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“So that one is called ‘The House That Was A Metaphor For My Mother’s Vagina,’ this next one is-”
The awkwardness was broken by the door of the classroom slamming open. Today it was Ibuki, Chiaki, Fuyuhiko, and Peko in attendance… except for their friend, Hajime. He entered the room, stoically stomping across the floor in such a way that the desks rattled a little, before sitting down away from everyone else. Chiaki didn’t look up from the game she was playing on an emulator app on her smartphone, but everyone else rushed over to the Reserve Course Student’s side.
“Good nom-nom-nomming!” Ibuki cheered. “What’s Hajime doing here?”
“This is my class now,” he replied, but with a kind of groan that should’ve been entirely foreign to a student who just learned that they were to attend the most prestigious class in all of the world.
The room froze for a moment before Fuyuhiko laughed. “Damn, just like that, huh?”
“Yeah…” Hajime trailed off, sinking down in his chair.
“Well, don’t keep us in suspense!” Ibuki protested. “What’s it for?”
“Yeah, is it some stupid shit like ‘Ultimate Luck?’”
“Ultimate Friend,” Peko suggested quietly.
“Ultimate Drummer!? I knew you were rehearsing!”
Hajime sighed deeply. “Ultimate… Ultimate Cuck.”
The oxygen left the room like it realized it left the oven on. The trio of prestigious students froze in the moment. Ibuki could, in the recesses of her mind, hear the world’s saddest acoustic riffing begin. Fuyuhiko wondered if he heard the guy right. Peko wondered what Fuyuhiko would think. Hajime let out another sigh.
“That’s what they told me, at least.”
The thought of an adult, a professional education administrator at that, informing this teenager that he was the Ultimate Cuckold somehow made the bizarre situation even sadder. Slowly, the other three Ultimates turned towards Chiaki.
Everyone knew it was a thing. How couldn’t it be? She hung out with him for hours, every day. Every student in her class knew of Hajime because of her. They were inseparable! Ibuki wrote a little ditty about them and then tossed it because it risked being the kind of crossover hit that’d be paying her bills well after she lost relevancy(Despite her description of it being “Like that old Dylan song, ‘Not Dark Yet,’ meets ‘Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer.’) But the implications of that title were disturbing.
“Chiaki?” Fuyuhiko called out, tossing the name out like a lost hunter trapped in savage lands who dispensed of his rotten, gangrenous foot not in the hopes of healing from the injury but in hopes of attracting the creature that had cost him such a magnificent limb for one final, climactic confrontation.
“Yes?” she replied, never once averting her gaze from Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War: Kai Your Zo Until You Diezo Edition.
Fuyuhiko didn’t continue. What could he have said? Could he really have accused Chiaki of such-
“Was he black?” Ibuki’s intrusive thoughts won.
Peko smacked Ibuki in the back with the scabbard of her blade, a blow that would have felled trees, let alone Ibuki’s petite frame. The rockstar was sent crumpling to the ground.
“She?” Ibuki offered in an attempt to be inclusive, which resulted in Fuyuhiko having to do the “Don’t kill her” eyebrow tilt towards Peko, who contented herself with another swat of her scabbard across Peko’s thigh.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Chiaki replied.
Hajime sighed loudly. “It’s nothing, guys, I’m just glad to be here.”
“Man… we gotta help somehow,” Fuyuhiko asserted. “What the hell should we do?”
Peko began to draw her sword, and Fuyuhiko tilted his eyebrow again.
“I don’t get it! We’re not even dating,” Hajime finally admitted. “So how can it be… that!?”
“Wait, you’re not dating?”
Ibuki sat up. “Really really?”
“No! Right, Chiaki?”
“I thought we were.”
Hajime just sat there, stunned. Fuyuhiko pat his back.