Watanabe Tetsu explained himself for a long time, and in the end he walked into the principal's office alongside the discipline committee officer.
The principal stood with his hands behind his back and listened to the two obviously different versions of events.
The discipline officer said, "Principal, Watanabe Tetsu has seriously disrupted school order. Please deal with him sternly."
The principal looked at Tetsu.
He remembered this handsome young man — the kid who had studied himself up from a nearly abandoned branch school in Misawa and passed the entrance exams for a Tokyo private academy. That life story had been a shining example the principal had been planning to publicize. Inspiring, really. But the student came off as way too frivolous.
A while back there had been an incident in the office with a young female teacher; now, at lunch, he'd apparently been messing around in other classes — and the target was the daughter of the Yuki family, no less.
Still, he was a good student. He was the third-ranked student in the school.
"Watanabe," the principal began slowly.
"Yes."
"You need to apologize properly to Miss Yuki and make sure you earn her forgiveness."
"Yes."
"Good. Let this be a lesson. Focus on your exams."
"Let this be a lesson?!" The discipline officer couldn't believe it. "Principal, are we just letting this slide?"
Letting it slide? Was he a criminal? Tetsu stared in silence at the officer, who showed no deference to the principal at all.
The principal thought a moment. "Ms. Kurozawa, what do you recommend, as the discipline committee?"
"Suspension!" she blurted.
". . ."
The principal turned back to Tetsu. "Watanabe, I recall your physical education record isn't strong, correct?"
"Yes. I get made fun of in PE."
"Mm." The principal nodded, satisfied. "From what I understand, Yuki Miki is no weakling—she has students who support her. If she didn't wish for anything, or if you had malicious intent, someone would have stopped you before anything actually happened."
The principal's reasoning painted a flattering, exculpatory picture.
Tetsu looked at him with admiration: the principal was earnestly helping him save face. Even if the logic was shaky — if Tetsu hadn't been a freestyle-fighting adept already, he might have been on his way to the infirmary to check whether he was still whole downstairs.
The discipline officer seemed stunned by the principal's logic — or realized she had no power to counter it — and was left speechless.
"All right. Class is starting soon. You two may go back." The principal dismissed them.
After bowing, they left the office. Before they parted, the discipline officer shot Tetsu a glare that promised rough times ahead.
From that look, Tetsu had a feeling his next three years of school wouldn't be entirely smooth. Still, as long as he kept up his grades — or pushed them even further toward first place — the principal would always be his strong supporter.
The real worry, he reflected, was the one with more influence and better grades: Yuki Miki.
The "Class 2-B leg-touching incident" joined the "Watanabe and Kiyono walking to school together" story as the academy's fresh gossip.
No sooner had Tetsu returned to Classroom 4 than Kunii Osamu and Saito Keisuke, together with other boys, cornered him by the southeast storage cupboard where cleaning supplies were kept.
"Idiot! Tell us! How are Miki's legs?!" they demanded, looking murderous.
"Hey, come on. Girls step on you and make you take their socks off — how does that feel?" Tetsu leaned against the metal cabinet door.
"It's an honor to be stepped on!" the girls in Class 4 replied coldly, using eyes that said they found the boys' answer disgusting.
"Are you kidding me?" Tetsu said in disbelief.
"Pervert Watanabe, go die!"
"Hey, speak like a human being — don't get violent!"
Saito, breathless with envy, said, "Being stepped on by a beauty would make any man happy!"
"Yes! It's a reward!" Kunii proclaimed like a president swearing on scripture. "Anyone who's mad about that is weird!"
"Huh? So in the end, I'm the weird one?"
"Of course!"
Their chorus had Tetsu briefly doubting himself.
But he reminded himself: smart brain, never slacking, studies hard, self-learning Spanish on the side, and — importantly — he was gentle. Yes, he was gentle, gentle, and gentle again.
That was more than enough. No need to overexplain.
Conclusion: Watanabe Tetsu could not possibly be wrong — it was the world that was wrong.
"You people lose yourselves when you see a girl with a good figure or a pretty face. Don't be so shallow," Tetsu said, and the girls in the class warmed to him for that remark.
"Watanabe!" Kunii pointed at him and shouted. "You were arguing with Saito and me about how to peek at girls' collars just now, and now you pretend to be noble. Shameless!"
"Hey, hey." Saito clutched Kunii to stop him. "Don't drag me into this — say it for yourself!"
When Kunii looked back, the boys who'd been comrades slipped away like actors finishing a bad scene; the girls' disgusted stares tracked the three of them.
Tetsu patted the two on the shoulder. "I don't care. Miki's waiting for me. Looks like you two are out of luck for the academy."
"No way…" Kunii, who'd barely started his pursuit of the classmate, felt his plan wash up and dissolve like the waves on Tokyo Bay.
Saito, breathless, threatened, "Kunii, I'll kill you."
"Don't—don't choke me, cough, save me!"
Watching their despair, Tetsu found a new pastime in life and maintained the healthy, balanced mentality of a private-academy student.
One regret remained: the number of girls who might want to marry him had probably dropped again. He could no longer say "almost all" — "vast majority" would be more accurate.
He corrected his self-assessment and felt proud he could accept the loss. He certainly wouldn't accept their offers anyway — he'd decided to be a faithful "Tokyo handsome guy."
A new mail notification popped up.
[New Mail]
[Temporary event: Game time — May 28, 12:36 PM. The windward skywalk encounter with the band girls: they seem interested in you.]
[Event objective: Successfully date any two of them simultaneously without using methods outside of romance.]
[Event duration: 1 year]
[Event reward: Master-level: Marksmanship / 10,000 points]
[Special reward: Date both Asahi Mai and Hanada Asako simultaneously — Master-level Marksmanship / free; Transcendent-level: Stamina Recovery / free]
[Note: Under the principle of basic human rights, this event involves significant life risk. Please be cautious.]
Being "loyal" — what's wrong with that?
Still, Tetsu clicked the details for Master-level Marksmanship and Transcendent-level Stamina Recovery out of curiosity.
[Master-level Marksmanship:] Expert use of handguns and rifles — for moving targets or flying discs, guaranteed accurate hits within 50 meters.
[Transcendent-level Stamina Recovery:] Ability to recover stamina beyond human limits.
[Side effects:] If adequate inorganic salts, water, and high-protein, high-vitamin foods are not consumed in time, sudden heart failure, liver failure, neurological breakdowns, limb numbness, dizziness, retching, deafness, and myocardial infarction may occur. (Remaining content folded — click to expand.)
"…"
That was a lot of side effects.
But Master-level Marksmanship, Transcendent-level Stamina Recovery, and the previous event's special reward, Transcendent-level Healing — the three together — didn't they sound a little like a one-person strategy to smash through the Yuki family's defenses?
'Wait. Don't get excited. Think calmly! Sort the ideas, analyze the plan, consider consequences, calculate odds!'
That afternoon, during study period, the usually unrelenting Watanabe Tetsu did something out of character: he didn't study. Instead, determined never to be trampled by a beauty again and never to be forced to remove thigh-high socks, he pulled out his notebook and methodically organized intelligence about the situation.