14th Meal

Yamori Yuu and Good Looking Girls Part 1

“Hey, you there. I was wondering…would you like to drink with me until morning?”

“…….”

“Hey!? At least react a little Yuu~~kun! You’re going to make your Onee-san cry, you know~!?”

“What’s with you, Onee-san? Also, can you not use that weird pick-up line every time you ask me out to drink?”

One day, at lunchtime, in the undergraduate building of the Utatane Private University’s Faculty of Law.

I replied to my college friend who approached me with a line that sounded like something a host in a red-light district would say, thinking that it was a bother. The tall woman —Aoba Aoi— clasped her hands together with a ridiculous smile plastered on her face that did not convey any sense of apology and said, “Sorry~ Sorry~”

She has been involved with me in some way since we met in a seminar as freshmen, and today, as usual, she came to invite me to a drinking party.

“I couldn’t catch anyone today~ So how about it? Want to entertain me for a while?”

“No, I don’t want to.”

“You don’t have to answer so quickly~!”

I sighed slightly as I heard Aoba’s deliberately sad voice. I tried not to be too reserved as she approached me with the distance of a friend of the same sex rather than a friend of the opposite sex.

If I followed the “ladies first” etiquette rule and thought, “It’s a girl’s request…” this woman would invite me out for fun almost every day. In fact, I’ve heard that Aoba skipped so many classes that she barely made it to the end of her sophomore year this spring.

“Please~ just this life-long favor for Aoi-chan, ple~ase~”

“You said that last month when we were drinking. How many times are you going to ask me that ‘life-long favor,’of yours?”

“I didn’t say it like that.”

“Then it’s just a request, rephrase it properly.”

“Please~ Ao-chan’s begging you~~”

“…….”

“Hmm, you’re ignoring me, aren’t you? You asked me to ‘rephrase,’ so I did, didn’t I?”

“I didn’t say I’m going to answer you, though.”

“Now that you mention it…”

“Still not convinced?”

Aoba nodded and followed me around for a few moments. She apparently intends to continue inviting me.

“Please Yuu~ Hey, just this once! Just this once, all right~!?”

“I said I don’t want to, plus you have bad drinking habits.”

“Why~! Ah, maybe you don’t like being alone with me? I’ll bring a cute girl with me then!I know a really cute girl who’s just a freshman!”

“Then why don’t you go with her from the start?”

“Eh? I don’t want ’cause she has bad drinking habits, too.”

“If that’s the case, I don’t want to go there either!”

What’s so sad about having to go out drinking with two women with bad drinking habits? They will just be burdens to me in the end.

“Why, though~!? A younger, cute girl and me, an adult woman, come together as a set.　What more do you want~?”

“Can you not say that? You’re making it sound like you’re miserable.”

“…Yesterday at a drinking party, a fellow seminar member, Yokota, said to me with a big smile, “Aoba-san is very boyish, so you’re easy to talk to.”

“Y-Yeah…? Oh well, that’s a bummer, isn’t it?”

“Un…That’s why I told him—‘Yeah, that’s the reason why I’m more popular with girls than you, right!?’”

“You actually don’t care about that at all, do you?”

We arrived at the classroom for my next class and found two empty seats among the crowd of lunching students and sat down. Aoba, cross-legged in her long skinny jeans next to me, giggled with amusement. On second thought, she wasn’t the kind of person who cares about being called “Boyish” to the extent that she was.

“Sorry, but I’m going to have to pass on the drinking. I have a prior engagement today, with a ‘younger, prettier girl.’”

“HAHA, in your dreams~”

“Hey, Don’t laugh at me!”

Aoba laughed as if to say, “There’s no way Yuu has such a partner like that.”

I want to hit her. If the other party had been a good male friend of mine, I would have punched him right away.

“…Eh? A-Are you serious…? Impossible, There’s no way Yuu knew a younger girl…”

“Don’t give me that look, I’m serious here. Why would I tell a stupid lie like that?”

“T-That’s true… if you’re going to tell a lie, you wouldd usually tell a more realistic one…”

“What do you mean by that!?”

“S-So who is it!? A freshman in the same department!? Or is it a kid from another department!?”

Aoba snaps me with great force, but I pull her off by saying, “No, It’s different!”

“She’s a high school girl who lives next door!”