Chapter 269: Romance of Ice and Fire
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: vb24
"Asamiya-san invited me to lunch," Seiji told Chiaki and Mika. "She said that she has something important to tell me... that she couldn't let you know."
Mika and Chiaki exchanged glances.
"Why can't she let us know?"
"I don't know either."
"You agreed to her request?"
"Yeah... because I was really curious." Seiji scratched his face awkwardly.
Although he didn't directly agree to Yukari's request, he had agreed implicitly. A period of silence fell between them.
Mika and Chiaki felt as if they had been ambushed.
Yukari was going to eat lunch together with Seiji, and she even said that there was something important that they couldn't know about. This gave them an impending sense of danger.
They felt that they needed to do something about it, but what?
The last time Yukari had a date with Seiji, she used the excuse of "talking about a common interest," which was why they could forcefully use the method of coincidentally meeting them and joining in, but this time Yukari specifically said that they couldn't be included.
This was a great tactic by Yukari.
The ideas they could immediately come up with were spying and eavesdropping, but this was no good.
Ignoring whether it would work or not, just this action itself was a bad one.
"I'm sorry, this time I won't be eating lunch with the two of you... is that alright?" Seiji asked the two of them.
Mika was unable to answer.
Chiaki blinked and smiled. "Of course—go ahead and chat with the 'Princess.' I'm really curious what she has to say to you. Afterwards, if you feel like you can tell us, then do so. If you really can't, then it's fine."
Seiji nodded.
"Chiaki... what should we do?" Mika asked weakly. She'd used the excuse of needing to use the bathroom to separate from Seiji.
"Asamiya-san made an excellent move with this; I don't know how to counter it," Chiaki said, sighing. "She clearly asked to exclude us so that she could be alone together with Seiji, and Seiji agreed, which is checkmate. There's nothing to be done. It's her victory this time, Mika."
The double pigtailed girl was rather despondent to hear the tomboy being so convinced.
"Eating lunch together just once isn't all that much. I'm more concerned about what she has to say to Seiji," Chiaki continued. "I have a faint feeling that this lunch date will be a critical part of her attack on Seiji... but I hope that this premonition of mine is wrong."
During lunch break.
Seiji met up with Yukari, and they walked to a quiet area of the school together.
"That's a nice-looking lunch... I've heard that you live by yourself, so did you cook it?"
When Seiji opened up his lunchbox, Yukari looked at the contents and asked Seiji about it.
"I used to live by myself, but not anymore. As for this lunchbox, the landlord was kind enough to make it for me," Seiji explained.
Yukari blinked at this. "Harano-san... have you returned to your family?"
"No, there's just someone living together with me now."
"Oh... the landlord is Uehara-san's mother, right?"
"Yes, she's always taken good care of me," Seiji said while eating his lunch.
Yukari also took a bite of her own food.
"Asamiya-san, do you make your own lunches?"
"I don't. But I'm pretty good at cooking, and I could if I wanted to." The purple-haired beauty looked at his face. "If a certain person is willing to become my boyfriend, I could make love-filled lunches for him every day~"
*Cough!*
Seiji almost choked at her unexpected flirtatious attack.
Yukari's face was slightly red as she smiled at him.
Seiji felt rather awkward being looked at by her, so he buried his face in his meal.
A moment of silence fell between them.
"Asamiya-san, what was the main thing you wanted to talk to me about?" Seiji moved the conversation to the main topic at hand. "And besides, how did you know about that internet username?"
The "hint" that Yukari had told him was an internet username—"Milk Cream Sweet Sweet Pig."
This wasn't Seiji's internet username—it was the username of the person he was chatting with last night, Hisashi Juumonji!
This caused Seiji to think of something, but his guess still needed confirmation.
Yukari's smile turned rather mysterious. "Sweet Pig contacted me approximately two weeks ago on the internet, asking me to cooperate together with him to work on a dating sim game. I'm interested in creating games, but not interested in working together with people from the internet. When I had a discussion with him, I learned that the game he wanted to create didn't even have a storyline or plan on what direction it would take, so I rejected him.
"Afterwards, he contacted me a second time, asking that I give it some more consideration. I responded politely and ignored his offer.
"However, last night, he contacted me for the third time, saying that the storyline was now being written by the person who had the achievement of getting published by Thunderbolt Literature, whose story was recognized by such a well-known light novel magazine.
"And that novel this person had published was called I'll Die If I Don't Become Handsome , and the author's pen name was Idle Dimension by the Shore—that's you, Harano-san!"
Seiji's eyes widened in surprise.
During their previous meeting he had talked to Yukari about their common interest of light novels and had told her about his own published story and pen name.
Since she had been contacted by Sweet Pig, who was Hisashi Juumonji, that meant that she was...
"The next part I'm about to tell you is an important secret of mine that I've been protecting for all this time." Yukari's face flushed red. "I've always been keeping it a secret from all my friends and classmates. Only my family members know. Harano-san, if you promise to keep this secret for me, I'll tell you about it, and I'll agree to join you and Sweet Pig in creating a game together!"
Seiji nodded as he looked into the purple-haired beauty's clear eyes. "I promise you that I shall keep it a secret.
Yukari's smile grew even more brilliant.
"I'm actually an artist, and I started drawing for light novels three years ago... my artist name is 'Romance of Ice and Fire.'"
Even though Seiji had mentally prepared himself, he was still astonished.
'Romance of Ice and Fire?'
Wasn't that the same artist that drew the cover art and insert art for I Can't Sleep When I'm Sleeping Together with My Younger Sister ?
Because Seiji felt that this artist was amazing at drawing the tantalizing forbidden zones, Seiji had even searched for this artist's work on the internet and browsed this artist's personal blog, which further convinced him that this artist was a master.
But he didn't expect that...
"You... you're really Romance of Ice and Fire? The person who drew the art for I Can't Sleep ?"
Yukari nodded, her face completely red. "Ice represents blue, and fire represents red. Romance of Ice and Fire alludes to the combination of blue and red, which is purple... my color," she explained softly.
'I see!' Seiji now understood.
Heavens, this world was... he didn't even know how to describe it.
A beautiful girl that drew ecchi drawings... Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata, Shoujo-tachi wa Kouya wo Mezasu, Eromanga Sensei, and such anime flashed through his mind.
So ero!
For a beautiful girl to be an ero artist, this itself was so ero! It was stimulating to the imagination!!
It was no wonder Yukari always kept it a secret. If it were exposed, people would definitely look at her strangely.
Seiji realized how much Yukari trusted him by telling him her secret.
"I got it... I'll definitely keep my promise and protect your secret to the death!" he declared solemnly.
"You can't even tell Uehara-san and Wakaba-san about it."
"Of course."
Yukari's eyes twinkled as she regarded Seiji's solemn expression.
"I knew that Harano-san wouldn't look at me strangely, that you would accept and understand me, and protect my secret for me," she said in a soft and gentle voice.
'I like this part of you and want to be together with you.'
"Harano-san... I'd like to call you 'Seigo' from now on—is that alright?"