Chapter 11: A Kind Gyaru

“Hey, come here a sec, Kiyomiya.”

“…”

The voice cut through the relative quiet of my lunch break just as I’d pulled out my phone. It belonged to Iwakura Tomokazu, a classmate whose flashy, dyed-brown hair and tall frame made him one of the more conspicuous figures in our class. He’d been a soccer star since middle school and was apparently living up to his reputation as a promising rookie in high school.

How crude… a far cry from an invitation from Maritsuji, I muttered under my breath. Pocketing my phone, I followed Iwakura out of the classroom.

We walked in silence, leaving the main school building behind and arriving at the courtyard in the back. It was a neglected space, home to an old, defunct incinerator and the garbage disposal area.

“These days, contractors collect all the trash,” I commented idly. “It’s hard to believe they used to burn garbage at school back then.”

“If I could burn trash like you, I would, Kiyomiya.”

“Calling me out behind the school is so old-fashioned. Straight out of some ancient yankee manga.”

“Haha,” I let out a dry laugh, but Iwakura’s face remained grimly serious.

This guy hates me too—or rather, he’s one of those who looks down on me. It was a common trait among the upper-class here; they were largely indifferent to the common folk but fiercely sensitive to the rankings within their own elite circle. To them, someone like me—born out of wedlock, an impurity in their pristine bloodlines—was an eyesore. Even now, prominent families maintained their lineage by marrying among their own, preserving their noble blood. I’d read that some of Europe’s most distinguished houses once practiced this to an extreme, arranging marriages between cousins or even uncles and nieces to avoid introducing outside blood.

Of course, no family was that fanatical anymore, but the obsession with a partner’s pedigree was still very much alive. They were a clique bound by strong ties in a narrow, exclusive society, and their rejection of ‘foreign objects’ was intense.

“Hey, Kiyomiya. What are you grinning about?”

“Oh, my bad,” I said, snapping back to the present. “Did you have something serious to talk about?”

“Haven’t you been getting a little carried away lately?” he sneered.

“…”

This was definitely Iwakura’s own genuine dislike for me, but I knew who was pulling the strings. He was a henchman for Fujikawa Koutarou. Though Fujikawa was in the basketball club and Iwakura in soccer, it was a well-known fact that the Iwakura family was a branch of the Fujikawa clan, maintaining a master-servant relationship that had lasted for generations.

“Lately, you’ve been getting friendly with Hisaka, and there are rumors you went somewhere alone with Maritsuji-san, huh?”

“You seem to know a lot about me.”

Surely the info broker isn’t spreading stories about me, right?

“Seriously, don’t get full of yourself, Kiyomiya,” he said, his voice low and menacing. “You want me to teach you a lesson?”

Just as he delivered the thug-like line, several other figures emerged from behind him. A quick glance confirmed they were five guys I recognized from the soccer club—Iwakura’s buddies, and by extension, Fujikawa’s lackeys. With this many of them, they could easily hold me down and beat me to a pulp without leaving any obvious marks.

Iwakura stepped forward and grabbed me tightly by the collar. “What a damn pain. Because some scum is getting cocky, I have to waste my lunch break doing this—”

“Ooh, this is quite a scoop.”

Click, click, click.

The unmistakable, continuous shutter sound of a phone’s camera echoed through the courtyard.

“Wh-What the!?” Iwakura yelped, spinning around to face the sound.

Peeking out from behind the old incinerator was a girl, phone held high, aimed directly at us. It was Sogano Maki.

“Bullying at the prestigious Sōshūkan Academy!” she declared dramatically.

“Witnessing a shakedown in progress! This is going viral!”

“Hey, Sogano! Quit screwing around, you bitch!” Iwakura roared.

“I’m always screwing around. You know that, don’t you, Iwakura?” she retorted, completely unfazed.

“Tch…!” He glared, but Maki didn’t so much as flinch.

This girl’s got way too much nerve.

“Sogano! Delete the photos!”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll pretend this never happened,” she said with a dismissive wave. Maki showed Iwakura her phone screen, tapping away at the photo app and deleting several pictures. Iwakura wasn’t a complete idiot, and it seemed the ‘deal’ was settled on the spot.

“Damn it, this is such a pain!” With a final curse, Iwakura and his entourage stormed out of the courtyard.

“Maki, you have a habit of showing up everywhere,” I said, straightening my collar.

“Isn’t there something you should say before that?” she asked, pouting playfully.

“You saved me, Maki. But that was dangerous for you too. Don’t be so reckless.”

“Ooh, how kind of you,” she cooed. “I’m fine, though. I’m confident in my ability to run away. If it came down to it, I would have just left Keiji behind and bolted.”

“That’s good to hear. No, seriously.” Even if she was shrewd, Maki was still a girl. I didn’t want her caught up in any rough business.

“I could have gotten out of it myself, you know,” I insisted. “They would have been satisfied after landing a few punches.”

“Hmm, I wonder about that?”

“What do you mean?”

“I was just wondering who I saved,” she mused, “Keiji, or Iwakura and his friends.”

“It was obviously me, wasn’t it?” If she hadn’t intervened, I’d probably be nursing a few bruised ribs right now.

“Well, when Keiji—who’s treated like scum—is seen flirting with the beautiful honor student Hisaka-san, of course you’re going to get glared at,” she explained. “Thanks to your family’s status, your school rank is barely a B-class, while Hisaka-san is an SS.”

“Sayaka is ranked that damn high?”

“By the way, Maritsuji-san is also SS,” Maki added. “But her grades are only in the top thirty or so, and she doesn’t seem to be good at sports either. In her case, her rank is high thanks to her family name, in a way.”

“Ah…” That made sense. In Maritsuji’s case, aside from her family background and looks, her personal specs weren’t exactly top-class.

“I hear Maritsuji-san is aiming to be a ‘good wife and wise mother,’ which is rare these days.”

That was something I’d heard from Maritsuji herself.

“She doesn’t plan on entering the workforce, so she’s taking it easy with her studies and sports. Well, how people live their lives is up to them. If anything, I’d rather not work and be taken care of too~”

“In your case, Maki, you just want to be a NEET, don’t you?” I deadpanned.

I had no idea if the Sogano family was wealthy enough for her to laze around for the rest of her life.

“Never mind about me. The point is, Keiji, your recent actions have been too conspicuous. It’s interesting for me, but not for guys like Iwakura.”

“…” I wasn’t causing trouble for anyone. I should be free to do as I please. This academy—no, this entire upper-class society was suffocating.

“You used to just laugh off whatever anyone said to you, but now you’re standing out with Hisaka-san and Maritsuji-san,” she continued, a sly look in her eyes. “You should have just stuck to flirting with me.”

“I never flirted with you—wait, is that how people saw it?”

“I don’t remember flirting with anyone but Keiji, you know,” she teased.

“Are you fabricating your memories?” Maki was just messing with me. I’d never seen her that way.

“Well, it’s true that standing out is a bad idea,” I conceded with a sigh. “Maybe I should just live quietly from now on… huh?”

Just then, the chime for a school-wide announcement echoed through the grounds.

“Year 1, Class B, Hisaka Sayaka-san. Year 1, Class B, Hisaka Sayaka-san. Please come to the career guidance office.”

“Eh? Sayaka?”

“They called Hisaka-san’s name,” Maki noted. “A first-year to the career guidance office?”

I couldn’t help but exchange a blank look with her. Being called out individually over the PA system was rarely a good thing, and the career guidance office of all places…

“N-No way…”

Did they find out that Sayaka is working as a maid at my place? No, I haven’t officially hired her yet, so she’s just a classmate living with me—wait, isn’t that even worse? If she was working, I might have an excuse, but if they found out we’re just living together… why would they call her to the career guidance office? That’s strange, isn’t it?

“Keiji, does something come to mind?” Maki asked, her eyes sharp.

“N-No, not really,” I stammered, fully aware of how suspicious I sounded. Maybe they were just telling Sayaka, the top student in our year, to start thinking about applying to a top-tier university. Yes, that had to be it. There was no point in overthinking it.

“Hmm… Keiji, I’m just going to go pick some flowers,” Maki announced suddenly.

“You’re going to snoop for information, aren’t you!”

“Maki-chan’s sources aren’t limited to just students, you know,” she said with a wink.

Is she getting information from the teachers too? Surely she’s not blackmailing them, right? Still, if it’s a career-related issue, getting information from the school’s side would be best…

“Maki, if you find anything out, tell me,” I said, my desperation overriding my pride. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

“You’re so quick to buy a classmate’s secrets with money, Keiji,” she said, shaking her head in mock disappointment. “You’re not just trash, you’re despicable.”

“…Everyone wants to know other people’s secrets, don’t they?” Especially the secrets of a popular, beautiful girl like Hisaka Sayaka. It would be weirder not to be curious. For me, though, it was more than curiosity; I couldn’t just ignore something that involved the girl I was living with.

I couldn’t care less about Iwakura and Fujikawa anymore—

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