"What? This doesn't involve you. Stay out of it," he said, turning to face the girl who just showed up.
Ichinose Honami tilted her head curiously. "Doesn't involve me? Me and my classmates were having lunch at the next table and you were being loud, so it does involve me. And now I see that you have something else in mind. If you want to get violent, might I suggest that you do so outside?"
In response to the blonde beauty's not-so-subtle threat, Yamawaki and his classmates took a few steps back.
"Besides, aren't you provoking him into fighting you? If this continues, I'd have to report it to the school. Do you want that?"
"S-Sorry. We don't want that, Ichinose," Yamawaki said as his classmates all nodded furiously.
Suzune and her group stared at Honami, all all having varied reactions to the girl's sudden appearance. While a lot of them knew who she was (even though not personally), Suzune herself didn't know who the girl was and wondered if she was here for another reason other than to make these nuisances go away.
"Come on, let's go. It's not a good idea to be here with Ichinose around."
"Yeah."
With those last words, Yamawaki and his group walked away, leaving Honami with the rest of the Class D students.
"Thanks for getting rid of them, Ichinose-san!" said Nishimura. "They were getting really annoying!"
Honami turned to her and smiled warmly. "It's not a problem! I was getting annoyed by how loud they were too."
"Sent them running with their tails behind them too, Ichinose-san!" Onodera added while pumping her fist in the air.
Sudo turned to her in surprise. He didn't know who this new girl was and he had never seen her in their classroom before, so she must be from another class. He didn't think Onodera would know about her, though.
"You know her?"
"I'm surprised you don't!" Kayano sent him a dumbfounded look, surprised that her friend didn't know who the blonde girl was. "Ichinose-san is one of the most popular students in our year. Almost everyone in our class knows her."
Ken raised an eyebrow, feeling skeptical. "Really? This is literally the first time I've heard of her, though."
"That's because basketball is the only thing on your mind 24/7. Seriously, if I wasn't here, then I don't know how you could handle studying with everyone," Kayano snickered.
The red-haired teen frowned. "Oi. Basketball's not the only thing on my mind, you know."
"Oh, I'm sorry. Basketball and swimming," she winked.
"Very funny..." Ken rolled his eyes, but there was also a hint of a smile on his face.
While everyone else in her study group greeted the blonde girl who came unexpectedly and helped them to get rid of the Class C students who tried to antagonize them, Suzune only stared at her. It's as if she was trying to get a first impression on the girl based on appearance alone.
"Your name is Ichinose?" Suzune finally spoke after closely observing the blonde student.
Honami turned her attention towards the black-haired girl and smiled. "That's me!"
"What class are you from?"
"Oh, I'm from Class B."
"Class B? Interesting," Suzune was surprised that a student from Class B would go as far as to help their class with a few idiots, although she did say that she felt annoyed by them as well.
The leader of Class B then donned a look of realization, as she looked at the whole group with wide eyes. "Wait, you guys are all in Class D, right?"
"We are. Why do you ask?"
"Then that means you're classmates with Ayanokouji-kun!"
Suzune raised an eyebrow curiously. As far as she knew, Kiyotaka wasn't the type of person to go out and befriend other people, especially someone from another class. And yet, this Ichinose Honami seems to know him. Was he actually forming connections with other people now?
"How do you know Ayanokouji-kun?"
"We met a few weeks ago," she casually revealed before walking past them in search of Kiyotaka. It didn't take her long to see him at another table nearby and as soon as she did, Honami waved her arm in greeting. "Hey, Ayanokouji-kun. It's been a while."
"Indeed it has," he responded with a nod as Honami walked over to where he was.
On the outside, he looked perfectly calm. On the inside, Kiyotaka was just about ready to leave and hide himself in his room for the rest of the day.
As if things weren't bad enough.
He was already dealing with Kushida and her jealousy towards a certain black-haired classmate of theirs, and now here comes another problem in the form of Ichinose. No, he didn't have a problem with the girl herself. It's because her presence will inevitably lead to more problems, because Kushida will no doubt be jealous of her too.
Honami took a step closer towards him. "Have you studied for the midterm exams? They're happening next week and I'm a bit nervous about them, honestly..."
"I'm actually helping two of my classmates with their studying. So you could say we're studying together."
"Oh, you're acting as a tutor to them?"
He nodded, earning another smile from Honami.
"That's amazing. You must be really good at academics, then!" she praised him, causing Kiyotaka to feel a bit awkward.
"Not really. I don't even know if my teaching methods are effective," he averted his gaze to the side while rubbing the back of his neck.
"You're being too hard on yourself. I'm sure that whoever you're teaching, they're learning lots of things from you!"
And then, out of nowhere, a smirk formed on his face as he shifted his gaze back to the blonde beauty. "Well, maybe if you keep on encouraging me like this, I could succeed."
"You don't need me to succeed, silly. Just be confident in yourself," she reassured him. "And even if I did try to encourage you, it'll only be during lunch breaks or whenever we meet since we're not classmates."
His smirk widened. "Then maybe you can come to my room sometime. You can 'encourage' me as much as you want when we're alone."
The girl's eyes widened, and a blush started forming on her face. At first glance, it may seem that Ichinose Honami was someone who's oblivious to romance, but that was far from the truth. Honami was well aware of things like romance and love, it's just that she hasn't experienced it before.
And from her own understanding of 'love', what Kiyotaka did just now was a clear attempt at flirting.
"W-What...?"
It was only after Honami said that in a flustered tone that Kiyotaka realized what he said. What he had done a while ago when he talked about Nanase, he did it yet again.
[You have gained 10 Affection Points with Ichinose Honami!]
pαndα,noνɐ1,сoМ "I did it again. I'm definitely doing it unconsciously," he sighed in exasperation.
If only there was a nearby wall he could bang his head into repeatedly. Never mind if he dies as a result. As a matter of fact, he was very tempted to stand up from the table and do it himself.
Then again, even if he dies from killing himself, the system might alter reality to make it seem that it never happened, or it just revives him. Either way, he had a good feeling that even death won't save him from this whole game that's surely nothing more than entertainment for whatever deity up there that gave him this broken superpower.
Turning his attention back to Ichinose, he quickly noticed that she was left with a flustered look, prompting him to speak up before things spiral out of control even further. "I'm only joking," he quickly said before things could turn south.
Those words were enough to calm her down at least, but it didn't make her forget what he said before that, so her face retained its red hue for now.
"S-Sure..." the girl muttered while looking away. She took a few deep breaths afterwards in an effort to calm her heart that began pounding madly in her chest. "Calm down, calm down, it was only a joke..."
"Uhm, excuse me. You're kind of interrupting us?"
A sweet voice then caught Ichinose's attention, making her turn towards the other person who was sitting with Ayanokouji at the same table.
"Oh! I didn't know you were having a talk. My apologies," she said in an alarmed tone, before turning towards Kiyotaka with a forced smile on her face. "I-I'll see you next time then, Ayanokouji-kun!"
With that, the blonde beauty walked away and hurried back to her table with her fellow Class B students, leaving Ayanokouji and Kushida all alone again. The young man was quick to send a knowing look at his classmate, because it was clear that she did that on purpose.
Speaking of which, Kushida had a cute smile on her face but on the inside, she was fuming. She had no problems with Ichinose before, but this girl was definitely on her shit-list now. How dare she walk up to their table and interrupt her little lunch date with Ayanokouji-kun?! And to make matters worse, Ichinose ignored her presence at first and didn't notice her until she said something!
And now there was a big chance of her becoming yet another rival... this makes things even harder than before. Suzune was already a big threat because she was closer to Kiyotaka than her, and if Honami gets added to the mix... oh, boy.
She could only hope that the same doesn't happen for Matsushita, Karuizawa, and Sakura. As far as she was concerned, those three were only on friendly terms with Ayanokouji. None of them showed any signs of romantic affection... Matsushita liked to tease and have a good laugh, Karuizawa stated many times that she had no intention of being in a relationship, and Sakura was simply too shy to even think of romance.
"You did not have to do that, you know?" said Kiyotaka, snapping the girl out of her thoughts.
Kikyo threw him an annoyed look. "If I didn't, she wouldn't have left."
"That was still rude of you."
"Would you have preferred it if I told her to get lost and never show her face again?" she asked, switching to her mask for a brief moment.
Kiyotaka couldn't answer for a few seconds, as he contemplated that possible scenario in his mind. In the end, he couldn't help but sigh. That would have indeed yielded the worse outcome and to be fair, Honami didn't notice Kikyo even from the start.
He shrugged. "Fair enough. Is that all you wanted to talk about?"
Kikyo smirked. "Oh, we're not done yet, Ayanokouji-kun. Did you forget already? We were talking about that 'Nanase' girl when we were suddenly interrupted by those Class C idiots. Now that they're gone, I want to talk more about her."
"I've already told you everything. There's really nothing more about her other than she's best friends with the boy who I lived with. She visited him whenever she had time, not me."
"Really? But from the answer you gave me earlier about what you think of her, there's definitely something more to your relationship. I remember how you said that you already see her as someone you have to protect. It sounds... romantic, if you ask me," she egged on while secretly enjoying how he was denying her claims.
Kiyotaka shook his head stubbornly. "Forget what I said. I simply got carried away when I thought about her. Perhaps it's just because I haven't seen her in months."
"Ah, but doesn't that prove that she's more to you than just a kouhai?" Kikyo giggled.
The young man sighed as another wave of stress hit him.
She's not going to stop, is she?
And to think that this won't be the last of the stress for today, because he will be having another study session at the library later on with Karuizawa and Sakura. On the bright side, it'll only be for two hours, so he could get an early rest today... as long as the system doesn't decide to fuck him over, that is.
Anyway, the midterm exams were next week, and time was running out.
Kiyotaka wasn't worried about it, of course. He could get a perfect score if he wanted to, no matter what the questions on the tests were. Instead, his full concern was directed to Kei and Airi.
Yes, they have shown improvement over the past weeks, but all of their studying won't matter anymore when the exams begin. It'll all depend on how much they learned and retained in their minds after weeks of reading books and understanding lessons. Kei had a good chance of doing well, but he couldn't say the same for Airi. Then again, there's a chance that she might defy expectations and achieve good results in her exams.
As long as they get a passing mark in all their subjects, then it would be worth it. He hoped that it wouldn't have to come to failing even one, as it meant expulsion. The worst part was that it would happen to one of his heroines...
Oh, well. Guess he'll find out in a few days.
