“My house is this way.”
“Mine is over that way.”
“Then… goodbye?”
“Mm… goodbye, Classmate Siji.”
Watching Zhong Siji wave and say goodbye, a faint reluctance rose in Xu Runhui’s heart. I don’t want it to end yet…
Will I still be able to chat this naturally with him tomorrow?
Classmate Siji was kind and gentle. That was something she only learned today.
At school he was nothing like this at all.
A little withdrawn, a little eccentric, a little rebellious—that was everyone’s impression of Classmate Siji.
Of course, that had included her past self as well.
What kind of feeling she had been holding when she moved her desk over back then was already a little hard to remember.
She only remembered that by the time she came back to her senses, she was already sitting beside him.
She had originally thought she would be scolded for meddling, but at the time he only seemed a little surprised, then smiled and thanked her:
“Thank you. Sorry for the trouble.”
Classmate Siji shouldn’t be like what they say, right? That thought had already been circling in her mind at the time.
Until today, she had finally received confirmation. Classmate Siji really was so gentle.
Only, why… would someone as strong and gentle as Classmate Siji shut himself out of the class and even the whole campus?
Xu Runhui still couldn’t figure it out, but what she could figure out right now was…
Toot-toot-toot~~~~ Honk-honk-honk~~~~
The successive car horns were truly annoying, yet right now she surprisingly didn’t find them that unpleasant. Probably because something else was even louder.
Her heart was beating a little fast. Xu Runhui touched the corner of her mouth.
I’m so disgusting. I’m actually this excited just because I monopolized a side of Classmate Siji that no one else knows about.
Just thinking that, the upward curve of her lips refused to come back down no matter what.
***
On the other side, the strong and gentle Classmate Siji was standing in front of the gate of an ordinary two-story Western-style house with a worried frown.
“Yo, Siji. It’s rare for you to come back this late. Did you join a club?”
The uncle next door who was taking in the laundry greeted him familiarly.
“Yo, Uncle Chen.” Zhong Siji answered with the same worried face. “No. I just ran into some things that delayed me.”
“What things?”
“Got predicted and caught by a Poké Ball, then beat back some invading orcs.”
What is this kid even talking about? Completely makes no sense at all.
But after so many years, he had long grown used to this child’s nonsense.
Really, not a single bit of a proper boy’s appearance. No wonder Xinya was always so worried.
“Oh~~ That must have been tough.”
Uncle Chen asked while skillfully folding the clothes.
“Can that reason convince Xinya?”
“Probably not.”
“Then someone’s bento tomorrow is going to be full of bitter melon. Today’s bitter melon was on big sale at the supermarket.”
The moment Zhong Siji heard that, his expression wilted even more.
“Uncle Chen, tell me, is there any little sister who controls her older brother like this?”
Uncle Chen didn’t take it seriously. “Isn’t this pretty good? At least there’s someone who cares about you this much.”
“That still doesn’t mean she can enforce bitter melon tyranny.”
“Then wish yourself luck. Uncle Chen can’t protect you.”
“Sigh, sigh, at least switch it to cucumber.”
“No! I have to argue my case! At least half cucumber and half bitter melon!”
“Good luck~~”
Zhong Siji nodded, then opened the door with the air of someone ready to face death and walked inside.
Watching him walk in like that, Uncle Chen, still in his own yard, let out a sigh. “If only he had been born a girl.”
***
The moment Zhong Siji stepped through the door, he saw a long-haired girl standing gracefully in the entryway with her arms crossed.
The girl was wearing a black standard school uniform. The fitted clothes set off her figure perfectly.
Above her long, graceful neck was her near-perfect face, only at this moment those lovely features were already written full of dissatisfaction.
“Yo, Xinya.”
“It should be ‘I’m home’… shouldn’t it? Big—Brother—” The girl’s tone was low and cold. It seemed her mood right now was not very good.
It’s over. Xinya really seems angry.
“I’m home, Xinya.” Zhong Siji nervously swallowed.
“Coming back this late and you didn’t even send a message?”
“My phone ran out of battery, and then I got captured by a Poké Ball that predicted my movements…”
The girl’s pretty brows furrowed slightly. “Big Brother, you got called in for a talk by the teacher again?”
“Yes…”
“What was it about this time? Don’t tell me… Big Brother, you got into a fight again?”
“No no no no. Big Brother is already a high school student. How could I still be so immature as to fight with people?”
Only I hit her. She didn’t hit me. It should only count as pure beating, not a fight.
Mm, it doesn’t count.
“Big Brother, wait a moment…”
Zhong Xinya pulled out her phone and started tapping rapidly, making Zhong Siji sigh.
She was checking the social media of his school again.
After all, in this world now, topics about boys fighting were absolute attention magnets. If something happened on campus it would definitely be easy to catch traces of it.
Fortunately he had fought off campus, and the ones he fought were people from Momoi. The place was also very remote and there were no witnesses.
Per—fect—
“Mm. Big Brother didn’t lie to me. There really haven’t been any rumors of fights at Taogu recently.”
“Right? Right? How could Big Brother lie to you?”
“Xinya didn’t mean she doesn’t trust Big Brother. It’s just that Big Brother used to lie to Xinya a lot… Fine. When I say it like that, it’s still that Xinya doesn’t trust Big Brother enough. I’m sorry, Big Brother.”
An extremely heavy sense of guilt suddenly surged up from the bottom of Zhong Siji’s heart.
“Ahem, it’s fine. Big Brother was the one who made you worry first.”
“Then Big Brother, what did the teacher talk to you about?”
“The teacher asked why I don’t want to go out and play with the boys in the class.”
Zhong Xinya’s brows that had just relaxed furrowed again. “Big Brother, you still haven’t made any friends?”
“Yeah… I guess so.”
“Big Brother, although I have no intention of interfering in your interpersonal relationships, friends and such are still necessary for high school students, right?”
Although she didn’t interfere in this one, she interferes quite a lot in other things…
“Xinya, you don’t want Big Brother to start putting on heavy makeup and doing nail art to go chase girls like other people, do you?”
“Big Brother, stop that. Making friends doesn’t mean you have to do those things.”
Completely stumped.
“Mm… Just treat it as Big Brother not being ready yet.”
“Big Brother… Although you’ve always had this kind of personality, Xinya thinks changing a little isn’t a bad thing, you know?”
“Sometimes things you feel you can’t accept turn out to be unexpectedly nice after you come into contact with them. That kind of situation also exists, you know?”
“Besides, Big Brother has been a little strange lately. You don’t contact your old friends anymore either, and you keep muttering about God and Buddha and such. You didn’t look at something weird, did you?”
“No!!! It’s just… just some adolescent troubles.”
This broken world flipped everything, yet only the parts about me stayed the original flavor, so in other people’s eyes I’ve always been a weird boy.
Thanks to that, in the eyes of the friends I used to know I was just… how to put it? A female lead? Or a fake girl?
Zhong Siji couldn’t stand that huge gap in perception, so he basically stopped contacting them.
“Is that so… Then will Big Brother leave Xinya in the future too?”
“What kind of thing is that to say? Didn’t we already agree? We’ll always stay together.”
She didn’t forget that… “Alright then. I won’t hold it against you today. Welcome home, Big Brother.”
“I somehow feel like your mood suddenly got better. Did you pick up money today?”
“Hehe. Then please keep guessing, Big Brother.”
“No way. We agreed that if you pick up money you have to treat. No going back on your word.”
“Big Brother, you really are…”
Not cute at all.