Chapter 8: Spot the Difference
After cla.s.ses, as always, Kyouya went to the club room, like he always did.
“Huh?”
He opened the door and stopped dead on his tracks. There was n.o.body in the room.
Oh, well. Whatever. He casually brushed it off and took his usual seat. He took the light novel he was reading from his bag, but the second he touched the bookmark…
The door opened. It was Mao.
“Oh, hi.”
“Uh… right. If it isn’t Kyoro-kun? Where’s everybody?”
“It’s just as it looks, I’m the only one…”
Midway through his sentence, Kyouya felt like something was off.
Just now, Mao had definitely called him “Kyoro-kun”. Mao always called him simply “Kyoro”, the one who usually called him “Kyoro-kun” was Shion. Incidentally, Megumi called him “Shinomiya-kun” and Kirara called him “Kyoro.”. They each had a personal way of calling his name.
It was then that Kyouya realized.
Mao was wearing gla.s.ses. He’d never seen Mao wear gla.s.ses.
Also, the seat she was sitting on was the one across the table. That was Shion’s seat.
On top of that, upon closer inspection, the gla.s.ses Mao wore were the same Shion would sometimes wear.
“You read pretty often, don’t you? Won’t you recommend me a romance the next time you come across something interesting? Ever since you lent me that novel, I’ve grown a bit of a taste for them.”
Mao said.
Her speech pattern was a bit weird too, in fact, she sounded just like Shion.
“Err…”
Kyouya was at a complete loss for words.
Then, once he made up his mind, as he was about to say something…
The door opened. Someone else came in.
“Eh?”
It was Shion, but there was something different about her. Kyouya took a good look at her, looking for what was off, as if he were playing spot the difference. Instead of black tights, she wore a pair of knee socks. Also, she wasn’t wearing her jacket in the sort of s.e.xy, loose, fashion she usually did.
Incidentally, wearing knee socks was Mao’s usual style.
“What are you looking at, Kyoro? Is there something stuck on my face?”
As she spoke in a way that resembled Mao, Shion headed straight to ‘her’ seat.
She sat down beside Kyouya, that is, on Mao’s usual seat.
Umm…
Muttering to himself, Kyouya turned to the door in expectation for the ‘next person’.
The third person opened the door. It was Kirara, but…
“Hi. Everybody. Nice weather. Today.”
She entered the club room with that broken greeting.
“Hey Megu, serve us some tea will you?”
Shion said in a Mao-like way. Kirara nodded back.
I guess that’s really supposed to be Megumi-chan. Kyouya thought as he watched Kirara heading to the mini stove and tea set at the room’s corner.
And so he waited for a while.
The last person, Megumi, opened the door and came in.
She wore a short jacket and had her sleeves folded. In her hand, a piece of meat which she continuously bit down on as she headed straight to the sofa at the opposite side of the room.
That’s not very convincing, Megumi-chan. Kirara never eats while walking.
“Everybody. Today. The tea is. Earl grey.”
Kirara put out the tea, maintaining her Megumi impression.
The tea was ridiculously concentrated. There had to be at least ten times more leaves than usual in there.
“See? I told you he wasn’t going to do anything!”
Came a loud, mocking voice. Mao had returned to being her self.
“Shinomiya-kun, I’m Megumi. Kirara’s here, okay?”
Megumi said while exchanging her jacket with Kirara’s.
“Earl Gray. Good. Drink.”
“That’s enough already!”
Mao said, but Kirara didn’t seem to understand at all.
“We were all talking about how you’d react, see? How many of us it would take you for you to say something. Of course, my bet was that you wouldn’t say a thing! You are an indecisive coward after all.”
Mao boasted about her victory.
“But wouldn’t you say that he was being kind to us? Sorry about forcing you into it.”
Shion offered him a more gentle interpretation of his acts.
“Umm, right…”
Kyouya just nodded to everything they said.
But really, why didn’t I say anything? Kyouya questioned himself about that all day.
Mao Meister
Death Shion
“How come I didn’t get any lines? I do a great Kirara impression.”
“‘sup. Me. Kirara.”
“That was awful!! What the heck was that “‘sup”?”