Chapter 20: Kudo Shigeru exposing my secret

“Don’t you want to know the reason why I came here in the first place?” Kudo Shigeru broke the silence and picked our interest.

“Oh, yeah… Why did you come here?” I asked him.

He looked at me with his eyes wide open, he said “Do you really not know?”

I shook my head and he then looked at his members.

“Kumiko-chan has a boyfriend”, he said with a serious tone.

“WHAT?!” Asata Hiroshi and Nakatomi Shouta both shouted and came close to me.

“It’s true! I heard it from Tooru-san!” Kudo Shigeru fervently exclaimed.

“Argh! Why did he tell him?” I whispered to myself.

“If it’s from Tooru-san!” Nakatomi Shouta exclaimed.

“Then he must have heard it when he was drunk!” Asata Hiroshi finished his sentence.

“Really?!” I thought.

“That’s right!” Kudo Shigeru confirmed. “Yesterday night, we had a drink and he complained that Kumiko-chan went on a date last week-end!”

He pointed at me and both Asata Hiroshi and Nakatomi Shouta looked at me.

“Is this true, Kumiko-chan?” Shouta-san asked me.

“Urgh… Yes, it’s true…” I avoided their gaze.

The three members of HELIOS then started to have a heated conversation about my personal relationship.

I looked at them in disbelief that they would just ignore my existence despite being the subject of their talk.

After a few minutes, they finally paid attention to me and asked me multiple questions about my boyfriend.

It was getting bothersome for me so I nonchalantly answered their questions and after a while, they finally calmed down.

We noticed that we were staying for too long at my student’s room and so we decided to talk about this matter again at another time.

Kudo Shigeru made me swear that I’ll frequently respond to his calls and messages and I made him promise me to not contact me when I have classes.

Since he didn’t know my schedule by heart, I had to reluctantly send it to him.

Now that he was content, I told him that I can’t be really responsive when I’m taking care of my baby brother.

He was pretty displeased but since he understood my situation, he agreed to this exception. 

Asata Hiroshi and Nakatomi Shouta, who were attentively listening to our conversation, also asked for my schedule.

I agreed without much thought and the four of us finally came out of the room.

We went downstairs to tell my employer that we were done with our discussion.

My student, Kono Kazuhiko, was on his phone, sitting on the sofa of the living room, and stood up when I made eye contact with him.

We made eye contact and I slightly smiled at him as Asata Hiroshi apologized to his friend for his coworkers actions.

I hoped that my student didn’t really hear the details of the conversation I had with the members of HELIOS.

Asata Hiroshi, Kudo Shigeru and Nakatomi Shouta then went home and I stayed back for a bit longer since I didn’t finish my lesson with my student yet.

Kono Kazuhiko and I both went back to his room to resume my work as his private tutor and at the end of my class, he asked me an unexpected question.

“So you had a boyfriend, Kumiko-sensei?”