Chapter 57: Chapter 57 - Accidental Jealousy

Kuro Kurogane couldn’t understand the concept of being envious.

At least this is what he imagined he thought-enviously.

Sure, it could be said that Akari was always feeling the pangs of jealousy.

Also, that Mina would occasionally act as if her emotions were out of control whenever other girls were around him.

Or that Aoi would occasionally display enormous amounts of intimidation directed towards other people.

But Kuro remained levelheaded (grounded). Emotionally-responsible and rational.

But that sense of denial came crashing down on him, on Thursday afternoon.

His lunch hour was eaten up by carrying drinks to the rooftop for a group of guys to enjoy.

As he approached the rooftop, he saw Mina conversing with an upperclassman at the bank of hallway windows.

Tall, sexy and a member of the basketball team.

The three characteristics that made him totally undesirable to Kuro; of course, he was just being whiny about it.

When last he checked she was laughing at the upperclassman’s lame joke.

But he also noted that she was not laughing-in-fun at it.

Then the upperclassman reached toward her hair and said "I like your earrings." as he was touching Mina’s hair.

At this point, Kuro found himself frozen in his tracks and a sharp pain ripped through his chest.

And now what was that all about?

Mina stepped back, but just barely. Kuro noticed.

Then the upperclassman smiled at her again.

Again?

"Mina, are you doing anything this weekend?"

Silence.

It felt as if the fire in Kuro’s chest was more intense than moments before. Very intense feeling.

Rationally he knew that there was nothing in it for him.

Why did he want to physically remove Mina from this idiot’s presence?

Then out of the blue, Mina saw Kuro standing close by.

She seemed surprised to see him.

Immediately upon seeing him, she appeared to be greatly relieved to have seen him. It was an ominous sign.

Then she flashes him a huge smile.

"Kuro-kun!"

The older boy quickly readjusted himself and was traveling toward Kuro before he knew it. Bad sign.

The instant Kuro comes to a stop next to her

Mina is right there and naturally moves to be closer to him.

They are now shoulder to shoulder.

And because of that incident, Kuro feels a little bit more relaxed about how uncomfortable he was feeling inside himself.

What kind of psychological bullshit is that?

Out of nowhere, the upperclassman looks at Kuro first and then Mina.

"...You two are friends?"

Before Mina even has the chance to answer, Kuro does.

"Yeah."

Short response.

Cold response.

And Kuro can tell it’s cold too.

The upperclassman blinks at Kuro and then turns to Mina and smiles big.

"You never told me you had a boyfriend."

Mina was going to internally explode before the situation got to the point of silence.

Kuro has stopped all motion.

"Not my boyfriend."

Short response.

Too quick.

It’s very evident now that Mina is pouting.

The upperclassman gives a low chuckle.

"You’re correct. However," "You both look like great friends to me."

For whatever irrational reason, Kuro has negative feelings towards this guy.

Irrational without question.

The bizarre thing about it was that the upperclassman gave Mina a small slip of paper.

"Call Me." No word of a lie, that’s all the paper said.

The upperclassman walks away showing no sign of dissatisfaction.

After the upperclassman leaves, the silence continues to hang.

Mina looks at the slip of paper and then looks back at Kuro.

"Why are you bothered?"

Catastrophe.

Kuro blinks again.

"I’m not."

"You are such a lousy liar."

"I’m literally standing here so absolutely normal."

"Then why does your face look like that??"

Emotional devastating catastrophe.

Because unfortunately she was also correct.

Kuro was feeling agitation.

Actually an annoyed feeling.

And to make matters worse he did not even fully comprehend the reason.

Mina’s face lit up but then it became much more sinister.

"Wait"

Kuro started to dislike the look on her face.

"What."

"Kuro-kun."

Mina was leaning in very slowly.

Super slowly.

Then she whispered in an extremely dramatic fashion .

"Were you jealous?"

Direct emotional hit to Kuro.

Kuro’s head turned to avoid eye contact.

"No."

"OH MY GOODNESS."

"Mina."

"You were! I swear; you looked as if you wanted to fight with basketball senpai over the issue of emotions!"

"No, I was not."

Sadly unfortunately for Kuro he sounded weak.

Very weak in fact.

Mina looked at him silently for a while.

Then her playful look became soft.

Beneath Kuro’s embarrassment, she saw a deeper truth.

Kuro had actually reacted to Mina just not in a polite way or a logical way.

Kuro had reacted to Mina from an emotional point of view.

Suddenly she felt the blood rush to her heart at an increased rate.

Because maybe, just maybe Kuro had a deeper emotional attachment than what Kuro realised.

Meanwhile, watching from further down the hallway were Akari and Aoi.

Akari had pointed dramatically.

"HE IS JEALOUS!"

Aoi had sipped her tea quietly.

"Very interesting."

Akari had looked as thought she had been crushed emotionally.

"MINA IS KICKING BUTT TODAY!"

"She actually isn’t."

"You seem flood-like calm."

Unlike Akari, Aoi recognised that Kuro was moving without thinking.

He was being protective.

Kuro had moved out of instinct.

This told Aoi that Kuro’s feelings for Mina were becoming real.

Real and dangerously real.

Standing closer to the windows, Mina was still smiling and looked to be very happy about it.

" Kuro-kun gets jealous . "

" Stop saying that."

"You really disliked basketball, senpai."

"That was not the case."

"You looked at him with all the enthusiasm of looking through a stack of tax returns."

That was actually reasonable.

Kuro tiredly sighed out.

Then quietly said, ’I just disliked how he treated your hair.’

There was a silence after that.

The words he said were possessive. In fact, they were possessive.

Kuro realized his mistake much too late which caused Mina’s face to look as if she was moved by passion and wishing to be with him.

She then slowly started to turn bright red.

’That’s. . .’

’That’s really really unfair.’

’What is?’

’You say romantic things but you are not actually being romantic.’

’But I was not trying to have it be that way.’

Mina stared right through Kuro.

’That makes it even worse.’

If Kuro makes comments that are possessive would show care for one another in a very emotional way then how will he show such care once he is actually in love?

That is a very scary thought.

Mina then took the note that belonged to the senior & stabbed it into the uppermost part of her Scottie Pippen jersey , folding it in half and tossing it in the trash can.

Kuro was surprised by this.

’You didn’t even read it.’

Mina smiled at him as smiling at a friend should be.

’Didn’t need to.’ 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

After that silence fell upon the hallway.

The hallway then became more of an intimate setting after that.

Eventually, Mina took a step forward until she was close enough that only Kuro-kun could hear her whisper.

’I really like it when Kuro-kun gets jealous.’

Direct emotional devastation.

Hearing Mina’s proclamation made Kuro’s heart race.

Strangely enough he didn’t actually mind at all.

Kuro was back in his room and lying in bed the following evening.

In pain because now all he could think about was Mina’s grin.

The frustration he felt towards Mina as a senior student.

The sense of relief that came over Kuro when she stood next to him.

And finally all of a sudden Kuro realised he’d had a surge of jealousy towards that moment.

No thoughts of protection.

None of annoyance.

Just jealousy.

And to Kuro it felt good to have had that emotion.