Chapter 286.


    <strong>Chapter 286. An Insidious Trap. (3/8)</strong>


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What~ I don’t have terrible taste. My taste is pretty good. What do you think Alicia? Is there anything wrong with my taste?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“No. There’s nothing wrong with it at all. Ran’s a catch. You shouldn’t ever let go of him.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“See, Zale? My boyfriend even has Alicia’s stamp of approval.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Alicia has even worse taste, so she can’t be used as a reference.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Hey man, don’t go around belittling my boy Ran. He has my stamp of approval as well.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“It looks like it’s three to two then,” Rosa dered confidently with a bemused expression.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Zale frowned and looked over to Ria and asked, “What about you, Ria? What’s your opinion of him? If you had to choose between me and him, who’d you choose?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Hey, hold up. Don’t leave me out of this. If you ignore the fact that Zale is your boyfriend, out of the three guys here, who would you say is more of your preferred type?” Jass didn’t miss the chance to insert himself into her list of potential choices.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Izora’s eyes immediately shot over to me. When our eyes met, I red intensely at her.


    <span style="font-weight:400">‘Don’t you dare say it’s me even if it’s to try and make the student council president jealous. I don’t want anything to do with this.’


    <span style="font-weight:400">Unable to choose me, her gaze moved back and forth between Zale and Jass a few times as she weighed her options.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Well, I suppose it’d be you.” She nonchntly pointed at Jass as she feigned a disinterested look that suggested she hadn’t taken it very seriously when the truth was quite the opposite.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Jass didn’t take it as being nothing though and shot a rather smug smile Zale’s way.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“It looks like it’s 3-2-1 then. Though, I guess I lose, but at least my vote is a girl’s, unlike yours which consists of only guys, your own and Ran’s.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Ria, surely you’re joking, right? You’d really pick him over me?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah. You’re really not my type. Also, I’d like to correct your misunderstanding. This guy is not my boyfriend.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What? Seriously?” Jass’s eyes shot open delightedly at the sudden revtion.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah, I’m serious.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I see. Haha. In that case, since I’m your type, would you be my girlfriend?” Jass casually dropped that bombshell line out of nowhere.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Izora froze in ce at Jass’s sudden proposal. Her eyes shot to me as she tried to glean whether this was part of a n I’d set up to help her.


    <span style="font-weight:400">I looked away and ignored her.


    <span style="font-weight:400">I had no hand in this one.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“You... want to be my boyfriend?” Uncertain, Izora confirmed what she’d been asked with a troubled expression.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah. How about it? Are you interested? I’ll definitely make you happy.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Uh… that is…” Izora hesitated. It seemed she wasn’t used to this sort of thing. Turning guys down when they were being sincere.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“She’s already got someone better like me, why would she go and downgrade?” Zale intervened and didn''t give Jass a chance to receive a response. He wrapped his arm around Izora’s waist and pulled her over to the couch.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Jass had a slightly sour, even helpless look when his advances on Izora were mercilessly blocked by Zale. Knowing his ce, he dejectedly took a seat on the edge of the U-shaped couch opposite Rosa, next to Izora. Izora ended up seated directly opposite to me.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Excuse me, your food is here.” It was at that moment an employee of the restaurant showed up with arge round tray containing tes of food in hand.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Ah, perfect timing.” Alicia looked at the employee as if they were her savior and seemed extremely relieved when they arrived with the food. She hadn’t been able to get a word in to stop the little standoff between Zale and Jass just now and it had put her in an awkward position.


    <span style="font-weight:400">The employee entered the room and ced the dishes on the center of the table surrounded by the couch. They also ced empty tes and silverware around the dishes along the outskirts of the table in front of where each of us were seated.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Alicia squeezed by our side on the couch and took a seat between me and Zale around the bend.


    <span style="font-weight:400">The arrangement may have seemed random, but it was obviously a calcted move on Zale’s part. As Jass was formerly chasing after Alicia, Zale’s intent was to use Izora to keep Jass’s attention off Alicia. upying a dominant position on the couch, he could use the opportunity to y both sides simultaneously.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“So, who wants to sing first?” Rosa asked as she unabashedly filled her te with food.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“...” Nobody immediately volunteered themself.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Jass, why don’t you show us your singing skills?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What? Me?” Jass was immediately caught off guard by Rosa’s proposal.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah. Why don’t we see who’s really the better pick between you and Zale in terms of singing superiority?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Uh… I don’t think I’d-” Rosa cut him off before he could refuse.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Actually, how about the two of you sing a duet together with Ria and let her decide the winner?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">Rosa was relentless. What’s with her suggestion? Isn’t it pretty obvious based on Jass’s reaction that he’s not confident in singing? I mean dancing was one thing as it yed on his strength, basketball, but none of his skills really transferred over to singing aside from being loud and having a good lung capacity.


    <span style="font-weight:400">The same could be said for Zale though. However, in terms of singing, I didn’t know whether it was something he was good at. Maybe Rosa knew. If Zale was terrible at it, worse than Jass, it might make sense why she suggested it.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“A duet together? But I don’t think she’d want to-”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“A duet? Sure, I don’t mind. It sounds like fun.” Unexpectedly, Izora didn’t reject the suggestion. When I thought about it, she probably saw it as an opportunity to sing a duet with Zale without making it obvious to him that she wanted to.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Everyone was tantly using each other for their own objectives. This was one reason why I didn’t care to make friends. On the surface, you might look like you’re getting along well as friends, but at the end of the day, everyone you call a friend is simply someone convenient to make use of.


    <span style="font-weight:400">As such, I won’t call anyone a friend. That way I won’t feel bad if I make use of someone for their convenience. There are no hard feelings if you aren’t friends. I don’t know when the notion that friends shouldn’t use or manipte each other for their convenience was imnted in my mind, but it was. And since it was, I wouldn’t make any friends.


    <span style="font-weight:400">A devil has no need for friends, people they can’t use for their convenience. The world is a devil’s enemy.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Izora stood up and grabbed the two microphones on the table. She selected a song from the terminal and pulled an unusually flustered Jass off his seat closer to the television.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Rosa and Alicia had remained seated earlier when singing beside me to keep me from escaping so I didn’t know whether this was the norm for karaoke. Somehow, I felt nervous. Why the hell am I nervous? It’s not like I’m singing in front of everyone.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Yet…


    <span style="font-weight:400">Shit, wouldn’t I be forced to have a go?


    <span style="font-weight:400">What the hell?


    <span style="font-weight:400">“You guys do not notice that we are gifted just by being humans.” While I internally mulled over my fate Jass started singing. The original vocalist’s lines sounded high-pitched and electronic as if they’d been passed through a bunch of filters.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Jass on the other hand sounded… pretty bad inparison. He waspletely out of tune, but he still sang the next two lines to the best of his abilities.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“We are absolute predators.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“We do not even have any enemies.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Pffthahaha! What the heck! What the heck! Jass, you’re so out of tune! You’re killing me! Hahahaha!” Rosa, who couldn’t hold it in anymore, was the first to burst out into a fit ofughter as she took a lighthearted jab.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Though everyone else had tried to be polite by notughing at the singingly challenged Jass, they cracked after Rosa. Alicia didn’t but her lips were quivering and she was covering her mouth desperate to notugh at him. I didn’t find any of it funny as I’d probably soon suffer a simr fate.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Seriously, I’m a fish out of water here. There’s no way in hell I could do something embarrassing like this in front of everyone. I lowered my gaze to the ground and covered my forehead and eyes with my left hand.


    I''m in hell. I just want to go home, crawl in a hole, and die.