"Shizuka Hiratsuka, your opening performance with that cliché script was pretty good, but what came after disappointed me immensely. After Taihei said I skipped class because I couldn't keep up with my studies, you were going to say that meant I should cherish my study time even more, weren't you?" The moment the call connected, Sogo Doma's distinctly dissatisfied voice came through.
Shizuka Hiratsuka, who had stepped out of the private room to answer the phone, froze at his words. Once she recovered, a faintly angry look crossed her face. "Sogo Doma, you were actually spying on us?"
"I told you, I needed to know whether you were just going through the motions. Besides, I wanted to find out whether Shizuka Hiratsuka had some old cow eating young grass—"
"Who are you calling an old cow? And who's the young grass?" Shizuka gritted her teeth.
"Isn't someone who's almost thirty and still hasn't gotten herself married an old cow?" Sogo retorted righteously. "And isn't an underage boy like me, still a budding flower, young grass?"
Shizuka: "..."
D-Damn it! Wasn't he just relying on the fact that he was young? As if she hadn't been young once too!
"Now I suspect you'd had thoughts of old cow eating young grass all along. Just now, you shouldn't have said that I ought to cherish my study time more. You should've said, 'If that's the case, I can help Doma catch up on his studies. Of course, I'll need his guardians' cooperation.' That way, wouldn't you have an excuse to ask Taihei out in the future?"
"Gasp!" Shizuka sucked in a sharp breath. S-So that was an option? No wonder none of her blind dates had worked out!
"Do you know what you did wrong now? If you hadn't been so foolish,