Chapter 9

Classmate is of the Koi to Yobu ni wa Kimochi Warui manga series.

Plot
Tit's gym class and the boys are talking about who's the cutest girl in class. One of them asks Kai Tamaru what he thinks. But the latter wasn't paying attention to the conversation. Nevertheless, the conversation switches to Rio Amakusa's brother, Ryō Amakusa, who the boys point out has come to the cultural festival.

A ball hits Kai in the face out of nowhere, and the one who threw is Ichika Arima. She immediately apologizes. The boy stands up and hands Ichika the ball. She scurries away to her friends. Meanwhile, Kai's friends can't stop laughing at the funny incident.

Later that day, Ichika walks into a classroom and finds Kai reading a book. It seems that Ichika forgot her lunch box. She takes a peek at Kai's hands and notices that he's holding a book from her favorite series, Forward World. Ichika becomes a total otaku and starts telling him all about the series.

Suddenly, Kai asks Ichika if she's dating Rio's brother. The question paralyzes her. Kai explains that he saw Ichika and Ryō hugging each other passionately during the cultural festival. Ichika is quite embarrassed that someone saw her and Ryō. But she recovers and harshly and loudly says to Kai that she and Ryō are not dating and explains what happened at the stairwell. Kai apologizes for the misunderstanding, and Ichika says she's sorry for raising her voice.

Kai says to Ichika that it would be better to not take Ryō so seriously. That it looked -what happened at the stairwell - was Ryō just teasing her. Ichika is a bit stunned by this revelation. However, Kai dismisses it. With that, they bid farewell. Ichika can't help but think what Kai told her, that Ryō was just teasing her.

Characters

 * Ichika Arima
 * Ryō Amakusa
 * Rio Amakusa
 * Kai Tamaru
 * Satsuki