She's Ryuji's rental girlfriend

Ryuji clearly objected to the idea of treating her as a prostitute, even though that would have been the perfect cover. She probably couldn't go back there now. The truth was an even worse option; a student and teacher in this situation would actually make the news. Her teaching career would probably be over, not to mention the public embarrassment she'd face. She had to come up with a solution that nobody would bristle at... The only answer she could come up with that seemed innocent enough not to piss off Ryuji and lacking newsworthiness enough that the reporters wouldn't try to turn it into a story had to be...

"I'm his girlfriend!" she finally answered, putting on her happy-go-lucky maid-service face and hugging his arm closer into her bosom, while he watched in dumbfounded shock. "You can't blame him for getting angry, after you said those kinds of things about me, right? But I don't want anyone to get hurt..."

"Girlfriend?" the guy asked, looking disbelieving. "The punk strikes me as the kind of kid who's never had one!"

The reporter, on the other hand, seemed to be swayed to their side, now that her initial guess of love seemed to be correct and it was a bit more clear that her colleague was just being a jerk. Not "young love," per se. This was clearly different than that. "Aha! You shouldn't do kinky stuff like that in the train, but it is kind of thrilling, isn't it?" she giggled, pressing her hands together and nodding excitedly.

"Y-Yeah...!" Kawakami laughed awkwardly, wiggling her hips back and forth in a way that would hopefully reduce her apparent age by 10 years.

"Hold on, hold on..." The older man interrupted, walking forward again. "Why is she fuckin' barefoot, then? Your girlfriend rides on the train with you-- a broke-ass delinquent-- and she does it with no clothes on? This doesn't check out. He's not pressuring you, is he?" he questioned, leaning around Ryuji again to try and find the crack in Kawakami's expression.

The teacher, feeling more pissed off than anyone now, just tried to keep an even expression and remain smiling. "W-Well... About that..."

"What's he got on you?"

Kawakami gulped, racking her brain for some kind of solution that would make it clear she wasn't being blackmailed into doing anything, while also satisfying the man's logic. "I'm... You know what they call them, right? Don't make me say it... It's in my contract that I'm not supposed to say it~" she giggled, hugging tighter to Ryuji and trying to ignore the feeling of both of their hearts thudding in their chests.

"A prostitute!" the man laughed, victoriously.

"Am not!" Kawakami chastised him, momentarily taking on her adult teacher voice before correcting back to her youthful one. She smiled sweetly and batted her eyelashes. "Ahem. No! I'm a rental girlfriend. You know what that is, right?"

The guy opened his mouth to say that sounded like a prostitute to him, before the junior reporter interrupted him. "I do! That's where lonely boys pay girls to pretend to be their girlfriends for a night, right? B-But I never knew you did things like this!" she exclaimed, seeming somehow over-excited about the idea. It began to occur to Kawakami that the girl was either a big proponent of young love, or else, just a pervert.

Ryuji bristled at being called a "lonely boy," but Kawakami eagerly nodded and assured the reporters that they understood correctly. "Now you get it, right? It just makes us both a bit embarrassed when you call us out like this..." As the junior reporter apologized and the older man begrudgingly joined her in bowing, Kawakami thought she'd mounted the perfect defense. She'd truly managed to rescue the two of them from a dark situation-- one that had almost escalated into ****, somehow. Tonight's events had shaken her confidence in her own professionalism and judgment... if she ended up causing a fight to break out between a student and some old bastard, that would really be the nail in the coffin.

"Hey... actually..." the junior reporter spoke up, stepping closer to the two and clasping her hands behind her back. It seemed she wanted to ask them something embarrassing, which was in turn causing her to hesitate. Kawakami wasn't looking forward to hearing the request... Ryuji had been quiet for a while now and Kawakami sensed that he was probably at his wit's end, trying to survive this confusing, annoying scenario while ignoring the feeling of his teacher's breasts, which relentlessly squished against his arm.