Chapter 246.

Chapter 246. The Troubling Goth Girl. (1/6)

A few days passed by without any major happenings. It was now Friday.

Alicia was no longer down and she’d been more cheerful than ever at work.

Tuesday I’d mailed out Wisteria’s fudge priority mail and she received it this morning. I got a desperate message from her this morning begging me to send her more.

As for Rosa, with Alicia back to normal, she’d been in a great mood. Rather than their relationship deteriorating from what she’d done, it had only grown closer. They were more intimate than before the entire debacle transpired. In fact… I felt like they were more intimate with each other than they were with me.

Well, that was because I kept my distance.

As for Irene, she was the same as Rosa. Her daughter back to normal meant she had not a single worry or concern.

Everything was perfect once the storm had passed.

Well… almost.

I received an email from someone on Tuesday.

It was from the goth girl. She said she was able to give her present to the student council president. It seems she made use of the opening I created to give it to him. He’d had a pretty stressful day, he delightfully received her gift.

Now, didn’t that sound like the perfect outcome?

It should have been.

But… it wasn’t.

As for why it wasn’t, it was because that idiot student council president had set his eyes on Alicia’s boyfriend. I knew with certainty that he definitely hadn’t given up on Alicia, nor had he accepted his crushing defeat. He was constantly on the lookout for her boyfriend. He’d been trying to pry information about me out of Alicia the entire week. He was pretending to use it as a conversation topic with her as a friend, but it was obvious what he was really doing.

He wanted to ruin me so he could snatch Alicia up. He’d recognized her unknown mystery boyfriend as the greatest obstacle to his goal of acquiring Alicia’s love.

Thankfully, I’d managed to stay under the radar.

As for how I knew about all of this, it was because of the email I received from the goth girl. She explained what gave her an opening and what happened after she gave her gift to him. The student council president asked her to wait for him until he’s able to settle his feelings with Alicia.

She’d also informed me of the conversation the student council president had in class with Alicia. She said she sat nearby them in class and overheard everything he asked about. She was under the impression he was settling his feelings by trying to confirm the guy Alicia was with was a good person who would treat her right. But from my perspective, the true meaning was completely different. He was hunting me.

Within only a week of my return to school, I had this nuisance on my back. Well, as long as I stayed hidden I should be safe.

However, I had a problem. The goth girl emailed me today requesting to meet in person. She said she wanted me to help her. When I asked her why it had to be in person, she was evasive and didn’t give a direct answer. All she said was it had to be in person.

When I refused, she emailed two words.

Ran Sozen.

She knew who I was. Meaning, she knew we were in the same school now. She’d seen me dancing with Rosa because of how eye-catching we were with the spotlight on us. Thus, there was no way for me to avoid her unless I stopped going to school again.

But I’d only just started going to school again. I’d also only just made the arrangement with Angela for weekends. I’d have to find a new place to relax during the week. Skipping was honestly the best idea. But at the same time, I had to keep an eye on the student council president. If he couldn’t find me, he might resort to more drastic measures. I’d have to monitor Alicia’s situation at school for some more time before I could comfortably start skipping again.

I wouldn’t want another Valentine’s Day special on my hand to clean up again. Thus, I’d determined the best course of action was to take the chance to meet the goth girl and see how things played out from there.

If I could pair her up with the student council president, all my problems would be resolved. Meeting her to see what she wanted was worth the risk.

It was lunchtime.

The designated meeting location was inside one of the school’s lab rooms. It was shared between the chemistry and biology teachers and only in use when there was a lab scheduled that required specialized equipment that couldn’t be transported easily into the classrooms. It wasn’t in use very often but there was a lab scheduled for the next period so the door was unlocked.

When I arrived during lunch and cracked the door open, I looked inside and discovered a single student inside. The teacher wasn’t around.

I frowned when I confirmed the student’s identity. It wasn’t the goth girl I came to meet. Far from it, it was the exact opposite, the student council vice president.

Had I been set up?

I was about to close the door when the vice president called out to me after she momentarily peeked my way from the corner of her eye. 

“Are you leaving after only just arriving? You don’t need to be shy if you were planning to have lunch here.” Her head remained low as her hand remained busy at work. It looked like she was working on an assignment or something.

Huh? Was she really here by chance? Just waiting for her next period while working?

“Sorry, I was just looking for someone. It seems like they’re not here though. I’ll look for them elsewhere.”

“Did you arrange to meet them here?”

“No.”

“Liar, why would you come to a lab room that’s normally locked to search for them? You must have arranged to meet them here before the lab that’s scheduled for after lunch. If that’s the case, you should just wait for them.”

This was the first exchange I ever had with the vice president who bore a resemblance to Alicia.

“Right…”

Cautious, I closed the door behind me and stepped inside the room. I took a seat at the back.

What’s going on here?

Was it really by simple chance that we bumped into each other here?

A few minutes later I noticed I’d received an email on my phone. It said to exit the room and that she was outside.

I stood up from my seat and headed to the door.

“The person you’re waiting for hasn’t shown up but you’re leaving already?”

“I received a message from them. They said to meet them elsewhere.”

“I see.”

When I opened the door and stepped outside, I discovered the goth girl to the side. She was in the school uniform rather than the flashy goth clothes she’d worn at the mall. Still, she was as eye-catching as I remembered with all her piercings on, tattoos visible, and makeup. 

When I closed the door behind me she grabbed my hand and dragged me to an empty room that was unlocked.

Now that we were alone I came out and asked, “So, what’d you want to meet in person for?”

“To concoct a plan to win over the guy I like.”

“And why did it have to be in person rather than through email.”

“I wanted to verify something.”

“Verify what?”

“That Alicia’s boyfriend was you that day.”

My body stiffened up. I started to sweat. How? How could this goth girl possibly know? 

“Huh? What do you mean?” I did my best to not give anything away and played dumb.

“Don’t act like you had nothing to do with it. I’m sure of it.”

“How could you be sure that I’m that person?”

“Well, you said you’d be my ally, and when I discovered that you were in the same school as me that day, I was sure it had to be you.”

“Your accusation is based on such flimsy reasoning? You're tagging me as Alicia’s boyfriend without any concrete evidence. Since you know my name, you should already be aware from gossip that I’m dating Rosa, right?”

“Yes, it was because I saw you slow dancing together that day that I found out you were in the same school as me. I was pretty shocked to see you. No, that your girlfriend was such a hotty.”

“I don’t remember ever seeing you at the school dance though.”

“I was helping out with the shop, selling food and drinks at the back the entire dance. School dances and dancing isn’t really my thing after all.”

“I see…” I couldn’t deny the possibility as I never got a look at the back of the shop let alone go to buy anything from the shop.