________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Before long, Gabriel and Vignette came back carrying two huge bags of snacks.
Andrew smiled gratefully."Thanks, Gabriel, Vignette. As a little reward for all your hard work, you two can pick your favorites first. Don't hold back."
"Then I won't!" Gabriel grinned, and together with Vignette, she picked out what she liked.
The rest, naturally, Gabriel handed out to the other classmates in their English study group.
Of course, Andrew hadn't forgotten little angel Mahiru and her friends either.
After all, no matter where you are, generous people always attract attention—especially from cute girls.
That said, you couldn't be treating all the time. Do it too much and you'd just look like a gullible idiot.
His real aim was mostly to find excuses to make Gabriel run errands for him. Once she eventually became the lazy angel she was destined to be, chances to get her to help would vanish.
Hmm… he'd need another strategy.
Like when she blew all her money on games and couldn't afford food—then he could lure her with the promise of a good meal.
Without realizing it, the last period—math—had ended.
Before the bell, the teacher assigned homework, then it was finally time for the best part of the day: club activities.
Hachiman Hikigaya, proud member of the "Go-Home Club," slouched off campus at his usual zombie pace, dead-fish eyes staring ahead.
Hayato Hayama, on the other hand, was a soccer club star, so he headed straight to practice as always.
His father was the legal advisor to the Yukinoshita family, which made Hayato a childhood acquaintance of the Yukinoshita sisters.
Logically, following his father's path into law would be his best bet—his dad had already paved the way, and he'd surely have a bright future as a lawyer.
But Hayato had chosen soccer, training hard every single day.
Andrew couldn't figure out why he thought this would bring him closer to Haruno Yukinoshita.
As a lawyer, he'd never be on equal footing with her, let alone win her over.
And as a soccer player? No chance.
Andrew's guess was that Hayato just wanted to keep up the whole "sunny, perfect nice guy" act by being a star athlete.
On one hand, it kept him fit and ahead of classmates who'd just become future corporate drones.
On the other, athletic guys always caught girls' attention. If you were handsome on top of that, you'd have fangirls swooning from the sidelines.
Maybe Hayato just enjoyed being the center of that kind of admiration. It must've felt pretty good.
Too bad for him, though—he'd never catch up to Haruno.
Because tonight, Haruno would be in Andrew's arms.
But that was a story for later.
Back to the present.
As president of his club, Andrew naturally had to lead his members to their activity.
He skipped his part-time job for the day, called Yōuko Saionji to let her know, and instead took Katō Megumi, Mahiru Shiina, and Mori summer (Nibutani Shinka) over to his place.
Oh, and Gabriel too, since she lived upstairs—it was on the way.
After saying a quick hello, Gabriel headed back to her own room.
Dropping her schoolbag onto the chair, the angel girl let out a sigh.
"Human life sure isn't easy. Just school and homework already eat up most of the day. The only real time to enjoy yourself is probably after you get home at night."
"How do you even make all humans happy? I have no clue. Looks like I still have a lot to learn during this 'angel on Earth' trial of mine."
Andrew's words lingered in her mind.
Angels had excellent hearing. With divine power, they could listen to voices from much farther away.
He'd once told her: If you want to make others happy, you first have to understand what happiness really means.
So she had to experience "happiness" for herself before she could figure out how to bring it to others.
Practice was the only way to test the truth.
"But… what exactly is happiness? Is the satisfaction of helping others enough to count?"
Gabriel flopped onto her bed, lost in thought.
Since childhood she had grown up in heaven, under the dazzling light of her older sister, Archangel Jophiel.
Her own kindness, her instinct to give without expecting anything back—her perfect angelic nature—was all thanks to that influence.
And of course, Angel Academy had always taught young angels to spread love and beauty, to make the world more peaceful, to fill people's lives with happiness.
According to the standards of Heaven, every angel was the very symbol of goodness, beauty, and virtue.
And those who had graduated from the Angel Academy and earned the right to descend into the human world for their trials? They were considered the cream of the crop.
Gabriel thought long and hard about what might bring her happiness, but honestly, she couldn't come up with anything else. So she decided she would just keep giving of herself, spreading joy and comfort to those around her. That was what an angel was meant to do, after all.
As for everything else… she'd think about that later.
Oh, right!
During class today, she noticed that Andrew had pulled out this thing called a "computer." He also had a nifty device for staying in touch—what the humans called a "cell phone."
How could an angel undergoing her earthly trial not have tools to keep in touch with friends?
Thinking of how the Heavenly Realm was still stuck with old-fashioned landlines—or, if you were lucky, those clunky "brick" mobile phones—Gabriel couldn't help but pout.
"Tomorrow I'm buying one! Both a phone and a computer. No excuses!"
And with that, the adorable angel girl unknowingly took her first step down the path of decline.
At the same time, the other angels and demons started having similar thoughts about getting phones.
Because really, imagine chatting with someone and, when they ask for your number, having to say, "Sorry, I don't have a phone." How embarrassing would that be?
Plus, phones were an incredible invention. Super convenient.
Heaven had a system for this: angels on trial were given regular inspections, and depending on their progress, they received a monthly living stipend and pocket money. A phone and computer were definitely within budget.
For demons, though, things worked differently. Instead of fixed allowances, their funding depended on evaluations of their behavior in the human world. The more "demonic" their actions, the higher their score—and the bigger their monthly payout.
If they performed especially well, they could even earn bonuses.
And what counted as proper "demonic behavior"? Well… just look at Satania.
Childish pranks, silly schemes, a little chūnibyō posturing—things like that were apparently enough to qualify. And she got pocket money for it too. Honestly, it was the perfect system for a goofy little idiot like her.
But Vignette's situation was a lot more troublesome. She was basically an angel in demon's clothing—kind, virtuous, and selfless to a fault. Which meant that if she kept doing good deeds, her monthly stipend would probably bottom out at zero.
It looked like Vignette was destined to become one of those demons who had to take on part-time jobs in the human world just to get by.
Meanwhile, over at Andrew's place—
He had invited three beautiful girls, all members of his club, into his room. With a flourish, he dragged out a cardboard box from under his bed.
Inside were his prized light novels, manga, and some anime.
"Ta-da! Feast your eyes on my collection. If you want to join my club, you'll need to know your way around all this."
Mahiru Shiina looked at him with gentle indulgence. No matter what Andrew did, she always seemed ready to support him.
Katō Megumi, calm as ever, quietly picked out a manga and started reading with interest. She had nowhere else to be that afternoon anyway. If she wasn't at her part-time job, she didn't mind killing time like this.
Going home was worse—her relatives would definitely rope her into babysitting. And while she didn't dislike kids (in fact, she was good with them), she was still a high schooler. Playing unpaid babysitter day after day? That was just depressing.
The more she thought about it, the more unfair it seemed.
Shinka Nibutani, on the other hand, was a little shocked by Andrew's boldness.
Weren't most otaku guys supposed to feel embarrassed about showing off their hobbies? Wasn't he worried about some pretty girl stumbling across… less-than-wholesome manga and looking down on him?
Still, she forced herself to play the role of an enthusiastic club member. She picked up a manga and flipped through it with a smile, though her eyes kept drifting toward the space under his bed.
Because Kato had told her a secret: Andrew had actually printed out all of her old chūnibyō rants from when she called herself "Mori Summer" online—collected and bound them into a book, no less.
And that book… was right here in this room.
Which left her with one very pressing question: how the hell was she going to find it and destroy the incriminating evidence of her dark, embarrassing past?
"..."
________________________________________________________________________________________________________