Farewell to My Life

It was now the second day of the new school year and the first official day of classes.

At most schools, the first lesson would be an introduction to the subject or an overview of the course plan.

But Advanced Nurturing went straight into the thick of it, diving right into the actual course material and some fairly important points.

The students in Class D and Class C were probably having a rough time, while Class A had no trouble keeping up at all.

But... there was one exception.

Though he couldn't understand a thing, U Amakusa acted like he got it. It was an advanced technique he'd developed through years of study.

That way, the teacher wouldn't call on him to answer questions.

And U Amakusa hadn't been idle during the break. Well, you could say he'd had nothing to do.

Scratch, scratch—

During the break, U Amakusa was scribbling away at his desk, looking exactly like he was reviewing the material the teacher had just covered.

In reality, he was calculating yesterday's earnings.

There were seven people in all, for a total of 4.45 million: three from Class 3-A, two from Class 3-B, and two from Class 2-A.

Who was the leader of Class 3-B? No idea.

U Amakusa planned to sell that information to Horikita Manabu along with the rest, earning himself a favor. Unlike the second-years, the third-years weren't on friendly terms; they were still competing. As for the second-years, U Amakusa found Miyabi Nagumo a bit troublesome.

Fortunately, nobody was paying attention to him. Otherwise, it would've been hard to explain what he was doing.

Also, his two friends, Satoshi Satonaka and Naoki Shimizu, whom U Amakusa had made at lightning speed, saw that he seemed to be studying and didn't go over to bother him.

To be fair, Satoshi Satonaka and Naoki Shimizu also sometimes used breaks to review material they didn't quite understand.

It seemed like nobody in Class A was bad at studying. Even the worst students were fairly average, not particularly poor.

And they were willing to work hard, which already put their attitude ahead of most people's.

Kamuro didn't want anything more to do with U Amakusa, so naturally she didn't go out of her way to speak to him.

Still, Kamuro had expected U Amakusa to use his injuries to deliberately annoy her. But it seemed he wasn't doing that.

No, he just hadn't gotten around to it yet.

"Orange—"

"Shut up!"

U Amakusa had barely opened his mouth when Kamuro cut him off through gritted teeth. Her voice was unusually quiet, though; they were in class, after all.

The moment U Amakusa looked at Kamuro, she felt as if she were sitting on pins and needles.

There was no way that guy U Amakusa had any good intentions!

But would U Amakusa just give up? Of course not.

"Orange, are you really never going to look at me?" U Amakusa put on a pitiful expression.

The book Kamuro was gripping began to crumple. Cross-shaped veins popped out on her forehead, but she pressed her lips together and said nothing.

Oh, she could hold it in.

"You don't even want to talk to me?"

"That's so cruel~ You did something so awful to me yesterday... Boohoo..."

As he spoke, U Amakusa touched his eye. He wasn't wearing an eyepatch anymore, but there was still a faint bruise on his upper eyelid.

The cross-shaped veins began splitting again, their favorite activity. Kamuro's cheeks flushed, and the corner of her mouth started twitching.

"Pfft, pfft..."

Huh?

U Amakusa followed the sound and saw that it was coming from Naoki Shimizu. He gave him a completely baffled look.

What are you trying to do?

Without thinking too much about it, U Amakusa continued his campaign to tease Kamuro. They weren't in class yet, anyway.

"Orange, once upon a time, there was a sincere love right in front of me, but I didn't cherish it. By the time I lost it, I regretted it bitterly. The most painful thing in life is when..."

"Cough, cough..."

Seriously, what are you trying to do?

U Amakusa turned toward Naoki Shimizu and lifted his chin, looking annoyed that Naoki Shimizu had interrupted him. He was practically about to flip him off.

Naoki Shimizu didn't care what U Amakusa was trying to say. He was sweating a little and making frantic faces at him.

Huh?

At that moment, U Amakusa realized something was off.

Even though Class A wasn't particularly noisy during breaks, it was unusually quiet now.

Quite a few people seemed to be looking at U Amakusa, as if they were waiting for a show.

What was going on? Surely they couldn't have heard him quietly talking to Kamuro. Was he being too dramatic?

The sight of Naoki Shimizu still frantically making faces gradually made U Amakusa realize something was wrong.

Then he remembered he was sitting by the wall. No, U Amakusa was sitting by the window.

He looked back. Standing outside the window was a middle-aged man with an imposing presence: Majima.

"Don't mind me. I was just passing by. I only stopped because I was curious about how young people pursue romance these days."

With that, he left, since class hadn't started yet.

Majima hadn't lowered his voice at all. His booming voice had carried across the entire classroom.

U Amakusa had only been speaking loudly enough for the people nearby to hear. The students in front of and behind him weren't there, so that was why he'd...

And now the whole class knew what he'd been doing.

The truth came out: his classmates had been looking at Majima behind him, wondering why their teacher was standing outside the window.

Kamuro's cheeks were practically scarlet. No one could tell whether she was embarrassed or furious.

The only thing they could tell was that the book in Kamuro's hand had been squeezed into a bun, and her toes were digging out a whole three-bedroom apartment inside her shoes.

If the classroom floor had been dirt, Kamuro might have buried herself in it.

U Amakusa blankly shifted his gaze from the window to the rest of the class.

Yeah. It was over.

Farewell to my life.