Chapter Five: I Washed the Kelp Myself

Honda noticed Hayato’s movement as he jostled the camera, and, sounding rather concerned, warned him, “Hey, Kobayashi, I had to ask Miho to lend us that. Handle it carefully and keep a good grip on it—don’t break it.”

“You’ve already started calling her Miho, huh? Looks like someone cares an awful lot about Nosaka,” Hayato said offhandedly, and with that one remark, Honda’s usually fierce-looking face went red, clearly having had his thoughts laid bare. “Oh, you’re blushing? Looks like you really don’t get it at all.”

For the moment, setting aside Honda, who was about to be humiliated in full, Jounouchi shook out his tired hand, grabbed Fujita by the collar, and demanded, “You bastard, I’ve never seen you at school before. Speak! What are you planning to do to Yugi?”

“I-I re-really ju-just wan-na do th-this, is all,” Fujita muttered, dazed from Jounouchi’s rough handling, his speech growing even more slurred. “If the di-director can do th-this, I can too...”

“The director?” Jounouchi frowned at Fujita’s mumbling. After a long moment, he barely managed to pick out one word, repeating it under his breath.

Before he could make sense of what kind of “director” Fujita was talking about, someone suddenly rose up from the grass nearby, cutting off Jounouchi’s train of thought. “Enough. Let him go.”

Jounouchi turned toward the voice, and his hand loosened unconsciously on Fujita’s collar. Fujita, not yet realizing what had happened, crashed heavily back to the ground with a pained yelp.

The director, wearing a baseball cap backward, stood up from the grass with a dark expression and said to the sprawled Fujita, “All right, all right. Good work, Fujita. You may stand down.”

“Director...” Fujita rubbed his backside, first glancing at the director’s face, then making sure Jounouchi had no intention of hitting him. At once, he scrambled to his feet and hurried back to the patch of grass beside the director.

“So you’re the director who’s planning to take Yugi down?” Jounouchi said, his brows knitting together, his fists cracking ominously as he clenched them—very much like a man who would strike the instant the director said something he did not like.

“Hmm. Don’t get so worked up, boy. I was originally planning to get your friend on television,” the director said with a gloomy smile.

“With fists and feet? That’s pretty damn good. Want me to give you the same treatment?” Hayato let Honda, who was every bit as awkward as he looked, off the hook and stepped forward with the camera to stand beside Jounouchi.

“Such a pity. I could have gotten some excellent material—‘A short boy bullied at school.’ I’m sure it would have drawn plenty of sympathy from the sentimental crowd. Shame you lot ruined it,” the director said with a sly grin, spreading his hands.

“But the material I’ve gathered now isn’t bad either. ‘A staff member goes undercover at a school and is bullied by delinquents.’ It won’t make as much money as my original plan, but if you lot suffer for it, that’s a pleasant bonus. Even if I earn a little less, I’ll still be satisfied.”

“What are you talking about?” Jounouchi could not make sense of the director’s words.

Hayato explained, “He means he was planning to make a program about school bullying. First he picked Yugi, and now he’s picked you. But if this episode airs, you, as the so-called bully, could very well be expelled, Jounouchi.”

“What?!” Anzu, who had just finished clarifying the situation to Yugi, was thoroughly shocked. “Didn’t the camera record what happened earlier? Yugi was the victim, and Jounouchi was only protecting him.”

“What an innocent little girl you are. There’s a little thing called editing, you know?” the director said with a mean-spirited smile. “With just a bit of simple manipulation, I can turn black into white and white into black. Honestly, you kids are so naive that bullying you gives no satisfaction at all.”

“You son of a—” Jounouchi angrily started to rush forward and punch the obnoxious director, but after only one step, the man suddenly stopped him. “Hey, hold it right there.”

“You’re the type who actually knows fear?”

“No, no, just a friendly reminder, kid.” The director wore an irritating grin as he strolled toward Jounouchi, pointing behind himself toward the cameraman. “The camera is still rolling. If you want to show your cruelty to the entire country, then by all means, hit me.”

Jounouchi glanced toward the cameraman. Just as the director had said, the camera was still on. If he struck the director now, he would only hand that obnoxious bastard more evidence.

Stopping right in front of Jounouchi, the director tapped his face with the crumpled paper tube in his hand. “Pretty angry, aren’t you, kid? That expression is exactly what I wanted—an expression that says you want to kill me but can’t. Hahaha—”

“Um, did you forget there are security cameras here?” Hayato, standing beside Jounouchi, looked at the director’s antics and put on the air of a bespectacled bookworm. “Security cameras record everything. Your crimes won’t escape the law.”

“That’s exactly why you kids are so adorably stupid,” the director said, casting Hayato a disdainful glance. “You think adults are as reckless as you brats, acting without thinking of the consequences? Naive. I checked out your school thoroughly before choosing this place. There isn’t a single camera here.”

“Oh, no cameras?”

The weak look vanished from Hayato’s face in an instant. He exchanged a glance with Jounouchi, and both of them wore strange smiles.

Jounouchi moved with lightning speed, driving a knee upward in a fierce strike. His hard kneecap slammed into the director’s soft abdomen, subduing the once-triumphant man in a single blow.

“No cameras, and you still had the nerve to act so high and mighty?!”

The instant Jounouchi struck, a figure sprinted out from behind him. The bullet-like shape of his hair announced his identity before he even arrived: Honda. Having fought alongside Jounouchi since middle school, he could guess what Jounouchi was thinking just from the angle of his backside.

No signal was needed. Honda rushed to Fujita, who had only just slipped free of Jounouchi’s grasp, and slapped him across the unharmed half of his face, helping to make it symmetrical.

The cameraman was starting to panic.

Wait, what? These students are not playing by the rules at all. Normally people try to avoid being caught on camera, but these guys are practically shoving evidence into the lens. What is this supposed to be?

Watching the director being pummeled by Jounouchi—“You bastard! Dammit! Bastard! Take this!”—and Fujita, whose collar Honda had seized while shaking him and shouting “Done already, done already,” the cameraman began thinking seriously about running.

Then, just at that moment, a hand landed on his shoulder.

With fear in his heart, the cameraman turned his head and saw Kobayashi Hayato’s rather “friendly” smile. “No need to rush off, camera man. Since you’ve come all this way to our school, you might as well solve a little problem before you go.”

“Question: what is one thousand minus seven?”