CHAPTER 13: CHAPTER 13: THE CURIOSITY OF THE GIRLS

Friday, June 7.

Opening the window curtain, Zayden saw a bright sun.

It was a sunny day, different from yesterday.

According to the weather forecast, it would be sunny for the rest of the day.

Although he had only napped a little, he wasn’t sleepy.

When he finished getting ready, he went to have breakfast.

On the table, there were his favorite things.

There was also a note.

[Unfortunately, I have an early appointment and couldn’t have breakfast with my baby. Mom ordered everything you like. And... Mom loves you so much, so much, so much... Really a lot, got it?]

The amount of ’so much’ she wrote was almost suffocating, even in a simple note.

He smiled lightly while shaking his head and started eating, letting his mind wander.

...

The rumors about Zayden suddenly changed.

From a rich delinquent to something less dangerous.

Overall, they talked about his changes, starting with his appearance, up to the basketball team incident, or his interaction with Erika. There’s also the beautiful transfer student with long silver hair and blue eyes, Catherine.

But there’s still a seed of doubt.

Can someone change that much? Can a person’s nature be changed?

It’s known that humans aren’t that simple; they aren’t creatures that act solely based on logic. It should be impossible to completely turn the page, right?

And, above all, the past always comes back to haunt.

In front of the school, on flashy motorcycles and without helmets, a group of delinquent bikers were making noise.

When Zayden saw this, he felt a headache coming on.

If it were before, he and Yamagi would’ve gone for a fight, but this time it was different.

He asked Wilson to stop the car a few meters away and called the police.

"I want to report a case. Several men on motorcycles are causing a ruckus in front of Eiko Academy. They’re carrying bladed weapons, like baseball bats, acting threateningly, scaring the students, and without helmets. Come as soon as possible, thank you."

He hung up right after.

"Boss, you’ve changed," Yamagi said.

"Really?" Zayden said indifferently: "I just don’t want to dirty my hands with trash. And if I beat them up, they’d only get away with a few broken bones, but if they’re arrested..." He laughed.

"That’s the Boss I know," Yamagi said, nodding.

Wilson in the front was also nodding.

’Do I have such a bad image in their minds?’

Well, it wasn’t like he cared about something so small.

Minutes later, the sound of several sirens was heard.

"Damn it!"

"Someone ratted us out?"

"I’m gonna kill the son of a bitch who did this!"

"Stop cursing and let’s get out of here..."

However, before they could even escape, their escape route was completely blocked.

Soon, a male voice was heard through a megaphone: "Get off your bikes and lie on the ground! Resisting will only make you suffer!"

The delinquents, who had never been surrounded by the police before—after all, this shouldn’t be happening. It just shouldn’t... Something inside them said something was wrong, but they couldn’t figure out what.

The reality was that before, they acted like this but never got into serious trouble with the police.

But before they could even plan revenge, they were being surrounded by the police?

Why did it feel like the world had gone crazy?

Zayden, who was in the car, got out.

"Young Master?" Wilson called after him.

With the door open, he said: "Wilson, you can head back now. I’ll get off here."

Saying that, he slung his backpack over his shoulder and walked forward.

When the leader of the delinquents saw him, an expression of realization mixed with anger became visible on his face: "It was you, wasn’t it, Zayden!"

Zayden looked at him coldly: "Shut up, idiot. Don’t talk like we’re friends and I betrayed you. I just called the police to clean up the trash. Isn’t it normal to do that when you see a bunch of troublemakers causing a ruckus in front of a school with pieces of wood, thinking they’re the biggest outlaws around?"

"You...!"

The delinquent almost spat blood. He felt his chest ache with so much anger.

"Don’t move!" A police officer with a gun warned: "If you move, I’ll shoot!"

The delinquent leader’s face turned pale.

Though he lived like an outlaw, he was afraid of firearms.

When they saw their leader surrender, the rest followed suit.

In an instant, they were all handcuffed.

"Good job," Zayden said to the police: "I’m heading off now."

Even though they found his involvement strange, they had no reason to stop him.

...

In class 1-A, what had happened earlier was being discussed.

Obviously, something like that couldn’t go unnoticed.

"Do you guys think it was really Valtrex-san who called the police on them?" one of the students asked.

"He seemed to indirectly admit it, so, yeah?" another replied uncertainly.

"Well, one thing he said was right. When you see ’trash’ causing trouble, it’s only fair to call the police. I’m just surprised no one had done it before, and the one who did was Valtrex-san."

"It seems like the story about him wanting to turn the page is real. If it were before, he might’ve started a fight with those delinquents."

"He’s here!"

It was a female student who spoke.

And several eyes turned toward the door.

Being watched, Zayden felt a strong urge to turn around and leave.

Turning to Yamagi, he said: "Yamagi, do something to break this weird vibe."

"Yes."

A quick and confident response.

Yamagi walked and stood in front of the green chalkboard.

Clapping his hands, making an incredibly loud sound.

"How do you keep someone in suspense?" Yamagi answered before anyone had a chance: "I’ll tell you tomorrow..."

""""...""""

An even more awkward silence hung over the classroom.

But soon, a ’chaos’ erupted.

"Is it for real that Yamagi-san tried to tell a joke?"

"My God, the sky will turn square tomorrow!"

"Hey, someone, call the sensei!!"

"What do I do? I’m getting some serious chills now... I have a bad feeling, like the end of the world is near!"

"Hey, don’t exaggerate. It’s just Yamagi-san telling a joke, right?"

"Say that while you’re not standing on your head doing a handstand!"

"..."

Zayden crossed his arms and muttered under his breath: "Looks like asking Yamagi to do something wasn’t the wisest choice after all."

He began to reflect on his mistake.

Meanwhile, Yamagi simply walked to his desk and sat in his chair.

Even as everyone talked about him, he seemed oblivious to it all and kept his poker-face expression.

"Hey, what’s all this noise!"

The sensei entered the classroom, looking very angry.

"Yorina-sensei, listen to us. Yamagi-san told a joke!"

"Yeah, a joke, so what... Wait, what did you say?"

"Yamagi-san told a joke."

Yorina turned around, facing away, extending her arm and seeming to rub her eyes.

When she turned back, her eyes were red: "I see, Yamagi-kun told a joke. Mm, sensei is happy that Yamagi-kun is finally opening up to his classmates."

"We understand you, sensei!"

’Do they need to go that far?’ Zayden was speechless.

For him, it was normal to hear Yamagi’s bad jokes.

Though he doesn’t tell many, sometimes he just drops one. He’s the type who likes question-jokes, where he gives the answer himself.

Something Zayden didn’t know was that some even believed Yamagi was a robot created by the Valtrex Group to be Zayden’s friend and bodyguard.

But in the end, Zayden managed to divert attention from himself and reached his desk, sitting in his chair, he said good morning to Erika.

Sleepy, but with an adorable smile, Erika tucked her blonde hair behind her ear and said: "Good morning, Zayden-kun~"

Her large breasts were resting on the desk as she almost fell asleep sitting like that.

Her head bobbed down and up, while her breasts shifted on the desk.

...

In the third class, during the teacher switch, Erika seemed like a different person. She was cheerful and enthusiastic.

"So, you saw they were causing trouble and called the police?" Erika put a hand in front of her mouth, her eyes showing surprise.

"Huh? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? I don’t get why everyone’s acting weird when what I did was just the obvious thing." Zayden replied.

"The obvious thing, huh..." She murmured and said: "But, you know, Zayden-kun. A lot of people find it really hard to do the obvious thing. Especially when it involves that kind of dangerous people. After all, if they find out who reported them, it’s hard to know what they’ll do next."

"... You have a valid point," Zayden said: "But I still disagree. A report doesn’t need to be made in a way that’s easily traceable; you just make an anonymous report. And those fools aren’t smart enough to figure out who it was among so many students."

"That’s true, but few people think like that," Erika shook her head gently.

"What, what." Catherine came over to them, placing her hands under Zayden’s desk, leaning forward to rest her large breasts on his desk until they slightly deformed: "What are you two talking about?"

"Tsk."

"You just went ’Tsk’ at me, hey, hey, Zayden-kun, she just clicked her tongue at me, didn’t she?" Catherine asked with a pout.

Instead of answering her question, Zayden said: "If you keep seducing me like that, I’ll kiss you right here."

"Eh... Hueeehhh!?"

Standing at attention, her face was flushed as she let out a strange scream. When she stood up suddenly, Zayden’s desk shook a little, but he managed to stabilize it by placing his hand on top.

"Okay, everyone to your seats." The English sensei entered the classroom.

Erika reached out and pinched Zayden’s waist. Meanwhile, Catherine returned to her desk robotically, looking like a little soldier marching.

The only thing that really stood out was Catherine’s flushed face, even the tips of her ears.

He only wanted to tease her a little, but it seemed to be too stimulating for her...

The English sensei was a woman and was strange to Zayden.

Strange in the sense of her fashion choices.

She liked to keep her hair tied up in a high dango – something fairly common so far – but her clothing choices were sweatpants, athletic sneakers, and fluorescent-colored jackets.

In the dark, she probably looked like a colorful lamp.

Right now, she was wearing a fluorescent green jacket.

It was so eye-catching that it hurt the eyes a bit if you stared at it too long.

A positive point was that she was naturally beautiful, with flawless skin and zero makeup.

She seemed to have some sort of aversion to makeup, as Zayden never saw her wear even lip gloss.

Though she seemed to take good care of her nails, keeping them trimmed and clean, she also never appeared with painted nails.

Either she was married, which wouldn’t explain much if she was, or she simply had zero interest in romance.

That’s how she was perceived. However, when asked about her love life, Akeno-sensei simply smiled withoutburgowithout answering.

And if pressed further, her smile grew even wider to the point of becoming unsettling.

Minutes into the class, Akeno-sensei turned around, holding a piece of white chalk between her fingers, and said in a different, high-pitched, cheerful voice: "Valtrex-kun, read this passage."

She underlined the passage with the chalk.

"Okay."

Standing up, Zayden began to read.

"Knowing nothing is not a sin, but believing without knowing is. And..."

Zayden read impeccably. His pronunciation made them believe English was his first language.

When he finished, there was a minute of silence, followed by applause and some words of admiration.

"Very well, Valtrex-kun." Akeno-sensei gave a thumbs-up: "Keep it up!"

"Thank you." He thanked her and sat down.

Erika made a barrier with her hand and whispered to Zayden: "That was hilarious. I had noticed you were good at singing English songs, but I didn’t expect your speaking pronunciation to be so fluent and beautiful. You seemed so... cool. Like, a God~"

Smiling, Zayden replied: "If you want, I can teach you. I’m good with the tongue... I mean, the English language."

"All you know how to do is tease me~" She blushed and turned away, hand on her face.

**

During the breaks between teacher changes, many students gossiped about the morning’s events.

From the final years of elementary school to high school at Eiko Academy.

An incident involving the police couldn’t go unnoticed.

In class 1-B, someone brought up the topic with Riko Kohinata, one of the heroines of HHHS.

Riko, with her usual bright smile, replied: "Well, I don’t know much about it. Since I arrived late, the whole thing was already over."

"Then let me tell you everything. I saw it all from the front row~!" With an excited demeanor, the golden-eyed girl with glasses and long, straight black hair, Inoe, began to narrate everything she saw.

She ended with a squeal, saying: "Ahh, Valtrex-sama was so cool~"

Riko gave a forced smile.

She simply didn’t share the same view as her friend. She could understand that the boy named Zayden Valtrex did something many didn’t have the courage to do, but to begin with, wasn’t all of that caused by him?

From what she heard, the leader of the bikers recognized Zayden, meaning there was a huge chance they were there because of him.

Another thing, being a rich second-generation young master, he didn’t need to fear some delinquents like the rest.

If anyone else tried to act with justice, the end result wouldn’t be pretty to see.

She didn’t even want to think about the case of a girl ending up in the crosshairs of those thugs.

She thought carefully before choosing her words and said softly: "If he’s cool... I can’t say for sure, but if you like him, why not tell him?"

"If it were that easy, I wouldn’t be struggling so much..." Inoe sighed, leaning on Riko’s desk.

She was a bit introverted; some even called her a bookworm, but she simply liked to read and study, which didn’t mean she was antisocial.

She had several friends besides Riko. But the social barrier to talking to Zayden was huge.

In the school’s food chain, Zayden was at the top, even above the teachers.

And that wasn’t even a joke.

It was a matter of semantics: Zayden was rich, tall, very handsome, and on top of that, very attractive.

Before, his delinquent side overshadowed his excellence, but ever since he decided to change, more and more girls started noticing him.

Inoe even saw a girl during yesterday’s break making a bold confession after Zayden came out of the bathroom in front of several students.

That caught her by surprise. She had never seen a public confession like that in person.

Of course, the girl was rejected anyway.

That also made her feel that the barrier between her and Zayden was bigger than she thought. If even a girl that cute, who confessed to him so boldly, was rejected, she, an ordinary glasses-wearing girl with nothing special besides reading, didn’t feel she had any chance of becoming someone close to him.

"Is it really that hard?" Riko asked rhetorically, seeming oblivious to Zayden’s excellence.

It seemed that for her, he wasn’t as special as he was in Inoe’s eyes.

"I know!"

Getting an idea, Inoe perked up and asked: "Riko-chan~"

When she heard the disgustingly sticky way her name was called, Riko had a bad feeling.

"Can you do me a favor?" Inoe asked with hungry puppy eyes: "Please, come with me to Valtrex-sama. If you’re by my side, I’m sure I’ll find the courage to talk to him. Say yes, yes~?"

Sighing exasperatedly, Riko’s bad feeling came true.

But faced with her best friend’s request, she still replied: "Okay, but don’t expect much from me. I’ll just go with you. Is that okay?"

"Thank you, Riko-chan!" She hugged Riko: "I knew I could count on you~!"

"Okay, okay, don’t cling to me!" Riko pushed her face away with her hands.

Riko started to feel a bit curious about Zayden, who made her best friend so hopelessly infatuated, even though they barely knew each other.

’What’s so special about him, anyway?’ She still couldn’t understand.

**

The bell for the end of the last period rang, and classes were over.

Zayden left the classroom with Erika, Catherine, and Yamagi.

In the shoe locker corridor, Zayden saw two girls standing in front of his locker.

’Riko and... Inoe, if I’m not mistaken.’ Zayden recalled.

In the game, Inoe had an important role. Though she wasn’t one of the heroines, she was short, only slightly taller than Riko, 1.51 m tall, and had the classic bookworm girl traits, serving as a support character who, depending on how the protagonist, Subaru, acted, would help him get closer to Riko. However, if Subaru showed himself to be a jerk, she became someone who prevented him from getting close to Riko.