Chapter 7: Arc 1, Ch.7: Math monster

With the book in hand, I went forward to the reception, quickly solving the issue before hurrying back to my class before the break around noon was finished.
My friends were still lazing around Kaoru’s table and one of them gave me a short wave when I entered the room.
“Got your book?”
“Yeah, I was lucky.”

I pulled over an empty seat and leaned on the windowsill to take a look at what my friends - and a considerable number of girls and even some guys - were watching.

The unmistakable figure of Taizou was standing in the yard, in front him our just as unmistakable student council president. Tall, handsome, athletic, intelligent, light brown hair and green eyes. You get me.
I didn’t like him with the dislike of a commoner seeing a prince. He was a nice guy, I was just purely annoyed at seeing how perfect he was compared to me.

The girls were excitedly whispering.
“They look so good together! I hope someone downstairs takes a photo!” “Don’t you think Taizou is quite nice towards the president? Especially recently? I’ve got a feeling they’ve grown even closer.”

Tarou rolled his eyes at them and whispered. “Rotten minds. Though I gotta say, Taizou is darn good-looking. Lots of guys are eyeing him, too. Even a straight guy might turn gay for- yeouch!”

Yuji threw his elbow into Tarou’s sides without a comment, earning a confused glare but ignoring it. I was staring down, as well.

“Do you think they actually are in a relationship? I mean, the president sticks quite close to him whenever they’re together”, Kaoru wondered. “The girls would love it.”
“My sister would, too”, I mumbled into my hand. That had them snickering.

“She’s a fujoshi, too? You never mentioned that. Does she have, mangas and shit?”
“Noo, another beauty with a rotten mind”, Tarou lamented. I slapped his head. “Hey! Why am I getting hit so much today?!”
“Because you’re being stupid”, Yuji kindly explained. I switched the topic back to my sister.

“Dozens of them. Also, she watches the anime, too. If you thought walking in on your sister changing is awkward, try walking in on her watching yaoi.”

They snickered at me again.

“I don’t understand the fascination”, Tarou mumbled with a frown.

I cleared my throat, straightened my back and repeated Haru’s words with acted fervor: “It’s the taste of forbidden love, the pain and suffering, the awkward moments when they realize their feelings for each other, the running heartbeats and flushed faces-...” I halted, finishing with a deadpan face. “Also, eye-candy.”

Their laughter attracted the attention of the girls, who glanced over to us with raised eyebrows. I hushed my friends with a grin. “Be quiet, people are starting to look over.”
“Oh god, I love your sister”, Tarou laughed. “Great impression of her. At least she’s honest.”

Kaoru shrugged. “I like seeing pretty lesbian couples, too. I guess it’s similar.”
“Oh, on that note, I’ve just found a great-” Another elbow for Tarou from Yuji. He really was getting hit a lot.

Suspicious, I opened my system entries and scrolled to Yuji. Normal friends didn’t have the additional info button, but the system was kind enough to add a small exclamation mark next to the points bar. I opened it immediately.

[Note: Has observed interaction between host and target in the library. Feelings of uncertainty on how to avoid topics and behaviour patterns that might make the host uncomfortable might result in character behaving unnaturally for a while.]

…

“Yo, Riku?”
A hand waved in front of my face and I jolted out of it. Tarou was sticking his face right in front of mine and I pushed him away.
“Good to see you’re still here. What were you thinking about?”, he asked against my palm in his face.

“Uh, nothing”, I awkwardly said, hunching in my seat.
Kaoru pressed the taller Tarou under his arm. “Don’t stick your ugly face so close to him! Now he’s all frightened!”

They were joking, but my smile twitched.
Holy shit, awkward. Yuji was frowning next to me and now I understood why. As he debated on whether to say something, I spoke up.

“If you were pretty, I wouldn’t mind, but you really aren’t that nice to look at up close”, I teased Tarou who gasped in fake offense, looking at me with a ‘How dare you’ face.

I wasn’t sick or anything. Any topics and behaviour I was uncomfortable with, they already knew and had gotten used to avoiding. Just like how we all avoided talking about Kaoru’s family or complain about Tarou being fussy with food. We were friends. We already knew how to treat each other and I didn’t want Yuji to suddenly change.

“How about meee~” Kaoru purred with a coquettish wink. I placed a hand on my chin and took on a mustering look. “Your eyes aren’t quite the same height, that’s minus points. Also, your nose-”
I rambled for a while until Kaoru faked sad sobs, throwing himself into Tarou’s arms. “Aah, us average guys have to stay together.”

“He has no right to call us out on that. He looks like this when his siblings are…”, complained Tarou wistfully.
I knocked them on the heads with my heavy philosophy book but grinned. Slowly, Yuji began to relax next to me and play along again.

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“Yeah, I’m still the best looking out of us four”, he declared, acting like he was flipping back his hair and staring at us with a condescending gaze.
I’d say it was Kaoru, but he had a more adorable, squishy look rather than handsome, so I guess Yuji was right.

The girls next to us rolled their eyes at our childish behaviour, but we didn’t care. Shipping people wasn’t exactly mature either, ah!
I enjoyed that kind of stupid messing around. The system had started dimming out a bit whenever I didn’t need it, so it didn’t obstruct my view or disturb me. I had a feeling it was adjusting a bit depending on my needs, which was a nice update.

Even during the last lessons of the day, I used my phone to write messages into our group chat below the table. That good mood I was in, I wanted to keep it if possible.

After all, exams were coming closer and closer and I was starting to stress out even worse. Daichi could help me with most things, but he was a natural at math. He didn’t understand how I couldn’t understand what I didn’t understand. But it’s math. I just didn’t.

After an exceptionally bad day with an exceptionally bad math lesson, I had thrown my notes to the ground. A stupid idea, because the window was open and it was windy.

I was gathering my renegade paper that had gone out of the window in a corner of the school courtyard, groaning at the numbers and letters all over the pages. Stupid subject, stupid teacher, stupid me!

“Math isn’t made for humans! Who even understands this shit!”, I shouted in annoyance, slapping my hands into my face and letting out all of my irritation “UGHHH!”

“Me”, a voice said behind me, stopping my outburst. I turned my head and peeked through my fingers. This area of the courtyard wasn’t used often but it was still a valid area to be in, especially if you wanted to be alone.

Lo and behold, the target love interest crush appeared.

I cannot explain the pure panic and awkwardness that froze my body from head to toe at being seen screaming like that. I was looking at him with wide eyes and a dropped jaw, the imaginary sweatdrops on me amassing with every second.

Thankfully, Taizou was being a nice guy. He had a raised eyebrow but allowed me to take a valid ten seconds to gather myself before I managed to stutter out a reply. Or maybe he wasn't even waiting, since he was still walking forward, but that was my interpretation of it.

“W-what?” My voice went up and down, but I was happy that any voice came out at all.

Taizou passed by me, walking to a tree not too far from me where he threw his bag on the ground. “Math can be cheated through with enough memorizing.”

But!!! I’m bad at memorizing!!!

While my inner self was throwing a tantrum, I resigned myself to gathering the rest of my papers. I’m not saying I didn’t think about asking him for lessons the moment he said that, it’s just that I didn’t think he’d agree. We weren’t that close.

Still, the image was nice. I loved the sound of his voice, so the thought of hearing him talk for a longer amount of time was incredibly nice. When he talked neutrally like just now, his voice was just smooth and almost soft.

Have I mentioned he’s got four stars next to his name by now?

“Are you interested in striking a deal?”, Taizou suddenly said, causing me to stumble over my own feet in the middle of turning while bending down, nearly greeting the ground with my face and just barely managing to keep myself up in a surely very beautiful and elegant maneuver.

“A, a deal?” What, with me? What did I have that would be useful for him and that none of the other hundreds of students had?
I was crushing my paper, but I didn’t care. Hey, I looked like a mess anyway, no use trying to hide it.

I watched Taizou purse his lips - a very nice movement, might I mention, but he could probably do anything and I’d enjoy watching - and tilt his head. Being watched by his dark eyes, I began to fidget.

“You need a math tutor?” - Damn right I did. - “Well, I need an excuse.”

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