33 - The True Feelings Mixed with Lies

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A room in a general hospital. Haruto was facing a doctor in a white coat.

"It's heat stroke."

"Huh, heat stroke, huh?"

After hearing the diagnosis, Haruto let out a sigh of relief.

"It's been really hot these past few days."

"Um... is there anything else wrong?"

"Not at the moment. She's already regained consciousness, so I think she's okay. But your grandmother is quite old, so let's just be on the safe side and keep her in the hospital for a day tomorrow."

"Yes, please."

After receiving various explanations, Haruto bowed to the doctor, left the interview room, and headed to his grandmother's hospital room.

"Grandma, are you okay?" Haruto called out as he sat on a round chair next to the bed where his grandmother was sleeping. His grandmother looked at Haruto with an apologetic expression.

"I'm sorry, Haruto. I worried you."

"It's true, grandma. I thought my heart was going to stop."

"I'm so sorry."

After dropping Ayaka and the others off at home, Haruto found his grandmother collapsed in the kitchen and frantically called an ambulance.

In the car being rushed to hospital, Haruto was overcome with anxiety, but he held his grandmother's hand and desperately prayed for her safety.

"My family is now just grandma."

Haruto's eyes were shaking with anxiety as he said this.

Sensing her grandson's feelings, his grandmother gently held Haruto's hand.

"It's okay, I'm still doing well."

"Really?"

"It's true. I won't leave you alone yet."

"Yeah..."

Haruto's grandmother's words made him look both happy and sad.

"What's with that face?"

The grandmother laughs, her face wrinkled.

"If I leave Haruto alone now, your father, mother, and grandfather will be angry with you in the afterlife."

The grandmother places her other hand on Haruto's hand, patting it gently as she continues.

"And didn't Haruto say before? He's going to introduce me to the cutest girlfriend. I won't be able to die until I see her."

"Grandma..."

Haruto's heart is shaken when he sees his grandmother waiting, believing in the words he said before.

Haruto lost his parents when he was little, and his grandfather when he was going to enter middle school, so his grandmother is his only family.

I want to reassure her.

I want to make her happy.

I want to meet her expectations.

Haruto's mouth opens as he thinks about such things, and words start to flow.

"The truth is, you know... I have a girlfriend."

Thinking too much about his grandmother, he lies out of his mouth.

"Today... I actually went out with her."

Haruto's lies won't stop no matter how much he tries to stop them.

However, his grandmother doesn't suspect that her grandson is lying, and her face lights up.

"Oh! That's right! Is that the girl you went to the movies with the other day?"

"Huh? Ah, yeah. That's right. That's the girl."

"Is that so! Is that so! So? What's Haruto's girlfriend like?"

His grandmother asks with great interest, and the image of a girl pops into Haruto's head.

"Well... she's really cute. Seriously, I almost don't deserve her. Her hair is long and shines flaxen in the sun. Plus, she has a lovely smile, and although she's a bit of an airhead, she's a kind person who cares about her younger brother..."

The girl that came to Haruto's mind.

It was Tojo Ayaka.

Haruto used Ayaka as a model and told his grandmother that she was his girlfriend.

His grandmother, in response, smiled and took Haruto's words at face value.

"Is that so? You've found a wonderful girl."

His grandmother said this with genuine joy, and Haruto felt a pain in his chest for lying.

But at the same time, he felt a sense of relief seeing his grandmother's happy face.

"She's really a very attractive girl."

Those words were not a lie.

To Haruto now, Tojo Ayaka was a very attractive and cute girl.

That's why he feels guilty about telling his grandmother that she's his girlfriend without his permission.

The grandmother, who is unaware of her grandson's feelings, smiles and says gently.

"You've really got a great girlfriend."

"Y-yes..."

Haruto is in love with her with all his heart.

"What!?"

Haruto exclaims in surprise at his grandmother's heartfelt words.

His grandmother smiles at Haruto's reaction.

"I can tell just by looking at your face how much you care about your girlfriend."

"Well, of course I like her, right? We're going out after all."

Haruto looks away from his grandmother's gaze, which seems to see right through him, and says a little bluntly while scratching his cheek.

Seeing Haruto's reaction, his grandmother lets out a chuckle.

"That's right. I'm looking forward to meeting your cute girlfriend then."

"Oh, well... we've just started dating, so I'll introduce her to grandma after a little while."

Haruto's eyes wander a little as he says this, and his grandmother nods with a smile as usual.

"Okay, okay, I'll wait patiently."

"...But more importantly! It's going to be hot from now on, and I don't want you to get heatstroke again, so I'll set the air conditioner to a lower temperature."

Haruto tries desperately to change the subject and continues speaking.

"Apparently, cases of heatstroke indoors are on the rise. Even if the air conditioner is on, the heat from the kitchen stove can build up and cause heatstroke. So, be careful, grandma."

"Okay, okay. I'll be more careful from now on."

"I promise, grandma isn't getting any younger. This time, we discovered it early so it wasn't a big deal, but the doctor said that if you don't take action quickly enough, it can be life-threatening."

This time, the cause of my grandmother's heatstroke was the kitchen stove.

The heat caused my grandmother to suffer from heatstroke and she collapsed.

After she collapsed, the stove's fire was automatically turned off by a safety device, but if the fire had continued, Haruto's house would have caught fire by now.

If that had happened, my grandmother wouldn't be lying in a hospital bed right now.

Haruto's body trembled with fear as he imagined what would have happened.

For now, my grandmother is safe.

I'll just be grateful for that.

Shaking off unnecessary thoughts, Haruto stands up from his chair.

"Well then, grandma. Visiting hours are over, so I'm going home."

"Okay, Haruto, be careful on your way home."

"Okay, you should get plenty of rest today and tomorrow."

"Okay."

"Well, I'm going home."

Haruto waves goodbye to his grandmother and leaves the hospital room.

Going out through the hospital's after-hours entrance, Haruto starts walking towards his house in the muggy, humid tropical night.

Under the completely dark sky, Haruto thinks back to the conversation he had with his grandmother earlier.

"Ugh, this is bad..."

Then he lets out a big sigh.

"Why did I lie like that..."

At that time, he was thinking about his grandmother so much that he lost his composure.

However, as he walked down the street at night and regained his composure, he realized that he had told a pretty terrible lie.

"And I even made Tojo my girlfriend without permission..."

Not only had he lied to his grandmother, he'd modeled Ayaka after all, which was even worse.

"I'll tell grandma properly tomorrow."

Lying is no good after all.

What's more, this might cause trouble for Ayaka.

It would be better to confess to his grandmother that it was a lie as soon as possible.

Also, he might want to apologize to Ayaka.

Even as he thought this, Haruto worried about how Ayaka would react if he told her about it.

"I wonder if she'll call me weird... Well, I guess I got what I deserved..."

Though he said that, when he imagined what it would be like if she really hated him, his heart ached more than he thought it would.

Haruto remembered the words his grandmother had said to him earlier.

"Haruto, you're in love with that girlfriend from the bottom of your heart, aren't you?"

When his grandmother said that to Haruto, he felt his face turn red with embarrassment, but at the same time, it suddenly made sense to him.

"I'm in love with Tojo-san..."

Haruto muttered quietly.

"I don't want to be hated."

As he said that, a thought flashed through Haruto's mind for just a moment.

That was turning a lie into reality.

If he confessed to Ayaka and they started dating, he could proudly introduce her to his grandmother as his girlfriend.

However, Haruto shook his head to clear the thought.

Confessing to justify his own lie like that was the lowest thing he could do, not just as a man, but as a person.

It would be extremely rude to confess like that to Ayaka.

Confessions should be done sincerely and with all one's heart, not with any evil ulterior motives.

With these thoughts in his mind, Haruto even feels self-loathing at the thought that just occurred to him.

"I wonder if I'm just weird today after all."

During the day, he had done something that was almost sexual harassment to Ayaka, and had told a terrible lie to his grandmother. He was trying to think of a way to cover up those lies.

"Maybe I'm tired..."

Thinking about this, he felt heavy, his head was fuzzy, and it even hurt a little.

Today had felt so long for Haruto.

It felt like a long time ago when he had breakfast with Ayaka's parents at the Tojo house.

"I'll go home early and get some sleep."

Normally, no matter how tired he was, Haruto would study before going to bed, but today he just didn't feel like studying.

With a slightly unsteady step, Haruto hurried home.

"Hahaha, maybe I'm falling in love."

With a slightly self-deprecating smile on his face, Haruto placed his hands on his temples to ease his headache as he continued walking home through the tropical night.