Anna, are you… an M?

Yanaimi Anna’s heart skipped a beat when the unexpected compliment hit her.

Cute…

Imaizumi said I’m cute.

Her heartbeat thumped wildly, her breathing turning unsteady.

A rush of heat climbed from her neck upward — she could clearly feel her cheeks and ears heating up at an embarrassing speed.

“N-no I’m not!”

Anna instinctively raised her voice, desperately trying to hide the panic overflowing from inside her.

“W-who’s jealous! I wasn’t thinking anything like that!”

Her eyes began darting everywhere, completely unable to meet his gaze.

She suddenly recalled the scene yesterday — when Imaizumi teased Kojuri Chika, saying she was “smiling to herself like an idiot.”

Could it be that, in Imaizumi’s eyes, she now looked just like Kojuri — a girl drowning in one-sided love, acting all foolish?

The thought made a strange mix of embarrassment and frustration rise inside her.

“Oh? Really?”

Imaizumi looked at her tsundere reaction and smiled knowingly.

He nodded slowly, speaking in a tone full of exaggerated understanding.

“Yeah, I totally agree. You definitely weren’t thinking that.”

“Eh?”

That unexpected reply made Anna, who was about to continue denying everything, freeze mid-sentence.

“Right?! I told you—”

“Yeah,”

Imaizumi interrupted her, eyes glinting with interest.

“I didn’t say you were jealous of Sōsuke.”

He paused, as if enjoying the sight of her face shifting from annoyed to confused, before finishing the sentence.

“I just think that the way you got jealous because of me and then stubbornly denied it was really cute.”

The moment he finished—

Plop.

Anna’s hand loosened, and the half-eaten rice ball dropped straight back into her lunch box.

For a moment, her brain completely shut down. Her ears could hear nothing except the loud pounding of her own heartbeat.

Only after a long while did she slowly lower her head, as if drained of strength, and mechanically poke at the food in her lunch box.

The only sounds left between them were the softened breaths they tried to hide, and the breeze rustling the leaves.

After who knows how long, Anna finally forced out a new topic in a muffled voice.

“Speaking of which…”

She didn’t look up — she simply stared at the octopus-shaped sausage in her lunch and muttered.

“Imaizumi, you… haven’t been saying mean things lately.”

“…Huh?”

“Like… when we first met.”

Anna absentmindedly poked the poor sausage as she recalled, “Back then, everything you said was super awful, super harsh, like every word was a knife. You never held back at all.”

“Really? Did I say anything that bad?”

Imaizumi looked innocent — even though it was clearly because her past behavior totally deserved it.

“Of course you did!” Anna snapped, glaring at him for a moment before quickly looking away again. “So… why now…”

Why are you so… gentle?

She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.

“Oh, that.”

Imaizumi seemed to catch her implication, nodding with an expression of sudden realization.

He leaned back against the bench, arms crossed, studying Anna with amusement before asking:

“Don’t tell me… Anna, you’ve got like… hmm, M tendencies?”

“Huh?!”

“You know, the kind who feels uncomfortable unless I say something mean to you?”

Imaizumi looked surprisingly serious — as if he genuinely wanted her answer.

“No way in hell!!”

Anna’s face exploded into bright red. She grabbed a half-eaten rice ball and hurled it at him without thinking.

Naturally, he caught it effortlessly and placed it neatly back into her lunch box.

“Well, since you like hearing it so much—”

He completely ignored her protests, his expression even showing a hint of “since you’re sincerely asking, I’ll kindly grant your wish.”

He cleared his throat, preparing his tone, and then slowly began:

“Speaking of which, I still haven’t said anything about you yet…”

“Someone like you, still hung up on her ex, unable to move on at all — meanwhile Sōsuke has probably already—”

He deliberately dragged the words out, watching her horrified expression grow, before delivering the final blow in the most malicious tone possible.

“—moved on completely.”

That line instantly shattered every last fragment of Anna’s rationality.

“AAAAHHHH!! Imaizumi Keita you sick freak!! Demon!! Trash!!!”

She screamed as she pounced on him, her soft little fists raining harmless punches onto his chest and shoulders.

“How can you say something that awful?! You’re the worst! The absolute worst!!”

Imaizumi calmly let her hit him, his face glowing with a triumphant, evil grin.

He even reached out and lightly pinched her puffed-up cheek.

“Wasn’t this what you wanted?”

“I so wasn’t asking for that!!”

Anna’s punches slowed involuntarily the moment he pinched her cheek.

That familiar mix of shame and panic flooded her heart again.

And suddenly, Anna realized something terrifying.

Her punches were getting weaker and weaker — completely against her will.

Why… am I not as angry as I should be?

That awful smug smile of his was infuriating — yet her heart…

She felt the warmth of his fingers against her cheek, and a wave of shame and fluttering nervousness surged through her body, making her limbs go soft.

A horrifying thought surfaced:

Am I actually… not hating this feeling of being teased?

Could it be that I really do have… that kind of tendency?

“Hey, Anna?”

Imaizumi noticed that she had suddenly gone completely still and waved a hand in front of her face.

“What’s wrong? Why’d you freeze all of a sudden?”