After thinking it over, he felt that he understood what had probably happened. Even though Kaede always acted politely on the surface, she was still the daughter of a mafia family!

Seiji’s deepest impression of her was the scene where she’d loudly lectured the black-suited men… Or, to be more specific, this scene in combination with her shy and embarra.s.sed behavior right after. It was such a huge contrast...

Those who visited her office driven by the desire to meet a beautiful teacher probably received polite treatment at first. However, once it became clear that they had no physical or mental problems at all, Kaede would be incensed, and they probably received vicious lectures.

The contrast was almost as huge as Jekyll and Hyde. This, in combination with her beautiful appearance, meant it was almost impossible for her not to leave the male students with a deep impression. In fact, some of them were currently feeling a mix of emotions.

Seiji’s understood this phenomenon as cuteness from unexpectedness.

Perhaps some idiots would be enchanted by this. They might even fall in love with her special charisma, awaken new interests, and open the door to a whole new world of masochism, or something similar.

‘Well, it has nothing to do with me.’

Seiji didn’t care whatsoever about the other boys who’d received their just desserts for queueing up solely for the purpose of meeting Kaede.

Personally, he felt like such a type of cuteness was alright in 2-D, but in reality… Well, as long as he wasn’t the target of the insults, it was probably still acceptable.

As for Mika and Chiaki’s reaction to this—

"That Juumonji-san… had such a side to her?" The pigtailed girl was shocked.

"Heh heh~~ It seems quite interesting, Seigo. Let’s go experience it together!" The tomboy flashed a brilliant smile. "As your good friend, I should go and greet Mika’s foremost compet.i.tor!"

"Chiaki!" Mika protested angrily.

That’s how it was.

At any rate, today was a peaceful day at school as well.

…

After school.

Seiji headed to the confectionery store.

After he arrived, he was called to Rika’s office as he’d expected.

"Thank you so much, Haruta-kun."

After seeing him, Rika Amami bowed in thanks to Seiji.

"If it wasn’t for you, I don’t know how bad things may have turned out… I can’t believe I didn’t notice that their family was…"

Rika’s expression was filled with regret.

She blamed herself for failing to notice the abnormalities within her own older brother’s family.

"If only I paid more attention in the past, I could have detected it, but… I didn’t care about them enough."

Seiji could only remain silent.

After a momentary silence, Rika sighed before showing a smile again. "At any rate, I’m truly grateful for all you’ve done… Not only me; our entire family owes you a huge favor."

Seiji smiled in response at this.

"No need for that, Owner. Hos.h.i.+’s my junior and friend—I just did what I should have."

"You just did what you should have…" Rika echoed. "How many people in this world can go so far for a friend which they’ve only known for a short time?"

Rika smiled as she looked straight at Seiji’s face. "That child, Hos.h.i.+... he’s basically treating you as his idol. I can understand why he feels that way."

"I’m proud that you’re my employee, Haruta-kun. I’m truly fortunate to have hired you at that time."

"Then can you increase my salary?" Seiji blinked in an attempt to act cute.

Rika laughed out loud at this. "Sorry, I can’t do that, but if you need it, I can give you an abundant amount of reward money in front of everyone!"

"Forget it then. I don’t want to be killed off by Tanaka-senpai and my other coworkers." Seiji shrugged and extended his palms in an act of helplessness.

After this, they laughed together heartily.

Seiji wouldn’t truly ask the owner for money for such a thing. Rika also knew that he was just joking. If she really did offer money, he wouldn’t accept it.

Another short period of silence followed.

"Haruta-kun, actually I still have a question… Although I thought about the possible reasons, I felt it would be better to ask you." Rika glanced at Seiji as her eyes flashed with a strange light. "At the very beginning why didn’t you… When you learned about what happened from Hos.h.i.+, why didn’t you contact me immediately?"

Seiji was momentarily stunned.

"Owner, you’ve already considered it, so there’s no need for me to answer that. It’s embarra.s.sing."

"Why would you be embarra.s.sed?" Rika walked two steps closer, a gentle expression in her eyes.

"Er… that’s because…" Seiji averted his gaze. "At the time, I was so angry. I only wanted to make a huge scene out of it, and I… forgot… about you until I finished with that spectacle."

Rika was stunned at this.

She then seemed to come to a sudden realization as she laughed out loud again.

"Honestly, Haruta-kun…"

Rika shook her head slightly as she kept her eyes fixed on him.

"That’s why I said it was embarra.s.sing!" Seiji awkwardly scratched his face as he continued to avert his gaze. "Owner, you’ve probably figured it out yourself, but you still asked me…"

‘This idiot.’

He wasn’t able to finish his sentence… as Rika Amami suddenly walked right up to him and kissed him on the cheek!

He felt a soft feeling, a warm touch, and the scent of maturity…

Seiji froze solid.

"This is a punishment for the idiot child who can’t be honest in such a situation."

Rika stepped back, her cheeks slightly flushed as she smiled alluringly.

She had already considered it, so she knew Seiji must have been worried about how difficult it would have been for her to interfere in the situation just based on Hos.h.i.+’s words.

She was the younger sister of Hos.h.i.+’s father, as well as Hos.h.i.+ and the twins’ aunt, their blood relative… If she haphazardly interfered in the darkness which enveloped her relatives’ family, she would’ve been placed under immense pressure.

She had the right to interfere, but the right to do so didn’t mean that it would be easy to accomplish anything. If she didn’t pull it off correctly, she’d only be rejected by everyone, or even be viewed as a villain.

Even if things didn’t turn out that way, presuming she could successfully intervene in their family affairs based solely on her nephew’s words, and she somehow managed to dispel the darkness from them, then what?

Sometimes helping others wouldn’t be viewed as an act of kindness by them. Even if you were a blood relative… or, perhaps, exactly because you were a blood relative. Things weren’t that simple.

At the time, contacting Rika Amami would have been the correct thing to do in theory. It was the most sensible and appropriate method to take.

But in that case, all the responsibility of dealing with the family’s situation would have fallen upon Rika Amami’s shoulders.

That was why Seiji didn’t do such a thing.

As an outsider, he chose to shoulder all the responsibility by himself and faced the twins together with his friend’s a.s.sistance… Only after he’d succeeded at the most difficult part did he contact Rika.

On the surface, he made a huge mess before making Rika come clean up after him.

But in reality, this was his gentleness… or perhaps his way of protecting her.

Rika Amami had considered all this already and understood his intentions.

That was why she was so moved.

Her goal in asking Seiji to his face was to force him to admit his own gentleness, enabling her to praise him.

It wasn’t for the sake of her brother’s family—she wanted to praise him for s.h.i.+elding her from the brunt of the trouble.

However, she didn’t expect Haruta-kun to play the fool to the very end. He was normally direct and forthright, yet he’d deceived her on such an issue!

‘Haha, there’s no helping it.’

Rika’s heart was filled with a warm feeling as she couldn’t help walking up to and kissing this… cute, handsome, yet clumsy boy.

‘This is a punishment, silly fool!’