A Book Can't Be Judged By The Cover Chapter 18: What Proof?

"Oi, Haji!"

The voice ca from none other than gumi, who unexpectedly rushed into Akamine-sensei’s office with soone in tow. Her countenance plainly relayed that she was slightly irritated or sowhere between those lines. Her eyes were directly aid at Haji, who was sitting by the corner of the room. She didn’t even notice the people who were in the room with Haji— the parents, the college students, and even the principal.

"Why didn’t you wake up? I missed all my morning classes because of you," gumi sighed before drowsily scratching her neck. She yawned, then her eyes suddenly shot wide open after she realized what she had just done.

"Hey, kid!" One of the dads interrupted. "I told you to take responsibility!" He didn’t dare attack Haji though, since he knew that either his horoom teacher or the principal would gladly step out to block him. Besides, he was also afraid that what their children recounted was wrong, and they might be digging their own holes themselves during the eting.

"I tried waking you up, you were sleeping really deeply though," Haji whispered under his breath as gumi’s sleepiness seed to slightly disappear. She gasped, realizing that Haji wasn’t alone in the room and that she just interrupted a eting. Embarrassnt kicked in, and gumi had the urge to shield her face and run away.

However, she imdiately recognized the college students who were in the room and she instantaneously pieced the entire situation together. The eting was likely about the incident three days ago, where they attacked Haji due to so grudge they harbored against him... or maybe they just wanted a little bit of fun. Either way, gumi knew that she was a key witness to the entire situation so she wanted to sit in on the eting.

A commotion ensued once again, however, as the parents started blabbering to gumi about how Haji attacked their children and beat them to a pulp. gumi was dumbfounded as she had witnessed the entire thing, and that their accusations were through the roof. Akamine-sensei also noticed that the parents were getting out of hand. What started as a eting for both parties to reach the middle ground beca one-sided harassnt aid solely at Haji who composedly kept quiet despite their biting remarks.

The biting remarks then transitioned to insults as if their tongues were wild animals on a rampage. They began by telling gumi not to associate with soone as trashy as Haji, and to always be careful around him due to his violent nature. She badly wanted to deny that she was an acquaintance of Haji but doing so would only fan the flas of their hatred. As much as she hated all their useless ridicule, she kept quiet, waiting for Akamine-sensei to speak up and rein in the situation.

Haji, on the other hand, enjoyed the montary peace as all the attention converged on gumi whose only mistake was entering the horoom teacher’s office at the wrong ti. "And why are you calling by my first na?" Haji even went as far as to tease her, disregarding the parents who were directing all their anger at Haji.

"And there’s no way I’ll be dating you, stupid," gumi hissed.

"Enough." For the second ti, the Principal once again called for everyone’s attention. "If you’re all going to disrupt the eting in an orderly manner, then we can take this to the police station." He continued, eyeing every parent, indirectly conveying that their misbehavior will not be tolerated anymore.

Just those calm yet threatening words were enough to shut their vocal cords up, and finally, quiet descended on the room once again.

"As ntioned before, there’s proof that you lot attacked one of my students in this school while you don’t have definitive proof that he attacked you. For all we know, your injuries may be a result of another scuffle, sothing that Haji wasn’t even a part of." After saying that, the Principal nodded to Akamine-sensei.

Receiving the signal, Akamine-sensei then pointed at gumi. "She witnessed the whole thing. gumi, can you tell us in full detail what transpired between these guys three days ago?"

gumi gulped, she knew what would co out of the parents’ mouths as soon as Akamine-sensei said that.

"How could we believe her? She’s lovey-dovey with that troublemaker student!"

"That’s right, there’s no way we’d believe her!"

"You don’t want to believe our side, and you want us to believe hers?"

"What kind of nonsense is this?"

gumi kept quiet. As expected, the parents stole the words from her mouth. And also, even though Haji was clearly the victim here, she didn’t want to go out of her way to defend her. All she wanted was to give Haji an earful as to why she left her asleep. Then again, she sohow got herself involved without wanting to.

"Wait, you really did see what happened back then?" Haji asked, hoping that gumi didn’t witness the entire thing. After all, he could vaguely rember that he beat everyone to a pulp after he was severely batted down.

gumi nodded.

"Um," Sobody called out, causing everyone to glance at her. She was the girl who introvertedly followed gumi inside Akamine-sensei’s office. Finally, she had the courage to speak up.

"Who is she?" Haji whispered to gumi.

"I don’t know, she said she had sothing to give to Akamine-sensei and she followed behind . I couldn’t care less."

"Aren’t you... Kurumi Natsumi of the Photography Club? What brings you here?" Akamine-sensei asked. Although she felt slightly uncomfortable that soone else had to notice the trouble that Haji got himself into, she was grateful that another presence interrupted the chaos in the room.

"I uh... " Kurumi Natsumi hung her head down low as she received a glare from the delinquent-looking college student. There was a trace of shock in that glare though, and that made Kurumi Natsumi flinch before going to Akamine-sensei and handing her the cara she carried.

"Hoh, you’re that girl!" Haji exclaid. She was the one who called out to him before he entered Akamine-sensei’s office. ’I guess she couldn’t ask for help so she approached gumi. Do I really look that scary? Was it because of my bangs... my eye bags?’ Haji wondered.

Natsumi slightly bowed down towards Haji before going out of the room. The mont she did so, Haji finally rembered who she was.

She was one of those girls back then— whom the college student was hitting on before he ca to her rescue.