Valentine’s Day came and went, and the remaining three pieces of chocolate were long gone. Not that I wanted to eat it again, but I wouldn’t have any complaints if I had two or three more of them.

          I liked sweet things, so my appetite for them knew no bounds.

          However, they didn’t have to be made by Sendai-san. In fact, it didn’t matter who made the sweets; as long as they weren’t disgusting, it was fine even if the sweets weren’t really that tasty.

          The same idea applied to the dinner that Sendai-san had volunteered to cook for me. It didn’t matter if it was delicious or not. It would all end up in my stomach anyway… Well, Sendai-san may have said she would cook dinner for me, but I wasn’t sure if she truly intended on making it or not.

          While the teacher droned on in the background, I held my hand to my stomach area.

          I stared at the clock that hung above the blackboard. It hadn’t been that long since class started. I still had to wait at least thirty-five minutes before lunchtime.

          「Miyagi, you’re up next.」

          The teacher called on me with a voice that sounded like they were trying to cast a sleep spell straight out of a video game. Although I was only somewhat paying attention to the lecture, I knew the teacher was asking me to read a passage from my textbook.

          I stood up while holding my English textbook in my hands.

          I had no intentions of following a career that would involve fluency in English. I had no plans of leaving Japan either, so it wasn’t going to be a problem even if I didn’t understand English. However, none of that seemed to matter right now. My English classes weren’t going to take mercy on me, and the teacher could call on me whenever they wanted.

          I reluctantly began to read from my textbook.

          I recognised some of the words on the page, but others I wasn’t sure if I’d even seen before now – I had to pause and sound them out. The teacher filled in a couple of those blanks here and there, but I didn’t know if I was even pronouncing them correctly or not.

          「That’s enough. Sit back down, Miyagi. You should pay more attention to class next time.」

          The teacher said, sounding a bit disappointed. I was pretty sure that even if I did pay more attention to class, I would still never come to understand English.

          「Then, let’s have Sendai pick it up from here.」

          Sendai-san answered with, “Okay”, as she got up from her seat.

          With a straightened back, she began reading from the textbook.

          She spoke with clear enunciation, without making any mistakes or getting stuck on difficult words. If our voices could be described with different kinds of penmanship, Sendai-san’s words would be written in cursive letters, while mine would come out as unstable block letters drawn by a child.

          She could do most things flawlessly.

          I heaved a sigh while staring at my textbook.

          I don’t think I could ever understand.

          Her hair color was brownish and she wore makeup. Even her skirt length was shorter than what was acceptable by school rules. Sendai-san wasn’t following school regulations properly, and yet, our teachers would always let her get away with it. She may have called herself clean and pure, but if that were truly the case, would she be wearing makeup? And could someone who was so willing to bite someone else’s foot really be considered pure? I highly doubted it.

          But no matter how much time I poured into thinking about these things, it wasn’t going to change my own circumstances, and it certainly wasn’t going to make me as capable as Sendai-san was.

          I flipped through the pages of my textbook.

          After a little while, Sendai-san’s voice trailed off, and all that was left was the sound of chalk sliding across the blackboard.

          We spent a long, long while just copying what was written on the blackboard into our notebooks. The teacher ended up going five minutes over and into our lunchbreak to wrap up the class. Then, the first moment I could, I pulled out my smartphone from my bag.

          There was a certain message I needed to send before my friend, Maika, could approach me from the very back of the classroom.

          The recipient was none other than Sendai-san, and the body of the message was the same as ever.

          『Come over today.』

          The reply came in right away, and my after-school plans were decided.

          After spending my lunch break in the cafeteria, our remaining classes in the afternoon went by without a hitch. I left for home with Maika, parting ways when she had to make a detour elsewhere. Not long after I got back, I received a message from Sendai-san that read, 『I’ll be there soon』. Rolling around on my bed as I waited, I heard the intercom ringing and let Sendai san in.

          「Sorry to keep you waiting.」

          Sendai-san said as she took off her coat and blazer and sat down in front of my bookshelf as if it were the most natural thing to do. I placed a five-thousand yen bill on top of her head and left the room. I put on my slippers and went towards the kitchen.

          I set two cups on the counter and pulled some soda out of the refrigerator. When I brought the cups back to my room, I found Sendai-san lying on my bed as if she owned the place.

          Next to the unkempt girl lying on my bed were three manga volumes that she had picked out for herself. Since this was a sight that I’d already grown used to, I let it be and placed the two cups on the table. I walked over to my bookshelf and chose a manga for myself as well. Then, I flipped the pages of the book that I’d already read through several times before.

          There weren’t really a lot of things that I could order her to do. As long as we were in my room, I could command Sendai-san around as if she were my servant, but there were also limits to those orders because of the rules that we set. Plus, I didn’t want to be cruel to her all the time, and I didn’t want her to do things that were too weird either.

          And so, the time passed by quickly.

          After finishing one volume of my manga, I continued with reading the next one.

          The only sounds that could be heard from my room were my space heater and the turning of pages.

          By the time I picked up the third volume, Sendai-san’s voice broke the silence.

          「Miyagi, do you play any games?」

          「I do.」

          「Like those kinds of games where hot guys come and flirt with you?」

          I answered Sendai-san without taking my eyes off my manga.

          「I don’t play those types of games.」

          「Oh, really? You own a lot romance manga, so I thought you’d like that sort of thing.」

          I did like romance manga, but that didn’t necessarily mean I was into those types of games. If we were talking about my video game genre of choice, it would be RPGs. I’d rather play a game where I could live out a completely different life from my own than to make myself the target of several love interests.

          「I bet you think the only games that I play are the ones that otakus¹ like.」

          「Oh, you don’t?」

          When I looked up from my manga, I saw a mischievous smile on Sendai-san’s face.

          Without saying anything more, I got up from my seat.

          Perhaps she wasn’t doing it intentionally, but it felt as if she was acting like she was above me. If we were at school right now, that’d be the case, but not here. I didn’t find her attitude particularly amusing.

          「Do my English homework for me.」

          I pulled my textbook and worksheets out of my bag and spread them across my table. However, Sendai-san did not move from the bed.

          「I’ll do it after I’m finished reading this.」

          「Do it right now.」

          「You’re so stingy, Miyagi.」

          She said as she reluctantly took a seat across from me. Then, she pulled out her own worksheets from her bag and began filling them in.

          「I wish you could write the answers directly onto my sheets too.」

          「I told you before, didn’t I? They’ll notice that the handwriting is the same and we’ll get caught.」

          「Just learn to forge my handwriting, then.」

          「I don’t want us to get scolded if we get caught. Plus, we already agreed that anything that interferes with school is against the terms of our agreement, didn’t we?」

          Sendai-san and I meet after school.

          And then we do things together.

          We promised that I wouldn’t order her to do anything that would expose either of those two things.

          Although what Sendai-san said was correct, I felt like it would be easy for her to imitate my handwriting.  

          She could do it, she just didn’t want to.

          That was probably what it was.

          I poked Sendai-san on the cheek with my mechanical pencil.

          「What is it?」

          「Lick it.」

          It was boring watching Sendai-san focus so seriously on homework, so this was just for me to pass the time.

          While sitting on the other side of the table, Sendai-san lifted her head and pressed her lips against the push button of my mechanical pencil. Then, I slid the pencil towards the corner of her mouth. As I slowly traced her lips with it, Sendai-san began to lick the pencil and gnawed on it without the slightest hint of hesitation.

          「I don’t like it when you do that.」

          I said as I pulled the pencil out of her mouth.

          「Don’t like it when I do what?」

          「When you start doing things I didn’t tell you to do.」

          I had ordered her to lick the pencil, not chew on it.

          That was the only thing I asked for.

          「Sendai-san, do you enjoy being ordered around? Because it seems like you do.」

          「Does it look like I’m having fun?」

          I wouldn’t say she looked happy doing it, but it didn’t really seem like she was against it either.

          Up until now, Sendai-san has never once disobeyed my orders.

          Right now, she was doing what I ordered, but at the same time I didn’t feel I was getting exactly what I wanted from her.

          「―― Stop making it seem like you are.」

          I shoved the pencil back into her mouth. I poked her tongue around with the push button and then slid it against her hard palate as if I were scratching it. When I pulled the pencil out of her mouth, Sendai-san frowned, looking unamused, and furrowed her eyebrows.

          「That’s the kind of face that I want to see.」

          I’d never felt like that towards my friends before.

          But Sendai-san wasn’t my friend, so it was fine to want that out of her.

          「You really are a pervert, Miyagi.」

          Sendai-san spoke in a low voice that you’d never hear from her at school as she attempted to confiscate the pencil from me. Dodging her hand, I felt a smile form on my face.

          「You might be right about that.」

          Sendai-san, who hardly ever frowned at school, looked blatantly displeased.

          The Sendai-san who only ever showed her good side to others had disappeared.

          A Sendai-san that no one else knew about was right here.

          I couldn’t help but revel in the joy I felt at this very moment.

          I poked the back of Sendai-san’s hand with the sharp end of my mechanical pencil.

          「Hey, that’s dangerous.」      

          Sendai-san said, her voice sounding gloomy. I continued to dig the tip into her skin until the lead broke. 「That hurts,」 was all she said in response.

          I moved the pencil away from Sendai-san’s hand, reached over to the crocodile that looked like it had tissues growing from its back, and pulled out a tissue to wipe down the push button.

          「Hey, can you make dinner?」

          I wanted to confirm what she said the other day was the truth, and not something she had uttered on a whim.

          「You said you didn’t want to eat it, though?」

          Sendai-san replied coldly while expelling a small sigh. Then, as if to calm herself down, she shut her eyes for a moment before looking at me.

          「But if you order me to, then I will.」

          Sendai-san said quietly as she spelled out some English words on her worksheet.

          I pay her five-thousand yen to order her around.

          But I didn’t want to order her to make me dinner.

          I wanted to give orders for bigger and better things.

          I started writing on my own worksheets, imitating her neat penmanship and beautifully written words as I went.

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1. “Otaku” is a Japanese term used to describe people that have an intense interest in something, especially things related (but not limited) to: anime, manga, web/light novels (hi), video games, etc. The closest English equivalent would be “nerd” or “geek”, but it’s not exactly the same thing – particularly in this context – so I left it untranslated.
   
   In the original text, Miyagi says 「オタクっぽいゲーム」, which, you could imagine, probably means things like dating sims (like what Sendai alludes to) or other anime games. ↩︎

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Credits to himi for proofreading and editing this part!

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