Chapter 11: Are You Hot Because You're a Good Friend? Or... Not?

A good friend's duty is not to be there for you always. That's not how Kobura Kenta saw things.

"... And after I spoke my parting words..."

A good friend does not live for the sake of protecting a friendship. A good friend is his own person. It just happens that two people might click from the moment they meet one another, and that's how a friendship is formed. Kenta was convinced that that was how things worked.

"... Every single morning..."

It was not a friend's duty to give advice. Unless your friend asks for it, that is. Yet even if that were to happen, Kobura Kenta wasn't sure that he could say anything that would help his best friend.

"... When I smacked you over the head..."

Firendship is not an expensive vase you're meant to treasure forever and keep polished on a shelf. Friendships can get dirty. They can break. They can be patched back up or even build from scratch. That's why Kenta thought of friendships as being so precious. Their value would forever fluctuate, and even if one day you feel sick of a friend, you never know when that person might end up looking like the most important individual in your life.

"... And I wanted to know what Airi-senpai's problem was..."

The love belonging to a friendship cared not for romance. As such, it would have been stupid to get mad at a friend for something related to his or your love life. A friend is a friend, and a lover is a lover. That's what Kobura Kenta thought, so he cared little for the fact Haruto had been following Airi. If anything, he felt thankful to his friend for trying to take his side.

"... But then she came to my place and..."

After all, a loss was a loss. Jealousy had no place in a friendship.

"... and I haven't seen Yuurei since!"

Finally, it was Kenta's time to speak.

"How about you first get up? You've been lying there for twenty minutes. Isn't the ground cold? I'm getting the chills just sitting here and listening."

"But... the mold..."

"Ahh, will you shut up about your mold?"

Most importantly, a friend should know to keep the perfect balance between kindness and roughness. A good friend knew when to sit and listen, but a great friend also knew when to beat their friends into shape. Fortunately for Haruto, King Kobra was a great friend.

"So what if the walls get moldy? Isn't that mold the one you allowed to grow? That aside, what even are you going on about with all this mold stuff?"

"I mean... It feels wrong to call it—" Haruto tried to answer, but Kenta didn't give him the time, grabbing the boy by the hand and forcefully lifting him to his feet.

"It's about Airi-senpai, right? She's made her move on you, and now you can't take your mind off that, right? So what point is there in trying to sugarcoat it? Especially by calling her 'mold'?"

"Kenta..."

"You know the mighty King Kobra, right? Such a noble beast doesn't care for some fine prey being taken away. These forests are a vast hunting ground! There's plenty for me to pick from, so I don't mind you winning a round or two!"

"You know, maybe you'd fare better if you didn't call girls your pre—"

"THE POINT IS... that this is not the time for you to care about my feelings. You're caught in a weird... thing that I can't really call a love triangle... and it is only natural that the king of the jungle—"

"Weren't you in the forest?"

"IT IS ONLY NATURAL... that the king of this forest would help a fellow subject, even though this feisty one tried to do me in multiple times."

"Pfft!"

It came out of nowhere. From inside the depressed boy came short bursts of laughter, much too sudden for him to hold it back.

"Aren't you afraid I might have gone insane or something? I've been talking about the ghost of a girl we both knew, and you said nothing. What if, once we get to my room, I cut you to pieces or something?"

"Even if you're truly crazy, I think I get the friend's pass, don't I?"

Haruto wiped off his eyes that were definitely not teary.

"I don't know about that. I might want to be rid of you once and for all after you've seen me like this. And even if I don't, are you sure you want to go into a haunted house?"

"Haunted by our high school's beautiful Ice Queen? You must have hit your head badly if you think I'd back off from that!"

"So you're really not gonna ask about me seeing a ghost and talking about how I broke her heart?"

Kobura Kenta considered himself a good friend, and good friends often end up doubting one another's sanity.

'"hat point is there? You've been crying here, telling me what you had to tell. What kind of idiot would I be to say I don't believe you at this point?"

Yet even if his friends were going crazy, Kenta built his friendships on one rule, and that rule was to never doubt a friend. No matter how stupidly made up the situation seemed, and no matter whether he was truly being led on a ghost hunt or not, Kenta would follow his friends to the depths of hell if that is where fate took them.

That's why, with no worry that he might be getting pranked, Kenta followed Haruto to his room, ready to help with thinking of a way to get his friend out of the troubles he had been dragged through.

The one thing they failed to observe, however, is that they hadn't been alone on that street for a while.

Hiding behind the building she had visited merely half a day ago, there stood a girl with her hair dyed blonde and with clothes that didn't fit the cold season.

Maybe she had forgotten something there, or maybe she wanted to see if the seed she had planted had sprouted.

However, judging by her expression, it was clear that neither of these plans was going as she had wished.

"Oh my god..." Airi said, her cold hands covering her bright red face.

"Kenta..." she spoke a boy's name, tightly closing her eyes as the words left her mouth.

"That was so hot!"

*****

Although it was his second year, on that day in April when Haruto opened his eyes, he felt like he had once again started a new life.

The room was the same one as last year, but something felt different.

The weather was just like his first day at university, yet something was missing.

The pink trees shed their petals all the same, each branch tempting the boy to try it out, but he resisted, for nobody could go up there with him.

Even the classes, which passed one after another in boring fashion, felt different. They felt empty, as if something was lacking. Usually, there was somebody who would keep nagging the boy who was doing his best to study, but not now. Not this year.

"This is a bit of an unusual announcement, but we have a new student who has proven themselves to be extremely promising, so the school would like to place her in the 2nd year with you all."

That's all the professor said before leaving the room. He was in a rush to solve his own issues, so he didn't teach that class. On top of that, he even let the new student stand there for everyone to stare at her.

Even so, the girl wasn't taken aback. Her strong presence was felt from the very first words she spoke.

"Nice to meet you all!"

The new girl was clearly taking advantage of the lax regulation of this university, for her looks were like none other's. Her hair and eyes were of a bright red, and for accessories she wore demoness horns and a tail, blatantly ignoring all common sense and capturing the gazes of all the boys with ease.

"My name is Shirakawa Yuurei. Of course, you can call me Yuurei!"

And among these captive gazes was a pair of eyes that she stared right back into, the tip of her finger touching her lip to signal a certain boy to keep his mouth shut, for in that room, only Haruto knew who that pretty face belonged to.