The "Call-Out" Incident at the Coffee Shop

"Phew—thank goodness Hirata didn't insist on making me stay."

As soon as Shangguan Che got back to the dorm, he let out a long breath. Remembering the five of them gathered around the table, he couldn't help muttering, "If he'd actually made me drag over a chair and sit there, it would've been so awkward. I'd have felt like some invisible nobody listening in."

The table could fit five people at most, and there hadn't been anywhere for Shangguan Che to sit. It wasn't as if he could sit on Hirata's lap, right?

He glanced at Sakura, walking quietly beside him, and silently gave her a thumbs-up. Sakura's amazing. She happened to be with me, giving me the perfect excuse to leave.

At the elevator, Sakura hugged Shangguan Che's camera and gently tugged at his sleeve. "Shangguan, your camera."

She remembered that at the electronics store, Shangguan had said the camera was too heavy and asked her to carry it. Now that they were back at the dorm, she couldn't just keep holding someone else's belongings.

"No, no, you can borrow it for now." Shangguan Che waved his hand and turned to run toward the stairs. "Think of it as a thank-you gift for helping me carry it earlier. Bye!"

Before Sakura could react, the camera still warm from Shangguan Che's hands in hers, he suddenly came rushing back like a gust of wind, his eyes sparkling. "Oh, right, you can use it however you like. Take pictures of anything you want—I don't mind at all! Now I'm really saying goodbye!"

Without waiting for Sakura to answer, he disappeared down the hallway.

Sakura stood there for a long while, holding the camera, stunned. A faint blush gradually spread across her cheeks.

She lowered her eyes to the camera in her arms. Its black body and spotless lens made it clear that its owner had taken good care of it.

"Shangguan's such a nice person," she murmured, walking back to her room with a spring in her step.

Meanwhile, Shangguan Che had dashed back to his room and was leaning against the door.

He hadn't lent Sakura the camera on impulse. He'd planned to do it from the beginning.

But if he'd simply said, "You can borrow it," Sakura's personality being what it was, she'd probably have thought he was pitying her and refused to take it.

Now, by calling it a "thank-you gift," he'd done her a favor without making her feel awkward. Perfect.

"I'm pretty clever, if I do say so myself." Shangguan Che smugly bobbed his head, then suddenly remembered Hirata's comment that "Shangguan and Sakura seem like more than friends, but not quite lovers." His cheeks instantly grew warm.

He touched his face, his heart inexplicably skipping half a beat. "Hirata really knows how to bring up the worst possible thing."

He flopped onto the bed and stared at the ceiling, his thoughts wandering. Should I keep things the way they are with Sakura?

If we keep going like this, could we end up becoming a couple? But I've never even been in a relationship. I have no idea how to handle that.

After fretting for a long while, Shangguan Che abruptly sat up. "Why am I overthinking this? I'll just take things as they come. I'm happy with how things are now, anyway."

And just like that, Shangguan Che had put his overthinking to rest.

After resting for a while, Shangguan Che suddenly remembered someone he hadn't "checked in" on yet: Karuizawa Kei.

"I saw Sakura, Hirata, Ichinose, and Ayanokoji today. Karuizawa's the only one left."

He activated Clairvoyance and began searching, muttering, "I treat everyone equally. Even if I don't believe that myself, there's nothing wrong with saying it."

Karuizawa wasn't in her dorm or at any of the malls she usually visited. Shangguan Che shifted his field of view and finally found her in a coffee shop.

"She's slacking off in a coffee shop, of all places." Shangguan Che smiled, but the next second, his expression froze.

A few gyaru girls were gathered around Karuizawa, pointing at the table beside them. From the looks of it, they were about to "start something"!

And judging by where they were pointing, the people at the next table seemed to be from Class C?

"No way. Is Karuizawa trying to start trouble?" Shangguan Che sat up straight, staring intently at the scene.

One of Karuizawa's gyaru friends spoke first, her voice sickly sweet. "Kei, don't you think the people studying next to us are being kind of loud? This is a coffee shop, not a library."

"Exactly! They're so loud I can't even talk to you, Kei." Another girl immediately chimed in, deliberately leaning closer to Karuizawa.

The other girls nodded along. "Right, right. They have no manners, making so much noise in a public place."

Karuizawa hesitated. She didn't actually think they were all that noisy, but seeing her friends' expectant faces, she remembered how hard she'd worked to fit in with their group. If she refused, they might start excluding her. She gritted her teeth and forced herself to say, "Yeah, they are kind of loud."

"Then go tell them to be quiet, Kei!" The girl who'd spoken first gave her a shove. "You're the best at this. They'll definitely listen to you."

"Exactly! Libraries are for studying. This place is for drinking coffee and chatting. They can't just be this noisy!" the others joined in.

Karuizawa's stomach lurched, and her palms instantly grew clammy.

She was supposed to pick a fight with strangers? That was the sort of thing she'd always been most afraid of.

But then she thought of the "gyaru queen" image she'd worked so hard to build. If she backed down now, her friends would definitely look down on her.

I'll do it! she told herself, pumping herself up. She took a deep breath, stood, and walked over to the table beside them.

"Hey! You guys studying over there—can you keep it down?" Karuizawa deliberately raised her voice, trying to mask her nerves with bravado. "This is a coffee shop, not your private study. You're disturbing me and my friends!"

As soon as she finished speaking, a burly boy at the next table shot to his feet. His brow furrowed so deeply it could crush a fly as he shouted at Karuizawa, "Hey! What's your problem? You want to fight or something?!"

Shangguan Che flinched.

Wasn't that Ishizaki Daichi from Class C, the guy with the notoriously short fuse? Karuizawa had picked the worst possible person to provoke!

Sure enough, Ishizaki's imposing presence made Karuizawa shudder. Her face went pale, and all the courage she'd forced herself to muster vanished. She couldn't even get a word out.

Just then, a gentle voice suddenly rang out. "Ishizaki, don't say that. We're all classmates. Let's talk things out."

Shangguan Che took a closer look. A white-haired girl was sitting beside Ishizaki, gently tugging at his sleeve. Her voice was tender, but carried a quiet authority.

Ishizaki glanced back at the white-haired girl. His fierce expression softened at once, and he muttered, "All right. For Shiina's sake, I won't hold it against her."

Shiina Hiyori smiled at Karuizawa, her voice soft. "I'm sorry. We got so caught up in studying that we disturbed you. We'll try to keep our voices down."

Karuizawa blinked, surprised that the other girl was so accommodating. She hurriedly waved her hands. "N-no, it's fine. Just keep it down a little." Then she rushed back to her seat.

Only then did Shangguan Che let out a sigh of relief. "Good thing that white-haired girl was there, or Karuizawa would've had a rough time today."

He took the opportunity to use Clairvoyance to look into her a little and learned that the white-haired girl was Shiina Hiyori from Class C. She had excellent grades, but wasn't very physically fit.

She seemed to have a lot of influence in her class. Even Ishizaki listened to her.

Shiina Hiyori watched Karuizawa leave, then fell into thought again.

She'd actually been tutoring her classmates at the library that day, but some of them couldn't help discussing things loudly while they studied, disturbing the other people there. That was why she'd decided to find somewhere else.

She hadn't expected them to bother people at the coffee shop, either.

"Looks like next time we'll have to study in the classroom," she murmured. Then she turned to Ishizaki and said, "Ishizaki, you shouldn't be so harsh with girls. Be a little gentler."

"Got it, Shiina." Ishizaki scratched his head and smiled sheepishly.

Meanwhile, Karuizawa sank into her chair, her heart still pounding. I'm never doing anything that stupid again. That was terrifying!

But as soon as she'd caught her breath, her friends crowded around her, all talking at once as they praised her. "Kei, you were amazing! You actually had the guts to talk to that scary guy!"

"Exactly! You're the best, Kei. We're all impressed!"

"Hey, Maya, how come you got to hug Kei first? I want a hug too!"

Listening to her friends' praise and feeling them crowd around her so warmly, Karuizawa's fear slowly faded, replaced by a feeling of fulfillment unlike anything she'd felt before.

So this is what it feels like to be needed and admired.

She smiled and patted her friends' hands. "That was nothing! Leave it to me if anything like that happens again!"

Watching Karuizawa looking so pleased with herself on the screen, Shangguan Che couldn't help laughing. "She was scared out of her mind, but she still had to save face."

Still, he admired Karuizawa. To protect her "wonderful life," she'd found the courage to stand up to strangers. She had some guts, at least.

But she'd just started something with me. It was obvious at a glance that this wasn't the real Karuizawa Kei. Shangguan Che was speechless, feeling that she was drifting farther and farther away from her true self.