Math class had just ended, and the teacher left the classroom. Two boys walked up to Hiko with envious looks.
At the same time, several girls went over to Ai.
"I thought you were on our side, but I didn't expect you to betray us the moment the transfer student arrived," one of them said bluntly, without any hesitation.
Another boy, however, asked, "Did Hoshino-san know you before she transferred here?"
"I didn't know her last week either."
Hiko was telling the truth.
These two boys were his "friends" at school.
The boy who spoke bluntly was Yamazaki Kento, and the other was Sato Tetsuya.
If not for their presence, he would have no one to talk to at school, and life would be unbearably boring.
At the same time, being with them also helped him avoid being alone. Because being friendless on campus greatly increased the chances of being bullied.
Even if his peers couldn't defeat him, he worried they might call their friends, leaving him outnumbered.
And bullying wasn't just about violence.
Most importantly, class consciousness in Japan was far too strong.
Even as students, first-years ordered lower-grade students around, and those students couldn't refuse. Otherwise, they would find themselves in very troublesome situations. Upper-grade students would even shamelessly gang up to "teach a lesson" to underclassmen who disrespected their seniors.
Hiko knew this well because back in elementary school, he had thought there was no need to play with the other kids. As a result, he was left alone and often called on by older students to do errands.
He refused, and the older students tried to physically discipline him. But thanks to his perfect memory after transmigrating, when they were about to hit him, he recalled the moves from martial arts films he had watched in his previous life.
He easily knocked the opponent down and then kicked him until he couldn't resist anymore.
Hiko thought that was the end of it. After all, they had been in the wrong. But a few days later, when he saw the same student again, he noticed the look of revenge in his eyes.
Since the boy was weak yet still harbored such intent, Hiko told him, "Don't run after school. Let's have a one-on-one fight."
But he was certain the boy would call for help, otherwise, where would he get the courage to face him one-on-one?
So that day, when Hiko noticed something strange, he immediately skipped class and ran away to avoid being cornered.
Still, the boy somehow managed to gather more than a dozen people to take turns chasing him down.
If not for Hiko's familiarity with the terrain, he would have been caught.
This continued for more than a week before the boy finally gave up.
Because of this, Hiko had no choice but to find opportunities after school to beat up everyone who had taken part in chasing him.
There were even rumors at the time: if you didn't go straight home after school and wandered around outside, you risked being ambushed with a sack and beaten with sticks.
Victims came from several schools. Later, after comparing their experiences, they realized they all had one thing in common, they had joined in "cornering" a lower-grade student.
But out of pride, they could only accept their bad luck. None dared to cause trouble for the ruthless person who had singlehandedly beaten all of them.
In fact, they were even more frustrated. They couldn't catch him, yet they kept getting beaten instead. If they told others, people would just think they were too stupid. How could they continue to "mix" in school after that?
But for Hiko, the incident had wasted more than a month of precious time, so he decided it was best to avoid trouble whenever possible.
After all, one person scheming against a group was far too time-consuming.
"I really envy you. Not only are you handsome, but you're also amazing at studying. Before today, I didn't even know you were so good at telling stories. I even saw some girls crying just now," Kento said boisterously.
Hiko overheard the girls next to him bombarding Ai with questions.
They asked where she studied before, why she transferred right before final exams, and so on.
It seemed that since Hiko had taken up their break time in the previous class, he had delayed their chance to talk with Ai.
He also noticed they were the same ones who had cried enviously while listening to his story.
"Being handsome is natural; I can't help it. But studying is different, you can put in effort and get good grades," Hiko teased.
"Studying? Spare me. I barely understand anything. If I zone out for even a moment, I have no idea what the teacher's saying. And some teachers' lectures are too hypnotic," Kento grumbled. "If not for my strong willpower, they would have turned me into an idiot by now."
"You, stop hyping up willpower. If you really had strong willpower, you'd go study!" Tetsuya retorted.
"Anything but studying, I'm in!" Kento declared righteously.
"My family finally gave me money for the new game yesterday. Want to come play after school?" Tetsuya asked.
"Yay, a new game!" Kento readily agreed.
"Sorry, I've got things to do these days, so I can't," Hiko shook his head, declining.
If it had been last week, he would have definitely agreed. But now, he needed to find a way to investigate the mastermind.
Even though the plot wouldn't start for another three years or so, he didn't want to spend ten years investigating like Aqua, only to end up with no useful information.
Relying on such low-level brute force methods like DNA testing one by one, time-consuming, exhausting, and costly.
All he needed was to ask the president and his wife about the activities Ai had participated in training bases, events, and the like. Wouldn't that narrow things down a lot?
Ten years should be enough to find them, right?
But at the end of the first episode, Aqua had said the revenge drama was just beginning.
In Hiko's view, didn't that mean that even after ten years, he still hadn't figured out who the mastermind was?
He was supposed to be a doctor in his past life, yet acted like a complete novice.
Perhaps that was simply how the original author set it up.
Maybe he felt the protagonist was too young to write convincingly?
Or maybe, once the plot started, the mastermind would somehow reveal himself?
After all, Hiko didn't know the later story.
If he knew that the doctor never actually deduced the killer himself, and worse, that the "true culprit" supposedly died in a lovers' suicide, he would have been furious.
To ignore such a massive loophole in the timeline and conclude the revenge was over just like that?
Had he never once reviewed the facts to confirm whether the so-called culprit had really died? Believing a lovers' suicide was enough to close the case?
The reasoning was ridiculous.
If the mastermind had even a shred of affection for Ai, there was no way he would have leaked her whereabouts.
And if Hiko knew that later, when Aqua learned the culprit hadn't actually died, his first reaction was disbelief, only to need others to spell out such an obvious hole in the timeline…
That the man he thought was dead had already committed suicide before Ai was even murdered…
Only then did he begin to doubt whether his assumptions were true.
If Hiko saw all of Doctor Goro's baffling actions later on, he would definitely conclude that after reincarnating as Hoshino Aquamarine, the most suitable job for him would be as a clown in a circus.
Because his actions themselves were a complete joke.