Jhin actually took her angry words seriously. Although Gabriel kept complaining, deep down, she was secretly a little pleased that he valued her so much. She obediently changed into her school uniform and went to school with him.
Gabriel's long golden hair was a mess because its owner didn't bother to take care of it. Jhin had no intention of forcing her to comb it, though. After all, the fact that this fallen angel was now willing to go to school with him was already huge progress.
The revolution has yet to succeed, comrades must persevere.
It was uncertain how many more difficulties he would have to face to successfully reverse Gabriel's fall, but Jhin had already mentally prepared himself for a long-term struggle. Right now, he was fearless!
"Ah!" Not long after the two had parted ways in the hallway, Gabriel remembered she hadn't asked Jhin why he suddenly wanted to learn guitar.
"Tch, I'll just ask him when we meet at lunch." Feeling inexplicably irritable, Gabriel scratched her head and walked into the classroom.
"Gabriel, what a surprise! You actually came to school." A girl with short purple hair greeted her in astonishment. After all, just yesterday, her friend had been telling her on a chat app that she was going to stay in her room and play games all day instead of coming to school.
"You're so noisy, Vine," Gabriel sighed, slumping onto her desk, unwilling to move. Did she come here voluntarily? Absolutely not! If she hadn't found it impossible to tell Jhin, "Those were just angry words, you don't have to take them seriously," she would never have come to school. Isn't playing games at home better?
"My name is Vignette! Not Vine! Don't just go shortening people's names like that." Vignette wasn't angry; with her gentle nature, she simply said in a complaining tone, "And you're supposed to be an angel."
"Actually, I've been thinking lately that 'falling' and all that sounds pretty cool."
"Whoa, did you really graduate from an angel school?" Vignette was speechless. The things this angel said were becoming more and more unfitting of her status.
"Want to have lunch together?"
Faced with Vignette's invitation, Gabriel refused outright: "Sorry, I'm eating with someone else."
"Huh? You have other friends at this school?" Vignette covered her mouth in surprise.
"How rude! Do I look like the kind of person who doesn't have any friends?"
"As someone who declared on the second day of school that you weren't coming anymore, I think it's impossible for you to have any friends here besides me."
"Tch." Gabriel clicked her tongue in annoyance. If she hadn't met Jhin, it was true that she wouldn't have any friends at school besides Vignette. Wait, isn't there also Raphiel? No, no, no, no, can that girl with such a rotten personality really be considered a friend?
Seeing Gabriel fall silent, Vignette thought she had hit the mark and took out a handkerchief to wipe the tears from the corner of her eye. "It's okay not to eat with your imaginary friend, you know, Gabriel."
"I don't have an imaginary friend! He's a real person!" Gabriel said, exasperated.
"Really?" Vignette was skeptical.
"Really."
"Then let me meet him."
"No way. Having to introduce you to someone else is such a pain." Gabriel rejected Vignette's request without a second thought. Subconsciously, she didn't want to introduce any other girls to Jhin.
"Eh, alright then. I'll have lunch with Satania."
"Ohoho!" Satania, who had been eavesdropping nearby, immediately came over to them and let out her proud, three-part queenly laugh. "It is your honor to be able to dine with the great archdemon, Lady Satania, Vignette."
"Sorry, I think I'll just eat by myself," Vignette said, changing her mind with a deadpan expression.
"Eh, why? Didn't you just say we'd have lunch together?" Satania was instantly dumbfounded, anxiously grabbing Vignette's hand and shaking it.
"Alright, alright, stop shaking my hand. I'll have lunch with you." Vignette couldn't withstand Satania's pestering and finally gave in.
The class bell rang, and the two finally returned to their seats. Gabriel propped a book up in front of her, preparing to sleep until the lunch break. Having stayed up all night gaming again, she was incredibly sleepy.
"Gabriel, Gabriel, wake up. It's lunchtime."
"Ah~ Thanks, Vignette. I'm off." Gabriel stretched and stood up.
"Is she really going to be okay?" Vignette said with some concern, watching Gabriel leave the classroom with sleepy eyes and a yawn.
Satania, who couldn't wait any longer, pushed their desks together. "Vignette, hurry up and let's eat! Today, I shall let you witness the lunch of an archdemon!"
"Coming, coming." Shaking off her thoughts, Vignette took out her own bento and prepared to eat.
Meanwhile, Gabriel found the "Problem Child Countermeasures Club" Jhin had mentioned. Hearing his voice from inside, she threw open the door. "Jhin, I'm here."
"Yaa!" Hitori Gotoh was startled by Gabriel's rough way of opening the door, nearly dropping the bento box in her hands.
"I've already heated up your bento for you. Come and eat," Jhin said, pointing to a bento box on the table.
Gabriel didn't stand on ceremony. Already starving on her way over, she grabbed the lunch box and began to wolf it down, making Jhin shake his head. Hitori Gotoh, meanwhile, shyly sized up Gabriel with curiosity. For some reason, there was an inexplicable aura about this girl that made her feel a faint sense of kinship.
If Jhin knew, he would definitely retort that one of them spends all day at home playing games, while the other has such severe social anxiety that she basically never leaves the house except for school. If they had anything in common, it would be their shared trait of being homebodies.
After they finished eating, Jhin formally introduced them to each other. Seeing there was still some time left in the lunch break, he took out his newly bought guitar to learn from Bocchi-chan.
Seeing Jhin with a guitar, Hitori Gotoh immediately perked up, forgetting that Gabriel, an outsider, was even there. She excitedly began to teach Jhin how to play, hand-over-hand.
Gabriel's eyebrow twitched. Seeing a girl Jhin had only known for a day or two teaching him in such close contact sparked a pang of jealousy in her heart. But since both of them acted as if it were perfectly natural, she couldn't bring herself to lash out, forcing herself to suppress her annoyance as she watched the two of them pressed together playing the guitar.
What she didn't know was that, in reality, both of them were panicking internally.
Although Hitori Gotoh considered Jhin her boyfriend, she wasn't used to being this close to a guy for a hand-over-hand lesson. However, she had heard this teaching method was more efficient, and besides, Jhin was her boyfriend. A little intimacy between a couple shouldn't be a problem.
As for Jhin, he was just struggling to maintain a calm and collected expression. Hitori Gotoh's tracksuit and hunched posture prevented Gabriel from seeing it, but she was actually super~ well-endowed. Right now, those two sinful mounds were pressed firmly against his back, and combined with the faint, sweet scent of a young girl, it was constantly teasing his nerves.
At first, both of them suppressed their inner panic, one teaching and one learning. Jhin's incredible aptitude for learning allowed him to quickly get into the zone, no longer distracted. Seeing her boyfriend's rapid progress, Hitori Gotoh taught even more earnestly. For a moment, both of them cast aside all distracting thoughts.
By the end of the lunch break, Jhin had already grasped the basics of the guitar, which made Hitori Gotoh exclaim, "Jhin-san might be a guitar genius."
"Since we're like this now, with the guitar lessons, do we really need to be so formal with our names?"
"Ah... y-you're right. Then... Jhin?"
"Yeah. And can I call you Bocchi-chan?" Jhin seized the opportunity to make a somewhat bold request.
"Ah... you can." Hitori Gotoh didn't mind at all; in fact, she was even a little happy. Could this be considered an intimate nickname between a couple?
"Hey you two, aren't you going back to class?" Gabriel, unable to bear the seemingly normal yet subtly unsettling atmosphere between them any longer, finally spoke up.
"Let's just leave the guitar here. We can come back and get it after school."
"Okay."
Gabriel, who had just broken the delicate atmosphere between the two, then remembered they were also classmates, and her mood soured even further.
___
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