On the streets of Kouiku, a silver-haired boy with his hands in his pockets walked steadily forward. He had a pair of azure eyes and wore a black eye mask... eyepatch.
"Hey, hey... That cosplayer's dressed as that guy, right?" a chubby boy said to the classmate beside him.
"Yeah, now that you mention it, he really does look like him." The two nodded together, approving of the cosplayer—our very own Ying.
"This really is the most comfortable way." After trying to walk a few steps with a cane, Ying realized it neither gave him any B-grade aura nor felt comfortable. After thinking it over, he decided to use the eyepatch as a face mask instead. That way, he could still look cool without obstructing his vision.
Ying recalled what the book had said and decided to first go have an iced Americano at a café, then spend an hour somewhere with a nice view.
Just then, Ying ran into someone he knew. He was about to greet him, but suddenly remembered that he was supposed to act like someone with B-grade aura. He couldn't greet people in a way that lacked B-grade aura, so...
"Yo!"
Kanzaki: ?
As soon as Ying spotted Kanzaki, Kanzaki noticed him too. He looked at the white-haired student and felt he'd seen him somewhere before. The boy looked extremely familiar, but after thinking it over, Kanzaki decided he must have mistaken him for someone else.
But just as Ying and Kanzaki passed each other, Ying suddenly said, "Yo!"
Kanzaki froze in place and looked back at the white-haired student's retreating figure. The more he looked, the more familiar it seemed. But each time the answer was just about to come to him, it got stuck on the tip of his tongue. In the end, Kanzaki chalked it up to how busy he'd been lately. He'd been negotiating with Ichinose and the other classes every day, and it had left him a little muddled—now everyone looked like someone he knew.
After staying outside until dusk, Ying started heading back toward the dorms. As he passed a classroom building, an idea suddenly came to him.
Wasn't going up to the roof to enjoy the night scenery another way to look cool?
So Ying entered the Special Teaching Building. Just as he opened the door to the roof...
"Damn Horikita! You're always acting so high and mighty. Every time I go to talk to you, you brush me off in such a perfunctory way. Do you really think you're that great? You're so damn selfish, always thinking about yourself!"
Ying: Uh...
"And Ike and Yamauchi are always looking at me with those lecherous eyes. I have to smile and suck up to them every time. Just thinking about it makes me mad!"
Listening to the insults and the occasional sound of someone kicking the railing, Ying could only wonder why he kept running into this kind of trouble lately. He'd better make a run for it before the person over there noticed him.
As Ying was closing the door, he glanced over that way and happened to meet Kushida's eyes as she turned around...
"Bang!" Ying hurriedly shut the door without a word. What a disaster!
"Hey! Wait a minute, classmate!" Kushida ran over, opened the door again, and chased Ying down the stairs.
"I told you to wait!" At the stairwell landing, Kushida caught up with Ying, grabbed his shoulder, and forced him to face her.
But when Kushida saw what Ying looked like, she froze.
Ying was wearing an eyepatch, and he still had a cane in his right hand, tapping it here and there against the ground.
"Classmate, I can't see. What you're doing is very dangerous for me." After saying that, Ying pretended to tap the wall with his cane twice, then leaned against it.
"I'm sor— Wait! You're messing with me. You weren't wearing an eyepatch just now!" As she spoke, Kushida yanked off Ying's eyepatch, revealing the colored contacts he was wearing.
"Ahem..." Caught in his disguise, Ying cleared his throat twice, then went to the stairwell and started punching and kicking the railing. "Damn Wang Ergou! That bastard borrowed 2,000 from me last time and still hasn't paid me back. Then, just a week later, he scammed another 500 out of me, and after that he just vanished! I'm so done! Die, die, die! And that system! No, no... I was wrong, the system is the best person in the world... tem!"
After kicking the railing, Ying turned around and looked at Kushida in surprise. "Oh! Are you here to vent too, classmate? It's good to come here and shout a little when you're under so much stress every day. Keeping it all bottled up is bad for your health. I'm done venting, so I'll get going. If you still need to get something off your chest, go ahead and shout a couple more times. See you!"
"Wait! I haven't finished talking!" Kushida grabbed Ying by the arm and pulled him back in front of her. She glared at Ying coldly and asked, "You're..."
Before Kushida could finish, Ying answered for her. "I'm Byakuya, from Class 1-B. It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Kushida. I've given up my seat to old ladies, helped old men cross the street, and volunteered in disaster areas. Please believe in my character. I would never tell anyone about what happened today. If you still don't believe me, we can go to a teacher and draw up an agreement."
Kushida was a little dumbfounded. Why did it feel like this person had a lot of experience?
"I don't want a teacher finding out about my secret. You really won't tell?" Kushida asked suspiciously.
"I swear!" Ying made a gesture as if taking an oath.
"No, I still don't trust you. I need some insurance." As she spoke, Kushida placed Ying's hand on her chest.
Ying instinctively gave it a couple of squeezes, only to earn a fierce glare from Kushida!
Ying: So soft. Amazing!
"All right, now your fingerprints are on my clothes. If you dare say a single word to anyone, I'll tell the school you tried to take advantage of me. Everyone will believe me, not you."
Ying nodded repeatedly. Looking at him like that, Kushida couldn't help wondering if she'd gotten the short end of the deal.
The next day, Ying hurried to find one of the school's fortune-telling masters and asked him to tell his fortune. Why had he been so unlucky lately? Had he picked up something unclean?
According to the master, it was all because of his outlandish clothes lately. So Ying promptly dyed his hair back and took out his colored contacts. He returned to being the handsome black-haired boy with red eyes he'd once been.
After school, Ying headed to the Student Council as usual, ready to do his homework there. On the way, he ran into a tipsy Hoshinomiya-sensei. She smiled and greeted him, then leaned close to his ear and said, "Ying, do your best with that thing~"
Ying: What thing was that again? Oh, right!
Ying had almost forgotten about that. But in the original story, Class D had earned an unprecedented zero points in its first month. The class's own big shots could practically carry him, so there was really nothing he needed to do.
"Don't worry, Sensei. If Class D doesn't get zero points this month, I'll eat my words!" Ying said confidently.
"Really? Then Sensei will be looking forward to seeing what you accomplish, Ying. Ugh!" Hoshinomiya staggered away. Was it really okay for a teacher to drink every day like this?
Even without me, Class D will still get zero points. Ying secretly chuckled to himself. Getting a free ride feels great.
"Ah! Byakuya, are you going to the Student Council?" Ichinose greeted Ying with a smile.
"Oh, Ichinose. In such a hurry—are you off to another gathering?"
"Hehe, I suppose you could call it that. Actually, I'm going to negotiate with Class D. After I revealed some of the information last time, a few of their leaders consulted the rest of the class. Now that they've reached a consensus, I'm planning to sell them the rest of the information too."
"Oh, then make sure you charge a reasonable price."
"Sure. Well, Byakuya, I'll be off."
I didn't realize Ichinose had already sold them some information. I wonder how much she got for it... Wait! Doesn't that mean Class D won't be as carefree as they were in the original story? I...!
Ying could only think, I've made my own bed, and now I have to lie in it...
Before you continue