← The Studious Boy and the Secret Account Girl
Volume 2
Chapter 20: Puff Out Your Chest Arrogantly - Part 1
Chapter 20: Puff Out Your Chest Arrogantly – Part 1
“Always so noisy. She consulted me, saying she couldn’t keep up with the classes lately, so I was just teaching her.”
Kicking back his chair, he stood and declared it arrogantly, chest puffed. He put strength into his throat and jaw so his voice wouldn’t tremble.
Glaring through his lenses, he intimidated his classmates.
It wasn’t a quarrelsome, raised voice, but the students who sensed the heavy irritation within saw their gazes focus on Tsutomu.
The reactions varied.
Some showed open displeasure at Tsutomu’s sudden intrusion while they’d been toying with Matsurika.
Others, conversely, were amused. It was just when the two of them had become the talk of the class.
In any case——
—Huh, nothing much after all.
Tsutomu and his classmates.
Less than two months had passed sharing a classroom, and they’d never shown mutual interest before… but whatever feelings they held, none were enough to trouble him. The school idol Matsurika showed signs of minding people’s eyes, but to Tsutomu, the presence of classmates carried no more meaning than the background of everyday life.
Matsurika, too, turned around and cast stunned eyes at him. Her pink lips trembled faintly.
The emotion held in those wide-open pupils, he could not read.
“Heh, so Gariben does teach if you ask. What a good guy. Then do you mind teaching me too?”
The girl who’d been harrying Matsurika tossed out a provoking line.
Her mockingly condescending tone plainly looked down on Tsutomu. The basis for it was unclear.
Her face wasn’t in his memory, but she wore an expression that ground relentlessly on his nerves.
“Refused.”
“…Why’d you say no so fast?”
Chastened by the refusal, given without a second glance, the girl turned to counter, not hiding her irritation.
“What would I gain from teaching you?”
“W-what kind of thing is that to say! Then, does teaching Matsurika gain you something good?”
“What would I gain by answering that to you?”
“Wha!?”
The girl, who’d been interrogating Matsurika and challenging Tsutomu, flapped her mouth open and shut.
She’d evidently not imagined such a direct answer would come back.
No need to spell it out, but there was a clear benefit for Tsutomu in studying with Matsurika.
If he were a boy, anyone would hit on it at once. In fact, a few were nodding.
Getting close to the beauty-contest winner and school heroine.
For a high-schooler in the thick of adolescence, what else would you call a benefit?
Conversely, to the girl he’d refused without hesitation, he was effectively declaring he felt no such attraction whatsoever.
There was that nagging stuff about harassment being a problem lately. There’s an unspoken understanding that one shouldn’t say such things so plainly. Tsutomu ignored it.
He didn’t deliberately ignore it—it was just his nature from the start. He had no intention of playing the good guy.
Tsutomu was a face-worshipper, and he changed his approach depending on the person. It wasn’t a praiseworthy attitude, but he had no intention of hiding it. He’d only not answered because he hadn’t been asked.
Even now, he didn’t tell because he wasn’t asked. If pressed, it’d be a hassle, so he changed the subject with a feigned air.
“I’ve heard there are a lot of you whose grades are stalling. Rather than poking around in such worthless things, why not do some review?”
Looking over the classroom, those who felt they had a hand in it hung their heads awkwardly.
Some of them cast resentful, upward-looking stares from the floor.
He let out an ‘hmph’, a single snort, and such gazes scattered away.
“Hey, aren’t you getting on your high horse?”
“Having your privacy trampled in public—for you to say that to me, I have no right to be told it.”
He said such a thing, but in truth Tsutomu didn’t know what sort of person the other was. The information he had about this girl was, in fact, only what he’d just heard from Shiro.
He was poor at remembering the faces and names of people he had no interest in. In this classroom, beyond Matsurika and Shiro, none were in his memory.
“…A Gariben with no talent beyond your notebook, what are you being cocky for?”
He’d been aware for a while that the term ‘Gariben’ carried a contemptuous intent, but until now he’d left it alone.
He’d thought it didn’t matter. Now it did matter.
Because Tsutomu was already regarding this girl, whose name he didn’t even know, as an ‘enemy.’
No, not a foe worth the name. No more than one of the bothersome obstacles, like the teachers writhing in the staff room.
Sensually, it was no different from those rare black bugs that sometimes appeared.
—Hm.
He’d been all set to do something about it—then he felt a wrongness in her phrasing.
This girl at least recognized the usefulness of Tsutomu’s notebook.
The meaning of ‘no talent beyond your notebook’ is…
“That way of talking… by any chance, have you been using my notebook?”
“That’s got nothing to do with this.”
A quick, eager reply came back.
It looked like a bullseye. Anxiety surfaced on the girl’s face.
This girl was a user of the ‘Gariben Notebook.’
—I see. Then it’s simple.
An idea to crush this girl on the spot was built up in his mind.
Casting a glance at Shiro, the friend who grasped the situation, lightly nodded back.
Tsutomu and Shiro’s acquaintance wasn’t short, so there was no need for extra words.
An eye-contact was enough.
“I see. Then I won’t sell you the notebook anymore, ever.”
Once, Matsurika had called the ‘Gariben Notebook’ ‘supplying salt to the enemy.’
At that time, Tsutomu had no notion of any classmate becoming an ‘enemy.’
Now it was different. This girl was an enemy. I see, there was no need to supply salt to an enemy.
“Go ahead, do whatever. Unlike the loner you, I have real friends.”
Scoffed at.
Quite an attitude in front of the creator (and ringleader)… though actually, there was no agreement about lending the notebook on, or anything of the sort. So her reaction wasn’t altogether off the mark.
Even if Tsutomu said he wouldn’t show this girl the notebook, she could obtain it through other routes.
He hadn’t forgotten Shiro telling him before that ‘the notebook has spread further than we know.’
—Well, she’d say that, of course. I dug my own grave, I suppose.
This reaction was anticipated.
Whether Shiro had anticipated it, he couldn’t say.
In any case, the situation moved to the next stage.
“Hm… then, I won’t show the notebook to anyone anymore.”
“Eh?”
“If I show it to no one, you can’t see it.”
Adjusting his glasses, he hid his up-curled mouth corners with his palm.
At the sudden declaration of the end of the ‘Gariben Notebook’, Shiro, who’d been nodding along until a moment ago, went wide-eyed.
The classroom fell silent as if water had been poured over it. To everyone, the meaning of Tsutomu’s words seemed hard to grasp.
“Sorry, Amakusa. That’s how it goes—the notebook’s finished.”