The Person in the Real Sect Only Wants to Drop Out Section 20

The school cafeteria's ramen stall also followed this industry rule.

In five minutes, Bai Lan added noodles twice, felt about seventy percent full, and ended his lunch there.

After finishing his meal, he casually picked up a bit of "Ramen-Destroying Dragon" legend status and a wave of hatred from ramen enthusiasts at the cafeteria.

When Bai Lan finished eating and returned to the base of the school building, only a little over ten minutes of the lunch break had passed.

Bai Lan went upstairs, heading toward Class D's classroom.

He was just walking around the corner leaving the stairwell.

At that moment, someone suddenly burst out from the corner, charging straight toward where he was about to step.

Someone had ambushed him?

Had someone finally lost their patience and wanted to beat him up?

Which scheme had produced this result?

Was it "Class Taunt"?

Was it "Chaos Strike"?

Or was it "Bullying the Class Beauty"?

No matter what, Time to fight, time to fight!

The other person's charging speed wasn't very fast; the main factor was the suddenness.

Someone with slightly slower reflexes would most likely get hit.

However, Bai Lan's reactions weren't slow—in fact, they were faster than most people's.

He sidestepped his body while simultaneously reaching out to precisely grab the front of the other person's clothes, ready to follow up with a shoulder throw or something, tossing them into the best camera-shot position.

He had just grabbed their collar and was about to throw when, at that moment, he suddenly got a clear look at the other person's face.

It was a cute girl with an orange bob haircut, a little angel's smile, and a full figure.

Bai Lan remembered overhearing others during break calling her "Kushida" or "Kikyo."

Kushida was very sociable and helpful, having built good relationships with many people on the very first day of school. She was popular in class, a core figure on par with Hirata.

At the same time, she was also one of the girls who had cast kind glances his way.

Bai Lan: Looks like I was wrong? She's not here to fight me?

Realizing this, he quickly changed his throw into a push, using a technique to cancel out the inertia on her body, trying to bring her to a stable stop.

But just as she steadied herself, Bai Lan felt as if his hand had been "rebuffed" by something.

At that point, he also realized what he had just pushed.

To avoid triggering any troublesome side plots that might interfere with his main quest of getting expelled, Bai Lan pretended he hadn't noticed what strange thing he had touched.

He casually, as if nothing had happened, slowly withdrew his hand, showing no sign of guilt after doing something "bad."

At this moment, if the other party was willing to play along, they could pretend nothing happened, and no one would be embarrassed.

However.

The instant Bai Lan's hand left, Kushida immediately hugged her chest, and at the same time, her face flushed red—red like an alarm signal, as if emphasizing that the thing Bai Lan had tried to pretend didn't happen had, in fact, already happened.

Then, Kushida spoke.

"I'm sorry, Bai-kun. It's all my fault for not slowing down at the corner and almost bumping into you." Kushida said with an apologetic expression.

"It's fine, I didn't get hit anyway..."

And besides, I didn't come out on the losing end.

Bai Lan still intended to keep pretending nothing had happened, planning to just walk around her and return to the classroom to avoid triggering useless side plots.

Seeing Bai Lan act like he wanted to take advantage and then leave, Kushida grew a bit anxious.

They say, "He who takes feels obligated; he who eats has a short tongue."

Although she hadn't intended for him to "take" anything in the first place—it was all an accident—since he had already "taken," shouldn't he at least show a little obligation?

Couldn't he at least say something soft?

How was she supposed to start a conversation like this?

Forget it...

Before Bai Lan could lift his foot, Kushida immediately flashed her signature angelic smile and proactively opened the conversation, saying, "What a coincidence~ Bai-kun."

"Coincidence... is it?"

Bai Lan's expression was a bit strange, his tone seeming to go along with her words, yet also hinting at some doubt.

In truth, he didn't think this was a coincidence at all.

Before she had charged out, he had already noticed a large moving shadow on the ground right by the corner.

This meant someone had been waiting there by the corner all along.

So this Kushida wasn't someone who "forgot to slow down at a fork in the road"—she'd been waiting there all along, on purpose.

Bai Lan recalled the lively, almost ingratiating look Kushida had shot him that morning, and immediately filed her away as part of Class D's love-brain crowd.

Add in that "throwing herself into his arms" just now...

Bai Lan formed a hypothesis: he suspected Kushida might indeed have been lying in wait for him, only her ambush wasn't for a fight—it was to "make friends" or something?

Kushida seemed to catch what Bai Lan was getting at.

Kushida immediately lowered her head and said sheepishly, "Sorry, Bai! It really wasn't a coincidence. I waited here on purpose because I have something to tell you, but I was afraid you wouldn't talk to me, so I planned a 'corner encounter.' I heard it boosts the initial favorability of a conversation."

"But to 'boost favorability,' you sacrificed a lot, didn't you?" Bai Lan said, shifting his hands uncomfortably.

"I actually practiced this move a bit. I could've stopped on my own, but there was an accident—you moved too fast. Before I could pull it off, you already..." Kushida's little face flushed red, looking very cute as she spoke.

24, Sorry, You're a Good Person

"But to 'boost favorability,' you sacrificed a lot, didn't you?"

"I actually practiced this move a bit. I could've stopped on my own, but there was an accident—Bai, you were too fast. Before I could pull it off, you already..." Kushida's little face was red, and she explained anxiously like a startled rabbit.

What was that saying?

A girl's blush says more than a thousand words.

And she'd gone to all this trouble just to "boost the initial favorability of a conversation."

Clearly, she was after something big—some huge benefit from talking to Bai Lan!

Bai Lan grew more certain of his hypothesis and raised the severity level of his suspicion by one alert grade:

The worst-case scenario was that she was after him!

"She wants to confess to me!" Bai Lan's inner alarm bells rang.

"Even though it's already like this, I still hope you'll seriously hear me out..."

With that, the girl suddenly reached out and grabbed Bai Lan's right hand.

Her small hands clasped together around his right hand, lifted it to the center in front of her face, bowed her body slightly to lower her height, and finally looked up at him at a 45-degree angle, her eyes full of pleading and hope.

"Please!"

Bai Lan tried to pull his hand back. After one attempt, he gave up.

He felt like he could yank it free, but he didn't dare use too much force, afraid he'd send this—though well-endowed—still petite girl flying.

Bai Lan took a moment to mentally prepare, rehearsed his "universal rejection line" in his head, and finally steeled himself to speak: "Alright, what do you want to tell me?"

"It's like this..."

Kushida took a deep breath, then twisted her body awkwardly a few times, making her pleated skirt flutter up slightly several times.

She looked terribly embarrassed and conflicted, as if she was about to say something hard to bring up.

Bai Lan further confirmed his hypothesis:

She must be trying to confess to me!

Bai Lan gave up hope. He seriously loaded the cannonball he'd prepared into the chamber, ready to fire the moment he spotted the enemy.

Soon, Kushida spoke:

"I want to be friends with Horikita!" / "Sorry, you're a good person!"

"Huh?" x2

They both froze for a moment.

After a silence.

Bai Lan's face was expressionless: "You ambushed me here just to get me to help you befriend Horikita?"

"Yeah, yeah~"

Kushida put on a sweet, innocent look, like a "little angel with no bad intentions," and said just that.

Hearing this, Bai Lan couldn't help wiping his face.

Black history +1.

So awkward... yeah, right!

Bai Lan didn't care.

He was going to drop out anyway, so being seen as a "cocky loser" or "narcissist" didn't matter. In fact, it might even lower others' favorability toward him, which was only beneficial.

Bai Lan just wasn't used to dealing with other people's goodwill.

Since her goal wasn't to offer him "goodwill" (friendship, confession) but to use him as a "friendship tool,"

Then for this purely transactional relationship, Bai Lan handled it with ease.

He didn't even need to think. Following the muscle memory honed by years of sharp-tongued experience, he could just drop a few harsh words and make the conversation impossible to continue, ending this "encounter battle" on the spot.

But just as he was about to let those harsh words out, He suddenly realized something.