The Blackmailing - III

“Okay, fine,” I said, followed by a resigned sigh.

“Eh?” She looked surprised.

“Don’t ‘eh’ me. I said I am on board.” Why was she acting so surprised all of a sudden when she was cornering me into making me accept her proposal from the start?

She raised her hand and I noticed that her eyes were widened the slightest bit.

“You are finally agreeing to it?” She asked as if she couldn’t believe what I had just said.

“Yes.”

She then narrowed her eyes on me. “I have doubts.”

“You sure have.” Anyone would be dubious if a person who was so vehemently against an idea suddenly says that he is okay with it. They would think something is up and she thought the same.

“I said I am agreeing to your proposal.” Blackmailing should have been the proper word here. “Whether you believe me or not is solely up to you.”

“Hmmm….” She seemed to be thinking long and hard about something.

“But what if you suddenly pull out in the middle?” She asked aloud and then a mischievous smile adorned her face. “I mean, there is no way you can do that with me knowing your secret.”

She had me in the palm of her hand from the beginning. She knew about my inner state of mind and the part-time job I had been hiding from everyone. So that no one would find out, I even went out of my way to work in a different region altogether.

But she managed to somehow find out about it and use it against me. There was no way for me to back out from the start and if I ever thought of breaking off the agreement she could always report it to the school.

As much as it hurts me to admit it, I had no way of escaping once she set her eyes upon me.

“If you were going to accept then you shouldn’t have delayed it so much. You even made me reveal my cards.”

Reveal what cards? Blackmailing was the only thing on her card, no? She was probably thinking of threatening me anyway because she knew that I wouldn’t agree to her confession out of the blue.

Hmm…? Wait?

A sudden chill went down my body. My brain was sending some sort of signals to me but they were fragmented and I couldn’t put them together to form a decent picture. Suddenly, a certain feeling that I was missing something assailed me. What is it…? I started feeling restless. It felt as if it was something right there in front of me, though I couldn’t quite grasp what was nagging me.

“So, we are officially dating from today, right?” Komatsu-san’s sweet voice pulled my brain from that line of thought.

“H-Huh? Yeah.” I had just now agreed to her proposal and that meant we would be dating (pretending of course) from now on. However, when she put it into words like that, I couldn’t help but feel funny. I still couldn't fully digest all this. Seriously, what the hell is happening here?

The next station is Gokai-machi. The door on the right side will open so passengers near the door please be careful. I repeat…

The announcement for my station was made on the speaker.

In under a minute, the door opened with an exhaust of gas, and I stepped out. Komatsu-san dropped off at the same station as me.

“So we are finally in agreement, right?” She said.

“Yes, we are.” Though reluctantly!

“I am in your care from today.” She smiled and bowed her head to me. All I could offer in response was a weak ‘R-right…’ followed by a burst of nervous laughter, not knowing what to do in a situation like this.

I thought that was the end of the conversation and walked away from the platform.

As I walked, I found Komatsu-san walking right next to me.

“What? Are we not done with the conversation?” I asked thinking that she may still have a few things she wanted to say.

“Oh, that we are. For now.”

“Then why are you tagging along?”

“I am not tagging along. I am just heading home for your knowledge.”

At first, it came as a bit of a shock.

Most of the students in Izumo High School were from the Toyohashi region and the students from Gokai-machi were few and far between. There were only a handful of the third years and as far as I know, there weren’t any from our year. That was the reason why I chose this place for my part-time job as there would be less chance of other students or teachers spotting me.

I wondered why she would transfer to a faraway school instead of the public school that is only a ten-minute walk away. I thought of asking her but then thought better and stopped. This was not the correct time for asking that. Moreover, the public school here had a notorious reputation and I could see why a girl like her would not want to study here.

Anyway.

After the shock, came a tiny realization.

If she lived here, it solved the puzzle of how she came to know about my part-time job. She might have spotted me at one time or another.

We walked in silence until we reached a crossing, to the right of which was the cafe I worked at.

Komatsu-san stopped and looked at me. “I will be going this way.” She pointed to the left. Her route to home passed right in front of the cafe so it meant she might have seen me quite a few times.

“Oh, okay,” I said.

“See you at school tomorrow, Mr. Boyfriend.”

She walked away with that statement. I watched her as she went her way, with a spring in her steps. She looked overjoyed for some reason. Maybe because she had achieved her goal of making me submit to her demands?

I watched her for a long while until she disappeared from my sight completely.

Yes, I did agree to be her pretend boyfriend because it posed the risk of my secret being busted otherwise. But that was not all. There was something I wanted to know.

The mystery of how she came to know about my part-time job was solved for now but there was still one more mystery left unsolved. It was how she came to know about my personal philosophy.

There is no way I am believing all that crap of her psychological and observational skills helping her find out about it. Yes, I was momentarily agitated when she suddenly dropped all that but I am not naive enough to believe all that bullshit. I am sure that there is something else she is hiding from me. I would pretend to be her boyfriend and try to get close to her so that I could find out the truth. 

And once I find the truth out, it’s my turn to hit you heavy and turn the tables on you.

With that thought burning in one side of my mind, I pulled open the door to the cafe all the while the feeling that I was overlooking something was constantly nagging at me.