"Thank you, Sensei."
After getting the necessary leave permission from his homeroom teacher, Naoki bowed slightly politely before leaving the teachers' office.
The school corridor still felt quiet because class hours hadn't started yet, only the sound of broom sweeping could be heard from afar.
"The leave matter is settled. With three days' time, that's more than enough to go to China and finish business."
Naoki then headed to his classroom. As soon as the door opened, he saw a familiar scene: his classmates who were all male were half-heartedly doing cleaning duties while playing around, joking, or complaining.
"Hey, Kamikawa's here!" one of them exclaimed.
"Turns out Kamikawa is fine! I thought maybe something happened to you like what happened to Wakura!" Tanaka chimed in while leaning his broom.
Naoki put his bag on his empty chair, then joined them. He pretended not to know. "What happened to Wakura?"
"Oh, right, you didn't come yesterday." Sato said while handing him a dirty rag, then went back to wiping the window. "Yesterday, a super beautiful girl named Kyouka Uzen came to school. She requested early graduation permission for Wakura. It seems Wakura will work in Mato as a cleaning officer or something. I heard he got lost in Mato by accident, then was recruited by them."
Tanaka, who was wiping a desk near them, immediately joined the conversation with a fiery tone.
"You know, Kamikawa! That girl claimed to be Yuuki's master! My god, what kind of S&M game are they playing?! I'm not jealous or anything, but I won't worry about Yuuki's fate anymore."
"Actually I'm annoyed because of him. Not that I'm jealous or anything, but why does it have to be him?!" Ryunosuke convinced himself, though his face looked sour.
Other classmates also nodded, muttering and wondering how Yuuki could end up in a situation that to them sounded like the beginning of a fantasy adventure.
(Look at them, envy is clearly visible on their faces. Who knows what their reaction would be if they knew Yuuki really started an ecchi anime protagonist life—where seeing naked women's bodies, touching, groping, even kissing, is normal for him.) Naoki thought while secretly shaking his head.
According to his analysis, generally there were two types of envy.
First, there were people like Sato, Tanaka, Ryunosuke, and others—the most ordinary among the ordinary. They were very envious of those who lived better, had more talent or opportunities, who seemed to "stand tall" without having to try as hard as them.
Naoki classified this as Inferior Envy—the emotion of people who felt "lower" who secretly wanted to replace or at least equal those above. This emotion was strong, but full of weaknesses and relatively easy to manipulate.
Second, Naoki named it Superior Envy.
If Inferior Envy hoped for a better life, then Superior Envy was the twisted desire to trample those who were lower, cut off all their paths to success, and become the sole ruler.
This was the fire of jealousy born from the hearts of those already high and powerful toward existences threatening their status. This type of envy had no cure; in the eyes of the "superior." they were born to have the best, and others only deserved to bow down.
Of course, Naoki placed his classmates in the Inferior Envy category.
(Let's add fuel to this fire a bit.)
The desire to show off and see their reactions suddenly arose in Naoki's heart. He felt like showing off what he had, which was far greater than just the "master and slave" like Yuuki's.
"Hey, guys! I have good news!" he said suddenly, drawing everyone's attention.
"What good news?" Ryunosuke asked impatiently. "Don't tell me you have a girlfriend? Hahahaha, sorry, my joke went too far. That can't be true—"
Naoki interrupted. "Your guess is accurate."
"Huh?"
Instantly, the classroom fell into total silence. All cleaning activities stopped. The eyes of all those male students were fixed on Naoki with disbelieving expressions.
"Oi oi oi, Kamikawa, that joke isn't funny." Tanaka laughed dryly, his eyes narrowing in disbelief.
Naoki turned to him, showing a meaningful thin smile. "Tanaka. Do you think I'm joking?"
"You... serious?"
"100% valid."
Like being doused with hot water, all male students left their work and crowded around Naoki, their eyes sparkling with a mixture of curiosity, jealousy, and disbelief.
"Quickly show us your girlfriend's photo! Otherwise, I'll consider it just your delusion!" one of them shouted.
"Yeah, yeah! Give us proof!"
Naoki smiled, then took out his phone from his bag. Calmly, he opened the gallery app, searched for a specific folder, then showed an intimate selfie taken at RAIN ON THE ROOF café.
In that photo, he and Tenka sat close together, Tenka smiling sweetly with her head resting on his shoulder, while Naoki himself looked relaxed.
With her mature beauty and elegance, Tenka clearly looked like a woman far above the "level" of ordinary high school girls.
"Damn! It's real!"
"Wooow... What a beautiful onee-san..."
"I'm so jealous! I also want to have a girlfriend before graduating!"
Inevitably, the hearts of those male students took heavy damage. They looked at Naoki with burning envy.
Besides his handsome face, Naoki's academic grades weren't good—even among the lowest in class. But the man with the worst grades got such a beautiful adult woman?
This world was truly unfair!
"It's too early for you to be shocked." Naoki said in a teasing tone. "Try looking at this one."
He swiped the screen, displaying the next photo. And this was what caused Tanaka's, Sato's, Ryunosuke's, and all other male students' testosterone hormones to spike drastically, and several of their noses began bleeding.
That photo showed Naoki and Tenka lying naked on a bed, in a very intimate and affectionate pose. Tenka appeared half-covered by a blanket, but her naked arm was clearly visible wrapping around Naoki's neck, and the satisfied smile on her face was undeniable.
And Naoki didn't stop there. He swiped again, displaying several other photos where Tenka appeared in embarrassing and very seductive poses—perhaps when she was joking or deliberately posing for Naoki. Each photo was more devastating than the previous one.
The impact was too great for these teenage boys whose sexual experience at most only came from watching porn videos. Now they saw their own classmate becoming part of the "adult world" that was unreachable for them at this time.
"Ka-Kamikawa... I-Is this real? Not AI-edited, right?" Tanaka asked in a hoarse voice while wiping the nosebleed starting to drip from his nose.
Not just Tanaka. Sato, Ryunosuke, and several others also had nosebleeds, but their eyes were glued to the screen, unable to look away.
"I guarantee its authenticity." Naoki answered while chuckling satisfiedly, then put his phone back in his pocket.
No matter how they begged to see longer, or even asked him to send those photos to the chat group, Naoki firmly refused.
Naoki wouldn't let them use Tenka's photos as masturbation material. But regarding the fact that they would definitely fantasize about Tenka after seeing those photos... that was beyond his control, and perhaps actually part of his show-off purpose—showing that he had something they could only dream of, and making their envy burn even more.