The Villainess Reika-sama

[119]

Normally I had lunch with Serika-chan and the others. Today was an exception to that.

At the behest of the President of the Pivoine, every member was currently assembled in the cafeteria together.

"It's nice having lunch to strengthen the bonds within the Pivoine once in a while," she said, "And to begin with, these seats were arranged for our exclusive use, so I think this is the best place for us anyhow."

The Pivoine elitists nodded at her words. The President seemed to be in a good mood.

Ah, it would have been nicer to eat with my friends though... If possible I'd rather not become the leader of yet another village.

Unfortunately I wanted to avoid drama, so here I was, giving her words a vague smile as I ate my lunch. Enjou and Kaburagi usually ate here anyway. Despite the crowd today, they seemed to be ignoring it all and talking about sports.

"I knew it would be calming to spend time with proper students of Zui'ran. Ever since entering high school there have been so many outsiders unaccustomed to our ways."

"I know how you feel. It'd be nice if they'd stop harming our image," chimed in one of the boys.

"How are the new first years?"

"It's still too early to tell, but at least nobody has stirred anything up yet."

"I see. If anything happens, as a Pivoine you should teach them their proper place."

"I understand. We won't let them do as they wish in our school."

"It's fine that they admire Zui'ran and all, but overreaching their stations will bring them more trouble than anybody else."

Wow...

Usually I just treated the Pivoine as a nice place to eat snacks in, but there were a lot more elitists than I had expected... Some of them were extraordinarily proud about being a member of the Pivoine.

No wonder they got along so badly with the Student Council.

At least last year they had Tomoe-senpai to even things out, but...

"By the way, there's actually a 2nd year causing problems..."

Called it.

"Ah. That Takamichi girl?"

"Yes," answered a girl, "When I saw her wearing gumboots with our uniform I felt faint..."

"That was certainly astounding. How could anybody have so little sense..."

"I know, right?" agreed another boy, "I can't believe the way she shamed us in public. This is how we're representing ourselves outside?"

"And the other day I saw her jumping along down the hallway," added yet another girl. "She's so barbaric that just seeing her irritates me."

"Doesn't she come to school with bedhair at times? Does she not even know how to take care of her own appearance?" asked somebody else.

"Saw her running to the train station too, you know? It was so disgraceful that I very nearly got out of my car to tell her off."

"Heavens... At any rate, we can all agree that she doesn't belong in Zui'ran. To begin with, who knows if those grades are her own ability..."

"Beating Kaburagi-sama and Enjou-sama...? How could that ever happen..."

With that, the conversation shifted to complaints about how she was basically tarnishing the two's reputation.

Honestly, I didn't know what they were clamouring about. What were they even expecting? For Wakaba-chan to lower her marks on purpose? She was a scholarship student.