Chapter 31: The Hongmen Banquet
"Really?"
Hiratsuka Shizuka turned her head, looking at him suspiciously.
"Don't think you can just register with some ghost club in name only. I'll check attendance."
"Don't worry. Absolutely legitimate. Legal and compliant."
Kazama Chiba raised three fingers in an oath, though mentally he was thinking about exploiting loopholes in the rules or simply founding a one-person club himself.
"Fine. I'll trust you this once."
Hiratsuka Shizuka breathed a sigh of relief. She patted Kazama Chiba's shoulder with such force she nearly knocked him to his knees.
"Then that's settled. Oh, one more thing."
"Free tonight?"
"No. I need to go home and do homework. Also help an old lady cross the street."
Kazama Chiba answered decisively.
But Hiratsuka Shizuka clearly wasn't buying it.
"Stop making excuses. Tonight I have a dinner engagement, and you must come."
"Dinner engagement?"
Kazama Chiba retreated half a step warily.
"Sensei, though I know you've been single for a long time and might feel lonely, I'm still a minor. Teacher-student romance violates professional ethics. And honestly, I'm not really into the older woman type—"
"Shut up!"
A clear vein popped on Hiratsuka Shizuka's forehead.
"Who wants a teacher-student romance with you?! It's Kaguya-sensei! Ougihoshi Kaguya!"
She rolled her eyes at him irritably.
"Tonight she's treating. Says it's to celebrate starting her new position and thank me for showing her around the school. She specifically asked for you to come too. Says she wants to better understand the 'problem children' in her class."
Ougihoshi Kaguya...
Hearing that name, the alarms in Kazama Chiba's brain instantly maxed out—volume comparable to an air raid siren. He instinctively resisted:
"Seriously, sensei?"
"Why would a dinner between two thirty-something single women need an underage high school boy?"
Before he finished speaking—
Hiratsuka Shizuka's signature iron fist had already risen halfway.
Kazama Chiba's expression remained blank as he immediately corrected himself:
"What I mean is, why would two eternally eighteen, endlessly youthful, beauty-and-wisdom-incarnate young ladies like Kaguya-sensei and Hiratsuka-sensei invite me to ruin the atmosphere on such a wonderful evening?"
"Hahahaha! You little punk, quite the smooth talker!"
Hiratsuka Shizuka lowered her hand, the killing intent on her face instantly dissipating, replaced by an embarrassed silly grin from being flattered.
She slapped Kazama's back forcefully.
"Kaguya-sensei actually cares about you a lot."
"You being able to transfer from your original class to mine so quickly—that's all thanks to Kaguya-sensei voluntarily approving it. Otherwise, following school procedures, this kind of cross-grade transfer application would take at least half a month. She personally went to the director and said 'This child really doesn't fit in my class. For his development, it's better if he goes to Hiratsuka-sensei's class.' That's what got it done."
"So you see, she helped you out this much. You must attend this dinner. Not going means disrespecting me and being ungrateful."
Hearing this, Kazama Chiba grew even more confused.
That woman actually voluntarily let him go—what's going on? Wasn't she targeting him?
Something doesn't add up.
If she wanted to keep him under surveillance, she should have refused the transfer by any means necessary, keeping him in her own class where she could watch him during every lesson. That would be the safest approach.
Could I be flattering myself? Maybe she doesn't care about me at all?
Thinking this, Kazama Chiba said:
"Fine. I'll go. Where and when?"
"That's more like it."
Hiratsuka Shizuka nodded with satisfaction and sent him a location pin from her phone.
"Seven PM tonight, at that Tsukuyomi izakaya near school. Don't be late. If you make Kaguya-sensei wait, I'll beat you up."
With that, she waved her hand dashingly and click-clacked away in her heels.
Leaving Kazama Chiba standing alone in the gradually darkening hallway, staring at the location pin on his phone screen with a complicated expression.
"Hey."
A tiny voice emerged from his pocket.
That yellow plushie that had been playing dead finally poked out half its head.
"Are you crazy? That woman definitely has issues! She's treating you to dinner? I think she wants to eat us! In the physical sense!"
"Obviously."
Kazama Chiba stuffed his phone back in his pocket, casually pressing that nosy creature back down.
"Am I blind? Isn't this obviously a Hongmen Banquet? If I go and come out unscathed, I'll write my name backwards."
"What banquet?"
Kerberos paused. As a foreign lion, it clearly had trouble digesting such sophisticated vocabulary.
Kazama Chiba explained: "It means they're openly telling you there's a trap ahead, but you still have to jump in."
"Then you still agreed?!"
Kerberos spun in circles anxiously inside the pocket.
"Let's run! Right now! Buy standing-room train tickets tonight and leave Kamimizu City! Go to the countryside! Even farming is better than suicide!"
Kazama Chiba leaned against the windowsill, watching Hiratsuka Shizuka's figure sprinting toward the school gate below.
"If this is a trap targeting me, why specifically invite Hiratsuka Shizuka along?"
"Huh?"
Kerberos froze.
Kazama Chiba's fingers tapped lightly on the windowsill.
"If it's a trap targeting us, if she wants to confront me or attack, wouldn't calling me to some deserted place be more convenient?"
"Right! That violent female teacher might be fierce, but she's completely ordinary! Calling her along just gets in the way, doesn't it?"
"Because she's a hostage."
Kazama Chiba's voice turned cold.
"That woman called Ougihoshi Kaguya calculated correctly. Though I'm a self-interested person, though I don't want to cause trouble, I won't stand by while an innocent person who helped me gets dragged into this."
"If I don't go tonight, the next person she 'cares about' might be Hiratsuka Shizuka."
"Hiss..."
Kerberos sucked in a cold breath.
"That woman... so devious! So despicable! So... so terrifying!"
"But do we really have to march to our deaths?"
"If you don't go, Hiratsuka Shizuka dies. If you go, we might die. This is also a trolley problem!"
"Marching to death isn't quite it."
Kazama Chiba turned and headed toward the stairs.
"In that kind of public venue, and with Hiratsuka Shizuka present, she most likely won't attack directly. At most it'll be verbal probing or psychological pressure."
"She's enjoying this process—enjoying watching us struggle on her chessboard."
"Sigh..."
Kazama Chiba let out a long sigh.
"If I were a beast like you, it'd be so much easier. Mainly, I wouldn't have all this psychological burden."
"..."
Silence from the pocket for a few seconds.
Then came Kerberos's voice.
"Hey! Why do I feel like you're insulting me?! And I'm a divine beast! A Beast of the Seal! Not just some beast!"