Chapter 5: Chapter 5: The King’s Seat by the Window
Shizuka Hiratsuka, one of the characters from the light novel and anime My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, As I Expected (Oregairu), is an unmarried high school teacher of a certain age, known by her nickname "Hiratsuka-sensei." She enjoys smoking, drinking, and taking drives to unwind.
Honestly, it's no surprise to anyone that this woman hasn't found a boyfriend.
However, Ichin vaguely remembered that there was a route in the game where the protagonist could marry Hiratsuka-sensei.
"Man, that's terrifying," he thought to himself, "as expected of the protagonist."
"Hmm?" Hiratsuka-sensei, sitting across from him, raised an eyebrow suspiciously. "I have a feeling you're thinking about something inappropriate."
"You're overthinking it, sensei," Ichin replied, sitting up straight. "Hello, Hiratsuka-sensei, I'm Ichin. Please guide me over these next two years."
Dropping her suspicions, Hiratsuka nodded. "Ah, yes, hello. I didn't expect you to be assigned to my class. The head teacher mentioned your grades are quite good?"
"They're decent," Ichin answered humbly. "If you want to get into a good university, competition is intense everywhere."
"That's true," Hiratsuka agreed, studying Ichin. "I haven't seen your grades from China, but there will be a placement exam this week to gauge everyone's level. Be prepared and aim for good results. Of course, there will be some differences between the subjects here and what you studied before, so it's fine if you need time to adjust. Come on, let's head to the classroom. The entrance ceremony is about to start."
With that, Hiratsuka stood up and led Ichin out of the office.
After they left, a teacher standing next to the head teacher whispered, "Sir, doesn't assigning him to Class A mean we have another potential top student? This isn't fair to the other classes."
"There's no other choice; this was the result of our discussions," the head teacher replied with a smile. "You know about Kasumigaoka Utaha from Class A, right? She's always been top of the grade, but she often sleeps in class. That's not a good habit. We thought that by adding this transfer student, we could give her some healthy competition, maybe even push her to improve her grades further."
"Ah, I see!"
Unaware of this conversation, Hiratsuka and Ichin soon arrived at Class 2-A on the third floor.
Inside, all the students had already gathered, chatting in small groups.
Hiratsuka entered with Ichin and announced, "Alright, quiet down and take your seats. We have a new classmate to introduce today!"
The students promptly returned to their seats upon hearing her commanding tone and directed their attention to Ichin standing beside her.
Regardless of whether they were boys or girls, the same thought crossed their minds when they saw him for the first time:
This guy is really handsome.
With his striking appearance and a height of 1.8 meters, Ichin effortlessly became the center of attention just by standing there.
Among the curious gazes, one came from a familiar face in the class.
Kasumigaoka Utaha had already known that Ichin was around her age and would be starting his second year of high school. But she hadn't expected that her neighbor would end up in the same class as her.
Ichin also noticed Utaha but didn't linger on her. He turned to the blackboard, wrote his name, and said, "Hello, everyone. I'm Ichin, from China. Please take care of me."
Although his introduction was brief, Hiratsuka wasn't one to dwell on formality. She quickly added, "Alright, that's that. Ichin will be joining our class from now on. As for your seat, there's an empty one by the window. Ichin, you can sit there. Your eyesight's fine, right?"
"Yes, my eyesight is fine," he replied.
With a nod, Ichin walked over to the empty seat next to Utaha and sat down.
Ichin placed his bag down and glanced to his right at Utaha, whispering, "What a coincidence, huh?"
Utaha felt the same. After all, she had never told Ichin which class she was in, and the two of them hadn't even talked much about school-related topics.
Before they had the chance to continue the conversation, Hiratsuka instructed all the students to head to the auditorium for the opening ceremony.
Opening ceremonies were pretty much the same everywhere: the principal would give a speech about the school's vision for the year, their expectations for the students, and so on. Then, the student council president would come up to speak on behalf of the students.
Ichin wasn't particularly interested in these speeches and spent most of the time with his head down, thinking about his game development.
The only thing that caught his attention was when the principal mentioned that a new student had an accident on their way to school this morning and had already been confirmed dead. He gave a special reminder to all students to pay attention to traffic safety.
The student council president's speech soon ended, and with that, the opening ceremony concluded. The students returned to their classrooms to start their first day of classes.
Ichin's first class at Toyogasaki High School was Hiratsuka's literature class.
Two days before the term began, Ichin had already gone through the textbooks and memorized all the contents. The second-year curriculum wasn't particularly challenging for him at this point.
With his textbook open, Ichin also laid out a notebook, listening to Hiratsuka's lecture while jotting down notes.
Hiratsuka was a renowned teacher at the school, and no one dared slack off in her class—except for Kasumigaoka Utaha. Utaha was the only student who could sleep through Hiratsuka's lectures and get away with it.
There wasn't much Hiratsuka could do about that since Utaha was the top student in their grade.
Now, however, besides Utaha, there was another student daring to do his own thing during Hiratsuka's lecture: Ichin.
While teaching, Hiratsuka noticed Ichin, seated by the window, writing non-stop from the moment the class began. Curious, she continued her lecture but slowly made her way down from the podium toward him.
When she reached Ichin's desk, she glanced at his notebook. She saw a mixture of English words, code symbols, and some terms she vaguely recognized like "route" and "negative effects."
Hiratsuka raised an eyebrow.
"Ahem!"
She cleared her throat, and as Ichin paused his writing and looked up, she said, "Ichin, please continue reading the text from where I left off."
Having been caught, Ichin wasn't flustered. He stood up with his textbook and, under Hiratsuka's surprised gaze, flawlessly read from where she had stopped. The entire class was equally stunned.
Many of the students had already noticed Ichin's "little side activities" during the lesson when Hiratsuka walked over. They didn't expect that he'd actually know exactly where the teacher had stopped.
Was it just luck? Or had he really been listening?
After Ichin finished reading a section, Hiratsuka instructed him to sit down and asked, "Have you reviewed the text beforehand?"
Ichin nodded. "Yes, I've already finished the entire second-year curriculum."
Finished the entire curriculum?
Hiratsuka's mouth twitched slightly. But given how competitive Chinese high school students were, she didn't find it too hard to believe.
Whether he was telling the truth or not would soon be revealed in the upcoming exams.
...
(End of Initial Release, Daily Upload 1 or 2 Chapter)
❇❇❇
If you like, you can read up to chapter 82+ on my Patreon.
patreon.com/RedX43
❇❇❇