Stealing Spree

In the end, Kanzaki gave me a blank stare instead of answering my question. But with the golden rule of ‘silence means yes’, I still considered that as getting my confirmation.

However, the price for asking her that question turned out to be Kanzaki putting down her pen and ignoring me for the rest of that period.

Was it worth it? Perhaps… It did clear up my head a bit, after all. I also didn’t say it out loud so she’s safe if she still wanted to hide it

Back during the 1st week of this school year, the girl asked me to help her with the topic of kissing. I did give her a lesson once, advising her to build up the mood before going for it. However, it didn’t work. The boy is a coward to take the first step and he even had the gall to break up with her.

Even if Kanzaki had some flaws in how she approached their relationship like asking another guy for help, I still found her ex to be the one most lacking. He’s another kind of coward like Ogawa. Kanzaki was even more ballsy than him despite being the girl in their relationship.

And recently, as if what he did was trivial, the guy was asking the girl to start over…

I could call him an imbecile but I never heard about his side so I’ll save him from that. Either way, I couldn’t care less. If my closeness to Kanzaki ignited his jealousy, that’s not my fault anymore. Furthermore, if he ever decides to mess with me just based on that then he better have the balls to do it. Make sure he wouldn’t come out as pathetic as Ogawa.

As for Kanzaki… Well, I still had no idea what to do with her. I would probably need to see what she’s going to do next.

After the 7th period, I remained in the classroom as one of the six on the Cleaning Duty. Unfortunately, none of my girls were on the same schedule as me.

Due to that, I tried acting normally and worked on my task without bothering the others.

Well, ‘tried’ because I failed. Perhaps as an extension of what happened earlier before the start of the fifth period, two of three girls, as well as one of the other two boys, crowded around me, asking me questions about my relationship with Chii and the other girls that were linked to my name.

The two girls were Kashiwagi, Wakaba’s friend who’s helping Aya, and An-rin, one of the two gyaru friends of Chii. As for the boy, it’s none other than Hashimoto of the Game Club.

The ones who didn’t crowd around me were Kanzaki and the baseball guy…

That’s weird, no? I thought Kanzaki was the one coming up with the arrangement of our Cleaning Duty schedules but… she wouldn’t intentionally put herself with her ex, right?

However, there’s a possibility that she accounted for my existence…

If I looked at this carefully, accounting for everything that happened… it would seem that Kanzaki was using me.

Or she planned to use me to make her ex jealous.

I mean, with what happened less than an hour ago, she probably shelved the plan to stick close to me during this time. Also, she probably had no idea that these three would crowd around me.

Although one could argue that I was overthinking and assuming things to reach that conclusion, I wouldn’t boast to be having high observation skills if I didn’t notice the slight nuances in the girl’s actions these past few days.

Anyway, since she changed her mind, I busied myself with my task and answered the three without letting out so much as a clue.

“Onoda-shi, are you sure you’re not making our Chizuru dance in your palm? Fukuda’s quite irked with her closeness to you, you know?” An-rin asked. She’s a gyaru with a darker tone of makeup than the other one. Her shoulder-length hair was done up with a side-tail. She’s also taller than Chii but her body build was too thin. Instead of being too intimidating, I found her rather playful in her questioning.

“Well, I won’t deny our closeness but what does Fukuda have to do with that? Is he Chii’s boyfriend?”

Upon hearing my answer, An-rin exaggeratedly put a hand on her forehead as though she was thinking. A while later, she dramatically sighed.

“Aiyaa~ I’m stumped, Onoda-shi. You totally don’t care about Fukuda, huh?”

“Not that I don’t care about him but he shouldn’t even be mentioned in the first place. They’re friends and he helped her from what I heard… but their relationship didn’t go beyond that, right?”

“Isn’t Fukuda crazy about her, Onoda? Is it not obvious to you?”

Instead of An-rin, it was Hashimoto who raised that question. Kashiwagi, on the other hand, was just listening at the side while wiping one of the desks. Half of her attention was turned to us though. The girl was scooping up information coming from my mouth. Something that could probably help Aya. That’s cute… It makes me wonder how they would react if they found out about Aya’s real relationship with me.

“Obvious or not, that’s not the point, right? Anyway, shouldn’t you all go do your task? I’m about to finish mine.”

Even if he became obsessed over her just like Ogawa, I wouldn’t care too much. That guy already lost. There’s not even a fight because, in the first place, Chii remained hung up on me. Even when I didn’t know her previous identity as the first girl I stole, she was keenly watching my every move.

But I guess I could thank Fukuda a bit. Because if not for the trouble he’s supposed to be facing, Chii wouldn’t reveal who she was to me.

Upon hearing that, Hashimoto had a rather dumbfounded look. Most likely, he’s in a state of disbelief that I didn’t even react too much to Fukuda.

As for An-rin, she laughed and slapped my shoulder before walking off to do her task.

When the two left, Kashiwaga walked in my direction and said something, “You’re turning out to be more interesting with each passing day, Onoda… Poor Aya-chan might lose the race.”

“Don’t worry. I like Aya as much as the others.” Before she walked off, I answered like that. The girl turned her head back to me, her round eyes wide like saucers before putting on a meaningful smile.

“Just a friendly advice, Onoda. Be careful fishing on two rivers… you might not catch anything.”

With that, Kashiwagi went to the back of the room and started wiping the desks from there.

Her advice is pretty understandable but it’s way off from the current situation we put ourselves in. It’s not just two rivers…

Ten minutes later, we finished our tasks and began leaving the classroom one by one to go to our respective clubs.

I was arranging the contents of my bag when someone walked next to my desk. Judging from the rather bountiful bust that first blocked my view, I didn’t need to guess who it was…

“Do you need something from me, President?” I looked up and saw Kanzaki’s pair of glasses glinted from the faint light from the sunset reflected from it.