There were indeed hostile looks.
But they mostly came from the boys. As for the girls... so far, he had only seen one from Horikita.
Moreover, aside from Horikita's fiery glare—the kind Bai Lan had been expecting—
the other looks felt more sour than hostile.
Ah~ The scent of jealousy.
The girls were even stranger.
He felt that many of them were looking at him.
But whenever he looked back, most of them quickly looked away.
That clearly wasn't "hostility." It was more like "fear."
But what was with their flushed faces?
That made him feel that compared to "fear," they were more like... "shy"?
There were also several girls who didn't avert their eyes from Bai Lan.
Bai Lan sensed a hint of goodwill in their gazes.
Some of them even seemed excessively excited.
Combined with the boys' sour expressions,
Bai Lan suddenly came up with an absurd guess.
It reminded him of the "three great illusions of life."
But he had always trusted his instincts, so he felt that perhaps this time wasn't an illusion.
Could it be...
"They like me?!"
Although this liking might not—at least, not all of it—have reached the level of "wanting to date him," it at least meant that most of the girls in Class D had a favorable impression of him, and it seemed that impression wasn't weak!
What was going on?
I clearly attracted a huge wave of hatred just yesterday!
So how did my favorability shoot up instead?
"Could it be that I miscalculated?
Most of the girls in this class are actually hopeless romance addicts who are obsessed with domineering-CEO stories where the heroine gets abused, and this is exactly their thing?
Did what I did yesterday become something like the line from an anti-domineering-CEO story: 'Man, you've successfully caught my attention'?"
After all, this was Class D. Once one understood the basis for the class assignments, no matter how abnormal the behavioral patterns of Class D's students seemed, they were still "normal."
Thus, a strange and somewhat absurd misunderstanding was born.
Bai Lan suddenly felt a headache coming on.
Bai Lan wasn't used to handling other people's goodwill.
Because once he accepted someone's goodwill, feelings easily developed.
And once feelings developed, parting became unbearably painful.
Therefore, over the years, so that he wouldn't add needless sorrow to every transfer, he had always turned himself into a hedgehog.
Whenever someone tried to approach him, he would drive them away with his spines.
However, he could stab those who approached him with ill intentions as hard as he pleased.
But when faced with someone who came bearing genuine goodwill, all he could do was try to scare them away.
Only scare them—he was unwilling to truly hurt them.
Scaring someone away without hurting them was difficult to balance and extremely troublesome.
Not to mention that Bai Lan was planning to drop out.
If a girl liked him, especially one of those hopeless romance addicts with unpredictable behavior patterns,
she might very well become an obstacle to his dropping out!
What if, at some critical moment in his dropout plan, a romance-addled girl suddenly rushed out and insisted on "taking the bullet" for him, causing her to drop out in his place? Wouldn't he not only fail to drop out, but also have to take responsibility for her under the weight of his conscience and find a way to compensate her?
Absolutely not!
The thought alone left him deeply troubled.
Refusing to believe it, Bai Lan continued looking back at every girl who glanced his way.
This one too, and this one too...
Good grief!
Before long, Bai Lan breathed a sigh of relief.
He had finally found someone relatively normal.
He wasn't talking about Horikita.
It was a gyaru with a high golden ponytail and her jacket tied around her waist.
The blonde gyaru didn't look away from Bai Lan. With her arms crossed and chin raised, she stood motionless with a fierce, disdainful expression, as if she intended to engage Bai Lan in a battle of presence.
That was more like it!
That was the attitude someone should have toward a person who had humiliated her!
Who would have thought that the normal person in Class D would be a gyaru who would seem the most abnormal in any other normal class?
Was this negative times negative making a positive?
Curious about this "rare specimen," Bai Lan couldn't help taking a closer look at her.
Bai Lan realized that this gyaru was the leader of the Gyaru group that had argued with the Sese Group before—the Gyaru leader.
Bai Lan remembered that when she had led her people into an argument with the Sese Group, she had been extremely forceful and highly aggressive.
Looking more closely, Bai Lan discovered that this gyaru was actually quite attractive.
She had the makings of a class beauty.
Although her face was a notch below Horikita's in terms of beauty, compared to Horikita's mature, vixen-like allure, she possessed more of a cute, "tender" quality that made one want to tease her.
Yet her gyaru styling made people afraid to provoke her casually.
That contrast—wanting to tease her but not daring to provoke her—only made her beauty seem all the more precious.
What Bai Lan didn't know was that the Gyaru leader he thought was "squaring off" against him was already on the verge of tears.
"What should I do? What should I do? He's still staring at me!
I can't avoid him, I can't lose, and I can't show weakness.
Once I show weakness, everyone will know I'm weak, and someone will definitely come bully me. I don't want to go through something like that again.
Come on, Kei, you can do it!"
The leader of Class D's Gyaru group, a fake gyaru named Kei Karuizawa, encouraged herself inwardly.
"But even if I don't show weakness, will Bai-san think I'm provoking him and ask me to fight? If that happens, won't I still get bullied? Nooo!
No, no, no! That probably won't happen, right? Hirata-san said Bai-san is a good person. Bai-san is a good person. He won't do that."
As Karuizawa desperately repeated those hints to herself, she didn't realize that her intense concentration had caused her eyes to narrow slightly, making her look even more "ferocious."
When Bai Lan saw the other person's gaze grow increasingly "ferocious," he felt somewhat puzzled.
"So fierce?
Could this cute girl be more than just someone dressed as a gyaru? Is she actually a delinquent?
Is she planning to challenge me to a fight after school?"
She's so cute. One punch should make her cry for quite a while, right?
In the end, Bai Lan took the initiative to end the "standoff." He turned his head toward the path ahead and walked to his seat.
Seeing this, Karuizawa immediately relaxed inwardly. On the surface, however, she let out a "hmph" like a victorious general returning from battle, then immediately lowered her head and frantically flipped through the textbook in front of her, deliberately making it rustle loudly as she tried to cover up her guilty conscience with rude behavior.
In reality, the two of them had only stared at each other for four or five seconds.
Even so, that was enough to attract attention and make people realize that something was off.
What Bai Lan didn't know was that the moment he and Karuizawa finished staring at each other, the classroom erupted into discussion.
"What's going on? Bai-san actually started staring at Karuizawa? That's Karuizawa we're talking about. She's cute, but she's fierce and doesn't hold back with her words."
"Don't forget Horikita."
"Oh, right. Horikita's fierce too. Could Bai-san be into that type? The rumors are true—he really is a battle maniac?"
21. Want to Date? No Feelings Involved
Bai Lan returned to his seat and sat down. Then, with a grave expression, he began thinking, trying to come up with the best way to dissuade every girl who might try to express her feelings for him without hurting anyone.
Actually, the best method was to drop out as soon as possible, before anyone launched a "charge."
But at present, dropping out wasn't something he could do just because he wanted to.
He had better lower their favorability quickly.
However, considering how unpredictable romance addicts were and how an "attack" could happen at any time, he also needed to come up with an emergency plan quickly.
He had to prepare for both possibilities.
"Why is your expression so disgusting? Did you step in excrement all the way here? You piece of human trash."
Ding! Your neighbor, Horikita's brocon, has sent you a verbal sparring invitation.
Hearing the voice, Bai Lan turned his head.
He saw the other person looking at him as if he were garbage.
Before you continue