Dullard Buddy-kun: Heading Reluctantly to School Again Today - Episode 3

Today, once again, I am alone in the classroom, probably the only one in this school who is sincerely facing the desk.

During today’s break, I’m quietly engrossed in reading by myself.

The title of this paperback book is… what? I don’t know.

I’m just pretending to focus on reading to get through the break between classes…

“Hey, Bocchi-kun, you were totally being bullied yesterday.”

“Just as I thought, huh?”

“Hahaha, that’s seriously hilarious!”

Yeah. For me now, reading is just a tool to shut out the pointless gossip and noise that keeps coming into my ears.

The key is to read the text without thinking about its meaning.

This is one of the many solo skills I’ve mastered. It’s air reading.

And, as expected, the source of the noise still coming through is them. The guys who are so full of themselves, convinced that they are the center of the class. Sakaki, Moriya, Takasago, and the others.

It seems like they’re getting all excited about the story of me getting bullied yesterday.

Seeing their rotten, filthy smiles, I remember the expressions of Takasago and the others who mocked me yesterday. Those sneers that looked down on me from the bottom of their hearts.

Just remembering it makes me so angry I can’t help it.

“Seriously, it’s pathetic. Getting involved with guys like that.”

“Getting mugged like that, you’re basically done as a person.”

“If it were me, I wouldn’t be able to hold back and would just go for it. Suspension be damned.”

And those useless, half-hearted bastards who can only ever look to Sakaki and the others, while siding with them, also direct cold smiles and glances at me.

In such a scene, the image of Sakaki and the others passing through the ticket gate in silence, unable to even look those punks in the eye, comes to my mind, but it’s pointless to bother with the gossip of such people. No, at the point where it clearly reaches my ears, it’s no longer even gossip.

For now, the best thing to do is to ignore stuff like this.

If I treat them strangely and someone finds out about yesterday, it would be a problem.

“Hey Saya, let’s go home together today. You stand out, and honestly, after what happened yesterday, I’m worried too.”

And then, before I knew it, there was Sakaki in front of me, shadowboxing while saying such plausible things…

“Whew. Sakaki-kun, you’re so cool~”

Next to him, Takasago, as usual, raised the sakaki with a familiar nod.

“Sure. Leave Saya-sama’s bodyguard duties to me, Sakaki.”

Deep down, am I strange for thinking this scene is pointless?

I can’t understand why a guy like him is popular or why he gets so much attention, and I don’t want to understand either.

“Hmm, it’s definitely scary, but I wonder if it’ll be okay today…”

And soon, the woman’s response to the sakaki can be heard.

Yeah. Words from a woman who uses a deliberately seductive tone that seems to appeal to men.

However, that response was a bit different from what I had expected.

Unintentionally, I became curious about what kind of expression Sakaki would make in response to her answer, and I momentarily averted my gaze from the book I was pretending to read.

Then there was Sakaki, with a composed expression as if nothing had happened, despite having been turned down.

Well, usually, I would get a quick “OK” in response.

“Huh? But seriously, isn’t it really dangerous? Saya is super cute, you know.”

“Hehe, thanks for worrying about me! But really, I’m okay today.”

For now, in this situation where I can hear a conversation that I couldn’t care less about, I turn my gaze back to the paperback book in my hands.

I’ll return it… again.

I haven’t understood anything since earlier.

I quietly look again at the source of the gaze I feel.

Then… there was the figure of Yamamoto Saya, the person who had been communicating with Sakaki all this time.

What is it?

It’s mysterious… or rather, honestly scary.

I thought it might be a misunderstanding, but if the same thing keeps happening over and over, even I can tell it’s not a misunderstanding.

Yeah. Actually, I’ve made eye contact with this Yamamoto multiple times today.

Sayaka Yamamoto, a woman who is in the top group of her class along with Tatsu and Sakaki.

A woman with chestnut-colored hair and a blessed appearance, who is attractive to men.

Despite being an ordinary person, she has an incredible number of followers on social media, making her a high school influencer with more influence than many struggling entertainers.

In my mind, I call her a “little devil bitch.”

The reason is simply that there are always men around her. In fact, most of her followers are men.

Of course, having a good appearance is one thing, but especially the combination of her sweet and seductive voice and manner of speaking, there were even tips flying around in her recent ASMR video.

From the usual behavior, it’s clear that Sakaki and Takasago also have a good impression of Yamamoto.

Well, if you look at Yamamoto’s cunningness, it’s not hard to understand why Sakaki and the others end up liking her. Watching the men who are constantly touched and sweet-talked by Yamamoto with that smile of hers, you can’t help but see how amazing her skills in charming men are.

However, I still don’t quite understand.

For some reason, Yamamoto and I have been making eye contact a lot since this morning…

It’s been about three months since I moved up to the second year and joined this class, but I don’t have a single memory of making eye contact with Yamamoto.

And yet. Today, for some reason, I’ve made eye contact with her more than five times.

And if that’s all there is to it, then it’s still fine.

Just now, the moment our eyes met, she smiled at me with a grin.

Of course, I haven’t done anything that would make her smile at me.

Of course, until now, I have never been spoken to or smiled at by that Yamamoto, and there is no actual record of it either.

From her perspective, I probably hold a position equivalent to that of air.

It’s at a level where it’s questionable if I was even recognized as a classmate. Probably, no one even knows my name, no joke.

That’s it, this is it.

For now, I’m not stupid enough to smile back at her in such an incomprehensible situation. I don’t know her intentions or motives, but it’s very possible that this is some kind of trap.

That’s why. I pretend to sleep with a blank expression, burying my face in my arms on the desk.

The only thing I can do right now is just that…

But seriously, what is it?

It’s just too incomprehensible.