‘Next is music class, huh.’

From today on, the first round of elective arts classes was starting.

As had been explained before, the male students would rotate through music, calligraphy and art over the course of the year.

When I messaged Ecchan-sensei on my phone asking which subject I had for April, she replied with a single word.

“Music.”

After getting blocked twice in a row from reaching the “visiting wife” stage, it felt like Ecchan-sensei’s heart had finally snapped.

I really had to make it up to her on the third try.

“Tachibana-cchi, let’s go to the music room together.”

“Yeah, Mito-san.”

Since Mito-san was also in the music group, she called out to me, so I picked up my music textbook and headed to the music room with her.

“Tachibana-cchi, during music class, don’t leave my side, okay.”

“Why?”

“Because you never know what starving beasts might do…”

Mito-san sighed and muttered this.

Beasts?

We were heading to the music room, right?

That felt like the place farthest from any savage atmosphere.

But the moment I opened the music room door, I understood what she meant about beasts.

The way they were looking at me was exactly like a pack of predators…

Arts subjects were joint classes shared with other classes.

Naturally, that included the girls from Class 3 and below, where the boys practically never showed up.

Because of that, even though this was a co-ed school, those girls had no real contact with boys, so when a guy appeared, they stared.

I felt like a herbivore thrown into a pride of carnivores.

“Please stop staring at him like that, okay.”

Right away, Mito-san, sitting next to me, called out to the surroundings.

The girls in the room hastily turned their faces away or looked down.

But then they immediately started sneaking sidelong glances this way again.

Being on the receiving end, I realized just how obvious that kind of peeking was and I sat down with Mito-san in an empty spot on the floor.

Since music class involved choir and instruments, there were no desks or chairs.

However… They are full-on staring…

I could only give a wry smile at how intensely the girls were looking at me.

Even though Mito-san had just warned them, their eyes were now even more heated than before.

“Um… Tachibana-cchi, maybe that way of sitting is not so good…”

“Hm? Is sitting cross-legged bad?”

Seated beside me in a knees-up position, Mito-san whispered to me.

“For a boy, your… important part gets kind of emphasized…”

She dropped her gaze as she said this.

“Ah, I see, my bad.”

Accepting her point, I obediently switched from sitting cross-legged to sitting with my knees up like her.

With my legs crossed, my uniform slacks had been pulled tight across my crotch, which definitely emphasized various things.

I guess that was too much stimulation for this world.

Yeah, if in my previous life I had seen a high school girl in a skirt sit cross-legged without a care, I would have looked too.

Hmm, is that even the right comparison?

Maybe it is more accurate to say it is like a busty woman wearing a tight top that guys just cannot help staring at.

“Tachibana-cchi, do you like music?”

“Yeah, I like singing and stuff. I have even gone to karaoke alone.”

Once you hit your late twenties, you do not go as often, but sometimes you get this urge to sing, or quietly practice new songs you want to learn, so I used to go to solo karaoke a lot.

“Wha!? Solo karaoke!? A boy alone!?”

It was just a little pre-class chit-chat, but Mito-san let out a shrill shout.

“Uh, yeah. Girls do not go alone?”

“That is not the problem, a boy being alone in a little karaoke box is dangerous! What were you doing in there, Tachibana-cchi!”

Ah, that concern.

Well, karaoke does have a reputation as a kind of sexy spot even in the old world.

Total prejudice, but still.

“Karaoke rooms, for safety reasons, have doors you cannot lock and the staff can look right in from the hallway, so if some weird woman barges in and attacks you, it is dangerous, you know!”

“I-I see…”

This reversed-chastity world had worse public safety than I thought.

But looking at these beastlike eyes on me here in the music room, I could believe it, that girls in this world would lose themselves just to get close to a boy.

Like the one right in front of me right now.

“Jiiiiii—”

I could almost hear that sound effect of a fixed stare.

A girl was crouched right in front of me, staring.

She was neither blushing nor grinning, just silently gazing straight into my eyes from close range without looking away.

“Um…”

“Do not mind me.”

Come on, that is impossible.

How am I supposed to not mind you when you are staring at me from this distance?

With her long black hair and glasses, she looked like the classic honor-student class-rep type, which only made the weirdness of her behavior stand out more.

Wait, I know this girl.

“Uh, you were at the class reps’ meeting, right?”

She was one of the students at the recent class representative meeting.

If I remember correctly, her name was—“Arasaki Mai. Class 1–3 class representative. Nice to meet you, Tachibana-shi.”

“Ah, yeah, likewise.”

Right, Arasaki-san.

Wait, the class rep of Class 3!?

Which meant…

“‘Nice to meet you’ huh. Are you trying to pick a fight with Class 2?”

Mito-san slid her body between us, her voice cracking as she spoke.

“We from Class 3 already officially challenged Class 2 to a boy-exchange match, so there is no need to ‘pick a fight’ at this point.”

Completely expressionless, Arasaki-san stared straight into Mito-san’s eyes.

“So you did try to make contact during arts class as I predicted. Good thing we split Minami-cchi and Kuruwa-cchi across the different arts subjects.”

Now that she mentioned it, neither my fellow class rep Tatara-hama, nor my bodyguard, Kuruwa-san, had music as their arts subject.

So that had been deliberate.

And of course, Mito-san was the tactical brain here, just like she was in the game.

“Arts classes are joint classes to help students get to know each other across class boundaries.”

“Sure, we can allow some exchange. But we are not letting anyone from Class 3, who just picked a fight to try to steal our Tachibana-cchi, get his attention so easily.”

As a warning shot, Mito-san essentially declared that students from Class 3 were not welcome to interact with me.

Her words made the other girls, who had nothing to do with the feud, jump and the ones who were probably from Class 3 actually flinched.

In a co-ed school where most of them had zero daily contact with boys, this arts period was almost their only fragile chance to interact with one.

Hinting she would snip even that fragile hope—Mito-san was ruthless.

“To be honest, I do not know much about Tachibana-shi. As class representative, I simply followed the will of my class.”

“Hmmm. Then why was someone with no interest in him staring him down point-blank just now, huh, huh?”

“Everyone in my class is obsessed with him, so I became curious. But frankly, I still do not understand what is supposed to be so great about boys.”

Completely unfazed by the warning, Arasaki-san answered in a dry, matter-of-fact voice.

It did not feel like stubbornness, acting, or a poker face.

And it was Mito-san who broke first against that emotionless wall.

“Ha!? There is no boy in the world kinder and hornier than this one, okay! Class 2’s Tachibana-cchi is the best and we are never handing him over to you!”

“Uh, Mito-san… maybe keep your voice down…”

From behind her, I tried in a tiny voice to stop her.

She clearly did not hear me.

The other students obviously heard her though and even the music teacher, who had somehow entered the room without us noticing, was blushing.

Please stop.

Do not look at me with those eyes like, “So this guy is that kind of naughty boy…”

I have not actually done anything naughty yet.

I wanted to say that, but standing up at the start of the very first class to shout, “I am not a pervert!” would only make me look more like one.

So I could only stay silent.