He is an idol and a childhood sweetheart.

"Do you think I'm some pampered noble daughter?"

"Well... I'm just a little worried that you might not sleep well because of this. But since you said so, I'm relieved."

Seeing that Higuchi Enka had expressed his position in this way, Watanabe Kento no longer stopped him.

So immediately, he twisted the door handle, walked in first, and turned on the light in the room.

After the lights in the house came on, Higuchi Enka was finally able to see clearly what was going on in the room from the door——

"...It's not as scary as you said."

There are no traces of dust on the floor leather with a wooden board texture. Although the bed covered with white sheets and quilts is a bit messy, it seems to just have more wrinkles. The fact that the drawers of the wardrobe are not properly closed is a bit eye-catching. He couldn't go down, but the clothes inside seemed to be folded very neatly.

"At least it's better than your own room."

"After all, this is a public area, so of course it can't be treated like your own room."

Kento Watanabe said sheepishly while picking up the clothes that had not been put away on the bed:

"When the office officially starts operating, I will definitely tidy this place up."

"Although you don't have to promise me this kind of thing."

After entering the lounge wordlessly, Higuchi Enka looked around carefully again

Check out this room.

As a result, the bed and wardrobe she just saw at the door were really the only ones in the entire lounge.In a sense, this place looks even more plain and boring than a hospital ward.

But this is not surprising. After all, this is just a temporary room for office employees to take a nap, and it should not have other functions besides resting.

only……

"You don't sleep here every day, do you?"

Higuchi Enka recalled the scene when he first arrived.

"Just like yesterday, you seemed to be sleeping on the table."

"Well...that's true."

Kento Watanabe nodded.

"Sometimes when I'm really sleepy, I'll just sleep on the desk or sofa in the office."

"Won't you feel uncomfortable?"

"It's true that it's not comfortable, but if you're tired, you won't care about it."

"……………………"

Although it may be a little late to say this now, does this guy not care about his body too much?

Smoking, drinking, irregular schedule, junk food, even the place to sleep is so random.

He is completely in the state of a workaholic...

"At least... go to bed and sleep properly..." After muttering this in a low voice, Higuchi Enka turned around and asked Watanabe Kento who was folding clothes:

"Where is the washing place?"

"At the end of the corridor, the sign says shower room is the one."

As Kento Watanabe spoke, he took out a pair of unopened disposable slippers from the bottom drawer:

"Let's put on these first and then go. It will be troublesome if your shoes and socks get wet, right?"

After Higuchi Enka heard this, he immediately took the slippers without saying a word.

Kento Watanabe continued:

"Because there is a tiled floor inside, you have to be careful when you go in... The lights are on the right side, and the hot water valve is also on the right side. As for hand sanitizer, soap and other things are outside, you can see them as soon as you enter the door. It's a small storage box, you can put your shoes and socks here first...eh?"

As a result, before Watanabe Kento could finish his words, Higuchi Enka left the room and walked towards the shower room.

"So I'd like to change my shoes first before going...ah, have you changed them already?"

Kento Watanabe, who originally wanted to prepare a storage box for her, immediately saw the pair of white sneakers placed beside the bed and the white socks stuffed into the shoes.

"Do you want to help her put her shoes in? But touching her things rashly will definitely make her angry..."

After hesitating for a moment, Kento Watanabe finally decided to do nothing.

"Forget it, she's already so old, she should be able to do this kind of thing herself."

After putting the storage box aside, he turned back and carefully smoothed out the wrinkles on the sheets and laid out the quilt.

After completing this series of operations, he finally breathed a sigh of relief and left the lounge...

..........................................

Kento Watanabe, who returned to the office, sat back in his seat and fell into a sluggish state.

The sudden break caused him to fall into a brief confusion. Even though he had indeed made some temporary work, he obviously couldn't get into work mode immediately after returning here.

Getting along with Higuchi Enka is really a very energy-consuming thing.

Guess her thoughts, pay attention to your words and deeds, observe her status at all times, and take care of her as much as possible.

Even though he already knew the fact that he was not liked, Kento Watanabe still didn't want to be disliked by her.

To say why...

"We have already lost one...it would be too cruel to lose her again."

Kento Watanabe leaned back in his chair and slowly closed his eyes.

Even if it's just a relationship unilaterally given by your address and parents, even if it's a relationship that you can't get anything out of.

He also wanted to cherish the shared memories that once belonged to the three of them.

Even if he and Asakura can no longer return to the relationship they had in the past, if they can... at least with Higuchi——

"Watanabe."

"Ah, yes!"

A sudden voice interrupted Kento Watanabe's thinking.

However, when he turned back to look in the direction of the sound, he immediately froze on the spot.

"Blow dry my hair."

Higuchi Enka, who still had a towel on her shoulders, handed the hair dryer to Kento Watanabe with a calm expression.

"Just like when I was little."

No. 12:[-]: The water temperature required to wash away the disguise is about [-] degrees.

After a long absence...we lived under the same roof with him again.

How long has it been?How long has it been since the last time I stayed at his house?

How did the two of them feel about getting along during that time?What did they do that night?

"...It seems like I'm basically watching TV."

In his memory, Kento Watanabe always seems to be in front of the TV, waiting for his favorite idol to appear. Even if there is no program for that idol at the time, he will take it out from his thick pile of "collections" He didn’t know how many concert CDs he had watched for repeated “tasting”.

As for her and Asakura, they were forced to act as "temporary fans" together.

Thinking about it now, it was probably because she had been exposed to various idol programs since she was a child that her and Asakura's singing and dancing abilities had grown significantly.

"Although I have never sung in front of outsiders."

After all, she doesn't show her desires and doesn't crave the approval of others.

Apart from her family, the only people she cares about in this world are probably Asakura and Watanabe.

"Next...will I be gradually alienated by Watanabe?"

Looking at herself in the mirror who had habitually lowered all her defenses, Higuchi Enka fell into silence.

The more you recall the past, the more you feel the temperature difference from the present.

He is no longer the innocent Higuchi Enka when he was a child, and he is no longer the clumsy and simple Kento Watanabe.

The changes brought about by growth are not limited to themselves, but also to the relationships between them.

She used to be able to break into Kento Watanabe's home without hesitation and stay with him with peace of mind.

But now... Kento Watanabe's attitude towards her was as polite and cautious as if he were a stranger.

It's not that she wants to go back to the state she was in when she was in elementary school, but at least it shouldn't be like this.

[In the final analysis, the relationship between childhood sweethearts is just a connection that is forced because the home address is close or the relationship between the two adults is relatively good. 】

【Higuchi, you never really like me, right?I don’t want to become even more annoying on top of this]

"...At the very least, we can't let this misunderstanding continue."

Just thinking about Kento Watanabe's expression when he said these words, Higuchi Enka felt a twinge of pain in his chest.

In addition to the shadow left by Asakura Toru's incident... her long-standing cold attitude is naturally one of the culprits.

"But things like personality... are really difficult to change."

Speaking of which, when did it start?

He no longer calls him "Sage" but "Watanabe".

He also changed his name from "Enxiang" to "Higuchi".

"As expected...it should start from junior high school."

Because he understood shame and self-esteem, and because he awakened his awareness of the opposite sex, he subconsciously began to keep a distance from him as the opposite sex.

In fact, this level of change is not strange for an adolescent girl. Rather, it is more strange... that Asakura Toru, who has been clinging to him since childhood and looked like that until a year and a half ago, is even more strange. that.

I would always run to his house after school, and always drag him out with me on weekends. During holidays, I even wanted to stay with him every day.

Every time the three of them went out together, she would naturally walk behind and look at the back of Kento Watanabe in front of him and Toru Asakura, who had been sticking to his side.

And along with this distance that can be opened, there is also her increasingly cold and bad attitude.

Compared with Toru Asakura, who never conceals his thoughts and feelings, it is natural that her deliberate distance could be interpreted as "disgust".

……

So, Asakura.

What were your considerations... that led you to leave him?

Don’t you like and value Watanabe the most?

If that's the case, why would you choose...to betray him?

....................................

The warm water and the noisy sound of the water isolate the consciousness from the world.

Realizing that he was about to step into a bottomless abyss, Higuchi Enka quickly pulled himself out of his fruitless thoughts.

"...The top priority now is to repair the relationship with Watanabe."

She doesn't want to be as close to Kento Watanabe as she was to Asakura in the past, but she definitely doesn't want to be as alien to him as Asakura is now.

She doesn't hate Kento Watanabe, and she doesn't want to be hated by him.

After all, the reason why she deliberately kept a distance from those two people in the past was because...

……

…………

"No...this matter has nothing to do with Asakura."

As if to wash away all the random thoughts in his mind, Higuchi Enka turned the water flow a little higher.

Kento Watanabe's misunderstanding of her existed long before the Asakura incident, and the Asakura incident only amplified this misunderstanding.

In the final analysis, the cause of Kento Watanabe's misunderstanding was still her own.

Likewise, the person who can resolve this misunderstanding... is herself.