Yukinoshita-senpai didn't mind her going after Senpai.
It really did look like Yukinoshita-senpai had no feelings for him whatsoever.
But if Yukinoshita-senpai ever learned what made Senpai special — that superpower, that Hypnosis, that…
Yukinoshita-senpai would absolutely be interested!
After all, in a world this peaceful and stable, something as miraculous as a superpower had turned up.
Even a girl as free of wants and desires as Yukinoshita-senpai would have to be curious.
No — it was more accurate to say that a cold beauty like her, frigid toward the outside world, seemingly without a single want or need, was exactly the sort whose depths were flooded with fierce longing for that outside world.
An ordinary woman might go in for a glittering life of neon and wine, but Yukinoshita-senpai was surely not that shallow. Definitely not.
As a daughter of the Yukinoshita family, one of Chiba's great houses, she had grown up in silk and fine food, never lacking for anything. Ordinary things could no longer satisfy her.
It was precisely an ability as far outside the normal as Senpai's — and the thrill that came with it — that might spark her interest and stir something in her.
The paranormal in a placid world. Not many women could resist that.
She, Iroha Isshiki, certainly couldn't, not in the slightest. And that was exactly why she had never once let up in chasing after Senpai, never once wanted to slow down or stop where she was.
Yukino Yukinoshita had long since gotten used to Iroha Isshiki's forwardness.
This particular underclassman had been harboring improper designs on Lin Ye from very early on.
Back when there was nothing of that sort between her and Lin Ye, she hadn't cared.
But now she and Lin Ye were lovers, engaged even, and yes, part of her did want Iroha Isshiki to keep some distance from him. And yet, even after Lin Ye had turned the girl down again and again, even after he'd made his distance perfectly plain, nothing had changed at all.
Which made Yukino Yukinoshita realize that stepping in herself wouldn't shift Iroha Isshiki's mind either.
Worse, it would make Iroha Isshiki start questioning her feelings for Lin Ye, questioning the nature of their relationship.
Since she had no plans to reveal that relationship yet, Yukino Yukinoshita decided the right move was to act as though nothing at all were going on and simply ignore it.
Someday, when the time was right, they could make it public.
That was where Yukino Yukinoshita's thinking stood.
The pink bun, meanwhile, swayed between them, watching.
She had been dreading a fight breaking out in the Service Club — some spectacularly vicious catfight.
But she'd been overthinking it.
Yukinon really didn't have any feelings for Student Lin after all. The two of them were just ordinary classmates.
Oh, Lin Ye!
She knew Lin Ye liked Yukinon, but Yukinon clearly wasn't interested in him. And Student Isshiki was interested in Lin Ye — very, very much so, so much that she'd dragged Yui into it — and Lin Ye showed no interest in her either.
Which proved Lin Ye genuinely felt nothing for Iroha Isshiki. So unless some very unusual event down the road changed his view of her and made him warm up, the odds of Student Lin falling for Isshiki were close to zero.
That put her mind at ease — at least she wouldn't have to become Lin Ye's girlfriend alongside Isshiki — and yet it left her a little deflated too.
Did she and Iroha Isshiki really have no appeal at all, even combined?
As far as Lin Ye was concerned, was Yukino Yukinoshita truly the only one he liked?
Ahem — well, no. Lin Ye himself had said he also liked Mai Sakurajima, and that he wanted Yukino and Mai both as his girlfriends at the same time.
Which was pure fantasy.
Compared to Yukino, Mai Sakurajima was a huge star — obviously even less winnable. He wouldn't even get the chance to try.
After all, Mai Sakurajima was far away in Tokyo, with no point of contact with Lin Ye at all. Even if he did like her, how would he ever say so? How would there ever be anything between them?
So on that front, Lin Ye really had no choice but to give up.
Yui Yuigahama honestly thought he'd be better off pursuing Yukino.
But day to day in the Service Club, she didn't actually see him pursuing Yukino either. At most there was that one meal they'd gone to after school a couple of days ago — that probably counted, sort of?
Yui Yuigahama turned it all over in her head, and gradually let it go.
On the rooftop of Sobu High, Rui Tachibana and her sister Hina Tachibana were eating lunch.
The two sisters liked eating up here where nobody came, since it made talking easier.
There were seats in the staff office, but with other teachers around, some topics were hard for Rui Tachibana to raise. As a student facing teachers, she felt the pressure naturally, and Hina Tachibana had her own reservations too.
"Sis, eat a little extra for lunch today."
Looking at the extra bento sitting in front of her, Hina Tachibana understood what had happened.
"Did Student Lin turn down your bento?"
"No. He just didn't come to school today."
"He didn't?"
That worried Hina Tachibana a little. He'd been hauled off by the Eldest Miss of the Yukinoshita family — surely nothing had gone wrong?
"I asked Student Yukinoshita. She said Lin-kun is fine."
"Mm. If Yukinoshita says so, then Lin Ye must be all right."
Hina looked at the bento in Rui Tachibana's hands and went on, "Such a shame, though. Lin-kun doesn't get to taste what Rui made for him today."
Today's lunch was the most lavish one she'd ever put together.
Hina knew her sister had prepared it with such care because Lin Ye had become her boyfriend.
Unfortunately, Lin Ye hadn't shown up at school.
"Next week will do."
Click…
Rui Tachibana opened the bento box. "We can't waste it. Eat more, Sis."
She portioned out the dishes and rice from Lin Ye's box, then picked up her chopsticks and started eating.
Hina Tachibana looked down at her own bento box, packed so full it was nearly overflowing, and felt the pressure mount.
Because her sister had taken a grown man's appetite into account, the portion prepared for Lin Ye was far bigger than what a girl would eat.
Which meant today's lunch came to roughly double her usual amount.
"If I eat all this, I won't need dinner."
One meal was doing the work of two.
"No. You can eat less, but you can't skip it," Rui Tachibana insisted.
Irregular meals were an easy road to stomach trouble.
Skipping dinner once in a while wasn't a big deal, but if it could be avoided, it should be. That was how Rui Tachibana saw it.
"I'm way over on calories today."
"Going over once in a while is fine. You're pretty thin as it is, Sis — eating more would do you good. Men don't like women who are all skin and bones."
"That's not true at all. Men love thin women."
"They don't."
"Yukinoshita counts as thin, doesn't she? And that's exactly Lin Ye's type."
Rui Tachibana: "…"
She had no idea how to answer that.
"Ha! So, Rui, you'd better keep the figure you've got. Put on weight later and Lin Ye will break up with you."
She still didn't understand how her sister and Lin Ye had come together, but right now she was happy about it.
As for how far the two of them could go — that was another question entirely.
Naturally she hoped they'd last, that they'd walk into marriage and go hand in hand for life.
"Sis, instead of worrying about me, worry about yourself. You still don't have a boyfriend. I have no idea when you'll finally find someone so I can have a brother-in-law."
A critical hit.
An absolutely devastating one.
The corner of Hina Tachibana's mouth twitched and kept twitching.
She'd never imagined her usually shy, reserved sister could come out with something so brutal.
And every blow landed right on a vital spot, which only made it worse.
"I'm working on it. Working on it."
"Just don't end up like Hiratsuka-sensei — thirty already and still nobody."
Hina Tachibana: ???
That one hit for a full one hundred percent.
It was the single greatest shock she'd suffered since the day she was born.
"That won't happen. It won't. How could I possibly end up like Senpai, still single at thirty? Absolutely not. I'm young, I'm gorgeous, there are plenty of men who'd want to chase me."
Hina Tachibana pumped herself up, cheering herself on, blessing her own future.
Because she was afraid.
Afraid of truly following in Shizuka Hiratsuka's footsteps.
Hiratsuka-sensei always acted like she didn't care, but the sighs that slipped out now and then told Hina that Hiratsuka-senpai was nowhere near as serene as she pretended.
Deep down she still wanted a partner, still wanted to build a family.
So because of Shizuka Hiratsuka's example, Hina Tachibana was far from as calm as a woman her age ought to be. There was a small knot of anxiety in her, a sense that she really should start taking marriage seriously, that she needed to feel a little urgency.
Otherwise these years would blur past, and if she ended up unable to find a man with decent prospects, she'd truly be miserable.
Was Hiratsuka-senpai not pretty? Was her figure not good enough? Her family, her job, not good enough?
Obviously none of that was the problem.
The problem was clearly Hiratsuka-senpai's age, which meant the men with good prospects gave priority to younger women.
That was the reality of how society worked.
For a man, his assets mattered most. For a woman, her age and her face.
She was still fine on age now. But drag it out a few more years and the situation would look very different.
And by then, honestly…
Hina Tachibana shook her head and stopped thinking about it.
Let things take their course, with just a little initiative added. That was where she landed.
"Good luck, Sis. Because what you just said sounded like a whole pile of flags to me."
Hina Tachibana: ???
True enough, maybe, but wasn't that going a bit far?
Her sister really had changed.
Ever since she got a boyfriend, her whole manner was different.
Hina Tachibana sighed to herself.
Still, it was a good thing overall.
The only question was whether her sister and Lin Ye could keep going, all the way to marriage.
She didn't know. And she didn't have much confidence about it either.
Meanwhile, elsewhere.
Once half of the lunch break had gone by, Shizuka Hiratsuka came to the Service Club.
Lin Ye's situation had been nagging at her. The iron fist, served hot, wasn't really the main issue; mostly she had a certain amount of suspicion about that guy refusing to come to Sobu High.
She was worried his condition was actually bad — at the very least not good — because otherwise, wasn't skipping class today just wrong?
The kid had racked up plenty of skipped classes and leave requests these past few months, but at bottom he was still a good student, wasn't he?
"Probably…"
Shizuka Hiratsuka considered it.
Thinking carefully about Lin Ye's recent behavior — the leave requests, the skipped lessons, all the rest of it — she couldn't see any of that as something a good student would do.
And yet she didn't feel he was a bad student either.
She had no idea how to grade him anymore.
In any case, confirming that her student was safe was non-negotiable.
Shizuka Hiratsuka knocked on the Service Club door.
Knock, knock, knock…
"Come in."
Yukinoshita looked at the teacher standing in the club doorway.
She could guess why she'd come.
"Yukinoshita, done with lunch?"
"Mm. Sensei, if you're here to ask about Student Lin Ye, I can tell you he's fine. He's doing well."
"If he's fine, why didn't he come to school today?"
"He's afraid of your violence, Sensei."
In an instant, the piercing stares of Iroha Isshiki and Yui Yuigahama converged on Shizuka Hiratsuka.
Those looks sent a chill down her spine.
Being watched like that by her own students was genuinely uncomfortable.
"Don't spread nonsense. I'm a civilized woman. I never resort to violence."
"Do you actually believe that yourself, Hiratsuka-sensei?"
"Ahem, ahem — of course I do. I've always been exactly that kind of gentle teacher."
Yui Yuigahama laughed awkwardly. She had certainly never heard a single piece of gossip about Hiratsuka-sensei being gentle; the rumors that circulated about her were almost entirely about her age and her violence.
Though since she only ever used it to scare people, it hadn't caused any real damage.
At the very least, Yui had never personally experienced Hiratsuka-sensei's violence.
"Student Yuigahama."
"Eek — Sensei, Sensei… is there something you need?"
Suddenly addressed by Shizuka Hiratsuka, Yui Yuigahama went stiff with nerves.
The teacher wasn't about to do something to her, was she?
She hadn't done a single thing wrong.
"Nothing."
But the smile on Shizuka Hiratsuka's face only made Yui Yuigahama more uneasy, and her nerves wound tighter.
"Sensei, if there's something, you can just say it. I'll fix it."
"There isn't. Really, there isn't."
Yui Yuigahama still couldn't relax; she kept worrying that something was wrong with her.
Only when she saw that Shizuka Hiratsuka wasn't pressing further did she gradually settle down.
Shizuka Hiratsuka's attention returned to Yukino Yukinoshita. She'd had a fair amount of contact with this ice-cold girl of Sobu High.
Compared to her sister Haruno she was colder, yet in practice she was easier to deal with. Or so Hiratsuka had thought — now she suspected dealing with her wasn't much easier at all.
"Yukinoshita. The truth, then. The real reason he won't come to Sobu High."
"He doesn't want to," Yukinoshita said. "Beyond that I don't know either. You could contact him directly, Sensei."
Hearing that, the corner of Shizuka Hiratsuka's mouth twitched. If she could reach Lin Ye, what would she be doing here?
"Give me your phone. I'll call him."
Yukino Yukinoshita thought about it, took out her phone, but didn't hand it over.
She dialed Lin Ye's number, and after a few beeps the line connected.
"Student Lin, good afternoon."
The moment he heard what she called him, Lin Ye knew exactly what the situation on her end was.
"Good afternoon, Student Yukinoshita. Is there something you need?"
"There's nothing I need."
Yukino Yukinoshita's gaze shifted to Shizuka Hiratsuka, who had come to stand beside her.
Shizuka Hiratsuka reached out and took the phone. "It's me. Still got me blocked after all this time, still haven't let me out. You've got some nerve."
Indeed.
To this day, Lin Ye still had Shizuka Hiratsuka's number on his blacklist.
"Ahem — Sensei, I forgot, I just forgot. I've had a lot going on today."
"Oh? A lot going on. Doing what, exactly?" Shizuka Hiratsuka shot back. "It's a school day. If you're not in class, what are you so busy with?"
"Resting," Lin Ye said. "I wasn't in great shape today, so I took the day off to rest. I'll take you off the blacklist in a bit, don't worry."
That did nothing whatsoever to move Shizuka Hiratsuka.
"What are you doing right now?"
"Out having lunch."
Lin Ye had in fact gone out to a nearby restaurant. Once he finished, he had to bring a portion back for Haruno Yukinoshita.
Haruno Yukinoshita wasn't in the best physical condition today — that morning Lin Ye had given her another quick round of punishment.
So when it came to lunch, Lin Ye had gone out and handled it himself.
"I'll come find you at your place after school."
"…"
"What, you don't want me to?"
"It's not that. I'm out today, and I'll be back late."
"Then I'll come see you tomorrow," Shizuka Hiratsuka said.
She was determined to see Lin Ye as soon as possible.
But Lin Ye turned her down again.
"Sensei, I've got things on this weekend too."
"Things again? Why are you so unwilling to see me?"
"Sensei, I really do have plans this weekend. They were set a long time ago."
"What plans?"
"Going to Tokyo."
"To do what?"
"To look at pretty girls. Mai Sakurajima, for instance. Mai Sakurajima, obviously! Oh, and Ai Hoshino too. I'm going to Tokyo to look at pretty girls."
That left Shizuka Hiratsuka at a loss for how to respond.
The expressions of the other three in the Service Club shifted too.
Iroha Isshiki in particular was pouting.
She was a beautiful girl too, a pretty girl, and Senpai had never once made a special trip just to see her.
As for him going to see Mai Sakurajima and Ai Hoshino, she assumed he meant some kind of fan event — a meet-and-greet or a handshake session.
In fact, she suspected he was simply making up an excuse to fob Shizuka Hiratsuka off.
After all, things between Lin Ye and Shizuka Hiratsuka weren't exactly good at the moment.
"Chiba's beautiful girls aren't pretty enough? You have to go all the way to Tokyo?"
"Tokyo is the most bustling city in Japan."
"Oh? Yukinoshita isn't pretty?"
A faint, barely-there smile played at the corner of Shizuka Hiratsuka's mouth.
Yukino Yukinoshita, hearing this, remained perfectly composed, not a ripple in her expression.
"She's pretty."
"In that case, hurry up and come to Sobu High School and look your fill."
"I can look next week too. There's plenty of time."
"Come now, and Yukinoshita might forgive you for going off to look at other girls this weekend."
"It's fine. Yukinoshita already knows."
That caught Shizuka Hiratsuka off guard.
She hadn't expected Yukinoshita to know about this, or for Lin Ye to have told her himself. That wasn't normal, was it?
This was the sort of behavior that lost you points with the girl you liked, and Lin Ye had done it anyway. That was… that was really something.
Shizuka Hiratsuka could no longer make out what Lin Ye's true attitude toward Yukinoshita was.
He liked her, but had no intention of pursuing her?
Beyond that, she honestly couldn't come up with any other possibility.
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