This Villainess Shall Vow to Live Humbly and Frugally this Time Around

Twenty: School Sports Festival (Part 1)

A/N: The picture above is Kasumi Aya.

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Kouzuki Akina POV

I couldn't help but sigh as the familiar scenery of the road to school went past the car. A few months after I came back to my first life and I still couldn't believe I'm here basically living my second chance at this life. It shouldn't have been possible. I mean, how could it have been possible? Reincarnating and gaining my memories of Akina as I lived as Rukako was impossible enough. Dying again at eighteen as Rukako and returning to life as Akina was what? What could be more as unlikely to happen as impossible? What were the odds of that happening to someone else?

"Akina, are you alright? Is something bothering you?" Haruto-nii-sama asked gently beside me. I almost forgot that my two older brothers were in the car with me.

Before I could reply, Natsume-nii interrupted. "Is someone picking on you again? Do I need to beat someone up?" It was the same question as Haruto-nii-sama's just without the tact and the elegance but then again, Natsume-nii wasn't exactly known for those two qualities.

"I'm fine. Thank you for asking, Haruto-nii-sama. And no, there's absolutely no need to beat someone up, Natsume-nii." Actually, please don't ever consider that painful and troublesome option entirely.

"Really?" Nii-sama asked again while Natsume-nii narrowed his eyes to scrutinize the validity of my would-be answer.

"I'm really, really, fine, Nii-sama, Natsume-nii. No one's bothering me."

"Alright." The both of them finally relented.

Geez. These two.

They've been like this ever since Kanzaki and Miyamura's stunt. It's already been two months since it happened but they're still on guard. That 'incident' triggered my brothers' overprotectiveness. Nii-sama began to ask everything that happened to me at school almost every day. He even went as far as to come to the Crown instead of going to the Palace for a few days. The Palace was the middle school and high school division counterpart of the Crown. Technically, it's another exclusive hangout place for the Regalias with the same amenities as the Crown with a few modifications here and there. The Palace and the Crown. Sometimes, I couldn't help but think that our school's naming sense was just a tad bit snotty.

Anyway, that was for Haruto-nii-sama's part. As for Natsume-nii... augh... sometimes I don't even want to think about it. Natsume-nii barely let me out of his sight. If it wasn't for our classes and his track practice, I doubt he'd ever leave me alone in school again. But then again, when he really needed to leave, he tended to make sure that at least Homura or Kisaragi was with me. I even saw him talking to Karin-onee-sama before cooking classes telling her to look out for me. Apparently, Karin-onee-sama was the one who informed him that someone was picking a fight with me before. He would've told Ryuugamine to look out for me too but I think he was still leery of him because of my previous crush on him. Kirihara, meanwhile, was a different story altogether. I think he was probably one of the people he was guarding me against but too bad for Natsume-nii, Kirihara had been always sneaky enough to slip past his guard. Natsume-nii's increasing bloodthirst for murder had been on the peak during those times that I sincerely worried about his blood pressure.

But that was only the extent of Natsume-nii's overprotectiveness in school. At home was a different matter. Apparently, seeing me jump over the balcony made too much of an impression on him that he decided to take my physical training personally and too seriously. On that very same night, he decided to take over my physical training one-sidedly and decided that I'd be following the training regimes from his references to make sure that my 'def will be strong enough to take zero hp damage from a simple fall' one-sidedly. I kinda did get what he was talking about despite the use of gaming language and what he was suggesting wasn't really a problem for me if not for the references he was using. Shounen manga. Of all things, it was shounen manga. Why couldn't my brother acquire some common sense and just use the internet for references? At least anything it would dish out could be possibly done by normal, average, human beings.