I was walking down the school hallways, completely bored with class. I had said I wanted to go to the bathroom, but let's be honest, it was just an excuse. I just wanted to stretch my legs and distract myself for a bit. Life's too short to spend it listening to logarithms.
Ah… poor Nino. She's probably steaming right now, trying to solve those math problems. And since I'm not there to help her, she's probably struggling like a fish out of water. Heh, so funny.
As I walked, laughing like an idiot at the mental image of Nino panicking, my eyes caught a familiar figure in the distance: it was Ichika.Obviously, I approached her to say hello. After all, it wasn't common to see her wandering the halls alone.
—"Hey, Ichika. Shouldn't you be in class?" —I asked with a teasing smile.
She jumped, clearly surprised to see me there.
—"A-ah, well… shouldn't you also be in class, Kuroda-kun?" —she quickly responded.
But something didn't fit. Something felt off. A small alarm went off in my head.
"Kuroda-kun?" Since when did Ichika call me that? She always uses my first name naturally, like we've been friends forever.
I squinted my eyes and crossed my arms, inspecting her carefully. And then I noticed it: this girl wasn't wearing the small earrings that Ichika always wears. Also, hanging from her neck were some pretty flashy headphones. Headphones that, by the way, belonged to someone I knew very well.
I smiled to myself and took a few more steps towards her until I was right in front of her.
—"Miku" —I said softly, leaning in a little —"If you're going to dress up as Ichika, the first thing you should do is take off your signature headphones."
The girl's eyes went wide, completely frozen in place.She looked like a deer caught in the headlights.
—"Y-you…! Don't tell anyone!" —she pleaded in a hurried whisper, clearly desperate.
I couldn't help but laugh a little. She was so easy to read.
—"Relax, relax. I don't know why you're doing this, but I'm not getting into your business" —I assured her, raising my hands in a gesture of peace.
I turned around to continue walking, but before leaving, I couldn't resist throwing one last joke:
—"Although if it turns out you have some secret 'sister cosplay' fetish, don't be surprised if I accidentally mention it in my next class essay."
—"You wouldn't!" —she yelled, her face as red as a tomato.
I laughed as I walked away, feeling quite satisfied.I guess, in this school, you never get bored.And somehow, my life was getting more and more entertaining… although, of course, I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
...
—"Huh? Are you saying that Osamu-kun found out about you?" —Ichika asked, so surprised she almost dropped the juice she was holding.
Classes had already ended, and now they were at home, lounging on the couch as usual. Miku, curled up in a corner of the sofa, had just filled Ichika in on her little incident at school.
—"Yeah…" —Miku admitted with a resigned expression —"He only needed one look to figure out I wasn't Ichika."
Ichika frowned, clearly intrigued."How did he notice so quickly?" she thought. After all, very few people — aside from their father or grandfather — could spot the tiny differences between them. That was when they were in their normal mode! If one of them dressed up as the other, the disguise was practically perfect.
—"Well… it might have been my fault" —Miku said, shrugging a bit in her seat —"I called him by his last name instead of his first name, like you usually do. And… I forgot to take off my headphones."
Ichika sighed deeply."Hmmm… Maybe it was that, yeah. But still, how observant he is to notice such small details…"
—"Hey, girls! What are you talking about?" —an energetic voice interrupted.
Yotsuba appeared behind Miku out of nowhere, almost giving her a heart attack. No one knew how, but Yotsuba always managed to jump into a conversation as if she had been part of it from the start.
—"Oh, well, you see…" —Ichika started to explain the situation to her more hyperactive sister.
When she finished the summary, Yotsuba placed a hand on her chin, as if she were a great detective pondering a deep mystery.
—"That's love!" —she declared enthusiastically, pointing at Miku as if she had just solved an important case.
Both Ichika and Miku nearly choked from the shock.
—"L-love!?" —Ichika repeated, waving her hands —"What are you saying, Yotsuba!?"
—"Yes, yes! Grandpa said the only way to tell us apart was by true love, remember?" —Yotsuba said, as confident as if she had just quoted a universal law.
Miku turned as red as a tomato and shook her head frantically.
—"T-that doesn't make sense!" —she protested —"I'm not even that close to Kuroda for me to like him! We barely talk…"
—"Well, even though I joke around with him a lot, something like that happens to me too. Besides, we're in different classes, so we can't really see each other that often. The only one who spends more time with him is Nino…"
There was a brief silence, during which all of them considered this possibility....Which was quickly swept aside by Miku, who was adamantly rejecting the "true love" theory.
—"So if it's not love, how do you explain how he knew it wasn't Ichika but Miku?!" —Yotsuba protested.
Ichika shrugged cheerfully.
—"What do I know! Maybe he has eagle eyes. Or maybe he's a wizard!" —she said as if it were the most logical thing in the world.
Miku sighed, defeated.
"A wizard?" she thought. "I'd rather it be that than some sort of romantic obsession…"
Meanwhile, Ichika, who had been thoughtful the whole time, let out a soft laugh.Whether it was love or just intuition, one thing was certain: Osamu Kuroda wasn't just any guy.
And somehow, that made him even more interesting.