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I've entered Zuiran Institute Elementary School.

This is completely different from the public school that I attended in my past (?) life. The exterior looked like a great European cathedral, fitting for a school with a proud history. Beautiful stained glass windows shine at the front entrance. The interior is the latest and greatest, though. Air conditioning, of course, and each class is equipped with humidifiers and water dispensers, and heated flooring for the winter.

Indoor heated pools, tennis courts, soccer fields, baseball fields, concert halls, and mini-theaters. There's planetarium. Even a tea room in a domed greenhouse.

There are some facilities shared by the elementary, junior, and high schools, but my previous conception of 'elementary school' was broken. Even in the middle of a metropolis, the school took up vast acreages, and the Institute full of greenery was also called the forest of Zuiran.

The uniform was a blazer made by a famous designer. The junior and high schools were white blazers with lines with the girls sporting a ribbon and boys having ties. The junior high used Bordeaux colors for the ribbon and ties while the high school used blue. The elementary school had navy blazers, maybe to hide stains better. The ribbon and ties were teal. They're all very cute.

As expected of a famous designer. I'm glad to be here, just for these uniforms. Girls admire this uniform everywhere. Zuiran's uniform always ranked at the top of the 'Uniform I want to wear.' One of the reasons the protagonist wanted to enter Zuiran was because of this cute uniform, I believe. Yes, yes. I understand that feeling. But that protagonist's uniform was made dirty many times through bullying…

The junior high and high schools had a cafeteria, but the elementary school had school lunches. They were made by a proper chef instead of a lunch lady, though. There's no lunch duty by students, either. A full-time server runs the dining hall. And I'm not sure that this luxurious lunch could still be called a school lunch. Vichyssoise and terrine made from calves are served as a normal course. It's part of learning table manners, they say. Black tea for drinks with lemon or milk. No child here makes a milk mustache by chugging down milk here. Desert isn't frozen mandarin oranges, but crepe suzette.

Everything is so impossible. It's culture shock. The protagonist must have experienced this when she entered high school. I wonder how much tuition costs. I'll try not to think about it, since it scares me.

The greatest feature of Zuiran Institute is the group named the Pivoine. The Pivoine is the especially privileged class of students even in Zuiran, chosen stringently for their bloodline, family, and finances from among the internal students who started Zuiran in elementary school. It continues into junior high and high school, and the Institute gives them various special privileges.

The elementary school has the Petit Pivoine. When they advance to junior high, they become Pivoine members. Composed only of pure-blooded Zuiran students, nobody else can enter, no matter what their bloodline, family, or finances are like. Only the chosen. Truly, they are the admired among all of Zuiran.

And of course, I, Kisshouin Reika, am a member of the Petit Pivoine. In 'Kimi wa Boku no dolce', Reika did as she pleased, using the status of the Pivoine. Just by being a member, she could get away with practically anything. Shouldn't a school be teaching the right way of doing things?

Pivoine members wore a badge of the organization's symbol, a peony, under the school emblem on their uniform. It's made of real gemstones, so it's shiny and really pretty. It also acts as diplomatic immunity pass within the school… Kind of scary. By the way, it's called the Society of the Peony because in the language of flowers, the peony stands for 'A regal presence'… That line of thinking is frightening…

Just by being a Pivoine member, other students are half in awe, half in fear of you. That's right. If someone caused trouble with the Pivoine, they'd have a hard time staying in this school. Their family might even be pressured or brought down by the Pivoine's backers. Prudent people stay away from the Pivoine. I'd like to, if it were possible.

But it's not. I'm a member. I'm in the middle of this. Oh, this is scary… And their sense of money is even more so. I still have the money sense of my past life when a high school student had 5000 yen a month. How much do they give these grade school students? The amount shouldn't be called an allowance, but an expenditure. Yes, that includes me.

Because of my family's power and fortune, I'm living a fairly good life at school. No, saying fairly would be understating it. I'm living a very good life. I already have followers in the first grade. These kids were Reika's hangers on in 'Kimi wa boku no Dolce', too. So they were already my toadies this far back. At the age of 6, they've learned how to get ahead in life. Oh, life is hard, even kids have it rough. If I could be greedy, I'd rather have friends than followers.

Oh? There weren't any 'friends of Kisshouin Reika' in the manga, so am I never going to have any friends? Oh, no…. Tears…

The manga starts when the protagonist enters high school, so I don't know how Rika spent her time in school prior to then. She probably looked down on most, took the 'Reika pose', laughing into the back of her right hand with the left hand on her hips, while doing as she pleased. While following the Emperor around.

But I could never do that. I'd hear the footsteps of destruction. And I could never laugh, 'OOHOHOHO!' except as a joke. I'm not shameless. Well, at Zuiran, there are probably others who would take the Reika pose as a normal course of action…