Confession After School, On the Rooftop: Kurami Kagura's Harem Student Council
Spring, and the cherry blossoms are in full bloom. Kurami Kagura, a new student at Iris Private Academy, decides to run for student council president for the simplest of reasons: to have the authority to call his crush out to the school rooftop and confess his love. His oddball election speech unexpectedly goes viral, catching the attention of the school's three most beautiful girls.
The first to approach him is Shion Amakawa, the school's untouchable queen. She is perfect in every way... excep
Confession After School, On the Rooftop: Kurami Kagura's Harem Student Council - My Most Important Friend in the World! Tears After the Rain and a Promise Between Four
My head is pounding.
My limbs felt heavy as lead, and even opening my eyelids was a struggle.
"……Ugh."
Kurou Kagura noticed his own voice sounded strangely distant. His throat burned with heat.
Curled up in his futon, he hazily recalled the events of yesterday.
Rain.
Cold, freezing rain.
He'd cried alone in the middle of the schoolyard. The faces of those three girls were seared into his mind, refusing to fade. Because of me, everything fell apart.
It's over now.
The moment that thought crossed his mind, his consciousness plunged straight into darkness.
――Kagura.
A nostalgic voice called out.
When he opened his eyes, an endless blue sky stretched out before him. Beneath his feet, a green meadow extended as far as he could see. The wind gently rustled through the grass.
"Gramps……?"
Standing there was a slightly stooped old man in a white kimono. It was his beloved grandfather, whom he'd only ever been able to see during summer vacations long ago.
In his hand, as always, he held a small pair of bonsai shears.
"Hey there, Kagura. You've gotten big."
His grandfather's wrinkled face crinkled into a smile.
"Gramps, I…… I hurt everyone……"
Tears spilled out, unstoppable.
"Kagura. Ever since you were little, whenever you fell for someone, you'd get so single-minded you couldn't see anything else around you."
His grandfather spoke in a gentle voice.
"But, there's just one thing I want to teach you."
Pat.
That wrinkled hand rested on Kagura's head.
"What matters is being honest."
Honest.
"And one more thing. Laugh from the bottom of your heart. No matter what. If you laugh, people will surely gather around you. Straightforward, warm-hearted people, just like you."
Being honest.
Laughing from the bottom of your heart.
"……But, I…… I haven't been able to tell them anything. That I love them, that they're important to me, not at all……"
"Ha ha ha! Then go tell them now. You've got legs, right? They're meant to carry you forward."
His grandfather's laughter dissolved into the blue sky.
His vision was enveloped in white light.
――Kagura, the path you choose will surely be alright.
FWUMP!!
Kagura threw off his futon and bolted upright.
His body still felt feverish. His head still ached. But his heart alone pounded with fierce strength.
"I have to tell them…… I'm going to tell them!"
He grabbed his smartphone from beside his pillow. He opened his messaging app and typed to all three at once.
'I'm coming to see you now.'
Just one line. But for now, that was enough.
Still in his sweat-dampened pajamas, Kagura dashed out of the house.
The first place he headed was behind the school gymnasium.
The storage shed, tucked away in the shadow of the clubroom building.
"Haaah, haaah…… Kanata, you're in there, right!"
He threw the door open roughly.
In the dim light, amidst mops and balls scattered haphazardly, she sat huddled in the corner, hugging her knees.
Her ponytail, usually bouncing with energy, hung limp and lifeless.
Her large cat-like eyes were red and swollen, as if she'd cried herself dry.
"……How did you know I was here?"
Kanata's voice was tiny, like a mosquito's whine, and trembling.
"Because whenever you're down, you always come here to do practice swings."
"……I can't show my face in front of you anymore, Kagura. I'm always messing up, my smile's the only thing I've got goin' for me, and in the end, I went and ruined the class presentation too."
Kanata hung her head.
Her fingers, clutching her knees tightly, had turned white.
"It's all my fault, causin' trouble for everyone…… they all hate me now. I can't smile anymore……"
Kagura strode right up to her.
And then, he grabbed her hand with all his strength.
"That's wrong!!"
Kanata's shoulders jolted.
"Your smile isn't a screw-up! If it weren't for your smile, I would've quit being student council president ages ago! You laughed every day, you gave me energy…… all that chaos, I could laugh at it too because you were laughing!!"
"B-but……"
"No buts! You've saved me, more times than I can count! Clumsy or not, you're you, and to me, you're the most important friend in the whole world!!"
Kagura sucked in a breath. His throat burned with pain. But he had to shout out every last bit of what he felt.
"Don't apologize! I won't allow you to blame yourself!"
A moment of silence.
From Kanata's large eyes, huge teardrops spilled over.
"……Uu, uuu…… uwahhhhh!!"
Like a dam breaking.
She threw herself into Kagura's chest.
"I…… I just…… I love you so much, Kagura! I love you, I love you, I didn't want you to hate me……!"
Kanata wailed like a child, sobbing her heart out.
Kagura held her tightly, his arms around her back.
"……Yeah. I love you too. You're a precious friend."
Behind the gymnasium, only the summer sunlight gently enveloped the two of them.
The next place he headed was a luxury apartment building, a ten-minute walk from school.
Grand Hills Tachibanagaoka.
In front of her room on the fifteenth floor, Kagura pressed the intercom over and over, stubbornly, relentlessly.
Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong.
"Shion, open up! I know you're in there!"
After a while, the door opened just a few centimeters.
Through the gap, a pair of narrow, ice-blue eyes looked up at Kagura, frightened.
Her silver hair, usually perfectly styled, was slightly disheveled today.
"……Don't come here anymore. Don't get involved with me."
Her voice was cold. But it trembled, just a little.
"I'm hopeless, no matter what I do. The perfect queen act was just a facade. The real me is shy, a hopeless, useless woman. Nobody needs me."
Saying that, she tried to close the door.
Kagura immediately wedged his own foot into the gap.
"Gah……!"
Wincing in pain, he still refused to back down.
"Wha— what are you doing, you absolute idiot!!"
"Shut up! Listen to me! I've known for ages that you're shy, clumsy, and immediately resort to bossing people around!"
"Huh……?"
"The way you secretly fixed books in the library, the way you helped me with my paperwork without asking, that awful love song you sang in the broadcasting room! I know it all! I know it's all your clumsy way of being kind!"
Kagura kept shouting, forgetting even the pain in his foot caught in the door.
"You want friends more than anyone, you have a kinder heart than anyone, and yet! You're just ridiculously bad at hiding it! Who said nobody needs you!? I need you!!"
Silence.
Click.
The sound of the door lock releasing.
Slowly, the door opened.
There, Shion sat slumped on the floor of the entryway, her face swollen from crying.
"……You're terrible. So cruel…… you're always like this. You always break down the walls around my heart so easily."
From her ice-blue eyes, large tears overflowed, one after another.
"I…… I too…… I love you……! Kurami-kun…… thank you for finding me……"
It was the first time she had ever shown her true face in front of anyone.
The last place Kagura rushed to was the library, long after the sun had set.
It should have been closed by now. But Kagura had once heard from her that one of the window locks was broken.
He passed through the forest of bookshelves, heading to the self-study corner in the very back.
In the darkness, only the pale blue light of a computer monitor faintly illuminated a silhouette.
"……You came."
She sat there, crumpled papers scattered all over the floor around her, glaring at a game strategy guide.
Her hands were trembling slightly. Her left eye, still harboring a reddish-purple light, stared intently at the monitor.
Her right eye, usually hidden by her bangs, was also uncovered today.
"It's my fault, isn't it. All of it."
She spat the words out.
"I used probability and game theory to maneuver things, tried to conquer you in the most efficient way possible. Because of that, the class presentation, your election, everything got messed up. A twisted person like me…… should never have fallen in love."
Kagura silently sat down beside her.
"……Hey, Nazuna."
"Shut up. I don't want to see your face right now."
Pretending to be angry, she turned her face away.
"Those cookies you gave me the other day. You said they were just leftovers, but they were incredibly good."
Nazuna's shoulders twitched.
"And, I know your sharp tongue is always like a shield, trying to stop someone from getting hurt. Aren't you kinder than anyone?"
Kagura continued.
"You don't have to force yourself anymore, not in front of me. Your clumsy thoughtfulness, your obvious kindness…… I love everything about you, all of it. I love you."
Straightforwardly, he put his heart into words.
Nazuna's hand dropped the mouse with a clatter.
"…………Idiot."
She murmured it quietly.
"Ever since you said my right eye was 'beautiful'…… I've…… I've always, always loved you. This is a bug. There's no strategy guide for this at all……"
Tears spilling even from her hidden golden right eye, she leaned against Kagura's shoulder.
Night.
As Kagura stared at the ceiling from his sofa at home, the doorbell rang three times, almost simultaneously.
When he opened the door, there stood the three of them, awkwardly facing each other.
"I-I just happened to be passing by. I might deign to allow you to invite me in."
"Me too, just happened by! I was just passin' in front of Kurami's house and happened to run into these two, that's all!"
"……Running into each other right in front of the house? Do you have any idea how low the probability of that is? Total bug."
Kagura laughed out loud.
"Ha ha ha! Come in, everyone! I'll make some cocoa!"
They sat in a circle on the living room floor.
With warm mugs in hand, the conversation, awkward at first, quickly loosened up.
"……I'm really sorry. Back then, I thought it was all my fault."
"Me too. If I had just been more honest, this wouldn't have happened."
"Me too…… I'm sorry for always calculating everything."
"Me too. Because I wasn't clear about things…… I hurt everyone. But I've decided now. I still don't know who I'll choose. But——"
Kagura looked directly at the three of them.
"I want the four of us to stay together from now on! Not a single one can be missing. To me, you're all irreplaceable, precious friends!!"
After a moment of silence.
"Pfft…… ahahahaha!! What is that? That's not fair, Kurami Kagura! You absolute idiot!!"
Shion burst out laughing, clutching her stomach.
"Ha— ha ha!! Seriously, Kagura, you're a bug! But that Kagura…… I love him so much!!"
Kanata was laughing hysterically too, tears welling up in the corners of her eyes.
Carried away by momentum, she spilled the cocoa in her hand.
"Ah! You spilled it!"
"Ahaha! What are you doing!"
"……Pfft, ahaha! Everyone's a bug! This isn't even in my database! But…… these are the people I love."
Nazuna laughed too, not hiding her right eye, her face a mix of tears and laughter.
The sound of their laughter dissolved into the quiet of the night.
And so, the long, painful battle for Kagura came to an end.
It was the moment the four of them truly became "the most precious friends in the world."
The next morning.
Bathed in the morning sun, the four of them lay sprawled out, defenselessly asleep on the carpet of Kagura's living room.
"……Everyone looks so cute when they're sleeping."
Kagura, the first to wake, murmured this with a wry smile.
He remembered his grandfather's words.
(Be honest, laugh from the bottom of your heart. Gramps, I still can't give you an answer, but I think this is fine for now.)
He spoke to his grandfather quietly in his heart.
That's when it happened.
Bzzzt. His smartphone vibrated just once.
He glanced at the screen and saw a message from the vice principal.
'Come to the student council room immediately. I need you to show around a transfer student.'
"A transfer student……?"
Kagura tilted his head.
He still had no idea what those words meant.
Nor did he know that this quiet, happy morning was merely the calm before the storm.
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