Komachi had never done anything like this.
So this is a girl's body temperature?
But...
Hachiman nodded.
"If you want to come," Hachiman said.
He did not think Kushida felt anything more than friendship toward him. Rather, they were not even friends yet, so there was no way she could have that level of intimate affection for him.
So perhaps she had acted that way because he had just mentioned investigating the school and the teachers being ordered to keep quiet.
In other words...
She wanted to obtain information through him.
Kushida... you were a little too calculating.
Even as he thought that...
"Could you let go of my hand now?" Hachiman said.
"..." Kushida.
"Mm."
Kushida's expression seemed to stiffen for a moment, then she gently touched the ends of her not-very-long hair.
She seemed a little embarrassed, but once Hachiman started moving, she quickly followed after him.
Perhaps she was surprised by his blunt behavior.
After all, she was clearly so cute, yet he acted as though his heart were made of stone.
And that much was certain.
After all, Hachiman did not believe in absolute goodwill, nor did he believe in affection from the opposite sex.
Girls were creatures who could easily make people misunderstand. When they showed kindness, it was easy to mistake that kindness for something meant only for you.
Then, once you got carried away and puffed up with pride, things would soon end on bad terms, leaving both sides hurt.
And he hated that deeply.
Because... the source material for that realization... was himself.
Thus, the two of them headed toward the classroom building together.
Kushida walked fairly close to him. Their shoulders were only about twenty centimeters apart.
"Have you ever been hurt by a girl before, Hachiman?" Kushida suddenly asked.
"Huh?" The damage inflicted by that sentence was immense.
Hachiman stopped walking.
"I just feel like you don't really want people to enter your heart, Hachiman," Kushida said.
But were you trying to enter his heart?
"I have a bit of a dark past," Hachiman said. "Back in middle school, a girl in my class was exchanging phone numbers with everyone using her phone. She exchanged numbers with me too, and I misunderstood."
He had misunderstood.
In other words, he had a dark history involving liking someone of the opposite sex, so he deeply distrusted contact with girls?
"I see."
Kushida seemed able to accept that answer. She nodded lightly. "But I think the way you think is different from the other students'."
"And that way of thinking seems more mature."
"I think girls would like it. At least, I like it."
Was that so?
Hachiman had merely gotten used to being alone, immersing himself in his own world and complaining now and then.
He did not think that counted as maturity.
Wait.
Hachiman came to his senses.
Because...
Was this girl trying to win him over?
Hachiman noticed that, while she had been talking to him, the twenty-centimeter gap between their shoulders had shrunk to ten.
A faint fragrance unique to girls drifted over.
And when he turned to look at her, she lightly raised her head and gave him another cute expression.
"..." Hachiman.
Don't waver, Hachiman. Kushida definitely doesn't have feelings for you beyond those of classmates.
She just wants to fulfill her goal of becoming friends with everyone.
And she only wants to understand this strange school and borrow your help.
So... don't, don't waver.
"Our classroom building is up ahead," Kushida said.
Mm.
Hachiman hurriedly calmed himself down.
They were now on the first floor of the first-year classroom building.
That morning, they had been busy enrolling, attending the entrance ceremony, and then gathering in the classroom, so they had not had much chance to look around.
But now that the two of them stood on the first floor, they found a bulletin board there. Just as the school brochure they had received before enrollment had stated, the facilities at this school were high-end. Even the bulletin board was an LCD display.
And beside the bulletin board hung a small blackboard.
But the small blackboard was completely blank.
The bulletin board only displayed a message from the Student Council welcoming new students and telling them to go to the gymnasium at ten in the morning for the entrance ceremony.
Hachiman did not linger and continued onward.
They arrived at the third-year classroom building.
It was the weekend, and the upperclassmen apparently did not have classes.
There was the same arrangement of a bulletin board and small blackboard on the first floor there as well.
The bulletin board displayed the same message as the one in the first-year building, welcoming new students.
However, Hachiman noticed that the small blackboard in the third-year building had something written on it.
Several intriguing numbers were written there.
A 2530
B 1300
C 300
D 20
Hachiman took out his phone and snapped a picture.
Kushida did not find anything strange about the blackboard and simply continued.
"Should we go upstairs?"
"Probably not. It's the weekend, so we don't know whether the upperclassmen's classrooms are locked."
"And if no one's around when we come in and something goes missing, that would be troublesome," Hachiman said.
"Mm-hmm." Kushida nodded.
Thus, the two of them headed to the second-year classroom building.
Just as he had done in the third-year building, Hachiman looked around the second-year building for anything arranged differently from the first-year building.
The bulletin boards were the same, but there was also a small blackboard in the second-year building.
There were numbers on that blackboard as well.
Class A 2000
Class B 600
Class C 400
Class D 200
Unlike the numbers on the blackboard in the third-year building, these numbers looked much neater, as though someone had organized them.
Hachiman took out his phone, preparing to take a picture.
"You're first-years, aren't you? Why are you in the upperclassmen's area?"
At that moment, a voice came from behind them.
The voice carried a certain authority.
And it sounded somewhat familiar.
Hachiman and Kushida quickly turned to look and found the Student Council President from the entrance ceremony, along with a girl with twin buns.
The Student Council President remained where he was, while the girl with purple twin buns jogged toward them.
"That upperclassman with the twin buns seems to be called Akane Tachibana. She introduced herself during the entrance ceremony," Hachiman said. "She's the Student Council secretary."
"Your memory is amazing, Hachiman." Kushida looked at him with a slightly admiring gaze.
"..."
Hachiman.
Please don't do this, Kushida.
Hachiman was already ready to surrender.
But faced with the upperclassman approaching them...
"We just arrived at this school and were getting familiar with the campus," Hachiman said. "We've already gone through the first-year area and the third-year area, and now we've come to the second-year area. But we haven't gone upstairs."
"I see," the upperclassman with the twin buns said.
Apparently, new students wandering around after enrolling was nothing unusual. The upperclassman did not make things difficult for them and returned to the Student Council President.
She reported to the Student Council President.
"It seems they're just ordinary new students looking around the school."
"That's perfectly normal outside school, getting familiar with a new place after arriving," she reported to the Student Council President.
"Not necessarily." The Student Council President pushed up his glasses. "Didn't you see it? That boy just took a photo with his phone. He was photographing the small blackboard."
"That means he's noticed some things about this school," the Student Council President said. "And that boy and girl are students from First-year Class D."
"Huh?"
"All right, we should go intervene at the chess club now," the Student Council President said.
Yes. They had discovered posts on the forum from a new student in Class A, First Year widely issuing challenges for a Chess Tournament. She was extremely arrogant.
But her chess skills were formidable. By playing chess, she had already harvested nearly a million points.
And according to the investigation, she was not alone. She had rallied nearly half the students in her class.
In other words, after receiving preferential treatment upon arriving at the school, they had not chosen to go shopping or investigate the campus. Instead, they had come to squeeze points out of the upperclassmen.
They understood the principle of [points can buy anything] and [therefore, gather as many points as possible to buy the information you need].
In other words, this year's Class A, First Year was extraordinary.
Before you continue