ʟᴏᴠᴇ ɪɴᴅᴇx

(5.0%) - ᴛʀᴏᴜʙʟᴇᴍᴀᴋᴇʀ

I weakly stabbed the tofu in my lunchbox with my chopsticks, feeling a little sick.

It wasn't because the food was bad, but because of the environment I was in. It had been a good week since school started and by today, Karma's suspension was over, thus allowing him to go to school again.

I thought that the talk about him would die down after Asano and Ren stood up to me on my first day, but now that people had seen the two of us walk to school together, it seemed like it was a hot topic to drag my brother and E-class in general once again. I hated how my classmates would frequently trash talk him whenever I was around, knowing fully well that it would bother me.

Ren and even Asano had intervened occasionally, offering to get them to stop talking about it, but I waved it off. I didn't want them to get in trouble for sticking up to me, and honestly didn't mind them staying quiet as long as they didn't participate in the gossiping themselves. Although I had to admit that the constant shit I was getting for the things my brother has done was slowly starting to get on my nerves.

"Gakushu, are you coming to the council's office later?", I heard Ren ask while he was putting away his school materials. The lessons were over by now, and most of my classmates had left the room already. The only reason I was still there was because I was waiting for my brother to return from the E-class building located behind the mountain quite far away from the main building. A glance at the quest list told me that there would be a special event triggered by waiting for him after school, so I decided to do as suggested.

"Yes, but I'll have to visit the teacher's office first. You can go ahead", the strawberry blonde replied, having already gathered all his belongings and zipped his bag up. He was holding the clear folder labeled "student council" in his hands, and I assumed that he was going to show its contents to one of the staff members in the office.

He turned to me, taking me by surprise and looking me right in the eyes.

"Goodbye, Y/N-san. I look forward to seeing you at school again tomorrow."

I was silent for a moment, completely stunned by the fact that he was specifically talking to me. Then again, I was the only one left in the classroom and his seat neighbor, so not saying anything was probably a rather rude thing to do.

I nodded, waving at him and sending him a smile. He reciprocated my gesture and turned around again, moving to the door to leave the room. Before the two council members left, Ren waved me goodbye as well, not missing the opportunity to wink at me. I giggled at his overly flirty behavior and wished them a good day before diverting my attention to my half-eaten lunch again.

The constant comments I had to endure during lunch break completely stripped me off my appetite, thus leaving me with quite an amount of my meal leftover. It really amazed me how these people never got bored of ridiculing E-class.

I took a few bites out of the tofu stew I made for dinner yesterday and included in today's lunch too before I packed up my things and stood up, deciding to head out as well. Since it was Karma's first day back at school, I made him a lunch box as well, which he gladly accepted. I made a mental note to ask him about how he liked it later.

Checking that I hadn't left anything at my seat, I nodded to myself and slung my bag over my shoulder. Since the janitor would be locking up the rooms later, I made sure to close the door properly so that he knew there was no one in the classroom anymore.

I casually strolled through the school building, admiring the beautiful sight of the campus in the reddish light of the setting sun.

Just when I turned I corner, I noticed someone coming from the direction I was heading into and stepped aside as to avoid bumping into them.