Chapter 22: The Tsundere Ruri Hosokawa

With Haruka Himuro at home, Quillan could at least rest easy.

She was a girl, homeless, and a classmate. Besides, Quillan’s suitcase only contained a few changes of clothes—nothing valuable at all.

Truth be told, Quillan was pretty broke himself right now, but Haruka Himuro was even worse off than him, to the point of volunteering to be his personal maid!

The walk from the residential area to St. Sakura Girls’ High School only took about ten minutes or so. Quillan hurried to campus, originally planning to head straight to the board chairman’s office, but he happened to run into students on their break.

Normally this wouldn’t have been a problem, but during break time, students could move around freely, and the board chairman might not necessarily be in her office anyway. So Quillan decided to wait until class resumed before going to see her.

He first went to the classroom to find Miyuki Sakurai. Last night, after Quillan had walked Miyuki Sakurai home, the Sakurai couple had clearly misunderstood his relationship with their daughter. As one of the parties involved, Quillan felt he hadn’t done anything wrong, but he still wanted to check with Miyuki Sakurai just to be safe.

After all, they were in the same class and sat next to each other—they’d see each other every day whether they liked it or not!

When he arrived at the classroom, Miyuki Sakurai was already sitting in her seat waiting. From the look on her face, it seemed she had known Quillan would walk in. Quillan had the strange feeling that this girl had been waiting for him to return to his seat.

Had she seen him coming to school already?

If so, Quillan figured deciding to stop by the classroom first had been the right call. Otherwise, knowing Miyuki Sakurai’s personality, who knew what she’d be thinking once she found out he’d gone to see the board chairman!

Although Miyuki Sakurai was pretty innocent, girls just love to overthink things—Quillan knew this from personal experience.

For example, there was another troublesome person in the same class: the class beauty and class president, Ruri Hosokawa.

This was exactly the type who loved to overthink things. As Quillan passed by her, something strange happened.

The same Ruri Hosokawa who had heard Quillan declare he would date every beautiful girl at St. Sakura Girls’ High School, the same Ruri Hosokawa who had vowed to drive Quillan out of the school—she didn’t even notice Quillan. Instead, she tilted her head and stared at the seat beside her, muttering to herself: "That’s strange, why hasn’t Haruka-chan come to school today? Miss Harada hasn’t received any word of her taking leave either..."

It looked like Ruri Hosokawa was worried about Haruka Himuro!

Thinking of this, a mischievous idea popped into Quillan’s head. He figured he could tease this somewhat tsundere girl a bit, so he stopped in his tracks and said in a pitying tone: "Ah, what a shame! So Himuro-san really didn’t come to school today?"

"Eh?"

Startled, she turned around. When she realized it was Quillan speaking, Ruri Hosokawa furrowed her delicate brows, and a look of disgust appeared on her face as she said: "Hey, what’s that supposed to mean? Do you know something about why Haruka-chan isn’t at school?"

Quillan flashed a sly grin, then walked right past Ruri Hosokawa without answering her question.

What’s more, Quillan’s expression even carried a hint of disdain, as if he were completely ignoring Ruri Hosokawa. This was enough to make the tsundere girl absolutely furious. She slammed her hand on the desk and stood up, hands on her hips, pointing at Quillan as she shouted: "Hey, Quillan! Didn’t you hear me asking you a question? How dare you ignore the class president’s inquiry to an ordinary student like that?"

Class president?

Quillan was speechless. This Ruri Hosokawa really thought highly of herself!

It would be one thing if others called her "class president," but for her to refer to herself that way—wasn’t that taking the tsundere act a bit too far?

But then again, considering that Ruri Hosokawa was the board chairman’s daughter, and the board chairman of St. Sakura Girls’ High School was said to be the wife of the chairman of the Hosokawa conglomerate, it wasn’t so surprising that Ruri Hosokawa, who had been pampered since childhood, would be this tsundere.

At least compared to that crazy girl Victoria Quinn, Ruri Hosokawa was still relatively innocent and cute!

As for Victoria Quinn...

Quillan shook his head, pushing that crazy girl’s image out of his mind. That woman was absolutely insane—whoever got involved with her would be in for trouble!

After banishing Victoria Quinn’s image from his thoughts, Quillan managed to squeeze out a slight smile for Ruri Hosokawa. Of course, this was only because comparing Ruri Hosokawa to Victoria Quinn made her seem more endearing. Then Quillan spoke calmly to Ruri Hosokawa: "Fine, Madam Class President! You really want to know?"

"Of course!" Ruri Hosokawa had already lost her temper, but Quillan didn’t seem angry at all. This made her feel like she’d punched a ball of cotton—completely powerless.

She had thought that since Quillan was a guy, being yelled at by a girl would surely bruise his male pride and make him want to fight back. So Ruri Hosokawa had been waiting for Quillan to lose his temper with her, giving her an excuse to fight him. Even if she lost and got hit by him, she didn’t care.

Because Ruri Hosokawa believed Quillan wouldn’t dare lay a heavy hand on the board chairman’s daughter. Her goal was to drive Quillan out of St. Sakura Girls’ High School.

As long as Quillan dared to lay a finger on her, the board chairman—Ruri Hosokawa’s mother—would have no choice but to expel him from the school, right?

But Quillan didn’t take the bait. Instead, with one casual sentence, he completely deflated Ruri Hosokawa’s aggressive tone. He said: "Since Madam Class President is so eager to know what happened to Himuro-san, why are you questioning me so aggressively? Aren’t you afraid that after being startled by you, I might forget all about Himuro-san’s tragic situation?"

"You..."

Ruri Hosokawa could tell Quillan was being sarcastic about being frightened. Just looking at him, did he show even the slightest sign of fear? Ruri Hosokawa let out a cold snort. Her plan had failed, and at this point she really wanted to just ignore Quillan entirely, but...

If Quillan really did know something about Haruka Himuro’s situation, then wouldn’t the thing she’d been worried about all morning finally have an answer?

Curiosity killed the cat—and Ruri Hosokawa was even more curious than a cat!

Of course, Ruri Hosokawa wouldn’t literally be killed by curiosity, but... driven by her concern for Haruka Himuro and her burning desire to know what had happened to her, she could only blink her big eyes and stare at Quillan.

The harsh words wouldn’t come out anymore. Besides, if she really wanted to know what was going on with Haruka-chan, groveling to Quillan was the only option, because...

Thinking this, Ruri Hosokawa sighed inwardly. She and Haruka Himuro had always been very close—they’d been the best of friends since middle school. But perhaps due to family circumstances, Ruri Hosokawa had always felt that Haruka Himuro occasionally wore an expression of deep sadness and helplessness. What drove Ruri Hosokawa absolutely crazy was that no matter how she asked, Haruka Himuro would always evade the topic, dodging and deflecting.

Now Quillan stood there looking all smug, as if he...

Did he really know about what was going on with Haruka-chan’s family?