward her slightly, closing the distance between them, his voice dropping lower.
"So why are you still standing this close to me? And asking questions with that kind of… charged undertone?"
The words landed, and for just an instant, Ryouko's expression stiffened — so briefly it was almost imperceptible. Then it smoothed back into something perfectly natural.
That light, sly smile remained on her face without a crack.
She stepped one pace closer to Natsu, the gap between them shrinking until they were near enough to feel the warmth of each other's breath.
She arranged her face into an expression of exaggerated astonishment, those pale gold eyes going wide, her tone drenched in mock innocence.
"——? Is Shiki-san saying he has his eye on me too?"
Then she stepped back just as deliberately, putting a sliver of distance between them — though her smile didn't dim in the slightest.
"My, my. Shiki-san really is quite the flirt."
She said it, then seemed to remember something, and tossed out a new question before he could get a word in — eyes fixed squarely on him, steering the conversation neatly away from herself.
After all, Nishikawa Ryouko was the type who enjoyed watching the show, not being dragged into it. Getting singed by her own fire was very much something to avoid.
If Natsu followed that thread and kept pulling on it, she'd end up on the back foot — and that was not a position Ryouko was willing to find herself in.
"By the way — out of your three girlfriends, Shiki-san… which one do you like the most?"
"I love each of them equally, of course."
Ryouko's reaction to that answer was immediate and unambiguous: those pale golden eyes filled with complete and total disbelief.
"Is that really true? I rather doubt it~"
"How could feelings between people ever be perfectly equal? Whether it's affection or dislike — no person feels exactly the same way about any two other people. Even friends. There are always differences, even subtle, hair-thin ones. Shiki-san, can you honestly guarantee that your feelings have absolutely no tilt toward any one of them — not even a fraction?"
It had to be said: if anyone else had spoken to an ordinary person that way, it would have put their back up in no time at all. A face that pretty, and yet a mouth that could make you want to wince.
Fortunately for Ryouko, the person in front of her was Shikime Natsu — and Natsu didn't feel much of anything in response to her mildly pointed remarks.
He smiled, shook his head lightly, and turned the question around.
"And in class — who does Nishikawa-san get along with the best?"
Ryouko blinked, as though she hadn't expected the question to come flying back at her.
"No one in particular."
The answer came without hesitation, with a trace of self-deprecating candor in her voice.
"I'm not especially close with anyone. My mouth is a bit of a liability, after all."
She gestured toward herself with a tap of her finger against her lips.
"I'm not exactly easy to like — am I?"
Ryouko had a reasonably clear-eyed view of herself on that front. And she'd long since grown accustomed to rubbing people the wrong way whenever she said a little too much.
After saying that, she let her gaze drift back to Natsu, those pale gold eyes probing with quiet curiosity.
"Does Shiki-san dislike me too, now?"
She tilted her head just slightly, her voice carrying a wisp of feigned innocence.
"I did say some rather rude things, after all."
Natsu shook his head.
"I don't dislike you, Nishikawa-san."
At that, something shifted behind Ryouko's pale golden eyes — a faint flicker, like she was turning a thought over in her head.
The next moment, her smile blazed back to full brightness, and her voice took on a note of exaggerated surprise.
"Oh my — so Shiki-san is a masochist!"
She raised a delicate hand to her lips, eyes sparkling with barely-contained glee.
"I said all those awful things, and you don't even mind? You really are a peculiar one."
Natsu looked at that little expression of theatrical disbelief, caught the teasing note in her voice, and couldn't help a quiet laugh escaping him.
"Does Nishikawa-san actually enjoy being disliked?"
The question gave her pause. That sly glint on her face receded, just a little.
"I'm just used to it."
She gave a light shrug, a vague, unreadable undercurrent in her tone — but just as quickly, that impish energy flickered back.
"But I am not a masochist. How could anyone enjoy a feeling like that?"
She didn't give Natsu a chance to respond before adding with a smile,
"That said — I have no intention of changing how I talk, either."
Natsu genuinely hadn't expected to find someone in Class A who could stand in the same conversation as Sakayanagi Arisu, that particular breed of smug brat. Though the two were different in their own ways: Sakayanagi carried herself with iron-clad pride, placed herself above everyone else, treated the people around her as little more than playthings, and fancied herself an unrivaled genius. Ryouko, standing before him now, didn't share that arrogance — but she was perfectly aware of what made people find her insufferable, and had simply decided she wasn't going to do anything about it.
Still, compared to Sakayanagi, Ryouko came off considerably better. When all was said and done, it was nothing more than a way of speaking that occasionally rubbed people the wrong way. And if someone asked her upfront not to talk like that, there was a decent chance she'd simply switch to a different manner entirely.
At the very least, whatever mischief Ryouko was fond of, she wasn't the type to stab someone in the back over it.
"Nishikawa-san really does have quite a personality."
Natsu smiled as he said it.
"Is that so?"
Ryouko laughed — and treated it without question as a compliment.
"Wait — Shiki-san still hasn't answered my question. No changing the subject~"
"I told you — I love each of them equally. But Nishikawa-san doesn't believe me, does she?"
Natsu continued, his tone even.
And that was the crux of it: with both of them stuck in this loop, the conversation wasn't going anywhere. One insisted; the other refused to be convinced. Neither of them had any way to break through the other's position.
In the end, this exchange with Natsu had yielded nothing for Ryouko. Not a single awkward expression. Not a flicker of unease. No matter what she said — however rude, however pointed — Natsu seemed entirely unfazed, sailing through every remark with that same unruffled composure.
That, more than anything, left Ryouko feeling a little deflated. What on earth would it take to actually get a rise out of him?
And then there was what he'd said — that he didn't dislike her.
A lie, surely. Because even she couldn't stand her own personality. She disliked it — disliked it and refused to change it, which she was well aware made her a thoroughly tiresome person. A personality like that naturally drew dislike. That was only reasonable. It was just that she didn't particularly enjoy being disliked, for all that she couldn't seem to help it.
After Natsu's final words, a quiet settled between them. Ryouko's pale gold eyes drifted back to him every so often, as though she was still quietly plotting something.
But before she had the chance to act on whatever scheme was taking shape, Natsu came to a stop. This stretch of the stream was ideal — the current here was gentle and slow, the water perfectly clear to the bottom, and small fish and shrimp darted through it in numbers noticeably greater than back near the base camp.
He turned his head, pale gold eyes landing on Ryouko, and asked with a smile.
"Nishikawa-san — care to try catching some fish?"
Ryouko gave a small, quick shake of her head.
"No, no. Absolutely not."
"I know my limits. If I tried fishing, Class A's dinner would probably end up a complete write-off."
She did want to see Natsu make a fool of himself — that part was true. But this wasn't the time for it. They were on a deserted island, after all, and she had no desire to go to bed hungry. And it wouldn't just be her going hungry, either.
Natsu saw that she'd declined and didn't push her. He simply smiled.
"In that case — I'll handle it."
He crouched back down, gaze sharp and precise as he locked onto his targets beneath the surface.
Swish. Swish. Swish.
The same lightning-fast motions as before. In the blink of an eye — three, four strokes — the fish and shrimp darting through the current were plucked clean from the water and deposited with precision onto the broad leaf Ryouko had set down nearby.
The sight of it left Ryouko just as stunned as the first time.
Shikime Natsu seemed to be operating on a completely different level from ordinary humans — like someone playing the game with cheats turned on. And then there was what he'd done when they first arrived on this island: throwing up several shelters in almost no time at all. Genuinely inhuman.
There were a lot of secrets buried somewhere in this man. Though none of them were secrets she had any business digging into.
Ryouko had wanted to catch him in an awkward moment partly because he'd simply wandered into her line of sight — and partly because he maintained this image of relentless competence within the class, which had tickled some small, mischievous part of her. She'd wanted to poke a hole in it, just once.
Unfortunately — throughout their entire time together here — she hadn't managed to put so much as a crack in his composure.
Ryouko's gaze fell to the leaf in front of her. In just this short stretch of time, it was already full to the brim.
"I'll take these back to camp."
The leaf clearly couldn't hold any more, and the fish and shrimp were wriggling and leaping without pause.
Natsu gave a small nod. Lunch for all forty of them was already sorted. He'd bring some over to Sakura Airi and the others later — they were his girlfriends; he wasn't about to let them go hungry. He'd already asked Kamuro Masumi to take some food over during lunch.
Ryouko stepped up to the leaf and scooped it up with both hands, lifting carefully. It was heavier than she'd expected.
"Need a hand?"
Natsu watched her wobble slightly as she lifted it. A bowl or container would have been easy enough to grip, but a leaf was a different matter — the whole thing had to be supported evenly or it would tear right through.
"No need."
Her attention was entirely on the leaf now, focused on keeping the flopping fish and shrimp from making a break for it. Compared to actually catching them, this was the easy job — she could at least manage this much.
But she hadn't taken more than a few steps before she shot Natsu a look of quiet, wordless appeal.
"Shiki-san… I think this leaf is about to give up on us."
The smile on Ryouko's face had gone somewhat strained. The leaf in her hands really did look like it might disintegrate at any moment.
And if it did, every last fish and shrimp on it would go tumbling to the ground.
She should have known better than to push it. Or rather — if there had been fewer fish, she might have managed. But there were simply too many. The leaf had exceeded its structural capacity, and she had exceeded hers.
"Then let me take it."
Natsu smiled, stepped closer, and lifted the leaf gently from Ryouko's hands. Fortunately she wasn't quite built like Sakura Airi — if she had been, that handoff would have been a considerably more complicated affair.
The moment the weight left her hands, Ryouko exhaled in audible relief. Good — nothing had fallen. The fish and shrimp were still accounted for. She hadn't become Class A's public enemy.
"Let's head back."
Natsu said.
"Mm."
She fell into step beside him. She'd come all this way, teased him at every opportunity, and contributed absolutely nothing useful — a fact that left the girl with a small, involuntary flush creeping up her face.
And then — at precisely that moment — one of the fish launched itself off the leaf.
It landed squarely in the path of Ryouko's next step.
She startled, lurched sideways to avoid it — lost her footing — and with nothing to catch herself on, went tumbling straight into the stream.
A loud splash.
Water sprayed up in a bright, wide arc.
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