, Shizuku turned to face her best friend.

“Honoka, about that?”

Instantly, Honoka’s face displayed an ‘urk....’ flinch. Perhaps discerning the answer to her question from merely that, Shizuku just showed an ‘oh, well’ look.

Rising up and moving behind Honoka’s back, Shizuku grabbed both of her friend’s shoulders. Honoka was taller by half a head; however, paying that no mind, Shizuku forcibly changed the direction Honoka’s body was facing, so Honoka was directly opposite Tatsuya facing him head on. Taking her hands off, leaving Honoka there, she looked here and there in the vicinity until she found Honoka’s bag and reached in to get a small box wrapped in pretty paper. Pressing that box into Honoka’s hands, she went behind her friend’s back again to give her a strong shove in the back.

Honoka stopped herself after one step and looked up at Tatsuya’s face that was closer than before. There was still too much space between their positions to enact a Love Scene. Of course, with this many onlookers, no matter how easy it was for Honoka to constrict her vision, it would be difficult for her to act boldly. The attempt she was going to make was going to be a very innocent occurrence.

“Umm, Tatsuya!”

After that statement, Honoka squeezed her eyes shut and offered the box with both hands.

“Today is your birthday, Tatsuya-san!”

Leaving no room for Tatsuya to answer, Honoka continued speaking. She was talking so fast it was doubtful that she was taking the time to breath, but it definitely wasn’t hard to understand what she was saying.

“It’s not much, but I worked hard at picking it out! Please accept it!”

Kasumi’s voice saying something like ‘Do Mitsui-senpai and Shiba-senpai have that kind of relationship’ reached Tatsuya’s ears from a corner of the room, but Honoka undoubtedly didn’t hear her.

“Of course, I will accept it.”

The moment Tatsuya’s hand touched Honoka’s present, he felt not a piercing but a penetrating gaze. However, when he took fleeting sidelong glances behind him, all traces of that sword-like stare had disappeared.

“Thank you.”

“N-no, it’s nothing. Umm, please unwrap it when you’re alone.” “Hm? Ah, got it.”

Tatsuya nodded with a slightly mystified look and Honoka let out a big sigh. She seemed like she was just about ready to collapse having used up so much of her strength, but fortunately all she did was stumble. Shizuku decided by the ‘I adore Tatsuya’ look on Honoka’s face that she was not up to anything else and took charge from next to Honoka.

“Tatsuya-san, are you free next Sunday?”

As usual, Shizuku suddenly started speaking. Tatsuya was quite used to it, but he couldn’t keep from being instantly confused.

“What time?”

Of course, he was only confused for a moment. And he continued the conversation without missing a beat.

“The evening. Around six o’clock.” “....that’s fine.”

He had a meeting on developing a completely thought controlled model of CAD on Sunday with FLT’s R&D section three, but six pm in the evening left him plenty of time to return. Neither the main office or R&D section three were in the habit of letting their meetings run over.

“It would be a little late, but I want to hold a birthday party for Tatsuya at my house. Is that okay?”

This ‘is that okay?’ was packed with three different meanings: ‘Is it okay to count on your participation?’, ‘Is it okay to have it at my house?’ and ‘Is it all right that I just went and planned a birthday party for you’.

“It’s completely fine. Thank you for inviting me.”

There were no ulterior motives beneath Shizuku’s proposal to give Tatsuya a birthday party out of her own good will, he knew that without even checking. Tatsuya nodded without even pretending to think about it and Shizuku answered with a slight nod. While she looked expressionless, there was a slight hint of smugness in the shape of her mouth.

“Miyuki and Minami-chan too.”

Without a moment’s delay she spoke to Miyuki and Minami, needlessly hiding her embarrassment.

“Yes, it’s fine.”

“Thank you for your invitation.”

Unrelated to Miyuki’s smiling answer and Minami’s more diffident answer, Kasumi was looking at Tatsuya with an appraising eye. Kasumi hadn’t thought Tatsuya was the type to be popular with girls, but that mental evaluation was shaken.