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Chapter 10: I Guess You Really Were Starving
Suyan genuinely couldn't care less about Miyamoto Rei's canonical status as a main anime heroine. However, he was undeniably curious as to why she was secretly bawling her eyes out on the school rooftop.
He had free time to kill, so he figured he might as well treat her trauma like a source of cheap entertainment.
Besides, the extra bento box in his hands was originally meant for Shizuka. Since the ditzy nurse had skipped work today, there was no way he could finish all of it himself. It wasn't enough food to warrant saving for two people tonight, and he'd have to cook dinner later anyway.
"You!"
Hearing Suyan's incredibly callous demand, Rei's face flushed a furious, vibrant shade of red.
This wasn't an act of kindness! He wasn't offering her a meal out of pity; he was clearly just poking at her sore spot!
If Rei had a spear in her hands right now, she would have ruthlessly impaled the bastard where he sat.
Seeing Rei's blood pressure visibly skyrocket, Suyan immediately interrupted her casting animation. "Not interested? Fine by me. Just pretend I never asked."
Rei was so furious she felt like she might actually explode, but she was completely powerless to retaliate. She shot Suyan an absolutely venomous, withering glare, let out a furious huff, spun on her heel, and violently stomped away.
Suyan barely registered her dramatic exit. Unbothered, he simply sat back down and continued inhaling his food.
After storming off the rooftop, Rei power-walked directly toward the school cafeteria. Whether it was fueled by her ravenous hunger or her blinding rage, she moved significantly faster than usual.
She arrived at the cafeteria in record time.
To her absolute despair, every single food stall window had a massive, aggressively bold "SOLD OUT" sign plastered across the glass.
Realizing her final hope for lunch was dead, Rei turned to leave.
Just as she did, her eyes locked onto a table in the far corner of the cafeteria. Sitting there was her childhood friend, Takashi Komuro, happily eating lunch and laughing with his buddies.
First, she had been ruthlessly mocked and humiliated by Suyan. Then, she had been brutally denied food by the sold-out cafeteria. And now, she had to watch the boy she loved acting completely carefree, totally oblivious to her suffering.
A massive, overwhelming wave of profound sorrow crashed down on Rei.
She felt entirely isolated, as if the entire world had collectively decided to abandon her.
She desperately needed someone to talk to, someone to vent her crushing frustrations to, but she realized with absolute horror that she had literally no one.
Before the last academic year ended, she had friends. But because she had been held back, all her former classmates had moved up a grade and formed new social cliques. Approaching them again was obviously inappropriate.
And because she was a repeater, she hadn't managed to integrate into any of the social circles in her new class either.
The terrifying reality was that she didn't have a single person she could turn to.
For some inexplicable, twisted reason, the incredibly mocking words of that bastard Suyan on the rooftop echoed in her mind.
Maybe the hunger had made her delirious, but she suddenly found herself thinking that maybe, just maybe, Suyan wasn't the worst possible person to vent to.
She shot one last, deeply resentful glare at the blissfully ignorant Takashi.
She realized that if she didn't find someone to dump her emotional baggage on immediately, she was going to have a literal psychological breakdown.
Defeated, Rei turned around and began the humiliating trek back up the stairs to the rooftop.
By the time she arrived, Suyan had already finished his meal. He was lying flat on his back on the concrete, his hands lazily pillowed behind his head, eyes closed.
Seeing him still there, a massive sigh of profound relief escaped Rei's lips.
If she had swallowed her pride and crawled all the way back up here only to find him gone, it truly would have been the absolute final straw.
Thank god he's still here.
"Hey!"
Rei marched over and stood directly over Suyan.
Suyan casually opened his eyes, stared straight up, and immediately blurted out, "White."
"What?"
Rei froze in confusion for a split second before the horrible realization dawned on her. Her face instantly exploded into a violent crimson blush as she desperately clamped her hands down over her pleated skirt. "Pervert!"
"What do you want?" Suyan asked, his tone completely flat, showing absolutely zero remorse or embarrassment for his blatant observation.
Rei's fists clenched so tightly her knuckles turned white. A prominent vein throbbed violently on her forehead.
This absolute bastard possessed a terrifying, supernatural talent for instantly enraging her.
She genuinely began to suspect that God had specifically sent Suyan down to finish her off.
Hold it together. Just breathe.
Rei exhaled a long, shaky breath, desperately forcing her boiling blood pressure back down to a manageable level. "That offer from earlier... is it still on the table?"
"What offer?"
Now it was Suyan's turn to look confused.
Earlier?
Did I offer something earlier?
The white panties?
"The... the offer to trade my secrets for your extra bento box," Rei clarified, forcing the most painfully stiff, unnatural smile ever recorded in human history onto her face.
"Oh, right, that! Sorry, I totally thought you meant... never mind. Yeah, the offer is still entirely valid."
Suyan shrugged casually. She wants to spill some juicy gossip? Sure, why not? Who doesn't love a good piece of gossip?
Honestly, he was genuinely surprised the notoriously stubborn flaxen-haired girl had actually agreed.
Damn. I guess you really were starving.
Sitting up cross-legged, Suyan dramatically slid the unopened bento box across the concrete toward her. "The stage is yours. Please, begin your performance."
Rei's eyebrow twitched violently. Seeing Suyan acting like he was settling in to watch a cheap soap opera nearly gave her an aneurysm.
But she had already committed. Swallowing her pride, she sat down and began spilling the secrets in her heart.
Her father was a captain in the Tokonosu City Police Department. For the past year, he had been secretly investigating a local politician, but he had been caught snooping.
Unfortunately, that exact corrupt politician had an illegitimate son who just so happened to be a teacher at Fujimi Academy—Koichi Shido.
Rei's academic grades were easily among the top of her original class. But due to Shido's targeted retaliation, she had been held back a year.
But that wasn't what was truly destroying her.
The absolute, crushing source of her current despair was her childhood friend, Takashi Komuro.
A short while ago, Takashi had finally noticed her depression and asked her why she had been held back. Desperate for comfort and validation, she finally broke down and confessed everything to him, explaining that she had been framed by Shido.
Instead of supporting her, Takashi blindly defended the teacher. He repeatedly insisted that Shido wasn't that kind of person and constantly urged her to "be the bigger person" and let it go.
The boy she had grown up with, the boy she loved, had blatantly chosen to side with a corrupt, abusive stranger over his own childhood friend.
That betrayal was the absolute final blow that shattered her fragile emotional state. It was the sole reason she had fled to the rooftop to cry in isolation.
Having poured out her entire tragic backstory, Rei stared at Suyan with red, puffy eyes, looking incredibly pitiful, desperately hoping for some shred of sympathy or comfort.
Suyan thoughtfully stroked his chin.
Assuming Rei hadn't just fabricated this entire sob story to get a free meal, her bizarre actions in the original anime finally made total logical sense. It perfectly explained why a girl who had made a literal childhood marriage pact with the protagonist would suddenly start dating his best friend right before the apocalypse.
Even the most basic, socially inept person knew that when a girl is crying, you're supposed to blindly side with her, curse out the source of her pain, and provide unconditional emotional support.
Takashi's canonical actions were genuinely brain-dead.
Choosing to defend an obviously sketchy teacher over your lifelong best friend? If Suyan had a friend who pulled that kind of self-righteous garbage, he would cut them out of his life instantly.
You're going to stay 'neutral' while I'm being actively abused?
There was a famous analogy Suyan remembered from the internet:
When Gian is violently beating up Nobita, you have four choices:
• Help Gian.
• Help Nobita.
• Pretend you didn't see anything and walk away.
• Say "both sides are wrong."
Because Nobita is physically incapable of defending himself against Gian, every single option except helping Nobita is fundamentally an act of aiding the abuser.
While Suyan completely understood the logic behind Rei's pain, it only managed to elevate his overall opinion of her by an absolute microscopic fraction.
"So, you got actively sabotaged by a corrupt teacher, brutally backstabbed by your childhood crush, and completely abandoned by your classmates. Yeah, that's undeniably pathetic," Suyan summarized with an amused smirk. "Miyamoto, have you ever considered adapting your tragic life into a light novel? It might actually sell."
Rei stared at him, utterly bewildered.
What the hell are you babbling about?!
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