Sweating Girl & Silent Boy

The Yamauchi's enjoyed the dishes that were made by Hito, they had a satisfied expression on their faces that didn't completely wear off even after a long time had passed.

After eating their breakfast, Hito said his laters to both Sakura and her mother. He couldn't walk together with Sakura since her school was quite far from his.

Sakura was very understanding, so even though she wanted to go to school together with Hito, she let it be. But she was expecting that one day Hito would walk together with her to her school hand in hand acting like lovers, and Hito after hearing about her expectations, promised that it wouldn't be long till that day came.

Hito wasn't dashing his way to his school now because he still had plenty of time left before school started, so this time he wanted to ride a bus!

He went towards the bus stop which was just near him, he was quite fortunate that he decided to leave his backpack in the school yesterday.

As for where? It was obviously inside his locker in school, he knew that he could use his inventory to hide it but he forgot to do that yesterday, if not for the weight anklets he might've forgotten he had an inventory altogether judging on how infrequently he used it. No, that would be wrong because he may as well have not used it at all after unlocking it.

He sat at the chair in the bus stop since he had to wait for a full minute for the bus to arrive. While he was waiting someone suddenly called his name.

"Tadano-san?"

Hito turned his head to his right and saw a familiar sweating girl that was from the same class as him!

"Shibuki Ase right?"

The girl hurriedly nodded and happily said. "You remembered me, Tadano-san?!"

"Well yeah, let's say that I remember everyone in our class."

"Oh! I thought you weren't paying attention to anyone except for Komi-san and Najimi-cha.. ku… what is it (Najimi) again?!" 

"No not really. It's just, I'm waiting for you guys to strike a conversation with me." Hito completely ignored the inquiry of Najimi's gender, he wasn't going to bust his friend's identity even though he still didn't know why he did that.

Ase was surprised, and she exclaimed. "Eh?! Really! Don't you know that our classmates think of you as a cold ice prince?"

"Yea- wait what?! Since when?!" Hito was really surprised this time! Even though he had a superior hearing sense, how come he didn't hear of it till now?! Forget hearing about it, he didn't even hear anything related to this subject from his classmates. Even Najimi didn't inform him about anything.

Wasn't he nice to everyone?! Why was he even called an ice prince in the first place?!

Ase started to sweat even more than before, and she replied. "Err… well I don't know who started it, but I think it started circulating on Monday!"

Hearing that Hito suddenly thought 'Is it because of the incident with Yamai?' he touched his chin while pondering about that.

But it absolutely made sense now, though he didn't think that it should've warranted him this nickname. He didn't mean to be that cold and ruthless that day though, it was just that Yamai had touched his bottom line and he couldn't really suppress his anger then.

However he should probably talk to her? He didn't really want to destroy her life for such a small matter. He wasn't trying to be hypocritical or anything, he had his reasons for this decision.

First of all if she committed suicide because of this matter, his guilt would erupt and gnaw at his consciousness for the rest of his life, and the second reason was that ghost existed in this world. It was proven when he saw Chen Ge's House Of Horrors in the media. However he couldn't see the ghosts since he didn't have that 'eye' yet.

And if Yamai became a ghost, she would probably hunt him to death. It's not like he was afraid, he just wanted to avoid the scenario of him indirectly killing someone.

The bus arrived and Hito spoke. "Let's go."

Ase nodded while wiping the sweat on her face, they went inside the bus.

Each seat could fit 2 people. Hito went towards the empty seat and sat down, he was about to invite Ase to sit with him.

But he suddenly realized that someone was already at the corner seat next to him, he thought 'Woah! This guy has a ridiculously low presence, but wait he seems to be familiar..'

Then he suddenly realized who it was! Kuroko Tetsuya, he didn't expect to meet him here.

Ase already sat at the opposite side of his seat. Hito let it be and he spoke.

"Hey, you have a ridiculously low presence, you know that? I've barely noticed your existence even though you're just next to me!"

Tetsuya calmly looked at him and replied. "I'm aware of it and you are not the only one who said that to me, actually you are not even the first to say that today. One girl had almost sat on me too. So I'm aware of my low presence."

"I see." Hito nodded and didn't speak any further.

===

After several minutes of riding the bus, they finally arrived at the bus stop that was near their school.

He stood up from his seat and so did Ase. Hito looked at Tetsuya and said.

"We'll meet again soon. Much sooner than you expect."

He didn't wait for Tetsuya to speak, leaving him confused. But after a moment of pondering Tetsuya decided to take a mental note of what he said.

"We'll meet again soon huh? I wonder what he meant…"

..

..

..

..

Ase and Hito were walking together, as they slowly got to know each other.

Ase got to know Hito better and found out firsthand how wrong the rumors were. She found him to be a humorist, after all he made her laugh a few times in the short time they talked while walking. They became friends easily.

Hito also thought that Ase was someone easy to get along with. He suddenly wanted her to be friends with Shouko.

He decided to prioritize his plan to help Shouko get 100 friends, and after that… he would confess his feelings to her.

===

Hito didn't meet Shouko in the locker today, even though he was earlier than usual.

Both Ase and Hito went inside their classroom at the same time.

As soon as Hito went inside, Najimi immediately greeted him.

"Master! Good morning!"

Hearing that everyone thought 'Master?!' they felt that something fishy was going on between them!

Hito's face twitched several times. Najimi wasn't wrong, yet he didn't clarify how exactly he was his Master. He smiled coldly at Najimi.

Seeing that smile Najimi couldn't help but feel a shiver run down his spine, he immediately said.

"T-that was a joke! Haha… hey Hito don't be mad, okay dude?!"

"Yeah… haha…. it was a joke indeed…" Hito went forward and whispered in Najimi's ear.

"You just wait till we arrive at the Ryōzanpaku, I'll ask Akisame Sensei to increase your training difficulty!"

Hearing that Najimi immediately clinged onto Hito's clothes and looked at him with a teary eyed expression.

"Please! Don't! If he were to add more training I'll die!"

"No, no of course you won't. I'm going to make sure that you don't die easily." Hito immediately pushed Najimi so that he would stop clinging onto his shirt!

"HITOOOOOO!!!!" Najimi shouted like Hito had killed his most beloved!

But Hito just ignored his antics, actually even if he didn't tell Akisame about this he would have eventually increased his training.

He didn't tell Najimi about that though, he wanted him to feel despair for what would eventually bound to happen to him.

Even though Hito became an official master at Ryōzanpaku it didn't mean he was excluded from the training that his masters would give him.

After all there was no graduating from the basics! He had cheated his way through Grandmaster rank and he now needed to hone his skills and control of his power to become more powerful.

He sat down at his seat and greeted Shouko with a smile. "Good morning Shouko!"

"G-good morning Hito….."

Hito's eyes widened while he heard that familiar sweet voice, his jaw dropped and his eyes spun. He hastily asked in excitement.

"Y-you can talk normally, now?!"

( End~ )