Akiko still couldn't find common ground with Ryou, and in her opinion, she had driven herself into a dead end. When she entered the club's office to see the young man, the only person in the office was Yumiko, who was reading a book she had recently bought. Approaching her, the girl peacefully asked if Yumiko knew where Ryou was. The initial response was a brief silence.
"Hayashi-kun is with Glenn-kun now," the maiden soon replied. "It seems they are going to work together after the next class."
"Together? With one questionnaire, or what?"
"I think so. I don't fully understand how these questionnaires work."
Akiko sighed with hopeless fatigue and looked back at Yumiko. Noticing how she meekly continued to read her book, Akiko asked her with mild misunderstanding why she was reading, even during her short recess.
Leaning against her desk, the girl pondered her desires. She realized that she had only decided to join the job for the reason of being closer to Ryou. Work, she thought then, could bring the relationship between them closer and break down the conversation barrier. Akiko did not understand what she lacked to satisfy Ryou.
During the end of another day, a multitude of students gathered in the closets to their lockers, to change their shoes and put down their school items. Akiko quietly gathered items in her personal locker until her personal space was invaded by a student with a familiar male voice. Closing her locker, Akiko saw Tomoyuki huddling with his back to her locker. He was walking in his own style, without what he thought was a hot jacket and with the bottom button of his shirt unbuttoned.
"Gotta salute," he smiled, innocently, to which Akiko blinked. "Getting close to Hayashi-kun?"
Akiko locked her locker by turning the key lightly and turned to go out into the hallways. "You know the answer yourself."
"Yay, what are you freaking out about!" waved his hands at Tomoyuki, trying to stop her. "Let's talk about one thing."
"Talking doesn't appeal to me," the girl replied, slipping her purse over her shoulders. "It makes my heart go weak, and it's bad for my health."
"I didn't mean to offend you then."
"That's the way it is. It can't be helped. Bye."
Akiko stepped forward, at which point the guy leaned away from the locker and decided to move on to the conversation he was worried about directly.
"I know how to get you Hayashi-kun," the young man said confidently, following which Akiko froze without finishing her step. She didn't move for another short while, but the human noises around their ears didn't die down. If the man in the study went silent, the others would continue talking as if nothing had happened. On reflection, Akiko continued her quiet but slender stride.
"I'm not interested. You won't let me touch Yumiko, will you?"
"I am no longer interested in Yumiko Sato," Tomoyuki said. "I'm currently targeting Hayashi-kun, and that's why I'll help you," he complemented, following which Akiko turned on him.
"How do I know you're telling the truth? After all, you want to use me."
"Please allow me to speak out in private. Soon the closet will be empty."
As anxious as it was for the girl to be together with Tomoyuki and trust this guy who had brought her to tears, Akiko decided to reach for that thread again. It might work, thought Akiko, who still had a bit of patience left. Without realizing it herself, Akiko was already hoping to get not Ryou, but the status and prestige formed around his personality among many schoolgirls. The girl decided to rely on him.
As was only natural, the schoolboys finished their business in the checkroom and departed, leaving only the boy and the girl alone, standing by the lockers.
"First, please clarify one situation. I talked to Glenn-san and he found out about my plans, getting me out in the open. I screwed up."
"How did that happen!" asked Akiko, not hiding her amazement. "And what were you talking to him for?"
"Glenn-san has his own plans for all our communication, too," Tomoyuki said grimly, staring forward idly. " Think for yourself, what did he have to bring us closer together by a common invitation to work? He was definitely up to something, but I couldn't get to the bottom of it."
"Gotcha…" upset the maiden, crossing her legs. "What are you gonna do now?"
"To wait," answered the young man. "He and I made a pact."
"Huh? So you changed his mind?"
"I don't know… I didn't really understand what happened," Tomoyuki touched his hands to his head. "It's like he didn't even try to refuse."
Akiko wondered, but the meaning of his words didn't reach her head either, She couldn't understand why Glenn had agreed to the young man's meanness, but putting her thoughts aside, she became interested in the things that bothered her at that moment.
"What about Hayashi-kun?"
"Sato-chan is absolutely contraindicated from being suspended," Tomoyuki replied firmly, with his arms crossed deliberately and against his locker. "Glenn-san won't allow it. He looked confident then, and his dark-covered eyes… I had a hard time keeping stable."
"I don't know what to do. Every day I get more and more disgusted with Yumiko Sato. She won't let me do anything, even though she won't move from her seat. It's pounding!"
"Be with Hayashi-kun more often," the blue-eyed guyd said. "As often as you can. Drop your plans, turn your back on the doll friends in your entourage — I don't care. You're capable of that for your love, aren't you?"
The young man's question took Akiko by surprise. Her wide-open eyes didn't know what to do, and her hands went numb, as if for her this decision seemed to be a matter between life and death, and she herself had a surge of emotion from within. And then the young man spoke again with a smirk.
"You love Hayashi-kun, don't you? My words are your last chance to get your luxury."
It took Akiko a long time to decide what to answer. She was unsure of herself and her desires. By losing her companionship, she could sink into the abyss of an ordinary life, without status, without any kind of cool, as she understood it, life. Her slightly trembling lips soon opened.
"I agree."
Akiko decided to move on as she intended. She put her status on the line.
Thinking long and hard at home, Akiko lay down on the bed intentionally. In her mind, the girl was trying to figure out if she had made the right move in giving in to Tomoyuki's dominance, whose plans were unclear to her. She wondered where all the farce around her had started. Akiko didn't like love couples, because necessarily one of the couples was a traitor, and sooner or later revealed her true mask of hypocrisy. But what struck her most was the fact that there was a couple in her school who pretended to be in public to cover their skins. To her, this seemed like real hypocrisy and insolence beyond normal.
Akiko wanted to re-educate the handsome boy and make the insolent girl disappear.
After the third class, Akiko approached Ryou, who was sitting at his desk, about to leave the classroom. She naively asked if he was okay, to which Ryou calmly replied that nothing bad was going on, and he was just tired from work. Frustrated, Akiko added softly that if he was okay, then fine. Ryou gathered his notebooks into his briefcase.
"Really, I'm nothing to worry about," the young man replied without looking back. The girl sensed an indifference around his person that Ryou did not choose to hide from others. That way, the boy could protect himself from intrusions by strangers.
She was well aware that Ryou did not see Akiko as his girlfriend that he could be interested in. They seemed to be only acquaintances who simply met at school and chatted during club activities.
Yumiko, who in the meantime had gathered her notebooks in her purse, was simultaneously looking back at their dialogue, and looking at Akiko's saddened face as she stood beside Ryou, the girl was convinced that Akiko really loved him.