Director! Where's the Director? The Demon King Fears No Challenge!

A scream suddenly came from a corner some distance away, loud enough to draw both their attention at once.

"You mean... you never had any feelings for me at all, and I've just been deluding myself this whole time?!"

"I... I didn't mean it that way, but it's true that I don't have those kinds of feelings for you, Ayanokoji-kun."

"Are you serious?"

The familiar-looking man named Ayanokoji Kiyotaka muttered darkly, his expression extremely gloomy.

"I'm truly very sorry!"

The girl who appeared to have been confessed to put on an earnest expression as she gently turned him down.

Hirata Yosuke and Karuizawa Kei poked their heads out from behind a nearby bush and watched the apparent dispute intently, each of them unable to help feeling nervous for one of the people involved.

Ayanokoji-kun isn't going to blow his cover, is he?

That girl, if I remember correctly... is Shiina Hiyori from Class C?

Seeing a familiar face in such a difficult situation, Karuizawa Kei could not help feeling a little worried.

She leaned toward Hirata Yosuke beside her and quietly asked, "Hey, that guy is the boy you're always with, right? He's not going to do anything excessive to Shiina, is he?"

Hirata replied evenly, "Who knows?"

???

Karuizawa Kei said in surprise, "Aren't you two close? You even play together in PE."

Hirata said coldly, "That was just work."

Karuizawa Kei's eyes widened in shock.

"What if he tries to use violence against Shiina?"

"I won't get involved."

Hirata firmly maintained his heartless character setting for this scene.

Karuizawa Kei pointed at him with an unhappy look. "Are you even a man?"

"Biologically speaking, without a doubt."

Hirata improvised beyond the script Bai Yu had given him, showing faint signs of surpassing his teacher.

"I was wrong about you!"

Both angry and helpless, Karuizawa Kei turned back toward the scene of the dispute, only to find that the atmosphere there had already frozen solid.

The man seemed to have a thousand words lodged in his throat, yet he could not force a single one out.

He looked both aggrieved and utterly unable to express himself, like a volcano on the verge of erupting at any moment.

The woman, meanwhile, stared down at the ground. Whether she did not dare look up or could not bear to, her helpless appearance was pitiable.

Karuizawa Kei felt that the thing she feared most was about to happen if this continued, but she was alone...

She turned her head toward Hirata Yosuke again, her face filled with anxiety.

Hirata Ko decisively closed his eyes, indicating that there was nothing he could do.

You—!

Karuizawa gritted her teeth and decided to step in herself.

"Hey..."

"You over there, your name is Ayano...koji, right?"

Pretending to be passing by, she walked over to the girl who had been confessed to and stood beside her, keeping a slight distance. She then rebuked the man before her. "She's already rejected you, so why are you still pestering her? You're not bad-looking either. If you picked another target, you might have a much better chance. Why obsess over Shiina alone?"

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka had a thousand things to say, but on second thought, the person he ought to greet was not the girl in front of him. He did his best to maintain his character and said, "Because she's very skilled at tea ceremony."

"...Is that any way to talk about someone? Getting angry because your confession failed is really pathetic."

Karuizawa Kei's scolding gradually gained confidence. Thinking about it carefully, he was still her classmate. Given the strong image she had built for herself in class, he probably would not dare do anything reckless to her.

Shiina Hiyori slowly moved behind Karuizawa Kei and gently tugged at the hem of her clothes, like a startled little bird.

Feeling that she had become someone else's support, Karuizawa Kei suddenly felt as though she had saved her former self.

She continued pressing the loser in front of her. "And Shiina doesn't look like she deliberately deceived your feelings either. You said her tea..."

"Maybe she already has someone she likes."

Shiina Hiyori, crouched behind her, nodded in satisfaction at those words. Ayanokoji Kiyotaka especially wanted to report this situation right now.

The female actor had already started going off-script. How was this play supposed to continue?

Ignoring the girl's rebuke, he helplessly looked toward the director, who was still waiting for an opportunity to act.

Bai Yu was enjoying himself immensely. This kind of entertainment was rare, and he wanted to watch a little longer.

So, he simply sent a signal to Hirata Yosuke, who was also slacking off nearby.

After receiving the signal, Hirata Yosuke promptly got up and walked straight over, preparing to smooth things over.

"Um, Ayanokoji-kun, just as Karuizawa said, since the girl has already rejected—"

"Hah? Now you remember to play the good guy? You hypocrite!"

Hirata Yosuke was immediately met with a fierce tirade. The smile he had prepared below instantly turned into repeated facial twitches.

Karuizawa Kei had become more and more emboldened as the battle went on, gradually becoming unstoppable. She felt like a modern-day hero fighting campus bullying!

"Sure enough, I thought that guy was suspicious from the start. Hirata-kun, who can hang around with him, should have been more wary too. Everyone in class must have let their guard down."

"And that Bai something Yu, too. Nobody knows what he spends all day writing, and he even went head-to-head with Horikita during PE. Now that I think about it, Horikita is way cuter than you people!"

Karuizawa Kei was overwhelming, unleashing one killing blow after another as she steadily claimed an absolute advantage, determined to finish them off.

Hirata and Ayanokoji could not withstand it. They lowered their heads with bitter, ashamed expressions, obedient as troublesome students listening to their homeroom teacher's lecture.

"Um..."

After that passionate, full-force condemnation, Shiina Hiyori behind her sensed that things were beginning to head in a strange direction. She cautiously spoke up to plead for the two of them. "I think I bear some responsibility here too, so please don't blame them too harshly, Karuizawa."

"With campus bullying, there's only zero times and countless times!"

Still angry, Karuizawa Kei said, "We can't forgive those two that easily. Otherwise, they'll definitely bother you again later."

Shiina Hiyori felt that she had finally found an opening. Seizing the moment, she quickly said, "But won't Karuizawa be here?"

"If they try to harass me again in the future, can I come ask Karuizawa for help?"

"Huh?"

Karuizawa Kei was a little surprised. Pulling herself out of her anger, she turned to the girl behind her and said with slight embarrassment, "W-Well, of course you can. But if you become friends with me, some people with loose tongues might gossip about you."

"I don't mind." Shiina Hiyori gradually caught on. "Karuizawa helped me when it mattered most."

"It wasn't, it wasn't that serious."

Karuizawa Kei awkwardly looked away, though she did not forget to shoot the two men in front of her a glare. "I don't think they have the guts to do anything excessive to you anyway."

The two exchanged bitter smiles and secretly cast their gazes behind them.

When they found that someone had already vanished without a trace, their feelings became even more complicated.

"Then let's add each other on LINE. Oh, and can I ask Karuizawa to read with me sometime when you're free?"

"Huh? Um... haha, sorry, but I don't know anything about novels."

Karuizawa Kei looked awed as she tried to make up for it. "But you can always ask me to go shopping with you. My wallet is in dire straits too, but maybe I can share some experience in that area!"

Shiina Hiyori smiled and nodded. "Mm, I'll take Karuizawa as my role model and reflect on myself properly."

"Hehe... huh? Why does that sound kind of weird?"

"It only means exactly what it says."

"...Anyway, we can more or less say that we completed your request, Hirata."

Watching the two girls walk away side by side, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka weakly summarized, "You no longer need to clear away Karuizawa's concerns in that way. To some extent, we lowered the chances of Karuizawa being bullied, and we even gave her a shot of confidence so she won't remain so haunted by the past..."

"What a frantic mess, though the result was still barely acceptable."

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka casually held out a hand beside him, and Hirata Yosuke, who had been slumped against the wall, used the opportunity to pull himself to his feet.

He could not help looking ahead and asking, "Does your Service Club always solve problems like this?"

"..."

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka fell silent for a while, wearing a helpless and sorrowful expression. "Unfortunately."

"You worked hard."

Hirata offered a belated word of comfort.

The silhouettes of the two men beneath the setting sun looked exceptionally heavy.

"Bai Yu, what's with that expression? And what's with those tears?"

"Do you think crying means you can successfully get off the bridge?!"

In the evening yoga classroom, stern scoldings rang out one after another, accompanied by intermittent, utterly miserable wails—

"Teacher, I want to..."

"? You want to rest again already? How can a man so easily say he can't do it!"

"I think I can keep going!"

"..."

"That's the spirit. We'll do another set of leg stretches later!"

"Understood!"

"Good, you're full of energy. I'll reward you with three more sets of splits!"

"That's not a problem either."...

The Demon King was undergoing a new round of trials again. His future was truly full of promise.