Living in a Class-Based World - Chapter 24: Yuuta Attends School ①

For Yuuta the School Day in March marked his first attendance at school ever since the first School Day in the first term of junior high.

In the case of a junior high boy attending school, the female students permitted to attend the boy’s school would be informed about it in advance. That meant all the female students would know where to find Yuuta’s classroom on the appointed day.

Damn, I’m so nervous～

When attending school, boys were expected to wear the school blazer and pants. And although Yuuta had stayed away from school all the time, his closet was always stacked out with a school uniform.

Because the nurses had taken his body measurements during the physical examination, a new uniform had been delivered in time. Imagining how he’d have been forced to wear the super-tight uniform from his first year while attending school caused Yuuta to thank himself for having accepted the physical examination a few weeks back.

Oh, they’re looking at me… They’re not glaring, are they? Hmm…the stares don’t feel stabbing or anything, but anyway, I’ll hurry to my classroom.

Some of the female students had already arrived at school, but they weren’t surprised to see Yuuta. Because Yuuta’s attendance had been announced in advance, they used the opportunity of him attending for the first time in more than two years to take a good look at him. Some of their stares were kind while others were skeptical.

Even so, Yuuta drew more attention among the girls allowed to attend――basically, the high family’s daughters――than he’d expected.

Of course, it was a well-known fact that Yuuta had reached E-Rank. The women would be immediately informed if there were any changes in the male ranking.

The shut-in F-Rank trash Yuuta was attending school after rising to E-Rank; that piece of news caused a flurry of various information to spread among the female students hailing from high families. Some said he had recovered his grounding and was now sincerely facing his Service Activities, some said he bought ratings by doing deals with common women, and some said he was a fool who relied on common women since he couldn’t measure up to them, the daughters of high families.

While a few assessed Yuuta favorably, the majority remained doubtful of him. Even so, the number of female students outright shunning him was low with many girls staying on the fence as they couldn’t quite believe his positive ratings.

If I remember correctly, the female students can’t enter a classroom until the boy has gone in first, right? So, it’s not set that I’ll spend my day here alone, even if the place is deserted right now.

Yuuta encouraged himself after opening the door to a completely empty classroom.

The boy’s seat was a comfy chair situated in the middle of the room. If any student of the Old World were to sit in such a chair, the people around them would immediately ask them who they think they are to act like they owned the place.

It’s not like we’re going to study at school, so I guess it makes sense to not have any blackboards in here either.

Because a boy’s school attendance at junior high wasn’t about studying, the classrooms were set up as a lounge for the boys to interact with the female students.

On a side note: even the school regularly attended by the female students had no blackboards as Yuuta knew from his previous world. It was common for schools in this world to use electronic boards.

As he was reminded about the differences of this world with his old one, the door of his classroom was slowly opened. He immediately turned his eyes in that direction, just to find a female student standing there.

“Excuse my intrusion.”

A dignified voice echoed through the room like the tolling of a bell. Yuuta’s eyes registered how the girl in her neat uniform entered the room with a gentle smile on her lips.

A Yamato Nadeshiko</abbr>  ― those were the words crossing Yuuta’s mind as soon as he saw her. ¹

“Nice to meet you, Yuuta-sama.” ²

“N-Nice to meet you too…”

Adorable.

Yuuta’s face immediately heated up when confronted with the smile of that neat and prim girl. This world was filled with nothing but charming women, but the student in front of him now was in a league of her own among the women Yuuta had met so far.

“It has been a very long time since I had the honor to meet you, so please allow me the liberty to introduce myself once more. My name is Aoi. I am very happy about having been given the opportunity to converse with you on this fine day, Yuuta-sama.”

“Aoi-san… Ah, I’m Yuuta. Please treat me well. I’m extremely happy that you’d come to the classroom of a person like me. Actually, I was quite worried that no one might visit me here today.”

“Hehe, how very humble of you. After looking at your recent, wonderful exploits, everyone is very curious about you. I also…wanted to talk with you by all means. It embarrasses me to admit, but I have been eagerly waiting nearby for you to enter the classroom so that I would be able to visit your classroom as the very first person today.”

“Eh? You waited for me? T-Thank you very much.”

As far as Yuuta could tell, this wasn’t their first meeting. Yuuta-kun had apparently exchanged greetings with her when he attended junior high for the first and last time as first-year. However, apparently Yuuta-kun didn’t remember that meeting, and therefore Yuuta couldn’t recall anything even when he tried to think back on the first meeting with Aoi.

“Yuuta-sama, your Game Stream was wonderful.”

“Oh, so you watched it?”

“Yes. You…seemed to enjoy yourself so much while playing the game.”

“Y-You’re right. I like games quite a bit.”

“I also tried God of War after watching your stream. But, I couldn’t defeat that cow.”

Realizing that Aoi was talking with him on a positive note, Yuuta also cheered up and started to chat about games. After all, being able to talk about stuff you like was great fun for anyone.

Originally, Aoi wasn’t that much of a gamer, but she recounted how hard she had tried to defeat that cow, just like Yuuta had done. Hearing her proactively talk about a game, Yuuta became even happier and ended up giving her serious advice on gaming. He informed her of several games besides God of War, which he believed Aoi would be able to enjoy as well, and got all excited talking about those recommended games.

But, despite having a friendly attitude towards each other, both were somewhat nervous. That nervousness of both groping for the right distance between each other continued to diminish and before long, their voices, as they chatted while cheerfully laughing, could be heard even outside the classroom.

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Manami listened to their voices with a smile on her lips, but then she noticed that Moe was fidgeting nervously next to her.

“Sorry, Moe-san. It’s because Aoi-sama has been talking with him so cheerfully.”

“N-No, don’t worry about it. I don’t mind it at all. Umm…is that really Aoi-sama?”

“Hehehe, I’m sure you’d think that her telling you how much she fears talking to boys during our recent cafe visit must have been a blatant lie, if you hear her now talking so happily with a boy, right?”

“I wouldn’t go so far to call it a lie…”

“As a matter of fact, I’m a bit surprised as well. Aoi-sama seems to have perceived Yuuta-sama to be different from other boys after watching his Game Stream Service. I also watched the stream, and certainly, he’s different from other men…how to describe it best…? Oh, right. It was very pleasant to watch him enjoy the game so innocently.”

“Y-Yes. I watched the stream as well. Umm…actually, my mother and grandmother watched it as well.”

“Oh my, is that so? In that case, I’m sure your Grandmother would be cheered up if Yuuta-sama were to visit her.”

“I believe so as well. My mother and grandmother were both extremely delighted when Yuuta-sama read their names after they posted a comment.”

“Oh, I see, so they were even fortunate enough to have had him read their names.”

“Did you and Aoi-sama comment as well?”

“I didn’t do it. As for Aoi-sama, she said that she had stared at the screen aaaaall the time and completely forgotten to post a comment. And when she finally came back to her senses, the comment function had been disabled, causing her to get quite depressed over it.”

“T-That’s…very unfortunate.”

The laughter, which could have been heard from inside the classroom, died down and the voices of its two occupants switched to a quiet talk.

“We should enter soon. That Aoi-sama…she must have forgotten about us because she’s enjoying herself so much.”

“O-Okay!”

Manami exchanged an eye signal with the female students blocking the ways leading to Yuuta’s classroom and then made a move.

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————– End of Part 1 ————–

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1. Yamato Nadeshiko</abbr> is a term describing the ideal of a traditional Japanese woman. It doesn’t have any equivalents in English and thus has been adopted as loanword. You can google it if you wish to know more about its origin etc.
2. The classical “Gokigenyou” you’d expect of noble/high-class female students. It’s a polite, semi-formal greeting among girls of higher standing.