About the Cool Beauty in My Class Declaring She Won’t Eat Anything Except My Bento - 1

Chapter 1: Declared in Class

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As the fourth period ended and lunch break began, the entire classroom started to buzz with excitement. Their gazes were concentrated on a single female student.

The student’s name was Sumika Ayano. From the moment she enrolled, she had been a topic of conversation across every grade level as an incredible beauty. She had silky, straight black hair flowing down her back, neatly trimmed bangs, and refined features. Her large, doll-like eyes and small mouth looked as if God had drawn them with His dominant hand. A low, clear voice. A blunt attitude. And excellence in both academics and athletics. It had been quite a while since people had started calling her the “Cool Beauty.”

“Hey… Ayano-san is taking out a lunch box…”

“And isn’t that… homemade!?”

Almost all of her classmates let out cries of surprise at her. Their eyes were fixed on the lunch box spread out on Ayano’s desk. Why were they surprised just because she took out a lunch box? It was because, until today—a month after enrollment—Ayano had never once been seen eating lunch.

Even when asked for a reason, she would simply reply with her usual composed face, “I have a small appetite.”

Not only that, but Ayano had publicly stated during her initial self-introduction that:

“I live alone.”

“I am bad at cooking.”

Had she practiced her cooking? Or—did that cool beauty finally get a “man”? Regardless of gender, everyone in the class was dying to know the truth. There was no way they could stay calm.

“S-Sumika-chan… Are you eating lunch today?”

A girl who was close with Ayano asked on behalf of the class. The room fell silent, as if everyone were holding their breath.

“Yes. I would die if I didn’t take my meals, after all.”

“T-that’s true, but for you Sumika-chan, I thought that rules didn’t apply, or how should I put it…”

At Ayano’s perfectly logical comeback, the female student returned a perfectly logical reply.

“Even so, you’ve learned how to cook, Sumika-chan. I’m so impressed. To be good at studying, good at sports, and then to be perfect at cooking too… Honestly, it’s nothing short of admirable—”

“This isn’t actually my own cooking.”

Thinking there was some sort of misunderstanding, Ayano flatly denied the girl’s words.

“…………Eh?”

Voices of confusion and disappointment leaked out from across the class, primarily from the male students. Silence enveloped the classroom as if the air had suddenly frozen solid.

“I am still quite unskilled at cooking.”

She frowned and gave a self-deprecating, bitter smile. She had intended to prevent wrong information from spreading, but it only served as a further blow to the male students.

“Th-then, who made it for you…?”

Into the classroom stilled by excitement, despair, and curiosity, the girl’s question—which cut to the heart of the matter—was dropped like a single plop of a water droplet. The male students’ shoulders twitched in reaction like ripples on the water’s surface. Everyone in the class—no, even the students who had already caught wind of the rumor and gathered in the hallway—strained their ears for Ayano’s answer.

The school was wrapped in such a state of soundlessness that one might hallucinate that all noise had vanished from this world.

“Even if you ask me who…”

However, Ayano, completely unfazed by the peculiar atmosphere, turned her head to the side and extended her index finger.

“It is the boy right here, you know? Right, Kirihara-san?”

She clearly spoke the name of me, who had started pretending to be asleep just moments before. The classroom, which had merely been silent, instantly froze over. It was enough to feel a chill. It was as if this place alone had been whisked away to a polar wasteland.

Well, of course. A guy like me didn’t stand out much, and I was someone whose interactions with Ayano were essentially zero. If I weren’t the person in question myself, I’d be surprised too. I absolutely couldn’t lift my head, but I could feel acutely that the class’s gaze had shifted from Ayano to me. I was even getting goosebumps.

It took a good several dozen seconds for the classmates to process Ayano’s words.

“Hey, what does this mean!?”

“Kirihara-kun!? You’re awake, aren’t you, Kirihara-kun!?”

“Hey, defendant! Don’t sleep during your trial!”

“Wait, wait, what kind of relationship do you have with him!?”

“What did you do to… to my Ayano-san, AHHHHH!!!”

Words from my classmates began to flow all at once like a great river tearing through a sheet of ice. A level of noisiness that even the legendary Prince Shotoku couldn’t have parsed dominated the classroom in an instant.

Reaching the ears of me, whose face was buried in my arms, were voices asking questions in excitement and a barrage of insults… 

Wait, isn’t it mostly just insults? Ah… I’ve done it now…

Keeping my eyes closed while desperately suppressing the urge to go home immediately, I recalled what happened five days ago, when I spoke to Ayano for the first time.

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