Chapter 253: You Guys Really Know How to Play

The next day, after school, at a family restaurant near Toyogasaki.

“So.” Yu, his face practically spelling out the word speechless, stared at Miyahito across the table. “This is the ‘urgent matter’ you dragged Tooru and me out to discuss?”

“Helping you plan a Christmas date?”

“Yep, yep! As expected of Lord Ishigami.”

Wearing a sycophantic smile, Miyahito quickly nodded and flattered him, completely lacking the self-awareness that he currently looked like a total lackey.

“Listen, Miyahito.”

Tooru lowered the hand that had been rubbing his temples. He exchanged a helpless glance with Yu beside him, then turned back to Miyahito, his expression carrying a hint of impatience.

“Don’t you think there’s something fundamentally wrong with asking us this question?”

Miyahito blinked, looking blankly at Tooru, then at Yu, who wore the exact same expression. He repeated uncertainly in a small voice, “Wrong?”

“Yeah…..”

Letting out a heavy sigh that was three parts helplessness and seven parts speechlessness, Tooru slumped back against the booth’s sofa as if he had lost all will to live. He pointed at Yu, then at himself.

“Yu and I are completely different from you, okay?”

“Leaving aside whether we can even come up with ideas to help you plan a date, the two of us are single! You, who have been dating for almost half a year, are coming to us—who have no girlfriends and zero dating experience—to ask how to date your girlfriend?”

Are you here to show off, or are you here to rub salt in the wound?!

Tooru didn’t say that last part out loud.

But his deeply resentful expression, combined with Yu’s gloomy glare that seemed to scream ‘Burn the love heretic!’, was more than enough for Miyahito to understand their unspoken thoughts.

Wait, is it really my fault?

No, no, no! It’s not like I’m the one preventing my two good bros from finding girlfriends!

Besides, Utaha had told him something.

“Hold on, you two not having girlfriends has nothing to do with me.” Miyahito looked at his two best friends with a complex gaze. “Tooru is one thing, but Yu.”

“Hmm?”

“Aren’t you pursuing Yasuko-senpai right now?”

“!”

“Who told you that!!!”

The gloomy facade Yu had been putting on instantly shattered. Under Miyahito’s amused gaze and Tooru’s look of utter betrayal, he panicked and waved his hands frantically.

“I-I-I-I-I, that’s not true at all! Who told you that, Miyahito?!”

“Something so baseless, how could it… ahahaha.. haha.. ha.. ha…” Under the completely unchanging stares of Miyahito and Tooru, Yu’s voice grew smaller and smaller as he tried to bluff his way out. His head gradually lowered, and finally, slumping his shoulders as if giving up, he nodded and muttered softly.

“Yeah… Miyahito is right.”

“You’re kidding!”

Compared to the calm Miyahito, Tooru subconsciously leaned back in shock upon hearing Yu admit it himself. He stared at the silent, head-bowed Yu with a look of sheer disbelief.

“When did you fall for your senpai? And Yasuko… isn’t she the vice-captain of the cheer squad? Wait, Yu, is your first love poaching someone’s girl?”

“You’re wrong, Tooru.” Seeing Tooru’s cautious yet hesitant questioning, Miyahito shook his head and answered first. “Well, that senior already has a girlfriend.”

“….”

Hold on, bro. I know your social skills are insane.

But isn’t this a bit too exaggerated? You even know if a senior from another school has a girlfriend? No way! Did you even…..

“Stop right there.”

Miyahito’s face darkened slightly as he glared coldly at his best friend, whose thoughts were practically written all over his face. He gritted his teeth and hissed.

“I’m normal!”

“…..?”

“I heard all this because Utaha was chatting with Chika-senpai in the Student Council, and she told me when she got home! I didn’t go snooping around!”

“….”

“If you look at me like that one more time, I swear I’ll book the karate club’s dojo tomorrow and we can spar.”

“…..Ahem, no, no, no! I was joking, please spare me, Lord Miyahito.”

“Miyahito! I think Tooru has been lacking exercise lately. That’s not good.”

“Yu! You betrayed me!”

“Oh? It seems you’re quite unconvinced, Tooru-kun.”

“Let’s talk this out peacefully, Lord Miyahito!”

…..

After the three of them messed around for a bit.

“Alright, alright, no more messing around.”

Thinking about Christmas on the 25th of this month, Miyahito couldn’t help but frown slightly.

“Just help me think of something, guys.”

Seeing Miyahito’s troubled expression, Tooru and Yu silently exchanged a glance, and then.

“Speaking of which,” Tooru asked in confusion, “aren’t you and Kasumigaoka-san already living together?”

“Why do you even need to agree on a meeting time and place?”

This question from Tooru was exactly what Yu was wondering at the moment.

You two are already living together, and you still need to set a meeting place for a Christmas date? Are you two planning to leave from the same house and then walk off in opposite directions?

While they weren’t sure if couples had this kind of quirky little habit, to be honest, didn’t this behavior seem really weird? And honestly, a bit too bizarre…

Enduring the disgusted looks from his two best friends, who were staring at him like he was some kind of alien, Miyahito rubbed his face and said helplessly.

“There’s no helping it. Look, right after Utaha and I got together, I was dragged off to summer cram school, right?”

“”Mhm, mhm.””

“And because it was summer, Utaha hates going out in the sweltering heat.”

“”Mhm, mhm.””

“Plus, you guys know she had work during the break… In the second half of the summer vacation, we both had to go back to Chiba and Wakō City, right?”

“”Mhm, mhm.””

“Before I confessed, Utaha and I hadn’t really gone out on any dates alone. Right after we got together, summer break hit, and then before we knew it, we were living together.”

“Basically, we’ve never had a proper date like the couples around us. After all, since we’re already living together, dates and stuff…”

Listening to this explanation, which felt more like a humblebrag than anything else, the expressions on Yu and Tooru’s faces gradually vanished.

“To sum it up, Utaha said that since it’s a Christmas date, we have to follow the basics of a date. So, that day, we’ll both leave from our respective houses and go on a proper, formal date like a normal couple.”

After finishing his explanation, Miyahito noticed his two best friends staring at him with completely deadpan expressions. His own expression stiffened, and he asked cautiously in a low, submissive voice, “What? Is there a problem?”

The answer he got was.

“You guys really know how to play.”

“Agreed.”