The Pain of an Inferior: A Blistering Love Comedy That Begins After a Broken Heart - Chapter 29

“Haru, wake up already. You’re leaving early for forest school, aren’t you?”

Yuzurika’s voice wakes Haruka up.

It’s a full week of forest school starting from today. Because of the meeting time, Haruka has to leave earlier than usual.

Haruka gets up quickly, prepares breakfast, and get himself ready.

“Haaaru. Have a good day”

“I’m off, Nee-san”

Haruka lightly kisses Yuzurika twice, and leaves the house.

As usual, Miyako is waiting for him in front of his house, dressed in her school uniform with her back against the wall.

She puts on a cheerful face when she sees Haruka

“Good morning, Haru-kun”

“Good morning, Miyako.”

They greet each other as usual and wait for Shun to arrive.

Miyako seemed to be more smiling than usual, so Haruka asked her

“You seem to be in a good mood.”

Miyako had been absent from school for about four days. Had something good happened to her during that time?

Many people miss school for games, competitions, events, or some kind of work. In Haruka’s class, there was always someone missing every day, and the number of days when all classmates were present was less than 30% of the total number of school days.

Miyako is a ranked player in several fantasy MMOs, and also works as a model and on stage, so she sometimes misses school like last week.

Her good mood means that she has achieved some good results, right?

“Yeah… I’m so happy right now.”

She smiles with a vacant, lax expression on her face.

“….Happy?”

The word “happy” appears unexpectedly, and Haruka frowns and makes a doubtful expression.

It is a well-known saying that when a person who has been mentally troubled suddenly says he/she is happy and becomes cheerful, there’s a chance that they have taken the happiness treatment.

Haruka remembers Miyako who has been acting strangely lately, and for a moment he was suspicious of her. However, he came to the conclusion that it is not possible for Miyako to take such a treatment.

Miyako was worried about Shun, but not to the extent that she became mentally ill.

Although Miyako is popular and therefore tends to be the target of negative feelings from other girls, there is no indication that she is being bullied by the upper caste.

The relationship with her family is also fine, and should be good.

It is true that she had been acting strange last week and the week before, but she is not in an environment that could damage her mental health to the extent that she needs to get the Happiness Treatment.

“I’m looking forward to forest school, aren’t you?”

“Yeah… I hope we can form a group of people who are as close as much as possible.”

Students are formed into five groups of eight for the forest school.

For the purpose of communication, a computer randomly selects the members of the group at random.

Since it has been proven in a statistical paper by a person of leisure that it is truly random and does not intentionally tear apart groups of good friends, Haruka just hopes that she will be in the same group with Ria and Shinku.

“I wish to be in the group with Ria”

He puts his hands together and prays. Miyako giggles at this

“You and Ise are really good friends, aren’t you?”

“She’s my first friend.”

“You have friends at the elementary school too, you know . Like Koga-kun, or Arima-kun…?”

“They’re not my friends.”

Although Haruka was at fault, he was the one who took the role of an abuser. There was no friendship between them from the beginning. No matter what anyone says, Ria was his first friend.

As they were talking, Shun arrived a little later than usual.

“Morning’, you two.”

“Good morning, Shun-kun.”

“Good morning.”

After meeting up with Shun, the three of them started walking toward the school.

“Forest school is so troublesome… I don’t know who came up with this idea…”

“I’m looking forward to it…”

Haruka replies to Shun’s complaint with a wry smile.

Like Shun, there are many students who do not like forest school. Unlike regular classes, where students are allowed to miss as many classes as they want as long as they make the final results, school events such as forest school can affect their unofficial scores if they don’t attend.

Even though there is enough free time and VR equipment in the forest school, many students are not willing to go out for a long period of time (4 nights and 5 days). Students who are not good at communication often skip the class because they do not like it.

Even though they are in different groups, Haruka was looking forward for the free time because he could spend it with Ria to the fullest. It was a good thing that they hadn’t been to the mountains recently.

Soon the three of them arrived at the school, and as usual Haruka kept a delicate distance from them as they went to their classrooms.

“Good morning, Ria.”

“Good morning, Haruka.”

Ria smiles, her sleepy eyes looking sleepier than usual. Maybe she is not good at getting up early. But she looked so lovely.

The homeroom before the forest school begins as the homeroom teacher arrives.

After a brief explanation, we were assigned to groups for the forest school.

“Yay, I’m with Miyako!”

Akito’s noisy voice echoes. It seems that he’s in the same group with Miyako.

Haruka is slightly annoyed and felt self-loathing when he realized how irritated he is. Then he feels guilty toward Ria and Shinku.

Akito is not the only one who is in high spirits in the morning. The whole class was in a state of excitement.

No wonder. There are so many beautiful men and women in this class that other classes envy them.

Even though they are overshadowed by the presence of Shun, Fudo Akito and Kashiwagi Rui are both of good looking, and both of them are accomplished in various fields such as music, sports, and games. The girls were looking forward to the forest school, hoping that they have a chance with Akito and Ruieven if Shun is not available.

For the boys, it is a chance to be friends with beautiful and gorgeous girls such as Shinku, Yunika, Hibiki, Mika, Tsuyuri, Reika, and Miyako. The guys are restlessly checking who they are assigned to the group with.

“Why don’t they send the list of group members to everyone?”

Ria is right, only the group numbers are sent to the students, so they have to actually ask around to find out who is in what group.

“Don’t you want to surpised on who gonna be in your group? It’s not so interesting if they sent the group members beforehand.”

“I see.”

Haruka points at the classroom camera with his eyes and says something like that. Ria replied, not knowing whether she was convinced or not, and plopped down on her desk.

“I’m glad to be in the group with you. Ria.”

“I’m happy too… I love you…”

She sounded really sleepy. Haruka can’t help but smile when he realizse that she doesn’t like to wake up early in the morning.

Ria was lying on the desk and laid her palm on the back of Haruka’s hand.

Haruka lovingly strokes Ria’s silky hair.

?

Three boys were sitting in the same row, three seats next to Haruka.

Three boys were spying on Haruka and the others.

“Damn… I’m with them. Unfortunate…”

“Me too…”

“I’m lucky to be in the same group as Uta-san.”

One of them is happy to be in the same group as Miyako and smiles broadly. Seeing this, the male student who occupies the seat besides him gives a small cluck of his tongue. Miyako and Haruka and the others are in different groups.

Without asking around, it is obvious who is in the same group.

Two of the three boys who were in the same group with Haruka and Ria did not try to hide their displeased expressions, and slumped down their chair.

“This is seriously impossible.”

One of them muttered with negative emotions as if he was going to throw up.