Conquering Villains and Capturing Targets Is Harder in Real Life than in Games

30: Carelessness can be deadly.

Although Shizuka had only missed a single day of school, she was welcomed back by her schoolmates and teachers with great fanfare and even more gifts. With people focusing even more on Shizuka than usual, anticipation for the play reached new heights.

In the next few days, rehearsals progressed smoothly. By this point all of the set pieces and props were almost all assembled and the costumes were near completion.

While the drama club had lent their class some costumes that they weren't using, some costumes needed to be adjusted and a few new ones needed to be made so it fell into the hands of Kiri and Hayato to design and tailor the remaining costumes. This outcome was inevitable since only Kiri and Hayato had both knowledge of fashion design and expertise sewing, as one's family ran a tailor shop while the other's family owned a small clothing store. With their combined skills the two managed to be highly efficient, despite their constant bickering.

Because Madoka's fairy godmother costume was one of the one's that needed to be made from scratch, half a week before Shizuka had been hospitalized, his measurements had been taken by Hayato.

Shizuka almost choked on laughter when she found out that Madoka's actual waist size was actually comparable to a girl's. She teased him by saying, "If you weren't 182 cm tall, with your face and measurements, you'd definitely look like an aloof goddess."

Evidently peeved by her reaction, Madoka had not so secretly reduced the amount of meat whilst doubling the amount of vegetables in her bentos for a week.

Even though his actions was petty then, I'd prefer that over this...

Shizuka leaned forward and propped her elbow on her desk and turned to the person now seated next to her. "Why exactly are we in this seating arrangement again?"

"Because we had a seat reassignment yesterday,"reminded Madoka kindly. "Did you forget?"

"No, I meant why are you in the seat right next to me?"

"A fateful coincidence?"

Shizuka raised an eyebrow. "Really? Because I talked to Arisa-chan yesterday and she said you offered to switch seats with her after we did the draw."

"Right, coincidentally, I happened to overhear Hattori-san worrying over the fact that she had gotten a seat at the back of the classroom since she has poor vision, so I offered to switch with her."

"How kind of you," Shizuka intoned sardonically. "It's funny how Arisa-chan never seemed to have vision problems before huh?"

Madoka smiled innocently. "These things can sneak up on you. You should take care too, Shizuka."

Shizuka stared at him for a while before planting her face on her desk in frustration. In a muffled voice she asked, "Don't you think you're being a bit too overprotective lately?"

"What do you mean?"

Shizuka turned to face him. "Ever since I was hospitalized, you've really been on edge. I understand that you're worried but sometimes I think you're overreacting. Like yesterday for example."

"Yesterday?"

Recalling the memory Shizuka's face grew red. "You know...when you p-princess carried me to the infirmary."