My love index is at its maximum.

"what?"

Hoshino Hanami slightly curled her lips: "You went on a trip and didn't even bring back a gift for your girlfriend?"

"..."

"Surely there should be some local specialties, right?"

Tsukasa Tazaki placed the bento box in her palm with a serious expression: "Are the lettuce and tomatoes in the vegetable salad considered local specialties?"

"Ah, it hurts!"

Startled by the human screams, the birds flapped their wings and flew away from the cedar branches.

Hoshino Hana took both of their bento boxes and didn't even share one of the two paper cup coffees she bought at Starbucks with her boyfriend.

Tazaki Tsukasa looked at his chubby-cheeked, food-loving girlfriend with a guilty conscience, reflecting on the mistakes he had made that day.

As a Chinese time traveler, I shouldn't be singing the American version of "Good Days"!

Also, you should put a fish in the bento box when you make it, so that your nonsense will be more believable!

I walked into the school gate at 8:10 a.m.

Back in the king's hometown, Tsukasa Tazaki, pen in hand, began frantically catching up on the homework he hadn't touched over the weekend.

The faint chirping of cicadas drifted from the courtyard, mingling with the condensation from the air conditioner vents. In Class 1F's classroom, students chatted in twos and threes, or, like him, were rushing to finish their homework.

"I'm back."

Murakami Mizusaka, returning from the soccer club's morning practice, slumped into her seat, her eyes vacant, as if she had lost her soul.

He stared blankly at Tsukasa Tazaki, who was engrossed in his homework, for a while: "What did you do this weekend?"

"Go shoot a promotional video."

"So, you've finally gone into the sea, huh?"

"Yes, please ask your female friends to support me more in the future."

Having grown accustomed to his mind being filled with erotic content, Tsukasa Tazaki remained remarkably calm.

"Sigh... I wish you would really go into business." Murakami Mizuiro sighed with a worried look on her face. "If you had connections, you could take me with you to make money."

"You're not short of money, so what, wait a minute, you wouldn't..." Tazaki Tsukasa looked up at him sympathetically, "lost?"

Murakami Mizuiro nodded, then gritted her teeth and began to rant: "The England team is a bunch of useless trash. They can't even beat Scotland. They're a waste of air when they're alive and a waste of land when they die. I'm never trusting them again. I'm going to bet all my pocket money on the France match!"

"Good luck."

Tsukasa Tazaki doesn't have the ability to foresee the future, so he can't help him.

"By the way, there's a rumor about you circulating lately. Would you like to hear it?"

"Do not want to."

"But I want to say!"

"Then tell me, I didn't cover your mouth."

Murakami Mizuiro leaned closer and whispered, "Some people are saying that you and Hoshino-sensei are having a teacher-student relationship."

"I want to clarify something."

Tazaki Tsukasa leaned closer and whispered, "That's not a rumor."

Murakami Mizuiro remained silent, his expression blank, like the black curtain before a movie starts.

"Uh, look at that expression..."

"Is it that hard to understand? Which male student in this school doesn't like Hoshino-sensei? Waaah—" Murakami Mizusuke slumped onto his desk, clutching his chest like a critically wounded American soldier: "Tazaki-kun, please find a sunny morning, put on a pretty little dress, and get sent to another world by a big truck!!!"

Tsukasa Tazaki patted him on the shoulder and comforted him, "Look on the bright side, at least I have a girlfriend now, so I won't make a move on other girls, right?"

Murakami Mizuiro's eyes lit up: "Then Ninomiya..."

I'll break your legs!

"You'll get hacked to death sooner or later!" Murakami Mizusaka slumped back onto his desk, seething with resentment.

Tsukasa Tazaki lowered his head and tapped the tip of his ballpoint pen on the table.

Although she and Hoshino Hanami kept their distance at school, they didn't care about such things outside. It's normal that people noticed after a while.

When a teacher-student relationship blows up, the teacher is usually the one who takes responsibility.

For the sake of Hoshino Hana's sake, I should be more restrained in public in the future.

I ate lunch with Shiori Ninomiya at the cafeteria.

The lady at the lemonade window looked at Tsukasa Tazaki with surprise: "You're back from Uruguay so soon?"

Before Tsukasa Tazaki could speak, she looked at Shiori Ninomiya with a serious expression: "If he makes you angry again, next time I'll make him swim all the way back to Tokyo from Uruguay."

"Mmm." The little cutie nodded vigorously. "Kiki, did you hear that?"

Tsukasa Tazaki: "..."

Isn't this just blatantly asking him to get eaten by sharks in the Pacific Ocean?

After school in the afternoon, I went to the ATF activity room.

Nobody's here.

I went to check the tea cabinet and saw that Kuriyama Sakura had already replenished the tea bags.

Tsukasa Tazaki brewed a cup of black tea, sat down in the minister's reserved seat, and looked down from a position of power.

In the courtyard, there are affectionate couples, pigeons in the oak trees, girls playing like kittens in the windows of the opposite school building, members of the sports club sweating in the sunset on the playground, and a yellow-painted Chuo Line train departing from Yotsuya Station in the distance.

The aroma of black tea wafted up with the steam. Tazaki Tsukasa took a sip and thought to himself that the excitement belonged to the participants, not the bystanders. Lu Xun's words were truly insightful.

When he looked away, Tsukasa Tazaki noticed a piece of paper sticking out from under the hardcover book on the table.

I pulled it out and took a look.

You're quite adorable when you're fast asleep.

This neat handwriting... could it have been written by that idiot named Tsukasa Tazaki?

Kuriyama Sakura walked in carrying a cardboard box, looking at him strangely: "Why are you sitting in my seat?"

Tsukasa Tazaki calmly replied, "Preparing to respond to the navigation signal Optimus Prime sent from Cybertron."

It appears as stable as a rock.

The hand that was actually hidden under the table instantly stuffed the note into the school uniform pocket, feeling incredibly ashamed.

I've already complimented her on her cuteness several times in person, yet she still resorts to such a childish method as leaving a note. It's like a billionaire being caught red-handed stealing chewing gum.

Kuriyama Sakura looked at him with the same eyes one would give a kindergartener, and placed the cardboard box on the table: "The sardines' nest was damaged over the weekend, go and fix it."

Tsukasa Tazaki peeked inside and saw that it contained a hammer, nails, and wooden planks.

"I refuse to serve that fat cat!"

"That's an order!" Kuriyama Sakura coughed lightly, making a fist with her hand to her lips. "Don't forget, I'm your department head!"

"A strong wind rises, clouds fly high; where can we find brave warriors to guard the four directions?"

Kuriyama Sakura: "?"

Under her questioning gaze, Tsukasa Tazaki suddenly stood up and passionately denounced: "Clubs must always be free, they can't function without freedom! Just imagine, you come to the club exhausted after a long day, drinking tea and singing songs, and suddenly the club president ruins it all! Therefore, a good club is one without a club president!"

“Well said!” Kuriyama Sakura gave a private, fourth-gear smile. “But I don’t intend to listen.”

Tazaki thought the cat was quite cute, so he gave up on the great mission of saving the world with Optimus Prime, picked up the cardboard box, and slunk away to the old auditorium.

Kuriyama Sakura returned to her seat, the steel tubular chair still warm from the other person's backside. The hot summer evening breeze rushed in through the wide-open window, making her shoulder-length hair sway like leaves.

The note that was under the book is gone.

Like a leaf falling onto a calm lake, ripples gently spread across the girl's eyes, and her lips trembled slightly as if she were about to speak.

"Silly~"

Chapter 160 The playground under the setting sun, the resentment of the athletic boy and the sigh of the literary girl

On Tuesday evening, Tsukasa Tazaki picked up five flowerpots from the convenience store.

Taking advantage of the fact that no one was around at night, he went to the nearby green belt and dug up a bag of soil.

Pick out the sprouted potatoes from the corner of the refrigerator.

Following the method described by Shiori Ninomiya, each sprouting part was cut off and used as a seed, which was then directly planted in the soil.

Tsukasa Tazaki had absolutely no idea how to grow potatoes, and he didn't care whether he could harvest potatoes or not.

I just felt it was a waste to throw it away, so I left it to God to deal with.

As for questions like when to water, when to turn the soil, and whether it would be too crowded to put three potato seedlings in one flowerpot, he consulted with Shiori Ninomiya again during lunch the next day.

"It must be planted in a sunny location with well-draining soil. Add some organic fertilizer when planting to promote potato growth. After planting, water according to the soil's moisture level, keeping it slightly moist. Once the potato seedlings have grown, fertilize again to ensure successful potato production..."

After the little cutie explained a whole bunch of knowledge points to him in detail, Tsukasa Tazaki condensed it into one sentence in his mind: Just buy it at the supermarket.

"Kiki, did you understand?"

"Ah... I understand, no... no, I understand."

“You…” Ninomiya Shiori took a sip of the lemonade in her glass and looked at him seriously: “Planting potatoes is such an important thing, you should take it seriously! In our town, every year when we start planting potatoes, we hold a festival at the shrine.”

Tsukasa Tazaki chuckled. "Does that shrine have shrine maidens too?"

"Yes, I have."

"I bet she's not as cute as you."

"Of course! I'm the cutest girl in all of Hokkaido!" Shiori Ninomiya said with a smile, resting her chin on her hand and staring at him. "Is it just my imagination? Kiki seems so much more approachable lately!"

"Since he's no longer the aloof and handsome guy..." Tsukasa Tazaki asked half-jokingly, "Are you going to give up on your conquest plan?"

"Eat fish, eat fish!"

The clever little girl picked up an untouched fried capelin from her lunchbox and gave it to him. Only after watching Tsukasa Tazaki enjoy it did she cheerfully ask, "Was it good?"

"Crispy and delicious." Tazaki Tsukasa sipped his lemon tea to wash away the fishy taste in his mouth, then glanced at the half-eaten bento box in front of her: "Aren't you going to eat it?"