The Heroines Want to Confess.

Chapter 116: It's Just a Master's Order

How to make her lifelong rival drop in academic ranking—Shinomiya Kaguya had always pondered this question.

She couldn't get a read on Shirogane Miyuki. That guy was scarily self-disciplined, and his level of effort didn't change no matter what external factors came into play.

Money couldn't sway him, and love didn't seem to work either. From the very beginning, he never had any intention of dating. Kaguya had the feeling that even if he did fall in love, she still wouldn't be able to win.

'To consolidate and elevate one's position, there are two ways.' Shinomiya Kaguya sat in class, gazing at Sakurai Saki near the window seat.

Method one: bring down the one currently at the top.

Method two: prevent those below from climbing up.

Since the first method was unusable, she had no choice but to go with the second.

Right now, Shinomiya Kaguya was incredibly fortunate to have helped Hayasaka Ai "conquer" Sakurai Saki. Otherwise, in this month's exam, she might've gained another serious threat.

[After school tomorrow, go on a date with General Affairs Sakurai. This is an order from your master!]

Last night, Ojou-sama Kaguya had said this to her maid.

After hearing that, Hayasaka Ai's expression changed. For a moment, she couldn't even tell whether she was in love with Sakurai Saki—or with Shinomiya Kaguya.

Look at the situation: even the confession had been prompted by Kaguya-sama, all the plans before that were orchestrated by her.

Now, even the date was being directed by Kaguya.

It felt as if this entire romance was just a task assigned by her master.

However, her master's request did happen to align with Hayasaka Ai's own feelings. In truth, she also really wanted to go on a date with Sakurai Saki, so following Kaguya's instructions wasn't really a problem.

But at the moment, a serious issue stood before Hayasaka Ai.

That was…

It seemed like Sakurai Saki wasn't actually in a romantic relationship with her.

(╥‸╥)♡

Hayasaka Ai had that feeling.

Let's take a simple example.

The content of the text messages between them this morning was as follows——

Hayasaka Ai: Good morning~ Sakurai-chan~ muah muah~ [with a selfie and a heart gesture]

Sakurai-chan, the one I love love love the most: Good morning~

And then? Did he send anything else?

That's it!!! Just that one sentence! Can you believe it?

Hayasaka: (｡•̀ ⤙ •́ ｡ꐦ) !!!

No different from before! They'd been greeting each other good morning and good night for months now—and this morning was no exception.

At most, she had sent a few extra pictures.

Hayasaka Ai brushed her hair back, thinking about how to invite Sakurai Saki on a date.

\(๑ -`. '- ๑)/

...

Sakurai Saki stared out the window.

'How should I go on a date with Ai-chan?'

The first step after becoming lovers should be going on a date.

Even though Sakurai Saki and Hayasaka Ai had a pretty good relationship, they had never hung out alone. The only time they had gone out "together" was during the school trip—but that was a group event, which meant Sakurai Saki had technically gone on a date with several hundred people at once.

So Sakurai Saki really wanted to go out and have fun with his girlfriend, but he didn't know how to bring it up.

Then he remembered today's superpower.

'Use a crow to send her a letter…'

Or maybe control cockroaches to form the words "let's date" as a subtle hint?

Sakurai Saki smacked his forehead.

"(ノ _ <,, )╯︵ ┻━┻

...Sakurai Saki, are you an idiot?

A crop circle-style invitation? Other than being weird, there was absolutely nothing good about that.

What kind of girl would be happy receiving an invitation like that?

Wait—Chika might be. She did love bizarre things after all.

But this time, the person he needed to invite wasn't Chika, it was Ai-chan.

Better just say it straight.

Sakurai Saki turned his head toward Ai-chan, and realized that she was also looking at him.

"Hayasaka-san, are you free on Saturday?"

"..."

Hayasaka Ai began to process what he just said.

Was this… a date invitation?

( ˶°ㅁ°) !!

But Kaguya-sama had ordered her to go on a date today. If they changed it to Saturday, then wouldn't that fail to interfere with Sakurai's academic performance?

No, wait! Why was she even worrying about that in the first place?

It's not like she was dating Kaguya-sama.

She almost let herself get dragged off course again!

"I'm free. Why do you ask?"

"Um… want to go see a movie together?" Sakurai Saki said it straight out.

Shinomiya Kaguya had been closely observing the situation from the sidelines.

She was reading Sakurai Saki's lips.

Fortunately, she had studied lip-reading during her free time in the past!

'Hm? A movie on Saturday?'

Eh! What about the upcoming exams!?

And also—Hayasaka, why did you already agree!?

Kaguya hurriedly pulled out her phone to send a message.

[Don't accept it!]

Unfortunately, Hayasaka Ai completely ignored it.

Seeing this, Kaguya sighed. She felt like Hayasaka no longer loved her anymore.

Go on your date then! Hope the two of you drown in your sea of love! O Kawaii koto!

(˶˃⤙˂˶)

Even though Shinomiya Kaguya felt slightly bitter inside, she still granted Hayasaka Ai a day off on Saturday. She had made unreasonable demands of Hayasaka many times before—so this could be considered karma.

But if they couldn't go on a date today, Hayasaka could still talk or text with him in the evening!

She'd heard that couples in love often talked on the phone for hours, especially during the honeymoon phase—they could go on for several hours straight.

In such a situation, who could possibly study properly?

Anyway, Shinomiya Kaguya didn't believe it was possible.

She continued typing on her phone.

After typing a few lines, Kaguya deleted them all—she decided she would give personal commands to Hayasaka Ai after returning home!

...

PE class in the afternoon ended. After changing, Sakurai Saki picked up his bag and headed toward the student council room.

Today's PE lesson had been apparatus gymnastics. A bunch of male students were tumbling and doing backward jumps; Sakurai Saki tried out a few routines as well. His physical fitness was excellent—his body's flexibility was beyond that of normal people.

Speaking of sports, they couldn't not mention the May Sports Ball Festival at the end of the month. Unlike the usual sports day, this one only included ball games. It lasted a single day, with events divided by class. If they wanted, a class could register for every sport.

Basketball, soccer, baseball, badminton, volleyball.

This didn't directly involve the student council much—but it wasn't completely unrelated either. In short, that guy Shirogane would probably soon be entering zombie mode again, with dark circles around his eyes.

That was what Sakurai Saki had thought—until he stepped into the student council room and saw the face of Shirogane Miyuki.

Shirogane: (눈_눈)

He was back to how he looked before Golden Week—actually, even worse. That "overworked black company employee about to die any moment now" look wasn't something just anyone could achieve.

Yakumo Shiro had said before: Shirogane Miyuki had reached a strange equilibrium between life and death—so pitiful it was almost funny.

"Shirogane, what were you doing yesterday?" Sakurai Saki asked out of curiosity.

That competition maniac definitely stayed up late studying again, but just how late, Sakurai Saki couldn't guess.

"I got caught in a downpour yesterday! My house was leaking like crazy, I couldn't sleep all night." Shirogane Miyuki sighed.

He had planned to study, but his family conditions didn't allow it.

Sakurai Saki was aware of his situation. Compared to Gabriel's crumbling apartment, Shirogane's place was only slightly better.

…Wait. Speaking of which, was Gab-chan's house okay?

Should be fine, right? Even an angel shouldn't drown from rain, right?

"In that condition, you still finished all your homework?" Shuchiin's assignments weren't exactly light.

In Japan, even though they said they wanted to reduce pressure on students, the amount of homework never really went down—and going to cram school after regular classes wasn't rare either.

"How did you sleep last night?" Shirogane asked, seeing that Sakurai looked okay.

"I slept over at the quintuplets' place." Sakurai Saki answered honestly.

Shirogane: (o_O)!!!

The hand Shirogane was using to approve documents froze.

He had a bad feeling.

Was his best friend seriously about to become a scumbag?

Things between him and Hayasaka Ai and Fujiwara Chika weren't even resolved yet—and now there were five more?