D.A.

Last resort! A peace-making day of... fun?

"So... Tom... why are we here again?", asked Kokatsu as he glared at both Mary and me.

"Yeah Tom, this isn't what you promised me!", added Mary as she glared back at him, clearly not happy either with my little surprise.

After a week of enduring their stupid back and forth, I decided to force things a little bit and help them make up.

While I felt bad for Mary, who was quite excited for our first date in a while, and Kokatsu who was counting on this day to gain back the hours of sleep he lost for his job, this whole dispute had to stop.

If I wanted Kokatsu to become the main character I'll support, I needed to give him a lesson about something basic called "maturity".

They can see this as a punishment for annoying me all week with their petty dispute for all I cared.

"Alright, you two! I gathered the four of us today... wait, four?", I asked as I realized that Melissa was right there.

My god, she always somehow managed to get the jump on me. I really need to polish up my skills or she'll completely shatter my pride as an observant person.

"Surprised you here, huh? Kokatsu tried to sleep the day off, so I had to wake him up and drag him here.", explained Melissa as she understood the reason behind my surprised expression.

"Better be worth my lack of sleep.", murmured Kokatsu on his hand, quite visibly annoyed by the entire situation.

"Whine some more and I'll give you eternal rest.", threatened Melissa as she glared at him, causing him to tremble in fear as he apologized for his comment.

Man, she really has him under her thumb, huh?

"Wow, that means you went to his house to wake him up, huh? You guys live close or something?", asked Mary with an expression that betrayed her curiosity over the nature of their relationship.

"Well... you can sa-", started Melissa as she started to blush a little bit.

"We live together.", cut nonchalantly Kokatsu.

...

"Huh?!", was what both Mary and I screamed after a moment to take in the news.

"You... we really need to talk about that stupid honesty of yours.", commented the frustrated Melissa as she gave death glares to my friend.

"To... to think that your relationship had already progressed to this extent! Kyaaa they are just like us Tom!", reacted Mary as she blushed so hard her face became as red as a tomato while performing a little shame-filled dance.

"Hmm... no... were just friends.", explained Melissa awkwardly, not liking where the conversation was going.

"Were simply sharing houses, for now, nothing special.", answered back Kokatsu so seriously that Mary had no choice but to drop the subject entirely.

"Then you must've met through the shared house program for students, right? But I've never heard of a guy and a girl sharing houses alone.", I asked as I pieced things together.

"Yeah... we didn't have a choice in the matter considering that they only had one available house left. It's not bad at all since we get along.", explained Melissa as she spun her index fingers around in embarrassment.

Hmm...

Something isn't right.

Simply saying "we get along so it's fine" reeks of half-truths... there's definitely something hidden.

Yes... there has to be something more.

And... they're all looking at me funnily now because I went silent for too long.