Ch. 24 - Prelude to Revenge

“Urgh…”

Just before lunch break ended, Harutaki slouched back into his seat, patting his full stomach and letting out a satisfied burp.

Sure, the empty classroom had been lonely after Nogami and the other two stormed out… but then he remembered—three untouched, glorious lunchboxes were still sitting there, keeping him company.

Naturally, he devoured Nogami’s tribute, her lunchbox, without hesitation.

The chopsticks? A quick rinse in the bathroom sink was good enough.

As for whether Nogami would still have food left, well, with Minako and Sae’s bentos to share, she wouldn’t starve. Girls didn’t eat much anyway. Worst case, he could call it “helping Minako-san with her diet.”

What surprised him, though, was that when Nogami came back to class right before lessons started, she didn’t look his way once. Not even a glare, not a word.

For someone with her never-let-an-insult-go personality, that was way out of character.

Of course, that tiny flicker of guilt wouldn’t make him drop his plan—

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. And in this case? Payback with interest.

He wanted to pierce through Nogami’s armor completely, strip her of those poisonous thorns that made her such a headache.

Maybe it was because the teachers wanted to let everyone relax after the tests, but that afternoon’s classes were light. School let out at 15:45 sharp. Club members went off to their clubrooms, cram schoolers dug out their prep sheets.

Harutaki, meanwhile, dragged a confused Akihisa onto a train straight to a pre-booked photo studio.

“Harutaki… what is this place?”

Akihisa blinked at the green screen hanging from the wall, the mannequin standing nearby, and the oversized business suit in Harutaki’s hands.

“Obviously, we’re here to shoot something fun.”

“…Don’t tell me this is for an AV?”

The look Harutaki gave him could have melted steel.

“You seriously think anyone would pay to watch a greasy, fat otaku like you get it on with a girl?”

“…That’s cruel.”

“Now, try this on.”

He shoved Akihisa into the changing booth, then turned to the mannequin, about Izumi’s height, and started experimenting with poses.

No, he wasn’t planning some sleazy shoot.

What he wanted was a fabricated “scandal.”

Aside from rare cases like Ren, whose family was tied to Nogami’s, only a handful of faculty—Asama-sensei, the principal—actually knew her background.

Most students feared Nogami not for her noble family, but for her infamous reputation. Since middle school, she’d been a notorious bully, preying on the weak. To the docile, go-with-the-flow masses of this country, she was a monster at the top of the food chain.

So if you asked the average student what they thought of someone like her—

Delinquent. Yankee. Bad girl. Gyaru. Probably mob connections.

All those labels shared one trait in common—

Messy love life.

It disgusted Harutaki, really.

Mocking virgins, sneering at the chaste.

In most people’s eyes, being a virgin or never dating just meant you lacked charm, that no one wanted you.

“Must be their personality. Nobody wants to be with them.”

That kind of poisonous thinking was everywhere.

For boys, it wasn’t so bad; blend into the crowd, stay out of trouble, and nobody cared.

But for girls, it was different.

On the campus caste pyramid, dating a popular upperclassman was a prize. The baseball team’s ace pitcher, the soccer or basketball captain—these boyfriends were like trophies in the female hierarchy.

Landing a top-tier guy proved that you were top-tier.

Some girls even flaunted how many “popular boys” they’d slept with, and instead of scorn, they basked in envy and admiration, becoming idols among the lower ranks.

And yet, outside school walls, compensated dating was grounds for exile. Girls caught doing compensated dating were ostracized, bullied, or erased.

“…Harutaki, isn’t this suit a little…?”

Akihisa shuffled out of the booth, interrupting Harutaki’s musings.

“See—”

“Pfft!”

“Oi!!!”

Harutaki quickly pressed his palms together in apology, trying not to laugh.

“Sorry, sorry. That’s the biggest size they had. Just bear with it for now. Actually… you look exactly like the kind of sleazy middle-aged uncle who’d pay for a high school girl’s company.”

The pants squeezed a mock beer belly out of him, his messy tumbleweed hair glistened with oil, the cheap suit jacket sat crumpled and ill-fitting, collar limp, tie crooked—

If it weren’t for Akihisa’s still-boyish face, Harutaki might’ve mistaken him for a real washed-up salaryman.

“I’ll make you a workout plan later. For now, just be the model.”

He positioned Akihisa beside the mannequin, adjusting them into casual poses—an arm around the shoulder, a playful grab at the sleeve. Nothing obscene.

“Relax. I’ll slap a big mosaic over your face in post. No one will ever know it’s you.”

The shoot took less than ten minutes. Nothing beyond PG-13—more like classmates hanging out too close than anything intimate.

His goal wasn’t to destroy Nogami’s name or fabricate indecency.

It was to create a crack.

A “flaw” for others to sink their teeth into.

As the saying went, flies don’t land on eggs without cracks.

Right now, Nogami Izumi was a seamless egg, armored in thorns. But online? Her armor meant nothing. The “little essay” he was preparing would be the first crack.

That was the horror of online bullying.

Unlike real-life bullying, it was easy, direct, merciless.

No evidence needed—just a weak spot, a flimsy pretext, and emotions wound tighter than reason.

In fact, sometimes all you needed was that last ingredient: an angry crowd, waiting to be unleashed.

And someone like him, ready to light the match.

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