Sugisaki Ken

Hayate had not been to school for several months, and Huo Lin had been absent for nearly three weeks.

Hayate drew a crowd, almost as though she were a newly arrived transfer student.

The chatter never stopped. She had always been popular at school, and the area around her desk was as bustling as a marketplace.

Huo Lin, by contrast, received no such treatment.

Her window seat in the second-to-last row had been kept open for her.

It was not that she was unpopular. Rather, Huo Lin had always been known as an academic genius. She was not merely one of the top students in class-she was leagues ahead of everyone else.

If a university student went back to elementary school and still could not reign supreme, their intelligence really ought to be called into question.

Huo Lin rarely listened in class, preferring to gaze at the scenery outside the window.

That was not a problem. With her store of knowledge, she could wait until high school to start paying attention without any trouble-except in math and physics, her actual specialties, where her knowledge was at university level.

Top students inevitably enjoyed privileges at school. Even though she was not the class president and did not want to hold any position, her grades alone made her the uncrowned king. Nobody at school would ostracize her.

But if she did not take the initiative to make friends, few people would dare approach her.

Life remained unchanged-until the break after second period.

Huo Lin stood up and walked into the hallway, where Hayate came over to her.

"Where are you going?"

"To the bathroom."

"Which one?"

Hmm... that was indeed a problem.

Her Magic Disguise only altered her face and voice. Her body was entirely a girl's.

"I-it doesn't matter! The bathrooms have stalls anyway!"

Even so, when she actually reached the entrance to the boys' bathroom, she found herself feeling rather guilty. Just a few weeks ago, this had still been where she belonged.

She took a step forward-

"Hey, god-tier genius. Here for a piss too?"

Someone suddenly slapped her on the back, startling her so badly that she nearly leaked.

Calling her an academic genius was no longer enough. She almost never lost a point on any exam. Her score had nothing to do with the difficulty, only with the maximum number of points available.

Teachers inevitably made mistakes when grading papers, but her answers were never wrong. That was how Huo Lin had earned the nickname "god-tier genius."

"Sugisaki, you bastard!"

"What? I just slapped your back. Don't tell me you wet yourself?"

No, the more he talked about it, the harder it was to hold it in. Huo Lin merely glared at him, then hurried into the bathroom without further hesitation.

The familiar bustle filled the area in front of the urinals. Fortunately, there was still an empty stall.

Oh, so she needed to take a dump.

Sugisaki Ken, who had followed her inside, thought he had figured it out. He knocked on the closed stall door.

"Got any toilet paper? Want me to toss you a pack?"

Ah! Why was he standing right outside the stall?!

Although she really did need to go, the thought of someone standing right outside, hearing her pee, made Huo Lin feel as though she could not get anything out at all.

Then something suddenly occurred to her. She was used to not needing tissues when she peed, but now it seemed she really did need some.

"Sorry for the trouble... one pack, please. Thanks."

"Haha, don't mention it. Just remember to give me full attendance for club activities."

A pack of tissues sailed over the stall door and dropped down from above.

She and Sugisaki Ken were not particularly close. They were not classmates, merely members of the same club.

Not every elementary school had clubs, but theirs did. Students could join starting in third grade, and club credits could boost their coursework grades.

Huo Lin had previously joined the literature club to earn money writing detective fiction, giving her more time to write and sketch.

At the end of the previous term, when the sixth-grade club president graduated, he had skipped over the next two grades and handed the presidency directly to Huo Lin, who had only been in third grade at the time.

Nobody had complained. After all, she was the only third grader who had published a short story in Tokyo and won an award for it.

Sugisaki was a third grader this year, making him Huo Lin's junior. He had only joined the literature club this year, purely to coast his way to extra credit. He also believed that being a "literature club member" would improve his image.

His reputation among the girls was not particularly good, though. After all, he had once loudly proclaimed at a school assembly, "My dream is to have every pretty girl in school in my harem." Someone like that was generally considered an obnoxious pest.

"Well, pretty girls are a scarce resource! I'm only after pretty girls, so the rest of you aren't eligible for my harem." When he added that, he became public enemy number one among the girls.

A full six or seven minutes passed. After finishing, Huo Lin deliberately waited a while before opening the stall door.

There were fewer people outside now. Class was about to begin.

She washed her hands at the sink and dried them with a handkerchief, only to look up and get a fright at the person in the mirror.

"Why are you still here?!"

"Well, I just wanted to ask-is Hayate really okay now?"

"Of course. She's completely recovered."

Huo Lin folded the handkerchief she had used to dry her hands and put it back in her trouser pocket.

Sugisaki looked a little surprised as he watched her movements.

"Why are you so concerned about Hayate? You're not even in her class."

"Of course I am! I told you before, all the pretty girls in school belong to my harem! In your class, only Class President Sakurano and Hayate qualify. Incidentally, across the whole school, Kurimu ranks second among the school beauties, and Hayate ranks fourth."

"Who made those rankings?"

"Me, of course."

"Are you a pedophile?"

Both Kurimu Sakurano and Hayate were petite girls. People meeting the former for the first time might even think she had only just graduated from kindergarten.

Still, hearing Sugisaki say that made Huo Lin a little happy. After all, she and Hayate looked exactly alike. Fourth-prettiest girl in school...

No! What was there to be happy about?!

"Aren't you afraid the other girls will stick pins in a doll of you if they hear that? Girls can be terrifying when they're angry, you know."

Huo Lin headed back to the classroom as she spoke. Class was about to begin, and she stepped through the door almost exactly as the bell rang.

Walking behind her, Sugisaki watched Huo Lin's back with a strange feeling he could not explain.

Bro, you smell so good- He suddenly shuddered!

Impossible! Absolutely impossible!

But had the club president always been this skinny? And she was shorter, too. His eyes never lied-she was three centimeters shorter!

After school, Huo Lin asked to be excused from the literature club, because she had something important to do.

She went home, took off her school uniform, and changed.

She had wanted to wear her father's suit, but it was far too big. With no other choice, she put on a more mature-looking shirt.

She added more height to her shoes, too.

A full twenty-five centimeters! It was practically like walking on stilts. She wore a pair of loose trousers, hiding most of the shoes beneath the legs.

As a magical girl, her physical abilities had long since been enhanced. Even walking on stilts, she had no fear of falling.

Even so, she was only 157 centimeters tall.

Being nine years old was a serious handicap. She was simply too short.

She adjusted her face, turning it into that of an unfamiliar adult man.

She adjusted the voice on her bow-tie voice changer.

Good. Manuscript, briefcase-perfect.

Besides the manuscript, the briefcase naturally also contained the Book of the Night Sky.

Whether she could cover her basic living expenses for the next ten years depended on today.

"Ahem." Huo Lin faced the mirror, looking at an image somewhat familiar from her previous life, one she had often seen in newspapers and on the news. "I'm Yusaku Kudo. Pleased to meet you."