The arrogant young lady in the class works as a maid in my house

At that moment, Jino's toes were tripped by the height difference of the stage floor.

She was about to fall forward, so she twisted her body to avoid it. To regain her balance, Jino's arms spun in circles.

She had good motor skills and managed to regain her balance before she fell, but because she panicked, the wallet she was holding slipped from her right hand and flew out.

“Ah… Ugh—!”

Himeno's wallet drew a beautiful parabola and flew over Shinnosuke and Haruru's heads.

They both looked up and saw where the wallet was flying to.

Shinnosuke reached out to grab it, but he missed it by a hair's breadth. The wallet slipped past his fingers and flew toward the edge of the stage.

Then—the wallet flew over the stage railing and fell far below.

Jinai quickly leaned over and looked under the armrest.

Shinnosuke next to him also leaned over the armrest and looked down.

He saw the wallet fall onto the path below. Fortunately, no one was passing directly below, so it didn't hit anyone.

However, on the other side of the path, I could see several students from the same high school walking there. If I kept going like this, they would definitely find the wallet.

“Ah…photos…”

Jino said this while looking at the wallet that had fallen onto the path below. To others, it was completely incomprehensible what she meant by this.

But Shinnosuke understood immediately.

She was talking about the photos she had taken of Himeno at Shinnosuke's house.

At that time, she put the photo in the place where she kept the money in her wallet.

In other words, if someone picked up the wallet and looked inside, they would see a picture of Himeno in a maid outfit. They would probably be surprised and tell others.

After all, Himeno was famous for being the most beautiful young lady on campus. Rumors would spread quickly, and Nishikawa Himeno's image as a well-off young lady would be greatly damaged.

Not only that, but the maid-style company's advertisement photo had become a hot topic in the classroom, and the fact that the person in the photo was Himeno would be exposed. If that happened, her father would most likely find out about her part-time job.

(This is bad! We need to think of a solution!)

Shinnosuke instinctively pushed the stage railing with both hands, and used the reaction force to run in the opposite direction. Although Haruru looked surprised, he didn't care about her at this time.

"Ah, Agatsuma-san!"

He ran as fast as he could, facing Jino's voice.

(Will it be too late? Never mind… let’s just try first.)

If they could just walk down the stone steps next to the stage they were currently standing on, they would reach the path below. If they could pick up the wallet before the student approaching from the opposite direction, no one would see the contents.

Shinnosuke accelerated to the limit and ran down the stone steps.

Shinnosuke dodged sideways to avoid bumping into several students strolling leisurely. However, he wasn't exercising enough, and he was wearing new sneakers he hadn't gotten used to yet, so the strain on his body was too great, and he stumbled and lost his balance.

He stumbled and fell carelessly towards the stone steps. His hands couldn't support his body, and his chest slid against the ground.

His palms and arms hit the ground hard, bleeding.

The fashionable shirt that Jino had chosen had a slight tear in the fabric on the chest and was stained with sand.

"Damn it, it hurts!"

He had no energy left because he had slacked off in PE class. It was all his fault. He remembered Jinai had said, "If you just work harder, it will be fine," but he had only replied, "I'm not motivated."

He wished he had worked out harder before, but it was too late.

A sharp pain in the palms of my hands and arms.

Under normal circumstances, this alone would have frustrated Shinnosuke. But now, with his heart set on protecting Himeno's secret, his body immediately moved without a second thought.

He stood up and ran again, walked down the stone steps, turned right into the path, and ran to the bottom of the stage where the wallet had just fallen.

You can see Jino's wallet lying on the road, just a little bit off.

But the two male students walking towards the opposite direction reached the wallet first.

Someone spotted the wallet, squatted down to pick it up, and as expected, he tried to open it and look inside.

“Wait, wait, wait a minute—!”

Shinnosuke, who hated attracting attention and rarely spoke loudly, was now shouting out in ecstasy.

"what?"

The boy who picked up the wallet looked up at Shinnosuke in surprise. When he found that the owner of the voice was wearing tattered clothes, his expression became even more surprised.

"Sorry! Give that back to me!"

Shinnosuke took the opportunity to approach and took the wallet from the boy, and at the critical moment, he successfully avoided the danger of the contents of the wallet being seen by others.

"Eh, that's yours? Really?"

"No, she said it was mine, but it was actually dropped by her."

Shinnosuke pointed at Himeno who was running behind him. Upon seeing that person, the two of them showed their most surprised expressions of the day.

"So it belongs to the princess?"

Jino ran over to them and bowed breathlessly to the two male students.

"S-Sorry. Thank you..."

Shinnosuke turned around and handed the wallet to Himeno.

"Azuma-san, I want to thank you too..."

Her eyes widened in surprise when she saw that the fabric on the front of Shinnosuke's shirt was torn a little and blood was oozing from his arms and palms.

"Are you okay?"

"Well, don't worry. I'm very strong."

He said this, but his arms and chest were actually hurting. But if he showed pain, Himeno would be worried. So he pretended to be fine.

"But this injury..."

"It's just a little scratch that's bleeding. Don't worry about it."

Since the issue was caused by Ji No, a famous person in the school, people gradually gathered around.

If he continued to talk to Jinai in public, it would be too conspicuous and the situation would be very bad.

And to be honest, pretending he wasn't in pain even though it was clearly painful was pushing him to his limit. He wanted to be alone as soon as possible, so he could express his pain without any scruples.

Shinnosuke thought so and winked, and Himeno saw it and became aware of the situation around her.

"Then I'll be leaving first."

Shinnosuke smiled and waved to Himeno, then quickly left the scene.

Jinai didn't know what to do and stood there for a while. Later, her friends came over.

"Princess, are you okay?"

"Uh, yeah. I'm fine."

"Oh, really? You found your wallet."

Harumi and Yukari breathed a sigh of relief when they saw the wallet in Himeno's hand.

"By the way, Princess, where are we going next?"

Hearing Harumi's question, Yukari interrupted and said:

"Ah, I want to go shopping in Kawaramachi."

"Is that so..."

Jinai pressed her index finger to her chin and thought for a moment.

◇ ◆ ◇

“Ouch…it hurts…”

Shinnosuke pressed his hands against the painful areas and groaned in pain. The most painful areas were his arms and chest.

He didn't want to be seen rolling in pain by students from the same high school, so he quickly left the walking area.

Kiyomizu-dera Temple was almost at the edge of the designated area, so the students who had finished their visit headed back towards the gathering place, Gion. However, Shinnosuke headed in the opposite direction to get away from them.

When he came to his senses, he was already standing in front of another temple. There was no one from his high school nearby.

"The name of the temple is... Seikanji Temple."

He checked his current location on his phone's map app. It seemed he had slightly strayed from the school's designated area of ​​activity.

"Never mind. Anyway, we just need to get back to the meeting place on time."

There is still about an hour and a half until the meeting time, so there is no need to rush.

(Even though I couldn't fulfill my promise to work with her...but I tried my best for Nishikawa, so I think she'll forgive me. I hope she can forgive me. No, please forgive me.)

Although there was no point in doing this, he still pleaded in his heart with Jinai who was not here.

Suddenly, he saw a juice vending machine on the side of the road.

He had walked quickly from Kiyomizu-dera Temple to here, his throat dry. He took out a coin from his wallet and put it in to buy a bottle of sparkling water.

I took a sip to moisten my throat, then pressed the bottle against my aching chest. The cool feeling was very pleasant.

After maintaining this posture for a while, the pain gradually subsided.

"Hahaha, but I'm really embarrassed."

He had imagined himself running downstairs with a brisk pace, picking up the wallet briskly, and then handing it to Jinai cheerfully.

When I was in junior high school, I took physical education classes very seriously and even often went to sports clubs to help out. I had confidence in my physical strength.

He followed the image in his mind. However, his physical strength had actually deteriorated, leading to the result.

"I'll just visit the temple for a bit before heading back."

Thinking this, he walked towards the entrance of Qingxian Temple. At this moment, someone suddenly spoke from behind him.

"Azuma-san!"

(Huh? Could it be…)

He turned around and it was indeed Jinao's voice.

"Nishigawa...why are you here?"

"Because we agreed to act together, didn't we? That's why I chased you as hard as I could. You walked so fast, it was hard for me to catch up."

"Eh...? Really? Is it necessary to go to this extent?"

They had indeed agreed to act together. That being said, Shinnosuke thought there was no need to keep the agreement to this extent.

"I was joking when I said I'd keep my promise. You got hurt trying to keep my secret. Do you think I could just leave you?"

"Don't worry. My injuries are not serious anymore."

In fact the pain has almost subsided, no problem.

"It's not like the injury is minor. I don't want to just say thank you and leave the person who stood up for me alone."

"Are you serious?"

"I'm serious, just like you."

Her previous rebuttal was "I'm serious, unlike you."

This has changed slightly.

"Same as me?"

"Yeah. It was clearly none of your business, yet you fought so hard and even got hurt. And not only did you not do me a favor, you didn't even complain. How can you not be serious?"

"It's not my business, but it's related to me."

"Azuma-san, you're... so stupid."

"Wow, you actually called me stupid. Isn't that too much?"

"That's just stupid. You're so kind, like a fool."

"Huh? Are you praising me?"