Villain: Your Heroines Were Delicious - Chapter 136 - 1

Chapter 136: Chapter 1

At this moment, in Tachibana Household.

The small apartment was quiet, save for the rhythmic scratching of a mechanical pencil against paper.

Tachibana Rei sat hunched over her low desk, the pale glow of a desk lamp illuminating her textbooks and the scattered remains of a half-eaten reheated leftover spaghetti which she had brought home from Seijirou’s return party.

What? Is there something wrong with bringing home food from a party?

Dignity? Can you eat that?

You need to learn history if you think dignity is more important than food! Nations go to war because of spices you know!

Compared to that, what’s wrong with her bringing home party food?

Outside, the bright lights of towering skyscrapers of the city hummed with the distant sound of traffic, but inside her small room, the air felt thick with a private, restless energy.

Exams were approaching like a looming storm front, and for a girl from her background, with a mother who worked herself to the bone, a father who worked even hard, and a bank account that always seemed to be hovering near zero, education wasn’t just a requirement, it was her only weapon.

She needed the grades to secure a scholarship, to climb the social ladder, and to finally turn the “Tachibana” name into something that commanded respect rather than pity.

’Of course,’ she thought, her pencil pausing over a complex math equation, ’there is always the other option. Marrying into an old-money, legendary family…’

The image of Kageyama Seijirou flashed through her mind, the sharp, arrogant tilt of his chin, the way his ash-blonde hair caught the light, and the terrifyingly warm weight of his arm over her shoulders.

Rei gasped softly, her face erupting into a brilliant shade of crimson.

She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head violently, her pink hair whipping around her face. “No, no, no! Focus, Rei! You are a strong, independent woman who doesn’t need a man to save her… even if that man is someone who will definitely spoil you and protect you and care for you…”

She pressed her palms against her chest, feeling the frantic, galloping rhythm of her heart.

It was a sensation she was still trying to rationalize.

She wasn’t a stranger to the concept of “love,” after all she had spent years believing she was destined for Tadano Taro.

Back then, her feelings for her childhood friend had felt like a soft, warm blanket, a comfortable, dreamy sense of “someday” that involved white picket fences and holding hands in the park.

But this? What she felt for Seijirou was nothing like a warmth of blanket, but a burning hot of a wildfire, completely overwhelming her, giving her no chances to escape.

Every time he walks inside a room, her attention would immediately be on him, as if the rest of the world ceases to exist.

Every time he speaks, it was as if the sound itself vanishes, leaving his voice as the only thing she was hearing.

A love that was a visceral, bone-deep resonance that made her stomach flip with a thousand fluttering butterflies every time he even looked in her direction.

’Are there different levels of love?’ she wondered, staring blankly at her Japanese Literature study notes.

It seemed there were.

With Taro, intimacy had always felt like a chore, a boundary she wasn’t ready to cross.

Even when he tried to be more affectionate, she had instinctively recoiled, feeling a strange sense of “not yet” or “this is wrong.”

And although they had barely managed to hold hands, it was simply a memory so faint she could hardly even remember when and where it happened.

But with Seijirou, the “boundaries” didn’t seem to exist.

When he had wrapped his arms around her shoulder in front of Taro, she hadn’t felt invaded like she was expecting to, but instead, she had felt it was only right for him to do that.

It felt like the most natural thing in the entire world, as if her soul had been waiting for his touch to recognize itself.

Her mind then drifted back to a month ago, to the day when she had called Seijirou in the hallway to ask him not to report her for doing part time job, and how Seijirou had backed her against the wall and ordered her to unbutton her uniform.

At the time, she had acted disgusted, her face a mask of fear and shame.

But tonight, in the safety of her room, she finally admitted the truth to herself.

’I wasn’t disgusted,’ she whispered to the empty room, her breath hitching. ’I was excited.’

She had been anticipating it.

She had been waiting for him to push further, to take what he wanted.

She had realized, with a start that terrified her back then, that she wouldn’t have said no, that if Seijirou had wanted to go “all the way” right there on the cold floor of the school, she would have welcomed him with open arms.

Consequences be damned.

It was only a few days ago that the she made this dark, exhilarating realization: because it was Seijirou, everything was allowed.

Yes, she doesn’t know why it was so. But that’s the truth.

In fact, if Seijirou would call her in a middle of a night and ask her to go to his house, she wouldn’t even hesitate to pack up and go straight towards him.

After all, she belongs to Seijirou, in their past life, and this life as well…

…hm? Past life? Why was she thinking about those stuff? What’s their past life got to do with this?

It couldn’t be that they were also together in their past life, could it? That would be insane!

Do fate truly wanted them to be together?

“….I’m hopeless,” she groaned, burying her face in her hands. “I’m becoming one of those girls. A total goner. What past life? What fate? I’m so hopelessly head over heels for him I’m starting to sound like a delusional romance W•ttp•d reader.”

Besides, Seijirou already has Suzune… On second thought, it’s probably okay.

She knew that blonde gyaru was Seijirou’s “official” girlfriend, but strangely, the jealousy didn’t burn as hot as she expected.

Maybe because she knew long ago that Seijirou has so many women yet still fell in love with him anyway?

Or maybe because Suzune is her friend so she wasn’t really that jealous?

One might ask, wouldn’t she feel guilty of wanting to sleep with her friend’s man?

Of course not!

Rei knew Suzune’s secrets, and she knew about the girl’s dark, voyeuristic streak and NTR fetish.

When Emi and Yukina were grinding themselves at Seijirou at the party, Suzune looked like she was about to burst from pleasure there and then.

Hmph. Just because she was packing up food to take home doesn’t mean she wasn’t aware of her surroundings.

A true and professional party food packer has a great awareness of their surroundings, after all, they need to pack food secretly under many people’s eyes and bring it home while ensuring no one discovered them.

’Anyway, don’t think I don’t know your kink, Suzune-chan! You’d probably be standing in the corner taking photos if Seijirou finally made a move on me!’

She sighed, trying to pull herself back to the present, but couldn’t. She forced her eyes back to her notebook, determined to memorize at least ten more Kanji before bed.

“Oh, CRAP!”

Rei stared at the page in horror.

While she had been lost in her daydream, her hand had been moving on autopilot.

The margins of her notes were no longer filled with Japanese Literature notes!

Instead, the page was covered in frantic, looping scrawls.

Seijirou x Rei

Seijirou x Rei

Kageyama Rei

Seijirou XOXO

Mrs. Kageyama Rei

“No! Delete! Delete!” she shrieked, tearing the page out of the notebook with a violent rip.

Her face was so hot she felt like she could boil water on her cheeks. “What if that purple imp Erina saw this?! She would never let me hear the end of it! She’d probably have it framed and hung in the student council room!”

She crumpled the paper into a tight ball and tossed it into the small trash can by her desk.

It landed atop a dozen other crumpled balls of paper, a silent testament to how many times she had failed this particular “study session.”

Rei stood up and walked to her window, pushing it open to let the cool night air soothe her burning skin.

She looked out toward the distant skyline of the city, toward the direction of Shunji High and Saint Shinomiya High.

The air felt different tonight. There was a vibration in the atmosphere, a tension that even a “normal” person like her could sense.

“Tonight’s the night,” she whispered, her hands gripping the windowsill. “The battle against the ’Saints’ of Shinomiya.”

She knew that while she was here, struggling with Japanese Literature and adolescent crushes, Seijirou was out there, leading an army of delinquents into a revenge war against Saint Shinomiya High.

“Please be safe, Seijirou-kun,” she prayed, her eyes fixed on the moon. “Don’t get too hurt.”

With a final, determined sigh, she closed the window and sat back down. She had to study.

If she plans to be a wife of that man, then she couldn’t be a dunce.

Oh yes, she already planned on becoming a wife. You don’t actually think that she would just dream and imagine herself with him without making a move are you?

That man already occupied 90 percent of her thoughts, if she doesn’t make that man take responsibility, then she is definitely going to go crazy.