Chapter 11: The Original Protagonist is Still Alive
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 11: The Original Protagonist is Still Alive
For a while now, the back of my head has been tingling.
To be more specific, it started after I went around to Ichijo Academy’s sports clubs for a "trial membership," which was really just my way of dojo crushing to test my strength.
And I knew the main reason why.
About five meters away, Fuma Yukika, the captain of the kendo club, was hiding behind the corner of a building, spying on me.
As if she were a cop on a stakeout, she had a red bean bun clamped in her mouth.
"What is she doing?"
"What's wrong?"
"Oh, it's nothing."
I replied, opening the lid of the lunchbox I’d packed at home.
"Whoa! It's gimbap!"
"Rika, how do you know what gimbap is?"
"Huh? I saw it in a Hallyu drama my mom watches all the time. When I asked her, she said it's like Korean norimaki."
Well, she wasn't wrong.
The taste and ingredients are pretty similar, after all.
I asked Kishimoto, who was staring at it with fascination.
"Want one?"
"Sure! Let's trade for my tamagoyaki!"
With that, Kishimoto offered me a piece of ordinary-looking rolled omelet with her chopsticks.
After taking it, I held out my lunchbox, and she helped herself.
The moment she popped the gimbap into her mouth, Kishimoto cupped a cheek with one hand and exclaimed.
"Thish ish delishioush~"
Watching her eat so heartily, I put the rolled omelet in my mouth, and my expression instantly hardened.
"Rika, your family is on the sugar side, I see."
"Huh? What's wrong with that? Isn't tamagoyaki supposed to have sugar in it?"
As a Korean, I agonized over the sweetness I simply could not tolerate. After forcing myself to swallow the omelet, I managed to speak.
"My family is on the salt side."
Seeing me hastily rinse my mouth with water, Kishimoto raised her voice as if she'd heard something unbelievable.
"What! No way!"
"It's true."
Sugar goes into most foods in the world, but if there's one place it doesn't belong, it's in a rolled omelet.
By my standards, chawanmushi, which some restaurants treat as a dessert, is okay. But a rolled omelet, a side dish for rice, was a definite no.
"Korean food preferences are so unique..."
Her muttering, as if she'd just had a grand realization, was kind of annoying.
Lately, I'd been eating lunch alone with Kishimoto like this more often.
There were various reasons, but the first was that other kids felt awkward when I ate my lunch in the classroom. The second was that she was pretty much the only friend I had to eat with.
My other close friend, Satoru, was a total social butterfly, so he usually ate with his own group of friends.
I was about halfway through my lunchbox.
Peeeep!
"Adherence to moderation! Moderation, I say!"
The student council president suddenly popped out of nowhere, a whistle in her mouth as she shouted.
Immediately after, she pointed the tip of the black fan she always carried at me and declared.
"Even if the heavens forgive impure relations between the sexes at this academy, I, the student council president, will not!"
"Kim Yoo-Sung, I'm disappointed in you."
"Even from my perspective, I see no room for extenuating circumstances."
The student council trio suddenly appeared while we were eating, surrounding us while spouting some nonsense.
What is this? Some hilarious hidden camera prank?
I was chewing on the gimbap in my mouth, thinking just that.
It seemed Kishimoto, sitting next to me, had just recognized their faces. She pointed her chopsticks at them and shouted.
"Ah! It's the academy's famous Dark Student Council!"
Dark Student Council? Does that mean there's a Light Student Council, too?
I was pondering this naming sense, which was anything but normal, no matter how you looked at it.
The president, thrown off her game by Kishimoto's bright, malice-free smile, covered her face with her fan and retorted.
"Wh-what is that! What kind of nickname is the Dark Student Council!"
"Well, you guys are always dressed in black and walk around in a group. That's what everyone else calls you."
Hearing that, I glanced over and saw it was true.
The gakuran, the boys' uniform, was black by design, but the president and Minami wore specially made black sailor uniforms.
It was supposedly to project the dignity of the student council, but to regular students, it must have just looked like cosplay.
You see characters like this all the time in manga...
"Wh-wh-wh-what! How rude!"
The president, who clearly hadn't expected her fashion sense to be suddenly criticized, turned beet red and backed away.
At that moment, I was certain.
Kishimoto, who never lost her smile and always maintained her own pace, was the natural enemy of the arrogant and slightly pretentious president.
"J-just you wait! We'll be back!"
In the end, unable to bear the shame, the president fled back to the student council room with her two subordinates in tow.
Kishimoto, having successfully defended our lunch with a brilliant jab at the president's weak point, tilted her head in confusion.
"Ryu-chan, did I do something?"
As expected of the all-time legend heroine who shone as number one in the original work's popularity rankings.
Her natural obliviousness was so potent it was almost scary.
*
The third week of April.
It was a peaceful Monday morning, with Golden Week just around the corner.
CRASH!
A high school girl suddenly threw the classroom door open and stormed inside.
"Which one of you bastards is Sakamoto Ryuji! Get your ass out here!"
She had a flurry of short red hair.
Over her sailor uniform, she wore a unisex red gym jersey, and black spandex shorts peeked out from under her skirt. She was a girl with a fierce expression.
At that, the protagonist—who had moved to my old seat by the window after Kishimoto took the one next to me—stood up with a puzzled look.
"That's me. What's going on?"
The red-haired girl strode over, hands shoved in her jersey pockets, and glared at Sakamoto Ryuji with the savage eyes of a wild beast.
"I heard you messed with our first-years. I heard all about it when I visited them in the hospital yesterday."
The protagonist just gave her a good-natured smile.
"I think there's been some kind of misunderstanding."
But the red-haired girl shot her right hand out and grabbed him by the collar without hesitation.
"Hah! Misunderstanding? What misunderstanding! Are you trying to play dumb after beating someone up? Is that it!"
"Wait! I can explain!"
Yaguchi Maiya shouted, suddenly jumping between the red-haired girl and the protagonist.
With her entrance, a three-way standoff was formed, and the quiet classroom began to buzz with excitement.
It felt like watching the opening scene of a youth drama.
I smell it. The smell of a rom-com.
This situation was probably a scene from an original event in the story.
I had expected the entire plot to be completely derailed since Rika, the original heroine, had befriended me instead of getting involved with the protagonist. But surprisingly, it seemed the existing events were still happening as planned.
I'd heard that in movies and such, something like the butterfly effect is supposed to happen in these cases, but honestly, I wouldn't know.
I never read the original work in the first place.
Yaguchi Maiya seemed intimidated by the fierce-looking red-haired girl, but she still spoke up for the protagonist in a bold voice.
"You look like you're from the kendo club. It was your first-years who harassed me when I was just minding my own business. The two of them tried to hit on me, and when that didn't work, they tried to drag me into an alley. Ryuji just happened to be passing by and helped me!"
"...What?"
The red-haired girl's eyes went wide as she heard the explanation.
It seemed she had come here to confront him after hearing only the one-sided story of the guys in the hospital.
As if doused with cold water, the heat that had rushed to her head cooled down. Realizing there was more to the story, she hesitated for a moment before letting go of the protagonist's collar.
"Uh... I'm sorry. I was too hasty."
When she apologized so readily, Sakamoto Ryuji scratched his cheek with an awkward expression before chuckling.
"No, it's fine. I get it. Anyone can make a mistake when they're angry. As long as the misunderstanding is cleared up, it's all good."
She gave a sheepish nod and said to the protagonist.
"I'll make sure those guys who lied to avoid getting yelled at by me learn their lesson. I promise you, on my name."
"Uh... thanks?"
As the protagonist, Sakamoto Ryuji, failed to keep up with the flow of the conversation and just tilted his head with a gentle smile, the red-haired girl's face flushed for a moment.
Ah, another rom-com cliché.
"W-well then! I'll be going! See ya!"
The red-haired girl turned her back on him, as if wanting to hide her reddened face, and her eyes met mine as I watched the situation unfold.
"Ah."
I thought she looked familiar. It was the girl who had handed me a shinai when I visited the kendo club last week.
She seemed to recognize me too, her expression showing a hint of surprise, but she quickly scrambled out of the classroom with a clatter.
Though the morning had started with a storm-like commotion, the protagonist, Sakamoto Ryuji, just muttered with an oblivious face, "What a strange girl."
Kishimoto, who had been watching the scene with me, crossed her arms and murmured.
"That girl who just left... I have a feeling we'll be seeing her around a lot."
This one... she's annoyingly perceptive.