Editing Mahou Sensou:Volume 2 Chapter 1 (section)

===Part 6===

During lunchtime, Takeshi was eating together with Kurumi in the cafeteria as they did every day since they transferred.

"Hey... I'm sorry to do this, but would you mind giving me your seat?"

The cafeteria was very crowded and there was no empty seat left. At that moment Ida appeared out of nowhere and had thrown his arm over the neck of a student sitting next to Takeshi.

The student looked up and when he looked at Ida, his eyes widened. He stood up, picked up his plate of udon and walked away. Then Ida sat down.

"Ida, do you realize it's already lunchtime?" Takeshi said.

Ida just laughed.  He was carrying his bag in his hand, which indicated that had not yet passed through the classroom.  Ida's appearance was so dingy that it didn't look like they were wearing the same uniform with Takeshi.  As usual, he wore a T-shirt that was not part of the uniform and wore his bristly hair, shinier and more flamboyant than ever. By the end of the summer you could already see the roots of his black hair, so he had probably dyed it again.

"Well, it's just that after I took Futaba to school, I went back to bed and didn't realize I'd missed the time." Ida replied.

"Hey... Are you serious?"

"Easy, we'll go to the pool first thing, right? I don't have a swimming suit, though."

"I thought so..." Takeshi muttered.

Suddenly, Ida seemed interested in the surprised Takeshi's lunch, so he stared at it for a while.

"So there's curry on the menu today?" 

Then he looked at Kurumi's food sitting in front of Takeshi.

"Fried chicken, huh?"

Kurumi frowned with displeasure.

"You usually bring a bento, don't you? Here, eat from my plate. We're out of time."

Takeshi invited him to eat from his food, but Ida shook his head and replied:

"Don't worry about me. I've already eaten, I'd better go ahead to the classroom"

"Try to get a swimming suit at the store."

"Sure, I'll see you later."

Ida walked leisurely through the crowded cafeteria. Everyone in his path, seeing his aggressive look and his blonde hair, get out on their own.

"I've been thinking that Ida-kun, he's changed a lot." Kurumi commented as she watched he walk away.

Takeshi burst out laughing after hearing what she just said.

"You're right. It's interesting isn't it?"

"I wonder if that won't be a problem..." Kurumi said letting out a sigh with a complicated expression.

Kurumi pondered for a moment and after chopping her fried chicken with chopsticks for a while, she offered it to Takeshi.

"Takeshi, don't you want some of this? I'll give you some..."

"Of course, I appreciate it."

Since Takeshi had his plate of curry with rice, he thought she would put the chicken on his plate, but before he knew it, her chopsticks reached his mouth.

"Come on, say: Aaaa..."

Takeshi was puzzled as she signaled him to open his mouth.

The problem was that all eyes in the place were on them, so Takeshi shook his head emphatically.

"H-Hey, Isoshima... don't do that."

"Ara, there's no problem, or is it?"

"Of course there is it!"

He was obviously aware that it wasn't right for a boy and a girl to do something so daring during a meal at school. Then Kurumi pursed her lips pouting while Takeshi shook his head with a completely flushed face.

"We're dating aren't we? If we don't do some of these things, no one will notice that we're boyfriend and girlfriend."

Kurumi resignedly placed the piece of chicken on Takeshi's plate of curry, while he kept shaking his head in embarrassment.

They were certainly pretending to others that he was dating, but Takeshi didn't want to show that they were an overly "lovey-dovey" couple. Therefore, at that moment he decided to mention to Kurumi, something he had been thinking over for a while:

"You're right, but... Don't you think it's enough already? We've transferred to a new academy, don't you think we can go back to being just friends?"

"Of course not!" Kurumi shouted quickly. "You didn't notice but, there's already a boy who approached me..."

"Huh? Really? Who was it?" Takeshi asked in shock, since it had barely been a week since school started.
Kurumi lowered her gaze not knowing what to answer and said:

"Well... I think it was a was a second-year senpai..."

Kurumi didn't like being hit on at all and her expression was one of utter unhappiness so Takeshi was worried.

"did you reject him? ? If you want, I'll go with you so you can reject him properly."

"No! Don't worry about that... I can do it by myself."

At that moment Kurumi began to move some pieces of her fried chicken towards Takeshi's plate of curry and reiterated again that everything was under control.

"I see. You always get so popular, Isoshima. So we have no choice... We'll have to continue our business for a while longer."

After hearing what had happened to Kurumi just a week into her studies, Takeshi couldn't put an end to the deal.

"Okay. I'm sorry to bother you so much." Kurumi replied.

"Don't worry about it..."

Between the two of them, they had agreed to keep up the charade, until either of them found someone they really liked.

Just then, Takeshi looked up and found Mui sitting diagonally behind Kurumi. She was eating a flan, while talking happily with three girls who were eating at the same table with her. At that moment Takeshi started to wonder if Mui was also getting suitors. Mui looked very mature. She was intelligent and serious, but not popular. Her childish face was also charming.

At that moment as Takeshi stared at her, Mui moved her eyes and their gazes suddenly met. She smiled happily at him and Takeshi smiled back.

"What's wrong?" Kurumi asked as she noticed Takeshi's gestures.

Then he answered hurriedly:

"Ah... nothing, it's just that I see that you really like fried chicken..."

"…?"

She looked at him suspiciously and replied:

"Why do you say that all of a sudden? sorry but I like meat"

"No, no... I don't have a problem with that..."

"How strange you are, Takeshi..."

After that, Kurumi took a bite of her chicken.

Takeshi arrived at the classroom a bit overwhelmed after lunch, not knowing that there was business waiting for him there as well.  There were four classmates gathered in a corner of the classroom. They had formed a circle and stood so close together that their shoulders were touching each other.

When Takeshi recognized one of his dorm neighbors among them, he exclaimed:

"Hey...! What are you doing? what are you looking at?"

The four seemed to have a handful of photographs in their hands and were looking at them intently, but when they saw Takeshi, the foursome went into overdrive.

"Goddamn it! Hide them, hide them!"

"What? It's Nanase!"

The four frantically tried to hide the pictures.

"Come on, take them out." Takeshi said, putting his hand out to prevent it.

"Hey, hold on..."

"Yeah, it's no big deal..."

None of them wanted to hand over the pictures, but seeing Takeshi's serious gaze, the four of them were afraid of him and started to take the pictures out of their pockets and from between the pages of their notebooks where they had hidden them.

"Are these all of them?" Takeshi asked in a stern voice.

In their hands they had placed a handful of about ten photos. Then one of the boys, with a panicked expression, noded.

Takeshi's hostility had impressed the neighbor in the front dormitory room.

"You're going to lose friends," the boy said.

Then Takeshi spoke seriously to them.:

"Isoshima hates this kind of thing. That's why I do this."

"Hey, but you're not her boyfriend. You can't do this."

When Takeshi heard that, he thought about it for a moment.

Since they transferred to the academy, no one knew anything about his relationship with Kurumi. It was logical for those guys, to think that Takeshi was acting weird.

"''Good thing I didn't manage to put an end to our fake relationship,''" Takeshi He turned around and thought.

It seems that there was already a senpai trying to approach Kurumi and now he had found his own classmates doing that.

"''Well, I have no choice''."

Takeshi placed a grim expression and said:

"Isoshima is my girlfriend..."

The reaction of the four boys upon hearing such a statement was as expected:

"Huh? Really?"

"No way!!!!"

"I thought I had found the perfect girl!"

"I heard that they are even childhood friends... it makes me so jealous"

While the four of them were lamenting, Takeshi showed a bitter smile as a product of a complicated feeling.

At that moment the four of them handed all the photos to Takeshi.

"All right, here, that's all of them."

Takeshi received them silently, while another student handed him two more photos that he was still hiding in the back pocket of his pants.

All those were pictures that had been taken of Kurumi in her swimsuit. That day would be the first swimming class since the classes started and even so, there were already people who had taken pictures of Kurumi without her noticing.

At the Sakuraya academy they attended before, there were no swimming lessons so they didn't have to worry about such things. However, Takeshi was impressed by how much Kurumi charmed men, so he let out a deep sigh while holding the photographs.