Chapter 23

I gave a confused expression to Karen, who just asked me for advice. It was quite rare for her to come to me for consultation. Karen has always been a girl who showed no emotions. So usually, n.o.body would think that such a girl would ask for advice. And to top it off, she was asking me, her elder brother. It must be a serious problem.

"How uncommon for you to ask for advice."

"…"

"What is it?"

"Never mind, just forget about it." Karen said after being silent for a while.

Karen left my room.

"Eh, w-w-wait a second!"

I was further confused by Karen's sudden move and tried to stop her. It was already too late.

What was that about?

I remained lying down on my bed while trying to figure what just happened.

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Going back to her room after leaving Yato's, Karen was greatly embarra.s.sed.

(Just why did I do something like that…)

Honestly speaking, she had not been intending to ask him for advice.

For some reason, when pa.s.sed by her brother's room, her body unintentionally moved and spoke.

(Am I getting cornered, I wonder…)

Karen kept on blaming herself for what she did.

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Today as well, another student confessed to me.

This time it was a very popular guy in the school. Despite that, I refused him using my usual phrase.

After I spoke my decisive line, the guy asked back with an astonished expression, "It wasn't me?!".

There's no way it would be you. This guy was to conceited.

Finished with him, I walked back to my cla.s.sroom. Once again, those same three girls stood before me.

Don't they have anything else to do besides follow me? I had a strong urge to ask them such a question, but since talking with them disturbed my mood, I decided to ignore them and continued to walk.

This was my usual routine now.

When I returned to the cla.s.sroom and took my seat to prepare for the next lesson, I realised that my notebook was missing.

A doubt flew in my mind for a instant, but I cleared it away thinking that I forgot it at home and picked up a different notebook. We had a homework for today, but I thought I could redo it during cla.s.s. No big deal.

Unfortunately, not only my notebook had disappeared. When taking out my pencil, I noticed that my eraser had also disappeared from my pencil case. I don't remember dropping it anywhere recently.

At that time, I understood something. Someone was stealing my stuff.

As for that someone, it was clearly those three.

I took a quick glance and realised that they were watching me while chuckling.

They were really annoying.

I let out a long sigh at their childish act.

After the end of the lesson, I called the three of them so I could confront them.

"Hey, can you give me back the eraser you stole?"

"Ee? What are you talking about?"

"I'm not sure what you're saying…"

"Can you stop accusing us like that?"

The three of them feigned ignorance in an obvious way.

Well, I had expected such a reaction.

I kept calm and inserted my hand inside one of their pencil boxes.

"W-Wait what do you think you're doing?"

"What is this?"

I ignored their warnings and picked up an eraser and displayed it to them. That old-looking eraser gave me a familiar sensation when I held it. It was my eraser.

"What about it? That's my eraser."

"No, it's mine."

Replying back, I took off the cover of the eraser.

Inside the cover my name was written.

I had been used to robbery from long ago. That's why writing my name on my stuff had become a habit.

One of the three girls recovered her usual att.i.tude and answered, "Yeah, it's yours. What about it?"

"I don't care about the rest. I'm pretty accustomed to these things, after all, but it's still troublesome. So it would be nice if you could stop it with these childish acts. It's pathetic."

Leaving them with those words, I went back to my seat.

It's good that I got back my eraser, but they had probably thrown my notebook somewhere. I guess I'm going to have to buy a new one."

The three girls didn't make any fuss since we were inside the cla.s.sroom, but their looks were clearly full of hate. I had only told them to stop, but that had made it worse.

The moment my thoughts were confirmed was when I was on my way back from the toilet.

I took my seat and opened my pencil box to notice that something was written inside it.

"How annoying!!" "Don't get too full of yourself because you're popular." "Serves you right!!"

This actually hurt a little bit, even for me.

The words made me recall something which had happened to me when I was bullied in elementary school.

At that time, I didn't know how to deal with bullying and my life was unpleasant.

When I was leaving the cla.s.sroom after school, the three girls started loudly bad-mouthing me again.

"She's really annoying, right?"

"I know, right? She's getting way too full of herself just because she's popular."

"I'm sure she thinks that she's special or something."

They didn't mention my name, but it was obvious that they were talking about me. Without listening any further to their conversation, I left as if I was escaping.

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Thinking back about what had happened, I could see why I went to my brother for help.

After all, the person who saved me when I was bullied in elementary school was him.

Whenever my brother found out that I was being bullied, he came to save me without asking.

Everytime he helped me out, he said that he did it on his own accord, but despite that, I couldn't help but see him as my prince on a white horse.

That's why I was hoping he could save me this time as well.

But that was no good. I should solve this problem on my own. That's what I promised myself to do back then.

As I was sorting out my feelings, I resolved my determination once again.

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Bonus

[Ninja skills?]

"Look, look, chief! Ninja skill, shadow reparition."

"Oh, You're continuously using the[Enslaving magic]'s different dimension to look like you've duplicated yourself!"

"There's still more!"

"Oh, this time it's three!"

"Orya!"

"Four!"

"Uoo!"

"You can go up to five?!"

"Deryaa!!"

"… one hundred huh."

The next day, rumors about my room being hunted by a dog spirit started flowing in the neighborhood.

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[confession?]

"Kamiya-san, please go out with me!!"

"Sorry, not possible."

"Why not?"

"I have someone I like."

"Ah, that's me, right?"

"No, not you."

"I know you're playing hard to get~"

"I told you it's not you! Stop being that conceited!"

"I'm sorry."