Kuro no Maou Chapter 386: The Continuation of that Day

The Continuation of that Day

“...nnn.”

Soone was calling .

“...kunnnn.”

It was the kind, flowing voice of a young girl. Ah, I doubted there was any man who would not answer to having his na called by such a beautiful voice.

I needed to get up. As I slept warmly, my conscious made the decision to wake up.

“...Kurono-kun.”

What appeared before my eyes, was the familiar face of a girl. There was a tinge of sadness in her round, black eyes. She had a small, pretty nose and soft cherry blossom colored lips. Her flaxen long hair enhanced her pale skin.

She was so beautiful as if she were chard. My sleepy eyes were rudely glued to her face. Perhaps I had already been chard.

“Kurono-kun, are you alright? You were groaning so much...”

Her face looked like it was ready to burst into tears at any mont. When I saw her expression crumble, full of distress and sadness, I imdiately felt a certain panic rise within . I did not want to make her cry.

“No, I am fine. It’s really nothing, so don’t worry about ...Shirazaki.”

“...Oh, that’s good.”

Her face expressed a relief that ca from the bottom of her heart. The girl’s na was Yuriko Shirazaki. She was a fellow clubmate at the literature club. I was sad, I think. We were no more to each other, no less.

“By the way, where...am I?”

Apparently, I was currently on a soft bed and covered with clean, white blankets so that I could rest. Shirazaki was sitting on a folding chair near , peering into my face.

I looked to the right and left and saw the waves of a white curtain hanging from a rail surrounding my bed. Peeking passed a gap in the curtains I could see the familiar and annoying sliding door and in the corner, there was a scale and height ter set.

Additionally, I could see a simple analog clock of practical design hanging on the wall. The ti was 6:38. It was just near sunset and the whole room was bathed in the reddish light of the setting sun that shone through the curtains.

Even though I had been the one to ask the question, I could tell at a glance where this room was.

“It’s the school infirmary.”

I thought so, well, there was no other explanation. I had never actually had to use it, but I had co here for special cleaning duties at least.

But why was I sleeping here? It was strange. I could not help but be overco with a strong feeling of unease.

Calm down, try to rember. Just a mont ago I was...

“I was really shocked when you just fainted in the club room out of nowhere. I were really close to calling an ambulance you know.”

“Ah...ah, that’s right. Now I rember. I had felt a sensation like a massive headache and just fell over right there...that was it.”

“Do you still feel unwell? The school nurse said that it was just low blood pressure, that you would be fine once you had so rest...”

“No, I don’t feel any pain anywhere. I’m really okay now.”

I said it as if I was hiding, but in reality, I really did not feel any abnormalities. The problem was the discrepancy with my mory, I don’t know... I do clearly rember fainting in the literature club room. I do rember that, but I couldn’t help but feel as if it were sothing that had happened a very long ti ago.

“...I have this feeling like I’ve had the longest dream.”

“Don’t worry. You’re awake now, that bad dream that was making you groan is now over.”

A bad dream. Was that what it was.

Bad things, painful things... No, it wasn’t anything so simple as that. I feel like I had experienced being on the brink of death, and that I had also felt a harsher despair than death, many tis over.

It was like I had dark and black emotions of chaos deep inside of my chest. Not just my heart, it was a part of my body. The pain and bitterness, the despair of defeat, humiliation, and loss.

If my heart and body had so permanently experienced these emotions, it could only an that I had been having the most unimaginable nightmare.

However...

“There should have been sothing...sothing I was not supposed to forget, sothing very important.”

“What is it? What do you an?”

Shirazaki’s black eyes looked straight into . Usually, she would be intimidated by my aggressive attitude and never look in the eye. But right now she had the gentle look of a mother looking after her own child.

“It’s, it is...”

“It’s?”

I could not take my eyes off her. It was as if her eyes were sucking in. Like I was being sucked into the abyss.

“...I don’t know.”

I tried to put it into words, into shapes, that mory that was supposed to be important to . But it scattered like a cloud that could never be grasped.

“Hehe, it was a dream you were having just a mont ago. But you can’t rember it all now that you’re awake, that happens sotis, huh?”

“Yeah...it does.”

Yes. In the first place, I don’t even have mories. I fainted from low blood pressure and then I woke up. There was only sleep in between, I myself had not taken any actions. Dreams were only an organizing of mories, sothing that happens to the body. One of the chanisms of the living.

“But, Kurono-kun. Do you rember what happened before you fainted?”

Before I fainted? I guess she ant what happened in the club room.

I’m sure I had arrived at the club room like any other day... No, that was wrong. Shirazaki had gone out of her way to talk with and said:

“There is an important eting at the club today...so be sure to co, okay.”

And when I did arrive at the club room, Shirazaki who had delivered the ssage was the only one there.

No matter how long we waited, the other club mbers did not co. There was an awkward silence as the ti ticked away. I didn’t want things to continue like that, so I made the decision to talk to her, but failed. I kept trying different things and then... Ahh, now that I think of it, she said this one thing:

“When I said that there would be a eting, I lied.”

Yes, she did say that.

“...and, that is all I rember. I think that you were about to continue from there, only that is when I fainted.”

“Good, I’m glad you rembered that.”

If I had not rembered at least that much, it would an that I was showing signs of mory loss. It was a pretty awful headache, but I don’t think it was that major. In that sense, I too was happy that I had ‘rembered that.’

“So, why did you lie to bring to the club room?”

“I really wanted to be alone with you there.”

I had thought she was going to say sothing about how they had all planned to play a prank on . Her unexpected answer left scrambling for a reply.

“Is, is that right...”

I returned vaguely, the empty words escaping my mouth like I was an idiot.

But Shirazaki did not appear to be bothered by my confusion and she continued to speak as she looked straight into my eyes.

“Yes. And thankfully, we are alone together again. I can continue what I was going to say.”

Perhaps it was the light of the setting sun that was shining into the room, but her face looked slightly red. Her beautiful smile threatened to captivate , but I kept my ears perked so as to not miss a single word that ca out of her mouth.

“The thing is, Kurono-kun...”

I didn’t get a headache. This ti I was able to hear all of what she had to say.

“...I like you.”

It was a confession. It was straight emotion, there was no roundabout way of saying it, no embarrassnt. Even the most dimwitted person could not hear this and realize that it was a confession.

“Uh...really....?”

But, I could not believe it. It was too much to believe.

The sudden confession, and from a completely unexpected person. And I was not so conceited as to easily accept that her affections for were real.

This was Shirazaki. I could understand her being angry with , hating . If anything, that is what I had been assuming all of this ti.

More than anything, I had never done anything that would make her fall for . Our only conversations were of official matters concerning the club or talking on the behalf of other mbers. Of course, we also never experienced any beautiful events where I could expect the suspension bridge effect to occur.

And while it did seem incredibly rude to be suspicious of a girls confession of affection, I could still not believe it, yet...

“Mm!?”

“...Mmm.”

I felt sothing soft touch my lips. Warmth. There was now zero distance from Shirazaki’s beauty and my face, there was a faint scent of shampoo on her.

I was being kissed.

“I like you, Kurono-kun. I’m not lying.”

Before I knew it she had drawn back to her previous distance from . That mont just now had felt like a dream. But, it wasn’t a lie. Like she said.

“So, please...be my boyfriend.”

I need to reject her...so intuition in said. It was not that I still doubted her affections, I no longer assud that there was sothing behind it all.

But I just did not have the right. I should not date girls, I should not have any lovers. Such thoughts had suddenly entered my consciousness.

However, at the sa ti, I also think this: I do not have anyone that I love so strongly that I would offer my body and soul to, and I was no saint who completely shunned all relationships. I was just an ordinary high school student with questionable looks. Why was I thinking about such idiotic things as whether or not I had the right.

Shirazaki herself had confessed to . I doubt there was a single boy in Sakuragi Highschool that would reject her. Even if they already had a girlfriend, they would probably dump her in a heartbeat.

No, no. This sensation had nothing to do with all that. It was much deeper, from sowhere in my heart there was a distant mory, it pleads with desperately...

“...I guess that’s a...no.”

“Yes. If you’ll have .”

My la and disturbing feelings were imdiately blown away when I saw her tragic face about to crumble. How could I have been bothered by such insignificant and boring things.

It was just not possible for to allow her to cry.

“Really? Are you really sure about this?”

“Yeah, I look forward to being with you, Shirazaki!”

“Thank you! Kurono-kun!”

And just like that, she had pounced on to give a hug. I sensed her warmth and scent once again, and my heart began to beat faster.

What a comfortable weight this was. After a mont’s hesitation, I wrapped both of my arms around her.

“Kurono-kun, I love you.”

And so I had my first girlfriend ever. An incredibly beautiful girl nad Yuriko Shirazaki.

It seed that this day would be the peak of my life.