“Bang!”
A crisp clatter of metal rang out on the surface of Hikaru Naruse’s desk.
Two cans of ice-cold cola had been slammed down in front of him by a blonde girl.
At a glance, one could see a layer of condensation still beading on the sides of the cans—clearly they had just been pulled out of a vending machine.
Hikaru Naruse blinked slightly and lifted his head.
Asuka Shiraishi was standing right in front of him, hands on her hips, an unmistakable trace of resentment written across that delicate, pretty face of hers.
“Naruse, here’s your cola!”
She stretched out a slender finger and jabbed it toward the two cans on the desk.
“That’s 500 points total.
Remember to transfer it to me next time.”
With that, Asuka Shiraishi turned and walked back to her own seat.
She crossed her arms over her chest, the corners of her mouth curving slightly downward, her entire face practically spelling out the words ‘I am very displeased.’
Hikaru Naruse looked at the two cans on his desk, then glanced back at the blonde girl sulking to herself, and couldn’t help but let a faint smile creep onto his lips.
Asuka Shiraishi had actually gone and bought them for him.
And two cans, no less.
“Of course, no problem.
I’ll even treat you to a meal next time.”
Hikaru Naruse’s tone was easygoing.
He genuinely hadn’t expected Asuka Shiraishi to have this kind of personality.
Interesting.
“Hmph!”
Asuka Shiraishi didn’t say anything, just let out a single huff—her way of responding to Naruse.
After that, Hikaru Naruse picked up one of the cans of cola, rose from his seat, and headed toward another part of the classroom.
Asuka Shiraishi was seated directly behind him, while Ai Morishita’s seat was to his front-right, with two rows of seats separating them—not too far.
At this moment, the girl had her head lowered, a pen gripped in one hand while the other pressed down on an open notebook, as if she were diligently writing something.
“Morishita, what are you doing?”
The instant she heard Naruse’s words, the girl’s reaction was lightning-fast.
She simply thrust out one hand and snapped the notebook shut with a sharp ‘clack,’ while pressing the other hand firmly down on the cover, as though it recorded some extraordinarily important secret.
The whole motion flowed in one seamless sequence; before Naruse had even reached her desk, this entire combo had already been completed.
“Here you go—ice-cold cola.”
Hikaru Naruse looked at her with a beaming smile, his tone a little teasing.
“But before you take it, could you tell me…
what were you sneakily writing just now?
It wouldn’t happen to be something bad about me, would it?”
His gaze drifted, ever so casually, to the notebook she was pressing down so tightly, and a mischievous smile appeared on his face.
Ai Morishita accepted the cola with an expressionless face, then replied in her usual cold, flat tone.
“It’s something very important.
Not something bad.”
“Then can I take a look?”
“Right now…
not yet.”
Hikaru Naruse’s Emotion Perception ability let him sense the girl’s inner conflict, and he guessed it was probably some sort of secret that belonged to her alone.
“All right, all right, I was just asking on a whim.
A girl’s secrets—I have no interest in knowing them either.”
Naruse waved his hand and prepared to return to his own seat.
Even after he’d left, Ai Morishita’s hand still hadn’t lifted from her notebook.
In truth, what was written inside wasn’t any girlish secret at all, but a list of ‘things to do together with a friend,’ each item something Ai Morishita had searched for online.
Things like enjoying dinner together, or going out shopping and watching a movie.
These were things she had never once experienced before.
After a little while, Ai Morishita spread the notebook open again, then picked up the cola Hikaru Naruse had brought her.
“Pssht—”
She took a big gulp, and the corners of her mouth curled slightly upward.
During the lunch break, Hikaru Naruse and Ai Morishita went to the cafeteria together, just as they’d agreed.
The students around them passed by in twos and threes, and every so often someone would cast a curious or envious glance their way.
For one thing, both of them were strikingly good-looking; for another, a pair of opposite-sex classmates entering the cafeteria together as a duo on only the second day of the term was still a fairly rare sight.
After walking into the cafeteria, Hikaru Naruse headed straight for the ordering counter.
Today he didn’t go for the free mountain-vegetable set.
He’d already sampled that thing yesterday, and it had been genuinely hard to choke down.
Now that he had hundreds of thousands of points in hand, there was absolutely no need to keep putting his stomach through such misery.
Today Hikaru Naruse ordered a beef bowl set for 950 points, which came with a bowl of steaming hot beef over rice, a serving of miso soup, a small dish of pickled vegetables, and a cup of chilled green tea.
Ai Morishita sat across from him, her own lunch laid out in front of her—an ordinary plate of egg fried rice.
Naruse had assumed it would just be an ordinary lunch, but as the two of them ate, Ai Morishita’s chopsticks suddenly reached over toward his bowl.
“?”
Two thin slices of beef were steadily pinched up by her, then swiftly withdrawn, and finally delivered into her little mouth.
The girl chewed the beef, her eyes curving into gentle crescents, her expression looking utterly satisfied.
Hikaru Naruse blinked, a helpless smile surfacing at the corner of his mouth.
“Don’t girls usually watch their figures?
If you keep eating out of other people’s bowls, be careful you don’t put on weight.”
Ai Morishita swallowed the beef in her mouth, then replied in her expressionless, indifferent tone.
“But no matter how much I eat, I never gain weight.”
Hikaru Naruse looked at that placid, unruffled face of hers, and the smile on his lips grew even more pronounced.
“Now that’s genuinely enviable.”
As they continued eating, Ai Morishita seemed to take this as tacit permission and began reaching over with her chopsticks to snatch meat from his bowl, one piece after another.
“Chew, chew, chew.”
“…”
This girl really did take a mile when given an inch.
Naruse wasn’t angry, though.
Someone eating a bit of his food was nowhere near enough to spoil his mood.
It was right at this moment that a figure appeared beside their table.
The girl’s silver hair shimmered with a soft luster under the cafeteria lights, and a faint smile hung at the corners of her mouth.
Half a step behind her stood another girl.
This one wore her purple hair long, a few loose strands falling lightly against her cheeks, a delicate hairpin fastened at her brow.
She had a pair of pale-violet pupils, her eyebrows slightly arched, her lips pressed together—her expression cool and aloof, tinged with an air of pride.
Masumi Kamuro.
Hikaru Naruse quickly called up his memories concerning this character.
Masumi Kamuro—in the original work she was a rather important character.
Because her secret had been seen by Sakayanagi, she became Sakayanagi’s assistant, or perhaps more accurately, her lackey.
“May I interrupt for a moment, Naruse?”
Arisu Sakayanagi’s voice was soft and gentle.
“?”
____
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