Amamiya Shizuru did not like cats.
This creature was simply the epitome of eating well and being lazy, doing nothing at all, meowing when hungry, sleeping when full, rubbing against you a couple of times when in a good mood, and not even bothering to look at you when in a bad mood.
Simply because they looked cute, they could openly be raised by humans, praised, photographed, and uploaded to SNS.
Amamiya Shizuru held a negative attitude toward this way of survival.
After all, the previous civilization that liked cats had already disappeared into the long river of history.
So when she was carrying her bento box across the courtyard during lunch break that day and saw an orange fur ball curled up by the flower bed, her first reaction was to go around it.
There was no one else in the courtyard.
Only the rustling sound of the wind blowing through the azalea bushes, and the occasional purring that rolled out from the depths of that cat’s throat.
When she walked past the orange cat, Amamiya Shizuru stopped her footsteps.
She merely stopped, it did not represent anything.
That orange cat was scratching its ear with its hind leg, its movements as lazy as a middle-aged uncle nestled on the sofa watching TV on the weekend.
It yawned, flipped over, and exposed its light-colored belly to the sunlight.
“…..”
Did modern stray cats not even know how to do the most basic fawning?
Could it be that it had judged the metal box in her hand was not cat food, and directly classified her as a “valueless human”?
I indeed will not feed you.
Its judgment was not bad. Amamiya gave a fair evaluation in her heart.
Seeing that there was no one around, she squatted down.
She merely squatted, it did not represent anything.
She placed the bento box on her knees, freed her right hand, and extended one finger.
The cat’s ears twitched.
Its amber eyes opened a slit, glanced at her, and closed again, roughly meaning, “If you want to touch, then touch.”
Amamiya suddenly felt a bit unconvinced.
This “bestowing favor” attitude made her feel subtly displeased.
Her fingertip hung in midair, not immediately falling.
One person and one cat confronted each other in the afternoon sunlight for about ten seconds.
In the end, the one who could not hold on was still the cat.
It stood up, then walked over with unhurried steps, and rubbed its head against her fingertip.
She scratched it again.
The cat flipped over, revealing that soft belly.
Amamiya hesitated for a moment.
“……Just this once, okay.”
Her fingertip sank into that light orange fluff, the touch warm, rising and falling slightly with the cat’s breathing.
The cat’s front paws hugged her finger, the paw pads a pale pink, pressing down would make a small dent, releasing and it would bounce back.
The corner of Amamiya’s mouth curved up slightly.
“Clearly doing nothing, yet able to make people willingly serve you.”
She rubbed the cat’s nape with her fingertip pad.
“In a certain sense, it really is an impressive survival strategy. But…..”
“Amamiya-san?”
Amamiya Shizuru’s finger stopped in midair.
Why did it have to be this guy?
She swiftly retracted her expression, stood up, looking completely unlike someone who had just been teasing a cat.
Asano Toru stood in front of the vending machine not far away, holding a can of Suntory oolong tea he had just bought.
He had probably come from the corridor to buy a drink, passed by the courtyard, and happened to catch this scene.
To be honest, that scene was indeed beautiful.
A black-haired girl squatting by the flower bed, her fingertip lightly touching the orange cat’s chin, the girl’s side profile appearing especially soft in the light, a softness that even she herself was unaware of.
Asano Toru almost thought he had recognized the wrong person.
“……Does Amamiya-san like cats?”
“I don’t.”
“But just now…..”
“You saw wrong.”
“……”
Asano pulled open the tab of the oolong tea and took a sip.
Indeed.
Someone who could threaten the other party on their first meeting, how could she easily admit that she had been squatting in the courtyard teasing a cat.
Having figured out this layer, Asano decided not to pursue further questions.
The cost-performance ratio of arguing with this woman, he had already fully experienced yesterday.
“Asano-san seems to have quite some leisurely elegance.”
Amamiya’s gaze fell on the oolong tea in his hand. “Going out of your way to detour to the courtyard to buy a drink?”
“The vending machine on the classroom floor is broken.”
Asano said. “And if we’re talking about leisurely elegance, the scene of a certain someone squatting by the flower bed teasing a cat seems more persuasive… Forget it, pretend I didn’t say that.”
Amamiya Shizuru had already withdrawn her gaze from his face.
Asano Toru tactfully shut his mouth.
Amamiya was wearing the summer school uniform today, a white short-sleeved shirt, a cyan pleated skirt, black long stockings wrapping her evenly proportioned calves, the overall style extremely simple, without any excess decoration.
But how to put it?
High-end ingredients often only needed the most plain cooking methods.
Her features looked impeccable no matter what clothes they were paired with, a point that even Asano had to admit.
Although his wariness toward this “bad woman” had not completely been put down, things like eyes occasionally did not listen to the brain’s commands.
Speaking of which, why was he still standing here?
Yet in the next second, Amamiya spoke.
“Asano-san.”
“Hm?”
“Can you wait a few more days?”
Asano Toru froze for a moment.
This sentence came out of nowhere, he completely could not grasp the direction.
“……What do you mean?”
“The stockings I wore today are newly bought, this is the first time wearing them, so it will take some time before I can hand them over to you.”
Asano Toru suddenly regretted immensely that he had actively walked over just now to buy this can of oolong tea.
No, to be precise, from the moment he opened the door under the apartment building yesterday evening, he should not have let this woman step into his home, and the most most unforgivable thing was picking up that pair of long stockings after she left.
One step wrong.
Every step wrong.
“Amamiya-san, I really do not have this kind of special hobby.” Asano said helplessly.
“As a high school boy who is healthy in both body and mind, I have no interest in women’s clothing beyond the normal range. The scene you saw at my place yesterday was purely a huge misunderstanding. I picked them up because I was checking whether they had been washed clean—”
Forget it, even he himself did not believe this reason.
“In short.”
Asano gave up continuing to explain and jumped directly to the conclusion.
“I. Am. Not. A. Leg. Fetishist.”
Amamiya blinked.
“Oh.”
“But speaking of which.”
Amamiya seemed to recall something and lowered her eyelashes.
“The long stockings I left there yesterday, how are they now?”
Asano froze.
How did the topic circle back again?
“In the wardrobe.”
Asano answered truthfully. “I’m keeping them carefully, haven’t done anything strange.”
Amamiya lightly “mm”ed once.
Just the point of “keeping them carefully” was already very strange, Asano-san……
But she did not say this sentence out loud.
“Let’s set yesterday’s matter aside for now,” Amamiya brushed the hair that had fallen in front of her shoulder behind her ear, “the matter after school, you haven’t forgotten, right?”
“The Second Student Guidance Room.”
“Very good.”
Asano looked at Amamiya’s calm and wave-less face, hesitated for a moment.
“Amamiya-san, there’s something I want to confirm first.”
“Hm?”
“About my part-time job…” Asano lowered his voice.
Although there were only the two of them in the courtyard at this moment, this kind of matter was not suitable to discuss loudly on any occasion.
“You haven’t told the school, right?”
Amamiya Shizuru raised her eyes.
Those were a pair of clear eyes with distinct black and white, in the afternoon light, the edges of the pupils faintly tinged with light brown, looking even worthy of being called—honest.
“Rest assured, Asano-san.”
“I am not some bad-tempered, petty bad woman. Something like reporting a fellow student’s part-time job, I will not do.”
In her words, it was as if she had completely forgotten what happened yesterday.
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