Chapter 83: The Confession Letter in the Shoe Locker
"These girls are so shallow!" Ike Kanji said unhappily.
Sudo Ken nodded again and again. He believed his own build was not worse than Yuto's, so why was not a single girl cheering for him?
Koenji Rokusuke, who stood on the starting block beside Yuto, also had a good physique. However, his was the bulky, muscular type. With too many prominent muscles, it lacked a certain aesthetic balance.
Naturally, it could not compare to Yuto's streamlined figure, the kind that made the girls' hearts race.
"Shimizu-boy, your undefeated legend will be ended by me," Koenji said as if stating a fact, his expression full of confidence and pride.
Yuto merely smiled and did not answer him. He had heard lines like that far too many times.
Every time the club seniors agreed to wager points with him, they would always tell him he was definitely going to lose. But victory and defeat were not decided by words. They depended on actual results.
The girls were cheering enthusiastically for Yuto.
The muscular teacher raised his hand and shouted, "The fifty-meter freestyle race is about to begin. Both sides, take your positions!"
On the starting blocks, Yuto and Koenji lowered into their starting postures. The moment the muscular teacher blew the whistle, both of them sprang forward at once.
Koenji's entry into the water sent up a large splash, fierce and wild enough to startle people. Yuto's entry, by contrast, was elegant and clean, barely disturbing the surface.
Once in the water, both of them swam at an astonishing speed. The students of Class D could not help showing stunned expressions, because their freestyle speed was far too fast.
Even the muscular teacher in charge of swimming class was shocked by their speed. Fortunately, he recovered in time and focused on the stopwatch in his hand.
Watching the two touch the pool wall one after another, the muscular teacher could not help sucking in a breath. These two were ridiculously fast.
"Shimizu-boy, you really are impressive."
Yuto turned his head and looked at Koenji in lane one. "You're not bad either. No wonder you dared to bet against me in swimming."
Koenji showed a proud expression, then asked, "So, who reached the finish first?"
"I'm not sure." Yuto shook his head.
Both Yuto and Koenji had focused entirely on swimming. Since the difference between them was not large, neither of them knew who had arrived first.
Yuto placed his hands on the pool's edge and hoisted himself out in one effortless motion.
As crystalline droplets of water slid down his toned body, many of the girls blushed and swallowed hard, their hearts racing.
Kikyo licked her lips, tearing her gaze away from Yuto. She turned to the muscular teacher, her voice eager. "Sensei, who won?!"
"It was Koenji, right? I think he was faster!" one boy shouted.
In truth, he had no idea who was faster. He simply did not want Shimizu Yuto, who was so popular with the girls, to win.
The girls who supported Yuto immediately objected.
"Nonsense! Shimizu was clearly faster!"
"It was Shimizu," the muscular teacher announced loudly. "Shimizu's time was 23.01 seconds. Koenji's time was 23.22 seconds!"
The muscular teacher's announcement made the girls cheer happily. Immediately afterward, they gathered around Yuto and congratulated him over and over.
To be honest, being surrounded by more than ten girls in swimsuits felt... pretty damn good.
'Wait, who the hell just touched my abs in the chaos?!'
The muscular teacher looked at Koenji, then at Yuto, who was surrounded by girls, with amazement in his eyes. These two were truly incredible.
The minimum time for a first-class male athlete in the fifty-meter freestyle was 24.50 seconds. For a second-class athlete, it was 27.50 seconds, and for a third-class athlete, it was 34.50 seconds.
Both Yuto and Koenji had swum under twenty-four seconds. In other words, their fifty-meter freestyle level had already reached first-class athlete standards.
Was this really the swimming ability of first-year high school students?
It was far too exaggerated.
Yuto slapped away the hands trying to grope his abs.
"Hey, don't go too far," he said helplessly to the girls nearby.
"If you keep touching me, I'm going to get mad. Everyone, move aside. I need to collect my points from Koenji-kun."
The girls giggled as they backed off, those who had managed to feel his abs looking satisfied, while the rest looked regretful. They should have been bolder and taken the opportunity to grope him.
Yuto walked toward Koenji, who was brushing his hair back with his hand.
With a smile, Yuto said, "That was close. I almost lost to you."
"Hmph. Shimizu-boy, with that relaxed look on your face, I doubt you used your full strength," Koenji said, his gaze sharpening.
"Of course I did."
Yuto smoothly changed the topic. "So, when do you plan to pay the one million points?"
"Now. The beautiful me dislikes owing debts."
Yuto and Koenji left the indoor pool and took out their school phones and student IDs from the changing room. Then they began transferring the one million points from the wager.
Yuto glanced at Koenji's student ID.
The personal points displayed on it were 3,141,305.
This guy actually had that many points. Just how many people had he exchanged points with?
Yuto accurately received Koenji's one million points and smiled. "Want to bet a second round? You still have more than two million points left."
"Shimizu-boy, there will not be a next time. I will never bet against you again."
"That's a shame."
After that bet, Koenji had confirmed that the rumors about Yuto contained no falsehoods. This guy was practically an all-around monster, and he liked defeating others in the fields they were best at.
Sometimes, the upperclassmen could not help wondering whether this first-year named Shimizu Yuto had anything he was bad at, or anything he could not do at all.
After smoothly receiving one million points, Yuto planned to return to the indoor pool. However, Koenji directly took out his uniform and towel, apparently preparing to dry himself and leave.
"Koenji, are you leaving?"
"That's right, Shimizu-boy."
Koenji wiped his hair with a towel and spoke casually. "There are too few things at this school that interest me. It is not truly worthy of my youth."
"I am now going to find beautiful women, fall into various romances with them, improve each other, and continue pursuing my own beauty."
"..."
Yuto's mouth twitched.
Koenji Rokusuke really was the kind of person who could make skipping class to go on dates sound refined and elegant.
"Shimizu-boy, will you come with me?"
"No thanks. I already have a girl I like." Yuto waved his hand.
"Oh? Is it Kushida Kikyo, the one always wearing a persona? Or is it Karuizawa Kei, the pitiful honeybee chasing flowers?"
Yuto looked at Koenji in surprise.
He had noticed that Kushida Kikyo was wearing a mask? His observational ability really was impressive.
"Unfortunately, neither."
"I see. In that case, Shimizu-boy, I will take my leave first."
After changing into his uniform, Koenji left the changing room. Yuto also returned to the indoor pool.
At that moment, the muscular teacher had already begun organizing his swimming competition. Since Yuto had just won one million points from Koenji, he had no interest in the teacher's five thousand points and did not participate.
However, everyone was relieved that Yuto did not join the race. After all, if he participated, no one else would be able to win.
In the end, the winner of the swimming competition was Hirata Yosuke. His time was 26.13 seconds, equivalent to the level of a second-class athlete in the men's fifty-meter freestyle.
Hirata's result was certainly impressive. However, with Yuto and Koenji's twenty-three-second times before him, his twenty-six seconds did not seem quite as striking.
In reality, it was already extremely impressive for a first-year high school student to achieve twenty-six seconds in the men's fifty-meter freestyle. Unfortunately, most of Class D did not understand that. They only thought, "That's amazing," or "He's fast."
After that came the muscular teacher's special training for the slowest swimmers, as well as free activity time for everyone else.
On the second floor, Kei watched Yuto, who was once again surrounded by girls, and lightly bit her lip.
She decided to take a gamble.
If she kept dragging things out, Yuto would become someone else's boyfriend. That absolutely could not happen.
That afternoon, after school, Yuto went to his shoe locker as usual to change shoes before heading to the club building. However, when he opened the locker, he unexpectedly found a white envelope inside, aside from his shoes.
"What's this?"
Yuto raised an eyebrow and picked up the white envelope.
Since quite a few students were still near the shoe-changing area, he did not open it immediately. After changing shoes and leaving the school building, he finally pulled out the letter inside.
The letter paper was a very girlish shade of pink. Delicate handwriting described the sender's admiration and affection for him, and it asked Yuto to come to the rooftop of the first-year building at five o'clock.
"A confession letter?"
Yuto's expression turned strange.
This was the first time he had ever received something like this.
At that moment, the first thing Yuto thought about was not which girl had written the confession letter. Instead, he wondered whether this was something Ryuen Kakeru had arranged.
During this period, Class C students had been secretly following Yuto. Yuto had caught one of the Class C students tailing him and learned that Ryuen had ordered it.
After taking control of Class C, Ryuen seemed to be thinking about revenge against him.
Because of that, Yuto found it difficult not to suspect that this confession letter might have been forged by Ryuen to lure him to the rooftop.
This school was full of surveillance cameras, but there were still some blind spots, such as the side corridors of the school building and the rooftop of the first-year building. If someone wanted to fight or beat someone up, they would definitely choose places without cameras.
"Wait. This scent is..."
Yuto lightly sniffed the faint scent left on the pink letter paper.
Karuizawa Kei's pretty face instantly flashed through his mind.
Yuto's expression immediately became strange. Now he felt that this anonymous confession letter had been left by Kei.
Since Kei and Kikyo spent every day on either side of Yuto, he was already very familiar with both girls' scents.
So...
"This letter isn't Ryuen's trick. Kei wants to confess to me?"
Yuto rubbed his brow.
He did not think Kei liked him. After all, Yuto had once heard Kei's inner thoughts.
Back in middle school, Kei seemed to have suffered terrible bullying. After enrolling in this school, she had decided to find a reliable boy to act as her boyfriend, then use that boy's status so others would not dare bully her.
It gave the impression of a fox borrowing a tiger's might.
Yuto, Kei, and Kikyo had gathered together because each of them needed something. Kei and Kikyo wanted to use Yuto to display their presence in class, while Yuto needed the two of them to block other girls who wanted to approach him.
With them by his side, the other girls would not take the initiative to get close.
So the three of them were taking what they needed.
At least, that was how Yuto saw it.
"Should I go meet her?"
After thinking for a moment, Yuto used his school phone to take a photo of the pink confession letter, then sent it to Airi on Line.
Airi, who was on her way back to the apartment, quickly replied.
[Yuto, is this...?!]
[That's right. It's the confession letter you're thinking of. Airi, since you won't tell everyone about our relationship, I've been targeted by a girl.]
Airi looked at Yuto's teasing reply and pursed her lips.
She was just shy and timid.
[So, Yuto, what are you going to do?]
[Of course I'll meet her, then reject her. Did you expect me to accept this girl's confession?]
Airi's gaze drifted slightly.
She did have that thought.
Her meager stamina told her it would be better if another girl shared Yuto's affection; otherwise, she wouldn't be able to satisfy him every night.
[Airi? You're taking a long time to reply. Are you jealous?]
[No. Because I trust Yuto.]
Airi's reply, full of trust, made Yuto shake his head helplessly. This silly girl would probably willingly help him count money even after being tricked by him.
[Yuto, when you go meet this girl, can you keep the call connected with me? I want to hear how she confesses to you.]
[...Fine.]
Airi's request was strange, but it was one of the few requests she had made. Yuto would not refuse her.
Besides, Yuto felt that letting Airi hear him reject Kei's confession could also soothe her feelings and let her understand his intentions.
…
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