Anime: I Want Harem

Chapter 26 - 26

In the corner of the coffee shop, Kitahara Sosuke gently massaged his temples with his two index fingers. He was truly speechless at Tomoya Aki's proposal. Even Eriri and Utaha, who should have been on the opposite side, felt embarrassed for Tomoya. Although in the anime, the two were either tsundere or sharp-tongued, Sosuke wasn't Megumi Kato, a suspected rival, but just a stranger they had only known for a short time. Moreover, Sosuke hadn't made any major blunders in their interactions so far. The two girls were also very well-mannered and could only helplessly shake their heads at Tomoya in their hearts.

"So... this is your game proposal?" Kitahara Sosuke opened a crumpled piece of paper with both hands, slowly, as if reading a death sentence. The creases on it weren't from him rubbing it, but because the two girls had thrown this thing away as trash before, and Tomoya Aki had picked it up again.

"It's a great proposal, right?! The male protagonist and the female protagonist, a fateful encounter, a classic development!" Tomoya Aki didn't know if he genuinely didn't feel anything or was deliberately playing dumb, acting like he was brainwashing himself, saying things that probably even he didn't believe.

"..."

Kitahara Sosuke didn't answer but stared straight at this guy. Tomoya Aki didn't show the slightest intention of blushing. Sosuke thought it was probably the latter. After all, although this person wasn't very smart and didn't have the creative talent of the upperclassman and Eriri, and had even failed his college entrance exams in the novel and had to retake a year, he had the ability to manipulate several excellent girls in the palm of his hand. That was, in any case, quite scheming, not just an ordinary dumb, slow-witted male protagonist from anime.

However, even though he had been fully mentally prepared, the shamelessness of this guy still far exceeded Sosuke's imagination. He strongly suspected that this thing in his hand was something the other party had casually written out in 10 minutes after playing for a week. Perhaps even shorter, less than 10 minutes wasn't impossible.

"Just to make sure you understood me, I'll ask you again, Aki-kun, do you really have no other preparations?"

Kitahara Sosuke appropriately put away the smile he had been maintaining. At this time, it was time to show a more serious expression.

"No..." Sensing the change in the other party's attitude, Tomoya Aki began to stammer under Sosuke's pressure.

"Thick-skinned."

"You've confidently uttered a rather shameless answer, Tomoya-kun."

A merciless double-barreled sharp-tongued attack from Eriri and Utaha. Tomoya Aki immediately lowered his head like a withered eggplant. However, looking at his greatly discouraged appearance, Sosuke wasn't particularly smug. This kind of sharp tongue was a treatment that only close people could enjoy. In a sense, he couldn't even get it now.

Crap, thinking about it this way, Kitahara Sosuke felt a bit sour again. At the same time, Tomoya Aki raised his head and perked up again, giving Utaha Kasumigaoka a pitiful look.

"This should be enough, right? The rest can be left to Senpai's script..."

"Does this mean that Tomoya-kun chose me over Sawamura-san?"

The upperclassman's words left Tomoya Aki speechless.

"Utaha Kasumigaoka!" Eriri let out a cat-like hiss of anger. Then, she and the upperclassman engaged in another routine argument. Although the result of each argument was Eriri's inevitable defeat, without a doubt.

Otaku Eriri was just a doujinshi artist. Asking her to defeat a novelist in a verbal battle was indeed making things difficult for her. Tomoya on the other side remained silent, clearly knowing that he couldn't make a choice between the two of them at this time. The continuation of this club was because the two had expectations for him, and if he made a choice, the club would likely fall apart. This was something that Tomoya, who wanted the two to help him create his ideal game, found difficult to accept.

Ignoring the few people opposite him, Sosuke was now quietly chatting with Miss Kato beside him.

"Kitahara-kun, is there a problem with Aki-kun's proposal?" Miss Kato was watching the drama unfolding among the few people like an observer at this time.

"Well, how should I put it... it's basically equivalent to nothing." Kitahara Sosuke didn't deliberately belittle it at all; he was just stating the truth.

"Oh, is that so..." Miss Kato replied as if it were completely irrelevant, looking completely unconcerned. Her words were very keenly picked up by the person involved on the opposite side.

"Isn't that a bit too much to say? That dreamlike encounter on the slope with cherry blossom petals falling, as the people involved, didn't you smell the scent of destiny from those words?!" Ignoring the disgruntled looks of the other patrons in the cafe, Tomoya Aki stood up very abruptly, slamming his hands on the table and shouting loudly. Sosuke's words were equivalent to denying his "moe," so of course, he was agitated.

"But... I actually don't really believe in love at first sight."

"My principle is that feelings grow over time."

Kitahara Sosuke stated his own views very honestly. In his opinion, all love at first sight was just being attracted to someone's appearance, a simple desire to engage in biological mating behavior with them. In this regard, Sosuke himself was the same. He was just a functionally normal person with the desires that male creatures in nature were born with, nothing more.

Among the girls sitting here, just looking at appearances, the one he liked most... or rather, the one that most caught his eye, was indeed Utaha Kasumigaoka. Even Miss Kato's long-haired goddess image didn't particularly strike Sosuke's moe points in terms of appearance. Sosuke had photos of Miss Kato on his phone, and using his not-bad Photoshop skills, he had slightly appreciated her long-haired look... Although long-haired Miss Kato was also very cute, there was always a feeling of overlapping with the upperclassman's character attributes, but without being able to completely surpass them.

After all, that was a combination of red eyes, beauty marks, and black stockings... In Miss Kato, Sosuke actually preferred her short-haired mode. That poker-faced demeanor as the straight man. In the daily interactions of getting along day by day, it could occasionally make him smile knowingly, and he genuinely felt that this girl was really cute. In Sosuke's heart, Megumi Kato wasn't very suitable as a lover, but she was very suitable as a wife.

Also, there was one more thing. Kitahara Sosuke really wanted to see the usually faint-expressioned, always indifferent girl have a character breakdown. He wanted to see that cute, saintly face show a shy expression that would absolutely never appear normally because of him. How exciting.

By the way, as for a certain blonde loser, forcefully grabbing those twin tails and bullying her until she cried had a great attraction for Sosuke... But what he really wanted to do was to bully Eriri in various ways, watching her get frustrated. Eriri's emojis were just too funny!

However, all of this was predicated on completely and thoroughly putting the green hat on little brother Tomoya. After all, he had previously been a completely unfamiliar male to the upperclassman and Eriri, with whom he had had no interaction. From such a standpoint, suddenly starting to give pointers on other people's emotional entanglements would look rather abrupt no matter how you looked at it. Not to mention whether others would believe him, Sosuke also had no way to explain how he knew what had happened between the three of them. That's why he had engaged in a bunch of nonsense with Tomoya Aki, a guy he didn't like. At least to make both sides a little familiar, so it would be easier for him to take the opportunity to stir things up.

"So, the key is how to grasp this balance next."

Looking at the noisy upperclassman and Eriri opposite him, Sosuke's attention focused on the uniforms of several familiar high school students in the next seat not far away, whom he had been paying attention to since entering the door, and a strange smile appeared on his face.

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