“It’s a love potion.”

A purple-haired girl was holding a gla.s.s flask with a smile.

Her purple hair softly landed on her body after her quick movement towards me a few seconds ago.

“A love potion? Is this real?” I asked. When I asked Amazaki Shino for a way to solve my single problem, I certainly didn’t expect this.

Yesterday, I went to the student council room to tell her of my problem. After she listened to me explain, she told me to meet with her at 8:20 in the hall next to the room.

“Of course! You didn’t think I, the student council prez, would lie, would you?”

She leaned towards me, grinning and twirling the bottle. The red liquid inside clearly swished around.

A few bubbles formed and popped.

Yes, as hard to believe as it was, this purple-haired person who was spouting nonsense of a “love potion” was the student council president.

I’m just your average male, black-haired loner with gla.s.ses who could be confused for an author insert. I normally sit in the back of the cla.s.s, on the left side next to the windows. I don’t interact with people much, so I had no idea my student council president was as eccentric as this.

Though, maybe it was better this way. She’s certainly easy to get along with.

“…Magic and the like don’t exist, though?”

Nothing of the sort could exist. This was modern twenty-first century j.a.pan.

She pouted, “Akirkun, you don’t believe me, don’t you. Fine, if you’re going to be like that, go try it out and see if it works.”

“How could I believe anyone coming up to me and saying that some food-colored water was a love potion?! This isn’t a fantasy world!” I gave the obvious reply.

“Aww, come on, just try it! It won’t hurt just to try, you know?”

Umm… No, I don’t even know what this is! It isn’t a love potion, so what is it!

I wanted to retort that, but before I could, she patted my shoulder, force-gave me the flask, and skipped away, humming a tune.

“…Wait!”

Stretching my arms out, I tried to call her back, but I was too late. She had already rounded the corner.

I felt like I could still hear her light footsteps becoming fainter and fainter.

Looking down at my hands, I sighed. A clean gla.s.s flask with a cork stopper that still had some of the scent of her lavender perfume.

There was a red liquid sploshing inside of it.

I guess this is the love potion?

Though, it looks more like water with red food coloring…

Hopefully this could solve my problem.

Though, I couldn’t even imagine how it would.

I moved my head closer to the liquid. How is a love potion even possible? Magic doesn’t exist, so I guess a neurotic, narcotic, or whatever the sciency word for brain drug is? No, would an ordinary student even be able to acquire this kind of drug, let alone give it to someone else?

Impossible.

So, this is probably a hoax, and the president is playing with me.

Why would she do that, though?

I’ve never even talked to her before.

There was no reason for her to do that. Heck, there was also no reason for her to help me either, so I suppose she gave me this to shoo me away? A gag gift type of thing?

That seems probable.

As I reached a conclusion, the morning bell sounded.

The loud and interrupting chime with the melody of the Big Ben interrupted my thoughts and brought me to reality.

I glanced at my watch.

It was… 8:30. The time when cla.s.ses start.

“Sh*t! Ten minutes already pa.s.sed!”

I stuffed the potion into my bag and hurried off to cla.s.s, running along with some other late people.

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“Asakura! Late again?” my teacher, a middle-aged woman, asked in a strict tone.

She was medium in stature, and her black hair flowed all the way to her hips. Her bespectacled face showed no signs of wrinkles.

With her hand resting on her podium, she was calmly staring at me.

I grumbled in a small voice, “Can’t you look at the time yourself?”

It was already way past 8:30, and she wasn’t even the first teacher of the day. How could I not be late?

“Hmm?” Takedsensei rapped her hand on the hardwood podium.

“Yes! I am very sorry for my tardiness! I will never be late again!”

Scary. That sound she makes as she hits the wood is scary.

Rapping her hand on the podium once again, she said sternly, “Good. Asakura, sit down. Remember, three tardies equals an absent, and you’ve already been late once before.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

I hurriedly rushed towards my seat in the back, pa.s.sing a sea of unfamiliar faces. No, unfamiliar is the wrong word. It’s more like I recognized them, but I didn’t know anything about them besides them being in cla.s.s 1-B

The cla.s.sroom wasn’t a huge one, so I reached my place in a few seconds.

I plopped my bottom into the

the orange plastic chair and dropped my bag onto the tiled floor. Putting my arms upon the desk, I rested my head on them.

Now properly settled, I looked around.

Most of my cla.s.smates weren’t paying me any attention; they were looking at the front, where the teacher was. A few were whispering quietly to their friends.

Only one person, the person in front of me, was still looking at myself.

The source of my current problems.

Her name was Yohsane Sakurako.

Slightly cute, I guess, and she did seem to be popular with the other boys.

She had the cla.s.sic long, straight, and black hair of a Yamato Nadeshiko.

With her glistening black eyes, she was staring at me.

At that point, I knew my problems were about to get worse.

Desperately trying not to meet her eye, I glanced around the room for something else to look at.

Yes, the teacher. I was supposed to look at her anyways.

I continued to stare at the teacher, not daring to meet Yohsane-san’s eyes.

Takedsensei, like normal, was teaching something boring.

At least, to me.

Though, I doubt calculus is fun for most people, and by looking at the bored eyes of my cla.s.smates it seemed my guess was correct.

Anyways, it was a boring cla.s.s, and I was itching to take my phone out and read a webnovel.

In fact, I would be doing that right now, but the teacher was Takedsensei.

If this wasn’t real life, she’d be called the “demon math teacher of h.e.l.l.”

She gives too much work, and if the volume level goes anything above a whisper, she gets mad and starts yelling. I heard she had even pet.i.tioned to reinstate corporal punishment.

I feel like she became a teacher only to terrorize us poor children.

I tried to use my phone in her cla.s.s before, but she caught me almost as I look the device out.

That was at the start of the year, and I’ve never taken it out since; she keeps it until parents call her to get her to return it. It ended up being quite hard to take it back.

She really was quick to catch me. Only a few seconds elapsed between me pushing the on b.u.t.ton and her demanding my electronic.

Maybe she’s also bored of her own lesson?

How else could she spot me so fast? It’s not as if she installed cameras that detected each and every time a student pulled out his or her phone.

Now that’s food for thought.

A teacher bored of her own lesson. Actually, that might be more common than I’d think. After all, it’s a rare person to like everything

like everything related to one’s job. Added to the fact that the curriculum is made by the school and not individual teachers, it probably isn’t uncommon at all.

Still finding the cla.s.s uninteresting, I surveyed the cla.s.sroom once more.

Yep, everyone else was the same. Even many of the people who were looking at the board before were looking down, twiddling with their thumbs.

Only a select few were paying attention to the teacher.

Teacher’s pets? Cla.s.s geniuses? Who was I to know, but I’d a.s.sume they were like that.

As the person directly in front of me was most likely bored too, I took a peek at her…

She’s still staring at me.

…I have a bad feeling about this.

Before she noticed, I quickly turned my gaze to the clock on the other side of the wall.

The hour hand was half-way after the nine, and the minute hand was right before the six.

It was 9:29.

About time for next period?

I was right.

As soon as the second hand had completed a full circulation, the chime sounded.

Ding dong ding dong. Ding dong ding dong.

With the chime ringing, the h.e.l.lishly boring math cla.s.s ended and real h.e.l.l began.

Well, that was an exaggeration. To be more accurate, the whisperings of h.e.l.l began.

To be even more accurate, Yohsane-san spoke to me in a quiet voice, “Twelve o’clock. Usual place.” before smiling to me and turning around to talk to her friends.

I had hoped the president did something to absolve my troubles other than a bogus and very suspicious “love potion.” Yet, it would seem that my hopes were for nothing. My problem was still as large as ever.

For the rest of the break, I did not stray from my desk.

Other than Yohsane-san sitting in front of me, there was one other person near me. His name was Villager A.

No, I did not know Villager A’s true name. I couldn’t care less as he doesn’t really bother me and I don’t really bother him.

Villager A was actually quite popular. Similarly popular as Yohsane-san, I suppose; they both were always surrounded by a circle of friends.

As always, they were surrounded by their circles of friends. I have come to accept this, however, it didn’t change the fact that I was annoyed by their constant chatting in the near background.

Could you talk somewhere else? Like, maybe not near this loner who wants some quietness around here?

Luckily, the break ended quickly and normal cla.s.s time was resumed.

j.a.panese was next.

Our j.a.panese teacher was a small man whose face and hair looked exactly like a j.a.panese monkey: a pink face and whitishface and whitish gray hair.

I had a feeling he liked hot springs too.

Well, he taught the language fairly well, so I guess it could be forgiven.

Though, I still don’t see the need to know cla.s.sical j.a.panese in our future daily lives.

Thinking that, I pulled out my phone and typed in a URL.

It was the URL of “Let’s Become a Writer!” a popular novel uploading site.

Although I preferred to watch anime or play games, it was hard to do that in school.

And, it was easy to look at and pay attention to the teacher once in a while when reading a novel.

I didn’t want to entirely waste my parent’s money after all.

Logging in, I checked the new updates for novels to read.

Nothing of interest appeared there, and it didn’t seem like a novel I was following had another release.

Bored, I tapped on a random t.i.tle.

“Invijible Panda”

The synopsis looked like it was done by a two-year-old.

I tapped on the link to the first chapter out of curiosity.

And, after one second of reading, I knew.

This was actually done by a two-year-old.

It was hardly readable, and there was no plot.

Well, it was quite amazing a two-year-old could even write.

I must give the author that.

Sighing at how there was nothing good these days, I hit the back b.u.t.ton on my phone and turned it off.

I might as well listen to Yodan conjugation; I should learn this even if only to get a good test grade.

I’m the type who doesn’t need notes and doesn’t study. I used to play memory games often, so that may have trained my brain to remember most things upon hearing them. Of course, it also could’ve been good natural gifts, but I had no way to know.

Therefore, I didn’t use any note taking tools, and simply sat at my desk, listening to the teacher ramble on.

Time pa.s.ses excruciatingly slowly when bored.

That was an evident fact.

It felt like hours when I was listening to Yamadsensei’s expiation of the differences between cla.s.sical j.a.panese conjugation and modern j.a.panese conjugation.

I mean, I guess it was important, but enough to warrant a whole lesson? I don’t think so.

All through the period, I repeatedly checked my phone for anything good.

And, I always saw nothing interesting.

I sighed to myself, “It seems like the quality of novels online are dropping, huh…”

The rest of the period progressed in such a boring manner.

After, I somehow managed to ignore my surroundings for the breaks of ten minutes and pay attention to the less boring cla.s.ses.

It was like this until twelve o’clock. Lunch break.