It took Aiko about two seconds to come to this conclusion.
Completely unaware that their conversation wasn’t matching up at all, Aiko sucked in a deep breath and looked resolutely at the head teacher.
“I’m not joking. I’m burning with love (for this school and my students)! In fact, my love (for this school and my students) is worth more than my life itself!”
“Wh-What?!”
Aiko’s sincerity shone through in her expression, and the head teacher took an involuntary step backward.
“I-I have a wife and kiiiiiiiiiiiids!” he finally shouted, running away as fast as he could. He was in such a panic he didn’t notice Hajime or Yue, nor did he realize that his wig had flown off.
Aiko watched him leave, dumbfounded.
“Aiko, you really are something special. I’ve never seen such a perfect misunderstanding in my life,” Yue said.
“Huh? What?” Aiko asked, confused.
“Umm, Aiko, he probably thinks you just confessed to him. Since you said ‘I love you’ right after he said you probably hate him.”
“Come again?” Aiko asked, blinking at Hajime. A second later, understanding dawned on her and her face paled.
She didn’t have a moment to lose. She picked up the head teacher’s abandoned wig and started running after him.
“W-Waaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiit! It’s a misunderstanding! Also, you forgot your wig! Don’t go back to the staff room or else everyone will find out your secret!”
As Yue watched her cute homeroom teacher run off, she muttered, “Mmm... School really is fun. I see now why you wanted this life back, Hajime.”
“Er, well...”
This wasn’t exactly the peaceful school life Hajime had wished for, but he didn’t want to spoil Yue’s fun, so he didn’t say anything.
The two of them headed down the hall toward their classroom. As they reached the door, they could hear their classmates chatting happily inside. From the sound of it, everyone else was already here.
Hajime slid the door open, and the room fell silent. Finally, after a few seconds, someone laughed.
“Heh!”
“Ha ha ha ha!”
With the exception of a few students, all of Hajime’s classmates averted their gazes. It looked like they were all trying their best to hold in their laughter.
In the two weeks or so since school had started back up, this had happened basically every day.
“If you’ve got something you wanna say, then say it,” Hajime declared, frowning.
Ryutarou finally turned to him and said, “It’s just so weird seeing you in a uniform, Nagumo!”
At that, Atsushi Tamai, Noboru Aikawa, and Akito Nimura were unable to hold it in any longer and they burst out laughing. Ayako Tsuji, Mao Yoshino, and the other girls started laughing as well.
Most of his classmates were so used to Hajime’s appearance in Tortus that they’d long since forgotten how he’d originally looked. His white hair, eye patch, metal prosthetic arm, and edgy black coat had simply made for too striking a look. That was the Hajime Nagumo they knew, the Demon Lord they feared and respected. Had he just changed his appearance back to what it had been before getting summoned, they wouldn’t be laughing this much. But seeing him in a normal school uniform was just too much. It was surreal seeing the man who’d killed a god going to school like a normal kid. Half a month had passed and everyone still burst into fits of laughter when he entered the room every morning.
Kouki took pity on Hajime and tried to calm his classmates down.
“C-Come on, guys, there’s no need to laugh that much. It’s true that his old cosplay-tier outfit was—”
Hajime interrupted him with a gunshot, and Kouki fell out of his chair with a yelp. Thankfully, Hajime had only fired a rubber bullet. Now that he’d returned to civilized society, he knew it was important to use nonlethal force and to not cause any trouble. He’d developed plenty of “kind bullets” as he called them, which was why Kouki only fell out of his chair instead of having his brains splattered all over the floor. But even with his extremely sturdy Hero’s body, that bullet still hurt.
“Why’d you shoot me?! I was trying to help!” Kouki protested, getting back to his feet.
Hajime ignored him and glared at the rest of his classmates. The look in his eyes very clearly conveyed the words “You want a bullet to the forehead too?”
Everyone fell silent immediately.
“Hajime...control yourself,” Yue said.
“Hajime-san, weren’t you trying to become a model Japanese citizen? Or what, is this part of the manzai comedy routine I’ve heard so much about?”
“Hajime-kun, you’re going to start giving Shea the wrong idea, so put your gun away.”
“That’s not even the worst problem here. Also, Kaori, hurry up and heal Kouki. It looks like he’s still in a lot of pain.”
The three students who hadn’t been laughing at Hajime were Shea, Kaori, and Shizuku. They all tried to calm Hajime down, and he shrugged and put his mini-Donner away. As he did so, he surreptitiously checked on Shea’s uniform. If he took his eyes off her, she started shortening the length of her skirt or undoing buttons on her shirt. She was so used to wearing revealing clothing that she now did it unconsciously. Thankfully, it looked like she was wearing her uniform properly today. Her ears were properly hidden by an Artifact as well.
Hajime had made various types of accessories with the same effect for her, and it seemed today she’d picked a hairband. The hairband still had tiny rabbit ears on it, which Shea had demanded Hajime add. Honestly, they were very cute.
Hajime’s expression softened and he greeted everyone with a smile. His classmates warmly returned his greeting. They’d never trusted him this much before they’d all been summoned to Tortus.
As Hajime reached his desk, Shea, Yue, Kaori, and Shizuku all gathered around him. In truth, Kaori and Shizuku had spent a lot of time hanging around Hajime even before they’d been summoned, but now a vampire and a bunny girl had replaced Kouki and Ryutarou as the other two members of the “hangs around Hajime’s desk” group.
“I still can’t get used to this...” Shinji Nakano muttered.
“Tell me about it,” Yoshiki Saitou added.
They shot Kouki and Ryutarou sidelong glances, and the two of them smiled weakly back. It seemed they were also thinking the same thing.
Nana turned to Shinji and Yoshiki and said without any reservation, “Why not go back to bullying him like you used to?”
“You want us to die?”
“Please just forget all about that...” Shinji and Yoshiki shivered in fear.
“Daisuke was the only one who really hated him anyway, so—”
“Shinji, don’t,” Yoshiki said in a cautionary tone.
“Whoops!”
Shinji realized the whole classroom had gone silent and he hurriedly covered his mouth with his hands. There was one thing that could never return to normal. The four students who’d died in Tortus were never coming back. Their four empty seats were a stark reminder of that.
Of course, no one had forgotten their deaths, but also, no one wanted to bring them up if they could help it. The atmosphere grew dark as everyone tried to think of something to say, but couldn’t quite find the words.
“There’s no need to be like that,” Hajime said, confidently breaking the silence.
“It’s not like their deaths are a taboo subject. And if people wanna reminisce about them, I think that’s fine.”
“Er, I mean, yeah, but...”
“Kondou’s one thing, but...I mean, remember what happened when you went to tell the Hiyamas?” Yoshiki asked hesitantly, glancing over at Hajime. There was a surprising amount of concern in his expression. Shinji had the same look on his face.
However, Hajime just scoffed at their consideration.
“Don’t worry. I’m not upset about what happened there,” he said plainly.
“I guess not!” Shinji and Yoshiki said in unison. It was quite something hearing Hajime say that so resolutely while his harem of women was fawning over him. The two of them were, of course, referring to how Aiko and Hajime had gone to tell the families of Daisuke Hiyama, Reichi Kondou, Yukitoshi Shimizu, and Eri Nakamura that their children had died. And since Hajime had played a big part in Hiyama’s and Yukitoshi’s deaths, he’d felt it was irresponsible to leave everything to Aiko.