Material Girl~

I felt something tickling my nose softly, but the feeling dispersed and came back again, I opened my heavy eyelids only to find Cupid pacing back and forth around my head.

"I'm awake." rather half-awake but I sat up and stared at the clock, ah yes it was Monday morning again, time for school. I wasn't ready to leave my soft bed, because my eyelids felt heavy, I hardly got any sleep, probably because my brain was overthinking the love level stuff since last evening. What could Appeal mean exactly, could it be just something as simple as finding them attractive? Yes to forget about this stupid topic already I decided to believe it was so. I stood up and put on my school uniform, I was going downstairs but Cupid jumped into my arms, he decided that today it was time to be clingy when I didn't have any strength to carry him around. As I sat down beside the table mom gave me a plate with already prepared breakfast.

"Michi what happened? You didn't get enough sleep? You look really exhausted." I was struggling with picking up the food with my chopsticks as the cat on my lap demanded pats.

"I couldn't sleep," I admitted as mom decided to make me some tea. The breakfast table was rather quiet today, probably too quiet for moms liking, so she soon glanced in my direction while telling dad.

"Dear, I think our daughter has found someone else she likes." I think I nearly choked on the food hearing this.

"That was fast..." was all he could say. However, after some pondering, he added.

"Good, since the last guy rejected you, he probably wasn't even good enough for our Michi in the first place." Wow, that took a turn.

"So were those two boys twins?" She probably was thinking about the Kawata twins from yesterday.

"Yes," I answered.

"Let me guess... the blue-haired one is the one you like." I dropped the spoon that I was using for eating my miso soup.

"Oh, don't be so shocked Michi, a mother should know her daughter's tastes." Did I miss something important, did she pick it up from yesterday's observation? Or did she come to this conclusion because of something else?

"Good luck. He looked like a nice boy, even if he was frowning a little bit too much." They both gave me thumbs up.

"Thanks, both of you, but I'm ready for such commitment." I had the system to worry about and I wasn't so sure what it wanted from me. Also usually middle school relationships tend to not last long. Although I could think of an exception that was Hinata and Takemichi. They did make it thru at least in one future inside the manga.

After that conversation was over I played a little with Cupid, prepared myself, packed some things and I went to school. Lessons went by slowly, making me almost doze off in the middle of them, but lunchtime got a little bit more entertaining since I got a mission.

'Would you rather bully the popular girl in class, or ask Tetta Kisaki if he wanted a body pillow with your picture on it.' Okay, that sounded like a lot of fun, not gonna lie. I didn't even glance at the rewards just straight up clicked on the second option.

"Kisaki, may I talk with you for a while?" He outright glared at me but decided to walk out to the hallway and guide me to the most abandoned spot he could find making it feel like some sort of a secret meeting.

"So what do you want Hirabayashi-san?" I guess this was his way of keeping a distance between us, but I shot him a glare.

"Call me Michi." I paused because my brain came up with something it thought was a chad move.

"Tetta-Kun." Of course, he had to shoot back.

"We are not that close to call each other by our first names." It was the Michi way or the hard way.

"And I decided to change that, if you have complains go talk with the manager."

"I-what?" I saw his eyes twitching in annoyance, so I quickly responded.

"As the upper management, we must sadly inform you that we won't take your suggestion into consideration." I decided to change the topic to leave no space for him to complain any further.

"That's not what we came here for-" before I could even begin Tetta said.

"You are about to say something stupid aren't you?" oh busted.

"Please don't interrupt me... Anyway, I was going to ask, whatever you want a body pillow that has my picture printed on it." I struck a cute pose, but he just slammed his arm onto the wall beside me. Whether it was my sleep-deprived brain or my usual self, I decided to say something ridiculous.

"To do it in the middle of a school hallway, how improper." I guess this was his tactic to intimidate me somehow?

"Don't you have any sense of danger whatsoever?" he asked, fixing his glasses with his second hand.

"Sorry I don't follow, are you asking this because you're a delinquent?" I scratched my face, but he didn't respond.

"Well there is a saying, don't judge a book by its cover. You're just a teenager with dyed hair that probably likes to get into stupid fights like any other teenager. Also, a little bit of danger isn't that bad." I winked at him and gave him some finger hearts, but heard his sight in response.

"Just stop wasting my time." I wasn't that annoying was I?

"But it's not like I made you come here holding you at gunpoint, you could have said no." And they say girls are confusing.

"You were probably going to say that stupid shit in front of the class." oh touche.

"I see you would feel embarrassed, next time I just whisper it into your ear, if you're so bothered about what they would think." He started to head back to class, he presumably didn't believe I could hold myself back.

Once the school was over with I decided to head home and get myself a nice deserving nap, the problem was on the way there I saw Keisuke beating some fellas up.

"Don't make eye contact, don't make eye contact." I covered my face with my school bag, going at a steady pace in hopes he wouldn't see me. But just when I thought I was safe an arm was placed on my shoulder.

"Hi, Michi what are you up to?" I mustered up a totally fake smile.

"Heading back home from school." So please leave me alone. Go beat some other random guys.

"How about you come to hang out with me and Chifuyu?" why was he even suggesting this? He could perfectly well spend his time alone with his bestie.

"Since exams are around the corner we thought about studying together, want to join?" Suddenly I heard the notification noise and stared in horror at the two only options.

'Would you rather join Keisuke Baji in his study group or suggest going to the movies together instead.' Well, I needed to study for those exams as well, so I could join him.

"Let's go." We started our walk to Chifuyu's house. His mother opened the door for us again.

"Good Evening, thank you for having us over," I said politely, probably causing this woman to like me even more?

"Baji-san... and Michi?" I guess Chifuyu must have been surprised about this turn of events.

"We have another study partner," Keisuke said while grinning at his friend.

"But don't we have different study material? Won't it be just me helping her out?" Chifuyu must have been confident that he was the smartest in this group.

"Pretty sure I can offer help in math and English." I didn't want to deal with anything else where I needed to write in Japanese. Chifuyu didn't seem convinced but let me stay nevertheless. I guess he couldn't say no to Keisuke. So I had my books ready and open willing to learn but because Keisuke decided to start with math first he was bugging me to explain nearly every single equation in his book. All my attention was going to him rather than my own studies.

"And then-" I think already 1 hour went by and I had nothing done. I was mid explanation when I caught him staring at me intensely. I could tell I lost his focus.

"What?" I asked him.

"You seem really weak, no muscles at all." wow thanks.

"How about you hit me, then I can measure your strength." I glanced at Chifuyu that was ignoring my cries for assistance.

"No strength to measure here, now focus." he shook his head.

"Not until you hit me, come on." My patience was running thin, but I stood up, so he did. I put all my strength behind this one swing, knowing full well he wouldn't let me off the hook if I did half-assed. He didn't even flinch from my hit before saying.

"This won't do!" why did he suddenly look so determined, before I could react I could feel his hands guiding my body into a fighting stance. He was giving me pointers on how to most efficiently throw a punch.

"Now try again!" keeping some of the things he said in mind I threw another punch at him.

"Oh you learn fast, maybe once you get stronger... you could join our gang." Out of anger, I found myself pinching his cheeks.

"If you're tired then take a break, rather than wasting my time making me do something I don't want." well I would probably need to learn how to fight down the line, but obviously not from him. I could imagine him picking fights with some dudes that pissed him off and then asking me to beat them up because that would let me gather the quickest experience. Or at least that's the kind of vibe I got from him.

"But you should know how to defend yourself." Was he worried that someone would pick a fight with me, because of me being buddy-buddy with them? It never happened to either Emma or Hinata in the series tho, so I wasn't worried.

"My defense is letting them beat me up and then suing them for compensation." I let Keisuke's cheeks go.

"You make it sound so simple." Chifuyu finally spoke up.

"I have always a camera on hand to gather evidence." They probably weren't expecting me to say this, well my dad now was a lawyer, and let's say he even suggested blackmailing someone if it was for my own safety.

"What you gonna do if someone gives you fatal wounds?" Chifuyu asked. Were we suddenly in the middle of a criminal film or something?

"Listen that would never happen in the first place, people have some instincts you know. Delinquents probably pick up fights with you both because they realize the worst that may happen is them ending up in the hospital, but if they dare pick a fight with me, their whole life will flash before their eyes." They were both scratching their heads because I may have sounded too overconfident, but I would stand by my words.

"You two will mess up their face, I will mess up their personal life and dry their bank account dry." Then suddenly a familiar song played in my mind so I started to sing along.

"Cause we are living in a material world, and I'm a material girl. You know that we are living in a material world, and I'm a material girl.~" Oh yes that was Madonna's song.

"I have my doubts," Chifuyu said.

"There are many ways to get out of a fight; threats, manipulation, blackmail, honey trap..." then I remember something. "And them walking into my knife 10 times in a row." Keisuke just laughed.

"Have fun in jail."

"Thank you within this short amount of time I already prepared a plan for the worst, if it comes to it I will live out the y/n fantasy," I said.

"The heck is y/n?" Oh, yea I probably sounded like I was talking in code.

"Never mind that, but my plan is to seduce a mafia boss by tripping and having him bail me out of jail, then we gonna go to Italy for our honeymoon." The system would probably help me with that, I felt like there was no doubt about that.

"You sometimes say the most nonsensical stuff," Chifuyu said as he also laughed, I did the finger guns and shot him a smile.

"Great can we go back to studying now?" I could see that Chifuyu wanted to accomplish at least something with this random study group. I couldn't blame him for looking a little nervous after all if we failed we would probably have to go to summer school. We went back to actually studying, finally, I could stick to my own school work, but at some point, I must have dozed off, because when I opened my eyes I was using Keisuke's shoulder as a pillow.

"Comfortable?" He asked.

"No, all I could feel was stiff muscle mass, that was giving me neck pain." his brows furrowed.

"I'm just joking... I guess we are done here, I'm going home."

"How about-" before Keisuke could finish I said with a stern voice.

"No!"

"But you haven't heard what I was about to suggest." I had a feeling he was gonna suggest another motorcycle ride.

"And let it stay that way. Goodbye~" Why did I have a feeling I was always on a run around those two?