Chapter 4

Ayanokoji POV    I went on a walk after school, I decided to go and check out the various clubs that were going on today. When I arrived at the tennis courts I saw a bunch of girls looking at the alley behind a building,

    I checked it out and found 3 guys holding down my classmate and a purple-haired guy looking down at him. The guy they were holding down was my red-haired classmate. Sudo was a delinquent in the basketball club, he could definitely hold his own in a fight though I did not want it to progress to that.

    I walked towards them and questioned what was going on, Sudo looked up at me and said my name and then shook them off himself as he stepped back.

“Come on! Let’s beat the shit out of these guys!”

“Sudo, you need to calm yourself”

    While I was trying to calm down my delinquent classmate the purple-haired leader left.He walked off without even glancing at me, I stared at him as he walked away. He walked with confidence, his underlings followed. I just kept my hands in my pockets as the breeze blew my necktie.

“Thanks for having my back, Ayanokoji”

“Don't mention it”

    After I slept that night I got dressed then received a text message from Honami, she would be heading to school with her friends today.

    I was on my way to school with Akito who I met up with when I saw that Nagumo guy walking down the pathway, he hadn’t seen me yet so I grabbed Akito and hid in a bush to eavesdrop.

    It took a couple of minutes for him to arrive, Akito immediately understood I had a reason for my actions and he concealed his presence aswell.

“Hey Nagumo-kun, what’s up with the personal invitation to the student council that you gave to Ichinose-chan?”

“I was entranced by her beauty and amazing personality”

“Hahaha, but isn’t she in love with her butler?”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t make her mine, can you see it? Her dear butler gets expelled and I’m the one to comfort her”

“Hahaha, your so bad, Nagumo-kun”

    They continued down the path, but after about 30 seconds he sent a smug glance in our direction. It seemed he wanted for me to hear that conversation, and he meant it as a warning.

    The rest of the walk to school was fairly awkward between me and Akito, the amount of enemies I’ve made seems kind of unfair, it is only the beginning of the year after all.

    When I arrived, I found a seemingly burned-out Honami. I approached her and asked what was up and she replied by wrapping her arms around her stomach and said “I’m hungry”

“Did you not eat breakfast?”

“I was going to, but I remembered we have a test today and panicked, I spent the 30 minutes I set aside for eating to desperately cram for the test”

“But the test is tomorrow”

    As I reminded her I noticed all life in her eyes disappear, she realized she would have to go hungry for the morning for such a stupid reason, and as a result, she died inside.

“Don't worry, I have prepared for situations like these”

    I pulled out a Ziploc baggie of snacks and handed her a banana, a granola bar, and applesauce with a plastic spoon.

“Thanks, Kiyotaka! You are a cool butler!”

    I sat down in my seat and began to eat my own applesauce, it was very tasty. I realized instantly that I had made a huge mistake, the sight of Honami putting a banana into her mouth instantly removed ½ of my HP.

    I had to maintain absolute focus on my applesauce because if I were to stare too hard she might get embarrassed and choke on something, this is my duty as a butler.

    The next few days went by like normal, I did basic intel collection, lead study groups, everything was fine unt-

“I TOLD YOU IT WAS SELF DEFENSE”

    My thoughts were interrupted by shouting from the delinquent red-haired kid I had been working on taming for a little while now

“Jeez your such dead weight, why can’t you be more like Ayanokoji-kun or Hirata-kun”

“AYANOKOJI, YOU BELIEVE ME RIGHT?”

    All the gazes of my classmates turn to me, if I don't handle this situation perfectly it could mean serious consequences for my social life.

“I don't think you would just go around looking for fights, at least not with your tournament coming up”

    My sound logic and insight brought everyone on the same page… wait, since when did everyone trust me so much? Have I become popular?

“Then Ayanokoji, what should we do?”

“Don't worry Sudo, Honami and I will deal with this”

“Alright, thanks bro!”

    We heard more about the details from Chabashira-sensei, a fight broke out between Sudo and three Class C students.

After school Hirata stood up and asked everyone if they witnessed anything, afterwards he asked for help searching for witnesses.

Honami, Hirata, and I went to Class B first. When we arrived a cute girl with long black hair and a petite frame greeted us.

"If you are here to ask about the incident then unfortunately we don't know anything"

" I see, I'm sorry to bother you then"

We struck out with our first attempt. After arriving at Class A we found that the class was mostly empty.

"Are you looking for information regarding the incident that took place?"

"Yes, do you know anything? We really need to find something for the sake of our friend!" Hirata said

"I don't know anything personally, but if anyone knows then it is Katsuragi-san

The guy called someone on his phone and it appeared that this guy didn't know anything either

After another failed attempt we left feeling defeated. I spent some time while we were walking to think of anything we looked over

"Neither of those two classes knew anything, and if anyone in Class C saw it, I doubt they would say anything" Honami was sounding unusually pessimistic so I tried to cheer her up a bit.

"We aren't out of hope yet. Even if there isn't any evidence, there are still ways we can prove his innocence"

I'm sure Honami was about to ask me what I meant, but our conversation was interrupted by giggling around the corner

"Fufufu, I'm certain if anyone can pull off such a stunt, it's you, Ayanokoji-kun"

It was a girl with a cane, she was cute and gave off an aura of confidence.

"Do I know you?" I asked rhetorically

"I'm the leader of Class A, Sakayanagi Arisu, I have decided to lend you a hand"

"We just talked with another guy that sounded like a leader as well. Katsuragi said he didn't know anything"

"Just because he is ignorant doesn't mean I am. Though I don't have any information yet, my servants are searching every inch of the school for information"

"Wow! That's very kind of you!" Said Honami while ignoring the servant part of what she said

"By the way, Ayanokoji-kun" she drew close to my ear and whispered "I loved observing you in the White Room, you were my favorite subject"

I was left stunned, she knew about the White Room not from the media, but from a personal visit there.

I doubted her at first, but she spoke with complete confidence and showed no signs of telling a lie. Hirata seemingly noticed what I said and asked what she said to me

"Nothing significant, thank you very much for your help Sakayanagi"

"Fufufu, don't claim I am helping you. I'm just stopping Ryuen-kun's attack for now" a look of smug excitement came to her face "after all, I am not going to let him take away the pleasure of destroying your class"

After being shocked by her statement we watched as she left, her cane tapping on the ground as it aided her in leaving.

"Kiyotaka, do you know her? She acted like she knew how smart you are"

"I don't know her, she probably just heard about my test scores through word of mouth"

"I see, that makes sense"

Honami was on her phone while walking, she was likely either participating in a group chat or viewing the message boards.

This was a bad idea, while she was paying attention to her phone she walked into a pole, fell down, and dropped her phone.

She was sitting on the ground while holding onto her forehead and saying "ow" over and over. I had to stop myself from staring at her cuteness instead of helping her. After picking up her phone and helping her up we continued helping her, she was obviously embarrassed because her face was red the entire walk home.

When we arrived at her room I got the ingredients out for a Chinese dish called Lo Mein.

I realized I hadn't given Honami her phone back so I took it out and saw a new post on top of the message board she was looking at. It read

'if you have any information regarding the violent incident that occurred recently between Class D and Class C students, reply to this post for a cash reward befitting of the relevance of information'

"So she really is helping us, huh," I thought out loud

After taking her phone back and seeing the post made by Sakayanagi, Honami said

"She may be a little weird, but she is nice nevertheless!"

She's nice? Didn't she not long ago express her desire to crush us?

I handed Honami her food but when she grabbed it, I thought back to when she fell and decided to check up on her again.

I grabbed her hands, turned them over, and saw they were scraped and cut up pretty badly from when she used her hands to break her fall.

"You shouldn't hide these things Honami, what if it got infected"

She looked away and said she was sorry, meanwhile, I got out the first aid kit that I had in her kitchen just in case of emergencies.

I took out some cotton balls, disinfectant, and band-aids. She was sitting on the bed with her hands out in front of her.

I kneeled down in front of her, wiped her cuts with the cotton ball soaked In disinfectant, and covered the cuts in band-aids.

Her face was getting red so I decided to check and make sure she didn't have a fever, but she got very flustered and denied it very fast.

I left at about 7 because there was something that I wanted to do, I arrived at the special building and searched around for a bit. When I was here I came up with my plan, I contacted the number that was put on the message board and told her what I wanted to do and what I needed.

She responded by saying she would prepare everything as long as I let her tag along when I implemented the plan.

I was thinking about protesting, but with that smug look and dangerous aura, I felt like she could be helpful at least somewhat.

Before I could implement the plan, we needed to stall for a little while. The hearing run by the student council is tomorrow and it will take at least two days for us to set everything up.

Tomorrow is a Saturday and the hearing is at 4 o’clock, without a witness all of the facts point towards Sudo being the aggressor, if we don't do anything he might end up being suspended and we might incur a huge penalty.

(A/N: Not canon, but I realized I messed something up and changed it for plot convenience)

I was forwarded a series of texts by Sakayanagi which was originally sent by my classmate Kouenji Rosusuke, it said

‘Sakura Airi witnessed the fight’

Sakayanagi responded ‘do you have any proof?’

‘HAH, a perfect existence like myself needn’t provide proof’

‘Once we find this to be true I will send you the points’

‘Please make it snappy, I have a date in a few days’

    When sunrise came I went and sat on a bench in front of the dorms and observed everyone that came out. I did not know Sakura’s phone number so I had to try and ‘coincidentally’ run into her.

    After waiting for a while that ‘coincidence’ came, I saw her walking out with her head down and holding a plastic bag and a camera. She had absolutely no presence.

“Hey Sakura”

“Oh… um.... Good morning, Ayanokoji-kun”

“Sakura, I was wondering if you happened to witness the incident that occurred a couple of days ago, someone claimed to see you enter the building around the same time as those four did”

    I lied to make it sound like more than just speculation, if she truly had not been in the building that day then she could just outright deny the statement that I had just made.

“Ummm, you have the wrong person!” She exclaimed as she ran off

“Wait, don't tri-”

    While I tried my best to prevent her injury, she fell on the concrete, her camera breaking in the process.

    She frantically pressed the power button, but to no avail. I walked up to her and tried my best to keep her calm.

“Did you sign up for a warranty when you bought it?” I asked. After she nodded in response I said “then it is no big deal, you can go to the shop you bought it at and get it repaired”

    She just nodded her head, I then apologized for breaking her camera and for mistakenly claiming that she witnessed the fight and walked off, but before I could leave I was stopped by Sakura’s words.

“A-Ayanokoji-kun, c-could you please come to the electronics store with me?”

“Of course, should I bring Honami along with as well?”

“A-alright”

    Once Honami arrived at the meetup spot I designated, we set off and headed to the electronics store. It took us about 10 minutes to get there and when we arrived we went straight to the counter.

    The guy there was fat, ugly, and focused on Sakura’s presence instantly after we arrived. It was likely a poor experience with this guy that made her ask us along.

“My friend here has a broken camera, she has a warranty for it and would like to get it repaired” I took the lead to help ease Sakura’s burden

“Then I will need to see the camera and see the warranty”

    Sakura took it out and showed it to him, he checked out the camera, and then the warranty, and stated that everything was in order.

“Now I just need your full name, room number, and cell phone number”

    This breach of privacy shook Sakura pretty harshly, I immediately realized I needed to step in and help again. I took the pen out of Sakura’s hand and began to fill out the form.

“Please contact me when you are finished with the repairs”

“But the camera belongs to her sir!”

“You just confirmed the warranty and you possess the camera, is there really any problem with me picking up the camera in her place with her consent?”

    I glared at him while saying this, it seems he was intimidated by me and agreed to it instantly.

“T-thank you very much for coming with me today, Ayanokoji-kun, Ichinose-san”

“Anytime! I had fun today!”

“Umm, I have something to say… I witnessed the fight from a couple days ago, I just didn’t have the courage to say anything” she said, her hands trembling.

“Sakura, the fact that you told us this now, shows me that you truly are courageous”

“Yeah! Lots of people struggle to find words for what they want to say, but not all of us have the courage to admit it!”

    Honami and I spoke out to reinforce the fact that Sakura did nothing wrong. After saying this we went off so that we could make it to the hearing on time. While we were excited about the appearance of a witness and wished for her help, neither of us were going to force her to testify.

“W-wait! Let me come with you!”

“Really! Thank you very much!”

    While we were walking I informed Sakura that only claiming she had seen the incident wasn’t enough to make it believable, she replied to this by taking something out of her pocket.

“I-I took the SD card out of my camera before giving it to the employee. There is a photo of me with the 4 of them in the background”

    Howdy Howdy it's Nate here! I'm getting tired so Imma just end it here for now, the next chapter will have the hearing and will show how they overcome this trial! If you are wondering why I introduced Arisu so early then it is because she is my second favorite character in this story only behind Kiyopon. I wrote most of this on my phone so I’m sorry if there are any grammar errors I overlooked. Cya later alligators!