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Chapter 40: My Fiancée is Rumored to be…

TL: lime
ED: Spynine01

Winter vacation goes by so quickly.

Hopefully, winter vacation will make a comeback once again sometime soon…

With such an unfulfilled wish in mind, I walked into my first class after a few weeks.

If it’s the end of a long summer vacation… Areh? What’s changed, you ask? There’s a possibility that some students may have changed after the break. [ED: as far as I’m concerned this is supposed to be the so-called summer image change, where after summer, one person who used to be very gloomy would suddenly have an image change and be all cheery. That’s the best I can explain it.]

However, in the short period of the winter break, there would be no such students present, and our class looked no different than the time before winter break began.

“Good morning, Isshiki-kun.”

When I took my seat, Shijo Sumire, the Angel of Affection and Elegance, who was sitting next to me, greeted me in the morning.

There was no change in her cute angelic appearance prior the winter break.

“Good morning――hmm?”

There was no change in Shijo herself, but I could see a small amount of blood coming out of her hand.

“What’s wrong with your hand?”

“――Eh?”

When I pointed it out, Shijo looked at the index finger of her left hand and said, “Ara,” as if she had just noticed it herself.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s like you lightly cut it somewhere.”

“I didn’t notice that at all.”

Laughing, Shijo pulls out her favorite multi-case from her blazer pocket and takes out a bandage.

“――Areh… Good thing…”

She couldn’t seem to wrap the bandage properly with one hand, so I took it from Shijo and wrapped it around the wound.

“Ah… Thank you.”

“Hard to do with one hand, isn’t it?”

She laughs and pulls her phone out of her pocket, and then suddenly, I felt something poke me on the back.

“Hmm?”

I turned around to see that Shiori, who usually wears her headphones in the morning to read, had her headphones around her neck today and her book was planted on her desk.

She silently looked at me with her palm.

“Um…”

I stared at her beautiful palm, not understanding what she meant.

“――Astonishing…, your fortune today is great! It will be a day where everything you do will go well.”

When I said something to her, she said, “Okay,” and withdrew her hand in a slightly angry tone. She then put on her headphones and began reading.

I guess she wasn’t looking at her palm…

What the hell did she want from me?

I guess it’s safe to say that since she had entered her own world of reading with her headphones on, she no longer had any business with me.

I looked forward and started to play with my phone when I heard a familiar handsome voice saying, “Kojiro.”

I looked up and saw Touma standing beside me, looking just as handsome and fresh as his voice. I hadn’t seen him in a few weeks, but his face was still in good shape.

“Touma. Good morning.”

“Good morning. ――I don’t think this is the time for such leisurely exchange of greetings though.”

“――? What do you mean?”

Touma, still adjusting his glasses, said, “You’ll see,” pointing with his thumb toward the classroom door, where several boys from other classes entered our class with great bravado.

“Nanasegawa-san!”

One of them, who looked like the leader from the pack, came to Shiori’s seat and called her out in a loud voice.

She seemed to have heard it even through her headphones, so Shiori took them off and asked moodily, “What?” She asked in a bad mood.

“Did Na-Nanasegawa-san really spend her Hatsumode with a man――is it true!?”

His words stunned Touma, who shone his glasses and adjusted them again.

Shiori answered after a silent pause.

“I didn’t.”

She replied sullenly and briefly and immediately went back to reading her book.

The boys were relieved by Shiori’s attitude and left the classroom saying,

“That’s right.”

“I’ve been able to talk to Nanasegawa-san in the new semester!”

“I can’t believe she’s so cool with us!”

“She’s an angel!”

That was clearly annoying――but if that’s how they see it, I’ll leave them alone.

“Are you sure you haven’t been there with her?”

Touma asks me in an implied way.

“No…”

I don’t know what to say about it…

I don’t want to tell a lie to Touma. ――Or rather, even if I did tell a lie, it would be immediately obvious to him.

However, if I answered honestly, I would be teased to the end of the earth.

When I was thinking about it for a while, a helping hand suddenly came from behind me.

“There are different types of Hatsumode in the world.”

Shiori spoke to Touma and continued.

“There are also different types of heat strokes: sunstroke, heat cramps, heat exhaustion. These days, people say that they have a heat stroke, but heat stroke is a generic term for all of them. The same applies to New Year’s visits. There are “toshikoshi mairi” to “ni-nen mairi”. They didn’t ask me exactly what I went to for Hatsumode, so I just answered like that.”

She is in a really bad mood, huh…

With a rare long sentence coming out of her mouth, she put on her headphones and went back to her own world.

Isn’t that a pretty crappy theory?

“――W-Well… If Nanasegawa-san says so. That’s right.”

Even Touma didn’t seem to be pursuing the matter too deeply after that.

“What was that――?”

They’ve already left the classroom, but as I stare at the door, I mutter to myself without needing to tell anyone, and Touma picks it up.

“Ah. They must be the fan club people.”

“That’s… I’ve heard rumors, but I’ve never really seen them before.”

“That’s them. I wonder what they will do when they find out that Kojiro is Nanasegawa-san’s fiance.”

Touma said with a laugh.

“Hey. Don’t threaten me just because I’m someone else.”