After deciding to give up, I became popular

Shiina Mahiru thought that making him use his brain might be a bit difficult, so she quickly began to explain, "I'm talking about what I said yesterday when I left—'I'll see you tomorrow.'"

"..." Natsukawa Kanta didn't know what to say, because he thought that meant she would come to see him after school, right?

He looked at the curtains that had been opened, carefully examined the light outside, and a guess came to Natsukawa Kanta's mind: "You wouldn't have... not gone to school, would you?"

"Yeah." Shiina Mahiru nodded, answering very frankly. Matters of studying and such could never be more important than Kanta.

She had originally thought about staying yesterday, whether sleeping here or in the living room, at least to be closer to him, but she gave up because she was afraid of causing him trouble.

Then, early this morning, she went out to buy ingredients and other things, both light and nourishing, as if she had made complete preparations.

"...Is that okay?" Natsukawa Kanta said with some worry, because in his impression, the angel had never done such a thing. Being late or absent would never happen to her.

"Yeah, of course it's okay." Shiina Mahiru shook her head, because she didn't need to try so hard to be a good girl anymore, because even if she didn't, there would be someone willing to keep watching her...

"How's your body? Do you feel a little better?"

So Natsukawa Kanta sat up and tried to move a little.

"...It's okay."

Although the feeling of weakness was still quite obvious, it was nothing like last night. At that time, he almost couldn't feel the existence of his body.

He didn't expect that a mere fever could bring such serious symptoms. He underestimated it...

After yawning several times in a row, Natsukawa Kanta shook his head, then began to take off his shirt, and then he heard a delicate and shy voice of "Ah!?" from beside him.

But he didn't feel anything in his mind, and finally completed the action of undressing on his own. When he threw his shirt aside, he suddenly saw the angel in a flustered look, seemingly closing her eyes tightly, her body seemed to be trembling, and her cheeks looked red... very cute.

"W-Why are you suddenly taking off your clothes..." Shiina Mahiru covered her face with her hands, her eyes peeking through the gaps, accidentally glimpsing a stimulating scene, and then subconsciously closed her eyes again, "It was okay yesterday, but why today too..."

"Uh..." Natsukawa Kanta's hands drooped on the quilt, his expression a little dazed, looking very puzzled, "Because... I need to change clothes? So I have to take them off first..."

"..."

"And... anyway, I'm a guy, so it's okay for people to see..." Natsukawa Kanta shook his head, looking a little indifferent.

After all, for boys, it's almost like this in the pool anyway, as long as they're not naked from the waist down, it's fine.

"But... I'm the one with the problem..." The angel's words were astonishing.

"Uh..." Natsukawa Kanta was speechless for a moment.

Thanks to Mahiru's reaction, he was now a little more awake.

"Even if you say so... but you have to get used to it, right? And summer is coming soon. If you're not comfortable with this, I'm afraid you won't even be able to go to the pool..." Natsukawa Kanta thought that since Miss Angel was so uncomfortable seeing the bodies of the opposite sex, how did she spend every summer? Could it be that she never went to the pool or anything?

Well, that's possible. She usually doesn't go to the pool to play. As for school classes—after all, their Shuuchin Academy High School's swimming classes are separated by gender, so maybe the middle school is similar.

But speaking of "summer" and "pool," this scene must be indispensable, right? At least he would look forward to it, and he would naturally feel even better if he could be with the angel. But if she is too conscious of his "semi-naked" state... not to mention that there will definitely be other men in the pool, then he doesn't know if she can bear it. If it really comes to that, he can only consider the possibility of "chartering the place."

"Um... pool... um... I, I'll try my best..." Shiina Mahiru stammered, looking a little nervous.

She never thought that Kanta had already planned to ask her to go to the pool in the summer, but her current situation was too embarrassing. She couldn't accept even a little bit of stimulation... She couldn't make him happy, right?

Um... I've decided! Before summer comes, I have to ask Kanta to help me train properly!

The angel's eyes were firm, and she made up her mind.

260. Exposed?

Although he was much better than yesterday, since his body hadn't fully recovered, Natsukawa Kanta decided to rest for another day and go back to class when he was almost recovered.

Standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom, Natsukawa Kanta stared blankly for a while.

Thinking about it carefully, this was the first time he had shown his "bare face" to a girl. His hair was also a little messy because he had just woken up, and he was not in a state to be easily seen.

So he fiddled with his fingers a little, adjusted the parts he couldn't see in his field of vision in the mirror, and it took him some effort to calm them down.

Although he wasn't someone who paid attention to his appearance, his long-term habits made him subconsciously pay attention to his image in front of girls, thinking that he should at least maintain a "clean and refreshing" impression.

After washing up, he came to the living room and found that the angel was just taking off her apron. When she saw him coming, she smiled at him very gently: "Are you ready? I'm ready too, we can eat."

"...Um." Natsukawa Kanta nodded subtly.

This was probably not his illusion. In his opinion, this scene was very much like the morning life of a newly married couple—the hardworking wife gets up early to make breakfast for her husband, and then they have breakfast together before seeing him off to work at the entrance, and finally, before parting, she must add a sincere kiss full of love... Of course, this was just a thought, after all, their relationship was not like this in essence.

And he didn't mean to go out today...

"I'll dig in." After declaring his intention to eat, Natsukawa Kanta picked up his chopsticks and began to eat gratefully.

The angel knew his thoughts quite well, knowing what he liked to eat, and making what he liked. Every time he felt these little details, he would be even more moved and become more and more inseparable from her care.

"I'm planning to take a leave of absence this afternoon too... What about you?" Natsukawa Kanta said in a chat, expressing his thoughts, "There's no need to worry about my physical condition, I'm completely fine now, but for Mahiru, it would be better to go back to class, right?"

After all, the angel was the kind of person with a very serious personality, and it was hard to imagine that she would choose to skip class for a man, and... there must be coincidences in everything, but in terms of their class atmosphere, if they both took a day off at the same time, people would suspect something, right? He himself didn't care much, but he didn't want those boring rumors to affect Mahiru and then affect their relationship, after all, the current state of getting along already satisfied his desires.

"..." Shiina Mahiru was slightly stunned, and then her expression suddenly became a little dim and frustrated, "Kanta... don't want me to stay here..."

"Of course not!" Natsukawa Kanta raised his voice slightly to emphasize his position, "Not to mention that we're like this usually, of course it would be more convenient for me to have you here, right? And what's that saying—when a boy is in a vulnerable state, he will definitely hope that there will be a gentle girl to accompany and comfort him... Although my 'vulnerable' state is a bit different, but that's about the meaning... You understand, right?"

"..." Shiina Mahiru blinked, and then her mood visibly improved.

The main reason was that she was happy to hear Kanta praise her for being gentle.

"Um, but... is it really okay without me?" The angel seemed a little hesitant, because after seeing that situation yesterday, she began to worry too much, and even had a nightmare last night because of it.

"It's okay, it's okay, I'm not a rabbit..." Natsukawa Kanta waved his hand, and then added, "Even if I really feel lonely, I won't die, and I can also play games or something..."

"You've only just recovered a little bit, don't think about playing games at this time..." The angel complained to him, and then frowned again and instructed again, "Even if you feel a little better now, it's still possible that it will become serious at any time, so you should rest more at this time... Do you hear me?"

"Eh, why is it like this..." Natsukawa Kanta drooped his head, a little disappointed, then what else could he do? He didn't want to watch movies all day either...

The main reason was that he didn't want to lie to Mahiru. If he really promised not to play games, then he definitely wouldn't play secretly anymore, even if she couldn't see him, he didn't want to deceive her.

Seeing his frustrated look, the angel smiled helplessly, and then tried to put on a straight face: "But... it's okay if I supervise you."

"...Supervise?" Natsukawa Kanta was a little puzzled.

"That is... after eating and resting for a while, you can play for a while, okay? Of course, I will be watching you carefully, and I will definitely not let you play too much." Miss Angel explained to him, but in Natsukawa Kanta's opinion, this statement was clearly an invitation to "play games together," right?

And it's said to be "a while," but it's hard to say what this "a while" is like, right? After all, once you start playing games, it's really hard to stop unless you reach a certain point, at least that's how he is.

But since Mahiru said so, she must have considerable confidence and awareness to supervise him, so what can he do... Of course, he will pull her to play together, choosing the kind of two-player game, and unconsciously attract her attention, maybe he can successfully muddle through, the most important thing is that it fits his expectations—he has long wanted to play games with the angel, otherwise he would not have bought "It Takes Two" and never played it.

In fact, he has watched a lot of videos, so he is not completely ignorant of this game. Because of this, knowing that this game has no toxic points and is full of sincerity, he has always wanted to clear it with Mahiru once, and today is an excellent opportunity.

Before, because the opening plot of the game had the part of "husband and wife quarreling and divorcing," which made the angel a little unacceptable and failed to play it successfully, this time he learned to be good, thinking that it would be better to let the story unfold at the cost of reducing a little surprise, so he simply spoiled it a little, telling Mahiru that it was actually a beautiful ending of "husband and wife sharing weal and woe and thus repairing their relationship," so she was finally able to accept it and was willing to play with him.

There was nothing to say about the process of playing, but because Mahiru usually didn't touch games much, it would take a little effort to teach her how to operate, and in terms of "recognizing the keys," she would occasionally have to look down to confirm the keys on the controller to know how to operate, which was completely a beginner's situation, but because Mahiru's "troubled" look was very cute, so the process was actually very enjoyable and happy.

And as he planned, after pulling Mahiru to play together, she was also a little fascinated, as if she had completely forgotten about "supervising him well," which led to the entire morning being spent playing games with him, and even almost missing the best time to make lunch because of it.

In terms of the game, they actually didn't make much progress, because the angel's operation was clumsy, but this game was the kind that had to be pushed forward together by two people, so he was always in a state of being dragged down, but of course he wouldn't have any dissatisfaction, and even felt that this was also a part of the fun, after all, the process of "playing games with friends" was already the most rare—as everyone knows, "friends" are the highest configuration for playing games, especially when this "friend" is a cute girl and is playing with you offline.

What else are you dissatisfied with???

Then after eating lunch, he said goodbye to the angel. Natsukawa Kanta rarely sat on the sofa and began to stare blankly with the background sound from the TV.

Originally, he was a person who would make full use of his time, no matter what he was doing, but recently he often liked to start staring blankly meaninglessly, but in fact he was not thinking about anything, completely in a state of emptying his brain. He felt that this might be related to the recent frequent dreaming, because he didn't get enough rest at night, so he would subconsciously seek to relax his brain during the day?

After all, those dreams... were quite real. He didn't even believe that he hadn't used his brain to imagine them well.

In short, after staring blankly for a while, he watched TV for a while, but because he couldn't find any good programs, he sighed and simply turned off the BGM, choosing to go back to lie down and sleep again.

When he woke up again... or rather, felt awake, it was already evening.

The angel appeared in his bedroom once again, looking at him with a rather satisfied smile, as if saying, "Not bad, you're resting well."

"Are you awake? How's your body now?" She still didn't forget the most important thing.

"..." Natsukawa Kanade carefully felt himself and felt that he had recovered almost completely. He thought there would definitely be no problem going back to school tomorrow.

"Is school over?"

"Yes." Shiina Mahiru nodded, "I went to the supermarket to buy some things and then came back."

"I see... So, how's school... anything happening?" Natsukawa Kanade was suddenly a little curious, mainly because the two of them had indeed missed a morning of classes together, and this situation would become more conspicuous because they were in the same class.

"School?" The angel tilted her head slightly, a little puzzled, not understanding why he suddenly asked about this. "Hmm... nothing's changed?"

"..."

"But I found that everyone is quite concerned about your condition. Even though I also didn't go this morning, not many people came to ask me about the situation..." Shiina Mahiru's expression was a little subtle.

Of course, she didn't mean she was jealous. After all, compared to the meaningless thing of "getting more attention," she only wanted "to get one person's attention." Therefore, she felt happy that Kanade was popular, even though it would seem that she would have many competitors.

She was mainly also a little strange. Why would someone come to ask her about Kanade's condition? It was clearly two people's... In short, she had seriously perfunctorily dealt with it, so there shouldn't be any problems.

"I bought some fruit. Do you want to eat some?"

"Yeah, I'll get up right away..." Natsukawa Kanade had just replied when he suddenly heard a clear doorbell ring outside.

"..."

"..."

The two of them immediately looked at each other, and the same thought rang in their hearts: "Exposed?"—referring, of course, to their "strange" relationship in the eyes of others.

But on closer thought, it didn't seem right. Even if it wasn't a coincidence, and someone really witnessed Mahiru opening the door and entering his house, they shouldn't think too much about it, and might even think it was her own home...

But no matter what, going to open the door was certain. But before that, Natsukawa Kanade chose to get dressed first and then check the identity of the person through the peephole on the door.

"Huh, it's them?" Natsukawa Kanade muttered.

Standing outside the door were his colleagues from the student council, and not a single one was missing. All the officers were there, and even Kaguya was among them.

Now he could be sure that they were simply coming to see him at this time, perhaps they had learned about his illness from his class and came after a collective discussion. This also coincided with the time when Mahiru went to the supermarket and then came back, so it was indeed just a coincidence...

So the question is—how to explain Mahiru being in his house right now?

As a friend coming to visit him? But in that case, why wasn't she wearing the student uniform like them, but rather the casual clothes that represent a "home state"? That would be very suspicious, right?

Not to mention there were so many traces of the two of them living together in this room...

"W-What should we do now?" The angel seemed a little flustered because she hadn't prepared to be discovered by others that the two of them actually lived so close.

"Calm down first..." Natsukawa Kanade comforted her, then quickly thought for a moment, "Like this—we'll put away the conspicuous things a bit, and then you go hide in my bedroom..."

As he spoke, his phone suddenly rang. He subconsciously picked it up and saw that it was Fujiwara Chika calling from outside.

"..."

This guy, doesn't care at all that he might be in a "resting" state?

But the fact was that even his ringtone seemed to have been heard.

"Moshi moshi? President? I think I heard your voice! Hurry up and open the door, we've come to visit you!" The cheerful voice of this guy came from outside.

"..." Natsukawa Kanade had no choice but to pretend to reply in a "loud voice," "Wait a moment, I'll put on some clothes first!"

While dealing with the people outside, he began to help clean up, and finally let the angel hide in his room.

He looked around again, and after feeling that there shouldn't be any problems, he forced himself to calm down and moved to the door to open it.

"..."

261. Divide and conquer, defeat them one by one!

Natsukawa Kanade was actually quite happy that Kaguya and the others could come to visit him, which proved that the friendship between them was not fake and was very deep, otherwise they wouldn't have come as a group the very next day.

But this was clearly not a situation where he could relax and be happy. He was very worried that the angel's existence would be exposed. If that were to happen, it wouldn't be something that could be explained in just a few words.

"Why are you all here?" Natsukawa Kanade showed a "surprised" look.

"We're here to visit you." Fujiwara Chika took the lead and stepped into the room, starting to look around.

"Umu umu... Unbelievable..."

Natsukawa Kanade was rummaging through the shoe cabinet next to him, preparing slippers for everyone. Seeing her strange appearance, he couldn't help but feel nervous.

"W-What's wrong? Is there a problem?"