Chapter 694 682: Campus Tour

"This is the teaching building's restroom. Taking into account the number of students, it features a very modern flow-line design capable of ensuring normal operation even under considerable foot traffic."

"This is the sports field's restroom. Most of it is used only for emergencies; although slightly plain, the facilities are built quite sturdily, with shower equipment right beside it."

"This is the club building's restroom..."

"No, wait a second for me," Eriri rubbed her temples, feeling that her low blood pressure had been thoroughly cured: "There are clearly so many things you could introduce, why do you keep obsessively introducing the restrooms?! Just how proud are you of Sobu High's restrooms! Or rather, to what extent are the other facilities so barren that you have to keep introducing the restrooms non-stop?!"

"Huh? Isn't it Toyogasaki etiquette to introduce the restrooms?" Asakura looked bewildered: "Supposedly earthquakes happen often, so in an earthquake, restrooms that can serve as emergency shelters when one fails to escape in time are very important or something..."

"Toyogasaki has no such bizarre etiquette!"

Eriri said huffily: "Just from whom did you hear such fake information?!"

"Sawamura 'Can't-Run-Fast' Eriri."

"Cut it out with phrasing it like I'm definitely going to hide in a restroom during an earthquake, yamero!"

Watching Eriri bickering noisily with the Sobu High student leading the tour, Soyo's expression took on an amused, intrigued look.

It seemed that unlike what she had initially expected, this Sawamura-san wasn't that aloof; on the contrary, she was a bit goofy... cough, leaning more toward the tsukkomi [straight man] role?

No, thinking about it carefully, didn't it feel like these two already knew each other from the start?

Thinking about it this way, the reason Sobu High entrusted this boy to become a 'temporary' member of the Student Council was very clear as well.

It was to win over this Sawamura-san.

After all, she was quite a well-known presence at Toyogasaki—one of the top monsters in the Art Club.

As long as an acquaintance was present, sweet-talking would certainly make it easy to rope her in—

"If one leaks in broad daylight in front of the public, life is over. So to prevent such a situation from happening, practical mastery over restroom locations is extremely crucial."

"So can you please put an end to your long-winded restroom lectures already, hey! Hurry up and realize that talking about this in public and leaking are both forms of social death!"

She... should be able to be roped in, right?

Not only did Soyo waver in her judgment, but the other students from Toyogasaki & Tsukinomori Joint Academy also cast subtle looks at the boy leading them.

Could it be that Sobu High intentionally sent a clown over to lower their opinion of Sobu High and make them let down their guard, only to catch them off-guard in the club battles?

How truly underhanded!

"Alright, elites of Toyogasaki, keep up with my pace and don't get lost—after all, although Sobu High can't compare to Shuchiin or the merged Toyogasaki, it's still fairly large. You wouldn't want your supervising teacher having to find you over the school PA system like locating lost children in a shopping mall, would you?"

Walking at the very front of the line with his hands in his uniform pockets, Asakura strolled leisurely as he spoke cheerfully.

In the joint Toyogasaki-Tsukinomori line behind him, several suppressed chuckles and remarks immediately sounded—in fact, at first, the students from this side, especially those from the Tsukinomori branch, were somewhat 'putting on airs'; after all, in front of unfamiliar people, they instinctively held back a bit, not wanting to show any weakness.

However, Asakura and Eriri's manzai-like back-and-forth subtly broke that unfamiliarity, allowing everyone to quickly get into the rhythm.

Walking in the middle of the group, Soyo maintained that aloof and preoccupied widow-like demeanor. Convinced that the other party was merely executing a handsome-man (?) honeypot scheme to rope in Sawamura-san, she simply paid no more attention to whatever nonsense Asakura was spouting.

For her, touring Sobu High was only a secondary task; finding Tomori was the top priority. As for this silver-tongued guide, he was nothing more than an irrelevant passerby.

"Asakura-kun, please be a bit more serious. We came to participate in the club battles, not to listen to your nonsense," Eriri couldn't help chiming in, her voice crisp yet tinged with gritted teeth, her tsundere nature fully exposed: "Also, what's with that weird threat! Are those words a respectable person should say?!"

"You don't understand," Asakura put on a profound look: "This is an adaptation of a line from the new work of my most respected author, Kashiwagi Eri-sensei."

Another round of whispered murmurs—'Who's that literary great?' 'Never heard of them' 'Seems we can't take this competition lightly'—flowed into Eriri's ears from Toyogasaki's side, causing veins to pop on her forehead while making her dread clashing head-on with Asakura, terrified that a slip of his tongue would doxx her identity.

"Alright, alright, let's continue the tour." Knowing when to stop, Asakura turned around and resumed leading the way.

"Put an end to the restrooms already," the blonde twin-tailed girl threatened, baring her cute little tiger fang.

"Don't you think this introductory flow has quite a flavor to it?"

"It has quite a flavor in the physical sense—the smell of ammonia," the girl rolled her eyes.

That being said, after this, Asakura did become somewhat more serious.

After all, he didn't want to waste his limited life on this kind of thing either.

Yet the moment he grew serious, Eriri began feeling uncomfortable all over instead.

Not that she was an M... well, judging from various aspects of her behavior, this blonde twin-tailed girl did seem to have a bit of masochistic tendencies.

However, that wasn't the main point.

In short, after calming down, the girl suddenly realized that her interaction with Asakura just now seemed to have caused the persona she maintained at Toyogasaki to go subtly OOC.

Things having come to this, though, no matter how much she regretted it, there was no turning back.

"Ahead is our Sobu High's Teaching Building No. 2, five stories in total. The first floor has the first-year classrooms, the second floor is for second-years..." Asakura strolled leisurely ahead, introducing calmly like a tour guide, even gesturing directions along the way as if he might pull out a tour flag at any moment.

"Then the third floor is for third-years, right? No need to state the obvious like that," Eriri crossed her arms over her chest, her blonde twin-tails lightly flicking with her movement, her tone filled with disdain: 'Are you just padding the word count?'

"No, the third floor houses the faculty staff offices; the fourth floor is for third-years," Asakura replied calmly.

"Why?! Do Sobu High's architects love being unconventional that much?!" Eriri bristled on the spot, jumping up like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.

"Supposedly, the original intent was that 'placing the faculty office on the third floor makes reaching any other floor faster,'" Asakura added deadpan.

"Unexpectedly scientific?!"

The two noisily walked forward along the way like that.

After interacting for a while longer, Eriri suddenly seemed to remember something. Her steps slowed half a beat, and she glanced left and right to ensure no one was paying attention before quietly inching over to Asakura's side, lightly standing on tiptoe, and calling in a hushed whisper: "Hey."

Asakura tilted his head, looking at her with an ambiguous smile at the corner of his mouth: "What does this Toyogasaki student want?"

Eriri froze, the veins at her temple twitching slightly, but she still lowered her voice and said: "I have something serious to tell you. Have you gone to see that person recently?"

"Who?" Asakura asked nonchalantly.

"The fat woman," Eriri said in a hushed whisper, her tone light and casual as if merely bringing it up offhand.

"I don't know anyone like that," Asakura replied uprightly.

"Kasumigaoka! Kasumigaoka Utaha," Eriri gritted her teeth and added under her breath.

Beep

The air fell silent for a second.

"You just pressed 'stop recording', didn't you?" The girl slowly turned her head, glaring fixedly at the phone in Asakura's hand.

"Nothing of the sort," Asakura smoothly slid the phone back into his pocket with near-professional dexterity, his expression completely natural as if nothing had occurred. "Keep talking about Kasumigaoka."

"I don't want to talk anymore," Eriri flipped out on the spot, puffing her cheeks and turning her head away in a huff.

Anyway, even to Kasumigaoka's face, she frequently... occasionally... said things like that, so it didn't really matter even if it got recorded.

Probably.

"Did she revert to how she was before?" Asakura asked casually, seemingly oblivious to her minor tantrum.

If that was truly the case, he'd have to consider going to harvest the fruit in her soul's nursery garden once more.

"Uh... the situation is slightly different," Eriri hesitated, her fingers unconsciously twirling the tip of her hair. After thinking for a moment, she still shook her head: "Never mind. Since she hasn't asked you for help, it's not really my place to tell you directly."

Asakura stopped in his tracks, turning his head to stare at her with an undisguised, scrutinizing gaze: "There are two kinds of people I despise the most: one is the riddle-maker who only speaks in halves."

"What's the other kind?" Eriri instinctively pressed.

Asakura, however, had already turned around and strode forward, looking entirely disinclined to answer.

"Ehh?! What about the other kind?! Leaving words half-finished is going to drive me crazy!" Eriri suffered an immediate meltdown, hurriedly jogging to catch up as her twin-tails whipped out an anxious flurry of arcs behind her.

The campus tour didn't take very long and basically concluded after leading the Toyogasaki students around in a single lap—after all, the sports field, which took up the most land area, was completely clear at a glance, and most activity rooms in the club building weren't open to visitors, so there wasn't actually all that much to see.

When Asakura bade farewell to the Toyogasaki students and leisurely prepared to leave, the Toyogasaki students finally entered their free-time period.

At that moment, Eriri was surrounded by several of her friends—or rather, superficial friends.

"Is Sawamura-san really close with that Asakura?" "At first it was clearly a manzai comedy duo, but then it somehow turned into flirting and bickering!" "The two of you feel super in sync!"

"N-No, nothing like that at all," the girl maintained a smile that felt so forced her face was about to cramp, trying hard to explain: "I just happen to know him... Mm, remember that very famous cultural festival Sobu High had before? I came over out of curiosity back then, so that's how I got to know him."

"A fated encounter!" "Boy meets girl!" "Uwah, Eriri's purity!"

"It wasn't that exaggerated... Anyway, stop talking as if I've already been defiled!" Eriri finally couldn't hold back her complaints, her face flushing red all the way to her ears.

Just as she was gradually descending into social hell, Soyo on the other side glanced at this girl who had previously shown her kindness on the train.

Then, without the slightest hesitation, she ignored the pleading-for-help Eriri, turned around, and swiftly walked toward Asakura, who was just about to leave.

"Excuse me, fellow student from Sobu High," she called out to stop him. "May I ask, do you know Takamatsu Tomori?"

"Who are you?" Asakura paused and turned back to look at her.

"My name is Nagasaki Soyo, from the Tsukinomori branch..." She paused slightly, then added in a soft yet deliberately emphasized tone, "I'm Tomori-chan's friend."

"Then can't you just call her phone directly?" Asakura replied with stark realism.

"That child... doesn't really answer calls often," Soyo said with a slightly helpless smile.

"Is that so..."

Asakura did know Tomori; although they had only met once, that single encounter was more than enough to confirm that her mental state was indeed somewhat confusing.

"Unfortunately, I'm not clear on which exact class she is in either..." He shook his head.

"...Useless fellow (ultra-whisper)."

"However, I know someone who knows her... Mm, what did you say just now?" Asakura raised an eyebrow slightly.

"Nothing at all~ Even a tiny bit is fine, so please share any information about Tomori-chan with me~" Nagasaki Soyo clasped her hands together in front of her chest, speaking with a beaming smile in an excessively sweet tone.

Seems this person isn't nearly as well-behaved as she appears on the surface, Asakura narrowed his eyes and quietly passed judgment in his heart.

"Um," he said.

"Yes?" Soyo still maintained her flawless customer-service smile.

"The way you're pitching your voice is making me uncomfortable. Could you speak normally?"

"..."

The flawless, template-grade smile on the girl's face instantly fractured with a tiny hairline crack.

Taking a deep breath, however, she quickly patched it back together: "What is this classmate talking about? I~ completely don't understand~"

"Just use the tone you used when calling me a useless fellow earlier," Asakura delivered a deadpan follow-up strike.

This time, the smile failed to fully recover.

Soyo's expression visibly turned colder, her eyes gaining an undisguised layer of aloof detachment.

"There's no such thing; you definitely misheard, classmate," she said with a fake smile.

Asakura gave her a meaningful look, then pulled out his phone and dialed Anon.

[Eh? Asakura is actually calling me on his own initiative? Is the world about to end?]

"Yes."

[For real?!]

"Fake."

[Honestly, Asakura has such a special status, so stop making jokes that feel so shockingly real!]

"I need your help."

[What is it?]

"Someone says she knows Takamatsu Tomori. Go verify it with Takamatsu-san—"

[Okay, what's her name?]

"Nagasaki Soyo."

[?]