"D-don't tack '-chan' onto my name."
Ijichi Seika heard Tsushima Kagami address her that way.
Her cheeks a little flushed, she stammered out the words.
"What's wrong? You don't like it?"
"It's not that, it just feels like it doesn't really suit me."
Ijichi Seika set down her bento and rubbed her face, then hurriedly replied.
"Not at all."
"Seika-chan~"
"It feels really cute, and it suits you just fine."
Tsushima Kagami said it once more.
"Ah—stop saying it already."
"Seika-chan~"
"Stop saying it!"
"Then can you not tell Shizuku?"
"I won't tell, okay!"
Looking at Ijichi Seika, who had already turned her face away, Tsushima Kagami gave a charmingly wicked smile.
He still remembered that in the original anime, Ijichi Seika wasn't only a tsundere—she also liked all sorts of cute things.
It's only fun when she's both prickly and sweet like this.
Like back when they'd first met, when she had all the prickliness and none of the sweetness.
If you won't quit the scene, who will?
But compared to the cutesy-type Ijichi Seika.
Tsushima Kagami was rather curious what Ijichi Seika would look like decked out in some off-the-beaten-path visual-kei getup.
After all, she did play rock.
Tsushima Kagami thought again about an Ijichi Seika in full visual-kei attire with all the prickliness and none of the sweetness, and couldn't help but shudder.
Visual-kei and all that really is just too weird!
At this point Yamada Kenta also came over from among the boys to the side.
"Kagami, we got assigned to the same room for tomorrow's school trip."
"That's great—saves us the awkwardness of being with a bunch of classmates we don't know."
Tsushima Kagami said with a smile.
"Haha, who doesn't know you now?"
"[The Harem Tiger of Private Ousai's Second Year!]"
"Pfft."
Hearing Yamada Kenta say this, Ijichi Seika secretly began to giggle too.
"Dammit, how'd my title change again?"
"No wait—how'd my titles multiply again?"
"Is there nobody to keep that bunch in the Newspaper Club in line?"
"Does our school not only offer guaranteed-admission slots to universities,"
"but also guaranteed-employment slots at Shukan Bunshun?"
Lately, in order to grab eyeballs, that bunch in the Newspaper Club had been coming up with ever more outrageous nicknames for him.
All day long they wanted to cook up some big scoop off of him.
It's just a school Newspaper Club—is all this really necessary?
Even Shukan Bunshun isn't as much of a pain as you lot!
If things keep on like this, it feels like I could awaken a system again.
Call it [Transmigrated into a Multi-Anime World, a Golden Entry a Day!]
"Right, have you found a group for the free-activity time?"
"Want to come with us?"
Yamada Kenta continued.
Tsushima Kagami figured going with Yamada Kenta would be fine too.
He was just about to agree.
But then he saw Ijichi Seika and Shimizu Nayotake, both with heads lowered, still eating their bento.
Shimizu Nayotake had all along been stuck in the awkward position of being an invisible person.
Sure, last time when she was hospitalized for her heart condition, her classmates all came to visit.
But part of that, too, had to be credited to reading the air.
Someone proposes it, others agree, and then if you don't go, you're out of step with the group.
Granted, one judges by deeds, not by intent—coming to visit is a good thing in itself.
But you can't expect that after this one visit, everyone would suddenly start caring about you.
Afterward, things going back to the way they were is what's normal.
And Ijichi Seika was the same—she hadn't attended school since the start of second year, and had no friends.
You ask about her first-year friends?
If she'd had any friends at all in first year, she wouldn't have gone and dropped out to form a band with her underclassmen.
In the end she didn't return to school until the very end of the first semester.
Her standing in class relationships wasn't any better than Shimizu Nayotake's.
Of course, Tsushima Kagami himself was also one of the ostracized ones—only slightly better off than those two.
It's just that, with the mindset of an adult, he'd long since stopped caring about such things. On the contrary, he found it extraordinarily interesting to quietly observe the subtle shifts in the relationships among the little cliques of boys and girls in class as they read the air.
Still, he was lucky too—at least there'd been Yamada Kenta, who had been willing to accept him back then.
In the end Tsushima Kagami gave it some thought.
"Kenta, you invited me too late."
"Just now while we were eating our bento, the three of us already settled on a group."
Yamada Kenta looked at Ijichi Seika and Shimizu Nayotake too, thought about it, and figured that indeed they really could only be in a group with Tsushima Kagami.
Otherwise they'd end up ostracized again.
A school trip is the most beautiful stretch of time in one's student days.
It mustn't be allowed to become a nightmare one can't bear to look back on.
So Yamada Kenta nodded and said with a smile.
"All right then, let's talk together tomorrow evening."
With that, Yamada Kenta left.
At this point Ijichi Seika and Shimizu Nayotake also looked up toward Tsushima Kagami.
"What are you looking at me for, hurry up and eat."
"Class is about to start."
The two nodded and went on eating their bento.
The Manga Research Club.
After Tsushima Kagami came in, as always he saw Sayuri, the first to arrive every day.
But today's Sayuri had a listless, dispirited look about her.
Though, ever since he'd started tutoring her these past few days, she'd had that listless look the whole time, admittedly.
"Ah~ it's Kagami."
Sayuri, wearing the look of someone who'd seen through the vanity of the mortal world, turned her head toward Tsushima Kagami as he walked in, then turned back and flopped onto her desk.
Normally, at a time like this, Sayuri should be wearing a terrified expression and crying out.
"No, no!"
"I can't take it, don't cram any more in!"
"I can't handle any more knowledge!"
Why does she look like such a sorry sight today?
Tsushima Kagami came over to Sayuri's side.
Mercilessly, he took out the practice problems he'd prepared as usual and laid them out in front of her.
Sayuri numbly took them, and by conditioned reflex started working straight through the problems.
"Why so listless today?"
"If I tell you, Kagami, can you cut down today's problems?"
"Nope."
"How could you!"
Sayuri, who a moment ago had worn a do-whatever-you-want, dead-inside look,
suddenly slapped the pen in her hand down onto the desk with a crack.
She glared at Tsushima Kagami.
Completely reverting to her usual self.
"I'm already in this state."
"Shouldn't you take a little pity on me, Kagami?"
"Like, give me the day off today?"
Tsushima Kagami smiled without answering, and pointed at the few problems she'd just done.
"This one's wrong."
"Ah, let me see."
Sayuri picked up her pen and eraser again, erased the answer, and thought it over anew.
Then, as if struck by sudden enlightenment, she wrote a new answer, and only then looked at the problem with satisfaction and nodded.
Then once again, with a crack, she slapped the pen down on the desk.
"Ah~ that's not it!"
"Then let's hear it."
Tsushima Kagami also folded his arms with a smile, to see what new excuse Sayuri could come up with.
Only then did Sayuri, like a deflated balloon, pout and say.
"Isn't the school trip tomorrow?"
"That's right."
"Shouldn't you be discussing with your group mates in class right now about where to go and have fun during the free time?"
"How come you got to the Manga Research Club even earlier than me?"
Saying this, Tsushima Kagami only then recalled.
It seemed Sayuri was always the first to arrive at the Manga Research Club every time.
In any case, every time he came, Sayuri was already sitting here.
Thinking of this, Tsushima Kagami furrowed his brow.
This isn't right.
Tsushima Kagami arrived at the most unlikely answer of all.
He looked at Sayuri and said.
"Sayuri."
"Don't tell me you don't have any friends in class?"
"Aaaaaaaah!"
Sayuri looked like she'd been jabbed right in her sore spot.
She scattered the useless manga manuscript paper from the side of the desk, mixed together with the practice problems from before, all over the place.
Tsushima Kagami looked at Sayuri in this state.
Seems it really is true.
He honestly hadn't expected that someone with a personality like Sayuri's could actually have no friends in class.
"So with a personality like yours, how'd you manage to end up with no friends?"
"It surely can't be because you love watching anime and reading manga, right?"
In anime there are often plots where, just because you love watching anime, reading manga, and playing games, you get defined as an otaku and then shunned.
In actual real life, that couldn't possibly exist.
Because in real Japanese schools, boys and girls alike will, to some degree, watch the currently popular anime and read the best-selling manga magazines.
It's even the norm for boys and girls to discuss anime plots together.
So Tsushima Kagami felt it wasn't very likely that Sayuri was some 2D-loving type who'd been shunned for it.
Besides, with a personality like Sayuri's, by rights she'd be popular anywhere.
Unlike that precious big daughter of hers, Eriri, whom he couldn't think of without wanting to laugh.
____
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