Chapter 4

Waking up, Oreki as usual, made his way towards the school, not expecting anything unusual from the norm.

He paid attention to his classes in preparation for the Midterms, while not paying attention to his other classmates who looked like they were trying to keep Oreki from losing concentration.

'How annoying, why can't you guys just pay attention during class?' Oreki thought that some of the people who looked back were people who had poorer grades than he had.

With this trend continuing, but not being bothered to say anything about it, Oreki continued with his day, surprisingly eating lunch in peace, as it looked like Sakayanagi had something to do.

He was going to make his way home early and sleep, as today was one of the days that Shiina attended her Tea Ceremony Club.

Until he got a text from an unlikely peer.

Ichinose Honami.

[Could you come behind Gym #2 as fast as possible?] - Ichinose.

'How inconvienent.' Oreki thought.

Regardless, Oreki quickly made his way towards the destination that Ichinose had chosen.

Arriving to see her by herself, Oreki made himself known and walked up to her.

"So why did you call me?" Oreki asked, wondering why he was called out.

"I'm about to be confessed here!" Ichinose yelled, her head down.

"Okay? So what does that have to do with me?" Oreki asked.

"Um... the person who's confessing is a friend, but I don't know anything about romance..." Ichinose confessed, sheepish.

"So?"

"Uhh... I was wondering if you could fake being my boyfriend, I don't want to hurt her feelings!"

"Why me?"

"Umm. I don't think anyone knows you that well..." Ichinose sheepishly said.

"I see... Well, I will have to unfortunately decline."

"Huh? Why?" Ichinose asked.

"Asking us to lie just so you can keep your friendship is dumb. Asking someone out is a hard endeavor, and you're just going to put her down in the name of friendship?"

"Uhh..." Ichinose awkwardly responded.

"If you just respectfully say no, and even after that your relationship sours, then it was never meant to be." Oreki reasoned.

"I-I see... then I guess I have no choice but to take it head on!" Ichinose resignedly said, while trying to hype herself up.

"I believe in you," Oreki said, causing Ichinose to blush a little.

"Wheh?"

"I'll be on the benches if you want to talk after, Good Luck, Ichinose," Oreki said, walking away with a half-wave.

"Uh yeah!" Ichinose said, before standing nervously.

Oreki sat down, looking at the view of people on the soccer field. After a few minutes, he saw a girl running away, covering her eyes.

'So that's the unlucky girl.'

He watched as Ichinose walked up to him.

"How did it go?"

"I had to reject her, but I told her that I was willing to stay as friends..." Ichinose said, rubbing her arms sheepishly.

"Then I guess we will see the fruits of your actions tomorrow," Oreki said, looking at her.

"I guess so... Thanks Oreki-kun,"

"For what?"

"I guess for talking me out of something that I was probably going to regret," Ichinose said.

"Ouch."

"Oh, I didn't mean it like that at all!" Ichinose quickly backtracked.

"I was joking."

"O-oh... Aha?" Ichinose said, confused.

"You don't need to fake laugh like that," Oreki said, before standing up.

"Then I'll see you around, Ichinose."

"Yep, I'll pay you back don't worry," Ichinose said, waving.

"You don't need to do that, I just did what I thought I had to do," Oreki said.

"No, I inconvenienced you and you even gave me advice!" Ichinose refused, before walking away, covering her ears.

'Hmm. Maybe a favor from one of the more popular students in school isn't a bad thing after all,' Oreki thought, before walking away himself.

'Once in a while, these types of days aren't that bad,'

Finally arriving home after that somewhat exhausting fiasco, Oreki decided to just skip dinner and sleep early, not before finishing up the quick workout that he saw online and showering.

The next day, Oreki had his classes as usual, and the bell had rung for Lunch Break.

Taking out his bento, Oreki just brought some fried eggs and a can of tuna.

'Unusual, but contains high amounts of protein. Having high amounts of protein a few times a week is perfectly healthy,' Oreki thought, about to dig into his meal, before Sakayanagi walked up to him, Kamuro in tow.

"Could I eat with you, Oreki-kun?" Sakayanagi asked, pulling up a chair.

"What is the point of asking if you were going to eat with me anyway?" Oreki asked with a neutral face.

"Because it's respectful, Oreki-kun, you never know," Sakayanagi said, taking out her bento.

"I see," Oreki said, taking a bite out of his egg.

"How was your week, Oreki-kun?" Sakayanagi asked.

Glancing at Oreki, Sakayanagi sighed.

"No need to be so suspicious, I only just wanted your company today," Sakayanagi said, taking a bite out of her meal.

"Is that so?" Oreki said, before responding to Sakayanagi's previous question.

"My week was fine, what about you?"

"It was okay. Yesterday, I saw something interesting, Oreki-kun," Sakayanagi said.

"Hmm? What was it?" Oreki asked.

"I saw a classmate with the very popular Ichinose from Class B," Sakayanagi said.

'She saw that? Maybe it was someone else.' Oreki wondered.

"Oh, I wonder who it was, maybe it's her boyfriend," Oreki calmly responded.

"It was a familiar face, isn't that right Oreki-kun?"

'So it was me.'

"I guess it was, Sakayanagi-san," Oreki said.

"So what were you doing with B Class's Madonna?" Sakayanagi asked.

"She just asked me for a favor,"

"If it isn't personal, could you tell me what the favor was? Just a question as one of A Class's representatives, we are technically B Class's rivals in name."

"Nothing special, she just asked me to be her fake boyfriend."

*Pfft*

The two girls did a double take, albeit for different reasons.

'One of the most popular people in our grade asked Oreki to be her fake boyfriend?' Kamuro thought, incredulous.

'How impudent of her...' Sakayanagi thought.

"Did she tell you why she asked?" Sakayanagi asked, calming herself down.

"Oh it's because other than our class, no one knew who I was," Oreki said, causing a small sigh of relief of Sakayanagi.

"Is that so? How did you even come to get acquainted with Ichinose?"

"I just helped her with something,"

"What is this something?" Sakayanagi asked, expecting something even more extreme than the fake boyfriend thing.

"Oh to just stop a fight with some C Class and D Class people,"

'Good.' Sakayanagi thought, before responding.

"That was interesting, Oreki-kun," Sakayanagi said, ending the conversation.

'What was all of that for? Is it because A Class and B Class are supposed to be rivals and Ichinose is the leader of B Class?' Oreki thought.

'That's probably right. I guess I'll also see Shiina again today since she doesn't have any club activities,'

After finishing their lunch, classes continued as usual.

As the bell rang, Oreki made his way toward the Library, at least trying to get a few days of study in before the Midterms, just in case he was overestimating himself.

Sitting down in his usual spot, it didn't take long for Shiina to come, sitting down in her usual spot.

Noticing that Oreki had some textbooks out, Shiina wondered if he was studying today, which was an unusual sight.

"Are you studying today?" Shiina asked.

"Yeah, I have to study at least a few times before midterms. The teacher said we could get at most 100 class points from it alone."

"I see, Oreki-kun, do you have anything you need help with then?" Shiina asked, wanting to at least help, as she had relatively good grades all around.

"It's fine, I'm just reading over the scope that Mashima-sensei said was going to be on the midterms," Oreki said, skimming his textbooks, just in case there was a tidbit of information he didn't catch the first time.

"That... doesn't seem like studying..." Shiina commented, opening up her bag and taking out a notebook.

"It's worked for me well enough," Oreki responded, not looking up from his textbook.

"Um... look at this at the very least," Shiina said, handing over her notebook.

Taking the notebook and giving a questioning glance, Oreki opened the notebook to see organized notes of everything from the past month and a few days.

'How organized,' Oreki thought, as the notebook was organized into subjects and the units in the subjects, with examples and sticky notes for tips.

'It's like she made this for someone else,' Oreki thought, before looking at Shiina.

"Thanks, this is pretty helpful," Oreki said, before looking back at the notebook, not noticing Shiina blush from the compliment.

"Y-you're welcome..."

After a while, they got comfortable, with Oreki at one corner, looking over Shiina's notes while she was reading a novel next to Oreki.

After around 30 minutes, Oreki closed the notebook before handing it over to Shiina.

"Thanks again for the notebook, it made my life much easier."

"N-no problem,"

After he handed it back, Oreki took out his novel, and the two went back into a comfortable silence, each reading their novels.

After a few more minutes of silence, with the background noises of people who came into the Library to do a study session with their group, there was a distant argument, piercing the calm surroundings.

'Who is making this horrible noise?' Oreki thought, frowning.

"I'll go check who it is," Oreki said, getting up from his spot.

"I'll go with you," Shiina said, following him.

Walking toward of balcony of the floor that they were on, looking down on the entire Library, he saw the same red-haired guy who was prone to anger argue with a delinquent-looking green-haired guy.

"That green-haired person's from my class," Shiina commented.

'Kind of expected that,' Oreki thought, taking out his phone to record it and report it to the student council.

As he was about to record again, but as if it was deja vu, a familiar face showed up.

He couldn't make out what they were saying, as they were relatively far away, not that he wanted to know, but it seemed like they calmed down.

'As expected of the class Madonna,' Oreki thought, eyebrows in a questioning look when Ichinose looked at him and waved.

Not wanting to make it awkward, he just waved back lazily, to the surprise of his company.

'Does Oreki know that girl?' Shiina thought, jealous thoughts creeping up her mind.

"There's nothing happening anymore, let's go back," Oreki said, with Shiina silently nodding.

Getting back into position, the atmosphere felt more suffocating to Shiina as she had a question in the back of her mind the moment she saw Ichinose wave at him.

After a minute, Shiina was about to open her mouth, when someone was at the entrance of their nook.

"Who is it that you're with, Oreki-kun?"

"..." Oreki and Shiina just stared at Sakayanagi, who looked at the two.

'Now who's this woman?' Shiina and Sakayanagi both thought.

After a few seconds of silence, Oreki sighed before getting it over with.

"This is my friend, Shiina Hiyori."

Shiina blushed at Oreki when he called her a friend, which got the attention of Sakayanagi.

'So she's 100% in love with Oreki.' Sakayanagi thought.

Shiina tapped Oreki, which caused Oreki to look at her, Shiina looked at Sakayanagi with a questioning look.

"... That's Sakayanagi Arisu. A classmate?" Oreki said, not particularly knowing the relationship he had with Sakayanagi.

While Sakayanagi called him a friend, Oreki thought that friends do more than just eat and ask him questions, making him question the nature of their relationship.

'A classmate? Is that all I am to you?'

Sakayanagi thought, frustrated.

"Is that so? How rude, Oreki-kun, I thought we had something closer than that," Sakayanagi said in a teasing manner, gauging Shiina's reaction.

Shiina made an 'eep' noise before getting closer to Oreki as if she were a threatened cat.

Not moving from his position, Oreki just plainly stared at Sakayanagi.

'Are you serious?'

"Well, all you do is walk with me to school occasionally and eat lunch with me. Even then you just ask me questions. How was I supposed to know?" Oreki plainly said his opinion, getting two different reactions from the two women.

'She eats lunch and walks with Oreki-kun?' Shiina thought, ignoring the other aspects of his statement.

'That is true, I guess I have to further my advances. Two new rivals appeared in an instant...' Sakayanagi thought, before nodding to herself and crawling into the nook.

'What is she trying to do now?' Oreki thought, watching as Sakayanagi got closer to him, before laying down on his lap.

"D-does this tell you my answer?" Sakayanagi embarrassedly said, blushing.

'T-this is more embarrassing than I imagined...' Sakayanagi thought, trying not the make eye contact with Oreki.

'What the...' Oreki thought, looking at Sakayanagi, before looking up and holding his front bangs in focus.

"W-wait!" Shiina said, before clutching his left arm.

'You too?' Oreki thought, sweatdropping.

"Let us all just calm down," Oreki said.

"Sakayanagi get up."

"Y-yes," Sakayanagi responded, a tinge of blush remaining on her face.

"And Shiina please let my arm go," Oreki said, waiting a few seconds before looking at Shiina.

Red as a tomato, it seemed like Shiina was zoning out in embarrassment. After shaking his arm a little it seemed like Shiina snapped out of it before letting go slowly and backing away.

"Let us all just relax and take a few breaths," Oreki said, waiting for a few seconds.

After a few seconds, Oreki opened his mouth to say something.

"Now what do we have to say,"

"I-I apologize. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. I guess I wasn't in my right m-mind," Sakayanagi apologized, stuttering along the way.

'This is an abnormal side I'm seeing. Cute,' Oreki offhandedly thought, before looking at Shiina.

"S-same h-here..." Shiina was much more embarrassed about the whole thing, as she was still red in the face and stuttering much more than Sakayanagi.

"So let me reiterate, but Shiina is a friend, and you are also a friend, are you satisfied now?" Oreki said, looking at Sakayanagi.

"Also, why were you even here, I've never actually seen you at the Library," Oreki continued.

"Oh, today was one of the class sessions, and it ended when I was wandering around when I saw Ichinose wave at you." Sakayanagi explained.

"The class session ended already...?" Oreki asked, before looking at the time and seeing that it was already pretty late, an hour after dinner time to be exact.

'Damn,' Oreki thought.

"Then I guess we have to go back to our dorms," Oreki said, standing up.

Following his lead, Sakayanagi and Shiina both stood up, bags in hand, before following Oreki to the doors, where it was pouring.

'What is this timing...' Oreki thought, looking at his weather app.

"It never said it was going to rain today," Sakayanagi commented, looking worriedly outside, and it seemed like Shiina had the same sentiment, looking inside her bag.

Oreki looked briefly inside his own bag to see his XL foldable umbrella that he had spent a decent amount on a few days ago. He had opened it before and he assumed that it was wide enough to fit 3 slim people, and he and his company fit the bill to a T.

The issue was with how it was going to look to the general public.

He could just give the umbrella to the two ladies before just running home but Oreki imagined that his company wouldn't allow that.

But it looked like there was no borrowable umbrella around, and he doubted that there would be a lot of people around in the rain.

After a few more seconds of debating amongst himself, Oreki sighed, before pulling out an umbrella.

He started his first alternative.

"I got a pretty large umbrella, so if you two want to go use it I can just run home..."

"Absolutely not." "No way."

"That's what I thought..." Oreki said, before offering if the 2 wanted to just walk under one umbrella with him and walk the way home.

"I guess we have no choice," "Okay..."

After revealing the large umbrella, it seemed like Oreki had miscalculated, and it was a tad bit smaller than he had remembered.

"I guess it's smaller than I thought..." Oreki commented, but before he could propose a different solution, the two hugged his two arms.

"That's perfectly fine." "It's o-okay..."

'Are you joking me?' Oreki thought, waiting a few seconds before resigning to his fate and started the walk to the Dormitories.

On the way there, he was noticed by some students, who glared at him, but thankfully, Oreki was covering the front of his face with the umbrella, which effectively hid his eyes and hair, the 2 most noticeable features of his face.

After what felt like an eternity, Oreki and the two ladies arrived at the dorms, where Oreki bid them goodbye before they could be seen by anybody else.

Arriving at his room, he of course did his daily internet workout before showering. Eating his meal, he thought back to what just happened, before zoning out.

Finishing his meal, he cleaned up and then got ready for bed, and went to sleep, trying to forget as much of today as fast as possible.

'What a nightmare,' Oreki thought.

A/N: I know I said I want these chapters as long as possible, but it's more on the shorter side.

But it would be hella awkward to just continue the story ending on this note, so I just ended it early.

Sorry.