Chapter 84 – Eccentric

 

A few days had passed since Makoto told me about the rumor of Akakusa-sensei’s transfer. Since then, I spent my days wallowing in my anxiety.

 

We hadn’t continued on with Arina’s rehabilitation due to us getting too busy, so we hadn’t been in contact since then.

 

Actually, I passed her by occasionally in the hallway but before I could greet her, she would start abusing me with her words.

 

I didn’t respond to her usual abuse which puzzled her and prompted her to show me her concerns. She said something like ‘What’s wrong? Are you okay? Let me touch your forehead.’  Honestly, I’d rather see her abusing me again instead of this, since that would cheer me up, but I kept my mouth shut because I knew she would punch me if I were to say that out loud.

 

*   *   *

 

During the recess, inside the toilet.

 

I was pouring my ‘lemon juice’ into the urinals when Makoto approached the urinals next to mine. This guy just blatantly ignored the unspoken rule in the men’s toilet. I couldn’t even begin to describe my disgust toward his action. (T/N: Do I need to explain the unspoken rule?)

 

For the girls out there, let me give you an analogy so you could understand my feelings. Imagine that you were in a fancy cafe, the people around you were reading with their Macs while enjoying their coffees elegantly. You were also there, sitting by the window while gazing at the bustling city. Then, suddenly, a stranger sat next to you. There were open seats everywhere inside the cafe but that stranger ignored those seats and brought their butt closer to you.

 

Then again, Makoto wasn’t exactly a stranger, so that analogy didn’t work. But still, I’d rather not stand near anyone when using the urinals. I didn’t want to accidentally glance to the side and see their… you know…

 

“If you keep doing that, your soul will come out alongside your piss.”

 

Said Makoto jokingly. He probably noticed my mood in the past few days and tried to cheer me up. What a sweet guy.

 

“It won’t. My blood is leaking out though.”

“Eh?”

 

It seemed like he thought I was serious when I said that, so he peeked over at my little guy.

 

“Dumbass, I was joking. If it was real, I would have fainted already.”

“Urp…”

 

I washed my hands before leaving the toilet. The water was so cold, it was practically a torture trying to wash my hands properly.

 

“Hey, it’s just a rumor, don’t worry about it.”

“What are you on about?”

“Akakusa-sensei…”

“I know, I believe in her. She won’t go anywhere before I graduate. Soon enough, the f*cker who spread that rumor will come to me and grovel at me to seek my forgiveness.”

“…Would be too late for that, don’t you think?…”

 

No, it wasn’t too late. At least, I believe so.

 

*   *   *

 

Lunchbreak. I was having my lunch with Makoto like usual. Seriously, why couldn’t he just invite Ruka instead?

 

“Do you think you’ll pass the college entrance exam, Sui?”

“Yeah, I’m confident I can get into a decent one.”

“I see. Good luck with that.”

“You’ll be taking a culinary course, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I’ll be focusing on Japanese cuisine though.”

“Man, you’re amazing. I can’t even cook a decent fried egg, it always gets burnt somehow. That’s why I prefer instant ramen, just pour hot water in it and you’re set for life.”

“…Did you put on some oil before you start cooking?”

“I don’t know. I never figured out what was wrong because my sister forbade me from cooking ever since then.”

 

Well, she forbade me but I didn’t listen to her and proceeded to create a new dish. To my surprise, it turned out surprisingly well. What I did was put some rice, mentsuyu, eggs, meat and cabbage in the frying pan, stirred them properly, then put in some mayonnaise and yakiniku sauce. I didn’t know the name of the dish, but I called it ‘chaos donburi’. The taste was worth dying for. (T/N: Mentsuyu or tsuyu is the sauce you usually use for soba or ramen. Donburi is Japanese’s rice-bowl dish.)

 

Of course I didn’t tell him about this. Who knows what he would do to me if he heard about it. 

 

“You need to marry someone who can cook well then.”

“I’ll spend my whole life alone.”
“C’mon, don’t be like that. Just imagine that you’ll bring a blonde-haired gyaru home, wouldn’t that be cool?”

“Stop acting like my mom.

 

Anyway, speaking about marriage, the girls in my class should be legal for marriage already. Just imagine that you could actually marry a high school girl legally. You thought that this wouldn’t be something concerning but we, boys, would be able to legally marry them soon after. (T/N: Reminder that this series is quite old, girls’ legal age used to be 16 before they changed it to 18 recently.)

 

It didn’t sound real, in my opinion. I mean, why would high school students even try to get married? They wouldn’t have the financial ability needed for marriage. What was that? Love? You think love could solve everything? If that was the case, I would be able to traverse beyond time and space and meet up with some aliens in the Pleiades star cluster.

 

I finished my meal and suddenly felt the urge to pee again. I thought I was seventeen years old, but my bladder was as loose as the elderly. While I was walking toward the toilet, a certain girl came out from the girls’ toilet.

 

“Ah, it’s Sakaki-kun.”

“Hm?”

 

The ponytailed girl was wiping her hands with a handkerchief. She was Mugiyama Kaya, the girl that I met during the end-of-the year party, the cheerleader girl who complimented how cool I was.

 

“Happy new year.”

“Happy new year. What’s up? Why are you in a hurry?”

“I want to go pick some flowers…”

“Ah, you’re going to pee?”

 

What? What did she just say?

 

I went through the trouble of censoring the word out of consideration and she just said the word out loud like that. JK all over the country, was this a normal behavior among you all?

 

“Yeah… I guess…”

“I see. Holding it in feels good, but it’s bad for your health, huh? I understand where you’re coming from.”

 

Holding it in feels good? What? This girl enjoyed holding her pee in? Was this a new trend?

 

This surely wasn’t normal, right? I had no right to consider what was normal or not, but this was too outlandish even for me.

 

“Um… What do you mean by that?”

“Eh? Did I stutter or what?”

 

I can’t relate to this person at all.

 

This girl was beyond help. She was at least as weird as me.

 

I thought I had finally met a saintess who wouldn’t make fun of me, but never did I expect that she was a total pervert.

 

“Are you interested to try?”

“No, I’ll die.”

“Aw, too bad.”

 

Never mind, she was way worse than me. I’ll never let her come near Ugin.

 

I ran to the toilet quickly and poured my ‘lemon juice’ again. That gave me a peace of mind.

 

I calmly analyzed my interaction with Kaya-san and I could only come to one conclusion. She was a pervert. Surprisingly, a perverted high school girl existed.

 

I looked out of the door fearfully and confirmed that she was gone before exiting the toilet. I wasn’t emotionally prepared to meet a pervert since I couldn’t make up a good joke to tell her. If I were to meet her again, she would take control of the conversation in no time and I didn’t want that to happen.

 

To think that I met a formidable opponent like her, I couldn’t help but shudder. Before returning to the classroom, I decided to join the war for bread. The clubs weren’t as active as they were in summer, so it was calmer than usual.

 

I was able to get what I was looking for with ease and no one accused me of being a pervert. In the past, they would look at me scornfully while calling me ‘pervert’ or ‘molester’ whenever I did this and I had to talk my way out of it every single time. Now that I think about it, it really wasn’t worth the trouble.

 

Luckily, we didn’t have something similar to the police in our high school or else, I would be doomed. What? Disciplinary Committee? Well, they threatened me with that before but, honestly, rather than me, they should report Mugiyama Kaya instead. She was the actual pervert here.

 

*   *   *

 

After school. Our cleaning assignment began. I was assigned with the second squad of the cleaning regiment to sweep the hallways, so they assigned me a military-grade broom for the job. Since we wanted to finish the job quickly, we wordlessly swept through the battlefield (hallway) and disposed of every empty shell (plastic waste) that we found. The climate on the battlefield wasn’t ideal since it was freezing cold during this time of the year. In contrast, the classroom was warm. You could see the clear disparity between the two places.

 

By the way, a certain someone from the class next door was also wielding her broom. She lost the lot too it seemed. Presenting Hiwa Arina.

 

“You really hate the cold, huh?”

 

The only parts of her skin that were exposed were her face and her hands. Her usually bare legs were wrapped in black tights and she hid her neck behind her thick scarf.

 

“Why can’t we just wear pants? Should I blackmail Tsuru to change the school rules?”

“If you do that we, men, will lose our reason to live, so please endure the cold for our sake. I wish you luck, comrad.”

“Die.”

 

With such a wobbly appearance, her poisonous tongue sounded cute instead. I was almost about to make her say it louder like a passionate music teacher. By the way, I hated that kind of teacher. Honestly, I wanted to rebel once or twice before I graduated, but I was too cowardly to do so.

 

She seemed to be annoyed by my good mood and resorted to attacking me mentally.

 

“I heard Akakusa-sensei is going to move out soon. How do you feel?”

 

What a devil. She casually touched the topic that had been bothering me for the past few days. As expected, she was really good at putting salt– no, tabasco on people’s wounds. One of these days, I should tie her in front of an air compressor or something.

 

“What do you mean? I don’t feel anything about it.”

“Isn’t it sad? The teacher you always long for will be gone soon.”

“Ugh… It isn’t sad. I’m actually looking forward to it. A new, prettier teacher will surely come and replace her.”

“That might be true, but imagine this. After moving out, Akakusa-sensei will find a young male teacher of her dreams and she’ll decide to settle with him for the rest of her life.”

“Stop… Stop…”

“She’ll live happily ever after. I’m envious of her…”

“With that poisonous tongue, you should live among snakes, that’s the place where you belong, you devil!”

“If I do that, the first thing I’ll do is to delete your name from this country’s register.”

 

I should never let her do that. If she had that much power, the second Dark Age will surely come.

 

Suddenly, Asakura Toma, the president of the journalism club interrupted us. He was shivering because of the cold and his anxiety.

 

“Can I take your time for a second?!”
“You’re as energetic as ever, huh?”

“I have a favor to ask!”

 

He swung both his fists to the air and said.

 

“I need your help collecting more stories! Can you guys help me?!”

 

I had nothing to do except rotting inside my room, so I could help him. I glanced at Arina and our eyes met. She nodded at me.

 

The first time I helped him was because of Arina, so if she were to refuse it this time, I would refuse it too. But it seemed that she was willing to do it, in that case, of course I would accept the job too.

 

“Sure.”

“Alright! Come to the clubroom after you guys are done!”

“Got it.”

 

He went back to the classroom after that. I’m jealous.

 

“Well, I’ll go to your classroom after we’re done. Make sure to wait for me there or I’ll curse you to die freezing.”

“Sure sure. I’ll be waiting for you.”