In crossover anime, who isn't a childhood friend?

I'm sorry, Shiyu-nee. Although you asked me to help monitor my brother's interactions with Eriri at home to see if they went too far, I agreed.

But even earlier, I had promised Saeko that I would help her get Eriri and my older brother together.

There's always a first-come, first-served order. I'll keep my promise to you after I've successfully fulfilled Saeko-nee's request.

If anything happens between them after that, they will definitely report to you immediately!

Rikka silently apologized to Utaha in her heart, and then walked towards the station in a very cheerful mood.

Having spent so much time with Yuan Qianye, her moral standards have now been completely assimilated, and she is currently in a very flexible state.

Now, after Rikka left, only Eriri and Chiya are left alone in the house.

Eriri had already sensed something was wrong, so Chiya had naturally noticed the incongruity even earlier.

Rikka, she really is getting less and less innocent as she gets older...

He sat quietly on the sofa watching the news and variety shows for half an hour, during which time there was no movement from the bathroom.

But after more than forty minutes, things finally changed.

"Sen...Senya...Senya..." At first, Eriri whispered his name, but then she realized that her voice was too soft for him to hear, so she reluctantly and ashamedly raised her voice.

Hearing the noise, Yuan Qianye walked to the bathroom: "What's wrong?"

"Um... I'm done washing, you can wash now..."

"okay."

"And then... could you do me a favor?"

"Did you forget your clothes?"

"Well……"

Eriri really wanted to tell him the truth.

It's not that I forgot to take them, it's that Rikka, that bastard, took all the clothes I brought to change into!

Even the large towel that always hung in the bathroom and her dirty clothes that she had just changed out of were gone, clearly her doing!

But what's the point of saying all this at this point?

"Um...sorry...thank you for your trouble..."

"No need to apologize. Don't even mention you. Rikka and Touka often have this kind of situation too. Your clothes are in Rikka's room, right?"

"Hmm...it's in the light blue bag. Just grab a set of pajamas, and then there's something else inside..."

"Good~"

Hearing Chiyo's chuckling voice from the bathroom, Eriri squatted on the floor, covering her face, wishing she could die. At the same time, she gritted her teeth and made up her mind to teach Rikka a lesson when she returned! She would definitely give her a good whack on the head!

Yuan Qianye returned quickly.

I knocked on the door.

Eriri opened the door a crack, grabbed her clothes, and quickly closed it again.

She looked at the clothes in her hand; they were the pajamas she wanted. Upon opening them, she saw that Qianye had thoughtfully placed her underwear in the middle.

Eriri was completely numb, but the threshold for shame does indeed rise with experience.

After experiencing it many times, you start to think, "Oh well, it's just like that."

Even so, after changing her clothes, she lingered in the bathroom for another ten minutes before coming out.

Eriri came to the living room and approached Chiyo. She clasped her hands together, her fair legs, which were exposed to the air, pressed tightly together. "Chiyo, you...you go take a shower."

"No rush." ​​Yuan Qianye turned off the TV and patted the seat next to him, gesturing for her to sit down. "Let's talk."

"Chat?! What are you going to talk about..."

"Oh, don't worry, we're not talking about your business, but about mine."

"Your business?"

"Well, there are some things I'd like to get some advice from you, Eriri, and hear your thoughts on."

Even with those words, he still couldn't completely calm Eriri down in this solitary environment, though he did make her less nervous.

She sat down as Qianye suggested, but didn't sit very close to him; there was a distance between them.

"Let me think about how to say it..."

Eriri saw that Minamoto Chiyo looked somewhat troubled, and also somewhat...apprehensive.

"Just say whatever you think, Chiya." For a moment, Eriri actually felt like she was in control of the situation.

Honestly, this feels pretty good.

“That’s true.” Yuan Qianye rubbed his hands together, then frowned and pondered for a moment before finally making up his mind: “I’ll just be frank, it’s because I have a friend…”

Eriri pursed her lips, suddenly feeling that this opening sounded so familiar.

However, since Qianye looked so serious, she didn't question him. She nodded seriously, indicating that she was listening.

"...My friend seems to have developed some unusual feelings of affection for his female friends lately, which are quite different from the deep friendship he's known for."

Eriri pondered, "Does this feeling of goodwill specifically mean liking someone?"

"You could say that," Yuan Qianye nodded. "In his eyes, his female friend is becoming more and more feminine, more and more beautiful, and also showing a cuteness he had never noticed before. His female friend wants him to hold her in his arms and cherish her. This new understanding obviously makes it increasingly impossible for him to continue to simply regard her as a friend..."

"...!!!"

Eriri was speechless for a long time, never expecting that Chiya would have such a friend.

He used to be very close to a boy in junior high, but after they went to different high schools, that relationship seemed to fade.

So this friend, is he really not someone who made up for ulterior motives?

As Yuan Qianye spoke these words with his head down, he didn't look at Eriri, who was now completely stunned and was clearly imagining something and was trembling all over.

"My friend's situation is roughly like this... I'd like to ask, Eriri, what are your specific thoughts on my friend? Could you offer some practical advice from your perspective as a woman?"

Oh right, there's another very important point. My friend actually has a girlfriend, and he doesn't know if she's aware of his feelings for him, or how she'll react. He's really worried about it.

So he came to me hoping to get my advice, but to be honest, I didn't know how to reply to him. So I thought I'd ask Eriri for your thoughts. As a girl, you might be able to look at this issue more objectively from a different perspective and give more reliable advice..."

If Eriri follows her personality and goes along with her lead, who knows how long it will take before they finally confront and resolve their issues.

So Yuan Qianye didn't plan to drag it out any longer, nor did he want to think about it too much. In short, he just told her directly.

"...So, from a girl's perspective, what kind of advice do you plan to give my friend, or rather, what do you think he should do?"

…………

Volume 2: Chapter 157: I secretly used you... (6k)(8)

Your friend is basically yourself!

Eriri really wanted to stand up and confront them, but she didn't dare.

She couldn't understand how things had suddenly taken such a turn for the worse!

Although Qianye's attitude towards her during the trip, and his frequent approach and scrutiny of her, made her very nervous at one point, she felt that she had behaved well in the following days, and he did not do anything else that made her heart race.

I thought all the bad things I had done were over, but who would have thought that they would all suddenly come out without any warning!

Chiya is so cunning!

So all his previous actions were just a pretense, a so-called "holding back" was just to wait for this moment to strike suddenly and hit the mark!

Rikka's sudden departure now seems to have an explanation, Eriri has imagined it and connected it to someone's premeditated plan.

She really wants to escape right now.

But she was in someone else's house, and she had just taken a shower and was wearing such a light and thin nightgown. Where could she escape to?

"Eri, aren't you hot?"

"..."

"You've been hugging that cushion for a full five minutes without saying a word. I just wanted to hear your opinion, but you didn't need to think about it for so long, did you?"

As Gen Chiyo spoke again, Eriri was even more unable to face him, burying her face in the cushion she was holding like an ostrich.

She understood that his opening line, "I have a friend...", was actually his last act of tenderness and care for her.

He wanted to find out about the embarrassing "stupid thing" he had done at that hot spring inn, but he was also considering her feelings and reputation, so he chose this compromise and tactful way of expressing himself, leaving her with the last bit of decency.

“You don’t have to… do this to me…” Eriri finally mustered up a bit of courage, her voice muffled and heavy with nasal tone coming from under the cushion.

It was mainly because, in this situation where there was no way to escape or avoid it, she had no choice but to face it.

Continuing to play dumb or run away will only make things worse.

"What?" Yuan Qianye seemed not to understand her meaning, or perhaps he simply hadn't heard her clearly.

"I understand!" Eriri suddenly lifted her face from the cushion and looked at him, her azure eyes filled with three parts panic, three parts shame, and four parts a desperate courage.

But after meeting Shangyuan Qianye's gaze, the little bit of momentum she had just built up deflated instantly like a punctured balloon.

She lowered her gaze almost immediately, instantly transforming back into a trembling, fertilized quail, her voice weakening: "I understand what you mean by those words, Qianye... so you don't need to worry about me so much..."

"What am I worried about? Eriri, your fever hasn't gone down yet, has it?" Minamoto Chiyo's words were tinged with amusement, his tone deliberately relaxed, trying to calm her down as well.

"Please don't do this... I understand..." Eriri buried her face in the cushions again, only her trembling eyes showing. "You've made it so clear... How could I not understand... There should be a limit to how much I can deceive myself..."

Yuan Qianye thought for a moment and then stopped denying it: "I think this approach might be easier for you to accept and it would also make it easier for us to talk things out. It's just that I don't think I've managed to handle the intensity well. I'm sorry."

"Qianye, you don't need to apologize... I'm the one who should apologize... for all the bad things I did..."

"Something bad?" Yuan Qianye raised an eyebrow.

"It's already come to this point, you don't need to think about me anymore..." Eriri's eyes widened, her eyes quickly reddened, and her voice trembled violently, as if she were about to cry at any moment.

This is not due to emotions such as sadness or grief, but rather a normal physiological reaction caused by extreme shame, mixed with the fear of being "caught red-handed" and the embarrassment of having some secret thoughts exposed.

However, there might be one advantage.

Previously, Eriri had been clinging to a sliver of hope that she still had a chance to escape, so she was always on edge. Even the slightest movement from Minamoto Chiya would make her heart race and her suspicious for a long time.

Now, in a sense, she has been "arrested and brought to justice." Although she is about to be "imprisoned" and her future is uncertain, the previous life of living in fear and anxiety about being exposed is finally over. No matter what kind of treatment or "punishment" she will receive, this is actually a kind of relief.

At least... no matter if my heart is dead or alive, at least it has settled down, and I feel much more relaxed as a result.

Gen Chiya observed Eriri's expression but did not immediately respond.