← The Studious Boy and the Secret Account Girl
Volume 2
Chapter 22: In the Library After School
Chapter 22: In the Library After School
On that day, with the midterm exams soon at hand, the after-school library received a large number of students and was bustling.
This room, with its vast collection and study space, considered by location and feel to be a frontier zone within the school.
Every desk being filled by students was a sight that, on any ordinary day, would have been virtually impossible.
The librarian, who always seemed free, was humming a happy tune.
While everyone else glared at their textbooks and reference books, pens racing across notebooks, a desk in a far corner sat empty.
One student, arms clasping a bag, advanced thinking it a lucky break… then mid-step, gave a sharp ‘hic!’ of breath and did an about-face.
To where he’d hurriedly cut his gaze—a boy and girl sat facing each other.
They had notebooks, textbooks, and reference books spread across the desk, and occasionally the boy answered the girl’s questions, teaching her.
From a distance it looked like a fine page out of youth, yet an atmosphere hung about them that made one hesitate to approach.
The girl was a famous figure whom no one in the school could not know.
The beautiful girl ‘Tachibana Matsurika’, with her splendid black hair reaching her waist, too-refined features, and a perfect figure.
The boy was a famous figure, though there might be some in school who’d never heard of him—actually he was famous.
The grade-topper ‘Kariya Tsutomu’, with his roughly short-cut black hair and sharp eyes behind his glasses.
Both second-years, and classmates of each other, they were working hard at their exam studies.
…On the surface.
“You know, maybe I didn’t need to go out of my way to hide it.”
Stopping the mechanical pencil she’d been racing rhythmically across the notebook, Matsurika grumbled.
Tsutomu traced the movement of her lips with just his eyes, then returned his gaze to his work.
From the side, he looked as though he were silently, single-mindedly attacking his reference book.
“I mean, are you listening? Kariya-kun, you went too far. I’m grateful for the help, but really.”
Though she said ‘grateful’, the school idol made no attempt to hide her displeasure.
She furrowed her neatly shaped brows and pursed her pink-glossed lips.
Even that expression, she was a girl picture-perfect enough to make one forget to breathe.
“You’ve all but made enemies of everyone, you know.”
“That’s not—”
“‘Doesn’t matter’ isn’t allowed.”
“Mmm.”
Pressed quickly before he could speak, Tsutomu had no answer.
That he thought ‘doesn’t matter’ was no lie, though.
He’d put a stop to his classmates, who’d tried to dredge up his relationship with Matsurika, by threatening the halt of the widely circulated Tsutomu-made notebook, the so-called ‘Gariben Notebook.’
He’d thought the matter settled, but Matsurika, refusing to accept Tsutomu’s handling, offered criticism at every turn.
Tsutomu’s having other students use his notebook was one of his long-term strategies, with his future in view.
There was no denying that abandoning the impression-feedback system he’d spent over a year building could greatly affect his plans.
That said, even if it fell through, it wasn’t a mortal blow.
Because he could just figure out another study method for his entrance exam.
So he was fine, no problem——
“Talk like that… everyone will think you’re the type to threaten people using your notebook as a shield.”
Matsurika, who’d been staring steadily at the composed Tsutomu, let it out with a sigh.
Strong displeasure oozed from every edge of her words.
“It’s not wrong.”
It wasn’t begun with that intent, but if it could be used that way, that was fine too.
At that time, he’d felt great meaning in protecting Matsurika’s reputation.
He didn’t think he’d misjudged the moment to play his card.
“But… couldn’t there have been a more peaceful way?”
“A peaceful way, huh. There might have been, but nothing came to me in the moment. What were you planning to do, Tachibana?”
“Eh, me? Uh, hmm.”
Resting the end of her pencil against her chin, Matsurika let her gaze wander into the air.
Uncharacteristically for a school idol, she seemed to be hesitating over her answer.
Had they left it as it was, the girl who’d started it (whose name he couldn’t remember) would certainly have pressed her attack, emboldened.
Tsutomu’s decision, as the one who’d commenced the situation—to respond instantly and crush her. And to make a wide example of it.
He could also expect it to deter the other classmates, to cut off future trouble.
Aside from having soured Matsurika’s mood, it seemed to have settled in a form close to the best.
“It ended up working out. Wasn’t that for the best?”
“Hm~, I’m not convinced.”
“What’s so unsatisfactory about it?”
“What’s unsatisfactory… you made everyone misunderstand.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah.”
Even told they’d been made to misunderstand, he couldn’t recall anything in particular.
In the end, it had been settled by the story that Matsurika, too, was worn out by the rising difficulty of recent classes, and had come to have the grade-topper Tsutomu teach her.
‘It’s gotten harder since second year, hasn’t it,’ ‘Matsurika’s having a hard time too, huh,’ ‘If it’s Kariya, then no choice,’—that’d been the drift, he remembered.
“What I’m angry about… is because of Kariya-kun, you know.”
“Because of me?”
“Yeah. You genuinely wondering that—it’s so like you, Kariya-kun!”
“…”
“That way of doing things isn’t good. You don’t have to deliberately draw hate like that…”
“That was the quickest way.”
Matsurika’s studying under Tsutomu.
Tsutomu’s giving up the notebook business.
These two weren’t actually related to each other.
He’d only dealt a flashy blow to distract from the bothersome pursuit.
Just as expected, the other students who’d used the ‘Gariben Notebook’ interposed, and he was able to muddle it over.
It had only been a stopgap, and a stopgap was all it needed to be.
The opponent was, to begin with, the school’s strongest heroine, ‘Tachibana Matsurika.’
If making an enemy of her, one should either proceed with careful preparations under the surface, or create an atmosphere to concentrate the attack.
Unless conditions were exceptionally favorable, one shouldn’t touch her. A slip would only add enemies.
Such things, anyone would understand at a common-sense level.
Hence, no one would bring up the topic that had lost momentum and fizzled out.
The classroom was back to peace. No problem.
“But then, if Kariya-kun gets hated by everyone, there’s no point.”
“I was never liked to begin with. It’s no different from before.”
“Hey!”
Matsurika leaned forward.
His gaze was drawn to her overwhelming chest.
Her soft swell seemed to sway back and forth.
As he swallowed his saliva—a shock to his forehead. Not painful.
A white fingertip poked Tsutomu’s forehead.
“Where are you looking?”
“I’d rather not say it out loud in a place like this.”
“…That’s the thing about you, so like you, Kariya-kun.”
Matsurika cast him a skeptic gaze.
From somewhere far away, a coughing sound came.
A library assistant was issuing a wordless warning.
“Tachibana, quiet in the library.”
“Ugh, honestly!”
Puffing her cheeks, she plopped back into her chair.
He blatantly stared at the receding chest, a shame, and got thoroughly glared at.
“Anyway, the real Kariya-kun, he’s lewd and nasty and lewd and nasty, and…”
Matsurika kept repeating ‘lewd’ and ‘nasty.’
He was aware it wasn’t wrong, so he didn’t correct her.
Being drawn to the sexual parts of an attractive woman is instinct.
It’s not a problem reason can fix.
Though sexual impulses, perhaps, should be hidden in public, there are things people can do and can’t do.
“Ah, wait… being feared, almost at the point of being cool?”
Matsurika, tilting her head, muttered softly.
At the far-too-much of a thing to be called a comment, he choked on his words.
Tsutomu had his pride. To be defiant, he deliberately made his voice low, vibrating his throat.
“What do you intend by asking me that?”
“…”
“Your hand’s stopped.”
“…You got me.”
“Did you say something?”
“No-thing.”
“Then study. The exam’s soon.”
For ‘Tachibana Matsurika’ to be taught by ‘Kariya Tsutomu’ was by no means strange.
Thanks to that atmosphere having been fostered in the classroom, and by extension the school, they could interact directly without minding people’s eyes.
For better or worse, boys and girls of Tsutomu’s age read the room well.
Even without logical connection, once one makes people feel ‘somehow, that’s right,’ the matter is as good as settled.
“On the matter of the Kariya-kun who tells me to ‘study’ not studying the exam scope himself.”
Matsurika, still in a bad mood, muttered.
Just as she said. Tsutomu’s reference book was opened to a section taught in the third term.
While watching over Matsurika’s studies, he’d been doing his own at his own pace.
“I’ve always been like this, you know.”
In all his born days, he’d never once done exam cramming.
If he did his daily prep and review properly, there was no need to cram for a test.
Even if he scraped through a test with all-nighters, the knowledge wouldn’t stick unless it settled into his head.
When he told her that, the school idol shook her head in an exaggerated fashion, as if to say ‘no help for it.’
With her head swaying back and forth, her glossy black hair traced a beautiful arc in the air.
“This is why Kariya-kun is…”
—That’s unfair.
He didn’t counter.