The Villainess Reika-sama

[118]

"It seems that recently a certain 2nd year has been getting ahead of herself," began the President of the Pivoine.

After Wakaba-chan made 1st place, the way certain students treated her became noticeably more harsh.

I thought it was completely pointless, seeing as she made it there through ability. I hoped that I could make 1st place one day. First place... How nice...

No, even just the Top 5 would be great...

No, even 10th place... If I ever made 10th I'd be so besides myself with joy that I'd break into a belly dance.

Getting back to the point though, Kaburagi and Enjou were considered the pride of the more 'pure bred' Zui'ran students. That Wakaba-chan had threatened their places even as far back as 1st year was something many of them couldn't endure.

Plenty of other External Students did really well too, but Wakaba-chan was probably targeted because of her appearance. She looked like a total commoner. Not only that but sometimes she'd stare into space with her mouth hanging, like some kind of simpleton.

Thanks to that, plenty of people made comments like,

"That's supposed to be who beat them?"

"Are you sure she didn't cheat?"

And the fact that she was a girl that Enjou and Kaburagi spoke to made everything even worse. And Enjou was one thing, but Kaburagi almost never spoke to girls. For him to speak to her of his own volition stirred up some incredible jealousy.

Some of the girls in my group weren't too fond of her either.

Actually, sometimes they'd give me weird encouragements like, "Do your best, Reika-sama!". What exactly was I supposed to be doing my best in?

And you know, I did do my best for the mid-terms but even now none of them had noticed.

Next to the great 3-way struggle between 'Takamichi', 'Kaburagi' and 'Enjou', nobody had any attention to spare on the story of 'Kisshouin Reika, 29th place'. In the end the rankings notice was taken down without anybody noticing...

I tried so hard but nobody even praised me. Nobody noticed. That was so sad...

Which is why I decided to plan a little farce for myself.

I made sure to time it so that my results were casually lying around the living room when Oniisama came home. Of course, just having it lying around on its own was a little too obvious, so I made sure to have exercise printouts and stationery and textbooks and stuff as well. I was totally just looking through my bag for something when my results just happened to fall out.

Oh? That's weird. Oniisama wasn't home yet?

In the end I was forced to put the stationery back into my bag and wait. I took it out again.

...He wasn't coming.

I put it back in. Then took it all out.

After repeating this again and again, Oniisama finally appeared.

"Welcome home, Oniisama!"

"I'm back. What's all this on the table, Reika?"

"I was simply looking for something..."

I rustled my hand in my more-or-less empty bag. Oniisama! Look! Your little sister's grades are right there!

To stall for time, I took out the contents of my pencilcase one by one.

Oniisama! Right there! Right in front of you!

"Hm? Oh, are these your grades?"

Oniisama finally noticed and picked it up.