CHAPTER 19: THE WALK AMONGST MONSTERS
As soon as the sound of Principal Isamu Hayashida's heavy footsteps faded outside the heavy mahogany door and the door closed with a soft "click,"
the atmosphere of the class changed completely in a single second.
Principal Sir's protective and terrifying aura, which had stood as a shield in this room until now, vanished entirely the moment he left.
The air in the room suddenly became light, yet poisonous.
The bodies of the elite students, who had been standing rigid in a military formation, loosened up a bit, and in the next moment, the entire classroom echoed with whispers and murmurs.
Everyone leaned in slightly from their seats, looking at this 150 kg new student with strange, judging eyes, and started making remarks in low voices to the person sitting next to them.
Just then...
BAM !
An incredibly loud, ear-piercing sound shook the walls of the entire classroom.
Miss Ryouko Saegusa had slammed her heavy attendance register onto her wooden desk with all her might.
Her shiny red eyes were currently boiling with anger, just like a predator who had spotted its prey.
She gave a slight flick to her long white hair braid and screamed in a terrifyingly angry voice:
"Everyone, keep silence! Otherwise, I will get violent!"
Her voice sliced through the air like a sharp whip and echoed throughout the room.
In an instant, all the whispering, the murmurs, and everything else turned into a deathly silence.
No one had the courage to even take a loud breath. Her aura was so terrifying and cold that it gave everyone goosebumps.
Miss Ryouko glared at the entire class with her red eyes and scolded them firmly through gritted teeth,
"Everyone, sit quietly in your places without making a sound, or else I will fail all of you in the mid-term exams."
Everyone's mouths were completely shut.
Not a single person said a word, and they all abruptly sat down in their respective places like terrified children, without making any noise with their chairs or shoes.
Now, the only things left in the room were the heat of Miss Ryouko's anger and the sound of Renjiro's heavy, fearful breathing.
When the entire class became pin-drop silent, Miss Ryouko turned her sharp, cold gaze toward Renjiro, who was standing terrified at the podium.
She looked at his bloated body for a moment, then cast her gaze toward the back of the class where there was only one empty seat.
Without any emotion, she ordered in a stone-cold voice:
"Renjiro, you go and sit next to that bald boy (Yoshiro)."
For a second, silence fell over the entire class, and then the next moment, despite the discipline, the entire class started laughing out loud.
"Bald boy!"
These words were nothing less than a bomb for the class's self-proclaimed comedy boss.
The suppressed laughter of the students began to echo throughout the room.
Sitting on the back bench, Yoshiro Kurosawa, whose pride and ego had just crashed straight to the ground, had his eyes wide open in shock.
Tolerating such an insult in front of the class was completely against his "Boss" image.
Filled with shame and anger, he immediately stood up from his seat and shouted, puffing his chest out:
"Hey ma'am, you forgot my name is Yoshiro Kurosawa!
Why did you call me bald in front of everyone!"
Yoshiro's chest was puffed out, but his courage only lasted for a single second.
Miss Ryouko slowly turned her neck toward him without uttering a single word.
Her shining, sharp red eyes peered straight into Yoshiro's soul.
There was such a terrifying and cold look on her face that it showed Yoshiro the path to his death without even speaking.
She simply asked with her gaze, do you have any problem?
Seeing Miss Ryouko's terrifying, death-like glare, Yoshiro's puffed chest instantly deflated.
All his anger and bravado vanished into thin air.
His mouth clamped shut tightly, and beads of sweat began to shine on his forehead out of fear.
He immediately stammered, rubbing his hand over his bald head, and spoke in a very nervous, broken voice:
"No, no ma'am,
I was just joking,
just joking...
you can call me whatever you want."
Seeing his condition, the students sitting next to him and around him started making fun of him by covering their mouths with their hands and making funny faces.
Someone puffed up their cheeks, while another made hand gestures mocking his baldness.
Yoshiro's face turned completely red like a tomato out of anger and embarrassment !
His ego was severely hurt.
Burning with rage, he started glaring fiercely at the laughing students with his angry face, which made the laughter of the nearby students get stuck in their throats.
But the real fire ignited when he saw the people of his own gang laughing.
Sitting right behind him was his over-smart lackey, Taiki Aoki, and sitting right in front of him was his loud, chaotic fool of a lackey, Daiki Aoki; both were laughing uncontrollably, covering their mouths with their hands and making fun of their own Boss.
Seeing his own friends laughing at his insult made Yoshiro's blood boil.
He gave them a terrifying, deadly, and angry expression.
The moment they saw their Boss's killer glare, Taiki and Daiki's mouths snapped shut instantly.
The color drained from their faces, and both of them began stammering heavily, making excuses at the same time:
"No, we aren't laughing at you,
boss !!!
We are laughing at what the teacher said."
At their pathetic excuse, a vein popped on Yoshiro's forehead.
Gritting his teeth, he growled in a low, venomous voice:
"Idiots, I know everything.
Both of you are jokers."
While their comedy act was still ongoing, another blast erupted from the podium.
Miss Ryouko's patience had now completely run out.
Shouting at the top of her lungs with all her might, she scolded the class:
"EVERYONE, SILENCE!"
In an instant, everyone held their breath.
The atmosphere of the entire class suddenly turned into a deathly silence.
All the laughter, the whispers, and the jokes in the room vanished in a single moment.
Amidst this silence, Renjiro decided to move forward from his spot. When his massive 150 kg body stepped forward, the thud-thud sound of his shoes could be heard clearly in that pin-drop silence.
He was walking slowly, dragging his heavy footsteps forward. His mind was still filled with nervousness.
He passed by the front rows, where the class's iron monitor Tsuyoshi Taro and the cold, aloof girl monitor Yoko Fujimoto were sitting right next to him.
The strict, disciplined presence of those two was making Renjiro even more nervous.
When he walked a little further ahead, his eyes fell upon Miyu Inoue, who was sitting near his path.
As soon as Miyu saw Renjiro coming towards her, a very pure, sweet, and affectionate smile appeared on her lips.
There was no judgment in Miyu's aqua eyes, but rather a warm and welcoming sympathy that no one else in this class possessed.
But seeing that affectionate smile, Renjiro's heart stopped for a second. An old, painful flashback played in his mind. He remembered Meiko Fujiwara... a girl who used to give exactly that same sweet smile.
The day became fresh in Renjiro's mind when Meiko had smiled sweetly at him like this, only to trap him in her fake love and humiliate him in front of the whole school. A deep fear was born inside Renjiro. He felt that every smiling girl was just like Meiko.
Although Miyu was a different, open-hearted, innocent girl, and there was no bad intention in her smile, Renjiro's past was so traumatic that he immediately turned his face away and kept walking while looking straight ahead.
His heartbeats had quickened even more out of fear.
He walked further.
Now his path was passing right through the area where the class's Top Student, Honoka Aizawa, was sitting on the left, and the dangerous unofficial queen of the class, Junn Tachibana, was sitting on the right.
Passing between these two girls was like walking through living fire.
The impressions of both Junn and Honoka were absolutely not good for Renjiro.
Both of them were glaring at him with angry, hateful, and humiliating looks.
Honoka Aizawa, who was sitting in her seat with an extremely foul-tempered and cold look, had nothing but disgust in her indigo eyes.
She looked at Renjiro's sweat-drenched and panting face and thought in sharp words in her mind:
*"How could they so easily give admission to such a low-class boy?
He doesn't even look worthy of cleaning our shoes... so sad."*
Junn Tachibana was also sitting in her seat with arrogance, staring at Renjiro ruthlessly from top to bottom.
She thought in her mind with a highly venomous and hateful voice:
*"Ew... just looking at this walking pile of trash makes me want to throw up.
His sweat and this disgusting obesity...
The standard of Hoshigawa High is truly dropping if such a pig got permission to sit here.
If this pathetic person even mistakenly tries to breathe near me, I swear,
I will make his condition such that he will be terrified to look at his own face in the mirror for the rest of his life."*
Renjiro wasn't a fool
. Even though he stayed quiet, he was very good at reading people's gazes.
Seeing the faces of those two girls and their cold death glares, he immediately understood that both of them were looking at him with absolute hatred and didn't want to tolerate him in this room for even a second.
Just a little further ahead from them, his eyes fell upon Sayaka Shirogane sitting near the far left corner.
Seeing Renjiro from a distance, Sayaka was seductively swirling her tongue around her lips, making an incredibly perverted and unhinged expression, as if she wanted to eat him up.
But Renjiro's gaze was straight.
He kept his face facing strictly forward to avoid that strange and uncomfortable expression, although his cheeks were blushing furiously due to embarrassment and nervousness.
In the middle of that very same row sat Himari Suzuki.
As Renjiro walked past her desk, Himari was looking at him with a highly innocent gaze, completely devoid of any malice or hatred.
She was silently watching him with pure eyes, but Renjiro, too terrified and paranoid from the judgmental stares of the room, kept his head straight and didn't notice her gentle look.
In Sayaka's row, Zixuan Lee was sitting at the window seat.
Zixuan was sitting with his entire face turned toward the window.
He didn't even feel the need to cast a glance at this new, seemingly failed student, and entirely ignoring Renjiro, he just kept looking at the view outside.
As Renjiro stepped a little further, his eyes fell upon Satoshi Ichigaya sitting right ahead.
Satoshi's face was completely calm, but a strange, creepy smile was floating on his lips from behind his closed eyes.
He was smiling directly at Renjiro.
That silent, eyeless, bizarre smile started making Renjiro feel terribly uneasy inside.
He couldn't figure out if this person was laughing at him or evaluating him.
Sitting in the seat right in front of Satoshi was Daiki Aoki, Yoshiro's loudest and most foolish lackey.
As Renjiro was slowly passing by his desk with his heavy footsteps, a funny and mischievous thought came to Daiki's mind.
With the intention of tripping this fat new student, he subtly stuck his foot out into the aisle.
But a hilariously terrifying scene unfolded right there. Renjiro, who wasn't looking down properly due to fear and tension, stepped his massive, heavy 150 kg foot right on top of Daiki's bare, outstretched foot!
CRUNCH!
Daiki's face turned completely red like a tomato from the pain.
His eyes almost popped out, and a horrific scream was about to escape his throat,
But the moment he saw the furious Miss Ryouko standing on the stage,
He clamped his mouth shut tightly with both his hands so that not a single sound would escape.
Tears welled up in his eyes, and agonizing in pain, he cried bitterly in his mind:
*"Damn it, this idiot crushed my foot!
Ahhhh
I'm dying...
This fat elephant killed me!
Damn, I got hit with my own Uno reverse."*
His self-laid trap had fallen heavily on his own feet.
Renjiro moved forward without knowing anything and without realizing that he had crushed someone's foot.
When he reached the far corner at the back of the class, a manic and aggressive boy sitting there caught his eye.
It was none other than Yuto Sakurai.
Yuto was sitting in his seat, looking at Renjiro with the laugh of a hungry, dangerous wolf.
Seeing the psychopath expression on his face, Renjiro understood right then that this elite school was truly filled with dangerous monsters on the inside, rather than just rich kids on the outside.
Passing through all these terrifying auras, hatred, jokes, and tension, Renjiro finally reached his destination.
Exhausted and drenched in sweat, he sat down heavily with a thump on the empty seat right next to Yoshiro Kurosawa.
As he sat, he noticed that Yuto Sakurai, sitting in the corner, was still staring at him with a laugh.
The expressions on Yuto's face perfectly revealed his violent and crazy nature.
When Renjiro dropped his massive body onto the seat, the mood of Yoshiro, sitting right next to him, was already terrible from taking Miss Ryouko's scolding.
And seeing this fat mountain sitting so closely next to him made it even worse.
Seething internally with anger and frustration, Yoshiro started a furious rant in his mind:
*"In his mind: Damn it, why did the teacher make this fatso sit next to me?
Was this the only place she could find to seat him?
I thought some rich girl would join the class, but instead, this rotten eggplant has arrived.
Now he's going to suffocate me alive by constantly farting next to me."*
Oblivious to Yoshiro's comedic tragedy, Renjiro was terrified of the environment around him.
Sitting nearby, on the exact in front of yuto Sakurai bench, was Junpei Kurodan.
Junpei was an incredibly massive, tall, and muscular giant of a boy standing at 6.7 feet.
He was sitting tightly with both his arms crossed in an 'X' shape on his desk.
Junpei didn't talk much to anyone in the class; he was a very straightforward and calm boy who stayed entirely to himself.
Therefore, he wasn't thinking any judgments or jokes about this new boy in his mind—he was completely blank and calm.
But how could Renjiro know the calmness of Junpei's mind ?
Seeing his massive body, tense muscles, and heavy silence, Renjiro's breath hitched.
Renjiro felt terrified inside, thinking that if any conflict broke out, this giant guy would chew him raw right there in the class.
On the other side, Satoshi Ichigaya was still sitting in his seat with completely silent eyes, looking at Renjiro with that creepy smirk, but internally he wasn't thinking anything specific; he was totally calm and blank.
Zixuan Lee, who had no interest in any conflict or drama at Hoshigawa High, just cast a blank glance at Renjiro once from his ruby eyes, and then calmly looked back outside.
Just then, Miss Ryouko's strict voice echoed from the front, and writing on the board with her marker, she began her modern literature lecture.
Renjiro sat there terrified in his new seat, trying vainly to shrink his heavy, sweat-drenched body, sitting quietly right in the middle of all their sharp stares, their anger, their jokes, and their auras.
[CHAPTER 19 ENDS]