Stealing Spree

It's to no surprise that once we returned to the classroom, the rowdiness that we could hear from outside disappeared almost instantly. However, a second later, a few of them instantly stood up and pointed at me.

Those few mostly consisted of the loudmouth boys like Fukuda's crew or Yamada as well as the girl who exchanged seats with Hana. The former trying to be a white knight once again as if it was going to boost his image and the latter was just being his goofy self, possibly wanting to know the secret to how I did it.

Thanks to Satsuki and the other girls' efforts, the tension within the room toned down drastically from how it was about to erupt earlier. Due to that, with little to no effort at all, we shut down those few who stood up.

For the white knight wannabe and the girl, Hana dealt with them with ease. Without breaking her angelic smile, the girl simply stared at him and he immediately lost strength in his legs.

And yep. She also stepped up. Most likely, it's because she's among the girls already linked to me.

However, that's all she did. Except for that one instance where she tried to tease Chii by hinting about what happened last night, she refrained from approaching me.

Those who were already taken in by her angelic smile also couldn't complain that much when faced with the girl behaving like that.

If I have to guess, Hana is now holding onto that request of hers. She's waiting for that chance to come.

When the commotion died down, it became my cue to leave.

With Satsuki and Nami gesturing to me not to worry too much and that they could handle whatever was going to come, I left our classroom, dropping off what was weighing on my mind.

I should trust them on this one, right? They had already shown their resolve to also do something about our relationship. Like Nami said, they're all feeling responsible for unconsciously pushing me to make that decision.

In this way, the girls would feel at ease and what we envisioned with our relationship would be put to practice.

Even if I am the core, they won't let me do everything by myself. In fact, they're probably even thinking that before people can start maligning me, they'll put a stop to it.

Yeah. I'm really the luckiest man because of my girls.

-

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Before going to Eguchi-sensei's room to wait for her there, I used the last ten minutes before the 1st period to check on my girls from the other classes as well as lay out the measures I planned yesterday concerning that one particular golden ringlet senior.

At the moment, I was only a few steps from our classroom. In front of me was the Student Council Treasurer who got roped into our shenanigans after getting caught by Shizu and the other girls.

"I'll be counting on you, Watanabe. You can message me if something happens."

"Un. You can leave it to me, Onoda-kun. I'll ask Ma-kun to escort me to meet Kujou-senpai."

Well, she didn't look like she was suffering anyway. The girl even appeared rather enthusiastic at the task I handed down to her after explaining that I won't be here today.

She's going to drag Masato-senpai, huh? What happened to keeping him in the dark?

I guess she prepared some kind of excuse. As long as she did what I asked of her, I couldn't care less about her method.

After nodding to that, I turned to the girl next to Watanabe who also sprang up to her feet when I asked for her.

Who is it? Of course, it's the girl that took a wide leap to become one of the few people important to me. The girl who I convinced to come back to school.

Since my task was complete and I already picked her up for school for two days straight, it's now up to me whether to continue that or not.

Today, given that I spent most of my morning with my girls from the other school, I had no time to pick her up and walk her to school anymore.

That's why even though I didn't call for her, seeing her here relieved me of my worry that she might go back to being a shut-in. Even if what happened yesterday in her room already lowered the possibility of it, I just couldn't help it – as a certified worrywart.

"Mhm, I'm glad you can now come to school without me picking you up, Komoe. Did Miura-senpai wake you up?" I smiled and patted the girl's head which instantly made her lips draw an arc in satisfaction.

"Hehe, I have to show progress, right? It's Mom who woke me up. Onee-chan waited outside in case you showed up."

Really? Miura-senpai is becoming dedicated to that, huh?

"Well, I'll have you tell her not to do that every day. I can't promise to always pick you up, after all."

"That's what I told her! But she's clinging to that possibility. I bet she's also hoping to close her distance from you."

There's no other explanation for that, right?

"What is this, Onoda-kun? You're also going after Miura-san's sister?" Watanabe interjected. Her eyes shone with interest. The same as yesterday, she's holding a notepad, jotting down something.

"Uh. No? I respect her though."

"Ah ha! So, you don't deny going after Miura-san here. I see. I see." Acting like she caught me from my own words, the girl did her unusual salute before furiously writing on her notepad again.

Once she was down, she pocketed it on her skirt before giggling like an idiot.

Seeing that, Komoe furled her brows before shaking her head in helplessness. Since I already entrusted Komoe to Watanabe yesterday, I'm certain that the weird girl already used that chance to mine more information from her regarding me. Or just the details of how I convinced her to return to school.

"Listen here, Watanabe. I'm not going after Komoe. But you can say that she's more than a friend to me now. Is that understandable?"

"Oh! Noted!" With another salute, Watanabe energetically wrote that down again before turning to Komoe, "I told you, right? Onoda-kun won't simply call you a friend."

"Y-yeah. We're more than that now."

These two… I'm still here in front of you, you know?

Anyway, without commenting on that, I soon excused myself from the two. Although I didn't act as affectionate or as intimate to Komoe or Watanabe, those who saw us there would probably start another rumor.

Well, let them be.

Ah. One more thing, I also noticed Yanagi-san looking out from their classroom. When our gazes met, she greeted me with a nod and a small smile.

She still appeared unmotivated but at least, there was already an improvement from when I talked to her the other day.

Continuing to my next destination, I called for Maaya and Misaki in Class 3 and Rae in Class 4, disregarding the reaction of their classmates.

Nonetheless, while I was talking to them, I already noticed some of them pointing at me as if new rumors about me had already reached their ears.

I ignored all of those but I gave the girls a heads-up just in case. Whether that would help or not, I don't know. But the same as Nami and the others, they also seemed unfazed. Even the innocent Misaki who's supposed to be uninvolved got fired up when she saw Maaya's reaction.

As for Rae, the knowledge girl just told me to leave it to her. Most likely, she's already going to tell her friends before the rumors could reach them and explain to them in a way that they wouldn't fly in rage towards me.

That's a mess that I started but with the girls stepping up to do something about it themselves, I couldn't help but be filled with feelings of appreciation.

And due to that, I decided to also show a hint of our intimacy in public. Not a kiss since it would just stall us all there. I grabbed their hands while we were talking – yeah, Misaki included.

I still have two more floors to visit so I quickly made my way there to meet up with my girls outside their classrooms.