To be perfectly honest, Kuroha Akira wanted absolutely no part of this conflict. Merely thinking about the potential fallout made a phantom headache throb at his temples.
A guy like this—flashy blond hair, center-of-the-universe aura—undoubtedly came with an entourage of "good brothers." Picking a fight with him meant declaring war on an entire social faction. The potential fallout—threats, silent ostracism, petty bullying—wasn't exactly terrifying.
Akira had weathered worse in the soul-crushing trenches of corporate life. No, the real issue was the sheer, wasteful trouble of it all. It was childish, draining, and a colossal distraction from his primary objective: the urgent, all-consuming mission of making money.
But. There was a but.
He had already accepted the Class Monitor's request. He'd given his word to solve the Literary Club's personnel crisis. The ancient, unspoken code of 'taberu tane wa kareru'—if you eat someone's food, you owe them—meant he had to see this through. He couldn't just take the soft benefits and skip the hard part.
And now, the Class Monitor's true intention in bringing that bento was crystal clear. Ah, I see. So this is the real test. You're using me as a shield, a tool to deal with your overzealous admirer.
The luxurious lunch wasn't a reward; it was advance payment for hazardous duty. To eat the meal, he first had to deal with the guy trying to snatch the plate.
As these thoughts flashed through his mind, the blond boy—Sumitomo Ryota, as he'd soon learn—stalked to a halt near Akira's desk. His path, however, was physically blocked by Asato Hitomi herself, who stood beside Akira's seat with the serene, immovable presence of a palace guard.
Sumitomo's expression twisted as he looked at Hitomi—a complex cocktail of frustration, possessiveness, and wounded pride. Finally, his glare landed on Akira, and he jabbed a finger in his direction.
"Hey, you. Outside. Now."
The delivery was straight out of a delinquent manga—a classic invitation to a 'chat' that would inevitably involve fists and a secluded corner of the school grounds.
Annoying. I don't want to fight. I have a very low pain tolerance,
Akira thought blandly. Instead of rising, he leaned back in his chair, lifted a pinky finger to casually clean his ear, and deployed his first line of defense: shameless, reality-bending nonsense.
"Hmm? You want to confess to me?" Akira's voice was a masterpiece of feigned disinterest. "I'm sorry, but my sexual orientation is strictly normal. I have zero interest in that sort of thing."
A stunned silence, followed by a barely suppressed snort from somewhere in the room. Fujiyoshi Michio stared at Akira as if he'd just sprouted wings. Not only was he not cowering, he was trolling the most popular guy in class? A flicker of awe mixed with terror ignited in Fujiyoshi's timid heart. Kuroha-san is on another level…
The provocation worked perfectly. Sumitomo Ryota's face flushed a deeper shade of crimson.
"No! I want to talk about something else!" he hissed, struggling to keep his volume in check.
"Talk? Now?" Akira sighed, the picture of put-upon inconvenience. "It's lunchtime. I'm hungry. Priority number one is eating."
He gestured lazily at the bento. You're interrupting my sponsored meal, you know.
You're still thinking about eating?! Sumitomo looked like he might combust from sheer indignation. But he was stuck. Dragging someone out by force in front of the whole class was a one-way ticket to the teacher's office and possibly suspension—an utterly unacceptable outcome for someone who cherished his social standing.
Yet, the sight of his carefully cultivated isolation zone around Hitomi being breached by this… this nobody was maddening. Where did he even come from? Why did he get the personal invitation?!
"By the way," Akira continued, tilting his head as if seeing him for the first time. "Who are you, anyway? If you're looking for someone, at least have the manners to introduce yourself first."
Sumitomo took a deep, shuddering breath, visibly wrestling his temper into a headlock.
"…Sumitomo Ryota," he bit out, each syllable strained. "I just want to know how you joined the Literary Club."
Sumitomo Ryota. Akira filed the name away. His initial assessment of 'sycophant' required slight adjustment. The fact that the guy could rein in his anger and attempt a semi-civil approach, even after being blatantly mocked, suggested there was a flicker of sense behind the bravado. He wasn't just a delusional toad dreaming of swan meat.
(Yes, I left it there. Bite me!!)
And, objectively speaking, he wasn't a toad. Sumitomo Ryota was easily an 85-point handsome guy—the kind of sun-bleached, generically appealing look that worked well in high school hierarchies, devoid of the sleazy vibe often associated with anime blondes.
(The Hayama Hayato template)
But Akira knew handsomeness was a complicated currency. Sometimes, being too polished created distance, made you seem unapproachable. True appeal often lay in vibe, not just features. Akira rated himself as 'passably handsome if he kept his mouth shut.'
The problem was, keeping his mouth shut negated his greatest (and often most troublesome) asset. His verbal combat skills, while unpolished, were his primary weapon.
Before Sumitomo could press further, Akira deftly parried. "If you want to know about that, you should ask the Class Monitor. Why come to me?"
On cue, Asato Hitomi seamlessly entered the fray, pulling the aggro onto herself. "Kuroha-kun is right. We're about to have lunch. Please don't make a scene in the classroom, Sumitomo-kun."
Her tone was polite, but the dismissal was absolute.
Sumitomo Ryota froze. The final, fragile thread of his composure snapped. He knew, with a certainty that burned in his gut, that Akira's 'club bento' explanation was a lie. The others might buy it, but he knew.
Based on his long, childhood understanding of Asato Hitomi, she would never, ever voluntarily cook for a club. Cooking was a duty to her, a checkbox in a future bride's training manual—a skill to be mastered, not a joy to be shared.
Therefore, his brain, warped by jealousy and a self-constructed narrative, arrived at the only conclusion that made sense to him: Hitomi was being forced to do this.
Perhaps by overbearing parents… perhaps by a pre-arranged fiancé…! The thought was intolerable.
"Hitomi!" The name burst from him, too familiar, too raw for the classroom setting. "Don't make bentos for him anymore!"
The words hung in the air, heavy and presumptuous.
Then, everyone saw it. Asato Hitomi's smile—that constant, gentle, class-monitor mask—vanished. It didn't fade; it was switched off. The temperature in their corner of the room seemed to drop several degrees. The true meaning of her smile's absence was a language every student understood intuitively: You have crossed a line.
Oh, buddy, Akira thought, offering a silent, internal nod of respect to Sumitomo's impending doom. You just stepped on a landmine. A high-yield, personality-sensitive landmine.
"Sumitomo-kun." Her voice was quiet, clear, and devoid of all warmth. "You are overstepping. Who I choose to make a bento for is my concern alone and has nothing to do with you. You are disrupting our lunch. Please leave our sight immediately."
The air grew sharper. This was no longer a social skirmish; it was a royal decree.
But the Class Monitor wasn't finished. She delivered the coup de grâce, wielding the same phrase Akira had used, but infusing it with a devastating, personal precision.
"And let me ask you," she said, her eyes cool and direct. "Just who are you to me? Why should I listen to you?"
Crunch.
If Akira's earlier use of the phrase was a playful smoke bomb, Hitomi's was a scalpel, cutting directly to the heart of their non-relationship. The damage was instant and visible. Sumitomo Ryota's face flushed a deep, mortified beet red. His jaw clenched so tight it looked painful.
"Ugh…! I am your…!" he choked out, the words strangling in his throat.
He wouldn't—couldn't—say 'boyfriend.' That was a fantasy even his arrogance couldn't voice. The word he groped for, the word from a simpler past, was 'friend.'
But it stuck. The childhood certainty was gone. Was 'friend' even accurate anymore? The chasm between his perception and her reality had grown too wide. In this moment, under the weight of her icy gaze, he realized the terrible truth: he might have just burned the last bridge, ensuring they could never even return to being that.
He stood there, silently grappling with the emptiness where his retort should have been, exposed and deflated before the entire watching class.