After Saki's gang's failed attempt, the rest of that school day went normally. There was no teasing from Ayaka either, since she didn't even know about the aforementioned event.
The following school days, however, were filled with several more attempts. It started with a retry of the muddy water trap, again noticed by Kenji and stopped, with Saki running off angrily.
Their next plan was to mess with Kenji's bag while he was in the disciplinary committee office, but they couldn't even find it.
The one after that was to humiliate Kenji by sending him a fake love letter. They thought it worked when Kenji opened it, but then he just threw the letter away (since there wasn't the name 'Saki' in it). Kenji later thought he should have at least replied "no" to the sender, but he hadn't even read the letter before throwing it away, so he didn't know what was supposed to happen. Since nothing did happen, he let it go.
The last attempt was filling a box with cockroaches and giving it to Kenji. When Daiki handed it to him, however, Kenji just disposed of it normally without even flinching, let alone screaming in fear as they had hoped he would.
Today, Saki's group had nothing planned—they were already exhausted. It was the break before the last class of the day.
"Why don't we hang out after school today?" Yume suggested, since it was Friday.
"Yeah..." Saki said tiredly, and Daiki just nodded.
◆◇◆
Elsewhere, Kenji was finishing up his other tasks. Although Saki's group had been busy with traps, they were rather quiet these days. They almost always had their appearance correct (except for Saki's skirt), and they weren't even caught smoking.
And so, classes ended. After that, Kenji finished his remaining work and went to the Disciplinary Committee office. Inside, only Ayaka was present, doodling in a notebook.
"Oh, hello Nakayama-kun!" she greeted Kenji.
"Hello, Hayashi-senpai," Kenji greeted back.
"Any new developments?" she asked with a smile.
"Whatever you're talking about, no," Kenji replied.
"Boo!"
"..."
After that, Kenji and Ayaka just worked on their respective tasks. Kenji even ended up finishing his math homework in the office. It was already quite late by then, so Ayaka and Kenji left together.
"I'd recommend trying to be more active." "Does she like potatoes? I do." "Try giving her some gift." "Have you ever read Horimiya?" "Why don't you slip 'The moon is beautiful tonight' to her? Do you know what it means?"...
On the way until Kenji left the school grounds and they split ways, she kept pestering Kenji with questions and suggestions, to which he just nodded and said "Hmm."
◆◇◆
Elsewhere, Saki's group was just chatting in a field when another group of five older students—probably college age—approached them.
"Hey kids! Whatcha doing here?" the group leader said to them, directed at Daiki.
"What does it matter to you?" Saki replied.
"Hey pretty girl, don't speak when boys are talking. It's dangerous," the guy replied with a smirk.
"Ugh," Yume made an audible sound of disgust as Daiki said to the leader, "It appears to me you're more of a girl than anyone else here, jerk."
"Huh. Looks like these children need to learn some fucking manners," the leader said to Daiki as the other students agreed.
Soon, the confrontation escalated from mere words to physical attacks. While the fight wasn't exactly what the college students expected due to Yume and Saki's unexpected fighting ability, their higher number of fighters meant they were still winning.
While they also got hurt, it was clear Saki's group was in more trouble. That's what Kenji saw as he walked past the fight.
Seconds—that's the time it took Kenji to drop his bag and jump into the middle of the now one-sided fight.
After stopping the attacks of the college students, he just stood between Saki's group and them. Both sides stared at him before the college group's leader spoke. "Now who the fuck are you? Their actual leader?!"
"No, I'm—" before Kenji could continue, Saki cut him off.
"No! That's a fucking stalking bastard! Don't you dare call him one of us!"
Hearing this, Kenji felt hurt, but he didn't let it show.
"So why the fuck did you interfere?" the guy said.
"This is a warning. Any further attack on me or any of them—" Kenji pointed to Saki and her friends "—will be seen as a threat, and I will respond in self-defense."
"Huh???" the guy said before continuing to charge in with a punch. Kenji easily determined he wasn't trained much.
It was a one-sided beating from Kenji to the college students. Saki, Daiki, and Yume just stared at Kenji as he dealt with them without receiving a single injury.
The college group ended up running away, screaming, "We'll remember this!!"
After that, Kenji turned around to face Saki's group just as Saki spoke with rage.
"Bastard! I knew you were stalking!"
"I was not. I just happened to be here," Kenji replied coolly.
"Bullshit! You just happened to be here, huh??" Saki retorted, pointing her finger toward Kenji.
"If I was stalking you, I would have interfered earlier," Kenji replied, which made Saki pause for a second.
"Whatever! Now what do you want? Want us to fix our appearance or something??? We're already out of school, so don't even think of trying to control us!"
"No. I know we're not in school. What I did has nothing to do with my work as a disciplinary committee member."
"Then what's your angle?" Yume interjected suspiciously. "Nobody helps for free."
"Especially not someone who's been making our lives hell," Daiki added, still catching his breath from the fight.
"Okay, then what the fuck do you want?" Saki demanded. "If you're thinking we'll thank you, in your fucking dreams! I'd rather die."
"No, but I will be taking payment," Kenji said. His initial plan was to leave without anything, but then he saw Saki's face.
"Payment?!" Daiki stepped forward. "What kind of payment, asshole?"
"We don't owe you shit!" Yume crossed her arms. "We didn't ask for your help!"
Hearing that, Saki looked confused but defiant. "Yeah! What the hell do you think you can take from us?"
Before she could say anything else, Kenji moved his hand near her right ear.
"What the fuck!" Saki screamed.
"Hey!" Daiki started forward, but Kenji had already removed his hand.
Then they all saw what he had done. Kenji was now holding a cigarette in his hand—the same one that Saki had tucked behind her ear before getting into the fight.
Kenji just crushed the cigarette and threw it away.
"What is the meaning of this?" Saki asked, bewildered and angry.
Then Kenji turned around and started leaving while saying, "Try not to smoke outside of school either."
Before anyone could say something, Kenji had already left.
"What the hell was that about?" Daiki asked, looking between the crushed cigarette and Saki's angry face.
Saki just stared, anger building, finally understanding just what happened.
◆◇◆
On Monday, Saki, Daiki, and Yume wondered whether Kenji would report the previous day's incident to the school administration, but to their surprise, he didn't. This was both a relief and a reason for anger for Saki. Relief since there would be no reports, anger since now Kenji could use this as a "favor" if he wanted—which he probably did, according to Saki.
Though unexpectedly for her, next few school days went normally. Kenji didn't even mention anything about that day to anyone.