"Chiba, um..." It wasn't until Kanzaki and the others had left that Hirata slowly walked over to Chiba Yu. Looking at Chiba, Hirata stammered, unable to get the words out, his face filled with dejection and hesitation.
Seeing this, Chiba Yu sighed and said as if to reassure him, "Don't overthink it. I'm not going to change classes. Besides, I think Class D suits someone like me just fine. If I really transferred, it'd definitely cause a lot of trouble. You know how much I hate trouble."
Hearing Chiba Yu say this, Hirata's expression visibly brightened. At least he no longer looked as downcast as before.
He soon regained his usual heartwarming smile and looked at Chiba Yu earnestly. "Yeah, I've always believed in you, Chiba. And of course, we'll definitely make it to Class A someday, as long as we all work hard together."
As soon as Hirata said this, the girls around him seemed to be fired up too, and they raised their hands in response. "Of course!"
"Exactly! With Hirata-kun here, we can definitely do it!"
"Of course—and Chiba-kun too."
Heh. She must've just tacked that last bit on as an afterthought. Flattery like that wasn't enough to make me bleed and toil for you!
Naturally, Chiba Yu couldn't say that out loud, so he just stayed quietly in his seat.
"Oh, right, Chiba-kun. Let's exchange contact information." Just as Chiba Yu's thoughts began to wander, Mori Nene suddenly pulled out her phone and waved it in front of him.
"Uh... sure."
As he watched Mori Nene's contact information appear on his phone, Chiba Yu fell silent.
This was probably... the first contact information he'd gotten from a girl in his class, wasn't it? When he thought about it that way, he really was a failure.
As for Horikita Suzune? Sorry, Chiba Yu still hadn't managed to add her. Maybe Ayanokoji Kiyotaka had.
"And me, too! Thanks for helping me today, Chiba-kun. If I have any questions in the future, can I come ask you for help?"
Seeing this, Sato Maya, Matsushita, and the others came over to Chiba Yu as well.
Gradually, as he watched the number of girls' phone numbers on his phone increase, Chiba Yu couldn't help feeling a little dazed.
Finally, Chiba Yu counted them up and realized there seemed to be just one person left.
So Chiba Yu looked up. For a moment, their gazes met across the room.
"What, do you want my contact information too?" Karuizawa Kei put her hands on her hips, wearing an expression like a cat guarding its food, as if to say that aside from Hirata, she wouldn't give her contact information to any other boy.
"Not at all." Chiba Yu shook his head, indicating that he hadn't meant that.
Karuizawa Kei disliked him—that was the conclusion Chiba Yu had reached after spending time with her.
But in the next moment, as if to prove his judgment wrong, Karuizawa Kei turned her head aside and held out her phone with an air of haughty indifference.
"Hmm... never mind. I might have questions I can't solve later, and it'd be a pain if Hirata-kun wasn't free then. So I guess I'll add you, just this once."
"..."
The air fell silent for a moment. Chiba Yu looked at the girl in front of him, unable to say the words that had been right on the tip of his tongue. In the end, all he managed was, "Karuizawa, are you... a tsundere?"
"T-Tsundere?! Huh?! What do you mean by that? I only added you because I felt sorry for you, and you still say something like that about me!"
"Hmm... that makes you sound even more like one."
!!!
"Hmph! Add me or don't, I don't care anymore!" Karuizawa clenched her phone in her hand in a huff, then walked straight over to Hirata without looking back.
"Pfft!" Mori Nene and the other two, who had been watching the whole thing from the start, finally burst out laughing after Karuizawa left.
"Chiba-kun, you're amazing. I've never seen Karuizawa get this angry before."
"Yeah, yeah. Kei looks even cuter like this. Compared to how forceful she usually is, she seems more like an ordinary girl next door now."
"Right? I think so too!"
The three of them chatted back and forth, seeming not to care at all that Chiba Yu was still there.
At last, halfway through their discussion, they remembered Chiba Yu was still present and hurriedly said, "Sorry, Chiba-kun. We got a little carried away. Oh, right, I'll give you Karuizawa's contact information."
With that, Matsushita opened her phone and read out Karuizawa's contact information to Chiba Yu. As he entered it, Chiba Yu asked, "Won't Karuizawa get mad at you for taking it upon yourselves like this?"
Matsushita chuckled at Chiba Yu's question and answered confidently, "It's fine, don't worry. Besides, Karuizawa just said that herself, so it means she doesn't mind giving you her contact information. If you can't even figure that out, you still have a lot to learn about being boyfriend material, Chiba-kun."
"I see..." Chiba Yu nodded, only half understanding. Come to think of it, why had this turned into a question of boyfriend material?
"Come to think of it, Chiba-kun is the second boy Karuizawa's added, after Hirata-kun," Mori Nene said as if she'd discovered a whole new world.
"Hmm... speaking of which, are Karuizawa and Hirata dating now?"
Wanting to make the atmosphere more relaxed, Chiba Yu decided to steer the conversation elsewhere. So he brought up some gossip that girls might like.
But the moment he said it, the other three girls looked at him with gossip-hungry expressions, and the mood instantly turned strange.
"Uh... is something wrong?" I asked, confused, only to be met with even more curious looks from the three girls.
"Could it be that Chiba-kun has a thing for Karuizawa?"
"Huh? Why would you say that?" Chiba Yu was even more confused. He'd only asked casually, so how had it turned into him liking Karuizawa Kei? That was quite a leap!
"Because it really is strange."
"Mm-hmm, exactly. It's really strange for something like that to come from Chiba-kun."
Hey, hey, what kind of weird impression do you have of me?!
Chiba Yu's lips twitched. He didn't want to discuss this any further.
Seeing how speechless Chiba Yu was, the three girls smiled and stopped teasing him. "Actually, if we're being honest, the two of them aren't dating right now. But from the way things look, Karuizawa clearly has feelings for Hirata."
"Exactly, exactly. So, Chiba-kun, if you really are interested, you'd better act quickly."
"So why do you all think I like Karuizawa in the first place...?"