My Japanese Childhood Friend Is Too Flirty

21. After School with Childhood Friends (1)

The interrogation disguised as questions, or rather the questions disguised as interrogation (Come on, be honest, you’re dating her, right? What? No? If you’re not dating, then why did you kiss her in front of the class, you deceiver…) finally ended right after the bell rang for the break after the 6th period.

Since today was the first day and classes only went up to the 6th period, to put it simply, I had to endure all sorts of harassment, teasing, questioning, and outright criticism from lunchtime until the end of school.

The one who caused it was my childhood friend, Aki.

……Anyway, after school.

I had politely declined my classmates’ invitation to hang out and was heading home with Aki.

Today, since my parents had gone to America for work, Aki had decided to come over and cook for me, as I was living alone.

That’s that, and this is this.

“……Aki, I’ll give you one minute to explain yourself.”

I stopped at the bus stop and looked at Aki.

No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t understand why Aki had played such a prank on me, so I wanted to hear the explanation from her own mouth.

“Huh? What explanation~?”

As if she had been waiting for those words, Aki looked up at me and asked back.

Contrary to her innocent expression, the corners of her mouth were curved, and her eyes were smiling. It was obvious to anyone that she was pretending not to know on purpose.

“What do you mean, what explanation? Do you really not know…?”

“Yeah, I don’t really know. Could you explain it to me, Uju~chan?”

“…….”

Oh, what a shameless and cute girl.

Aki, who was about a head shorter than me, tilted her head slightly, looking so cute that my eyes were naturally drawn to her, but if she thought she could get away with just this level of cuteness, she shouldn’t have started in the first place.

I took my eyes off the smiling Aki and placed my hand on the glass of the bus stop, recalling my earlier frustration.

“Earlier, during lunch, you came to our class-.”

“Oh, the bus is here. Uju~chan, let’s get on the bus!”

“……Ah, okay.”

We have to catch the bus.

The bus we take has a 15-minute interval, so if we miss it, there’s no hope.

Awkwardly withdrawing my hand, I followed Aki onto the bus.

“Two students, please~”

“Wait a moment, I’ll pay for mine. Please cancel the two, we’ll pay separately…”

“Uju~chan, just hurry up and get on. Other passengers are waiting behind us!”

Hearing Aki’s words, I quickly looked back. A boy who seemed to be a student from the same school was looking up at us with a lukewarm gaze from the foot of the stairs.

“Student, are you paying separately?”

“Ah… no. Please do it together.”

I put my phone back in my pocket and climbed the stairs.

Given the time of day, the bus should be relatively empty, but today, strangely, there were many passengers, and there was no seat for Aki and me to sit together.

I wondered if anyone looked like they might get off at the next stop. I glanced around.

“Uju~chan.”

Thud, as the bus started moving forward, Aki gently tugged at my sleeve.

“Huh, what?”

“Over there, there’s a seat at the back. Go sit, Uju~chan.”

“I’m fine, Aki, you sit.”

“Huh? No, I’m okay.”

“Then let’s decide with rock-paper-scissors. The loser sits.”

“Okay, the loser sits!”

Normally, the winner would sit down, but Aki and I had a unique agreement that the loser would take the seat.

“If you don’t put it out, you lose. Rock, paper… scissors!”

“…Ah, I win!”

“Ah…”

The result was my defeat.

Aki had scissors, and I had paper.

Aki, who had defeated me in rock-paper-scissors, puffed out her chest and smiled, gesturing towards the empty seat.

“Hehe, Uju-chan. You still have ten years to go before you can beat me. Come on, sit down. Uju-chan!”

“Darn it, Aki…”

As the loser, I swallowed my tears and sat down.

Aki approached me.

“Now, it feels like I’m incredibly tall.”

“Coincidentally, I feel like I’ve become incredibly short.”

Although we hadn’t measured recently, the height difference between Aki and me was roughly 20 cm. About the height of an adult woman’s head.

So, normally, Aki would look up at me, but now that I was sitting, Aki was looking down at me, and I was looking up at her. We were looking at each other from completely reversed eye levels.

“It would have been fun if our heights were actually like this, right?”

“Maybe for you, but not for me…”

A guy shorter than a childhood friend who is around 160 cm by more than 30 cm. That would make me about 130 cm, which is almost elementary school level. No matter how you look at it, that’s a bit much.

-Next stop, in front of City Hall, Deoksugung. The next stop is Seoul Station Bus Transfer Center…

“Two stops left, right, Uju-chan?”

“No, we need to get off in front of the school, so it’s three stops.”

“Oh, right. I forgot, hehe.”

“That’s not something you should forget….”

Screech, while we were having a trivial chat, the bus arrived at the stop.

Looking at the queue outside the window, it seemed quite a few people were getting on this time too, but my gaze was fixed on the very front row.

There, an elderly woman with white hair who seemed to have some difficulty moving caught my eye.

‘…Oh.’

There was no need to hesitate.

I immediately stood up.

“Grandma, please sit here.”

I approached the elderly woman and carefully guided her to the seat I had been sitting in until a moment ago.

“Thank you, student. Should I hold your bag for you?”

“No, it’s fine. We’re getting off soon, so you don’t need to. Right, Aki?”

“Huh? Oh, yes. That’s right…?”

Aki seemed flustered, not expecting me to seek her agreement, but quickly nodded.

The elderly woman looked at the two of us with a pleased smile and then asked gently,

“The girl next to you, is she your girlfriend?”

“…What?!”

The question was directed at me, but Aki was more surprised than I was.

“Oh, um, well….”

“…….”

Aki, with a flushed face, glances at me.

I ponder for a moment on how to respond.

‘……Well, since we’re going to get married eventually anyway.’

Thinking it wouldn’t matter much, I opened my mouth.

“Yes, well…. something like that?”

“……?!”

“Huh, why? Isn’t it? Aki, were we nothing? Are we strangers?”

“N-no…! That, that’s not it…. I, I mean, the words, a bit…!”

“……Miss.”

“Ah, y-yes…?”

“Polite young men like this are rare these days. So, while he’s still young, hold on tight, okay? Hold on as tight as you can. Got it?”

“…….”

Aki’s face turned bright red.

Her cheeks, not just her cheeks but even her neck, turned so red that it seemed like they might burst. She didn’t know what to do, making strange noises like ‘Eh, ah, th-that…. uh, ugh….’

As if trying to hide her flushed face, she quickly lowered her head and walked fast to the bus exit.

Beep─!

And, not stopping there, she pressed the exit bell repeatedly.

Seeing her do that even though it’s still one stop away, she must have been really embarrassed.

“…….”

Hmm, was it an unintended success of revenge?

I chuckled inwardly and slowly, leisurely approached Aki.

Aki knew I was beside him, yet he remained silent.

Sensing that he was deliberately ignoring me, I glanced around and cautiously broke the silence.

“When should we get married, Aki?”

“……”

“After we graduate from university, or after I come back from the military? Or should we just get married as soon as we turn twenty?”

“……”

“What, you’re not going to answer? Should I just marry another girl?”

“…………That won’t do.”

‘He answers to something like this…’

He has a cute side, more than he appears, or rather, as much as he appears.

Finding Aki’s shy but firm refusal adorable, I subtly…

──Screech!

At that moment, the bus suddenly came to a halt.

Startled by the jolt of the bus, all the passengers, including myself, were taken aback. I instinctively grabbed the pole and moved to hold Aki, who was beside me, tightly.

“……Aki, are you okay?”

This sudden stop happens on every bus I take.

While asking with my mouth, I checked Aki’s condition with my eyes.

Unintentionally, Aki, who was half-embraced in my arms, seemed fine.

“Ah, thank goodness.”

It seems I managed to avoid falling by grabbing her waist instead of her shoulder.

I genuinely felt relieved and let out a small laugh.

“…Ah, ugh.”

Aki, who had been staring at me in surprise, slowly seemed to come back to her senses and moved her lips.

“Th-thank you… Woojoo…”

“Yeah, it’s fine since you’re not hurt. But didn’t you just call me Woojoo?”

“…Huh? Did I?”

“Yeah, you didn’t call me Woojoo-chan, you just said Woojoo.”

I once mentioned the Japanese naming culture, yobisute.

If “name + san (さん)” is a title used among acquaintances, “name + chan (ちゃん)” is used among close friends. The next stage is to drop all the titles and just call the person by their name.

From what I know, Japanese people only call someone by their name alone in two cases. One is with immediate family or a lover, and the other is with a very close friend.

So, in other words, Aki calling me by just my name means…

“Wait a minute, could it be… Aki, you and I…”

“…Ah, I’m getting off!”

“Huh? Aki, where are you going~?”

“I-I don’t know…! Woojoo, you idiot! You’re such an idiot…!”