Ichinose and I Aren't in That Kind of Relationship Yet! (cont.)

"We're doing this for the class, Okabe. We have to stay strong!"

It was strange, wasn't it? Why would I cry over someone else's game console when I had one of my own?

I'd had the good fortune to try that game. Before then, I hadn't known the first thing about it. The gameplay was novel, and there was plenty to do, but I still wasn't interested.

I just couldn't understand it...

[Luo, please report to the teachers' office immediately. Your homeroom teacher wishes to see you.]

[The announcement is playing...]

Just as I was about to think more deeply about it, the speaker in the corner of the classroom suddenly called my name. I glanced over in surprise, even though I knew I wouldn't see anything there.

"Teacher Hoshinomiya wants to see you... Did Raku do something out of line?"

I wanted to know that myself.

"I don't think Raku could do anything out of line," Kanzaki said, speaking up for me. But no matter how you looked at it, that sounded like he was making fun of me.

"True... Could it be because of this quiz?"

They thought I was harmless, but at the very least, I was a gecko.

"If I remember right, Raku got sixty. That's a poor score, sure, but we're obviously worse off."

"We just went a little too wild this past month. We can make up for it with a bit of cramming."

"Sure, sure. Okabe just hasn't shown his full potential. But we're talking about Raku right now."

"..."

"I can't think of any reason that fits."

"Anyway, I'd better go over there first. Otherwise, things could get even worse."

The four of them couldn't come up with any useful conclusions, so I had no choice but to take emergency action before the situation got any more serious.

"Okay. Good luck."

"Come back alive, Raku."

What was with those faces, like they were sending a doomed comrade off to his death? Were they cursing me?!

I did my best to resist the urge to make a snarky comment and slipped past the pressure of the students' gazes.

In the next moment, a crocodile lying in wait in the lake and a deer coming to drink began a battle of wits.

What a commotion. Were they holding some kind of event in there?

To avoid embarrassing myself in front of the teachers, I decided to knock first. The loud "bang, bang" startled even me. I hadn't expected I'd ever be the kind of person to do that.

The conversation in the office didn't stop, and nobody called out for me to come in. So I opened the door on my own.

"Hey, Sae, why did you call him out here? Hey, why?"

"Uh, I honestly have no idea..."

"You don't know? She called you out without even telling you why? That's pretty interesting. What's your name?"

"My name's Ayanokoji."

"..."

"Mm, Raku-kun, you're here too. That was quick." While talking with Ayanokoji, Teacher Hoshinomiya noticed me hiding behind the door. At the same time, Ayanokoji looked over at me.

"Didn't you ask me over the intercom to come immediately?"

"I thought you'd take your time. I heard from Honami that you're pretty lazy."

"..." So that explained why my left eyelid had been twitching for the past few days.

"But you got here at just the right time. Hey, Raku, come over and take a look." Teacher Hoshinomiya grabbed my sleeve and dragged me right in front of Ayanokoji. "Don't you think Ayanokoji-kun is super handsome? What do you think? Isn't he?"

"I'm not very good at judging people's looks..."

"Hm? You're handsome yourself, so how come you can't comment on another handsome guy?"

"I appreciate the compliment, but I'm afraid I don't think about that sort of thing very often."

Two handsome guys...

I probably wasn't anything special in the looks department, though. Wait, Ayanokoji and I had both been summoned by the homeroom teachers of our respective classes. Could there be some kind of competition between the classes? Maybe the contestants had to be their class's best-looking students. No way. Could there really be such a cheesy competition? If so, I'd have to strongly recommend Kanzaki and Shibata.

"Hmm, I know what Raku's like. With that personality, he definitely wouldn't be popular. But Ayanokoji-kun must be popular, right? Have you got a girlfriend?"

"No... Um, I'm not popular."

Teacher Hoshinomiya leaned in toward him enthusiastically, trying to grab his arm with her slender, pretty one. Ayanokoji shifted slightly in my direction. His expression barely changed, but I could still read the plea for help in his eyes.

Even if you sent out the highest-priority distress signal, "Mayday," I couldn't do anything about this mischievous, adorable teacher.

"Huh? You two... Did you know each other already?" Teacher Hoshinomiya asked with interest after noticing the little exchange between Ayanokoji and me.

"We've run into each other a few times in the elevator. Did you call me here because of Ayanokoji?"

"No, I called you here for another reason. I just happened to run into Ayanokoji-kun."

"Teacher Hoshinomiya?"

A woman in uniform, her hair tied in a high ponytail, walked in slowly and gave Teacher Hoshinomiya a cool look. Then she stepped forward and brought the clipboard in her hand down hard on Teacher Hoshinomiya's head. It landed with a loud thump. The teacher clutched her head and crouched down like a child in kindergarten, looking thoroughly shaken.

"That really hurt, Sae!"

"That's what you get for pestering my student."

"I wasn't pestering him. I was just keeping your student company while you were away."

"Couldn't you have left him alone? What kind of homeroom teacher leaves her own students to pester students from another class? Anyway, Ayanokoji, sorry to keep you waiting. Come with me to the guidance room."

"Huh? Isn't this place convenient enough? Sae isn't the type of teacher who gives guidance. Is there some strange reason you're calling a student to the guidance room alone?" As she spoke, Teacher Hoshinomiya narrowed her eyes. For an instant, I saw the viciousness of a venomous snake.

"Sae, don't tell me you're planning to take advantage of your position~?"

The D-class homeroom teacher responded with a cool look and said, "This is just an internal matter within Class D. It has nothing to do with the other classes."

"What kind of internal matter? Why not tell me? Maybe I could help."

"It's just something minor."

"I don't mind the trouble—"

"Teacher Hoshinomiya, could I have a moment of your time? It's about the Student Council... Huh? Raku-kun, what are you doing here too?" Perhaps the tension in the office had been so thick that nobody heard a knock. The office door opened again, and Ichinose walked in.

"Two students already? Class B sure is a handful." Ayanokoji's teacher gave a cold laugh as she spoke.

"Sometimes that's a good thing, isn't it? Well, I guess we'll leave it at that for now. Goodbye, Ayanokoji. You two, come with me. We'll go somewhere else." With that, Teacher Hoshinomiya led us away from the guidance room.

"Mm, let's go with this spot." There was nobody else around. Teacher Hoshinomiya spun around gracefully and looked at me with a beaming smile.

"Okay, let's talk about Raku-kun's situation first."

"Uh, would it be better if I stepped away?"

"If possible, I'd like Honami to stay and listen. Raku-kun's problem is a little serious. As his homeroom teacher, I might not be able to handle it."

"Did Raku-kun do something wrong? Is it really that serious?" Ichinose glanced at me worriedly. Perhaps because I didn't show much emotion, her expression looked a little odd.

"Raku-kun, could you tell me what's going on? If you're having trouble, I'll definitely help you."

"I don't think I've done anything out of line..."

"You don't know either, Raku-kun? Teacher Hoshinomiya, what exactly happened?" Ichinose was starting to look anxious, having waited so long without getting an answer.

"Don't worry. Raku-kun's situation isn't quite as serious as it sounds. I only called him here because I wanted to talk to him about his grades."

"His grades? Raku-kun got sixty on this quiz, right? If that's what you're worried about, you don't need to be, Teacher Hoshinomiya. I'm already planning to hold a study group to help everyone improve. There's no need to single Raku-kun out and lecture him." Once she got her answer, Ichinose immediately defended me. I was honored to receive such a generous show of kindness, but Teacher Hoshinomiya's amused smile made me rather uncomfortable.

"Is that all you think, Honami? Why not think about it a little more? Sixty is an extremely special score, especially for Raku-kun."

"A special score... What do you mean?"

"Don't you think sixty is a little too perfect, Ichinose? It's exactly sixty percent of the total score—the passing percentage people often talk about. It shows that you know more than just the bare basics."

"Even so, there's no need to call Raku-kun here alone. He just happened to get that score."

"We've gotten this far, and you still don't understand, Ichinose?"

"Everyone knows the cheetah is the fastest animal in the world, but most of the time, it lies around lazily. Even when it runs, it might only trot along slowly. It's the same when it hunts. It rarely shows that it can reach speeds of over 110 kilometers per hour. Raku-kun is just like a cheetah right now."

"Are you saying Raku-kun is deliberately hiding his abilities?"

"Mm, perhaps Raku-kun is even better than you, Ichinose, the top student on the entrance exam."

"Maybe Raku-kun only got this score by chance."

"You won't say that after you've seen these."

"What are these...?"

As she spoke, Teacher Hoshinomiya pulled several test papers out of a folder and handed them to Ichinose, who was standing beside me. If I snatched them from her and swallowed them whole, would everything be all right?

"To help us provide individual support for our students, I had the entrance exam reports pulled up. The results startled me so much that I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me."

Ichinose skimmed through all the test papers, then looked at me in disbelief. Just as she was about to ask something, Teacher Hoshinomiya answered first.

"There's nothing wrong with the papers."

"Sixty in math, sixty in Japanese, sixty in English, sixty in science, sixty in social studies..." Ichinose quietly read off my entrance exam scores one by one. "And he got sixty on this quiz too..."

"If you look at any one test on its own, you might think it was a coincidence. But once you put them together, it's a different story, isn't it? Heh heh. So, Raku-kun, don't you owe me an explanation?"

100 ms

Experiments had proven that this was the limit of human reaction speed. In fact, among the people who had encountered me so far, not a single one had exceeded that threshold.

Animals were another matter. Their innate existence as hunters gave them extraordinary reaction speeds. For a deer that had already noticed the crocodile, escaping should have been easy.

"Honestly, getting scores like these really was just a coincidence."

"Even now, are you still planning to hide the truth from us, Raku-kun? Are you trying to pull off the cool act of being a hidden genius?"

"I never thought of it that way. I'm already satisfied just being an ordinary student."

"But you can't explain this away as a coincidence, can you?" Ichinose set the papers down and gently grabbed my arm, as if to say that I wasn't going anywhere until I gave her a proper explanation.

That was practically a threat, wasn't it?

"It really was just a coincidence. As someone who believes in conserving energy, I only wanted to reach the minimum passing standard. I just kept my scores around that range. Getting sixty was a coincidence. Sometimes it might be fifty-nine, sometimes sixty-one. In short, it was a coincidence."

"So you mean that as long as you meet the minimum standard, it doesn't matter if you leave the rest of the questions blank?"

"There's no rule about that, is there? Teacher Hoshinomiya said that the students at risk of expulsion are the ones below the passing line. Right now, the passing line is half the average score. In other words, sixty is perfectly safe."

"Sounds like Raku-kun doesn't want to do unnecessary things. 'Don't do what isn't necessary, and keep what is necessary as simple as possible.'"

"I don't know where you heard that, but please don't say it out loud. It's embarrassing."

"But is it really just because it's unnecessary that you don't do it?"

"I don't think there's any other reason." I dismissed the possibility Teacher Hoshinomiya had suggested, but she wasn't about to give up. Instead, she turned to Ichinose.

"Honami should know why cheetahs don't run at full speed, right?"

"Because they think their prey isn't worth the effort... Is that it...?"

"That's not what I meant."

"Mm~ Raku-kun, you're so mean. Now I don't know what to do." Teacher Hoshinomiya suddenly clung to Ichinose, pretending to be troubled.

"This little flaw of his isn't good, but I don't have much time to sit down and talk with Raku-kun. Mm, this is a real headache... Maybe Honami could help me whip Raku-kun into shape."

"Huh? Me?" Already flustered by Teacher Hoshinomiya's behavior, Ichinose grew even more unsettled.

"There's nothing wrong with you doing it, Honami. You're so cute, and you have such a lovely personality. You're lively and adorable, just like a rabbit. I'm sure you could gnaw through a blockhead like Raku as if he were a carrot. Besides, haven't you already won him over?"

What kind of weird metaphor was that?

"N-no, Raku-kun and I aren't like that. Won him over...?"

"Huh? You're not? You're so close every day. Other students have even told me about it."

"Absolutely not! Raku-kun and I aren't like that!"

"Wow, you're not like that yet? So you want to become boyfriend and girlfriend, then?"

"That's not what I meant! Raku-kun, say something!"

"Um, if there's nothing else, I think I'll head out first."