"Can I join you guys?" I asked.
"Yeah sure."
Ito agreed almost instantly, well it wasn't like I was going to cause any problems, so he probably had the idea of 'The more the merrier.'
We basically marched down to Class Beta. Although we made small talk on the way there.
"So Nakamura, why'd you come along?" one of the girls asked.
"Honestly I was just curious."
"Was that also the reason you went to the faculty room the other day?"
"Yeah, I thought it would be fun."
"You thought the faculty room would be fun?"
The girls started to crack up, laughing at my expense. I couldn't blame them because in their defense, who would go to a teacher's office for fun?
"You're way too funny Nakamura."
"Yeah, for real, and the way you said it like you meant it, you should become a comedian."
I did mean it, also it isn't that funny, right?
I looked at Ito for confirmation, just to find out that even he was laughing at me. In the end, everyone laughed at me.
You've got to be on a whole new level of low for the nice guy to laugh at you.
"Such is my life," I muttered under my breath.
"Are you okay? You're surprisingly delicate, well you do look the part," One of the girls asked in a lower tone, she seemed to notice that I didn't take the joke well.
"I look delicate?"
"No, it's just your face and stature. How tall are you?"
"I'm 5'4."
"Wow, you're that short."
"Hey. You do know I'm taller than you, right?"
"Uh huh," she grinned. "It's just that for a boy you just have a certain persona; you're not masculine like at all but you're really pleasant."
"…I'll choose to take that as a compliment."
"It is, you're like super approachable and fun to talk to."
"Well thanks, also what's your name?"
"It's Matsumoto Yuno."
"Mine's—"
"Oh, I know your name, I can't forget your introduction."
"Kinda hoped that you did," I smiled bitterly.
"Don't worry I've seen worse."
"Really?"
"Nope."
"…" I kept a grim expression.
"Sorry, I shouldn't have done that, it's just I wanted to see how delicate you are."
"You do know I'm not a lab rat, right?"
"Yeah, sorry again."
We arrived shortly at Class Beta; Ito opened the door for us. On entering, we experienced a new type of energy.
Rather than the people being loud and rowdy, it was calm and organized. A weird occurrence for high schoolers.
"That's Class Beta for you, calm and collected," Ito said out loud to no one specifically.
"What are you doing here? Looking for someone?" A girl asked with a grin–she had sky blue eyes and her hair was blonde with blue at its edges–she wore her complete uniform just like Shimizu, and everyone else in Class Beta.
"Yeah, we're looking for Shimizu-san," Ito replied.
"Oh, then you must be from Class Epsilon, right?" she smiled. "Please come this way."
She pointed us to his seat and went back to her seat though I noticed something, she winced as she sat.
Weird.
We went to Shimizu's seat; he was talking with friends and didn't notice our presence till Ito spoke.
"Shimizu-san," Ito said.
"Huh? Oh, it's you guys," Shimizu said.
"Yeah, about the—"
"You came with quite a number of girls, trying to change my opinion with some girls. If Suzuki was here, then maybe…"
"Maybe?" One of his friends asked, visibly shaken.
"Relax, I can't even if I want to," he reaffirmed them.
While I was momentarily shocked at the mention of Suzuki, it wasn't all that surprising.
I had already noticed Suzuki's popularity. During break there were two students surrounded by people always—people not from our class.
Those two were Suzuki and Kagura. This was because despite being cute, they laughed easily, joined conversations easily and made people feel comfortable.
However, there were differences between them—Kagura was kind and down for everything while Suzuki was more exclusive to her circle of friends but tried to make time for everyone.
Well, besides that it was obvious that Shimizu had an attraction to Suzuki, especially after what he said yesterday.
"Can't you reconsider?" Ito asked.
"No, now leave my class unless you have something else you wanna do."
"Please reconsider," Kagura voiced.
"Still a no."
"Please, if you're so smart then you'll understand our reason," One of the girls voiced.
"Yeah, aren't they supposed to be geniuses," teased another girl.
"Yeah, talk about intelligence—"
"Shut up and leave in class, before I change my mind," Shimizu glared.
"Hey Ito, let's just leave," one of the girls, visibly shaken, held Ito.
"Yeah. Well, thank you for your time."
We left almost as soon as we entered, however, when leaving the blonde girl ran to escort us though when running she was holding her waist.
Hmm.
"See you guys later," she said with a wide grin.
"Yeah bye," Ito answered.
We left the class then after being a considerable distance from the class we started to talk.
"Wow, no getting past him. Time for plan B."
"Yeah, but isn't it funny that we need plan B for Class Beta."
"Uh Ito, what are you guys talking about?" I asked due to confusion.
"Oh, right, we didn't tell you. We expected this plan not to work or at least we had a backup plan.
"I see."
"Plan B is to try and convince students in Class Beta students to try and convince Shimizu to choose another condition."
"That's a good plan."
It's a bit overly ambitious but that's what we need right now.
"Thanks. Well now we have to divide ourselves into groups."
"I wanna go with Ito-kun," one of the girls said.
"Me too."
"Yeah, me too."
All the other girls said they wanted to go with Ito, except Kagura and Matsumoto though I was sure they were just trying to be polite to me.
Because neither of them blatantly said they wanted to go with me.
"Well, everyone can't go with me, how about we divide in twos. I'll go with Nakamura."
"Aww, I wanna go with you but Kagura-chan is fine."
We divided and went around school meeting Class Beta students and asking them for help; some were Ito's friends.
We asked for help around school and eventually left and asked outside on the streets.
Of course I remained a spectator through the entire experience.
However, there was nothing I could even do as their answers were always the same.
"Nah, you gotta ask him yourself, dude. See ya."
This is the 12th person we're asking. This might be impossible now.
I'm sure it's already 8pm, I mean it's quite dark and we have school in the morning.
"Ito, how's it going on the girl's side?"
"I'll ask them."
Ring, ring, ring—
"How's it going? Oh no one agreed, huh? This might be impossible."
"It is impossible."
Shimizu emerged from the darkness of an alleyway with a smirk.
He looks like a villain.
"Shimizu…Can you—"
"No, I'm just here to tell you how hopeless you are."
"Just re-consider."
"Just give up. Class Epsilon is finished already."
"N-No, not—"
"Not yet, what do you have? The only thing you have is Suzuki and Kagura as bargaining chips unless you are going to use this girl cosplaying as a guy?"
Is he referring to me?
"Hey femboy, are you truly male or what?"
"…"
"Huh? Why aren't you talking? Don't tell me you're a bitch; well you look the part."
He's provoking me, huh? Yeah, this will work.
"Hey—"
"Ito…" I whispered so only he could hear. I filled him in on my plan and what I needed him to do.
"Are you sure?" Ito asked.
"Yes."
"Fine, I'll do what I can."
"Hey big oaf," I turned my attention to Shimizu.
"Huh?"
"It seems your brain is smaller than a walnut."
"What did you say?" Shimizu was fuming–his calm demeanor shattered like a wall of glass.
Frankly, he looked scary but that didn't matter, for now all that mattered was my victory.
"Did I stutter? You talked about me being a femboy, right?"
"What if I did?"
"Well, at least I'm not a monkey."
"Grrr…" he was really angry.
He's falling for this amount of provocation; does he have any self-control?
Even elementary school students can shake this off quite easily.
But I should be happy that this is even working.
"I mean only monkeys will follow orders without any mind of their own."
"What did you say?"
"Oh, you think I didn't notice that your class has a mastermind."
"Huh?" Both Ito and Shimizu were surprised.
"W-what are you talking about?" Shimizu asked, his voice shaky.
"It's so obvious, I mean after all when idiots like you are his lackeys you can't really hide anything."
"How do you know that we have a mastermind?"
Well, you're confirming it now, aren't you?
"It's quite obvious?" I framed it as a question, making a fool of him.
"How do you know?!"
"A little birdy told me?"
"Stop screwing with me dammit!"
"Why do I know?"
"I don't know. Tell me."
"Maybe it's because of you?"
"Huh? Just tell me or I'm really dead now! How do you know dammit?!" that calm demeanor was all but gone, he looked ready to kill me.
I instinctively gulped at the sight but I had to continue regardless.
"Haven't I already said it? It's because of you."
"Huh?"
"It's because of—"
"You've already said it, it's my fault but how is it my fault?"
"I know you're an oaf that can't think but let me finish. All of this is simply because of your idiocy."
"…" Shimizu said nothing, just glaring at me like I committed an unforgivable crime against him—in a way I did—and that was repeatedly reminding him of his stupidity.
I wasn't sure if it was desperation or anger, but Shimizu ran to me and started hitting me.
He fell me down and started wailing me hits, nothing fatal just some jabs on my face.
"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"
"Hey, stop!" Ito ran to help me, getting Shimizu off me.
"You really are an idiot, aren't you? You hit me," I smirked.
"Huh?" Shimizu was surprised I could still give snarky comebacks, though he was intrigued on why I said that.
"You just lost the case idiot."
(There's supposed to be an illustration here. Basically, Nakamura is pointing at his head while smiling, it's the condescending smile that Arisu has. Also, if you don't know, Nakamura has a round mash hairstyle with black hair, as well as red eyes.)
I said so because he just lost the leverage his class had, he sacrificed it for revenge over my petty insults.
He attacked me, nullifying the fact that we attacked them—I made sure it was for the same reason—Petty insults.
Newton's Third Law of motion states, "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."
While the actions don't cancel out, they balance each other. The same could be said in this case.
The actions balanced each other meaning they weren't above us anymore—that is Class Beta—but now we both had the same amount of leverage.
"Huh?" Shimizu was confused.
"To be honest, I didn't know about a mastermind," I said.
"What are you talking about? You said—"
"What I said doesn't matter. I wasn't sure at least not until you confirmed it."
"Shit, shit, shit," he rambled.
"My advice is that you leave, like right now. You don't want to lose something else, do you?" I tapped his shoulder.
"…Fuck you," he said silently as he left.
As he left Kagura emerged from the shadows though with a perplexed look.
Though Ito didn't focus on her and called the others telling them about what happened, leaving out my provocation.
"…So, since Shimizu hit Nakamura, I think we're in the clear."
After ending the call, he changed his attention to me. Well, it was given considering the weird request I asked of him.
"Nakamura, why did you give me that request?"
I requested Ito to do three things. To not intervene, to call Kagura to watch and video what happened, and also to remove my provocation when explaining the situation to others.
I would have preferred that she didn't have to be involved at all but if wishes were horses, then even beggars would ride.
"Well, I just had an idea and went with it."
"So that's why you also said that I shouldn't intervene. Anyway, thank goodness your plan worked."
Kagura left silently as we were conversing. It was honestly creepy, for her that is.
"Yeah."
"Anyway, since you requested it, I also won't tell anyone that you were involved. But may I ask why?"
"Well, I'll prefer not to answer."
"Fine, understood."
"Anyway, I'm kinda tired so see ya."
"Yeah, see you tomorrow."
With my plan being complete I headed back to the dorms since it was already late.
Or so I wanted.
I saw Kagura on my way to the dorms, she was on a call, presumably with a friend.
"What? We need an extra person?!" She screamed. "Give me a sec, let me look for someone."
She cut the call and started surveying the area looking for who to join her.
"Now, who to call? People from Class Beta know how to party but with the case now, hmm…"
I kept walking, ignoring her until—
"Nakamura?"
"Huh? Yeah?"
"Wanna go to a party?"
"Uh, not really."
"Come on, just this once."
"Umm…"
"Pretty please," she looked at me with upturned eyes, pushing her cleavage at me.
No one can blame me at this point, I really can't resist this.
"…Sure."
"Let's go!" she held my hand and dragged me.
What did I just agree to?
Author's Note:
Yeah, I know the science joke was useless but I just wanted to make it because I remembered my physics teacher who always made science jokes.
Anyway, remember to comment, leave a review, and share. Thanks for reading the chapter and see you in the next one.