"What the hell was that idiot doing?!"

In case you couldn't tell, Iino's more than a little angry. Even after taking the 15 minute walk to her home, she's still absolutely seething! Those 5 seconds Ishigami took to answer his phone may have been brief, but they've sent Iino's mind into a never-ending downward spiral!

But I can't just ask him what text he got or who he got it from! That would make me look like some sort of possessive girlfriend! And if Ishigami caught wind of what I was doing…

Iino shuddered as an all-too familiar image began to form in her mind:

"Ah? You're that worried about who I'm texting? You really don't hold back, do you? Honestly, you really are quite cute."

There's no way she can let that happen!

Dammit! Why am I so wrapped up in this anyways? I should probably just study and sleep. Maybe I'll forget about it in the morning-

As her train of thought continued chugging along, however, a surge of emotion quickly overtook Iino as she nearly broke her pencil from how hard she began to grasp it.

But I don't want to forget! That jerk! He thinks that he can just start texting someone else while he's spending time with me? The nerve of him!

These are the words of the self-proclaimed "not-possessive-girlfriend".

Still, it's not like there's anything I can do about it. I need someone with more experience than me, or maybe someone who's carefree enough to get my mind off things. But would anyone I know still be awake? Miyuki's probably working or in class and Osaragi and Onodera don't respond quickly, so who should I-

That's when Iino noticed her phone notification go off.

Huh? That's weird. I've been pretty inactive on my Twitter accounts as of late for various reasons, so maybe someone found one of my old comments? But why would they-

And that's when Iino actually read the notification on her phone.

LINE: Fujiwara-senpai - "Do you want to hang out tomorrow?"

Immediately, a smile began to form on Iino's face as her worries started melting away. She quickly got to typing out a response, her mind filled with nothing but thoughts of sunshine and rainbows!

"Yeah, I'd love to go! (^_^)?￢ﾀﾝ

Still though, I wonder why she's being so formal right now? Wait, Fujiwara-senpai isn't mad at me, is she?

Once again, Iino's mind swirled into a downward spiral, thus preventing her from studying at all.

###

"It's already morning?"

After failing to study, Iino tried to go to sleep early only to stare at the ceiling for about an hour. After that, she tried to study for an hour, only to end up having done nothing but stare at her textbook. Eventually, she managed to drift off to sleep only to be awoken 2 hours later after falling off of her bear.

"Well, I guess I should start dressing up… but what should I wear? I made a fool out of myself last time I saw Fujiwara, so maybe I should doll myself up a bit?"

Iino pulled herself out of bed and began to head downstairs.

But first, breakfast. After that, maybe I'll try some makeup.

###

It had been a while since Iino had worn makeup. Seeing herself in the mirror, Iino realized why that had been the case.

Is this seriously what I looked like when I went to the Christmas party last year?

Indeed, she looked almost identical to how she did the last time she attempted to put on makeup.

If Ishigami saw me right now, he'd make fun of me for sure- wait, why am I thinking about him? I know that Fujiwara-senpai would never do something to harm me, but if she told me that I looked like sh*t, I'd never be able to live it down!

Iino furiously scrubbed her face, cursing herself for her naivety!

In any case, what should I wear? I've got a bunch of outfits that I never wear because I just take my uniform anywhere, but what if my fashion sense is actually awful and I end up completely embarrassing myself? Why is this so difficult…

This is a process that Miko Iino goes through every single time she goes anywhere but school.

###

Eventually, Iino managed to decide on an outfit and had arrived at Fujiwara's doorstep. The house itself was a fair bit bigger than Iino's. The yard almost looked to be the size of a football field and some of the windows seemed to be almost as big as Iino.

After a few moments of waiting, the door swung open to reveal a yellow sweatshirt-clad Fujiwara.

"Oh, hey there, Miko-chan! Come on in."

In the end, I decided to wear my uniform anyway, huh?

This is Iino's thought process every single time she goes anywhere but school.

"So anyways, is there any particular reason you invited me over?"

"Mhm! I've been putting off putting our revised version of the happy life game to the test and since Terako was going to try actually selling it, I thought I'd start up the testing again!"

"That's all well and good, but are we testing that game with just 2 people?"

"Moeha and Kei were supposed to be back in a bit, but you arrived early, so they're not home yet. For now, I'll go make some coffee. Wanna come with?"

"Yeah, sure."

The two of them headed into the kitchen and Iino watched as Fujiwara took some grounds from a very fancy-looking bag, measuring them out on a scale before preparing to add them to a french press.

"So, how's your week been, Miko-chan?"

Iino was slightly taken aback for a moment.

"Huh? Why are you asking?"

Iino raised an eyebrow at the smug grin that appeared on Fujiwara's face.

"Well, I know that you've been hard at work training with a certain someone."

Iino's face lit up as Fujiwara beamed, fully aware of the landmine she had just stepped on.

"W-what exactly are you implying here?"

"Oh, you know. Like, how much progress have you made with him?"

Iino's mouth began opening and closing, but no sound came out as she struggled to find a response. Eventually, she looked away, simply stating:

"I suppose we've made a little…"

"Eh? So you're just as hopeless as you were when you started?"

Iino's gaze lowered to the floor, her voice audibly falling at this statement. Maybe Fujiwara was right. After all, she was still getting hung up over a 5 second text message from the day before.

"Ah? So you think that I'm hopeless?"

When Fujiwara saw this new expression on Iino's face, her grin was immediately wiped off her face as she rushed into damage control mode.

"No, I wasn't saying that at all! You're a real hard worker and you're super cute!"

Immediately, Iino began to perk up, once again showing signs of life as Fujiwara hugged her so hard that she was practically squeezing the life out of her.

"You think so?"

"Yeah, yeah!"

It's like I always thought. Fujiwara-senpai always has my best interests at heart.

"Still, you have a point. It's been about 2 months and I still haven't really made any progress."

"You've been working out for that long?"

Confusion rapidly seeped into Iino's mind…

"Eh? What does that have to do with-"

…Before her face was completely overtaken with a blush hot enough to fry an egg.

"Oh, that's what you were talking about…"

"Well, duh! What else would I be talking about?"

At that moment, Iino could've sworn that she saw a sly smirk on Fujiwara's face, but that couldn't be right. Her senpai wouldn't mislead her like that for something as shallow as just entertainment. Plus, Fujiwara always did stuff like this, so it wasn't as if this was unusual, right?

"Hold on… what did you think that I was talking about?"

Iino did everything in her power to keep her eyes pointed as far away from Fujiwara as possible.

"Eh? W-what on Earth could you be talking about? Frankly, I have no idea."

Fujiwara began to close the distance between herself and Iino, causing Iino's heart to beat even faster.

"You say that, but you clearly thought that I was talking about something that I wasn't just now, right?"

Iino began to sweat as Fujiwara leaned right behind her, whispering right into her ear:

"You thought that I was talking about love, didn't you?"

Iino flinched at these words, putting her hands over her ears that had by this point, like the rest of her face, gone completely red.

"I- I didn't…"

As Fujiwara didn't receive a response, she merely sighed and backed off.

"As always, your lack of response is the response itself. You're real fun to play with, Miko-chan~"

That… was a compliment, right?

Iino watched Fujiwara go back to watching the coffee, humming as her head swayed back and forth. After a few moments of silence, Iino decided to try to start up a conversation.

"In any case, how was your week? I heard from Tono that you joined the cheer team?"

"Yep."

…

After that conversation died out, Iino debated whether or not she should just join Fujiwara's odd ritual of staring at the french press before deciding to take another stab at an icebreaker instead.

"So, did you get up to anything interesting yesterday?"

This seemed to trigger more of a reaction. While Fujiwara didn't say anything aloud, she immediately perked up when asked before appearing to think very hard about something. Eventually, she turned to Iino with a serious expression, saying:

"It's pretty rude to be texting someone when you're hanging out with someone else, right?"

Iino wondered for a moment where this line of questioning came from before…

"Yes, I completely agree!"

The events of the previous day are ringing loud and clear in these two's heads. With Iino's single-mindedness and Fujiwara's self-righteousness, these two have effectively created an echo chamber so powerful that by this point, not even a nuclear explosion would reach their ears!

"Like, can't you just leave the response until later? It's not like your phone's gonna blow up if you wait for 5 minutes!"

Iino nodded vigorously in agreement.

"Exactly! When you choose to spend your time with someone, you should be focusing your attention on them!"

Fujiwara nodded along.

"Yeah! Ishigami shouldn't have done something as trashy as that!"

"I know, right? I mean, honestly-"

Wait, what?

A direct hit. Iino went pale, shrinking away from Fujiwara as she knew that it was far too late for recovery.

"Ah? So you were talking about Ishigami after all."

Iino's voice went so quiet that it was barely audible.

"Honestly, it's not that big a deal. He said that it was just Hayasala asking him for help with something."

"Oh? Is that so? I-"

Wait, what?

Fujiwara froze and her smile was wiped off of her face as her skin began to turn pale.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"Hm? All I said was that Ishigami was texting Hayasaka to-"

"That scumbag!"

Iino's expression went from dead inside to highly confused as she watched emotion surge into Fujiwara's face at an alarming rate.

"F-Fujiwara-senpai? Is everything-"

"That does it! I think I'm gonna be paying that girl a visit! The anti-NTR group is back and ready for more!"

"Hah?! What on earth are you talking about- hey, let go of me!"

Fujiwara had put on her love detective hat and began dragging Iino by the arm out of the house.

"You don't have to do that for me, Fujiwara-senpai."

Fujiwara didn't say anything in response to that, merely continuing to march off along the road.

Why am I so worked up about this? Well, it's probably because Ishigami's treating Miko-chan like trash again. Yeah, when I get over there, I'm gonna give him a piece of my mind!

###

Fujiwara and Iino weren't quite sure what to expect when they opened the door to Hayasaka's house. First of all, they didn't think that the door would be unlocked. Second, Fujiwara wasn't expecting to see Hayasaka wearing a men's uniform. Third, Iino was expecting a lot of things, but one thing that she hadn't anticipated was the possibility of Ishigami being decked out in makeup, a ponytail, and a dress. As this information flooded into Iino's brain, the only thing she could say was:

"What kind of play is this?!"

"It's not what it looks like!" x2

Result of today's battle: Ishigami, Hayasaka, and Iino all lose.

Next week: Ai Hayasaka wants to dress up!