Even Today, the Genius High School Programmer Cashes In on Day Trades, Completely Flustered by Beautiful Girls' Growing Affection.

“Let’s Eat Lunch Together~”

“Five thousand five hundred yen in the plus… cutting it close.”

Lunch break.

I was late getting to the school store for bread.

Almost everything was sold out; the only thing left was this Vegemite sandwich.

Why the hell does the school store even stock something like this?

Is it a punishment game?

I scrolled through my phone with one hand, checking the morning session’s trading results.

The market had just bounced around in a box range all morning—up, down, up, down.

Tricky conditions.

I wandered back to the classroom in a daze when Shingo called out.

“Kousuke, let’s eat lunch together~”

“Yeah, sure.”

Normally I do solo lunches.

I used to eat with Shingo occasionally in the past.

But ever since he got a girlfriend, he’s been heading to her class to eat with her every day.

Seriously, I wish a helicopter would just crash into his house already.

“Hoーi. He says it’s fine.”

“Hm?”

There was some kind of commotion at the classroom entrance.

Three girls stepped in, wrapped in an indescribable aura.

The twin-tailed Yamano Hina from the other day, the gentle wavy-haired Ryuusenji Aoi, and the stunning Sakuraba Yukina—the top three beauties themselves.

“H-Hey.” I shot Shingo a low hiss.

“What’s up, Kousuke?” He was grinning like an idiot.

“You didn’t tell me it was going to be with them.”

I whispered so the girls wouldn’t hear.

“Eh? You said ‘let’s eat together,’ right? You never asked ‘with who.’”

This bastard… he set me up.

“N-No, it’s not like that! We—we’re the ones who asked to eat together.”

“Not ‘we,’ just Yukina, though~”

“Hina!”

Sakuraba and Yamano were already bickering.

“We still haven’t properly thanked you for the other day… So we thought maybe we could eat lunch together and talk. Aoi asked Makise-kun about it… Was that a bother?”

Sakuraba looked down, eyes peeking up at me with that perfectly pitiful expression.

That’s dirty… How am I supposed to say no to a beauty giving me that face?

“Kousuke, it’s fine, right?” Shingo delivered the final push.

“…Well, if it’s just lunch, sure.”

“Thank you so much!”

Her smile was blinding. Easily 100,000 candela.

“I always eat with Shingo anyway, so nothing really changes for me.”

“But eating with more people is way more fun, right~?”

Both Ryuusenji and Yamano seemed perfectly okay with it.

***

We pushed five desks together for a group lunch.

Eating lunch at school with desks shoved together like this… I’m pretty sure this is my first time.

I have zero memory of ever doing it.

Shingo sat to my right.

Sakuraba took the seat to my left.

I knew this was coming, but… the stares hurt.

Especially from the guys.

“Hey, the top three are here.”

“No way.”

“Who’s that sitting next to Makise?”

“Who even is he?”

“I know him. It’s Koyama.” It’s Ooyama, damn it.

Of course they’re staring.

The top three beauties from other classes just barged into our classroom during lunch.

“Once again… thank you so much for what you did the other day.”

Sakuraba spoke to me politely, bowing her head slightly.

“Ah, no—like I told Shingo too—if I’d just walked past that scene, it would’ve bugged me so much I wouldn’t have slept. I only did it for my own peace of mind. Really, don’t worry about it.”

“But I was so scared… I couldn’t even move my legs. That back alley… it doesn’t exactly have the best reputation. They were trying to drag me deeper in…”

That back alley… now that she mentions it, yeah.

There’s one karaoke place, and behind it is a stretch of adult entertainment shops and love hotels.

That’s why there was a police box so close by—it suddenly made sense.

Those guys had some real nerve picking up girls in a spot like that.

“Right, right! And then, out of nowhere, a brave prince on a white horse swoops in, grabs her hand, and rescues the princess, yeah?”

Yamano continued, twirling her twin-tails.

“The next weekend was insane~ They dragged us all out there too. Yukina was dead-set on finding that guy no matter what. We were desperately going around like ‘Please! Help us look for the prince—’ ‘Waaah—waaah—waaah—’”

Sakuraba suddenly short-circuited.

“A-Anyway! I just really wanted to meet you properly and say thank you!”

She shot Yamano a pouty glare. Even that looked adorable.

“But seriously, talk about hiding in plain sight. The prince was our classmate all along.”

“Just to confirm,” I cut in at Ryuusenji’s comment.

“From the way you’re talking… this ‘prince’ is supposed to be me?”

“Yep~ Who else would it be?”

Yamano looked at me like I was the slow one.

“Prince, huh…”

Now I was the one stunned.

Meanwhile, Sakuraba had gone beet-red and was staring at her lap.

“A prince takes the princess back to a grand castle, right? All I did was drag you to a police box.”