The dense, shy protagonist of a youth romantic comedy is already a well-worn archetype everyone's familiar with.
Whether it's born of insecurity, humility, or other sensitive emotions, this kind of male lead always manages to completely miss the affection and hints thrown his way by the various girls who appear in his life. Of course, as someone who has written novels himself, Narumi understands this as "the protagonist's sensitivity being a necessary sacrifice."
After all, if the protagonist weren't a little dense, and accepted the heroines' feelings too quickly, how would the author ever drag out the plot? (laughs)
People like that do exist in real life, sure—but Narumi didn't consider himself one of them.
If he lacked a certain level of sensitivity toward emotions and social dynamics, it would be difficult for him to keep relationships within the range he found most comfortable.
And it was thanks to that very awareness that he noticed something was off with Yamada, and managed to deal with it neatly before the issue fermented into a much bigger storm.
Yamada might be hard to read in temperament and personality, but she wasn't difficult to deal with. As long as you explained things clearly, she would accept them readily—and that was exactly why she returned to her usual self the moment she received Narumi's reassuring answer.
"Alright, let's head back. If we don't, Nijika won't be able to find us and she'll start nagging again."
Even when she was in a great mood, Yamada didn't show it very obviously—at most, a slightly floaty, silly smile would appear on her face.
She's really easy to appease, Narumi thought to himself, and then led the now much more spirited Yamada back to the livehouse rehearsal room.
"Ryō, now that you're done getting some air, don't forget your actual job, okay?"
Even though she knew perfectly well that Yamada was the type to vanish at random during breaks, Nijika still smiled and reminded her politely when she returned alongside Narumi.
"Otherwise Narumi-kun would have to come looking for you again… You won't be able to be this free and careless once you're performing on stage, you know?"
"Mm-hm, mm-hm."
Yamada nodded vigorously like a pecking chick, though she seemed oddly delighted by the phrase "Narumi-kun would have to come looking for you."
Narumi had no doubt that if Yamada were an animal, her tail would be wagging furiously right about now.
"U-um… Koumi-senpai, and…"
Having been alone with Nijika for a while and feeling uneasy, Bocchi-chan pinched the hem of her pink tracksuit when she noticed the two returning—like a raccoon letting its guard down upon seeing its caretaker, her eyes filled with a bit more warmth.
"Just call me Ryō-senpai, same as Koumi."
Ryō-senpai waved her hand casually. The low-pressure gloom that had lingered around her in the rehearsal room earlier had completely vanished.
"R-Ryō-senpai…!"
"Mm-hm."
"Are Koumi-senpai and Ryō-senpai… really close friends?"
To be honest, this question had been circling in Gotō Hitori's mind for quite a while. She'd gathered a lot of courage before finally asking it.
In that strange dream, Narumi Tetsu had appeared as the boy next door from her childhood. His connection to the other members of Kessoku Band had all been mediated through Bocchi herself, and Yamada Ryō had existed on a completely separate, parallel track.
But once she woke up from that inexplicable dream, the two of them in reality seemed unusually close.
Setting aside the fact that Narumi had reappeared alongside Yamada in the first place, they acted as though they'd known each other for a long time, each clearly familiar with the other.
"Mm-hm, Narumi-kun and Ryō are super close."
Nijika nodded in agreement, then turned to look at the smug Yamada and the curly-haired boy wearing a broad smile.
"But I've actually always been curious—how did you and Narumi-kun get so close? Ryō's never told me."
"Uh, well, about that…"
Just as Narumi was organizing his thoughts, trying to figure out how to explain it simply, the blue-haired girl beside him once again beat him to the punch.
"We're close enough that we almost had to lick shoes."
"…Huh?"
"…What?"
Seeing the baffled expressions on both Ijichi Nijika and the pink-haired caterpillar, Narumi rubbed his forehead with a headache coming on.
"…We met at an underground livehouse show. This idiot stomped all over my brand-new shoes—I still have the marks."
That was the only way he could salvage Yamada's extremely misleading statement.
"S-so that's what it was… Then why did you say something about licking shoes earlier…?"
"Because Koumi was really mad at the time. He smiled while telling me to lick them clean. Don't let his easygoing look fool you—he's actually a sadistic type who hides knives behind his smile…"
"W-what…?"
Bocchi shuddered at the words, and Narumi felt the gentle, reliable image he'd just built crumbling rapidly. His smile was starting to strain.
"S-so that's how you met… Well, the fact that you're so close now must mean you really get along."
Nijika chose to selectively ignore Yamada's sadistic Narumi theory, doing her best to keep the conversation from sinking into awkward territory.
"Yeah. Even though Koumi used to pretend he was totally tone-deaf, we actually really hit it off when talking about this stuff."
The blue-haired girl shrugged expressionlessly, her tone flat, as if stating a completely obvious fact.
"So I gave him a guitar and invited him to play music with me."
Well, that part was true. Aside from how wildly unfiltered her delivery was, Yamada wasn't wrong.
"So as repayment, he's going to take me in for a month."
The tension Narumi had just relaxed melted away again the moment Yamada, utterly deadpan, flashed a peace sign.
"T-taking Ryō in for a whole month… does Narumi-kun himself know about that?"
No matter how familiar Nijika was with her friend's unhinged thought process, the smile on her face was starting to look strained.
"I don't remember agreeing to that."
The curly-haired boy waved his hand dismissively, his expression plainly saying "hard pass."
Are Ryō-senpai and Koumi-senpai… really just normal friends??
And for some reason, it felt like the usually gentle and considerate Koumi-senpai only lost that easygoing warmth when he was talking to Ryō-senpai.
Bocchi looked back and forth between the utterly unbothered Yamada and the Narumi whose face screamed "I knew she was going to say something unhinged," and mentally slapped a huge question mark onto the nature of their relationship.