Chapter 3

[Author's note: From this chapter on, instead of dialogues starting with a dash (-), dialogues will be in quotation marks (""). I've decided to make this change after doing some research as it is more suited for this type of novel.]

After the student council president's speech had ended, everyone headed to their class.

"By the way, which class are you in Tomori-chan?" Just as Tomori was getting up from her seat, Kuroki popped up out of nowhere

"Class 1-1, what about you, Kuroki-kun?"

" Awwww. That's a bummer, I'm in 1-2, but I'll visit during break time though."

"Kuroki, please don't." Shousuke appeared behind Kuroki, visibly annoyed

"Come on Shousuke, we'll hang out. Like we always did."

"That never happened."

"But don't you want to?"

"Nope."

Tomori was surprised by the way Shousuke acted. 'Is he always like this? Does he only act like this with his old friends?', she asked herself. She was curious what kind of person he was back in middle school: 'A delinquent? A loner? Or a…'

"We're here, Tomori-san" Shousuke's calming voice made Tomori snap back to reality.

"Oh, I didn't realize! It's a lot closer than I thought."

"Yeah, I thought I'd get to escort you two for longer." Kuroki said "Well, see you later Shousuke, Tomori-chan!"

"See you later!" Tomori replied

"Please don't come to disturb us." Shousuke reminded Kuroki in vain.

Kuroki headed back to his classroom, and Tomori followed Shousuke into theirs. The class was full of students, already forming friend groups and exchanging contact information. Shousuke picked a random seat and dozed off instantly. 'Was he that tired?', she thought. Tomori suddenly realized that this was a golden opportunity to take a peek at his face. 'Should I? He's lying right there defenseless! An opportunity like this might never appear again! But it'd be immoral, and he'd hate me for it. But just a peek won't do any harm, right?…'

"All right everyone, please pick out a temporary seat! We will do a seat lottery after everyone has settled down."

Tomori was startled by the sudden appearance of the teacher and immediately sat down in the seat next to Shousuke's.

"You there" The teacher pointed at Tomori "Please wake him up"

"Uh… yes!"

She turned to Shousuke and tried calling his name but to no avail.

"Haku-kuuuuuun? Haku-kuuuun??? Wakey wakey????"

That was when a brilliant idea crossed her mind.

"Haku-kun, your mask is off"

"h"

"..."

"huh…"

"HUH WHAT"

The whole class burst into laughter at the panicking Haku, while Tomori just gave him a cunning smirk. 'That reaction of yours just now is priceless', she giggled and returned to her seat.

"All right class, comedy show's over, the seats are on the blackboard."

The teacher said, clearing his voice.

"When I call your name, please come up here and draw the lottery."

After that, each student is called up one by one to randomly pick their seats from a box with a hole cut on top, the inside of which is filled with pieces of paper with the seat number on them.

"All right, next up is …. Naomi Tomori."

While walking to the front of the class, she could feel someone glaring at her. She turned around, only to see a girl with blonde hair giving her a death stare with her fiery red eyes. She was seated at the front of the class and was staring intensely at Tomori.

"Is there any problem?" The teacher asked, losing his patience

"Ahh, no… I was just looking back to see where my friend was…"

Tomori awkwardly laughed it off and drew her number. '34, back of the class again huh'

After a while, all the seats were decided. Seat number 34 was a seat right behind Shousuke, slightly to the right. "How convenient for looking behind that mask- I mean, at the blackboard! Hehehe…" she muttered to herself.