LATEST UPDATES

Published at 1st of April 2020 11:26:45 PM


Chapter 4

If audio player doesn't work, press Stop then Play button again




Volume 1 | Chapter 2: April – Part 3

Finally, let’s get out of here and go home. I’m exhausted now. It was then that I realized I had an unread message on my phone.

We’re allowed to carry our cell phones in Seika Maria Secondary Academy. This time and age is dangerous for several reasons. As such the school wasn’t able to take away our rights to contact someone in an emergency.

Naturally, we were forbidden to use it in class. We were not allowed to call people inside the school building either, but we can message.

Basically, we have to put our cell phones in silent mode all the time. If we receive a call, we have to exit the school building on our breaks to answer.

Furthermore, if you were caught calling inside the school building, your cell phone will be confiscated. From what I heard, no one has had their cell phone returned to them after this.

The message was from Kazu-nii. [How is the target?] — He asked me.

But even if he wanted to know, it’s hard to answer. After I saw her leave the church, I didn’t know where she went anymore.

[I lost her. The target was at the church moments ago.]

When I replied, I received a message immediately.

[Staff room help.]

……Ha?

I took my bag and headed off to the staff room. There, an elderly woman wearing a white doctor’s robe drawing close to Kazu-nii.

“Please excuse me,” I announced.

“Oh! Niimi. Thanks for your help so late.”

“No, it’s alright……” I didn’t know what Kazu-nii called me here for, so I answered vaguely as I observed the two. 

The elderly woman sighed, which she maybe did because a student showed up.

“I guess I have no choice,” she said before she stepped away from Kazu-nii. However, she stuck both her hands in her robe and continued to snap at him. “Are you listening? It’s the first day and someone already came in injured. I was wondering what happened and it turns out they got caught in trouble. When I asked more, I found out they were in your class. While it is the upperclassmen’s fault for picking a fight this time, but as their teacher, please instruct your students to be more careful. Students who are cute like them tend to run into a lot of problems in the beginning.”

“Y-Yes, I understand, Suzuki-sensei.”

“You don’t understand at all. Hibiya-sensei, you might not know but you have to warn the type of girls like them or they’ll suffer in the future.”

“No, but it’s hard to warn them to be wary of aggressive flirts……”

“They barely avoided getting hurt. This should say more than enough. If Katsuragi-kun didn’t come by, both Aikawa-san and Matsuri-san would have been hurt. And in our school grounds! The school grounds, do you understand? What kind of problem do you think this will become later?”

“It’s the upperclassmen at fault……”

“Of course they are. But it’s also important your students know how to protect themselves so they don’t get taken advantage of. Sensei, please look out for them at all times.”

“Ehhhhhhh!?”

“What do you mean by ‘ehhh’!? Is there anything strange about a homeroom teacher being attentive of their students!?”

“A-Ah, no, of course, I understand exactly what you mean. I was just a little……. Umm, I was just being overly self-conscious. Yes. I’ll do my best from now on.”

“Jeez……”

There was a smell of disinfectants from the elderly woman’s robe. I suppose she’s the nurse. She yelled at the undependable Hibiya-sensei before sighing loudly and headed for the door. Before she left, she called out to me. 

“Are you one of Hibiya-sensei’s students as well?”

“Yes. My name is Niimi,” I introduced myself, bowing my head down.

“Today, your classmates, Aikawa-san and Matsuri-san, were harassed by some seniors. Thankfully, they were not hurt. Nonetheless, please be careful as well.”

“I understand. Thank you very much for your warning.” I watched the white-robed teacher leave the staff room.

“Ahhhh……” Kazu-nii opened his mouth and let out a deep sigh. “I can’t win against Suzuki-sensei…… Who the heck is happy having a granny school nurse like her here? I’m sure neither the girls or guys are happy.”

“You are being rude, Hibiya-sensei,” I called out to him.

Kazu-nii looked like he bit something sour. But it was gone in a second. “But to think she ran into trouble on the very first day,” he commented, shaking his head. “……I get a headache thinking about the future up ahead.”

I agree with him completely. I’m almost dizzy from the amount of events that happened on the very first day of school.

“Shiori, are you just going home after this?”

I widened my eyes after hearing my name. “Sensei, it’s sexual harassment to call me by my first name.”

“Wha…….”

He must have completely dropped his guard. I spoke like I was condemning Kazu-nii for speaking to me with his usual tone and calling me in his usual way.

Kazu-nii actually blushed. “……N-No…… I see. Oh yeah, that’s right. Ahh……” 

I wonder what’s wrong with him. Kazu-nii put his hand on his forehand, mumbling incoherent words. His cheeks were still red.

“……Sensei?” Really, what’s wrong with him? I got a little worried, so I tried to peer into his face. Kazu-nii shrunk away in a hurry.

I tilted my head.

“I-It’s nothing. …….Niimi, you…… Do you have something to do afterwards?”

“Nothing really. I thought about checking the clubs, but it’s already late, so I will do it tomorrow.” This has nothing to do with anything, but I’m not used to speaking politely to Kazu-nii.

“I-I see. Then it’s better to go home early. It must have been hard carrying all the textbooks.”

“No, no, I had Iinchou with me as well. Ah, also, I left the key with him but did he came by to return it?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Kazu-nii nodded.

“Then that’s good. I will head home now. Thank you for everything today,” I bowed my head lightly. I was about to leave the staff room when Kazu-nii called out to me again.

“I see. …….Thanks by the way. You saved me.”

I’m guessing Kazu-nii was overwhelmed by Suzuki-obaachan sensei’s lecture and messaged me without thinking. Really, he scared me for nothing. And actually, it’s not like Suzuki-obaachan sensei said anything unreasonable. Kazu-nii should just get obediently lectured.

I waved my hand, leaving the staff room.

Not long after my cell phone vibrated, indicating I received a message.

[I’ll drive you home. Wait for me in the parking lot.]

Jeez. Kazu-nii needs to be more aware that he’s my teacher.

I planned on leaving through the front entrance. With his message, I changed my route to head towards the back entrance where the parking lot was. To be honest, I was pretty tired, so I’ll happily ride his car.

I have to make a friend tomorrow somehow and be able to walk with them to the station after school. If I don’t, I have a feeling I’ll be all alone in my high school life. I want to avoid this no matter what. It’ll be way too lonely after all.

There were students here and there doing club activities between the center building where the staff rooms were and the back entrance.

On the other side of the center school building was the schoolyard where the baseball and soccer club do their practices. If I focused my eyes, I could spot track and field club members in the corner of the schoolyard. There was a wide track drawn on the schoolyard; however, it seems they gave the spot to the baseball and soccer club. There should also be tennis courts, an indoor pool, and even a dojo in this academy.

When I look at it this way, it feels like there’s nothing but sport clubs here. But there should be a number of culture clubs as well. Now then, I wonder what I should join. Joining the same club as Maria-jou would be the easiest in observing her, but I don’t feel like going so far……

“Huh? Aren’t you from Class B too?”

Someone called me from behind. I slowly turned around. I recognized this voice, so I wasn’t surprised.

The person who spoke to me had short hair and a model-like figure. It was Kyouko-jou.

“Yeah, I’m in Class B. My name is Niimi Shiori. It’s nice to meet you~” I introduced myself to her.

“Fufu, I know. You’re our vice class rep. You have guts to take up the role.” Kyouko-jou’s smile was lovely. I couldn’t help but feel happy.

“I didn’t plan to though…… Sensei is really mean. But, well, I was the one who averted my eyes first.”

“Really? I’m sure it’s cause Sensei thought Niimi-san was a dependable person. Did you know? Hibiya-sensei may look like that, but he’s a diligent teacher who looks carefully at his students,” Kyouko-jou told me.

“Look like that?” I questioned.

“He’s good-looking, isn’t he? He has the looks of a player but he isn’t one. There’s lots of girls who think the gap between his looks and personality is wonderful.”

“Eh!?”

“Oh my, Niimi-san, you’re interested in Hibiya-sensei too? If you want, let me tell you what I know about him. You see, I’m planning on joining the reporting club cause I love gathering information. But to be honest, it’ll be nice if there was a newspaper club so I can find scoops.”

“I-Is that so……”

I’m sure she wouldn’t have a problem finding scoops if she’s by Maria-jou who went through one event after another on our very first day.

“Come to think of it, where’s Aikawa-san? Weren’t you two together?”

When I saw her at the church, she was all alone. In other words, she separated from Kyouko-jou a while ago. What happened to their plan of checking clubs together?

“Maria left for home already,” Kyouko-jou told me with a disappointed look. “We met the hot guy from Class C, Katsuragi-kun, in the front yard but…… We ran into a bit of trouble and ended up in the infirmary. Maria wasn’t hurt but she decided to go home early. We decided to check out the clubs another time.”

“Hmmm……?”

“Are you interested?” Kyouko-jou asked me with her eyes beaming bright. “Hey, you want to know? You do want to know, don’t you? You’re dying to know what happened, right?”

Umm, err, you’re scaring me. Please don’t try to run me over.

I vaguely nodded and Kyouko-jou took out her cell phone to show me a photo. It was the certain picture of where Katsuragi-kun was princess carrying Maria-jou.

“W-Whoa……”

Uwaaaaaaah! I can’t help but think how amazing it was after getting another look at it again. What is this! This itchy feeling of awkwardness and embarrassment!

The sight of Maria-jou was blushing and being shy, was so cute while Katsuragi-kun was gallant and dependable.

I couldn’t help but blush as well. Kyouko-jou was satisfied with my reaction and put her cell phone away.

“But keep this a secret, okay?” She said to me. “It’s a waste but I can’t use this photo publicly anyways.”

You’ll be invading their privacy if you used it, okay? But she’s still planning on using it to tease them, isn’t she? She’s also planning on spreading rumours too, right? While I was bewildered, Kyouko-jou merely smiled wryly.

“Don’t worry. I won’t do anything that’ll trouble Maria.”

Really? Can I believe her?

“Hey, Niimi-san, can I call you by your first name?” Kyouko-jou asked me suddenly.

I widened my eyes in surprise. “Y-Yeah, I don’t mind.”

“I’ll be in your care, Shiori. Call me Kyouko too, okay?” Kyouko-jou smiled brightly again. At that moment, it felt like a light shone in the depths of her eyes.

“Y-Yeah, I’ll be in your care too……” I shook her hand as a shiver went down my spine. I asked myself if I made a hasty judgement.

After that, I made it to the back entrance, stumped.

Kyouko-jou was still with me. I have a feeling I can’t go to the parking lot like this. No, there’s nothing wrong with me heading to the parking lot. The real problem is if she saw me climbing into Kazu-nii’s car, isn’t it? He is my relative, so there’s nothing to be guilty of. However, Kyouko-jou likes to gossip.

I played back our conversation seconds ago. Kyouko-jou seems to believe I was interested in Hibiya-sensei. That being said, if I confessed that we were cousins, she will likely ask me about this and that. The safest choice here would be to cancel my plans of going home together with Kazu-nii.

I excused myself for a second to send a message.

[Go home by yourself.]

This should do it.

“Then let’s leave together. Kyouko-chan, do you go by train? Or the bus?” I asked.

“I ride the train. How about you, Shiori?”

“I’m the same.”

When I think of it, this is a chance to make up for my late start in making friends. Having girl friends is rather important. I should invite Kyouko-jou to a cafe before our train rides and enjoy a detour date.

I definitely want a gossip-lover friend on my side. Of course, I want a gossip-loving friend who won’t spread rumours about my family though! Kyouko-jou is a little suspicious in that aspect.

 

□ ■ □

 

I was all pumped up, but it turned out Kyouko-jou already had plans. It seems our detour date will have to happen on another day. Sadly.

When I arrived home, Kazu-nii’s beloved car was parked in my home’s parking space. By the way, Kazu-nii drives a Ferrari. It was a red sports car that definitely stood out. It wasn’t a type of car a 3-year full working adult, low salary teacher could buy. In reality, Kazu-nii didn’t even buy this car. He received it as a hand-me-down from his grandfather who brought it back in the bubble era1.

My parents weren’t good at driving, so they didn’t have a car. As such, the parking space in front of our house was designated for Kazu-nii. When we go on family vacations, we have Kazu-nii drive us.

However, Kazu-nii’s Ferrari can only provide a seat for two people. It’s a useless car that can’t be used for our vacations. As such, we borrow a rental car during those times.

When I opened the door to our living room, Kazu-nii was there reading the evening paper at our dining table. When he noticed me, he opened his mouth.

“Who did you go home with?” He asked with a lower voice than usual. He even glared at me. Was he that mad I turned down his offer to go home together?

“Matsuri Kyouko-jou, who’s in the same class as us. I met her halfway. Would you have preferred it if she saw us riding the same car?”

Kazu-nii made a bitter looking face. “No…… You have a point. That might have been bad.”

“Right? Also, Kazu-nii, you’re my teacher. It’s bad if we go home together. Even if we’re not doing anything we need to be guilty about, your reputation will fall if people think you’re favoring a certain student, you know? Plus I have to make some time to make friends or I’ll be in trouble.”

“……I know. You’re a high school student after all.” It seems Kazu-nii finally understood. He dropped his shoulders, which I laughed at.

“Come on, to make up for it, I brought this for you,” I said to him before I put pudding on top of the living room’s table. Kazu-nii’s face immediately brightened.

Pudding was Kazu-nii’s favourite dessert. While he also liked different variations such as pumpkin, green tea, and such, he liked the basic egg pudding the most. That’s why I buy him pudding like this from time to time. Kazu-nii does get offerings from students after cooking classes from time to time, but he always gets baked sweets such as cookies or madeleines.

According to him, he hasn’t received pudding offerings yet to this date. I bet it’s because pudding is hard to preserve. 

Kazu-nii eats only one of the baked sweets. The rest become my family’s afternoon snack.

My, my, oh dear fans of Kazu-nii, we are always thankful for the food you offer to us. However, when you make the batter, please mix properly. Occasionally, flour remains unmixed and the sweet is only half-baked. If you plan on giving someone sweets as a present, at least try it out beforehand.

Pudding is easy to make, which is why I make it once in a while too. To be honest, seeing a grown male adult eat pudding so happily makes me want to laugh, but it’s not a bad feeling. As such, I give him chocolate pudding during Valentine’s every year. Still, I have to say, how does he not get sick of pudding when he eats it so much?

“Anyways, about Maria-jou, she was amazing today~” I told Kazu-nii after I changed into casual clothes and came back to the living room.

Kazu-nii was relaxing on top of the sofa. “Amazing?” He asked.

“It was a parade of events. I probably saw a number of the capture targets too.”

With this, I began to tell him all the events that happened on the first day of school. Kazu-nii couldn’t hide the shock on his face by the time I finished.

“That’s amazing. In the game, you weren’t able to trigger so many events in one day……. Even though I called this world a world of a game, since it’s reality, you can move a lot more freely.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. You can only trigger one event a day. If there were multiple events with the same requirements and you met them, one of them will happen randomly. From what you told me, today’s events involved the capture targets: Tsuchiya, Katsuragi, and the pretty boy whose name we don’t know. If you add me and Tsukishima, we now have five people. There’s just two more left.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t report to you by message. It was a little bit hectic. But judging on what went on today, will all sorts of events happen one after another nonstop?”

“Hmm……” Kazu-nii groaned. “After you finish one event, there’s supposed to be some time before the next one occurred. During that time, you’re supposed to gather information about the capture target. Depending on the situation, the heroine will ask out the capture targets on the weekend.”

“On the weekend?”

“Yeah, on what you call a friendly date, I guess? At first, they’ll turn you down. When you get closer, they’ll agree. You’re supposed to gain friendship points with them. But if you don’t trigger the main events, you won’t reach the ending with the capture target. The heroine won’t become lovers with them with just friendly dates.”

It was hard for me to swallow Kazu-nii’s explanation.

Can you really call going out with a guy alone a ‘friendly’ date. Isn’t it just a normal date? Is going out somewhere with the opposite sex alone actually quite normal? Me with my little experience has no idea.

Yeah, yeah, my history with no boyfriends is the same as my age.

“Also, I think the advisor is Kyouko-jou. She said she’s joining the reporting club and seems to like gossip too.”

“Matsuri? Oh yeah, didn’t you say you went together with her?”

“To the station, yeah.”

“…….Just to the station?”

“Yeah. Is there something wrong?” I tilted my head. Kazu-nii had a complex expression on his face.

“I’m probably overthinking it,” he muttered almost immediately after. It looks like he reached some conclusion in his head and left it like that. “Anyways, what’s important is who Aikawa is after. To be honest, I’m perfectly fine with her getting along with anyone but me.”

Teacher Hibiya declared a statement announcing how important his self-preservation was.

“As long as she’s not the same as me then she’ll think she’s suddenly popular with guys all of the sudden.”

“Eh?” Something caught me. I looked up at Kazu-nii. “What did you just say?”

“As long as she isn’t in a special situation where she has memories of her past life like me, her actions coincidentally triggered events,” Kazu-nii repeated, adding more to his explanation this time. “Then it’s possible she became popular because she attracts people to begin with. However… if she’s a reincarnator who played the game in the past then there’s a possibility she’s intentionally triggering events. If she played it a lot, she might even be aware of all the events’ requirements.”

He sighed. 

“Putting that aside,” Kazu-nii changed the subject after he finished the pudding.

It’s my fault since I gave him pudding as a souvenir, but is it really okay for you to eat sweets before dinner? It’s all on you if you leave any dinner behind and got lectured by my Mom, okay? I’m not going to back you up.

“Shiori, what is this,” Kazu-nii asked as he took out a test paper with math on it……… Hm?

“Huh?”

“I made a copy of your answers for the entrance exam. What the heck is this number of careless mistakes you made? How many times did I tell you to properly look over your answers?”

“Why the heck did you bring my exam papers here!?” I shouted. “Isn’t it stuff like this that you can’t let leak outside!?”

“I’m your homeroom teacher, so it’s fine! There’s no way I’m having my cousin fail math and then go through supplementary lessons! On top of that, the one who’s in charge of the supplementary lessons is me! It’s a pain in the ass cause I lose my day-off, you know!?”

“I suck at math, so I can’t help it!”

“Jeez. Make sure you look over all this before the lessons start. If you get lost on the very first lecture, it’s going to be tough in the future.”

“Yes sir~” I answered half-heartedly.

Kazu-nii sighed tiredly. “Think about how I feel. ……You should take a walk in my shoes. I can’t avoid the next event with the heroine no matter what.”

“What do you mean?”

“The next event I have with her is giving her supplementary lessons one on one.”

“Oh~? And specifically what kind of event?”

“Don’t ‘oh~’ me. The heroine has good marks for all the subjects except math where she gets a horrid score. And me who’s in charge of her makes an offer to give extra lessons…… is how it goes.”

“Are you? Giving supplementary lessons, I mean.”

“There’s no way I can’t,” Kazu-nii replied. “Never mind if she dropped her marks on purpose…… Her math score in entrance exam was actually pretty bad. Her other subjects were good, so she was accepted though. But if she really is bad at math, I want to help her early on.”

It seems Kazu-nii was lost between being a good teacher or degrading to a useless teacher. The former was him worrying about his student’s marks as their teacher; the latter was him wanting to desert his student to protect his own life.

Still, what exactly happens in their event of studying together alone?

“But you guys will be in a classroom, right? What kind of sweet event will happen anyway?”

Kazu-nii’s face distorted. He looked super, super reluctant.

“In the first place, you’re the one who asked me to help you out. So why aren’t you giving me more details? Come on, come on, tell me all about it. Kazu-nii, what are you going to do to the heroine?”

“…….I-I’m telling you. I don’t remember much in detail, so……”

“You’re lying,” I pointed out. “No, maybe not with the other events but you remember this one, don’t you? That’s why you want to run away from it, am I right~?”

Come, come, confess everything to your wonderful cousin. I tried peering up into his face but he turned the other way.

“S-So……. You see.”

“Yeah?”

“The heroine spread her sheets on the table……” Kazu-nii said before he placed my copy test on the table and made me pretend I was studying from it.

Getting a second look on my test, there were lots of red x’s on the paper. Kazu-nii said I had a lot of careless mistakes. It’s amazing I got accepted to Seika Maria then. I even had Kazu-nii home tutored me while I was studying for the entrance exam. I studied quite a lot yet……

“Like this.” Kazu-nii pretended to hold a pen in his hand and moved behind me. He bent down, taking a look at my copy test over my shoulder. His long fingers, which were a little knotty as he was a guy, roamed at the boundary line of barely touching and not touching the back of my hand.

Kazu-nii’s attractive face was right next to mine. He actually has long eyelashes.

“He explained the question from this position.”

His voice muttering into my ear was erotic to the point I got shivers. His breathing tickled my cheek and none of what he was saying was entering into my head.

U-Uwa. Uwaa… Stop—– Your voice’s… breathing into my ear…….

“…….What’s wrong, Shiori?”

“Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!”

It felt like he whispered my name sweetly in my ear. I didn’t think, and slammed my fist into Kazu-nii’s face. I did a clean hit right on the bridge of his nose. And because I lost myself, I didn’t hold back my strength at all.

I was on the nick of creating a great nose bleeding disaster, but I don’t think it’s my fault. Yeah, it’s all Kazu-nii’s fault here. He’s guilty for the crime of having a way too sexy voice.

While Kazu-nii was cooling down his nose with a wet towel, I was desperately trying to regain my calm. Heh, that was dangerous. Good-looking guys are god damn scary.

I shook my head. Once I calmed down some more, I took a deep breath.

“Okay, I thought of a way of not making the event happen,” I told him.

Kazu-nii looked at me with surprise, even as he held the towel on his nose. Where the heck did his mysterious sexiness go? Right now, Kazu-nii was a disappointing good-looking guy.

“What’s most important is: don’t go closer than 45 cm around her at all times. If you’re giving her a lesson, then you can give it from the teacher’s desk. You don’t have to stick so close to her, right? Give her, what was again? Pa… Pa… something area.”

“You mean personal space?”

Right, right. It’s a psychological terminology. Kazu-nii mentioned it sometime ago.

Personal space is a physical area surrounding an individual where if another person intrudes, the individual will experience discomfort. They say one of the measurements is 45 cm, which is considered quite intimate. If an unfamiliar person came that close, some people will find it unpleasant. On the other hand, if someone intimate came that close, some people’s hearts will flutter.

Putting aside if Kazu-nii actually wanted to woo Maria-jou, all he has to do is not get close to her without thinking.

“Next option is to make it so it’s not the two of you alone,” I continued

“……?”

“There should be other students with bad math marks too. Raise up the minimum score for supplementary lessons and make those other students participate too. With that, you won’t be together alone with the heroine. It’ll be like a normal lesson.”

“I see,” Kazu-nii nodded like he was impressed. “Then leave next Saturday free.”

“Ha?”

“I’ll target other students for supplementary lessons too, but anything can happen. If you’re there, then I definitely won’t be alone with the heroine.”

So this is what it means to return evil for good, huh? Damn you, Kazu-nii!

 

□ ■ □

TL: All in all, we can see why Shiori views Kazu-nii as a disappointing ikemen… Hey, at least Kazu-nii isn’t a lolicon yet! (*n’∀’)n

I also don’t understand the concept of friend date. That doesn’t stop me from calling/barging into ikemen rooms and refusing a no for an answer. Save, reload, and reload some more!

Ed: I’d say the highlight of the chapter was Kazuto being sucker-punched in the face! lmao





Please report us if you find any errors so we can fix it asap!