After Transmigrating to Become Lady Skylark - Chapter 67

Chapter 67

The next morning, when Jin Chaoyan woke up to prepare for school, she knocked on the door of the room she had prepared for Fon the night before. The door was ajar, and the room was empty, but a thank-you note saying “Thank you for the hospitality” had been left on the table.

Unable to continue spending time with the cute infant, and seeing that Hibari seemed to have already left the house, she had no choice but to head to school alone, feeling rather regretful.

When she arrived at the classroom, she saw her classmates lively discussing the opening ceremony of the sports meet in the afternoon. On every student’s desk lay a registration form for the sports meet events. Jin Chaoyan belatedly remembered that Hibari had told the education office to move the sports meet forward yesterday—

He actually made it happen.

She walked to her seat and looked at the form for a while, finding that every student was required to sign up for at least one individual event and one team event, with no upper limit. If one wished, they could sign up for everything they liked.

After thinking it over, Jin Chaoyan signed up for the high jump and the 100-meter sprint for her individual events. Just as she was about to randomly check a team relay race, she saw a “Pole Toppling” competition printed below, which seemed to be a mandatory entry.

She tapped the back of the boy in front of her with the cap of her pen. “Excuse me, I’d like to ask…”

“Yes! Please give me your orders!” The boy stood up at light speed and bowed to her, responding loudly without raising his head.

“…” Jin Chaoyan gave a helpless smile. “I just wanted to ask, what is this Pole Toppling competition? Does everyone have to participate?”

“Yes, it is a traditional event of Namimori Middle School’s sports meet. The rules are to randomly divide the entire school into groups. Each group selects a ‘Pole Guardian’ captain to stand atop a long pole, and then selects 75 students below. Some students in the inner circle hold the pole steady, while students in the outer circle are responsible for launching attacks on other groups by any means necessary. When the captain falls from the top of the pole and both feet touch the ground, it is judged as a defeat.”

Jin Chaoyan: So it’s an infinite battle royale?

No wonder Namimori’s school spirit was so fierce and there were always thugs or sports students like Mochida who resorted to violence at the drop of a hat; even the sports meet had such team violence events?

“Thank you for the explanation, sorry to trouble you.”

Having had her horizons broadened, she checked the ordinary 4x100m relay. When she was about to submit the form, she noticed that near Tsunayoshi Sawada’s seat a short distance away, Hayato Gokudera was sporting a small braid and glasses, offering Tsunayoshi Sawada advice on event selection with a gentle demeanor.

—Quite different from the irritable state he was in when he lost his temper at Fon yesterday afternoon.

Jin Chaoyan couldn’t help but look twice.

This look revealed that when the morning teacher called on Tsunayoshi Sawada to answer a question, he was actually able to stumble through his logic and the correct answer, surprising everyone. After sitting down, Tsunayoshi Sawada looked toward Hayato Gokudera with relief and received a nod of approving encouragement.

She rested her chin in her hand and pondered for a moment. Suddenly, she saw Yuni, who had temporarily transferred in, smile at her from nearby, raising a hand to quietly make a “shh” gesture. Her beautiful sky-blue eyes and the five-petaled gold flower mark under her left eye gave off a warm feeling.

Jin Chaoyan nodded and returned an “OK” gesture, no longer minding the Vongola kids who were acting a bit strange today.

During the lunch break.

Jin Chaoyan walked familiarly toward the Reception Room, bringing out the lunch box she had carried from home to heat up. Thinking about participating in the sports meet in the afternoon, she was curious whether Hibari would participate in such a large-scale school gathering. To her surprise, when she turned around, she saw him staring at the lunch box in her hand.

“Where is my portion?”

Leaning by the window and interacting with Hibird, the youth looked up calmly. After several consecutive days of rain, the sky today was exceptionally clear, and even the wind blowing through the window was cool, slightly fluttering the black hair on his forehead, letting the deep blue of the horizon fall into his eyes.

“Ah?” Jin Chaoyan blinked. “You want to eat too? But this is leftover from the many dishes I made last night. I thought you didn’t seem to like that Chinese meal very much, so I didn’t bring any. If you want it—”

“Forget it.”

Hearing it was leftovers from yesterday’s dinner, Kyoya Hibari lost interest and turned his gaze away. “Tell the Vice-Chairman to go buy me a hamburger.”

“How about packing some sushi? You’ve eaten so many hamburgers…” As Jin Chaoyan walked to the door, she still couldn’t figure out how this brat managed to maintain such good skin while eating fast-food hamburgers every day, and how he managed to grow so tall ten years later.

Is the protagonist’s halo really that unreasonable?

Kyoya Hibari nodded. “As you wish.”

Seeing him change his mind, Jin Chaoyan pulled open the door and walked into the hallway, easily finding Tetsuya Kusakabe waiting at the corner. She troubled him to go to the Take-Sushi shop to help pack some sushi. When he asked which flavors to get, she thought for a bit. “Tuna sushi, I guess. And I remember there’s an ice cream shop nearby; you can pack a matcha red bean flavored Uji Kintoki as well.”

“I’ll go right now,” Tetsuya Kusakabe sighed with relief. “It’s lucky Miss Jin is here. Aside from hamburgers, the Chairman’s tastes are very hard to guess.”

“Eh?”

Jin Chaoyan pointed at herself. She belatedly realized that the Tetsuya Kusakabe in front of her was not yet the all-around right-hand man who had followed Kyoya Hibari for many years in the future. At this moment, she couldn’t help but feel a bit of a strange sensation.

The Tetsuya Kusakabe from ten years later had told her many of Kyoya Hibari’s lifestyle habits and details, allowing her to barely coexist with him under one roof. But as time reversed, it was now her turn to tell Tetsuya Kusakabe.

Thinking that this was likely the last time she would visit the world of ten years ago, Jin Chaoyan gave Tetsuya Kusakabe a few extra instructions beyond just his tastes—reminding him to tell Hibari to add clothes during the changing of seasons, trying not to let him go out on rainy days, and remembering to persuade him to bandage up after getting injured.

Tetsuya Kusakabe listened very seriously, but after she finished, he spoke with hesitation:

“Miss Jin, I can remember these things, but… the Chairman is not easy to persuade. Since you are here, in the future, you should—”

“I won’t be here forever.”

Jin Chaoyan interrupted him quite impolitely, which was rare for her. While Tetsuya Kusakabe looked surprised and his expression shifted as he guessed at her meaning, she didn’t elaborate. She simply thought about how she was the only one appearing in all the parallel worlds Yuni mentioned. She let out a long breath and earnestly entreated the Vice-Chairman:

“His temper is indeed not very good right now, so please bear with him. But after you’ve spent more time with him in the future, you’ll find that he’s actually quite cute.”

Otherwise, in the world ten years later, how could Tetsuya Kusakabe have become his right-hand man?

Tetsuya Kusakabe: “…?”

Was the word “cute” a hallucination?

“In short, Mr. Kusakabe will be a very important person in his life. Please do your best.” Speaking of which, Jin Chaoyan still felt that Kyoya Hibari’s life might not change much without a wife, but without a Kusakabe who was so convenient to order around, his quality of life would most likely decline.

Considering the bratty Chairman had looked after her so many times, she would help him win over this future best assistant in advance.

“What took you so long?”

By the time she brought the heated lunch box back, Hibird was nowhere to be seen. The youth in the old uniform sat on the sofa and turned his head to ask this question.

“I accidentally got caught up in a conversation. Are you hungry? Why don’t you eat some of mine first, and then eat your lunch when Mr. Kusakabe returns?” Jin Chaoyan handed over her lunch box, but it was refused.

She was also embarrassed to eat first, so she sat down at a bit of a distance. Thinking about the sports meet from earlier, she asked enthusiastically, “By the way, are you participating in the sports meet?”

“No.”

An expected answer.

The woman was not discouraged. She raised her hand to brush aside her somewhat long bangs, revealing the obvious Strength of a Hundred Seal mark on her forehead. The diamond mark was like a gemstone, complementing her eyes of the same color. She spoke up again with a smile:

“But I think that ‘Pole Toppling’ competition looks very interesting. Have you played it before?”

“Mhm.” Kyoya Hibari remembered the competition held last year. At that time, in order to clash again with the infant beside Tsunayoshi Sawada, he had rarely taken the field at the sports meet. Unfortunately, the opposition’s strength was pathetic—they even had internal strife. In the end, he won without even making a move. Thus, he responded in a flat tone: “Very boring.”

But thinking that the woman had specifically mentioned this, he turned his gaze toward her, his gray-blue eyes showing a hint of a smile. “You’re interested?”

“A little.”

After Jin Chaoyan answered, she was startled by her own response. She suspected she had been by his side for too long and had been a bit infected; she was actually so interested in these violent activities… how terrifying.

Thinking of her weapon’s range and effects, the youth—who originally had no interest in large-scale herbivore gatherings—pondered for a moment and curled the corner of his lips. “I can play along with you.”

Anyway, he hadn’t had his fill in Choice, and that so-called First Generation trial didn’t provide enough combat to satisfy him. Trading a few moves with this woman would be a decent way to kill time.

Jin Chaoyan: “?”

Her smile froze instantly.

She stared blankly at Kyoya Hibari, wanting to ask him: Do you know how miserably I was trained by you in the training room the last time you said that?

She wanted to play with the Namimori Middle School students, but she didn’t want to play with him!

“I… suddenly don’t seem to want to participate that much anymore…” Jin Chaoyan squeezed the words out slowly and deliberately, hoping he would understand what she was trying to express.

“Hmm?”

The boy raised an eyebrow. Although his expression was one of slightly clear pleasure, no one would think it a wise choice to refuse him at this moment.

She raised her hand to tug at the sleeve of the black uniform draped over his shoulders, shaking it gently. “Kyoya, you know you’re very strong. You won’t find any pleasure in participating in a competition of this level. So, how about leaving this kind of low-level joy to others?”

Acting spoiled again.

Kyoya Hibari looked at her with a half-smile. After a while, he suddenly responded, “Jin Chaoyan, the rules of the game are that touching the ground with both feet counts as a loss, not being bitten to death by me.”

Hmm?

Eh?

So his meaning was that he wouldn’t go on a killing spree in an ordinary sports meet game?

Jin Chaoyan thought about the long-range attack effects of her weapon and caught a glimpse of the [Shunpo] (Flash Step) in the shop that was a bit cheap today. She felt she could stand tall again, and the light of hope reappeared in her eyes. “Then… then it’s not impossible to play together?”

She suddenly got excited, even starting to “double the joy”: “Then are there any rewards or punishments for winning or losing?”

Rarely seeing her so confident, Kyoya Hibari responded in a quite good mood, “What do you want?”

“For example, if you lose—”

Jin Chaoyan was delighted by her own imagination, unable to control the corners of her lips from curling upward wildly. “How about you call me ‘Sister’?”

“…Wow.”

The youth smiled slightly, his voice carrying a sigh of wonder: “You certainly dare to think.”

Feeling like he was going to pull out his tonfas the next second, Jin Chaoyan instantly stood up from the sofa and retreated several steps. “It—It’s because you asked me that I said it. Besides, game stakes have to be a bit stimulating to be interesting, right?”

“Fine.”

To her surprise, Kyoya Hibari did not take out his weapons. He remained sitting peacefully on the sofa and even nodded, accepting her ridiculous “dream” request.

However, the youth quickly changed his tone, the corners of his lips curving up even more as a smile reached his eyes. He said slowly:

“But I won’t lose.”

“As for you, if you lose, you have to stay with me for a satisfying fight, hmm?”

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