Learning to Live (Ayanokoji SI-Waifu Catalog) (Patreon)

Chapter 16

The rest of my date with Honami thankfully went without any more interruptions even if instead of a 5-star meal we had to settle for some food I had stashed in my Pocket Space that I had cooked before.

After finishing our meal, I had asked Honami to wait as I wanted to discuss something important with her and she was now sitting next to me as we cuddled in my bed.

“Honami there’s something I want to tell you, the last secret that I’ve been keeping from you until now.” I began idly running my hand down Honami’s long hair finding the act oddly soothing.

“Mmn okay. If you feel comfortable sharing that with me then I’ll be glad to listen Kiyotaka-kun~” Honami said in a pleased tone with her eyes closed clearly enjoying what I was doing.

“The thing is…”

I began recounting my story. How I had died once, been reincarnated and gifted power by something. How the Company operated from what I knew and how I was rewarded by completing missions or Stamping people for credits.

Of course, I was not foolish enough to tell her that the Stamp basically brainwashed everyone that was Stamped or that I could sell literal people to the Company like merchandise. That was just asking for trouble in the future.

Instead, I told her that in rare occasions certain individuals could connect with me on a deeper level if we were compatible. It was total bullshit of course but this was the first thing that popped into my mind that wouldn’t make Honami uncomfortable due to her nature.

At the end of it all, I was relieved that Honami hadn’t moved from my embrace throughout it all and waited patiently for her response.

“Kiyotaka-kun…you died before?” Honami suddenly asked in a whisper making me blink and look down noticing that she was looking up at me with tears in her eyes.

‘That’s what she got out of all of that?’ I thought with a raised eyebrow but nonetheless nodded my head a moment later.

As expected of her, she burst into tears and buried her head into my chest while gripping my shirt tightly. In return I brought her closer to my arms and gently ran my hand down her back in an attempt to sooth her.

Minutes later Honami finally stopped crying with her grip on me loosening a little bit.

“Your life is too sad Kiyotaka-kun, though I wonder if I’m a horrible person for being a bit glad that happened to you as it brought you here, to me.” Honami admitted sadly with her last words being nothing more than a small whisper.

“You’re not a horrible person Honami, in fact I myself am glad for my new life.” ‘It’s the one I chose after all.’ I whispered in return getting a nod from the girl before we stayed silent for the next few minutes in each other’s embrace.

“By the way Kiyotaka-kun, have you Stamped me yet?” Honami asked with a small sniffle using the back of her arm to wipe her face clean not sounding mad at all about asking such a thing.

“I didn’t have to.” I lied looking down at Honami teasingly making her blink in confusion.

“What do you mean?”

“When I receive a sincere love confession from someone, the Stamp applies automatically to the person and a bond is formed between them.” I revealed with my smile turning into a small grin when Honami suddenly gasped and blushed red.

“Eeep!” Honami squeaked in embarrassment covering her face with her hands and burying her head on my chest.

‘That’s right Honami, even if you don’t realize the full meaning yet. You’re completely mine now.’

=====

“Wooow~ So you mean we can access this house whenever we want?”

“This house is so pretty~”

“OMG, it even has a beautiful backyard~”

“We get service here?”

With Honami finally in the know, I had decided that I might as well tell everyone as well so a few hours later we got the girls together and I explained everything to them. Well, what I told Honami at least.

Like Honami, nobody had a problem with what I told them too busy feeling sorry for my backstory. Even the fact that all the present girls had feelings for me had not been too much of a problem other than a few jealous looks between some of them.

With all of them in the know, I invited them to my Sweet Home where I was immediately bombarded with questions by most of them as they beheld something supernatural with their own eyes further proving my words to them.

After exploring the house for a while, we now found ourselves in the living room having a talk about our upcoming test. I had told them a bit about the test but not everything with the only ones in the know being Arisu, Ichika and Kikyō.

“Kiyotaka-kun, did something happen between you and Ryuen-kun? He was really upset for some reason and kept muttering your name.” Hiyori’s sweet and soft voice asked me from her spot on my lap as she turned her head to look at me with those huge violet eyes of hers.

Since Hiyori was in another class, she was the one that spent the least amount of time with me so nobody said anything when she claimed my lap as her seat.

“You can say that.” I admitted and continued when Hiyori didn’t seem satisfied with just that. “He interrupted my date with Honami and was about to touch her without permission so I told him to leave.”

Hiyori blinked in understanding before nodding her head and turning forward again as she made herself comfortable in my arms again. “I understand. I won’t ask anything else.”

“Neh Kiyotaka, are you sure we can’t just sneak back in here during the evenings? I really don’t feel like sleeping in a tent.” Kei asked from my right side with a small pout.

I sighed as this was the third time, she had asked me that this evening. “Are you sure about that?” I decided to take another approach since she was rather stubborn.

“What do you mean? Of course, I’m sure.” Kei asked with her face scrunched cutely in confusion.

I just shook my head at her answer getting her to blink now seeming even more confused than before. “Then that means you’re okay with the other girls in class also finding out about this? Or the fact that once they do, they will want to come here as well and there aren’t enough rooms for all of you so you will have to share with others?”

Blinking in realization Kei only pouted and looked away from me before whispering in a low voice. “If that happens, I’ll just stay in your room then.” She said with her ears turning red in embarrassment.

“I guess that’s true.” I relented somewhat making Kei turn in my direction again with a smile creeping up on her face so I decided to rain on her parade even if what she said appealed greatly to me. “The only problem is that I won’t be able to sneak out without the other guys noticing my absence.”

“Hmph, who cares about them.” Kei went back to pouting again. “Can’t you just cast an illusion or something to make it seem like you never left?”

“Doesn’t work like that.” I shook my head. “I would personally have to be present there to keep the illusion going and at the moment I don’t have enough mana to cast long lasting illusions.”

My words only caused Kei to pout harder as she buried her head on my shoulder silently asking me to pamper her.

“It would have been nice.” Airi who had taken my left side said in a quiet whisper as she let out a sigh in disappointment before blushing when she noticed I had heard her.

“Fufufu, I guess this means we better make the best use of our time then, right Kiyotaka-kun?” Arisu said rather suggestively making all the other girls blush in response before they looked at one another silently for a few moments and seemed to come to an agreement.

“Umm sorry to interrupt but are we really just going to gloss over the fact that there’s a literal alien girl just eating ice cream like it’s a normal occurrence?” Tsubasa interrupted with a deadpan not being able to hide the small blush on her cheeks at the current topic of discussion.

As one we turned to look at Matsu who was doing her best to put away a big bucket of ice cream by herself while looking at us with a massive grin on her face.

“Oh, don’t mind Matsu~” Matsu waved her hand at us unconcernedly.  “I’m actually enjoying this. It’s like one those soap operas that I watched this morning hihihi.”

“Oh yeah…”

=====

(Next Morning)

We had just finished disembarking from the cruise ship and were now going over the only items we had been allowed for our stay on the island while we listened to Sae listing off the rules a bit away from us.

Suddenly a new voice caught our attention as the form of Chie Hoshinomiya came into view with her currently hugging Sae from the back.

“There you are Sae-chan~ You’ve been so happy with your new class lately that I rarely get to see you anymore.” Chie complained with an exaggerated pout on her face.

“Let go.” Sae ordered with a small frown on her face but was summarily ignored as Chie was now looking in our direction with her eyes coming to a stop when she spotted me.

Then moving faster than I thought she would for the normal drunkard, she came to a stop in front of me and grabbed ahold of both of my hands with a huge smile on her face.

“Wow~ Those pictures really don’t do you any justice Ayanokōji-kun~” Chie commented while looking me up and down.

“Pictures?” I asked with a raised eyebrow curiously seeing my girls suddenly look away from me.

“Say Ayanokōji-kun? How would you like transfer over to my class? I promise I’ll treat you much better than Sae-chan does~” Chie ignored my question and tried to flirt with me instead.

“Stop flirting with my student.” Sae finally stepped in and lightly hit Chie on the head with the clipboard she was holding getting the brown-haired woman to finally release me with a small pout.

“Mou, Sae-chan you meanie. I was just trying to improve my relationship with Ayanokōji-kun.” Chie turned and gave Sae an angry frown appearing truly upset at having been interrupted.

“You have your own class to attend to, so please leave.” Likewise, Sae really seemed like she didn’t want Chie here.

I just stood back and watched the exchange in confusion as they had never acted like this in canon. ‘Wait, could this be because of me?’

“Hey Kiyotaka, is it just me or do those two, look ready to tear into each other?” I heard Kei ask quietly from beside me also looking at the scene in confusion. “I’ve never seen Chabashira-sensei act this way before, have you?”

“No, it’s not just you.” I said looking back at the confrontation with curiosity. “To be honest I never knew she had this side of her either.”

“Well, whatever.” Kei dismissed the scene then with a casual shrug of her shoulders and grabbed ahold of my arm. “Come on, everyone is waiting for your opinion on whether or not we should spend any points to make our week more comfortable here.” Kei then pulled me along to our other classmates leaving the arguing duo behind us.

In the end we ended up using our budget to get an extra boys’ tent, a barbecue grill and a cooking pot worth 60 points. At the request of my girls, I had used Toggle to make sure that every girl was covered under the effects of Time-Savers so I wasn’t surprised when only a few girls complained about spending points on a portable toilet.

Next came the discussion of choosing a leader which we were still currently talking about as we made our way into the island.

“I think Kiyotaka-kun is the best choice for a leader. He’s the most mature and responsible one out of all of us if you ask me.” Maya Sato said with a chirp in her voice as she sent me a flirty smile.

“I agree. Kiyotaka seems like the best choice.” Tsubasa was quick to agree with her with a firm nod of her head.

“Ahem, while I feel flattered by your words, I feel that choosing me for a leader would be too obvious as by now the whole school knows my relationship with Honami.” I interrupted the current discussion when it looked like nobody was going to protest against that decision.

“That… Hmm I guess you have a point Kiyotaka-kun.” Chiaki said after thinking about it a little more. “Do you have any opinions on who the leader might be?”

Her question grabbed everyone’s attention and were now looking at me for my input.

Thinking about it for a moment I turned towards Tsubasa and made my decision. Then making sure nobody was within sight I called everyone to huddle up for a bit more privacy.

“Tsubasa. I believe Tsubasa should be the leader as nobody would suspect her and even beyond that she is someone that has my full trust.” I said offering the now blushing blonde a small smile.

“If Kiyotaka-kun thinks so then I agree too.” Maya said with a small cheer.

“Me too.” Kei was quick to agree too as she took possession of one of my arms.

“I t-think so too.” Airi said.

“You know best I guess Ayanon.” Haruka said with a small shrug of her shoulders.

Looking around nobody seemed to have a problem with that so Sudo was chosen to run back to sensei and inform her of our decision while we made our way to the camping spot we would be staying at for the week. Since Ike was in Class-C in this timeline it fell to me and my Wild Talent to take the lead in this situation.

It didn’t take me very long to find a good spot by the river where we immediately got to work on setting up our tents. When we were done, Sudo returned and we immediately claimed the spot for ourselves.

Then small groups were made in order to go scavenging for any fruits or food that could be found around the area. I used that opportunity to call over Tsubasa with the excuse to go and collect dry branches to light up the grill and cooking pot.

Once we were far enough away from the group, I decided to put my plan in action but before I could do so I was beaten to the punch by Tsubasa as she suddenly called my name.

“Hey Kiyotaka…?”

Blinking at her sudden change in tone I turned to look at the blonde girl to find her facing down with her bangs covering her face.

“What is it Tsubasa?”

“… Did I do something wrong? Did I maybe anger you somehow?” Tsubasa asked with a low voice sounding sad.

“Of course not. Why would you even think that?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Well, we haven’t had movie night in a while now and I was wondering if perhaps I was the cause of that.” Tsubasa explained sadly looking off to the side.

‘Oh, that’s right. We used to do movie night every Friday but a bit after starting school that stopped because I was too busy planning or hanging out with someone else.’

“Sorry about that Tsubasa, with everything that occurred once we arrived at school it completely slipped my mind.” I apologized sincerely.

“Don’t worry though, since things have finally settled down, I should have more than enough time to enjoy watching our shows.” I reassured the girl actually looking forward to it as well as it was one of the hobbies I actually enjoyed.

“Really? That’s great!” Tsubasa asked excitedly before cheering quietly to herself when I nodded my head.

“To be honest, I’m also looking forward to having movie night again. Especially since we now have somewhere private where we can relax.” I said with my eyes closed truly meaning what I said.

“That’s right! We can use your home huh?” Tsubasa recalled with her smile increasing in size sounding like an eager puppy.

Before I could make a teasing remark of how much she reminded me of a puppy I suddenly winced and held my cheek as I felt a branch hit me in the face. “Ow.”

“Hihihi so even after obtaining superpowers something like that can still happen to you huh? That’s actually strangely reassuring.” Tsubasa giggled at me before giving me a soft smile.

“Of course, it can. I have never and will never consider myself perfect.” I said with a shake of my head only getting the blonde to smile wider.

“I’m glad.” Tsubasa whispered softly before surprising me by leaning up on her toes and giving me a small kiss on the lips and quickly retreating, turning her head away from me.

“A-anyway, we should finish with our task.” She said skipping ahead with her head still facing the ground.

Blinking at her bold action I smiled a moment later and got to work as well.

Heading back to the clearing I pretended not to notice when a slim hand reached into my pocket and pulled out the leader card, I had managed to get Tsubasa to hand over for safekeeping. I also did my best to ignore how said hand also shamelessly felt my junk for a moment and even pinching my butt before it retreated.

‘I’ll get her for that later.’ I thought with a slightly twitching eyebrow hearing the almost silent giggle coming from the cheeky girl as she finally left.

“Did you hear anything Kiyotaka?” Tsubasa asked looking around herself in slight caution.

“Sorry, I didn’t.” I apologized with a shrug off my shoulders acting like I didn’t hear anything.

“I see, must’ve been my imagination then.”

Turning my gaze forward again I felt a small smirk form on my face when I noticed Mio Ibuki leaning against a tree not too far from our location with some bruises on her face.

‘Let the games begin.’