The volume starts with a flashback of Ery (it’s not Eri, this volume clarifies with some roumaji furigana). It’s about her probably being weak at reading out loud but the teacher insisting on her doing and her classmates being dicks about it.
Back in the present, Aika and Karen are all over each other during club activities which incenses Reiko, grosses out Kimito, and is of no interest to Haqua. Aika and Karen decide to spend the weekend together and turn down Reiko who wants to join since she’s a riajuu and what could a riajuu possibly wanna have to do with dem loners.
And so the weekend comes and Reiko and Kimito are alone in his room. She keeps sulking and is very hard to talk to. Only when Kimito reminds her of the fact that they’re alone, her mood suddenly changes. She wants to tell him something and after lots of hesitation, she asks him… to teach her how to be a loner.
Kimito himself doesn’t really know too much about loner-ism, so he simply shows her what Aika normally does like pretending to be asleep and gazing out the window wishing the world would just explode. Some time later Reiko pretty much looks and acts like some character from chuu2, but suddenly two classmates of theirs enter the classroom they’re currently using for the training and ask Reiko about a tea party – and she unintentionally drops the whole act immediately and is the same old sociable Reiko as ever.
Kujou-san asks Kimito whether he’s had a kiss yet (wink, wink). After some dodging the question, he denies. She asks whether he’d want to. He affirms. She why he doesn’t, then. He says he doesn’t want to do it with just anyone. And she then says she’ll pray for his first kiss to be the best one possible, since it’s such important a matter (wink, wink).
On his way back to his room after having eaten something with a bunch of ojou-samas he hadn’t met before, Kimito sees a girl standing there with a creepy, laughless smile and dead eyes who happens to look just like Ery. Because it is Ery. He hurries for his room and wants to sleep the “illusion” away, but it’s too late…
They go into Kimito’s room and after Kimito explains his situation to Ery and she doesn’t get it, it turns out that she got into the academy because the guards weren’t really on guard. Slackers. And suddenly Aika wants to get in, but as Ery’s not supposed to be there, Kimito blocks the door in a hurry. He tells her he’s playing eroge and all and has his pants down. With that he’s able to buy time to get Ery into the closet or so.
Before long, Karen and Haqua join in, too. Haqua jumps on his bed as always and rolls around, but soon she stops… and asks whose smell this is. Oh, oh. Kimito replies it’s the 8×4 (a deodorant – here at least) that he uses to glass over the… stench… of things. But it’s all for naught since Ery simply comes out of the closet (huehue) and ruins it all. She tells them that she’s his cousin and she’s come without the academy’s permission so she wants everyone to be quiet. It also becomes clear that Aika sent her the freakin’ map of where the academy is. Way to go, genius. Ery, however, is very comfortable with the three of them since she seems to see herself above them in terms of looks. And then, Reiko enters – her mood suddenly worsens.
And then the great welcome tea party begins. Basically the following pattern repeats: whoever of the ojou-samas asks something of Kimito, Ery cockblocks them magnificently by commanding (!) Kimito to do something for her. You might guess that the ojou-samas soon aren’t too amused about that. Basically, Ery displays her territorial rights. In the end, Reiko asks whether they’re not too close for cousins. And Ery’s response is basically, “Sorry, that was a lie. I’m his childhood friend. *tehepero*” – she literally does a tehepero.
The ojou-samas retreat to Aika’s room. There they decide that someone has to ask whether they’re going out or not. And for that they play some silly game I’ve already forgotten about. Haqua loses it and has to ask. For better or worse, Kimito’s already knocking on the door to clarify something, Haqua starts to ask… takes forever… and Aika can’t take it so she asks him straight out herself. Could’ve just skipped the game, then. Anyway, he’s about to deny when Ery’s like “of course we’re going out, why else would I’ve come all this way?” Everyone turns into pillars of salt – including Kimito.
Kimito and Ery are then back in his room. He’s basically just staring into nothingness, but regains some sense soonish and asks her whether she was serious before. After some nice exchange, she asks if he’s that eager to go out with her, and he flat-out denies. For that, he gets a nice kick against the shin and the declaration that with her as a super-famous idol he’s not the one to decide whether he wants to go out with her or not. In the end, she tells him that she’ll break him out of the academy.
After the ojou-samas overcame their shock, they construct some wild theory about them having the privilege to judge Kimito’s lover since he’s a kind of special lecturer and is obliged to teach them about commoners. If there’s something that could hinder that – like a totally unsuitable lover – they can step up, or so. And so they form the “Rose Tea Party”.
They confront Ery. While Kimito keeps watching their all too polite exchange, Reiko suggests to have a pyjama party in the recreation room since Ery will stay overnight and shouldn’t sleep in Kimito’s room. Kimito is, of course, not welcome there, also since there’ll be things he shall not see – or so says Reiko.
The girls have their pyjama party during which the ojou-samas basically try to expose the falsity of Ery and Kimito’s lover relationship. And the one who succeeds in doing so is… Aika. Then a heated discussion about what the ojou-samas even know about Kimito in the first place kicks off. Well, the discussion’s more centered around his fetishes, which the ojou-samas mistake as macho, while Ery knows it’s a thigh fetish.
Anyway, the girls are now all best buds and bad mouth Kimito behind his back during the party. Ery wants to take a video of all of them with her smartphone and so she does. Then, Kimito knocks and has Haqua in his arms. Apparently, she went to the toilet and walked into his room half-asleep. He puts her asleep in the recreation room and leaves. The girls are in thought.
During their various discussions, everyone who wants to go to the bathroom is now under immediate suspicion and restrained. The situation grows more dire by the second. Aika starts to tap to distract herself, Karen’s grinding her teeth, Reiko’s praying, and Ery presses her legs together. Then their gazes shift to the big, empty juice bottle… but no, Reiko suggests they simply all go to the bathroom. Too bad.
Kimito’s called by Kujou-san to the principal’s office. The principal, Kujou, Ery, and a bunch of maids are already present. Ery’s been found. To escape punishment, Ery threatens everyone to reveal the school’s location and secrets, as she’s taken a video of the ojou-samas and already uploaded everything she had to her blog and is ready to publish it. Kujou’s aura shifts to something like a killing intent and Kimito senses that thing’s take a turn for the worst if he doesn’t do something, and so he gets on his knees and pushes his dizzy head on the floor to beg them to not put her on some secluded island or something. Kujou complies and they settle for an NDA and to simply carry her out of the school. However, that’s not enough for Ery, she wants Kimito to get out of there, too. And so she asks them what they’re even planning to do with Kimito after he graduates. And Kujou’s answer: He’s going to marry an ojou-sama and become one of them (come to the dark side). His head grows even more dizzy and suddenly Ery and Kujou fight for feeling his forehead. Turns out, Kimito’s got a fever. And so he’s being taken to his room and Kujou san’s designated to accompany Ery to her job appointments since she can’t be left alone yet.
The ojou-samas overheard the “he’s gonna marry one of us” part while eavesdropping in front of the principal office’s window and suddenly everyone wants to nurse Kimito. As they pretty much fight over it (“I’m gonna let you drink something.” “Me too!” “Me too!”, etc.), it’s more exhausting than caring. He throws everyone out of his room, but as their dark aura oozes beyond walls and doors (they’re still idling around in front of it), he’s no choice but to let them in again. And they ask him about how him and Ery got so close. Flashback time.
I’ll try to keep it short. Ery was a gloomy and lonely kid. Small Kimito asked her whether she’d want to play with him. They played some Nintendo DS in her room. Later he brought his DS along and they played on a daily basis. Once when they watched some anime, he got Ery to dub it with her special voice and liked it. Ery then practices that stuff more and more and gets better ‘n better. She started to leave her shell, got friends with the girls in class and the boys stopped badmouthing her since else the girls would beat them up. Then in high school, she became a very young voice actress. She started acting this aggressively towards Kimito when a) he said he wasn’t going out with her at all to some boys and b) he received some chocolate on valentines from some other girl (or so). And he, of course, has got no idea at all why she would’ve changed around that time.
Following after that is a chapter of little Ery telling the story from her perspective and how much she likes little Kimito.
Kujou and Ery both visit the recording studio as Ery’s got a job to do and she’s really embarrassed to have a girl in a maid uniform with her (excuse: she’s a relative). But the recording director praises her to seem to have gotten her spirit back as she didn’t seem to well in the past days. Ery’s dumbfounded.
On their way back to Seikain, Ery declares once more that it can’t be a coincidence that Kimito’s been chosen as the commoner sample and that she won’t let them have him. And consequently Kujou asks Ery whether she likes him. Ery, of course, denies. However, she throws the question right back at Kujou and so they continue to tease each other.
Kimito’s dreaming of his little sister Miyuki, who was such a spoiled child. She always wanted to sleep in his bed and was all humble speech all the time, and loved her Onii-sama. However, he has no little sister. When he wakes up, he sees Kujou-san having fallen asleep at the side of his bed while she nursed him. She wakes up at some point, looks at him still half-asleep and with an expression different (warmer) than usual, and calls him “Onii-sama”. She then fully awakes, stands up, turns around, walks to the door, opens it, walks through it, closes it.
And right after that, everyone’s in the principal’s office again. Ery tries to threaten them with her materials once more. However, Kujou arranged for the worldwide deletion of said content and so Ery’s got nothing up her sleeve anymore. Suddenly, things go in a way which lets Kimito himself decide, whether he wants to stay being the commoner sample. However, Kujou, his dream, and her earlier behavior’s piqued his interest and so he surprisingly denies. Ery then snaps, breaks into tears, and falls back to act like she had during her childhood. She begs him to not leave her behind and when he’s about to say he wants to leave after all, Kujou suggests her becoming the second commoner sample which basically amounts to her being allowed to come and leave as she pleases, hence being able to see Kimito any time.
After the debate, Ery drags Kimito out onto the corridor and clings to him. When he’s about to connect – in his mind – her sudden turnabout in the past with her maybe being in love with him… she starts laughing at him and says this all was calculated and an act, so that she would get this kinda free pass to this academy. But why didn’t she demand said free pass sooner then? Could she be lying here?! Kimito doesn’t realize yet, and maybe neither did Ery.
Another chapter from Ery’s perspective. Very likely an event in the past. She’s visiting Kimito and is so relieved to see him that she cries and realizes she likes him. And she decides to confess to him – on Valentine’s.
The closing chapter’s the infamous Kimito-only-feigns-to-be-asleep-and-Kujou-kisses-him-again chapter.
Good luck spreading the ‘Ery’ version of her name.
The people must know!