Puppy

When Beihai woke up, he saw Sae Chabashira, Class D's homeroom teacher, collecting the test papers one by one. She had just reached his desk.

He had fallen asleep with his head on the desk, so his arm was naturally pinning down his test paper. Without someone alerting him, who knew what Sae Chabashira might do?

She might pull the paper out from underneath his arm, or she might simply wake Beihai with a smack.

But in the end, just as Airisu Sakura watched the teacher draw closer and finally worked up the courage to reach for Beihai, Ayanokouji acted before her.

The seat change they'd made earlier now showed its usefulness. Ignoring the teacher's gaze, he simply shook Beihai awake.

Airisu Sakura could only quietly draw back her half-extended hand. Then her face flushed bright red.

After waking up, Beihai would have liked to thank Airisu Sakura, if she'd been the one to help him. He could have used the chance to grow closer to her.

How to build their relationship and raise her affection? That would be as easy as playing a dating game.

But when he saw that Ayanokouji had helped him, he couldn't explain why, but as he looked at that expressionless face, he thought he saw a hint of expectation in Ayanokouji's eyes. Beihai had never seen any emotion in them before.

Unfortunately, Ayanokouji was a huge nuisance to Beihai, so he decided to be difficult.

"You didn't wake me during the exam. What's the point of waking me up now? They're already collecting the papers."

"You..."

Beihai had only just started to speak, but Ayanokouji was even quicker.

"No need to thank me. It's what friends are supposed to do."

Beihai had finally been about to say something, but that one sentence left him completely speechless. Who said he was going to thank him?!

"How long did the exam last?"

"Don't worry. It's already over."

All Beihai could think of were those three words: it's over. In other words, he was still taking the first test, math, while they'd already taken the last one, Japanese, right?

So what was Ayanokouji telling him not to worry about? Not to worry about getting a zero?!

Beihai nearly passed out again, but his Indomitable skill was active.

Beihai could simply drop off to sleep because he'd been studying like mad and getting less than four hours of sleep a night. Over time, all that exhaustion had piled up.

If there was one upside, it was that he'd been freed from worldly desires. Even if a girl stood naked in front of him, he wouldn't have the slightest physical reaction.

As the saying went, if you were practically becoming an immortal from lack of sleep and still reacted, then you really were impressive.

He'd stayed up all night again yesterday, and Indomitable hadn't refreshed, so he'd slept right through the exam.

On the way back to the dorm, Beihai trudged along like a walking corpse. He couldn't even be bothered to eat.

He'd done terribly on this exam. At least he might get some points in math; he hadn't even taken the others. What should have been a chance to test his abilities had turned into a humiliating fiasco.

Thank goodness it was only a quiz. If this had been a proper exam, he would definitely have been expelled.

Like a ghost, Beihai drifted into the convenience store.

When the employee saw Beihai, he hurriedly pulled a few workbooks out from beneath the counter. He was used to it by now. Beihai was a regular.

Other people came to the convenience store for pineapple buns or daily necessities, or, at the very least, eel rice. Beihai went straight for the workbooks.

It was hard not to remember such an oddball when he showed up every day.

The employee was practically waiting for Beihai to speak. He'd already scanned the barcodes, so Beihai only had to pay with points and could walk out with his purchases.

But he never expected the employee's assumption to be completely wrong. The moment Beihai spoke, he froze, his mind unable to catch up.

"I want to buy a Shiba Inu. Do you have one? If not, go get one."

What did he want? A Shiba Inu?

If Beihai hadn't taken out his points—over a million of them—the employee would have thought he was deliberately causing trouble.

Sometimes, the employee really wanted to check whether the place he worked was a convenience store or a department store. Even a department store didn't sell dogs, did it?!

"Wait, student. Do you mean a stuffed toy or an actual Shiba Inu? A live one? The kind that barks?"

The employee sounded deeply uncertain, as though he might have misheard. What did Beihai think this place was? He just asked for whatever came to mind.

The employee thought to himself that he'd worked here for at least half a year, maybe a year, and in all that time, this was the first time he'd heard someone ask for something like that.

He didn't mind when Beihai wanted workbooks, but a dog?

Beihai had no idea what the employee was thinking. He just wanted a pet, then he'd hand it over to Ayanokouji so the two of them could keep each other company.

There was no benefit to getting entangled with Ayanokouji. The main problem was that he didn't talk, had no common sense, and could make a person furious in no time.

"Why wouldn't I be able to? That doesn't make sense. With enough points, I should be able to buy anything reasonable. Or are you saying that my over a million points can't even buy a dog? Your prices must be pretty steep, then. Aren't you worried about inflation?"

The employee finally came around. It looked like Beihai really did want to buy one.

Damn it! Why didn't he go ask a teacher? Why was he picking on the employee? What was he supposed to do? Unfortunately, he had no choice but to make it happen.

He hurriedly scanned the purchase, but there was no way he could bring in a dog that day.

The earliest he could get it there was tomorrow. It wouldn't take long.

"By the way, do you need a dog crate and some dog food?"

The employee kindly reminded him. The whole thing was too absurd. If Beihai was buying a dog, he'd better get everything he needed at the same time to avoid any hassle.

Beihai nodded, seeing no problem with that. It saved him from having to buy everything separately.

"Sure, that'd be great. Sorry for the trouble."

As for buying the dog, why not ask his homeroom teacher?

What kind of joke was that? He had to go to his teacher just to buy something?

There was no need for that at all. Unless he wanted to draw attention to himself, this was no different from buying shampoo.

If he told his teacher after buying it, wouldn't that mean something was wrong with his head?

Buying it here was convenient. Even if the employee knew he was a new student, he wouldn't know which class he was in, much less who his homeroom teacher was.

And the employee had no authority to report the matter to someone higher up. He was just a lowly store clerk; he should stick to doing his job. Better to avoid trouble. That was the path most people would choose.

Everything went smoothly. So smoothly that Beihai ended up carrying a dog crate wrapped in black cloth to Ayanokouji's room and knocking on the door.

As soon as Ayanokouji opened it, Beihai handed him the dog crate.

Ayanokouji hadn't even figured out what was going on when he found a fluffy little creature in his hands. Then he heard Beihai say:

"I found you a companion. You won't be so bored anymore."