The original protagonist is still alive.
For a while now, I've felt a prickling sensation on the back of my head.
To be more specific, it started after I made the rounds of Ichijo Academy's sports clubs, essentially challenging them all under the guise of trial memberships to test my strength.
And I knew the primary cause.
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 sweet red bean bun in her mouth.
"What is she doing?"
"What's wrong?"
"No, it's nothing."
I replied, opening the lid of the lunchbox I'd packed at home.
"Wow! It's kimbap!"
"Rika, how do you know what kimbap is?"
"Huh? It was in a Korean drama my mom watches a lot. When I asked her, she said it was like a Korean norimaki."
Well, she's not wrong.
The taste and the ingredients inside are pretty similar, after all.
I asked Kishimoto, who was staring at it with fascination.
"Want one?"
"Sure! Let's trade for one of my tamagoyaki!"
As she said that, Kishimoto offered me a piece of what looked like a normal rolled omelet with her chopsticks.
After taking it, I held out my lunchbox, and she helped herself.
Kishimoto immediately popped the kimbap into her mouth, cupped a cheek with one hand, and exclaimed.
"So good~"
Watching her eat with such relish, I put the rolled omelet in my mouth, and my expression instantly stiffened.
"Rika, your family is on Team Sugar, I see."
"Huh? Why? Isn't tamagoyaki supposed to have sugar in it?"
As a Korean, I struggled with the unforgivably sweet taste, and only after forcing myself to swallow the omelet could I speak.
"My family is on Team Salt."
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 a rolled omelet.
I can tolerate chawanmushi being treated as a dessert depending on the restaurant, but a rolled omelet, a side dish for rice, is a definite no.
"Koreans have unusual tastes..."
Her muttering, as if she'd just had a grand realization, was subtly infuriating.
Lately, I've been eating lunch alone with Kishimoto like this more often.
There were various reasons for this. First, the other kids felt awkward when I ate in the classroom. Second, she was pretty much the only friend I had to eat with.
Satoru, who I'm also close to, is a total social butterfly, so he usually eats with his own group of friends.
I was about halfway through my lunch.
*Tweet!*
"Propriety! Propriety, I say!"
The student council president suddenly appeared out of nowhere, shouting with a whistle in her mouth.
Immediately after, she pointed the tip of the black fan she always carried at me and yelled.
"Improper fraternization between the sexes at this academy is something that I, the student council president, will not tolerate, even if the heavens forgive it!"
"Kim Yu-seong, I'm disappointed in you."
"Even in my view, there seem to be no extenuating circumstances here."
The student council trio, who had appeared out of nowhere while we were eating, surrounded us while spouting nonsense.
What is this? Some kind of hidden camera prank?
I was thinking this as I chewed on the kimbap in my mouth.
Just then, Kishimoto, sitting next to me, seemed to finally recognize the three of them. She pointed her chopsticks at them and exclaimed.
"Ahh! It's the academy's famous Dark Student Council!"
The Dark Student Council? Does that mean there's a Light Student Council too?
I was pondering this naming sense, which seemed abnormal no matter how you looked at it.
Thrown off by Kishimoto's bright, innocent smile, the president covered her face with her fan and retorted.
"Wh-what is that! That nickname, the Dark Student Council!"
"Well, you guys always wear black and walk around in a group, right? That's what everyone else calls you."
Hearing that, I glanced over and saw it was true.
The male uniform, the gakuran, is black by default, but the president and Minato Nao wear specially made black sailor uniforms.
They might say it's to project the student council's authority, but to regular students, it just looked like cosplay.
You see them all the time in manga... characters like this.
"Wh-wh-wh-what! How rude!"
The president, apparently not expecting her fashion sense to be suddenly criticized, blushed beet red and retreated.
At this point, I was certain.
Kishimoto, who always maintained her smile and her own pace, was the natural enemy of the arrogant and subtly condescending president.
"J-just you wait! We'll be back!"
In the end, unable to bear the shame, the president fled to the student council room with her two subordinates.
Kishimoto, having successfully defended our position by striking the president's weak spot, tilted her head in confusion.
"Ryu-chan, did I do something?"
Just as expected from the all-time legendary heroine who shone as number one in the original story's popularity polls.
Her obliviousness is so extreme it's almost scary.
***
The third week of April.
It was a peaceful Monday morning, with Golden Week just around the corner.
*BAM!*
Suddenly, a high school girl burst into the classroom, throwing the door open violently.
"Which one of you bastards is Sakamoto Ryuji! Get out here now!"
Flowing, short red hair.
She was a fierce-looking girl wearing a red unisex gym jersey over her sailor uniform, with black spats peeking out from under her skirt.
At that, the protagonist, who was now sitting alone by the window after Kishimoto had moved to the seat next to me, stood up with a puzzled expression.
"That's me. What's wrong?"
The red-haired girl strode up to him, hands stuffed in her jersey pockets, and glared at Sakamoto Ryuji with the fierce eyes of a predator as she asked.
"I hear you're the one who messed with our first-years. I heard all about it when I visited them in the hospital yesterday."
The protagonist replied with a good-natured smile.
"I think there's been some kind of misunderstanding."
But the red-haired girl shot out her right hand and roughly grabbed him by the collar.
"Huh?! A misunderstanding? What misunderstanding! Are you trying to play dumb after beating someone up! What the hell!"
"Wait! I can explain!"
Yaguchi Maiya shouted, suddenly stepping between the red-haired girl and the protagonist.
Her intervention completed the love triangle, and the previously quiet classroom began to stir.
It felt like watching the beginning of a teen drama.
'I smell it. The smell of a romantic comedy.'
This situation is probably a scene from one of the original story's events.
I expected the story to be completely wrecked with the original heroine, Rika, becoming friends with me instead of getting involved with the protagonist, but surprisingly, it seems the original events are still happening.
I've heard that in movies, something like the butterfly effect is supposed to happen in cases like this, but honestly, I'm not so sure.
I never read the original, for one thing.
Yaguchi Maiya seemed intimidated by the fierce-looking red-haired girl, but she still spoke up for the protagonist in a bold voice.
"You seem to be from the kendo club. It was your first-years who harassed me when I was 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 widened as soon as she heard the explanation.
It seemed she had come to confront him after hearing only the one-sided story of the guys who were now in the hospital.
As if cold water had been thrown on the situation, the heat that had rushed to her head cooled down. She hesitated, as if realizing there was more to consider, then let go of the protagonist's collar.
"Uh... sorry. I was too hasty."
As she obediently apologized, Sakamoto Ryuji scratched his cheek with an awkward expression before letting out a good-natured laugh.
"Don't worry about it, I get it. Anyone can make a mistake when they're angry. As long as the misunderstanding is cleared up, it's fine."
She nodded awkwardly and said to the protagonist.
"I'll make sure to teach those guys a lesson for lying to avoid getting yelled at by me. I swear it on my name."
"Uh... thanks?"
As the protagonist, Sakamoto Ryuji, failed to follow 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 romantic comedy cliché.
"W-well then! I'll be going! See ya!"
The red-haired girl turned her back on him, as if to hide her flushed face, and her eyes met mine as I watched the situation unfold.
"Ah."
I thought she looked familiar. She was the girl who handed me a shinai when I visited the kendo club last week.
She also seemed to recognize me, her expression showing a hint of surprise, but she quickly scrambled out of the classroom.
Despite the storm-like commotion that morning, the protagonist, Sakamoto Ryuji, just muttered with a dense expression, "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 girl is unnecessarily perceptive.