Stealing Spree

“So, Jun-kun is here for Ishida-san! How can you…?!” The ringlet girl cast a finger toward Ishida-senpai before looking as though she’s about to cry out.

Just by putting Ishida-senpai in her sight, she immediately drew her own conclusion about what happened or why that guy was here.

Furthermore, the ringlet girl also seemed to disregard my existence next to Ishida-senpai. Even if the girl was holding onto my sleeve, trying to pull me with her, only Ishida-senpai got registered in her eyes.

Uh. Normally, I would be pleased to not be noticed like that, I wanted to be Classmate A, right? However, I couldn’t help but be annoyed at this situation.

Before that Ichihara could say something in his defense, I raised my hand and opened my mouth at the same time. “May I say something, senpai?”

On my side, Ishida-senpai was stumped, she whispered something like, ‘Don’t be involved with them, Onoda-kun, let’s just go.’.

I ignored it and lightly shook my head.

“Hmm? Who might you be… junior-kun? Must you interrupt your seniors’ discussion?”

Because I high-key raised my hand to get her attention, the ringlet girl finally put me in her eyes. Furthermore, as if what I saw from her earlier was an illusion, her near-bawling expression returned to normal.

Her tone sounded polite but the words she used were slightly condescending. But that’s fine.

Respecting one’s senior was something ingrained in everyone in this country. One should know their place, right? That’s how it was, be it in schools or workplaces.

Although that kind of mindset was slowly becoming outdated, it’s like a custom that everyone was following everywhere.

“I apologize for the interruption, senpai. But Ishida-senpai and I are only doing an activity for our club. Can you not… include her in your lovers’ quarrel? Or whatever you're doing. Ichihara-senpai there only tried to start a conversation. Nothing else happened.”

Upon hearing that, the ringlet girl was astonished. Her eyes then looked at Ishida-senpai first before turning to Ichihara, seeking confirmation.

Knowing that the guy dreaded her existence or at least, her obvious clinginess, I surely added that last part – which was in no way false – to put the fault on his head.

From what I saw and heard, the girl thought that Ichihara was flirting with Ishida-senpai.

Instead of letting her blame the situation on the girl who was not to be faulted at all, I threw the blame stone to the ‘I am cool and handsome guy’ Ichihara who’s currently tongue-tied because of her appearance.

“M-marika…”

“Ah! So, junior-kun is telling the truth! You p-playboy!” With her nose flaring up as though it was blowing smoke, the girl clenched her fist and kicked the guy’s shin before storming off the library.

Ichihara looked at me, his eyes narrowing to a slit, perhaps marking me as troublesome, before chasing after the girl. The book in his hands dropped to the ground.

Once they left the vicinity, murmurs and stares were showered to us or specifically, to me, by the library dwellers. It’s as if they saw an unbelievable scene of a side character misleading the heroine to get mad at the protagonist.

At least, that’s how I interpreted that.

“Y-you, I told you not to be involved with them.”

On my side, Ishida-senpai still held onto my sleeve with her voice a little shaky.

Just from that alone, it’s easy to understand that that couple’s identity is special.

“Hmm? Senpai, will you have me stand here and let you be persecuted by her Highness Ringlet Curls? I only told her the truth.”

Although I said that in a not-so-loud volume, I heard gasps of amazement from the same library dwellers.

“You shouldn’t call her that. Kujou Marika is special.”

“How special?”

“Ugh… Let’s go out of here first and talk somewhere else.”

Perhaps uncomfortable with the stares coming from her fellow third years, Ishida-senpai dragged me out of the library and went somewhere to talk about the identity of that couple.

I get that they’re popular. But then, I could blame my lack of information about them on the scrapping of my plan to investigate the whole school for my possible targets. The change in me quickly happened which made my spare time for that to be lacking.

In any case, I was already planning to expand my knowledge about everything that’s happening in school as part of my new position in the Student Council. Even without this incident, I would surely be aware of them, given their popularity and the exceptions made for them in our school’s library.

-

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“Here, senpai.”

After getting two cans of soda from the nearest vending machine, I returned to Ishida-senpai who was sitting on a shaded bench near the tennis court.

We could hear the members of the tennis club practicing and a few students were watching them from outside their caged court.

“T-thank you.” Ishida-senpai grabbed the can, opened it and drank half of it in one gulp. I sat down next to her and also started drinking mine.

She already finished telling me the information about that couple and we were just here taking a break before going back to the clubroom.

According to her, Ichihara was one of the most popular guys in their year. He’s cool, handsome and a certified chick magnet. With the number of third-year classes more than double than the first years, his admirers couldn’t be counted on a human’s fingers. It certainly exceeded twenty.

However, despite his popularity, he was like an unattainable treasure because of the existence of that girl, Kujou Marika.

She’s from another powerful family that’s not based in our city. She transferred here from Kyoto during her first year. All to chase after that guy…

Apparently, they were promised to each other and she moved to make sure that they could foster their feelings for each other, for the sake of not having a loveless marriage.

Marika has a number of followers who are protecting her fight for that ‘love’. That’s why most girls were averse to interacting with Ichihara, in fear of being targeted by those followers.

Unfortunately, Ichihara isn’t someone who will want to be tied to only one girl. He kept on chasing every girl that caught his eye. Despite the girls being wary of getting involved with them, using his skill with words as his looks, some still fell for his charms.

Obviously, he’s also aware of those followers so he also created his own to counter them, to let him have that freedom to chase after girls.

Kujou-senpai, on the other hand, had this positive outlook that Ichihara wouldn’t cheat on her and her followers were reassuring her that she was correct with that assumption.

And that’s why her reaction was like that when I told her that it was Ichihara who approached Ishida-senpai first.

“That’s crazy.” I blurted out after finishing my soda.

“I know, right? But most of us are already used to ignoring them and getting out of their way. Kana also caught his eye before but with Kenji being there for her, he backed out.”

Oh… That Kenji gets some points for that. Now it’s my turn to protect her from that guy.

“I see. Now, you also caught his eye, senpai. And I… messed up, right?”

“You certainly did. However, if it’s you, I doubt you’ll be bothered by it… Thank you for standing up for me there.”

That’s true. I didn’t really care about their popularity or followers. If they went after me then… it’s easy.

“Well, I was itching to punch that guy in the face by interrupting us. Seeing him scrambling to that Kujou-senpai gave me the same satisfaction.”

Hearing that, Ishida-senpai burst into laughter.