Classroom of the Elite, I Also Want to Be a Good Person

"Ah—"

Because the voice belonged to the very person she had been thinking about, Shiina let out a small cry of panic.

Her purple eyes widened slightly and her mouth parted, a cute expression that Aoyama captured and recorded in an instant.

"Could it be that you were bad-mouthing me in your head, which is why you were so startled?" Feeling as though he had harvested something good again, Aoyama said with a playful tone.

"I was wondering why Aoyama-kun hadn't invited me yet, and whether you had already forgotten the promise you made to me."

Calming her panic, Shiina launched a small counterattack against Aoyama's teasing.

Several days had already passed since their agreement to read books together at the library.

"How could I possibly forget? I had originally planned to invite you during the break so that we could spend more time together."

Since joining the Student Council, Aoyama's free time after school had been reduced.

Plus, since training requires consistency, he generally had things to attend to before six o'clock.

"On a rare day off, isn't it a priority to accompany your girlfriend?"

"And I don't see Horikita-san; didn't you eat with Aoyama-kun at noon today?"

Together, they placed their tableware at the return station and walked toward the classroom.

"Do rumors spread that quickly?" Aoyama smiled. "Horikita and I only have a transactional relationship. Her eyes don't hold any trace of me, at least not for now."

Horikita Suzune had only successfully risen to her position yesterday, and the rumors were already out today; one could only say that the circle at Kouiku was truly small.

It was also possible that Kushida had leaked the news, but that was just a trivial matter.

"Are Horikita Suzune-san and Horikita President related?" Having resolved one doubt, Shiina felt a sense of relief as she thought of the President in the Student Council, who was usually as expressionless as Horikita Suzune.

Horikita wasn't exactly a common surname, and their features were somewhat similar; both were handsome and beautiful.

"They are brother and sister. And by the way, the younger sister is a brother-complex."

"A brother-complex? Horikita-san?"

"The super kind, at that."

Passing by the back door of the Class D classroom for first-years, Aoyama glanced inside.

On the desk sat an ordinary bento box, and the brother-complex he had just mentioned was already finished with her meal and reviewing her studies.

Against the backdrop of students chatting happily in twos and threes, the sight of Horikita reading alone seemed somewhat desolate.

"See you this afternoon, Aoyama-kun."

"See you this afternoon."

Parting ways with Shiina at the entrance of the Class C classroom, Aoyama walked into the Class A classroom.

The students who made eye contact with him would consciously look away, treating him like air.

Except for Kamuro, who always held her head high and gave off the feeling of a mature, older sister.

"Where is Yamamura?" Aoyama walked over to Kamuro's side.

Because he had been showing off a bit lately, the attention from other classes had increased, so he had been eating alone at noon recently.

The trio that used to eat together had become just Kamuro and Yamamura.

"She said she wanted to go to the vending machine to cool off. She felt a bit nauseated hearing so many rumors about a certain bastard while eating."

"You added the part at the end yourself, didn't you? Yamamura wouldn't say that."

"The part at the end was about me." Kamuro looked disgusted. "I heard your name more than ten times just during the time it took to eat a meal. You really are flashy."

"My name hasn't reached the point of making you nauseated, has it? I'm just training you a little more."

It had been over half a month since he became the Student Council Vice President, and the novelty of the work had worn off for Aoyama. Under the guise of training her abilities, he pushed most of the work onto Kamuro.

He believed that as long as the workload was heavy enough, Kamuro wouldn't have the heart to seek thrills or play the role of the Kouiku thief king.

He was doing this to help Kamuro; he was doing it for her own good.

"Only Yamamura would believe you if you said that to her."

Yamamura, huh.

Aoyama suddenly thought that he could bring Yamamura along for his meeting with Shiina at the library tomorrow.

To Yamamura, Kamuro's personality was a bit too aggressive, and the two didn't get along very well, even though Kamuro would sometimes go out of her way to look after Yamamura's feelings.

"Then I'm going to find Yamamura."

"Go, go, save me the annoyance." Supporting her face with her left hand, she waved her free hand, showing no intention of asking him to stay.

What a cold-hearted woman.

After a slight internal grumble about Kamuro, Aoyama hurried to the familiar vending machine and found Yamamura, who was clearly distracted, on the usual bench.

She was stroking the back of her hand from time to time, looking as if she had something on her mind.

"What's wrong? Is there something bothering you?"

With a thud, Aoyama sat down next to Yamamura, the gap between them only a fist's width—much closer than last time.

With just a light sniff, he could catch the pleasant scent lingering on Yamamura.

"Ah—Aoyama-kun!"

"You're the second girl I've startled today."

Placing his hand on the slightly flustered Yamamura's head, Aoyama gently ruffled her slate-blue hair.

Ever since he touched it last time, he felt like he had become addicted to it.

Besides, Yamamura's shy expression was also incredibly cute.

"I'm fine..." Yamamura averted her gaze, the frequency of her stroking the back of her left hand increasing.

"You're welcome to talk to me whenever you want."

He confirmed that Yamamura was troubled by something, but since she didn't want to say it, Aoyama wouldn't force her.

Following that, he invited Yamamura to go to the library with him tomorrow.

Chapter 33: A Very Happy Shiina

"It's a bit more crowded than I imagined, the library on a Saturday."

Walking into the library with Shiina and Yamamura, Aoyama noticed that there were already quite a few students inside, and the several long tables that could seat eight people were already completely full.

It looked like most of the students were first-years, with very few third-years.

Katsuragi from his own class, Ichinose from Class B, Kaneda Satoru from Class C, plus Hirata and Wang Meiyu from Class D—every one of them was a student with excellent quiz scores.

"Aoyama-kun can be a little oblivious sometimes; with less than half a month until the midterm exams, of course there are many students holding study sessions."

"There weren't this many people on Saturdays before."

Wearing a stand-up collar light cyan dress under a light-colored coat, Shiina, whose level of cuteness had reached a new height, revealed a serene smile.

"I hadn't even realized that until Shiina-san mentioned it." Aoyama withdrew his gaze from Ichinose and the others.

He had placed second in the class in the late April quiz, with the first being that little brat Sakayanagi Arisu.

Yamamura's grades were also considered excellent, though not quite in the top five of the class.

As for Kamuro, she had just barely missed the top thirty.

"I'll leave the rest to you, Miss Shiina, the one most familiar with the library."

"The one most familiar with the library should be the librarian, you know."

Gently correcting Aoyama's mistake, Shiina took steps toward the shelves filled with a dazzling array of books.

Following her graceful silhouette, the two of them arrived at a quiet, secluded spot where not a single other student was in sight, and even the faint background noise was completely inaudible.

Around a small round table, there were just three chairs.

However, one of them looked distinctly different from the other two, clashing completely with the color scheme of the round table.

"I already got permission from the librarian to move that chair here," Shiina explained, seeing Aoyama looking at the unique high-backed chair.

Upon receiving Aoyama's message asking if he could bring one more person, she had agreed immediately and come to the library, adding an extra chair to the quiet nook she had discovered by chance.

The three of them couldn't very well let one person sit on the floor.

"Yamamura-san, is there any book you'd like to read? I can find it very quickly if you just tell me the title."

Thinking that she might be able to strike up a conversation with Yamamura, Shiina immediately shifted her gaze away from Aoyama.

After they had met downstairs at the dormitory and introduced themselves, her conversations with Yamamura had basically ended after a single sentence, with no follow-up whatsoever.

A sense of frustration welled up within her.

If she hadn't realized that Yamamura was only acting this way because of nervousness, she would have suspected that she was being disliked.

"She's asking you, Yamamura, don't look at me." Aoyama, who had sat down around the small round table, felt a mix of amusement and helplessness.

Faced with Shiina's question, Yamamura didn't know how to answer, so she simply looked at him.

"Then just do the same as me; I'll leave it all to you, Shiina-san."

As soon as a look of distress appeared on Yamamura's face, Aoyama made the decision for her.

And Shiina, who needed to recommend books to the two of them, quickly fluttered off like a butterfly, her footsteps light as she went to find books.

"I'm afraid that the kind I like might be the type that Shiina-san doesn't like."

"You really do like to overthink things."

Hearing the reason Yamamura gave, Aoyama gently tapped her smooth, delicate forehead beneath her air bangs.

"Shiina wouldn't get angry over something like that."

"Besides, if someone were to get angry over something so trivial, there would be no need to be friends with them anyway."

"As a friend, Shiina is qualified, and I hope that you two can become friends."

In his conversations with Shiina, Aoyama had discovered that while Shiina's status in Class C was quite high, she didn't have a single friend she could really talk to, and she always went to the library alone.

In her past without friends, Yamamura had also always relied on books to pass the time.

If Yamamura could let down her guard, with Shiina's communication skills bolstered by her passion for fellow book lovers, it wouldn't be difficult at all for the two of them to become friends.

"Am I not very useful, Aoyama?"

"Do you want the truth or a lie?"

"Let's hear the lie first..." Yamamura's hands, resting on her pleated skirt, rubbed together uneasily.

"The lie is that you're useful; the truth is—you're extremely useful, incredibly useful, so useful that I want to hide you away and keep you to myself, so that no potential enemies in other classes discover your existence."

Not letting Yamamura suffer for even a second longer, Aoyama reached out and pinched her cheeks, telling her just how useful she was to him.

"Don't be afraid of failure."

"If you fail this time, there's always next time. As long as you're willing to come, Shiina will keep the door wide open for you, and I will be right there with you."

"OK or not OK?" Aoyama pressed his palm against the side of Yamamura's face.

"OK."

"Do you know or not?"

"I know."

"Yes or no?"

"Yes."

Enjoying the feel of her smooth, warm, blushing cheeks, Aoyama followed up with a triple-question barrage.

Visibly, Yamamura's spirits lifted a little.

"Fantastic."

Aoyama gave his assessment, which applied as much to her as it did to her adorable face.

Just then, Shiina walked up to him quickly, arms cradling a stack of books, her expression a mix of anticipation and joy.

Her vibrant silver hair rose and fell with her steps; although the girl had lost a bit of her usual tranquility, the liveliness in her purple eyes and the upturned corners of her mouth made Aoyama stare for a moment.

"Rear Window, a masterpiece by one of my favorite authors, Cornell Woolrich. Many of his works have been adapted into films, you know."