Friends! Friends! Friends!

Bella brought Hiro to a private room, closed the door with a bang, and quickly scanned his body from head to toe.

She was rather intelligent and insightful; she could tell from his temperament and the look in his eyes that this was the same guy she met in the Cupid Love Hotel about two weeks ago.

However…

"How did you do it?!" As a girl, Bella was greatly shocked and disquieted by Hiro's change, and she grabbed him by the collar of his leather jacket while rocking his head back and forth.

"It must have been a disguise!" Bella exclaimed in realization. "You were putting on a disguise! No way you lost so much weight in such little time… that must be it!"

Inspiration flashed in Hiro's eyes and he quickly acted on it—a shocked expression appeared in his clear royal blue eyes, but he averted his gaze to calm down, returning an innocent yet helpless smile.

"How could that be?" He answered with his hands raised. "This is all the result of honest-to-God hard work!"

Bella caught the trace of shock that Hiro attempted to conceal by looking away, and this immediately confirmed her preliminary speculations; she immediately felt relieved inside yet curious at the same time.

Why would he be in disguise? Was it a premeditated plan to intercept me—No, what am I thinking? Even I feel embarrassed with my imagination…

Bella coughed, but she quickly stopped and gave Hiro an understanding smile while fixing his collar.

"Yeah, yeah…" she remarked. "You must have worked really hard—don't worry; I understand!"

Hiro coughed, grasped Bella's soft little hands and lowered them from his jacket's collar as he asked, "What are you doing here? Are you also a student in Inter High?"

Bella flinched, quickly withdrawing her hands from Hiro's hold as her cheeks and neck flushed red. Only now did she realize how close the proximity between the two of them were, and her heart started to beat wildly.

She hoped that her actions didn't lead to some misunderstanding while she answered patiently, "I have a private homeschooling tutor, so I'm not a student. However, my family and Rosaline's family have many established cooperations in their respective fields, so we became childhood friends."

Rosaline? She must be the Princess of the freshmen year, right? Hiro quickly deduced Rosaline's identity.

Hiro was a little confused. "If her family is so well off, why would she need to take the entrance exam scholarship? Couldn't she just apply to enter the school directly with her background and influence?"

Hiro assumed that Rosaline was in a prestigious middle school, so she shouldn't lack the necessary grades or achievements to apply directly.

Bella shook her head and didn't answer, but Hiro wasn't disappointed.

"Anyway," he changed the subject, albeit reluctantly. "Let's get down there first, people will start to gossip about some prince charming if we don't make it back soon."

Bella rolled her eyes. "I didn't think you're such a narcissist!"

Hiro sighed with a heartbroken expression as he lamented. "I also wanted to keep a low profile because I'm too handsome, but who would have expected that I'd be kidnapped by a beauty the moment I walked into the door?"

As Hiro spoke, he took out his phone to check the reason for the constant buzzing notifications.

Soon, he discovered that he was accepted into the chat group created by Rosaline, and that she had also added him to many other chat groups.

Once he accepted these invitations, his contacts list almost exploded with all the new contacts that were automatically added.

Hiro was exhilarated; he understood by now that the system's friends list was based on his connections in the real world, much like the low recognition base of Facebook in his past life.

Although this chat app wasn't Facebook or Messenger, he still gained close to 200 friends to his account after receiving Rosaline's endorsement.

A bright flash of blue light displayed his current friends list window, and he watched with relish as names kept popping up on the screen.

Although their friendship value was in the single digit, Hiro didn't care about that at all.

By the time the notifications calmed down, he made about 283 new friends!

That's close to 1,400 APs!

Hiro never felt this rich in his life! Now, he felt like coming to this sleepover party was already worth it; his main objective for the evening was accomplished!

Hiro resisted the urge to laugh and rub his chin in contemplation on what skills he should purchase, as he was still waiting for that high-priority mission reward.

With that in mind, he felt like he should express his gratitude to those people who helped brighten his day!

Without waiting for the pink-haired girl to respond, Hiro went for the door and opened it.

"Ah! Ouch-…"

The moment Hiro opened the door, three figures tumbled forward and crashed onto the ground; two girls and one boy.

Hiro and Bella were stunned, looking at these eavesdroppers with blank expressions.

The two girls sat up on their folded legs with embarrassed expressions, rubbed the back of their heads, and stuck out their tongues in a playful way.

As for the boy, he scrambled to his feet and rubbed both his hands in embarrassment as well, not daring to look up.

"Erm… do you know these three?" Hiro decided to ask Bella, since these three definitely weren't his friends.

Bella covered her face in shame. "They're probably just some little followers of my suitors… Ugh! This is embarrassing!"

Hiro understood.

He clicked his tongue and said, "This is so damn cliche! Am I being used as a shield or something? This is going to tarnish my innocent and reputation…"

Hiro's expression was the splitting image of hopeless distress, and even the three little minions were left speechless, let alone Bella who was boiling in anger.

Before those little fists could rain down fires of redemption on his handsome face, Hiro laughed loudly and dashed out the door, escaping the scene.

…

The awkward atmosphere on the main floor had already dissolved under the influence of gossip, drinks, and soothing music.

They were all teenagers; carefree and friendly to one another as a means to relax before the day of the foreboding exam.

No one was in the mind to stick their noses up someone else's private life with such a crucial turning point in their lives approaching.

Hiro couldn't find neither Rosaline or Marcus, but it was Vanti who found him and tossed an arm around his shoulders while laughing.

"Haha! You hid yourself quite well! I didn't know that you had connections to the influential friends of the Princess! Dude, you're set for life! I'm so jealous!"

"What's there to be jealous about?" Hiro disentangled himself from Vanti and took two steps away. "I'm probably gonna end up as a human shield, then some powerful CEO daddy will knock on my door one day, and if I'm lucky enough; I wouldn't end up as a castrated cold corpse on some unknown street in winter."

Vanti shivered and gave Hiro a sympathetic look. "Now that you've put it this way, I truly feel sorry for you. If there's any way I can help you, please don't come looking for me."

This damned opportunistic is friend material?! Hiro was rendered speechless, turning around and walking towards the pool without saying a word.

Vanti laughed, following Hiro to bask in the attention while the good times lasted.

Hiro didn't mind, nor did he care.

Although it was a little bit of a challenge to navigate through the gossip and probing attempts from everyone by the pool, he managed to mingle with the crowd just fine.

Soon, everyone was called into the side mansion reserved for the group study session, and Hiro followed along silently.