Chapter 46: Anna Yanami's Anti-Cheating Training.
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Anna Yanami woke up feeling engulfed in a blanket so warm she didn't even want to open her eyes. A firm, broad chest was pressed closely against her back. Although she hadn't really shared a bed with Kihara since middle school, a girl's sixth sense told her that the person lying behind her was definitely Kihara.
Aside from him, no one else in the world could make her feel this comfortable and safe.
Muttering a muffled, incoherent sentence, she turned her body around, throwing her thigh over his waist and finding a comfortable spot to rest her head. Taking a deep breath, the corners of her lips curled into a blissful smile as she prepared to drift back to sleep.
'Wait a second... the blockhead is lying in my bed!?'
Anna's dull, slow-moving brain finally caught onto the situation. Snapping her eyes wide open, Kihara's peaceful sleeping face rushed straight into her completely unguarded field of vision.
"Eek..." She raised her hand like lightning, slapping it over her mouth to crush the scream back down her throat. Her frantic, scrambled brain tried its absolute best to figure out how on earth this scenario had come to pass.
"I was forced to drink by Miss Ibuki yesterday... and then what? What happened after that?"
No matter how hard she tried to recall, her memories after drinking were like a powered-off computer screen, showing zero images whatsoever.
Catching a casual glimpse of Kihara's sleeping face right in front of her, Anna's heart began to race wildly. Countless bizarre thoughts rushed into her brain, competing for dominance.
For instance, should she steal a quick kiss while he was asleep? Or deliberately mess up her own clothes and hair to secretly observe his reaction when he woke up? Or maybe something even more dramatic, like putting a few red marks on the bedsheet...
"No, no, no!" She shook her head violently, lightly slapping her own cheeks in an attempt to cool down her overheating brain.
"Those are things only bad girls do! I absolutely cannot manipulate Kihara's feelings like that!"
Having managed with great difficulty to clear the dirty thoughts out of her mind, Anna caught sight of Kihara's lips right in front of her face, and her soul was instantly drawn right back in.
"A tiny stolen kiss... shouldn't be a problem, right?"
Once the thought sprouted, she could no longer drive it out of her head. It stuck inside her mind like a firmly driven nail, and as time ticked by, the urge to steal a kiss from Kihara grew increasingly unbearable.
After a long internal battle between angel and demon, Anna ultimately surrendered to her inner desires, yielding to her "unclean" urges.
With trembling lips, she brought her face closer, slowly yet resolutely, until she could feel his soft breath brushing against her cheeks. Right at the very last second before their lips met, her mouth violently veered to the side.
Her lips landed right on the corner of Kihara's mouth. At that exact microsecond, Kihara was awakened by the soft sensation, opening his eyes to lock onto Anna's panicked, frantic gaze.
[What's the situation? I merely gave up my bedroom to Fran and came here to sleep. How did I end up getting stealth-kissed?]
He questioned Shinobu deep in his mind with total bewilderment. But while he was asleep, the television in the shadow space that broadcasted the outside world wasn't running. Unless she actively poked her head out of the shadow, she had no way of knowing what went on outside.
[She simply could not hold back her feelings any longer and wished to force herself upon thee, my master.]
[Knowing Anna's personality, there's no way she would do something like that.]
Before Kihara could open his mouth, Anna feigned composure, adjusting her hair as she slowly pulled her lips away, uttering the sentence she hadn't spoken in a very long time: "I like you, Kihara."
"Don't I already have Lala as a fiancé? Why are you doing this?"
His robotic, matter-of-fact response left her unsure whether to be happy or angry. However, a brilliant excuse quickly popped into her mind.
"This isn't a practice session to keep you from getting tricked by girls! It's a brand-new training session to prevent you from cheating!"
Inside the shadow space, Shinobu listened to this excuse and clapped her hands with immense admiration.
[To come up with such a brilliant, absurd angle! I truly admire the creativity of these young girls sometimes.]
[Forget about you, even I didn't expect Anna to squeeze out an excuse like that.]
Kihara had no intention of casually accepting her flimsy argument like he used to. Instead, he wanted to tease her a little.
Pretending to think deeply for a few minutes, he slowly spoke under her nervous, anxious gaze: "But... if you kiss me like this, doesn't that count as me cheating too?"
Anna grew instantly flustered. If he realized at a time like this that she wasn't just a childhood friend, but also a member of the opposite sex who could easily cause him to cheat, the only possible outcome would be him actively keeping his distance from her.
She blurted out immediately: "I'm completely different! We've been together since we were kids. The fact that we're childhood friends yet never became a couple proves that it's impossible for you to view me as a cheating partner!"
The moment she blurted out that reason, she felt as though something deep inside her had shattered into pieces—like her "female charm," "female charm," and "female charm."
"Hmm... what you say makes sense, but it still feels a bit strange if you're the only one kissing me."
"W-What else do you want then? Are you saying you want to kiss me back?" Anna asked with immense anticipation. Yet knowing his dense, blockhead personality, she figured he would never make such a move, treating it merely as a lovely fantasy.
"Makes sense."
"Eh?"
Kihara reached out, cupping the back of Anna's head, and landed a light, feather-soft kiss on the corner of her lips. Immediately after, he pulled her soft, plush, oversized-pillow-like body right into his warm embrace.
He nuzzled his face against her silky blue hair, closed his eyes, and went straight back to sleep.
'EH!?!??!?!'
Clenching her small fists, a loud mental explosion erupted inside Anna's mind. It was only then that she caught the faint, subtle scent of alcohol lingering on him, and realization dawned upon her.
'So the blockhead is still drunk! Otherwise, how could he possibly do something like this?!'
Even so, the fact that Kihara had taken the initiative to kiss the corner of her mouth was an undeniable truth. She felt like she could go home today and devour three giant bowls of rice just off the high from this moment.
Forcing down the intense urge to cheer out loud, Anna gently placed her hand over his chest, exerting a tiny bit of force to nestle her body deeper into his arms so he could hold her more comfortably. At the same time, she realized that he seemed to really enjoy hugging her.
Due to the lingering effects of Suika's fruit wine, all of them called in sick and skipped school, sleeping through the first half of the day at home.
Sanae and Flandre planned to take a trip back to Gensokyo—the former to share the good news at the shrine, and the latter to show off back at the Scarlet Devil Mansion.
Ibuki Suika had no intention of heading back. She wanted to take advantage of their absence to engage in some delightful, sweat-inducing nighttime activities with Kihara.
That afternoon, the group—who had been awakened by hunger—sat around the dining table and devoured their meal with ravenous appetites. Even Momo and Nana, who normally had smaller appetites, ate nearly double their usual portions.
Over the following week, the twin sisters—who decided to wait until after the summer break before transferring into Gensokyo High—spent every single day eating, drinking, and playing. That was, until Lala dropped a casual, careless remark: "You two seem to have gained quite a bit of weight lately, haven't you?"
That single sentence instantly brought an end to their carefree days, forcing them to team up with Anna Yanami to form the "Serious Weight Loss Alliance."
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Thank you for reading.