Stealing Spree

“Taku ruined my time with you…”

That’s what Saki blurted out along with a disappointed sigh before entering their clubroom.

While that was true, I was actually the main culprit for ruining it completely. We could ignore that guy and just focus on the few minutes that we could spend together but I chose to confront him.

In the end, it wasn’t even that fruitful because the guy only remained silent.

To own up to that, I told her to wait for me after club hours which instantly brightened up her mood. I’ll have her stay behind and walk her home.

I have no particular schedule to attend to today. Even sending them to their bus stop today was scrapped by the girls. They extended their consideration for my parents’ arrival.

Although it’s still up to me whether to run around and pick them up one by one, I will surely worry about them again if I do that.

This is the hardship of being someone with a lot of girlfriends. Back then, I could make do with just picking one of the girls I stole to spend time with or tail and observe a target.

Now, my possessiveness and being a worrywart just kept wanting to run towards them. If not for the distance and being at a different school, I’d most likely do the same for those Akane and the others.

Am I worrying that they will cheat on me? Not really and I’m done overthinking this part. The subject of my worry is the certainty that they’ll be arriving home safely.

Most of them will either call or message me with an attached photo of them as if updating me of their whereabouts. That’s true especially for those girls at the other school. Not everyone was like that though… There’s Mizuki, who apart from saying that she’s home or at school, would only update me whenever there’s something special happening around her.

For example, finding a new bakery that’s selling a special meat bun she hadn’t tasted yet.

Yeah. She’s still an enthusiast of that. That place where we met already became a place for her to satisfy her meat bun cravings.

Anyway, there's that. So, this is just literally me worrying over not seeing my girls.

But as they said, I truly have to get used to this as well. Because all of them were also suffering in this kind of mental dilemma. And it’s even worse for them. Because most of the time, they’ll know that I’m with one of them or worse, I’m with a new girl that’s not part of this complex relationship yet…

I will always be the jerk and the bastard here. Even if I am compared to the leader of the delinquents in this school, that guy will most likely be hailed as a saint.

Haa… Alright. It’s to stop this overthinking.

With a clear destination in mind, the routine visit to the Book Club and the Poem Appreciation Club for all of the girls connected to me there passed by without a hitch.

I got to check on my Aya and Haruko, who were surprisingly drinking tea together as they worked on something related to their club. Apparently, their Club Advisor appeared and asked if they’d done something worthwhile that’s connected to the name of their club.

Well, most of their club members were book machines so they’re clear on that part but that advisor still demanded them to do something else. So Haruko employed Aya’s help.

As for the Poem Appreciation Club… Serizawa-senpai snagged me all to herself. Or rather, as soon as I appeared there, she promptly jumped at me and never let go.

She’s becoming more and more like a koala. A silver-haired koala. In any case, as long as it’s helping her rehabilitation to not be scared towards the opposite gender, I’ll let her cling to me anytime.

However, Himeko somehow became competitive. She even said something along the lines of… “You’re on your way to steal more than half of us here, Ruki. I can’t afford to be lax and lose my place next to you.”

Although that invited frowns from the orange-haired and green-haired seniors, Himeko just copied Serizawa-senpai and took my free side, increasing the number of koalas to two.

That’s not her jealousy acting up. From how I see it, seeing Serizawa-senpai dropping everything as soon as I arrived raised an alarm to her. The girl adorably didn’t want to remain a spectator when there’s another challenger around apart from Mina.

Well, if I’m not wrong, the same thing happened with Haruko but in the end, they got used to their setup that jealousy was a small matter when they treated themselves as equals in Haruko’s eyes.

In a way, that’s like a preview of what I’m trying to build with my girls.

As for Mina… the girl looked extremely pissed seeing the two girls without having any intention of letting go of me. She restrained it though. Perhaps in fear that Himeko would tease her again about how she’s already in love with me.

Before I left, the girl reminded me about the competition this Saturday. It’s two days from now. Since I told her that I have a part time job in the afternoon, she told her mom that I’ll be coming in the morning. She’s going to pick me up at the bus stop and guide me to her house. She asked me to take the bus instead since that’s closer for her.

Furthermore, after that reminder, she requested something.

“Can you do something about your hair? Y-you still look good like this but… my mom is fairly particular about hair. She might give you a haircut on the spot if you kept it down like that.”

That’s how she said it while specifically pointing at my slightly wavy fringes sparsely covering my forehead. It’s not long enough to cover my eyes but still, she probably wanted me to appear more presentable rather than my normal looks.

Her mother is a professional tea maker, right? Why is she too particular about men’s hair?

Ah. No. I don’t remember her mentioning her mother’s work. Just that her tea-making skill is superb and she’s passing it to Mina.

In any case, since it’s a request from the girl, I naturally accepted it. I have my girls that can help me with my hair. I asked what Mina preferred but the girl just snorted and said ‘anything will do.’ Before continuing silently with ‘I prefer how you look normally, shameless idiot.’.

Hearing that undoubtedly put a smile on my lips. So before truly separating from her, I pulled her out of their clubroom and went near the staircase, where there’s a blind spot.

Obviously, I got pumped up enough to make out with her right there. And although she looked annoyed, she let herself be pulled by me and responded to my kisses actively.

There’s no doubt. The girl is just another tsundere like Satsuki. However, their difference is… Mina is just in denial while Satsuki’s tsundere attitude is inherent. Even if I already told Satsuki to be honest, she’d still resort to that kind of attitude every chance she would get.

“I can’t wait to hear you saying ‘I love you’ to me, Mina.”

I said that to her teasingly before sending her back to their clubroom. What I got in return was another adorably annoyed expression of the girl while looking as if she’s restraining herself from grinning from ear to ear.

This Saturday, I’ll do my best to hear that from her.