“Alright, sit down you lot. Seats are arranged in alphabetical order by last name.”

After the entrance ceremony ended and we were led to the classroom of First Year Class 2, the homeroom teacher immediately urged us to take our seats.

“I’m Oogusu Etsuko, your homeroom teacher for Class 2. The students usually call me Ecchan-sensei, so nice to meet you.”

Ecchan-sensei looked to be in her late twenties.

Since it was the entrance ceremony, she wore a sharply tailored pantsuit, making her the cool, beautiful adult woman type.

As someone mentally in his early thirties, that definitely hits me right in the heart.

“T-Tachibana-kun. We’re sitting next to each other too.”

While I was eyeing the teacher in a slightly indecent way, the girl next to me suddenly spoke.

“Yeah. Nice to be with you, Tatara-hama-san.”

Ecchan-sensei had said earlier that the seating was in alphabetical order by last name.

Tatara-hama and Tachibana would definitely end up next to each other that way.

“Ahh… am I really allowed to be this happy? Sitting next to a boy… this feels like something straight out of a self-insert romance novel.”

Unable to contain the pounding of her heart, Tatara-hama-san said, “I’m happy too, having a beautiful girl like Tatara-hama-san as my neighbor.”

““““F-faah!?””””

No, I get why Tatara-hama-san would react like that, but why are the other classmates around us reacting too?

“Tachibana-kun, right… He talks to girls like it’s completely normal.”

“Hey, was he already friends with that Tatara-hama girl or something?”

“No way. During the entrance ceremony she introduced herself while totally freaking out, so that was definitely the first time they met.”

“Look, Tatara-hama-san’s frozen.”

“Well yeah, if someone says you’re beautiful right to your face…”

“That’s such a virgin-fantasy dream-novel kind of development.”

Ah, right.

I forgot that in this world, men generally treat girls with distrust, distance and cold politeness.

In a way, I was acting like a thoughtless little devil girl who casually says misleading things.

Well, I’m a guy though—just making a comparison to my original world.

“Hey, stop fidgeting just because you’re near a boy, you little brats. Okay, let’s start with introductions. Sorry, Tachibana. Can you go first as our opener?”

“Eh, me? Shouldn’t this start from the ‘A’ names in alphabetical order?”

Ecchan-sensei suddenly called on me, catching me off guard.

“As you can see, everyone’s all floaty just from having a boy sitting nearby. I want to get this part over with quickly.”

“Ohh, okay, I get it.”

Well yeah.

I mean, everyone’s curious.

I’m the only guy in class after all.

In the game, the protagonist also opened the introduction scene, but I thought that was just the game skipping ahead.

Guess not.

Right now, Haruhi-kun in Class 1 is probably introducing himself first too.

“Alright. Since I’m starting us off, please forgive me if my introduction is rough.”

I set expectations low as I stood up to begin.

All the classmates’ gazes gathered on me.

“My name is Tachibana Tomoki. I’m nervous since I’m surrounded by girls. But I’m totally fine with interacting with women, so please be gentle with me.”

For introductions like this, being concise was best.

But I figured it was better to state my stance early in this world with a 1:99 gender ratio.

I was an exception in this world.

Well, being one of the extremely few males already made me an exception, but even among exceptions, I was an outlier.

My mindset and ethics were shaped by a completely different world, so there would definitely be friction ahead.

Then it was better to declare myself a weirdo from the start so the shock to those around me would be minimized.

“““Kyaaaaaaaaaaaah!!”””

Wait.

Huh!?

“No way!? No way! Is something this dreamy actually happening!?”

“Not only did a boy come to school, but he’s so friendly!”

“And he said physical contact is okay—is that like, touching touching too!?”

“My high school life has begun for real!!”

“BUROOAAAAAaaaahhhh!!”

Their battle cries were insane.

Even with so few boys, HaniGaku was technically a co-ed school, so shouldn’t they, like, not act like a girls-school mob?

If they kept this up, Ecchan-sensei was definitely going to yell, “Too loud on the first day!”

Or so I thought and looked at Ecchan-sensei.

“Women… does that include me too? N-no, no, no. I can’t ruin the teaching position I finally got at a co-ed school by attacking a male student… but…”

While the class erupted in chaos, the teacher was muttering to herself and drifting off into her own world.

So my plan to make a strong first impression seemed to have succeeded extremely well, judging from the classroom devolving into pure madness.

Still, I couldn’t help but laugh wryly as I watched them squeal.

Even without being the protagonist, being male alone carried ridiculous influence.