The only pity was that this time, Shizuka Hiratsuka-sensei had worried about the wrong person.
The one who'd gotten hurt wasn't him, Lin Ye. It was Haruno Yukinoshita.
Right now Haruno lay on the bed with her eyes shut, still out cold, without the faintest sign of waking.
Exhausted in body and mind, she wouldn't stir for hours.
"Contact me sooner next time."
That one sentence from Lin Ye stirred something in Yukino.
Such a simple show of concern, and it made her see her own mistake. She could have reached out to him the moment she sensed something was wrong, instead of dragging it out until now.
And now the bentos had gone cold.
Yukino could eat hers well enough. It was just that she hadn't wanted Lin Ye eating a cold bento.
"I understand. I will."
"Mm. That's the obedient girlfriend I like to hear."
Yukino shot him a flat look.
Obedient, indeed.
She was not that sort of girl.
She simply judged that this particular choice suited her needs. Nothing more.
That was what Yukino told herself.
And yet, in truth, his words left her with a warm sense of agreement she couldn't deny.
She seemed to have grown fond of this feeling.
Watching Lin Ye's figure out of the corner of her eye, Yukino walked along beside him, and somehow the space between them shrank a little.
Lin Ye took out his phone and sent Shizuka Hiratsuka a message first, saying he was fine and that she shouldn't worry.
But his phone rang almost at once. A call from Shizuka Hiratsuka.
Exactly as he'd expected.
He answered after only a moment.
"Sensei, good afternoon," Lin Ye said.
"Good? What's good about it?"
Shizuka Hiratsuka was brimming with resentment.
Displeased. Extremely displeased.
"Is Haruno beside you?"
She asked that first. If Haruno was there, she'd have to assume Lin Ye was under threat.
"No."
"Good. I'm calling you on video."
The call ended quickly.
A video call came through right after.
Lin Ye accepted it without hesitating.
Looking at Shizuka Hiratsuka on the screen, he felt a flicker of gratitude and a larger flicker of helplessness. "Sensei, I really am fine. I'm with Student Yukinoshita right now."
He knew Shizuka Hiratsuka still had her doubts, and what he needed to do was put those doubts to rest.
He turned the camera slightly.
The girl with long black hair at Lin Ye's side came into Shizuka Hiratsuka's view.
Then he swept the camera in a full circle, bringing the whole surrounding scene into frame.
Shizuka Hiratsuka saw no sign of Haruno anywhere.
That set her mind at ease.
With Lin Ye and Yukinoshita out there alone, Haruno couldn't do a thing.
Shizuka Hiratsuka relaxed.
"All right. As long as you're fine."
"Then, Sensei, if there's nothing else, I'll hang up."
"What's the rush, brat? You'll have all the time in the world to date Yukinoshita later. What are you in such a hurry for?"
Whether that was teasing or genuine speculation, who could say. She had already filed Lin Ye and Yukinoshita's relationship under the heading of a budding romance.
At the very least, in Shizuka Hiratsuka's eyes, there really was something unspoken and charged between Lin Ye and Yukino Yukinoshita.
It was a teacher's instinct.
She had never dated anyone, had never even had that kind of ambiguous back-and-forth with a man, but a few decades of life had taught her to recognize the thing when she saw it.
"That's... Sensei," Lin Ye thought it over and went on, "even a little delay is still a delay."
Shizuka Hiratsuka: ???
This bastard really was something else.
"Next time we meet, prepare yourself mentally!"
"I'll resist."
"Resistance is invalid."
"I'll struggle."
"Struggling is useless."
Shizuka Hiratsuka shot down every option.
Lin Ye had no intention of continuing the nonsense. "Sensei, I'm hanging up."
"Before you do, tell me what Haruno wanted with you. Making a special trip to Sobu High to find you and drag you off, that's no small matter."
"It was nothing."
"You think I'd believe that?" Shizuka Hiratsuka shot back.
"Of course."
That left Shizuka Hiratsuka thoroughly stifled.
"Talk. Don't make me get rough."
"It really was nothing. And if you truly want to know, you should ask Miss Haruno."
"That woman's mouth is sealed shut. There's no way she'd tell me."
"I won't be telling you either," Lin Ye said, his tone calm and immovable.
Shizuka Hiratsuka asked again and again, but Lin Ye gave no ground, left not a single crack for her to pry at.
In the end she had to give up. "You just wait. Tomorrow, in class."
"Sensei, please relax. I won't be coming to class."
"You wouldn't dare."
"Sensei, I would."
"..."
"Sensei, goodbye."
With that parting line, Lin Ye ended the call.
That was enough. There was no need to keep the conversation going.
But the phone rang again almost immediately.
Shizuka Hiratsuka again. Lin Ye hung up outright, then added her to his blocked list for good measure.
"Lin-kun, is that really..."
Yukino had noticed him blocking Shizuka Hiratsuka-sensei.
Wasn't that rather inappropriate to do to a teacher?
She certainly wouldn't have done such a thing herself.
"It's fine. Shizuka Hiratsuka-sensei won't mind. I'll unblock her tomorrow."
He had never intended to keep his teacher locked out forever.
He knew, and Yukino knew, but he said it out loud anyway.
"Mm. Shizuka Hiratsuka-sensei is a good teacher."
"She is. She genuinely cares about her students."
For the past two months he'd been on the receiving end of Hiratsuka-sensei's care.
This was a teacher who didn't measure students by their grades. Any student who looked like they might be heading down a crooked path, she stepped in and guided, hoping to pull them back onto the right road.
She had stepped in for him more than once.
And this time, faced with the threat from Haruno, she had planted herself squarely in front of him.
The only pity was that she'd gotten one thing wrong. The one who'd been hurt this time wasn't him. It was Haruno.
The woman in question was still asleep on that bed, and when she woke she'd likely be so sore and limp she couldn't move at all.
And besides that, the punishment wasn't over.
What she'd taken so far was only the first stage.
Haruno would have to pay a heavy price for what she had done.
Lin Ye and Yukino kept walking toward the love hotel.
Then something occurred to Lin Ye. He shifted the bag to his other hand, and the freed right hand, the one nearest the girl, reached over and closed around Yukino's.
Her hand trembled at once, her body giving a small jolt. Her eyes flicked sideways for an instant, but in the end she didn't pull away. She let him hold it.
Here, now, with no one who knew them around, she allowed it.
After a few steps, though, Yukino spoke up in warning. "Not at school. Absolutely not."
Yukino Yukinoshita didn't care about other people's stares, but the moment she pictured herself holding Lin Ye's hand under all those watching eyes, embarrassment welled up in her again and again.
It was an instinct she had as a woman.
Even if she believed Lin Ye wouldn't hold her hand at school, what if he did?
Before, he'd only done intimate things to her in private places like the apartment.
Now they were out on the street. There might be few people around and no one who knew them, but what about the next step?
Would the next step be somewhere people who knew them could see?
Going by Lin Ye's pattern of taking a mile whenever he got an inch, Yukino thought it entirely possible.
She definitely didn't want that, wouldn't allow it. So all she could do was warn him in advance and tell him not to.
"I'll agree. But for one month."
"Hm?"
"For one month I definitely won't hold your hand at school. After that month, we'll see how things stand and decide whether the promise still holds."
Seeing how serious he looked, Yukino thought about it and agreed.
Who knew whether her relationship with Lin Ye would be public at Sobu High a month from now?
Even if it did become public, Yukino had no intention of letting him hold her hand there.
And yet, thinking it through carefully, she suspected that if he really did take her hand in the open, she wouldn't refuse all that firmly.
"All right."
So this time Lin Ye returned to the love hotel holding Yukino's hand.
The beauty in the room was still fast asleep, and gave no reaction at all to their return.
What she'd been through had left its mark absolutely, sinking her into a sleep so deep that sounds from the outside world barely reached her.
Lin Ye and Yukino kept their voices down and started on the bentos.
"That bastard actually blocked me!"
Listening to the busy tone on the other end of the line, Shizuka Hiratsuka knew exactly what Lin Ye had done.
She loathed it with every fiber of her being.
Of all the things in life, being blocked was the one she hated most.
And that brat had the nerve to do it.
Shizuka Hiratsuka was about ready to explode.
"Hiratsuka-senpai..."
A voice broke in.
A familiar female voice.
Shizuka Hiratsuka looked toward it and saw her junior colleague.
"Hina, it's you. What do you need?"
Hina Tachibana dropping by now and then was nothing unusual.
"I had a little free time, so I came to see Hiratsuka-senpai."
"And the truth?"
Shizuka Hiratsuka wasn't about to swallow that excuse.
One look at this junior of hers and she knew there was a purpose behind the visit.
"Well..."
"Out with it. If you don't say, I'll take it that you really have nothing to ask, and I won't tell you a single thing."
That left Hina with no choice but to give in.
She understood Shizuka Hiratsuka. Once the woman said something like that, failing to explain herself would leave her out in the cold for good.
"It's like this. I wanted to know how Student Lin is doing. I heard he was taken away by that Eldest Miss of the Yukinoshita home."
When Hina Tachibana had heard the news, worry had gripped her at once.
She'd sent Lin Ye a message too. He'd said he was fine, but she was still worried.
Given how much Shizuka Hiratsuka cared about her students, she was sure the woman would have more details.
"Mm, she took him. Something happened."
Shizuka Hiratsuka saw Hina Tachibana's lips start to move and cut in first. "And I don't know what. I asked too. Hina, why don't you give Lin Ye a call yourself? Maybe if a beautiful teacher like you asks, he'll come clean."
There was a distinct trace of insinuation and sourness in her words as she said it.
That tone left even Hina Tachibana feeling a little awkward.
"Senpai is a far more beautiful teacher than I am. I'm the one who's envious."
Hina Tachibana rushed to compliment her.
Shizuka Hiratsuka might be pushing thirty, but her figure and her face were both excellent. She could tell anyone she was twenty-five or twenty-six and no one would question it.
If she put out a marriage ad, men would line up by the dozens to apply, provided her age stayed off the listing.
At the age she was now, it truly was an awkward spot.
"Heh. Don't think I can't guess what you're thinking right now."
Shizuka Hiratsuka was intensely sensitive on the subject of age.
"Ahem, ahem, no, no, I wasn't thinking anything strange."
Hina shook her head hurriedly.
"I'll let it slide. Lin Ye is fine. But that brat is going to have a problem tomorrow."
Under Hina Tachibana's gaze, Shizuka Hiratsuka clenched her fist.
"Senpai, that's..."
"An iron fist, served hot. That bastard blocked me. He wouldn't even tell me what happened between him and Haruno, after all the concern I showed him."
For a solid minute, Shizuka Hiratsuka poured out her grievances without pause.
It made Hina Tachibana wonder whether her senior had reached that certain age, the lonely age where a person just needs someone to talk to.
Hina Tachibana listened patiently and offered agreement at the end. "Senpai, don't worry. I'll find Lin Ye afterward and make sure he apologizes to you properly."
As for the iron fist, it would be better without that.
She didn't raise the point now, though.
There was no sense in saying it yet. Later, when Lin Ye was actually present and Shizuka Hiratsuka went for the punch, that was when she'd step in and hold her back.
That was Hina's plan.
In the end, she never got around to asking her questions.
Knowing Lin Ye was safe was enough for her.
Leaving the Life Guidance Office, Hina went downstairs and found her sister, Rui Tachibana, waiting in the main hall of the school building.
"Rui, Student Lin is fine."
It was her sister Rui Tachibana's prompting that had sent her to ask Shizuka Hiratsuka-sensei in the first place.
"Mm."
"Since when are you so concerned about Student Lin?" Hina Tachibana teased.
She had been nudging her sister toward Lin Ye, sometimes deliberately and sometimes not, and had marketed Rui to him more times than she could count. But Lin Ye never bit, showing not a shred of interest.
And her sister was so cute, with a good figure and excellent cooking on top of it.
Compared to an unreachable blossom like Yukino Yukinoshita, her sister was worlds better.
Still, Hina knew that attraction and love were strange, unfathomable things.
That was how it went sometimes. Lin Ye liked Yukinoshita, and toward the sister he could have had with barely any effort, he harbored nothing at all.
So she'd stopped pushing and simply let things take their course.
"It's perfectly normal for me to care about him."
Her sister's answer brought Hina Tachibana up short, surprise spreading through her eyes.
"Why?"
"I'm his girlfriend. Isn't it normal for a girlfriend to care about her boyfriend?"
In that instant, Hina Tachibana's mind dissolved into complete chaos.
Her sister, Rui Tachibana, had become Lin Ye's girlfriend. This... what was going on here?
...
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