After the morning classes ended, Ayumu Kuroya took out the insulated lunch box he’d specially bought at the mall yesterday. Inside was, naturally, the Chinese-style bento he’d made before leaving home that morning.

Looking at the lunch box, Ayumu couldn’t help recalling how, after getting off work yesterday, Kuroya Rena had tasted his mapo tofu and nearly cried from how moved she was. She kept stuffing food into her mouth while praising his cooking nonstop. The whole scene had been pretty over the top.

Of course, Ayumu wasn’t about to believe his cooking was god-tier. It was his mother talking, after all, so the credibility was limited.

He waited for a while, but Mizuno Hina still didn’t come over. Did she think he’d been joking again when he said he’d bring her lunch? But when Ayumu looked toward her seat, he realized she was actually “watching” his side too. He felt she was probably looking at him, since her head was tilted this way. But her eyes were hidden behind her hair, so he still couldn’t be completely sure.

Still, after they made eye contact through that curtain of hair, Hina immediately turned her head away. That at least proved she really could see even with her hair covering her eyes. Even though it barely counted as eye contact, she still didn’t make any move. At least, Ayumu couldn’t see any sign that she planned to get up and come over.

Maybe Hina was just embarrassed, so she watched for a bit and didn’t come. Ayumu didn’t want to go call her over himself either. That would be awkward too, since their relationship really wasn’t that close. Thinking about it now, saying he’d bring her lunch had honestly been pretty stupid. Too bad regretting it now was useless. He’d already said it, and he’d already made enough for two. Backing out now was way too late.

Ayumu felt mentally exhausted. He suddenly realized he really had zero experience dealing with girls all these years. It was practically impossible. He decided he should avoid getting involved with girls as much as possible in the future. Handling them might be harder than finding a bug in hundreds of lines of code. Focusing on studying was the true path. Girls were all flashy distractions anyway.

Then a spark flashed through his mind. He came up with a great way to avoid the awkwardness: email Hina.

Once he made up his mind, Ayumu quickly typed out a message and sent it to Mizuno Hina. The moment it went through, he saw her pull out her phone after it vibrated in her skirt pocket.

He didn’t have to wait long before he got a reply from her too. Her message was pretty long. First came shock, then thanks. Ayumu skipped over all that polite fluff and only looked at the useful part in the last line.

Hina told him to take the lunch and wait for her on the rooftop first. She’d come after. If the two of them acted too close in the classroom, it might lead to bad rumors.

As for Hina’s point at the end, Ayumu neither agreed nor disagreed. Still, less trouble was better than more. Since she’d put it that way, he had no reason to refuse. He simply replied with an “Mm,” then picked up his insulated lunch box and left through the back door of the classroom.

The rooftop at Saitama Sakae High was the kind that was open to students. Maybe it was because there had never been any serious incidents like jumping, fights, or “battles.” On top of that, the whole area was fenced in with iron mesh, so safety was guaranteed. The school administration was fairly at ease with it.

Actually, Saitama Sakae High was one of the top schools in Saitama Prefecture. Delinquents like Ayumu were extremely rare on campus. Basically, it was just the few people in the “Kuroya Corps.” That was also one reason the “Kuroya Corps” had such a terrible reputation at school. If some serious incident really did happen on campus, there was a high chance Ayumu would be involved somehow.

As for why all the school’s delinquents had ended up concentrated in one class, Ayumu had no idea. Maybe it was the choice of Steins;Gate. Or maybe the “Kuroya Corps” shone so brightly that all the half-baked wannabes backed off?

Some argumentative smartass was probably already thinking, If Saitama Sakae High is that impressive, then how did Ayumu get in?

First of all, no matter how good a high school is, you can’t say backdoor admissions don’t exist at all. Second, Ayumu really hadn’t gotten into Saitama Sakae through the back door. He’d passed on his own merits. Back in middle school, his grades had actually been pretty good. It was only after entering Saitama Sakae that, for various reasons, he became a delinquent and ended up like this.

But all that was old news. The current Ayumu had already washed his hands of that life and turned over a new leaf. He was starting over, studying hard again, and aiming for graduate school and overseas study after returning home. He was practically righteousness incarnate, wrapped in the twenty-four core socialist values, a role model for his peers and a pillar of society!

Before reaching the rooftop, Ayumu had assumed it would be packed. But after arriving, he found there were actually only a few people there, and there were still barely enough places to sit. So he casually picked a spot near the door and sat down to wait for Mizuno Hina.

He didn’t wait long before Hina arrived too. And the first thing she did, unbelievably, was repeat all the thanks she’d already written in the email, this time to his face, while also complimenting his new hairstyle. But to Ayumu, all of that was just polite talk, so before she could even finish, he cut her off.

“Mizuno-san, you don’t have to be so polite. Aren’t you helping me taste-test my cooking too?”

With that, Ayumu opened the lunch box. He’d specially bought this square insulated container yesterday. It had three tiers inside. He used the deepest bottom layer for the dishes, while the two shallower upper layers were for rice. When Ayumu removed the top two layers and revealed the food in the bottom one, he clearly heard Hina gasp.

“It looks so good! Kuroya-kun, are you really this good at cooking?”

Hina was so shocked that she actually brushed part of her bangs aside with her hand. Her eyes were fixed on the food, practically sparkling. Ayumu had made three dishes in total: tomato and scrambled eggs, shredded pork with green peppers, and crispy glutinous rice fish chunks. They were all dishes he’d liked back when he was still in China. It was exactly because he hadn’t eaten them in so long that these were what he chose for his first homemade bento.

The dishes didn’t actually look that amazing overall. At least, Ayumu was already used to them and didn’t think they had any special visual appeal. But with all the different colors together, maybe they really would seem oddly impressive to Japanese people who’d never seen them before? Then again, pretty presentation alone was useless. No matter how beautifully Japanese bentos were arranged, they never stirred Ayumu’s appetite. What really mattered was the burst of steam and aroma that spread out the instant he opened the lunch box.

Ayumu handed one layer of rice and a pair of chopsticks to Hina, then urged her, “Hurry up and eat. Try the taste. Chinese food isn’t as good once it gets cold.”

After taking the rice and chopsticks, Hina immediately took a bite of the tomato and scrambled eggs. As expected, girls really did like that kind of color combination.

“Soooo goooood~”

Hina’s exaggerated reaction almost made Ayumu believe his cooking had improved again. Sadly, after taking a bite himself, he realized that wasn’t the case. And every time Hina tried a new dish, she made another big fuss over it, to the point that even Ayumu started feeling embarrassed.

“If it’s good, then eat more.”

What Ayumu had actually wanted to say wasn’t that. It was more like, Eat more, talk less, or Can’t food shut your mouth for once? But he did know that in Japan, people never held back on praising someone else’s cooking, even if it actually tasted awful. And on top of that, Mizuno Hina was a girl. No matter how awkward the praise made him feel, all he could do was accept it in silence.

“Kuroya-kun, why did you suddenly want to try making Chinese food? Don’t tell me... you wanted to make it for a certain classmate?”

They were only halfway through the meal when Hina suddenly asked it in a casual tone. But in reality, she’d already lifted her hair and was staring straight at Ayumu, her whole face tense as she waited for his answer.

“It’s not that I wanted to make it for anyone. I just felt like making it, so I did.”

Hearing Ayumu’s easygoing reply, Hina very obviously let out a heavy sigh of relief. Unfortunately, Ayumu didn’t notice her reaction at all, because his attention had already been completely drawn to the rooftop entrance.

He had clearly heard a huge bang from the rooftop door just now, right after answering Hina’s question, like someone had slammed into it. But when he looked over, there wasn’t even a shadow of anyone there.

Was someone just at the door?