CH 5

“Hmm. Surprisingly clean and tidy.”

That was the girl’s first comment.

That night, shivering in the cold, I came home to my 30-year-old apartment and opened the door to find a girl in a school uniform standing in the dining room kitchen just steps from the front door, peering into the sink.

I live alone, and I don’t have a girlfriend.

My childhood friend Kaho used to come to this room frequently, but after I failed to confess my feelings to her, that kind of thing stopped happening at all.

So it’s impossible for me to have a girl standing in my apartment.

But upon closer inspection, I had seen the girl earlier in the day.

The girl was my classmate, the “Ice Goddess”.

Perfectly flawless, the most beautiful girl in school.　

The name of the girl with long, straight, silver hair and blue eyes was Rei Mikoto.

Why is Mikoto-san in my apartment?

How did she get the key to this door in the first place?

I have absolutely no idea.

“Akihara-kun, right? Why are you frozen like that? Why don’t you take off your shoes?”

I came to my senses when I heard my name called.

Mikoto-san was peering at me with her clear blue eyes.

I cleared my throat.

“You’re Mikoto-san, right? My classmate. I don’t really know what’s going on, but you probably have the wrong apartment.”

“This is number #301, Haruto Akihara’s apartment, isn’t it? I didn’t make a mistake.”

“Then why are you in my apartment?”

“Because, from today, this will be my home.”

Mikoto-san said, as if it were a matter of course.

I froze once more.

Rei Mikoto, a well-known classmate who is also called a “goddess” at school, was going to be living in my apartment.

I don’t think she means that she will live in this apartment with me.

Which means.

I thought about it for a while, and then I said timidly.

“Is it possible that I’m going to be evicted from this apartment? I’m not behind on my rent, and an eviction would be a violation of the landlord-tenant laws.”

“No one said anything about eviction.”

“But you said you are going to stay in this apartment, right?”

“That’s right. I have no choice but to live here. I have to live in this apartment where Akihara-kun lives.”

Mikoto-san said this without any expression on her beautiful face, as if it was natural.

From now on, I will be sharing this small apartment with the “goddess” of the school.

In many ways, this is a bit unbelievable.

Is this some kind of freak comedy show?

Maybe some of my friends are actually hiding in the closet of the apartment and will appear just to scare me to death.

I opened the closet with vigor.

There was no one there.

Maybe it’s not a surprise plan.

Mikoto-san looked at me strangely.

“What are you doing?”

“No, it’s nothing…”

As soon as I answered, some books fell out of the closet.

I tried to hide them, but Mikoto-san looked at the books faster than I could hide them.

What kind of book would a high school boy hide in a closet?

It seems that Mikoto-san had no idea.

The book with a glamorous young woman in a swimsuit on the cover was a photo book by Iri Himejima, a recently popular idol.

These are, well, embarrassing, but still acceptable.

The problem is the one book that opened left and right to reveal its contents.

Quite simply, it was an erotic book.

In my defense, it was not mine.

It was forced upon me by a friend of mine named Ooki.

But Mikoto-san didn’t know that, and she looked at it intently, then mumbled contemptuously.

“Disgusting…”

Mikoto-san gave me a cold, icy look.

I don’t think she needs to look at me with such a condemning look because of a single prohibited magazine.

I sighed.

“Are you a germophobe, Mikoto-san?”

“I hate that kind of thing! All men want to have s*x and they think about it all the time, it’s so ridiculous!”

“I understand that Mikoto-san doesn’t like men, but I don’t want you to tell me that. I don’t appreciate it when you say it to me.”

“Disgusting! Disgusting! Why do I have to live in such a small apartment with a man? It really sucks.”

The goddess seemed to be in a bad mood.

This is the first time I’ve ever seen Mikoto-san show her emotions so openly.

I wonder if there was something that made her dislike this kind of thing.

But still, I don’t understand it.

At the very least, it seems that Mikoto-san does not want to live in this apartment.

Rumor has it that Mikoto-san is the daughter of the president of a large company, and there seems to be no reason for her to live in such a cheap apartment.

I gave it a shot.

“If you don’t like it that much, you can leave. It’s not like I want you to stay here.”

Suddenly, Mikoto-san stopped moving.

What’s wrong?

Mikoto-san looked at me with troubled expression on her neat face and her beautiful blue eyes looking up at me.

Unlike when I saw her in the classroom and earlier, Mikoto-san looked very timid and helpless.

Mikoto-san whispered.

“I’m sorry. Are you angry?”

“No, I’m not angry. But I want you to get out of this apartment as soon as possible.”

“I can’t do that. Because I have nowhere else to go.”

Mikoto-san said this in a muffled voice and looked at me.