Wu Qiao and Ayanokoji Kiyoha had finally found two empty seats side by side in the crowded cafeteria. Just as they set down their trays, Wu Qiao suddenly reached out and casually grabbed Ayanokoji Kiyoha's arm. He gave it a couple of squeezes, then let go.
The sudden move caught Ayanokoji Kiyoha off guard. A rare flicker of bewilderment crossed her dark brown eyes. She didn't ask a thing, only picked up her chopsticks and prepared to eat.
"You're probably not very good at socializing, are you, Ayanokoji?" Wu Qiao said, cutting into his hamburger steak as if the thought had just occurred to him. "Normally, classmates shouldn't sit right next to each other, especially when they're a boy and a girl. We should leave a little space, or people might get the wrong idea."
"The wrong idea?" Ayanokoji Kiyoha blinked, looking utterly confused in a way that didn't fit her deeply calculating persona at all. "What do you mean?"
Watching the girl, who seemed either adorably clueless or naturally innocent, Wu Qiao took a bite of his hamburger steak and mumbled, "We're not related, and if a boy and a girl get too close, people might assume they're dating. It wouldn't be good for our reputations. You kind of seem like a sheltered young lady who knows nothing about the world, Ayanokoji."
Ayanokoji Kiyoha quietly bit down on her chopsticks without denying it. Her calm eyes lowered slightly, as if she were seriously considering Wu Qiao's words.
After a moment, seeing that she had no intention of arguing, Wu Qiao continued, "You hide it well, Ayanokoji, but I confirmed it just now. The muscles in your arm feel like you've trained, right? I thought something was strange, and it turns out... you probably haven't socialized normally with anyone, or even gone to a regular school."
"Wu-kun, your conclusion and your reasoning have nothing to do with each other." Ayanokoji Kiyoha swallowed her food and calmly pointed out the flaw in his logic.
Wu Qiao set down his chopsticks and waggled a finger, looking like a detective revealing the truth. "First, you looked completely unmotivated in class. Students all have their own personalities to some extent. Even Horikita shows some emotion, but you show nothing at all. That wouldn't be unusual if you had no distinctive qualities, but I just confirmed that you're trained. That's interesting. Most people who train have plenty of energy, and their eyes have an edge to them. But your eyes are like still water."
Ayanokoji Kiyoha gave a slight nod, acknowledging Wu Qiao's assessment of her physical abilities, then asked, "But how can you tell I have a problem from that alone?"
Wu Qiao shrugged and replied as if it were obvious, "It's already the second day, and I still haven't seen you start a conversation with anyone. We're students, and there are people all around us. You should at least pretend to be sociable and say hello, right? That extreme avoidance of trouble, combined with your hidden abilities, can only mean you're deliberately observing people or imitating some kind of normal behavior."
At that, Ayanokoji Kiyoha stopped eating. She turned her head and, for the first time, seriously studied the boy sitting beside her.
"You're very observant," she said, offering a fair assessment. Then she changed tack. "But you're hardly one to talk, Wu-kun. When Ichinose came looking for you earlier, the speed of your reaction and your grasp of the information didn't seem very ordinary either."
Wu Qiao's heart gave a jolt.
Crap. I was so busy analyzing Sis that I forgot about the way I acted in front of Ichinose just now.
"Ahem, I was just forced to play along." Wu Qiao gave an awkward laugh, trying to get away with an innocent act. "You saw it yourself. When someone as popular as Ichinose suddenly comes rushing over, wouldn't I look like an idiot if I didn't keep my cool?"
"Is that so?" Ayanokoji Kiyoha clearly didn't believe him, but she didn't press him. Instead, she brought the conversation back to where it started. "Since you've seen through my disguise, Wu-kun, what are you going to do? Expose me? Or use me?"
"No, no, definitely not." Wu Qiao hurriedly waved his hands. "If you want to keep a low profile, why don't we work together? But we should be careful, too. For example... could we stop sitting side by side when we eat? We really look like a couple."
Ayanokoji Kiyoha glanced at their shoulders, pressed close together. After a two-second pause, she silently shifted over a little.
"Like this?"
"...More or less." Wu Qiao looked at the gap between them, wide enough to fit another person, and sighed in resignation.
Just then, a pink-haired figure appeared in their line of sight again. Ichinose Honami approached with her tray, wearing her trademark warm smile.
"Oh, Wu-kun, Ayanokoji, is this seat taken?"
Wu Qiao looked at Ichinose's gaze, which seemed able to see through everything, then at Ayanokoji Kiyoha, whose expression remained perfectly calm. A sense of foreboding welled up inside him.
Looks like I won't get to enjoy this meal in peace.
Ichinose Honami took the empty seat across from Wu Qiao and gently set down her tray. Her lively eyes moved back and forth between Wu Qiao and Ayanokoji Kiyoha, while she quietly weighed things in her mind.
Her Life Simulator wouldn't recharge for another full week. And in the simulation record that had shaken her to the core, she and Wu Qiao weren't supposed to meet properly until after the midterm exams.
This sudden "chance encounter" was entirely the result of her using her knowledge of the future to cut in line and force her way into his life.
"Um... what were you two talking about just now? The mood seemed pretty serious." Ichinose rested her chin in her hands, leaning forward slightly as she put on a curious, eager-to-know look.
Wu Qiao swallowed his bite of hamburger steak and glanced at Ayanokoji Kiyoha, who was quietly eating as if surrounded by an invisible barrier. After a moment's thought, he started making things up with a straight face. "We were talking about Ayanokoji. She's a sheltered young lady who doesn't understand socializing at all. I don't know how her family raised her, but she doesn't even understand basic boundaries between boys and girls or the importance of personal space."
At this assessment, Ayanokoji Kiyoha lifted her eyes and gave Wu Qiao a calm look, but said nothing in response, seemingly accepting the strange story he had made up about her.
Wu Qiao sighed and continued in a tone of worried fatherly concern. "At this rate, she'll probably be ostracized or cause misunderstandings in class. You know how those people in Class D are. Not one of them is easy to deal with."
At that, he suddenly changed tack and looked intently at Ichinose Honami. "But since you're here, Ichinose, could I ask you a little favor?"
Ichinose blinked, looking puzzled. "A favor? What do you mean?"
"Could you look after Ayanokoji a little?" Wu Qiao pointed at the girl beside him and put on a sincere expression as he talked her into it. "You're great at socializing. If you helped her fit in and taught her how to get along with people normally, I'd feel a lot more at ease. After all, I'm just a nobody from Class D, so my words don't carry much weight. But you're different."
Handing this hot potato called "Sis" to Ichinose was killing two birds with one stone. It would give the unfathomable girl a good teacher, leave Ichinose, the champion of justice, with a headache, and even earn him some goodwill on the side.
Ichinose Honami paused, clearly not expecting Wu Qiao to make such a request. She turned to look at Ayanokoji Kiyoha and found the girl watching her with a calm, expressionless gaze. There was neither eagerness nor resistance in it, as if she were looking at the menu on the cafeteria wall.
"Um? But..." Ichinose hesitated. In her simulation, Ayanokoji Kiyoha was an extremely aloof girl who hardly spoke to anyone except when following Wu Qiao around. And the other girl seemed to be Class D's strategist behind the scenes.
"Please!" Wu Qiao pressed his palms together, making a pleading gesture. "Think of it as doing your part for peace and love on campus?"
Seeing how Wu Qiao was half serious and half joking, Ichinose felt some of her alarm subside. She couldn't help smiling to herself. Wu-kun clearly had the potential to turn the world upside down, yet right now all he could think about was how to pass the trouble around him to someone else.
"All right." Ichinose Honami finally gave him her gentle smile and nodded. "Since you've asked, Wu-kun, I can try to talk with Ayanokoji more, if she doesn't mind. Though I can't promise I'll be able to teach her everything."
"That would be wonderful." Wu Qiao breathed a sigh of relief, as if he had just completed a great diplomatic mission.
Ayanokoji Kiyoha, the center of their conversation, merely took a quiet sip of tea. In her mind, she added one more item to her assessment of Wu Qiao: a cunning guy who was good at shirking responsibility.