Hospitality Comes with a Soufflé 9
“I also noticed Satomi-san and Saito-san haven’t been going home together as much. Well, I thought maybe Saito-san was just busy with the student council.”
“You really keep an eye on your classmates, huh? That’s kind of creepy.”
“What!? I thought it was perfectly normal!?”
Miki, with her arms crossed, looked on with a chilly gaze, and Shōhei seemed a bit shocked.
“Well, I don’t care about Kikuchi. More importantly, what were you guys planning to do now?”
“A study session!”
Chika proudly taps the surface of her notebook in response to her friend’s question.
“The midterms are coming up soon, right? This time, I thought I’d try my best to study with Sōma-san.”
“Did you get good grades, Ichinose?”
“I have my strengths and weaknesses, but I’m usually in the middle.”
Sōma is relatively good at math and science, but his poor English and Japanese keep dragging him down, often resulting in just average grades.
“If your grades are just average, wouldn’t it be more efficient to study with me rather than with Ichinose?”
“Miki-chan is too efficient.”
When the top student pointed to herself, Chika looked troubled, and her face clouded over.
“I end up knowing exactly what’s going to be on the test when Miki-chan teaches me. It feels like I’m cheating somehow, like I haven’t really done it myself.”
“You still want to study with Ichinose even though you know you’d get better grades studying with me…?”
“Yes.”
As Chika nodded slightly, Miki’s face contorted with a sadness that looked almost like she was about to cry, but she quickly composed herself.
“Understood. Then, I’ll just watch. Pretend I’m not here and do your best, you two.”
“Yes! I’ll do my best!”
“Guess we have no choice but to study, huh.”
She spread out her textbooks and notebooks on the table, preparing to study.
“Shōhei, are you going to study for the test too?”
“I’ll pass. I’m the type who can only get motivated to study at night.”
Shōhei, having promptly declined the invitation, looked around the room, glancing here and there,
“Saito-san, should we play a game or something?”
This chapt𝓮r is updat𝒆d by ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom.
As if he owned the place, he pulled out a game console from under the TV stand without waiting for permission.
“That’s fine, but what do you have? Please, nothing too difficult. I only ever play console games with my Onii-chan.”
“Most of the games Sōma has are FPS or TPS. If it’s something the two of us can play… maybe a fighting game?”
“Invite a girl to play fighting games? Well, that’s fine.”
Miki grumbles but still takes the controller in hand.
“Which character should I choose? It’s been a while, maybe Honda?”
“Then, I’ll pick this strong-looking wrestler.”
“Zangief is hard to use, you know?”
“He looks like he has high attack power.”
“That’s true, but don’t complain if it becomes one-sided, okay?”
(TN: Street Fighter.)
The match starts with Shōhei looking a little troubled.
Sōma secretly thought while gripping his mechanical pencil, ‘I hope it doesn’t end with Shōhei’s overwhelming victory.’
Shōhei is quite good at games. When it comes to fighting games, he is overwhelmingly better than Sōma.
The outcome seemed obvious with Shōhei’s strong character against a weak character controlled by a girl who only plays games when hanging out with her brother (ani).
However, what actually unfolded was the scene of Shōhei’s character being slammed overhead to the ground over and over again.
“What..?”
Staring at the TV screen displaying 『K.O』, Shōhei stood dumbfounded.
“I’m really good with the screw piledriver move. It deals a lot of damage, right? If I land two or three hits, I can win, so it’s efficient.”
“You mastered Zangief with that kind of logic? That makes no sense.”
Shōhei looked at her as if he was seeing something unbelievable while Miki casually explained while clicking the controller.
“What now? Keep going?”
“Of course! No more holding back. I’ll use the Tier 1 grandpa and show you!” (TN: Maybe Gouken from Street Fighter.)
“I’ll crush you.”
Sōma started to get antsy as he watched their exchange.
He owns this game. Yet here they are, having the ultimate showdown without him.
He feels it would be a disgrace to his reputation as the owner of this game if he was left out of the game.
“Wait, wait, wait. Let me have a go too.”
He’s about to throw his mechanical pencil and join them but is stopped by Chika.
“No, you can’t. Sōma-san, you’re with me.”
“Come on, just one match.”
“But you said you’d have a study session with me, remember?”
“I said it, but…”
He tried to gently reach for the controller, but his hand was smacked away.
“…won’t you go along with what I want to do…?”
The eyes staring back at him are starting to well up with tears.
Seeing that, he hurriedly grabbed his mechanical pencil again.
“Alright, I get it. My bad, let’s study.”
Sōma was entirely to blame. It would have been bad if she started to cry.
“Should we start with classical literature? I’ve forgotten what we did in the first semester.”
“Got it—”
As instructed, he opened his classical literature textbook and notebook and began studying for the test.
Meanwhile, the match between Shōhei and Miki is heating up.
“What, you can pull me from that distance? That’s insane.”
“Just barely. The feeling of hitting the screw move is so good that I’ve practiced it so I can gauge the distance where I can pull the opponent.”
“You’re really getting into this game.”
At first, Miki was overwhelming, but as Shōhei regained his instincts, he gradually started to fight back, eventually reaching a point where the match became even.
Shōhei skillfully dodged the barrage of flying techniques while Miki tried to grab him. Not letting that happen, Shōhei countered with a series of quick kicks from his guard to shake her off.
It was a heated battle.
Sōma, who had intended to study, found his gaze increasingly drawn to the two’s match.