By the time Hoya came out of the kitchen, he saw that only bones remained of the four fried chicken legs. Ryuen Shoko was eating rice while gnawing on a chicken wing, and she seemed to be enjoying it.
You had to admit, when Ryuen Shoko had called him over to cook, he'd felt hungry too. Now that the food was ready, he might as well bring it to the table.
Looking at the mess on the floor, Hoya could more or less guess what Ryuen Shoko had been up to. How much beer had she drunk?
He couldn't figure out what she'd been thinking. The trash can was right under the small table, yet she'd scattered the empty cans and sunflower seed shells all over the place. Should he be grateful she hadn't spat on the floor? That would've been a pain to clean up.
"Mm, eat up."
Ryuen Shoko picked up an egg with her chopsticks and ate her meal with great relish.
When you were hungry, anything tasted good—especially when Hoya's cooking wasn't bad either.
After the two of them had wolfed everything down, leaving nothing behind, Hoya washed the empty plates. When he came back out, he found Ryuen Shoko cracking sunflower seeds again.
Um... Why did you like sunflower seeds so much? Weren't you worried about getting mouth ulcers?
"All right. Now that we've eaten and drunk our fill, we should talk about you leaving me here for four hours."
Ryuen Shoko took over the table he'd just cleaned, propping her feet on it again. Hearing her words, Hoya stood beside her obsequiously. "So, boss... what do you think..."
"I'm pretty sure I told you that you're my lackey."
"Woof. Woof, woof, woof!"
Hoya got the hint right away. He immediately crouched down and started barking.
His performance made Ryuen Shoko chuckle. "This table's a little low. It's uncomfortable with my legs stretched out."
"Woof, woof, woof!"
He understood at once. He moved the table aside and got down on all fours in front of Ryuen Shoko, resting his back beneath her full but toned legs. Hoya knelt quietly and waited.
That position wasn't a big deal for him. Unlike a proper kneel, it didn't put pressure on his legs and make them ache, so he could endure it.
Meanwhile, Ryuen Shoko comfortably sipped her beer and scrolled through her phone. She paid no attention to Hoya, settling herself into the sofa.
Well, she might not have paid attention to Hoya, but he wasn't stupid enough to just sit there doing nothing. Stuck in that awkward position, he used both hands to fiddle with his phone and send messages.
He held that ridiculous pose for nearly an hour. By the time it was ten o'clock, Ryuen Shoko finally let him get up, then returned to her dorm to go to sleep.
After finally seeing that tyrant off again, Hoya lay down on the bed and rubbed his knees. It hadn't been as hard on him as an ordinary kneel, but holding that position for an hour had been pure torture.
He didn't dare act too casually, either. Whenever he moved too much, Ryuen Shoko would lift her leg slightly, then press down, telling him to behave.
"Damn it. One of these days, I'll show that woman what I'm made of."
Cursing under his breath, Hoya rubbed his legs.
When he went to the bathroom, he suddenly noticed that the bath towel he'd hung up was damp. He frowned and leaned in for a sniff... then tossed it straight into the washing machine.
Good grief, had this woman really started treating my dorm like her own home? She'd even used something that personal?
Hoya suddenly felt that she had a pretty strong need for control. She might really think of him as her personal possession.
Chapter 49: Ayanokoji Quietly Observes Humanity
What was the best thing about going to school?
Having the day off.
And what was the second-best thing?
Having the day off tomorrow.
That's right, it was Friday, and Hoya was in a great mood.
He planned to spend the whole weekend having fun. Compared with high school in China, where students had to study even on Saturdays and Sundays, the timetable here in Japan sometimes made him feel like he was still in college.
Easy. So damn easy. The classes were simple, and there was plenty of free time. He was already thinking about where to go that night.
Go back to the dorm? Only a fool would go back. What was the point—keeping the crazy woman company while she made trouble?
Not a chance. Wouldn't it be better to call Kushida over to sing karaoke, maybe cuddle up with her a little, instead of putting up with that crazy woman?
Of course, that was only a fantasy. Boys always had a few of those.
It wasn't that he couldn't make it happen. He could, but there was no need. For now, Kushida was just a useful tool to him. If he wanted to have some fun, he'd probably rather become one of Kei's admirers.
Come on, who didn't like gyaru? Especially ones with slightly tanned skin.
That obviously sun-kissed complexion and sexy outfit were irresistible to boys. Just thinking about it was enough to make Hoya feel like he couldn't control himself.
He fantasized about all sorts of things as he headed for the cafeteria. After enjoying a simple breakfast there, he also bought himself a boxed lunch for later.
As a former Chinese person, he knew how to cook, but making a boxed lunch was really asking too much of him. Boxed lunches were eaten cold, so he generally avoided them. But after observing things for the past few days, he'd more or less realized that he wouldn't have time to eat lunch in the cafeteria most days.
That crazy woman Ryuen Shoko would definitely come up with all sorts of ways to mess with him again, leaving him barely any time to get lunch.
"Good morning, Hoya."
The good mood he'd been in vanished as soon as he heard that voice.
It wasn't that there was anything wrong with what she'd said. The problem was the voice itself.
Hoya looked at Sakayanagi Arisu, who had greeted him, with a face like a condemned man. Several girls stood beside her. Ah, so she'd found new bodyguards?
Going by the usual pattern, had she sent Kamuro off to spy on the enemy?
"Morning. I didn't expect to run into you here."
"Isn't it normal to run into each other? Our classes aren't very far apart, after all."
"That's true, but... never mind."
Hoya didn't feel like saying more. After exchanging greetings with Sakayanagi Arisu, he left first.
"Miss, why are you so interested in that boy? Is there something special about him?"
One of the girls couldn't understand why Sakayanagi Arisu was so interested in him, but Sakayanagi didn't intend to explain.
"That doesn't matter. Come on, let's go back to the classroom. Let's see what Katsuragi does today."
Leaning on her cane, Sakayanagi Arisu led her attendants into Class A.
The differences between the four classes were obvious first thing in the morning.
The students in Class A were studying quietly in their classroom. The students in Class B were whispering among themselves. The students in Class C were all hunched over their phones without making a sound. Class D was the noisiest of the four, with occasional bursts of silly laughter ringing out.
You could say that when the homeroom teachers said, "Your class is the noisiest on the whole floor," they were usually talking to Class D.
But in the rowdiest class, Ayanokoji Kiyohime was by far the quietest.
She was observing human nature again.
Observation was her specialty. Observing people was what she did best. Through observation, she could learn what ordinary people's lives were like. Only by knowing that could she pretend to be one of them; only by pretending could she fit in.
If things had followed the original story, she might not have cared so much about what ordinary people were really like. But after talking with Hoya, she knew she needed to see through appearances and understand the truth.
Why did everyone chat? Partly to strengthen their friendships, and partly to share information they knew. She felt that talking to people might be a good idea. Investigating information by herself could take a long time, whereas chatting with people could let her learn what they knew.
Everyone had their own sources of information. Some people might gather more, and others less, but they all learned various things.
"Did you hear? That Ryuen Shoko from Class C went to a boy's dorm yesterday. She even took a bath there."
"Really? Whose dorm was it?"
"I think his name was Hoya. Listen, that boy Hoya is a total playboy. Just the other day, I saw him bring breakfast to Kamuro from Class A, and now he's involved with Ryuen from Class C."
"But isn't Ryuen supposed to be pretty violent? How could he get her?"
"Hey, no matter how violent she is, she's still a girl."
This was exactly the kind of information Ayanokoji would never have managed to find out by asking around herself.
But someone in her class knew about it, and the story had quietly spread. Naturally, she learned about it too.
She didn't have much of an opinion about it. No one had said it outright, but the girls' words made it sound as if the two of them were already in a relationship—or at least had something going on.
But she knew that was unlikely. She'd been to Hoya's dorm too, and he wasn't that shallow. And since she knew that Ryuen Shoko ruled Class C, it was more likely that she'd gone there of her own accord, and had probably just taken a bath.
How did she know Hoya hadn't done anything with her? Because she'd seen him walking past the window and into Class C that morning, humming. If he'd done anything, he probably wouldn't have seemed so energetic.
Mm, she'd learned that from a book. The housekeeper had confiscated it after finding it, but she had to admit that most of her knowledge in this area had come from that book.
When she was little, she'd often seen the housekeeper looking dejected. When she asked him about it, she learned that he'd just had sex with his wife. If Hoya had done the same, he should've looked like that too.
Mm, Ayanokoji was making a mistake by generalizing from her experience, but that didn't matter. She simply continued observing the people around her, trying to understand more deeply what ordinary people were really like.
"Ayanokoji."
Unfortunately, her time for observing had come to an end. Someone had come over to talk to her again.
It was Matsushita Chiaki.
More than one girl had come to chat with her over the past few days, but she really wasn't good at socializing and often made things awkward. That was why she was alone now. Kushida sometimes chatted with her, but at the moment she was talking with the other girls. Keeping up the image of being popular took a fair amount of time, after all.
Chapter 50: You Really Do Know How to Kill a Conversation
"Matsushita? What is it?"
"Hehe, nothing. I'm just curious about you, Ayanokoji."
Matsushita Chiaki sat down in front of Ayanokoji. The seat didn't belong to her, but its owner was off chatting with someone else, so she'd temporarily taken it.
"Ayanokoji, why don't you talk to anyone else? You seem like you want to chat."
Horikita Suzune sat beside Ayanokoji, but she was quietly reading with her head bowed. Clearly, she had no interest in socializing. In her eyes, her studies were what mattered most.
Ayanokoji was different. She'd been looking around for ages. To someone who didn't know her, she might have looked like a girl who didn't know how to talk to people.
"I... don't know how to talk. I end up killing the conversation."
That was right. You couldn't have been more right. You'd managed to kill the conversation again.
Hearing Ayanokoji's reply, Matsushita froze for several seconds. She blinked, desperately thinking of how to respond.
"That's okay. I'm sure everyone would be happy to accept you."
All right, the mood immediately turned awkward again.
With no other choice, Matsushita changed the subject. "By the way, what do you think of this school?"
"What do I think? I think it's just okay."
Sitting at her desk, Ayanokoji quietly gazed out the window. "Hoya told me that maybe I'd be better off at an ordinary school. This one might not suit me."
"Hoya? Have you interacted with him?"
Hoya was a rather unusual presence among the students in Class D.
The fact that he was close to Kamuro from Class A while also having an ambiguous relationship with Ryuen from Class C—meaning he was two-timing them—was enough to give people plenty to gossip about.
"Yeah, we've talked a couple of times."
Ayanokoji didn't understand social niceties, but she wasn't stupid. She knew some things could be said and others couldn't. When she realized she might have said something wrong, she didn't reveal anything else.
"Really? Then what kind of person do you think Hoya is?"
Matsushita seemed to like gossip. Then again, most people liked gossip—not just girls. They just tended to gossip about different things.
Matsushita hadn't interacted with Hoya and didn't know what kind of student he was.
"Mm... he's a strange person."
Thinking back to her conversations with Hoya, she could only describe him as strange.
"Kind of black-and-white? And he doesn't really hide his feelings? Maybe a little too kind?"
"Why are you phrasing everything as a question? And how did you get that impression?"
"Because he argued with Horikita."
Ayanokoji revealed another piece of gossip without changing her expression.
She really didn't understand social niceties. Horikita was sitting right beside her, and she still said something like that.
Matsushita's eyes widened. Her gaze darted back and forth between Horikita and Ayanokoji.
Ayanokoji still hadn't realized she'd said something she shouldn't have, and continued, "Kushida wanted to be friends with Horikita, but Horikita turned her down. Hoya happened to be passing by, and he said Kushida didn't need to be friends with Horikita. He also said..."
"Are you done?"
"I'm sorry."
Horikita couldn't listen any longer. She stared directly at Ayanokoji, who lowered her head apologetically.
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