Clatter.

It was 12:38 p.m.

Roughly ten minutes after parting ways with Nogami, Haru­taki once again arrived outside the unused classroom and slid the door open with a sharp shhk.

“Who the hell just barges in like that? Ever heard of knocking!?”

“I figured I don’t really count as an outsider anymore.”

He said it lightly, teasing, his gaze drifting toward Nogami, who was still seated at her desk.

Plop.

The half-eaten convenience bread she’d been chewing on slipped from her hand, rolling a few times before coming to rest on the floor.

“Y–You… weren’t you eating at the cafeteria!?”

Nogami shot a reluctant glance at the fallen bread, then quickly recovered her usual haughty composure and let out an unimpressed tch.

“Sae couldn’t finish her bread and insisted I take it. It’s nothing special, but letting it go to waste like this is just… ugh.”

“Oh, it was from Sae? I thought you bought it yourself.”

“Could you not be so annoying!?”

“Well, makes sense. A refined young lady like Nogami-san would never touch such plebeian food, after all…”

He watched her from the corner of his eye, noticing how she kept stealing quick glances toward the bread on the floor. He couldn’t help but suppress a laugh.

“Don’t talk nonsense. It’s not like I wanted to eat it. Sae just… recommended it to me, that’s all!”

But as she said that, the bite she’d taken was already melting on her tongue, rich with the soft sweetness of milk, tempting her stomach to growl.

Breakfast had been disappointing enough, and now at lunch she realized she hadn’t even brought her own meal.

She usually preordered from a fancy bento shop near her apartment, picking it up on her way to school in the morning. But since she’d stayed over at Hoshikawa’s place last night, there was no chance she could make a round trip to Chiyoda just for that.

At Nichiya High, students had two options for lunch: eat at the cafeteria, or bring their own bento and share it somewhere quiet with friends.

Without a bento, she didn’t qualify for the latter, and given her current state of being bullied and ostracized, heading to the cafeteria was basically suicide.

She’d rather go hungry than endure those mocking, envious, hateful stares again.

Under all those gazes, she always felt like some zoo exhibit, like a panda at Ueno Zoo. Only, instead of hearing “so cute!” or “I want to hug it!”, she got “die already,” “slut,” “serves you right.”

In the end, she resorted to something that the Nogami Izumi of old would never have considered,

Food from the hallway vending machine.

Normally, people only used those for snacks or drinks. Only loners and the lower rungs of students treated them as a meal source.

It was the sort of thing you’d make some bullied kid fetch for you just for laughs, and now she was the one doing it herself.

What a joke.

As she thought that, she snuck another bitter glance at the bread lying helplessly on the floor, and then glared at Harutaki.

“What are you even doing back here? You don’t have enough time to eat, do you?”

She’d barely managed to unwrap the bread and take a single bite before he showed up.

She’d called it “low-class” food, but the truth was, she finally understood why so many people liked that milky sweetness.

“I just figured you probably hadn’t eaten yet. So I came back.”

Then he swung his arm forward, revealing what he’d been hiding behind his back.

“Ta-dah! Surprise!”

“…Huh?”

“I borrowed a clean lunch box and utensils from the cafeteria ladies. Didn’t even stop to eat myself, came straight to deliver lunch to Nogami-san!”

He carefully placed the lunch box on her desk and dragged over a chair to sit beside her.

Of course, that wasn’t exactly true.

Or rather, only about ten percent of it was. The part about realizing she might not have lunch.

“Talk about lucky. There was just one lunch set left. Probably prepared for some teacher who didn’t show up. Guess it’s our lucky day.”

That was nonsense. The cafeteria kitchen had an entire cabinet stacked neatly with spare lunch boxes, set aside precisely for cases like this, for teachers who couldn’t leave or students eating outside when it got crowded.

Good schools were considerate like that.

Click.

He undid the clasps and lifted the lid.

Before Nogami’s eyes lay two golden-brown slices of pork cutlet over rice, a full tonkatsu lunch set.

“I really didn’t get to eat yet, so I’m starving too. But at this hour, I bet the cafeteria’s already out of food…”

Does he think I’m stupid? This idiot…

Nogami shot him a glare but decided not to expose the lie. After all, he’d brought her food.

When she didn’t respond, Harutaki crouched down to pick up the fallen bread. He tore off the part that had touched the floor and took a bite right in front of her.

Are you trying to guilt-trip me like some brat threatening his parents?

“…Fine. I can’t finish all this anyway. You can have some, so, where’s your cutlery?”

She peeked into the plastic bag. Only one pair of chopsticks.

“Ahaha, the rest were being washed.”

One lunch box, one pair of chopsticks, yeah, she could guess exactly what he was up to.

“In that case, I’m afraid you’ll just have to wait until I’m done, and eat whatever’s left straight from the box.”

“…Eh?”

That… was not how this was supposed to go.

Harutaki found himself staring into her rose-colored eyes, full of teasing mischief.

Wasn’t this the part where she shyly agreed to share the same chopsticks?

“Tch, pervy mutt… Fine, since I still need your help later, I’ll let it slide this time.”

She picked up a piece of glistening tonkatsu with the chopsticks and held it up to his mouth.

“Open wide, ahh.”

Crunch.

Juices burst from the crispy pork, filling his mouth with savory bliss. Even though the coating had gone soft from sitting in the box, it still tasted incredible.

“And some rice.”

After feeding him one bite of pork, she scooped up a little white rice and offered that too.

“Swallow, then a bit of cabbage. Your mouth must be dry.”

“You’re surprisingly caring.”

“Don’t push it.”

She muttered her complaint but still obediently lifted a pinch of shredded cabbage. The sesame dressing added a tangy, nutty flavor that paired perfectly with the rice.

Watching him eat so contentedly made her stomach ache with temptation. She eyed the chopsticks, still damp from his saliva, and the warm tonkatsu steaming in the box. After a moment’s hesitation, she decided to screw it and dug in.

“Relax, I always eat separately, no risk of Helicobacter pylori or whatever.”

“Who’s even worried about that, you idiot!”

Her embarrassment turned to irritation, and she stuffed a big bite of pork and rice into her mouth.

Tender meat, sweet-salty sauce, fluffy rice,

Since when is tonkatsu this good!?

Maybe it was just hunger talking, or maybe the cafeteria chef was a genius. Either way, this simple meal somehow tasted even better than the fancy bentos she used to buy.

Of course, to Harutaki, it was obvious; she just wasn’t used to eating freshly cooked, hot food.

No matter how expensive a bento was, after sitting for hours until lunch, the magic was gone.

That realization made him silently thankful. Many schools in the East didn’t even have cafeterias; in one of those, he’d be stuck begging Ayaka to pack him a bento every morning, and eating it cold.

As for Ayaka, Chiaki, and Fuyuno?

Well, their elite private academy handled everything for them. No need to worry about such mundane things.