Chapter 4: Still, We Gotta Do It!

Chapter 4: Still, We Gotta Do It!

Chapter 4:

Still, We Gotta Do It!

T HE LAST TIME I saw Kushida-san was last week, during the special exam. It was now the end of class on the following Friday, and she hadn’t shown up once during this entire week. She wasn’t the only one: Wang-san and Hasebe-san hadn’t come to school either. They were absent from Monday to Friday, and it had already been five days.

In the meantime, though, the world continued to move around us; day-to-day life wouldn’t stand still and wait for us to catch up. Structured meetings and research for the Sports Festival. Student council work. Everyday studies. I felt like if I kept facing these oncoming waves head-on, my knees might give out and I’d fall over backward. But I couldn’t allow myself to fall right now. I had no right to wallow in self-pity when I declared that I would absolutely bring those students back to class. But despite repeated attempts, I hadn’t had any success.

I had thought about contacting Ayanokouji-kun several times but stopped myself from doing so. If I went to him for help, the chances were that he’d accept, and there was a possibility that he’d give me the answers that I was looking for. But, in this case at least, this was something that I had to solve on my own.

“And thus concludes homeroom for today,” announced Chabashira-sensei.

As soon as Chabashira-sensei left the classroom after the final homeroom session for the day, I followed after her.

“Sensei, I’m sorry, but might I have a moment of your time?”

“I don’t mind… Sure, that’s all right,” she said. “How about we walk while we talk?”

Many students would leave their seats to go to the restroom during this time, so I knew we’d stand out if we stayed in the hallway. Perhaps Chabashira-sensei understood my intentions, since she suggested we walk as we chatted.

“Kushida-san, Wang-san, and Hasebe-san have been absent for five days now,” I said.

“Indeed. Wang and Hasebe are, ostensibly, sick. However, even though they called in to the school to say they’re sick, they apparently haven’t gone to the clinic for a check-up like they were supposed to. As for Kushida, she has only said that she’d be resting. I haven’t heard any other details.”

There was no way she was simply recuperating. Her extreme absence felt like some kind of punishment aimed at me.

“Is it possible that there could be severe penalties if this situation continues?” I asked.

I assumed the teacher wouldn’t be able to provide me with a concrete answer, but I thought I should try asking anyway.

“Don’t worry so much about it,” Chabashira-sensei told me. “The rules are designed to provide a long grace period, especially for honors students like Wang and Kushida. As for Hasebe, she’s not exactly a troublemaker, so it won’t be a big deal for now. If they had no accomplishments under their belts, or they were students who typically had bad behavior, then it would be a different story.”

“So, are you saying that…thanks to how they usually act, they’re okay?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Besides, there are healthy, cheerful students who can play hooky quite cleverly, and there are students who have hurt feelings who could carelessly just skip an entire week. It’s difficult to tell the difference. The only way we can judge them is to look at their past behavior and performance in school.”

I could feel the burden on my heart begin to lighten just from hearing that.

“And besides, it’s not like school officials are monsters,” added Chabashira-sensei, in a soft tone. “They wouldn’t want to break a child’s heart by forcing them to go to school. At any rate, those three students have never been late before, and they’ve always been on their best behavior in class. They are more than qualified for a grace period.”

She seemed so different now, almost like she was a different person entirely. I wondered if there was something behind it. Rumors had been going around among my classmates that she had changed because of the special exam, and perhaps it was really true.

“More importantly though, the school officials understand very well that we conduct strict special exams,” she said.

Because of that, they felt that it wasn’t strange for students to say that they just needed to rest or take time off. That was why they were allowing this situation to go on right now, then…

After confirming that there was no one else around though, Chabashira-sensei stopped and said more. “However, the time limit is almost up. If their absences continue into next week, then those 100 points that you fought so desperately to earn will be snatched away without mercy.”

Her statement had a hidden message. She was telling me to do something this weekend. But would I really be able to do something about this? I thought of asking her about the current situation, but little by little, my own weakness began to show its face.

“Thank you very much,” I said. “You’ve been a big help.”

“Wait, Horikita,” said Chabashira-sensei. “Is there anything else you wanted to say?”

“…No. I couldn’t possibly bother you any further, sensei,” I replied.

“I won’t know whether it’s really a bother unless you ask me. We still have a little time. Just talking to someone about it can make it a little easier, don’t you think?”

Chabashira-sensei must be able to see right through me. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hesitate at all, but I decided to gather my courage and say something.

“I earned Class Points by having Sakura-san expelled. Was that the right course of action?” I asked.

“Do you regret your decision?”

“I thought it was right at the time. But…to be honest, I’m feeling shaken right now.”

“I wish I could show you the answer,” Chabashira-sensei sighed, “but I can’t help you.”

“I understand,” I replied. “As a teacher, you’re not able to answer that.”

“That’s not it. All I can say at this point in time is that I can’t show you any evidence that you made the right choice. It’s certainly true that your decision was somewhat dictatorial and self-serving, and I’m sure a few students might have seen it as such. Your reputation among the other students has taken a hit, and you’re beginning to feel that you chose incorrectly.”

That hurt to hear. I couldn’t say anything in return.

“However, that’s just because it was that important of a decision, right?” Chabashira-sensei continued. “Besides, no one is perfect right from the get-go. Even if we’re talking about problems of simple addition and multiplication, people make mistakes. But they learn and improve. Even I’ve gone through life making lots and lots of mistakes.”

“You too…?” I asked.

“Yes, and even when I took that special exam. Forget about whether I made the right or wrong decision—I wasn’t even able to cast my vote in time. On that point, you showed me one answer, and I think that you did well. No one can get full marks on something without knowledge or experience. At the time of the special exam, you were recognized as the leader, and you were empowered. You were prepared to get rid of someone, and you protected Kushida. It’s not up to you to make your classmates recognize that it was the right thing to have done.”

Her words were typical of a teacher. I was a little puzzled, though, since she never really said such things before.

“You didn’t have to go for the 100 points at this current stage,” she added. “You had two choices. You could have either rationally cut the lowest-ranked person in OAA, or you could’ve accepted the inconvenience that came with favoring your promise.”

“Yes, that’s true…” I knew that. I knew that, but even so, I still felt doubt.

“But still… I think that I might have been blind to what was going on around me,” I admitted. “I can’t help but think that if I just listened more, then I might’ve found an answer that was better, that was even more correct.”

“We sometimes lose sight of our surroundings,” said Chabashira-sensei. “And later, when things cool down, we agonize over whether we’ve made the correct decision.”

I hadn’t had any experience with that kind of thing before. Frustrated, I unconsciously clenched my fist tightly.

“Up until now, to put it nicely, you’ve just done things the tried-and-true way,” Chabashira-sensei told me. “Or, if I were to put it a little less nicely, you’ve simply been taking the easy way out, right? But that’s normal. It’s just that the peculiarities of this school made you seek new alternatives for the very first time.”

“Yes…” I conceded.

It was powerful advice, but even so, I still couldn’t come up with an appropriate answer. I was sure I must’ve looked pitiful, but there was no dismay on Chabashira-sensei’s face.

Instead, she looked at me gently. “You fought within the rules that the school has set, right?” she asked.

“Yes, but I broke my promise not to expel anyone but the traitor,” I answered.

“Did you intend to protect Kushida from the very beginning? Was the promise you made a lie in order to get the class to vote in favor?”

“No!” I replied. “I really was prepared to do it, at the time… I was.”

“In that case, there’s no problem,” said Chabashira-sensei. “Yes, it’s important to honor your promises, but even adults sometimes make mistakes when they promise something. You changed your mind, sure, because I know that you acted after realizing keeping Kushida was the correct decision. You’re free to disrespect or ignore anyone who mocks you now. Some will follow you, others won’t. Bringing a class of nearly forty students together as one is something that not even the likes of Ryuuen, Sakayanagi, or Ichinose can do. Other students might be yes-men on the surface, but you never know what they’re thinking deep down.”

She gently placed her hand on my shoulder. “Don’t be afraid of failure. I don’t want to be the kind of adult who can’t accept or forgive a child’s failures.”

“But sensei, I haven’t failed yet.”

“…You’re right, you haven’t. I’m just saying that you need to see the choices you made all the way through until the end.”

Chabashira-sensei had a somewhat sad look on her face, but then she looked me in the eye once more. Her words had been stern, yet polite and loving. They almost made me choke on what I was about to say a little.

“You’ve changed, Chabashira-sensei,” I remarked.

I hadn’t intended to actually say that, but the words just came out. I suppose that was because it was just how I truly felt.

“Is it strange that I’m playing the part of a teacher now, when I’ve been so cold and dismissive up until this point?” she asked.

“I’m a little surprised, but no, it’s not strange,” I said.

“Is that so? That’s good.”

Perhaps she felt she had said too much, because she cleared her throat, and changed the subject.

“Anyway, has Ayanokouji done anything about Kushida?” she asked.

“Ayanokouji-kun…? He hasn’t really done anything,” I replied. “If I had to guess, I get the feeling that he’s waiting to see what I’ll do.”

“I see,” said Chabashira-sensei. “So he thinks that you’re the one who should fix this, then…?”

“Maybe he just can’t deal with what was simply selfishness on my part,” I answered.

“I’m not so sure about that. It was Ayanokouji who took a bold action on the matter of Kushida. I can’t imagine that he’d leave you alone to handle it if he didn’t trust you.”

“You seem to have quite a high opinion of him,” I said. “I recall you once saying that he was the most defective student there was.”

“You have a good memory, recalling things I said so long ago.”

“He’s even better than his OAA ranking indicates,” I told her.

“It sounds like he’s earned a lot of trust and appreciation from you then,” replied Chabashira-sensei.

“You had said that he had some character issues, but they’re not limited to him… What exactly did you mean by that, anyway? Or were you mistaken, by any chance?” I asked.

He was undeniably brilliant, and he was much calmer and more collected than I was. I couldn’t even begin to imagine ridiculing him with a label like “defective.”

“You know, you don’t need to take every single one of your teachers’ comments absolutely seriously,” huffed Chabashira-sensei. “After all, you’ve spent far, far more time with him than I or others have, right?”

“Even so, I just wanted to ask.”

“…All right. My evaluation hasn’t changed since then. Well, no, actually, I feel like my evaluation has become even more credible since then,” Chabashira-sensei said. So, she did think he was defective. But no matter what she said, that didn’t change the truth. “It’s far too early to be dwelling on that right now though. There are other problems that you need to solve as soon as possible,” Chabashira-sensei reminded me.

“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” I agreed.

It was true that I was concerned about it, but it was also true that I could put it off until later. What I needed to do now was to get Kushida-san, Wang-san, and Hasebe-san to come back to school.

“Kushida is a tough nut to crack, huh?” said Chabashira-sensei.

“To be honest, right now, it feels like a waste of effort,” I said. “No matter how many times I go to her, and no matter how long I wait, she doesn’t open the door.”

“That’s rough.”

Weekends aside, Kushida-san could just go to the convenience store and buy supplies as many times as she needed while I was in class. It would be pointless for me to try starvation tactics. I tried to reach her on her phone, but she was keeping it turned off.

“I get the feeling she’s enjoying this though, whenever she senses me pacing about back and forth all confused on the other side of her door.”

“I suppose I can’t say with certainty that she isn’t,” Chabashira-sensei commented. “But even so, if you don’t do something, the situation won’t change, and things will just gradually get worse.”

“Yes, I understand…”

“If you can’t do something on your own, you can always ask someone else for help,” said Chabashira-sensei.

“But which of my classmates could possibly be willing to help me persuade Kushida-san…?” I wondered aloud. “Hirata-kun’s the only one who comes to mind, and right now, he doesn’t seem to have the time for it either.”

He was providing support for the situation with Wang-san, as well as working on Shinohara-san and her circle.

“It’s true that knowing Hirata, he’d be a… Well, actually, I’m not so sure about that, when it comes to Kushida,” mused Chabashira-sensei. “He tackles things head-on, is mindful of others, and is a good person. I can’t imagine it would be easy to get her to open her door by bringing someone like him over once she shut herself off.”

“I think I understand what it is you’re trying to say, sensei. It’s because Kushida-san isn’t being honest with how she feels, right?”

“Unfortunately, I can’t think of anyone who would be right for the job at the moment, but it might not be a bad idea for you to look beyond your own classmates,” suggested Chabashira-sensei.

“But persuading Kushida-san would mean getting her to address her true feelings,” I said. “It would be a considerable disadvantage for us to let an outsider know.”

“I suppose you need to weigh the advantages and disadvantages. However, it’s not as if you’re forbidden from telling anyone about it. For example, a few teachers already knew about Kushida’s past. And some of the other teachers would probably choose to keep it a secret. Personally, I think that secrets aren’t particularly useful.”

If only there was someone who could move Kushida-san’s heart… No, even if they couldn’t move her heart, if they could even just help with some kind of breakthrough, then…

“It’s about time I head off , ” said Chabashira-sensei. “But let me say just one last thing, even if it might just sound like I’m being a meddlesome busybody. The most important thing is what you want to do with Kushida. Think about that long and hard.”

What I wanted to do with Kushida-san… Hmm.

“Thank you very much, sensei,” I told her. “I feel like my resolve is a little stronger, thanks to you.”

I still hadn’t found any answers yet, but I could feel the energy to make another desperate attempt surging within me.

“Don’t worry about it. As a teacher, it’s the least I… I mean, it’s what I naturally should be doing.”

With that, Chabashira-sensei headed back to the faculty office. I continued to watch her from the stairs as she walked away, until she was no longer in view.

4.1

W HEN I RETURNED to the dormitory building after finishing my shopping at Keyaki Mall, I found Ibuki-san standing near the elevator door, scowling at me. When I ignored her to press the button, her anger exploded like water breaking through a dam.

“Don’t just ignore me!” she shouted.

She rushed me, coming in so quickly and getting so close that it felt like her spit was about to land on my face. I was fully prepared for the battle that was about to begin, but just what in the world was happening here? It looked as though she was going to get into the elevator and continue following me, so I had no choice but to stop and look away from the elevator, just as the doors opened to welcome me inside.

“Ignore you?” I repeated. “Do you have some business with me?”

“This! What is this text supposed to mean? Answer me!!!”

Glaring, she shoved her phone in my face. With the screen right in front of my eyes, a blinding light from the screen filled my vision and all I could see was white light.

“Are you an idiot?” I asked. “It’s way too close, I can’t see anything. Can you please pull it back a little?”

“Ugh! Fine, there!”

She actually only pulled it back slightly, but even so, I was then able to read it. I could understand the message more or less immediately from just a glance.

“A very well-crafted and impressive message,” I concluded. “No doubt it must have been written by an intellectual.”

“Don’t flatter yourself!” Ibuki huffed. “And hold on, what part of THIS screams intellectual?!”

“Maybe if you read it aloud, you’ll understand?” I suggested.

“What? It says, ‘If you get expelled because of something I had nothing to do with, that obviously means you’ll have lost to me. Don’t do anything that idiotic,’” She read aloud. “So…what about that says intellectual, huh? Actually, forget that. Tell me what it’s supposed to mean!”

“You didn’t understand it even after reading it?” I asked.

“Not one bit. I’ve been thinking about it all week long and I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. So, what?” She crossed her arms with a derisive snort.

I hadn’t expected that she wouldn’t have taken simple advice as, well, just that: advice. Well, actually, I hoped it might have been a little effective…

“There’s no point in going into it anymore,” I told her. “It doesn’t seem like there were any problems.”

“Huh? What does that mean? Explain this in a way so that I can understand better, right now.”

This girl was extremely slow on the uptake. I wondered if all of her brain power was devoted to her athleticism and fighting sense…

“I came up with a secret plan to keep you from getting expelled,” I explained. “You don’t seem to be well-liked by your classmates, and it was possible you could have been in danger if there was a task related to expulsion. I deduced that if I provoked you in such a way, you would decide to stay in school even if you didn’t want to. Does that make sense?”

“No way… You were worried about me?” Ibuki-san didn’t sound surprised. Rather, she made a face like she was shocked and absolutely sickened to her core.

“Don’t interpret what I did in such a self-serving way,” I said. “It’s simply because there are matters that I’ll still need your cooperation with. It would be inconvenient if I were short on help, and besides, even if you had been tossed out in the last special exam, Ryuuen-kun’s class would have only gained 100 points and wouldn’t suffer much from your absence. If you’re going to get removed from this school eventually anyway, it’d be far better for me to have you go out in an exam where there’s a penalty.”

In spite of my explanation, the look on her face said that she wasn’t convinced in the slightest.

“Well then, I think that’s that,” I told her. “I’ll be going now.”

Ibuki-san made way for me to pass, giving me a silent, sidelong glare full of anger. I pressed the button once again to call the elevator. As I got inside, I noticed she wasn’t following me.

“You’re not going back to your room?” I asked.

“I don’t feel like riding the elevator with you,” she retorted.

“You’re such a child. We’ve ridden together several times already, haven’t we? Just by sheer coincidence?”

“I don’t feel like getting on right now.”

“I see. In that case, do whatever you want,” I said.

I pressed the Close Door button on the elevator and headed to the floor where Kushida-san’s room was. Now, I just needed to keep stubbornly pestering her until she opened the door for me. As the elevator ascended, I wondered if I could really find a breakthrough at last. If I didn’t try something else, nothing was going to change. In that case, then what I was about to try would be nothing more than a waste of time. Once I arrived at my intended floor, the elevator door opened.

But I found myself unable to take that first step to exit the elevator and walk onto the floor. I went completely stiff. How? How can I talk with Kushida-san…? Time passed while I did nothing, and the elevator doors closed. Before I could press the Open Door button, the elevator started moving again, and began to descend.

“This is hopeless,” I muttered.

Even if I could face Kushida-san with all of these thoughts swirling around in my mind right now, I couldn’t assume that I’d be able to persuade her. I felt ashamed, like I had wasted Chabashira-sensei’s warm words.

The elevator headed straight back down to the first floor. When the door opened, Ibuki-san took a step forward with eyes lowered and looking directly at her phone, took a step forward, failing to notice that I was still on the elevator. When she noticed that there was someone already there at last, she looked up slightly, and saw me.

“Wh-why are you here?!” she sputtered.

Well, it certainly made sense that this was a shock to her.

“Didn’t you want to get on?” I asked.

“I told you I didn’t want to ride with you, didn’t I?! What is this, harassment?”

I shook my head no and reached for the Close Door button. As I did so, I looked over at Ibuki-san, who was averting her eyes, and something clicked in my mind. Instead of touching the Close Door button, I slid my finger over to the Open Door button and stared at her intently. She looked over at me, likely suspecting that the elevator would continue to stay open forever.

A breakthrough might very well come from an unexpected place. Perhaps this was the moment I’d be able to put Chabashira-sensei’s advice into action…

“What.”

“…I was just thinking that I was going to ask for your help,” I replied.

“Huh?” she blinked.

It would be quite a gamble, but this could very well be just the thing to break through this stalemate. It might be an unseen development, a surprise ambush to break through the situation. Despite feeling like this was foolhardy, I decided that, for the time being, I had to try anything I could.

“Get on,” I told her.

“How many times do I have to tell you that I’m not riding with you?” she snapped.

“Enough already. Get on.”

“…The hell is your problem?”

Even though she was irritated, she still got on. Once I was sure Ibuki-san was on board the elevator, I pressed the Close Door button.

“There’s something I’d like to talk to you about,” I told her.

“Say WHAT?! Me? Oh no. No way. I am NOT doing this,” she protested.

“You got on the elevator, didn’t you?”

“You told me to get on, remember?”

“It’s perfectly fine for you to talk to me about something then, isn’t it?” I asked.

“That doesn’t make any sense!”

“What I’m asking isn’t a bad deal for you. So, anyway, here’s what’s going on—”

“Don’t just selfishly launch into whatever this is,” Ibuki-san growled. “The fact that you’re asking me for help with something is bad enough already.”

While Ibuki-san and I argued back and forth, we arrived at the floor where Kushida-san’s room was. I got off first and turned back to look at Ibuki-san. She was still on the elevator.

“Get off too. Just in case. We don’t know how many eyes and ears are around, after all.”

“I don’t care. I’m going back to my room. I have no idea what you’re going on about.”

Ibuki-san pressed the Close Door button to try to leave, but the doors didn’t budge.

“It seems like the elevator wants you to get off too,” I remarked.

“It’s ’cause you’re pushing the button on the outside to keep me from leaving!!!” shouted Ibuki-san.

“By the way, do you have a favorite thing?” I asked. “Something really special to you?”

“…That’s got nothing to do with this.”

“Just answer the question.”

She made a noise. “…Mph.”

“‘Mph’?”

“No, not… Ugh, what the hell?” Ibuki-san sighed. “Fine. I can’t really think of anything at all right now, but I guess, like strawberry stuff.”

“I’ve just found out something surprisingly cute about you… All right then,” I said. “Just forget about this.”

“What the hell did you ask me that for, out of the blue?!” she demanded. “Scratch that, just cut it out and take your hand off the button already!”

As Ibuki-san’s mood became worse and worse, I decided to just cut straight to the heart of the matter. I realized that it would be better for her if I just shared what this was all about and moved on.

“I’m going to go meet with Kushida-san right now,” I informed her.

“And? You can go see her on your own, whatever,” she snapped, repeatedly slamming the Close Door button. It was pointless, of course.

“No, I’m afraid I can’t,” I said. “I haven’t even seen her once over the past week, and she has missed a lot of classes. I went to her room to visit her, but I haven’t seen any sign of her even coming out. I need you to get her to come out of her room. Understand?”

“Huh? Hey, wait, why do I have to do anything?”

“It’d be an act of mercy.”

“Don’t care. Why would you think I’d ever help you with your class when I don’t ever help my own?”

As I’d anticipated, there was no way Ibuki-san would simply accept my request right away. But if there was a benefit for her, that would be a different story. The elevator was held open the whole time, and a warning beep was starting to go off.

“Very well,” I said. “If you succeed, I’ll give you a reward.”

“Don’t need one,” she replied. “If you think I’ll work for money, you’re sorely mistaken.”

“I know that. That’s why I decided my reward for your success should be something that you desire strongly.”

“…I can’t imagine you can give me anything like that.”

Ibuki-san’s heart would not be so easily swayed. But if I were to present her with a certain something, then she would take a 180-degree spin on things.

“We’re able to pre-register for up to five events of our choosing at the Sports Festival,” I said. “We are free to choose our groups and which competitions we would like to participate in. The main purpose of the registration system is so students can clear a required number of events, and also so that they can avoid encountering strong opponents if they wish, but…on the other hand, it’s also a system where you can fight against the opponents you want to face.”

As I explained, Ibuki’s previously listless eyes lit up.

“I know you haven’t been putting in any reservations. You’ve been waiting for a chance to fight with me, haven’t you? But unfortunately, I’m not planning on deciding anything until the very last minute. Depending on how things go, there’s a very good chance that I’ll be going after the final openings that are available. In other words, the opportunity for you to fight with me will never, ever come, even if you’re waiting for me to sign up.”

“So…you’re saying that if I help you, you’ll fight me?” asked Ibuki-san.

“Yes,” I replied. “I will fight you in one competition of your choosing. Of course, I won’t go easy on you at all since you’re not in my class. You won’t earn any points as a result. But if you’re all right with that, then yes.”

“Pfft,” she snorted. “Well, isn’t that interesting. But just one isn’t enough to satisfy me. It’s gotta be at least three. If you make it a showdown, best two out of three, then I’ll cooperate.”

“Three? Now that’s just being greedy…”

As the elevator alarm continued to beep, I thought about her counteroffer.

“It’s nonnegotiable,” said Ibuki-san, firmly.

I supposed as much. I had to agree that we wouldn’t really be able to find a clear winner if we were to only have a showdown in one competition. If we were to compete in two or four, however, there would be the possibility of a draw. I’d been expecting from the very beginning that we’d ultimately decide on three competitions, but, if that was the first offer I made, she might well have come back demanding that we compete in five. If she was willing to accept three, that was well within my expectations, so I could call it there.

“…Very well,” I said. “I will participate in three events against you. Is that all right?”

“Duh. There’s no taking it back later though,” said Ibuki-san as she stepped out of the elevator.

When I pulled my hand away from the button, the doors slowly began to close.

“Of course. However…I’m going to need your help with this matter until it’s ultimately resolved.”

“Tell me exactly what your goal is here,” said Ibuki-san.

“That Kushida-san comes to school starting Monday. That’s it.”

“That sounds simple though. I mean, Kushida’s just resting, so what’s the big deal? Everyone gets sick sometimes, right?”

Chabashira-sensei had said that in Kushida-san’s case, secrets wouldn’t do us any good. But even so, it wasn’t a good idea to just carelessly divulge the truth. I decided to follow her advice and tell Ibuki-san everything. If Ibuki-san was the sort of student who would go and blab about it to everyone else, that would just mean I wasn’t good enough to see it coming.

I needed to make a breakthrough right now, even if that meant pushing myself harder. I decided I was going to tell her all about Kushida-san. I wasn’t going to make any awkward attempts to cover anything up. I was sure that even Ibuki-san knew what Kushida-san usually was like at school. But I would now explain, in detail, Kushida-san’s true nature, her way of thinking, and what led to her current situation.

While I was talking, Ibuki-san listened with apparent disinterest, looking off into the distance as I spoke. Normally, I would’ve been annoyed by such an attitude, but strangely enough, it almost came as a relief.

When I finished telling her the true reason Kushida-san was absent from school, Ibuki-san sighed in exasperation. She didn’t show any interest in hearing about Kushida-san’s real nature. Instead, she nonchalantly expressed how she truly felt.

“This is stupid.”

“You don’t seem surprised,” I said. “Did you know?”

“No. It’s just, I don’t believe there’s anyone who’s straight-up a good person. That goes for Kushida, Hirata, or even Ichinose. I mean, usually the ones who claim to be good people have the darkest sides to them.”

“That’s an interesting way of thinking.” Surprisingly enough, I felt that some of what she said could be exactly right. “Then does that mean you have a high opinion of people like Ryuuen-kun? Since, on the surface, he’s… Actually, no, disregard that. He is not a good person at all, inside or out,” I replied.

“I hate him even more,” said Ibuki-san. “And while I’m at it, I’ve also started to hate people who look like they’re harmless to everyone else, like Ayanokouji. He irritates the hell out of me.”

If she’d go that far, I had to wonder if there was anyone on the opposite end—anyone out there who Ibuki-san found likable.

“Anyway, I don’t really hate dragging people like her out into the open,” she conceded. “If anything, I kinda want to ask her how it feels to be exposed after everyone saw her as such a good person all this time.”

If Ibuki-san took things too far, I might have to stop her. On the other hand, I supposed there might be some things I needed to learn from someone like her, who could be that forceful.

“So I just gotta drag Kushida out from her room that she’s shut herself up in?” asked Ibuki-san.

“Yes,” I replied.

Ibuki-san, looking quite confident, strolled over to Kushida-san’s door with light footsteps.

“Are you planning on doing this all yourself?” I asked.

“Just shut up and watch,” she snapped.

All right, then. In that case, let’s see what you’ve got, Ibuki-san, I thought.

As she reached Kushida-san’s door, she suddenly clutched her middle and keeled over.

“Ah…ow, ow! Owwww!!!” she wailed, letting out an agonizing scream that carried through the hallway.

I stared at her in shock. I couldn’t understand what she was doing.

“M-my stomach…just suddenly started hurting… A-ah, it’s no use! I can’t make it back to my room…!”

Huh… A stomachache? Don’t tell me that was the plan you came up with. Seriously?

Was her plan to make Kushida-san open her door to let her use her bathroom? Setting aside the fact that it was an entirely cliché plan, her acting was devastatingly bad…

This wasn’t even Ibuki-san’s floor in the first place. Even if we were on the same floor, it would’ve been faster for her to just head to her own room anyway.

“B-bathroom! Lemme use your bathroom!!!” Ibuki-san quickly and repeatedly slammed the doorbell to try and get her to answer the door. This continued for about ten seconds, but there was no sign that Kushida-san would open the door.

Things were already going haywire before I even tried to do anything…

I had obviously chosen the wrong person for the job, and it made me want to hang my head in shame. Ibuki-san kept up the performance for half a minute longer. Then, her expression abruptly returned to normal, and she shot straight up and walked over to me.

“Maybe she’s not in after all?” she asked.

“No, I’m fairly certain she’s in her room,” I replied.

“Really? Huh. Well, if she didn’t fall for my act, I guess that means Kushida really isn’t a good person after all.”

“I-I suppose…”

She sounded like she was being serious, so I decided it was best if I didn’t touch that statement. I instructed her to come over by me, and I opened the box on the wall with the built-in electricity meter for Kushida-san’s room.

“You see this circle here? If it’s moving slowly, then it’s likely that the person inside is out. Alternatively, if someone is in their room and using their TV or a computer, the rotation is faster.” Right now, the circle was spinning somewhat quickly. “So, can you understand that this means it’s highly likely that she’s in right now?”

“This is the kind of stuff a thief would know…” commented Ibuki-san.

“I learned quite a few things while I was waiting for her over the last week and the weekend,” I explained. “Don’t abuse what I just told you.”

She shot me a cold look, as if to say, “Uh, no, I obviously won’t.”

“Do you have any other ideas?” I asked. “If not, then I’m afraid there’s a chance I’ll have to simply declare our deal is off, and—”

“I just went about it wrong,” said Ibuki-san, cutting me off.

“Huh?” I blinked.

“Look, it’s all or nothing, right? I’ll force her to come on out.”

I felt like I wanted her to provide me with some rationale for this, but seeing how fired up she was, I decided to just let her try once more. I stepped back, and Ibuki-san walked to Kushida-san’s door again. Once she was there, she opened her mouth to speak, and…

“Hey, Kushida. I’ve heard a lot of things about you. I heard that you’ve just been pretending to be all innocent up until now. A wolf in sheep’s clothing. And you got found out during the exam, huh?”

As I wondered what Ibuki-san was going to do, she launched into a tirade, insulting Kushida-san. For a moment, my mind raced. I wondered if I should halt her, but I realized there wasn’t any point in doing so. Even if I stopped her now, Kushida-san must have already heard what she said.

“I mean, serves you right, I guess,” Ibuki-san continued. “So, how’s it feel? You know, going from being the most popular person to being nothing? Oh, wait, hold on… I guess in the ranking of good people, Ichinose was still better than you. So, what’s it like then? Falling from number two?”

Her technique in agitating people was far, far more impressive than her attempt at acting earlier. This was definitely going to make Kushida-san absolutely furious, probably because it was coming from Ibuki-san. But there were still no sounds from the other side of the door. Perhaps I shouldn’t have resorted to such drastic measures after all… But Ibuki-san, still standing outside the door, didn’t seem like she was going to stop talking, and the look on her face hadn’t changed either.

“Come on. Show me your ugly side.” Suddenly, Ibuki-san kicked her door with some force, striking it with the edge of her right foot. “I got a lotta stress because of Horikita earlier, and I just wanted to get rid of it.”

Ibuki-san’s real intentions had never been to save Kushida-san, not in the slightest. She just wanted to rail against Kushida-san, who was probably on the other side of the door.

“You know…kicking down someone’s door might not be that bad after all. I kinda understand how Ryuuen feels.”

Ibuki-san repeatedly kicked the door— thud, thud . It seemed like this was now more for her own sake rather than any other goal. But after she banged against the door a number of times, I heard a sound coming from within the room. Ibuki-san ignored it and was about to start kicking the door more and more anyway, but the door was suddenly unlocked.

Kushida-san appeared, clad in her personal attire. “…You’re bothering me. Can you please stop, Ibuki-san?”

I had never imagined that Kushida-san would react that way to Ibuki-san’s violent behavior… I was a little shocked. Why had all of my efforts over the past week just amounted to…?

“All right, you came out,” said Ibuki-san. “You really are that kind of person after all.”

Now that Ibuki-san knew about Kushida’s true nature in detail, she might be able to understand some things about her.

“Your misunderstanding is really ticking me off , ” Kushida-san replied. “Can you stop already?”

“Huh? What part am I misunderstanding? I like you a lot more like this than when you’re trying to act all innocent.”

“I’ve never once liked you. And the same goes for Horikita-san over there too.”

Since she had addressed me with the honorific “-san,” I could see that she was in a calm state of mind. Since there wasn’t any point in hiding anymore, I stepped in front of Kushida-san’s door without hesitation.

“If you don’t mind, would you let me into your room?” I asked. “I’ve really grown tired of waiting.”

“I mean, even if you tried to shut the door now, it’d be pointless,” added Ibuki-san.

Ibuki-san firmly planted her foot in the gap between the door and the frame so Kushida-san wouldn’t be able to close it.

Kushida-san stared down at her foot before stomping down on it as hard as she could.

“OW!!!” wailed Ibuki-san.

Kushida-san kept stomping down forcefully, like she was trying to grind Ibuki-san’s foot into the floor, but Ibuki refused to pull it back.

“You’re right. It won’t close,” said Kushida-san.

“That’s…enough!!!” shouted Ibuki-san.

When Ibuki moved to force the door open, Kushida-san immediately stepped back and welcomed us inside with a straight face.

“Come on in then. This will probably be the first and last time, so take your time, I guess.”

That was already implied, of course, but by saying so, Kushida-san was admitting that she was really willing to go through with this. It wouldn’t bother Kushida-san at all to keep this up forever and continue making trouble for the class. She must have invited us inside precisely because she had made up her mind on that. Which meant that…this was my first and last chance to do something.

I could tell from a glance that Kushida-san kept her room beautifully clean. I got the impression that she was even more fastidious than I was.

“Wh-whoa. Well, well, looks like you keep it pretty tidy in here.” Ibuki-san looked around the room with both admiration and surprise.

Kushida-san took notice of that. “I’m guessing that your own room is a mess, Ibuki-san. Perhaps you just have dirty clothes scattered all over the place.”

“Ugh… Y-you haven’t even seen it, so what do you know?”

No matter who you asked, it was obvious that Kushida-san had hit a bull’s-eye with that comment.

“Sit,” Kushida-san told us. “I’m not going to offer you anything to drink or snack on or whatever, but I’m guessing that’s fine?”

“I don’t mind, it’s all right,” I replied.

Ibuki-san and I exchanged glances and sat down some distance apart. Kushida-san sat at the other end of the table, opposite us.

“So, you’ve been making a big fuss outside my room for a while. What are you after?” asked Kushida-san.

“Don’t you already know?” I said. “You’ve been absent for a week. It’s about that.”

“Ugh.” Kushida-san let out an indifferent sigh. “Do you really think I can go back to school after what happened? And I can’t say I’m particularly surprised, but you told her about me, huh? I guess you did that out of spite too, to take a dig at me.”

“It’s not like that,” I informed her. “She wouldn’t carelessly talk to other people about it.”

“Oh? You trust me?” Ibuki-san asked.

“I don’t. You simply don’t have many people to talk to.”

“Hey!”

Ibuki-san slammed her fist on the table at that and glared at me, but I ignored her. I knew what I said was the truth.

“Even if that’s true, you’re not thinking about how I feel. I’m hurt,” said Kushida-san.

“Do you really have the right to say something like that?” I asked.

Her reply was sharp. “Even if I don’t, there’s no reason for you to not consider my feelings, Horikita-san.”

“Let’s get to business,” I insisted. “I understand full well that I’ve done some careless things myself. But you were the one who initiated hostilities first and came after me. Isn’t that right?”

Kushida-san was just a classmate, but even from the very beginning, she viewed me as someone who needed to be expelled.

“I’m not going to deny that,” she said, “but there was no way around it. I just couldn’t stand it.”

“What was I supposed to do?” I asked. “Even looking back now, I can’t see a clear answer as to what I should have done.”

“Well, I thought about it many times over,” Kushida-san began. “Eventually, I came to one conclusion. You should have just dropped out of school voluntarily, for my sake, since I couldn’t stand you, you know?”

“Can you stop saying such ridiculous things?” I scoffed. “That’s not a conclusion—that’s an irrational rant.”

“A rant, hm? That’s all I could do, though.”

Although she was answering my questions, I’d be hard pressed to call this a friendly conversation. But even so, these probably were Kushida-san’s true feelings.

Ibuki-san had been trying to listen along at first, but the color seemed to drain from her eyes more and more as time went on. She looked bored.

“I’m hoping that we can put the past behind us and that you’ll cooperate with me,” I said.

“I knew you were going to suggest something like that, but really, don’t make me laugh,” replied Kushida-san.

“It’s just that I know you’re that capable and that valuable. I want you,” I replied.

“I’m aware,” Kushida-san said immediately, without even the pretense of modesty.

“Talk about a super-inflated ego…” muttered Ibuki-san, absentmindedly.

“Really? I don’t think so,” said Kushida-san—not correcting her, but just responding.

Ibuki-san clenched her fist. “Yeah, no. I don’t think you’re all that capable,” she said. “What do you say we throw down, right here?”

“You’re an even bigger idiot than I imagined, Ibuki-san,” Kushida-san said. “That’s clearly not what she meant by ‘capable.’ Why don’t you have a look at OAA to understand? In this school, how capable you are means how good your scores are. I’m guessing that the difference between you and me is probably even more significant than you expect. So?”

Ibuki-san was irritated and immediately whipped out her phone as if she were responding to a showdown. She quickly checked OAA. As she compared her overall ability score and Kushida’s, she went pale and silently turned her phone back off.

“I want you to use your high level of ability for the benefit of the class,” I pressed on. “But if you continue to miss class without permission from the school, you will eventually lose your place.”

“I’ve already lost it. I mean, of course it’s gone, right? Horikita-san, you were against my expulsion and prepared for whatever came your way because of it, right? That means you’re the one who’ll be in trouble if I’m not useful. I can understand why you’d be this desperate to convince me to come back.”

I was sure that even Kushida-san knew what was going on in class right now.

“I lost,” she continued. “There’s no place for me anywhere anymore. But the reason I’ve been so quiet since the Unanimous Special Exam was just to hurt you as much as possible. If I keep refusing to come to class, the school will punish the class that caused those students to be absent, right? And the blame for that punishment will fall on you.”

It was true that if Kushida-san continued to be absent like this, our class would keep suffering. It was like we had swallowed poison. It was possible that her strategy of remaining absent could eventually be put on hold if there was a special exam, but by doing this, Kushida-san was able to get her revenge against me quite brilliantly.

“There’s nothing for you to gain from this,” said Ibuki-san.

Kushida-san dismissed her. “It’s too late for that. I don’t have anything more to lose. Isn’t it normal for me to want to take you down with me?”

“Huh? No, it’s not normal. Don’t get carried away just ’cause your OAA scores are kinda good.”

“I invited you in partially for the fun of it, but I guess I really did make the right decision. You’re funny, Ibuki-san. If it was just Horikita-san and I, this would’ve been a boring conversation. You’re probably right that I was wrong to describe myself as normal. If anything, I guess ‘normal’ to me must be something abnormal.”

“So what, you’re admitting that you’re a psycho?” said Ibuki-san.

“I can’t be satisfied unless I’m number one,” Kushida-san said. “I can’t tolerate anything that’s inconvenient for me.”

“Gross,” huffed Ibuki-san.

“There’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t change the way I think. I was simply born that way.”

I wouldn’t mind particularly if she said that she was venting her anger, or if she were just holding a grudge. But Kushida-san was making me even more uneasy than usual right now with the way she was calming herself down, as if she had achieved some kind of enlightenment. She was much a more formidable foe at this moment than she was back in class when she was shouting and exposing people’s weaknesses.

“I’m going to continue being absent until the school does something to force me to do otherwise.” Kushida-san continued to speak in a detached, indifferent manner, almost as though she felt she were invincible. She was going to keep doing as she was, prepared to go all the way without surrender.

“So? What are you going to do?” she asked me.

“What can I do?” I replied. “I have no other choice but to continue talking to you like this.”

“In other words, you have no plan,” she concluded. “You’re very different from Ayanokouji-kun.”

Ibuki-san’s ears perked up when she heard Ayanokouji-kun’s name mentioned.

“I had thought I had the upper hand over him,” Kushida-san went on, “but he wasn’t panicking at all. On the contrary, he was actually planning to use everything against me the entire time. I really shouldn’t have made an enemy of a guy like him.”

“He’s… Yes, I suppose you’re right,” I said. “He might have the ability to see into the distant future. It’s only recently that I’ve come to realize that.”

“Same goes for me,” said Kushida-san.

“I see.”

There was a short period of silence.

“You’re a huge moron too, Horikita-san,” Kushida-san eventually said, after a while. “It would’ve been much easier for you if you just got rid of me.”

“You’re right, I might be a moron,” I agreed. “It was baseless intuition. Unfounded confidence. It’s fair for people to interpret what I did that way, but there is absolutely no doubt that you are an excellent student. Although your actions toward me and Ayanokouji-kun have caused some harm, and people now know about your past, that still doesn’t change the value of your contributions to the class over the last year and a half.”

She had achieved a great deal. I thought she should feel proud of what she had accomplished and continue to do well.

“If causing trouble for the class really is your top priority, then yes, your continued absence might just work as a form of revenge. But are you really okay with that?” I asked.

“What are you trying to say?” she asked.

“I’m asking if that’s enough to satisfy you,” I replied.

“It’s plenty. There isn’t anything I want more than that right now. No matter what you say, no matter how many words you use to try and persuade me, I’m not going to agree to it.”

Persuade . When I heard that word, I felt like there was a small bone lodged in my throat. It was certainly true that I wanted Kushida-san to come back to class, but that was because I wanted to prove to everyone that my choice hadn’t been a mistake. Kushida-san knew that better than anyone else. However…what I was doing was just for my own sake. I couldn’t really say it would be the best answer for Kushida-san.

“Perhaps I was mistaken,” I said.

“What do you mean?” asked Kushida-san.

“I came here with the intention of trying to persuade you. But I was wrong. Ultimately, I was just doing this for my own sake, or for the class’s sake. I hadn’t actually taken your feelings into consideration.”

“What? Now you’re going to try to make me take pity on you?”

“I just realized that it was a mistake to bring you to school when you don’t want to go.”

“In that case, this conversation is over. If I drag my feet, then you’ll fall by default. I hope that you’ll suffer at school without me for a long time,” said Kushida-san.

“Don’t worry about me,” I assured her. “But you know, at the same time, you’re going to suffer too.”

“Me?” she asked. “What are you talking about?”

“Because you still have a place to return to and you’re going to lose it.”

“Now you’re just selfishly spouting off whatever you like. There’s no place for me to go back to anymore.”

The more I thought about her, and the more I focused on her, the more one certain emotion welled up within me.

“I get so frustrated, just looking at you,” I said.

“…Huh?” Kushida-san blinked at me.

“I try to get close to you, but I can’t do anything because you’re a child. You made all the wrong choices. This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t tried to get rid of me. I don’t go around telling people’s secrets, and I don’t even really care about your secret anyway. And the same goes for Ayanokouji-kun too.”

“I already told you. I just couldn’t stand it,” said Kushida-san.

“And that makes you a child. You couldn’t deal with it, and you lashed out… That’s exactly what a child does.”

The first person to react to my words was Ibuki-san, who had been silently listening along until that point. She unconsciously burst out laughing. Kushida-san looked visibly irritated.

“You just have to endure that much,” I went on. “You’re a high school student, remember? All you have to do is walk to class, and you can’t even do that. Don’t just lay on the ground forever, throwing a tantrum. Stand up on your own two feet and walk already.”

“Hah,” Kushida-san scoffed. “That’s easy for you to say, Horikita-san. I’m just a poor girl who’s hurting right now. If I go to school now, our classmates are going to ostracize me. There’s no way I can carry on like before. You’re awful, trying to make me go back to such a painful place. You’re not trying to ‘get close’ to me at all.”

“It’s not my place to speak for the others, but you are absolutely a mess right now,” I told her.

Kushida-san was silent at that.

“The class already found out about your past and they know it now. You can’t change that, there’s no longer any way to smooth it over. But even so, you’re still making trouble. You looked like a child before when you were bawling in class, but now, you really are just a child. No, maybe even younger. I feel like I’m dealing with a toddler right now,” I remarked, laying into her.

“Don’t make fun of me!”

Kushida-san raised her hand and mercilessly took a swing at my cheek. I calmly caught her arm, holding it forcefully.

“You make me want to make fun of you,” I told her. “You made trouble for me and for our classmates, all for your own amusement, and made something like that your top priority. That makes me see you as nothing more than a toddler.”

“So, what, I’m supposed to be the only one to be bitter and just endure it, helping you and the rest of the class?” she snorted.

“Don’t twist what I’m saying. Listen. You’re clever. In that case, use what you’ve got for your own sake. The people around you don’t matter. If you can do this for yourself and get into Class A yourself, then that would undeniably be your own achievement. And then you can do whatever you want with the privileges that come with being in Class A. If you want to do the same thing you were doing before, then just go to some place where no one knows about your past.”

Kushida-san was glaring at me, but I continued speaking.

“We only have a year and a half left at this school. It shouldn’t be that hard to finish, right? You’ve been putting on a good face for your classmates for the past year and a half. This will be easier than that. You don’t think you can do that, with your skills?”

I could feel Kushida-san’s hand trembling with anger as I held onto her. But I had arrived at another conclusion.

“This is the only time I’ll be visiting you here. All that’s left is for you to think this over. If you still want to be my enemy, even after all I’ve said today… Well, then there’s nothing more I can do for you. Stay a child for the rest of your life.”

“And you’re saying that…while I’m standing still right here, you’ll keep moving forward,” said Kushida-san.

Even though I hadn’t stated that specifically, Kushida-san could see what the situation was.

“You’ll be expelled,” I replied. “And I’ll be achieving my dream of graduating from Class A. That’s a big difference, I’d say.”

The highly prideful Kushida-san closed her eyes, imagining the future of the person she despised. If you looked at the bigger picture, our time as students here only made up a small percentage of a long life.

“And…you really think there’s a chance I can make a comeback if I come back to school?” she asked.

“That depends on you,” I said. “Decide if you’re going to put your fist down or not, after you’ve raised it at me.”

I still held onto her arm tightly. But over time, I gradually relaxed, and let her go.

“I’ll at least listen to what you have to say,” she conceded. “Tell me what strategy you have in mind, Horikita-san.”

It had taken us various twists and turns to get here, but we had now arrived at a moment when Kushida-san would listen to me. But I couldn’t try and smooth things over just to try and make her feel good about this. I had to convince her that my plan was for the sake of her own survival. By reconsidering several tentative solutions and putting them together, I arrived at an ideal answer right on the spot.

“There’s no use planning on trying to play innocent anymore, now that—”

“I’m not,” she interrupted. “Besides, it’d be pointless, right? Our classmates saw my real face. There’s no changing that fact, is there?”

“That’s right. But if we were to put that another way, that means it’s possible for you to play innocent in front of people who haven’t seen your true nature yet, isn’t it?”

Kushida-san gestured that she was considering the matter, and then muttered under her breath, “I’m not so sure about that.” She then continued speaking. “Until now, only very few people knew the real me, like you and Ayanokouji-kun, Horikita-san. Before, I wouldn’t have hesitated to try and smooth things over and keep up the act, but now, there are more people in class that know. And not just the smart people either. There are a lot of useless, moronic students among them too.”

Kushida-san had a point. But before I could even react to what she said, Ibuki-san cut in.

“Ugh, that’s mean!”

It sounded like Ibuki-san had an overly sensitive reaction to what Kushida-san said about some students being moronic and useless.

“I’m not talking about you, so why do you care?” asked Kushida-san.

“Ibuki-san, if you’re not going to be quiet, you can just go back to your room, okay?” I added.

“Oh. Okay, fine then. I’ll go,” she huffed. “And I expect this means you’re gonna keep your promise you made to me. Right?”

Just as she tried to stand up to leave, I told her something I thought I needed to, just in case.

“No,” I said. “If you leave right now, I’ll consider that to be an abandonment of your duties before the job is done. Our agreement would be void.”

“Whaaaat?! You’ve gotta be freaking… Ugh. Fine. I’ll stay quiet, so just hurry up and get this over with,” sighed Ibuki-san.

“Agreement? Now that’s interesting,” said Kushida-san.

“I simply promised her that I’d fight her in the Sports Festival if she helped me bring you to school.” I figured I ought to offer an explanation as to why Ibuki-san was even here.

“So that’s what’s going on. I was wondering why Ibuki-san was around, but now I understand.”

“At any rate, Kushida-san, I was able to get in your room thanks to her efforts. So, I suppose there was some point to it after all.”

Ibuki-san was making a face like there was a lot she wanted to say back to that, but she held it in. I respected her spirit—that she wanted to compete against me so badly she was willing to put up with this.

“Going back to the subject at hand,” I said. “Is it fair for me to interpret it that it would be painful for you to continue playing the part while people knew your true nature?”

“Yes. Even if I could do my best if there was some meaning in my performance, I can’t really do that if it’s useless,” said Kushida-san.

Up until this point, if she had gotten me and Ayanokouji-kun expelled, there would have still been meaning for her to continue the performance. However, it would be all but impossible to get the entire class expelled. When Kushida-san had been put in a similar situation in junior high, she destroyed her class and put an end to everything. That was why she tried to do the same thing this time, and that was how we had reached this point.

“If you don’t want to, you don’t have to spend time hanging out with our classmates like you used to,” I told her.

“Oh?”

It seemed this statement came as a surprise not only to Kushida-san, but to Ibuki-san as well; they both reacted similarly.

“Even if I forbade people from talking about the issue to a certain extent, there’s no absolute guarantee it would stop them,” I said. “It’s inevitable that the rest of class will continue to believe that you, Kushida-san, are two-faced and a problematic student.”

That would mean the weapon known as Kushida-san had lost half of its effectiveness. She was capable when it came to academics and sports, but she wasn’t anywhere near the top in either category. She was, at best, an honors student. Even if she was superior to Sakura-san in terms of her core abilities, she lacked charm in other areas.

“I’m not trusted by anyone,” Kushida-san agreed. “I can’t imagine that anyone would be happy with someone like me. Right?”

“It’s true that you won’t be able to do things the way you used to,” I said. “But I have to wonder if we can really say for sure that you’ve completely lost everyone’s trust. What do you think, Ibuki-san?”

Ibuki-san didn’t say anything.

“Ibuki-san, answer me.”

“You told me to be quiet and now you’re telling me to talk?” she snapped.

“I give you permission to speak,” I replied.

“Oh, for the love of… Telling me to be quiet one minute and to speak up the next? I’m not your henchman, you know?”

“Don’t you want to compete against me?” I reminded her. “In that case, if you don’t answer my question, I—”

“Ugh, whatever, FINE!!!” squawked Ibuki-san, scratching her head vigorously. “Okay. Kushida-san, you’ve been playing the part of the good girl for way too long. I don’t think there’s anyone out there who is purely good. In fact, I remember thinking you were suspicious as hell before. If I had to choose who I trusted more between the person you used to be or the person you are now, I’d say the person you are now is more honest.”

Ibuki-san spoke quickly, saying what she thought. I supposed it must have come off as very honest and straightforward to Kushida-san since Ibuki-san was lacking when it came to pulling off trickery or wit.

“Ah ha ha ha,” Kushida-san laughed. “That’s an interesting answer. I mean, that’s a pretty unusual line of thinking… But not everyone is as unusual as you, Ibuki-san. In fact, normal people would hate me.”

“It’s certainly true that Ibuki-san isn’t normal, yes,” I said.

“Hey!”

“But even so, although it might be to a greater or lesser extent, everyone has two sides to them. And Ibuki-san values your true self—that part of you that makes you want to act for your own sake above all else. That’s because your true heart will never change.”

Besides, the idea of trying to get someone to change their true nature was wrong in and of itself.

“Besides, if you just speak like you always have with the same mannerisms and tone, when you’re dealing with people outside our class, it would be difficult for those who haven’t seen your true face to imagine what you really are like,” I went on. “No matter how much someone tries to explain it in words, you have to experience it firsthand to really understand.”

“What do you mean?” asked Kushida-san.

“Let’s say… Ah, I’ve got it. Let’s take Ichinose Honami-san,” I said. “She’s considered to be a truly good person, even more than you, Kushida-san. So, if I were to tell you that in truth she’s a violent, foul-mouthed person who loves seeing other people fail more than anything else, would you believe me right away?”

“I’d honestly find that hard to believe,” Kushida-san answered after a pause. “She really does seem like a genuinely good person.”

“I still have my doubts,” remarked Ibuki-san.

“But in your case, it isn’t really about Ichinose-san,” I pointed out. “It’s because you doubt the existence of good people in general, right?”

“Well… I guess I’d have to actually see someone face to face to really be sure, yeah,” admitted Ibuki-san. “I mean, I didn’t get a real sense of what Kushida-san was like just from hearing about it from you, Horikita-san.”

“Exactly my point. Ichinose-san has continued to be a good person for, at the very least, the past year and a half. So, hypothetically, even if someone were to make a claim like that, no one would believe it. Of course, if everyone in her class were to say that Ichinose-san was that kind of person, we’d naturally start to be suspicious. But still, even then, you probably wouldn’t be able to clearly picture something like that in your head, would you?”

Ichinose-san as a violent person who hurled insults at people? No matter who told you something like that, there was no way anyone could fully believe it. Even if you started to suspect it, you wouldn’t be able to fully believe it if you hadn’t seen that side of her with your own eyes.

“I guess it might really be true, then,” said Ibuki-san, “that you don’t know something until you experience it yourself. In martial arts, even if someone tells you about a technique and warns you that it’s real crazy, it still might not click with you at all. But when you actually get hit with it for real? That’s when you understand how awesome it is.”

“It is just like you to use martial arts as an example, Ibuki-san,” I remarked.

“But as long as there’s some doubt, they won’t trust me completely,” said Kushida-san.

“That’s where your skills come in. From now on, you’ll just have to handle yourself well and make it work. At the very least, it’s a fact that your communication skills and your ability to cultivate a sense of emotional closeness are better than the average person’s.”

Whether or not Kushida-san would be able to gain people’s trust again in the future was uncertain at this stage.

“Even if that would work with the other classes, what about our classmates?” argued Kushida-san. “Shinohara-san, Wang-san, and Hasebe-san especially must all hold grudges against me. Do you really think you can unite the class on this issue?”

“It might be impossible to get everyone on board,” I replied. “But if you just try your best and use your abilities, we will be able to produce results.”

Even if Kushida-san only managed to continue getting higher-than-average scores, the students who earned scores lower than hers wouldn’t be able to complain about her so easily.

“If people not trusting you becomes a problem, I’ll step in to help,” I added.

“…Do you think I can honestly believe something like that?” said Kushida-san. “It sounds too good to be true. Won’t they assume that I’ll betray them?”

“I don’t mind you doubting me. And I’ll listen to their resentful complaints if that happens.”

Kushida-san had already fallen once before; for someone in her position, there wasn’t anything left to be afraid of. Whether or not she would stand again depended entirely on her own decision now.

What followed my last statement was the longest period of silence in our conversation thus far, and Kushida-san closed her eyes. She started mumbling something, but I wasn’t able to hear what it was. Eventually, she opened her eyes again, liking having come to a decision.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll fight and contribute to the class for the next year and a half. But I’m just doing it for me. I am not fighting for you, Horikita-san, and not for our classmates. Is that okay with you?”

“There are no complaints from me whatsoever,” I agreed. “All I want is for you to produce results.”

Kushida-san stood up, and this time, she didn’t throw her fist. Instead, she reached out to me with her left hand.

“It’s the opposite of what happened that time,” I mused.

The last time I had offered Kushida-san my hand, she refused to take it.

“I just learned this recently, but apparently, shaking hands with your left expresses hostility,” Kushida-san informed me.

“…Is that so? What hand did I offer to you when I went to shake your hand back then?”

“Your left,” she replied immediately.

She seemed to remember what happened back then very clearly. She was deliberately asking me for a left-handed shake with that in mind. I got up and took her hand, meeting her in that left-handed shake.

“This is like a commemoration of our hostility,” I remarked.

“That’s rather fitting for us,” said Kushida-san. “Don’t you think so?”

“You might be right about that.”

She gripped my hand more tightly, and in response, I gripped hers.

“That reminds me… There’s one thing I’ve wanted to try doing to you, Horikita-san. May I?” asked Kushida-san.

“A request? What is it?” I asked.

“Well…”

Smiling broadly, Kushida-san slowly extended both arms to reach for me. Her hands came up and neared my face. Just when I thought that she was going to gently caress my cheeks, a jolt of pain suddenly shot through both sides of my face at once like electricity. I immediately realized that it was pain—she was pinching and pulling on my cheeks. Hard.

“Whad aww y—?!”

“I really, truly loathe you, Horikita-san.”

With that, she started pulling on my cheeks even harder.

“I’ve been pissed off ever since you showed up today, and I’m still angry, even now that we’re in cooperation,” she said. “When I think about how I’m going to be keeping this up for a long, long time starting on Monday, it stresses me out beyond belief! I need to be able to get it out at least a little, like this.”

It seemed like she was putting more and more force into her grip with no signs of stopping.

“I-iz thidz enuf?” I mumbled back, my speech distorted by her actions.

“No, absolutely not,” Kushida-san said. “This is nowhere near enough.”

I had intended to take what she was dishing out, at least for a little bit, but Kushida-san was getting carried away. She wouldn’t stop pinching and pulling on my face. If she had no intention of backing off, then I had an idea. I reached out with both of my arms and responded in kind, pinching and pulling on her cheeks too.

“Ngh?!”

“Don’d yew thind it’sh time to stop?” I asked.

I assumed that she’d let go once she felt the pain, but she didn’t.

I didn’t hold back either, putting enough force into my fingers that I felt like I was going to rip off her cheeks.

“A fha fha!” she laughed. “Nife joge! But thad ugly fafe you’re making izh funnier!”

Kushida-san didn’t back down in the slightest. She was responding with so much force I thought she must be going beyond even her limits.

It was a battle of wills.

Ibuki-san was the one calm person left in the room. “Why don’t you two keep this up until you both rip each other’s faces off? Anyway, this is totally stupid, so I’m leaving,” she announced, before promptly heading for the door and leaving.

We continued this battle of wills for about two or three minutes after she left, until the pain and numbness became too much. Once we realized that we were just making ourselves look stupid, we both let go. When I saw how bright red Kushida-san’s face was, I figured that mine must have looked the same.

“Come to school on Monday,” I commanded.

“God, you’re pushy,” Kushida-san huffed. “Will you just leave already?”

She started pushing me from behind, like she was trying to toss me out of her room.

At last, I left her room and stepped out into the hallway. “Good grief…” I muttered, rubbing my sore cheeks.

When I looked to the elevator, I spotted Ibuki-san getting on.

“Were you waiting for me, by any chance?” I asked as I walked over.

Ibuki-san stuck out her tongue at me and pushed the Close Door button on the elevator.

“Maybe I really do have a gift for making people angry… Huh,” I remarked to myself.

But the fact remained that it was thanks to Ibuki-san that I was able to talk to Kushida-san. Now I just needed to give her exactly what she wanted and make the difference between us crystal clear at the Sports Festival.

4.2

I RAISED MY HEAVY HEAD and slipped out of bed like I was falling out of it. I didn’t have a fever, but I had this lingering mild, dull ache. The cause was obvious: it was because I felt so badly about skipping school for five whole days. I had never missed a single day of school before, except when I was actually sick. Feeling tormented by guilt, I thought about trying to do something else to dispel what I was going through, but I couldn’t push it from my mind. Of course, I was able to get rid of this feeling so easily, then I wouldn’t have skipped five days of class…

I decided I should do something to take my mind off of things and I grabbed my phone. Leaving several incoming messages unread, I tapped on my photos folder and pulled up the first pictures I had taken. As I scrolled through the shots and looked at them, I began to reminisce.

The first photo I stopped to take a closer look at was one I took right after I enrolled in this school. It was from back when I still didn’t have anyone that I could really call a friend.

It was the first and only picture I had taken that had just two people in it. It was a picture of me standing right next to Hirata-kun, who was smiling warmly beside me. At that time, I still wasn’t able to smile all that well. Well, I still wasn’t very good at smiling now either, but I had the feeling that I improved a lot since then.

“This takes me back…” I said to myself.

At that time, I didn’t know the first thing about attending school in Japan. Hirata-kun was the first person to get me to relax, when I was feeling overwhelmed by anxiety. At the time, I was still unaware of my romantic feelings too. I just thought that he was cool, kind, and a nice person. Back in China, people were highly competitive, and students were held to high academic standards. I didn’t have the time to fall in love, so I didn’t realize what was happening. I wasn’t sure when exactly I noticed my change of heart, but since the day I discovered it, I hadn’t been able to put my feelings into words.

Hirata-kun was popular. He wasn’t someone a person like me could reach. If I ever expressed how I felt, even by mistake, it’d only embarrass him and make him feel awkward. That was why I kept my feelings buried deep in my heart. I was content to just be by his side.

“But…”

Just thinking about it again made me feel ashamed and scared. Tears started to well up in my eyes.

“What should I…?”

My entire class found out that I had a crush on Hirata-kun. They must have also noticed that I tried to be placed next to him when we changed seats too, right? I didn’t know how I could face everyone again if I did go back to class…

As that thought hit me, however, I was overcome with another wave of guilt.

Back then, when Sakura-san was expelled, she showed Hasebe-san both kindness and anger. Hasebe-san’s anguish must have been immense. I couldn’t even begin to imagine it. And yet here I was, so preoccupied with thinking about myself that I pushed the button to vote in favor of Sakura-san’s expulsion right away. I was just wishing that the exam would be over as soon as possible.

“I’m the worst…”

I hated myself for being such an awful person. I was being consumed by sadness and pain. I mean, my tiny, insignificant worries were…

Just as I was about to turn my phone off again, not wanting to look at my awkward smile anymore, I remembered the email that I had received from Ayanokouji-kun on Monday night. I wondered how Ayanokouji-kun was feeling right now. Was he still able to keep going to class after he expelled a dear friend with his own hand?

If he was going to school, then how did he…? I wanted to meet him in person and talk.

As those thoughts swirled around in my mind, I read his message.

“I want to meet you in person and talk.”

“Oh…”

Ayanokouji’s message was like it was linked to my very own feelings. He even included his phone number and room number, just in case. Would he talk to me then?

There were several people aside from Ayanokouji-kun who were worried about me and had sent me messages as well.

“Are you okay?” “Want to talk?” “You don’t have to stress, okay? Take your time.”

While I was grateful to receive such kind words, I wasn’t confident I could arrive at a solution if I responded to any of them.

But, knowing Ayanokouji-kun, maybe… I wanted him to listen to what I had to say. I wanted him to hear.

“Maybe I’ll…go see him…” I murmured to myself.

It was only 5:30 in the evening now. It was too early for dinner. I figured that it wouldn’t be too rude if I were to visit him suddenly now, at this time. Time continued to pass as I paced back and forth in my room, agonizing about what I should do. Eventually, I made up my mind and decided that I’d pay Ayanokouji-kun a visit. I picked up my phone, and even though I was nervous, I gave him a call.

It rang five times, six times… When it rang for the tenth time, I wondered if I should just hang up. But just then, Ayanokouji-kun picked up the call.

Now completely flustered, I tried to speak up. “Ah! Um, uh, this is Wang! I-is this, um, Ayanokouji-kun?” I asked.

“You called me, didn’t you?”

I could faintly hear the trace of an echo from Ayanokouji-kun’s voice, as well as the sound of a running shower.

“Y-yes… I haven’t been able to leave my room for a long time, and I’ve been worried about things, but I feel like…I can leave, now… So I was wondering if, maybe, you wouldn’t mind talking to me for a little bit, um, Ayanokouji-kun…”

“Now?”

“Is now uh, inconvenient for you…? I’m sorry for calling you so suddenly… I’m just so hopeless, I…”

Maybe it really was a bad time. Maybe it was just pointless, no matter what I tried to do.

“It’s not like that. Can you give me a little time though? I need thirty—no, twenty minutes,” said Ayanokouji-kun, maybe because he knew that I was feeling down.

“Th-thank you so very much! Well then, I’ll, um, come see you in twenty minutes! Sorry for the bother!”

Strangely anxious, I couldn’t take it anymore. I immediately hung up the phone.

“Phew… I was so nervous…” Maybe it’s because I haven’t spoken to anyone in a week…

Anyway, while I waited until it was time to go, I cleaned myself up and made myself presentable. About twenty minutes later, I finished getting ready and left my room. And when I opened my front door, which felt heavier than usual—

“Oh, again…” I muttered.

I spotted a plastic bag next to my door.

“I guess they came again today.”

There were several things inside like a gelatin dessert, tea, sandwiches, and so on. This had started happening on Monday night. I quietly slipped out of my room to head to the convenience store and noticed something outside. At first I thought someone must have put it there by mistake, but then I noticed the plastic bag contained a small piece of paper with my room number on it. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any name, so I didn’t know who it was from.

“Oh, there’s a salad in it today too… But…I don’t really like that though…”

It was a salad with chicken tenderloin, packed with lots of protein. Still, I felt like it was kind of the person. They included a slightly different assortment of items each day.

“I wonder who this is from?” I asked myself.

There was no receipt in the plastic bag or anything else that might have given me a clue. Though I was grateful to this nameless person, I left the bag at my doorway, and took the stairs to the fourth floor where Ayanokouji-kun’s room was located.

I’m a little nervous about going to a floor with boys’ rooms though…

As I was thinking that, I opened the door leading from the stairs to the hallway. But at that very same time, one of the room doors opened. It looked like it was Ayanokouji-kun’s room, but the person who stepped out was…

I wondered who it could be, but I realized it was Karuizawa-san. She didn’t have her hair done up in her usual beautiful ponytail; instead it was down and completely straight. Then I spotted Ayanokouji-kun, dressed in casual clothes. Maybe they were on a date in their room? I wondered if maybe I had been a huge bother earlier when I called him…

I felt like I was going to start feeling depressed again, but I couldn’t turn and run away again now that I had come this far. Karuizawa-san immediately looked around and scanned the hallway. When she looked my way, our eyes met, but just briefly.

“Oh, uh, speak of the devil or something, I think,” she said. “See you later, Kiyotaka!”

Nervous, I took a deep breath. For whatever reason, I noticed that Karuizawa-san took a deep breath too. It sounded like she even took two. Maybe she’d tell me something about Hirata-kun?

“B-bye-bye!” said Karuizawa-san.

“H-huh?” I sputtered.

I was bracing myself for more, but all she said was a simple polite goodbye before walking right past me without making eye contact.

“Um, excuse me, Karuizawa-san!” I called to her as she hurriedly walked past.

“Wh-wh-wh…what?”

“I’m, um, sorry about calling Ayanokouji-kun so suddenly,” I apologized. “I’m sure I was a bother…”

“Oh, no, not at all. Really.”

“But…”

“You wanted to talk to him about something, right? Kiyotaka told me. He said that if you didn’t come now, he’d make you use your newfound courage to leave your room again.”

It sounded like my feelings had been conveyed well over the phone. Karuizawa-san came to a stop, came back, and smiled gently at me.

“I think you should just go ahead and talk to him,” she said. “Don’t be shy. He looks like he’d be a smooth talker, but he’s actually real clumsy with his words. But I think he’ll give you some answers.”

“…Okay.”

I had come this far already. I had to get out everything that was in my head or it’d be my loss. Karuizawa-san helped me come to that realization, that I needed to be that prepared.

“Well then, I hope I’ll see you on Monday,” said Karuizawa-san.

After that encouraging pep talk, she walked straight over to the elevator and repeatedly tapped the button. When she realized that the elevator wasn’t going to be coming any time soon, she walked off, heading back to her room via the emergency stairs.

“Thank you very much, Karuizawa-san,” I said aloud.

At the very least, she didn’t seem to have any issues with me. I had always had the strong impression that she was an angry, scary person…but today, she seemed gentle and kind. Anyway, I didn’t have the time or headspace to even think about anything else right now, so I hurried over to Ayanokouji-kun’s room. After I pressed the doorbell, the door opened about thirty seconds later. I immediately got flustered again because Ayanokouji-kun was completely silent when he welcomed me inside.

“U-um… I called you…because… W-well, um, I wanted to talk…!”

4.3

M II-CHAN ARRIVED at my room at almost exactly the scheduled time. I really wanted to send Kei back to her own room a little earlier, but Mii-chan was in kind of a hurry. Perhaps I should have asked for a few more minutes before we got started with this discussion, but I had to be careful and not give Mii-chan an opportunity to change her mind. I didn’t really have any other choice but to stick with it.

“It’s all right. Come on in,” I told her.

“Sorry for the bother…!”

She couldn’t hide how nervous she was at all, but she showed no sign of turning back either. Even with just a glance, I could tell she was trying desperately hard to get back on her feet. Unlike Kushida and Haruka, she didn’t want to stay where she was.

“Want something to drink?” I asked.

“No thank you, I’m all right. Thank you for your kind offer, though.”

After politely refusing, she shyly sat down on the floor. I sat across from her, showing that I was ready to begin our conversation.

“I’m guessing you came here to talk about what Kushida said in class. About Yousuke?” I asked.

Her shoulders twitched when I said his name, but she nodded quietly.

“That, and I’d also like to know how things are going in class,” she said. “Like about Shinohara-san, Matsushita-san, and Hasebe-san. Those people are hurting much more than I am. And I wanted to ask about you too, Ayanokouji-kun.”

I didn’t expect her to bring up my name, but it actually wasn’t all that surprising. From an outside perspective, it would look like I made the painful decision of throwing one of the people from my friend group away.

“I would’ve thought that plenty of people would be calling and texting you, though?” I asked.

“…Thankfully, there are a lot of people who seem to be worried about me, yes,” said Mii-chan. “But, for some reason, I just can’t look at their messages. I felt like if I looked, then I’d have to respond, so I just…couldn’t.”

She couldn’t simply leave those messages on read without sending a reply. In that case, then the only thing she could do was simply not read the messages at all.

“All right, then,” I said. “You don’t have to put your questions in order or anything. Anything you want to ask me, feel free to go ahead and ask.”

The two of us had rarely ever talked alone like this. It wasn’t necessary for her to get everything out smoothly and eloquently or anything, but if she continued being shy, she wouldn’t be able to solve the things that could be solved. It’d be better for her to find a way to open up, even if just a little.

“Well, um, okay, I’ll go ahead, then… Oh, um, but, before that… I wanted to ask you something, just to be sure. Were you the one who bought all those things for me and left them outside my room, Ayanokouji-kun?”

Seeing that I didn’t know what she was talking about, Mii-chan explained that someone had been delivering food to her once a day since she began missing school. There was a piece of paper with Mii-chan’s room number included in the bag, but there wasn’t anything else that could help identify the sender. For a moment, Yousuke came to mind, but I hadn’t heard about anything similar being done for Kushida or Haruka. Hirata treated all of his classmates equally, so he would have done the same thing for everyone if he was the person delivering food to Mii-chan. On top of that, he would have told me about it one of the times we had met.

“Sorry, but that wasn’t me,” I said. “And I have no idea who it could have been either.”

“I see… That person has really helped me a lot… I was thinking it’d be nice if I could show them my thanks.”

“Whoever it is, looking at your situation since you’ve been absent, there are people who care about you, Mii-chan.”

Some students sent her messages, several tried calling her, and someone was bringing her food. There were probably a lot of other students that were worried about her too, even if they hadn’t reached out.

Mii-chan nodded somewhat happily and proceeded to ask me another question. “Ayanokouji-kun, you’ve been able to go to school…right?”

If she hadn’t been in contact with anyone this week and hadn’t heard anything, it made sense that she didn’t know if I had actually been attending class. That being said, if someone was holed up in their room, sleeping, and unwilling to see anyone, they probably wouldn’t say they were open to meeting to chat like I had.

“I went to school this past week, yeah,” I replied. “Same as any other week.”

“Wasn’t it hard for you though…? No, I mean, of course it must’ve been hard. But didn’t you maybe not want to go?” she asked.

“You’re asking me if it was hard, say, in general? I’m guessing that’s because I haven’t ever done anything like trying to lead our classmates before. I suppose anyone would’ve been shocked to see me driving Kushida into a corner and getting one of my friends expelled.”

“Yeah… You were so different from the Ayanokouji-kun I knew. It was a little scary.”

Mii-chan was being straightforward and honest. She told me straight out how she had really felt. I decided there was no point in talking about things like relative merits and the order in priority of our friends and classmates right now. That was something that I’d already explained back in the special exam, and I didn’t need to go digging that up again.

“All I was doing was trying to fool everyone, covering up my cowardice by acting intimidating,” I told her. “And no one noticed because I’ve never been good at expressing my emotions very well. The reason why I’ve been able to keep going to school without taking a day off is just because I thought I would’ve looked lame if I stopped coming.”

“I thought a little bit about that too,” said Mii-chan. “I didn’t go to class because I didn’t want people to know that what Kushida-san said was exactly right, and that I was hurt. Actually, on Monday morning, I changed into my school uniform and got as far as my door, but I just couldn’t take that first step outside. Then, the door felt like it kept getting further away and too heavy to push, just because I had missed that one day of school. And… And I started thinking that it’s all my fault, and…”

She must have been thinking back on what happened because she then lowered her head. “I’m so sorry for missing a week of school because of this.”

“I don’t think you need to be sorry, though,” I said. “I’m sure it took quite a bit of courage for you to come here and talk to me. And I take it this also means you haven’t given up on going to school altogether, right?”

“O-of course I haven’t! I really want to get back to school right away. Even I know that I have to go. But it’s just… I’m so ashamed, and I feel so pitiful…”

Her feelings, which she had kept hidden, had been exposed in a public place. No matter how many students had become aware of them, it was completely understandable that a person would suffer deep emotional scars from having their private feelings shared.

“I can’t say that I can understand the position you’re in, or that I can change it,” I said. “But at the very least, I know that your classmates are worried about you, Mii-chan.”

“I understand…”

“And it’s also true that you’re causing trouble for the class right now.”

It was like I had suddenly pressed a knife to her throat. She gasped and went stiff at my words. It would’ve been easy just to tell her nice things she wanted to hear, like “Don’t worry about it,” or “We’ll wait for you, as long as it takes.” But in reality, that would only result in dragging things out. What I said might’ve seemed harsh to an outsider, but I knew it would stick in her mind.

“Fortunately for you, that fact hasn’t really come to the surface yet since Kushida and Haruka have been absent from class too,” I went on. “But we don’t know what next week will be like. What do you think would happen if you keep staying here while those two go back to school? Get what I mean?”

Imagining your own hypothetical situation was something that even an elementary schooler could do. Terror must have been welling up inside her because her arms trembled slightly as she nodded. I was planning on adjusting what I said if it came off too aggressively, but surprisingly, I wasn’t seeing any warning signs. She was small and easily frightened, but she was relatively strong at her core. She was determined not to break.

“Just come back to school with a nonchalant look on your face. Act like nothing’s wrong,” I told her. “There’s no need for you to say anything special to Yousuke.”

“But… I, um… I sit in front of Hirata-kun, so…we’re close together, and…”

“Oh, come to think of it, I do remember you calling dibs on a seat near the exact middle of the room pretty quickly, before anyone else did. That was an unpopular choice of seat. Was that because you thought Yousuke would take the seat behind you?”

“Uh…!”

I could tell that I was correct without her even needing to tell me directly, because of her completely obvious reaction.

“I should’ve guessed,” I said. “You watch Yousuke closely and understand him well.”

“Ugh. I’m so embarrassed…” She lifted up her knees and grabbed hold of them tightly, hiding her face. She shook her head from side to side. It looked like her shyness was an even bigger issue.

“H-has Hirata-kun…said anything about me…?” She then brought up the thing that she had probably been curious about for quite some time. Since her face was hidden from view, I couldn’t really see what she was thinking.

“He’s worried about you, of course. Much, much more than he is about Kushida and Haruka.”

“That’s just because he feels annoyed with me though, I bet… Right?”

Considering Yousuke was at the center of Mii-chan’s issue, it was only natural that she was more concerned about him than anything else.

“It’s not like he’s annoyed with you. Actually, he feels bad about it. He feels sorry, like he’s the one who caused you to stop coming to school, Mii-chan.”

“But that’s… Hirata-kun didn’t do anything wrong though…!” she sputtered.

“I know that. But, you know, that’s just the kind of guy that he is, and I’m sure you know that very well, Mii-chan. You knew that well before me or anyone else.”

Yousuke was someone who could rejoice in someone else’s joy as if it was his own. But at the same time, someone else’s unhappiness felt like his own too. That was the kind of person he was. Ultimately, that meant Yousuke was suffering as well because Mii-chan shut herself up in her room. Getting her to understand that point would be the most effective and most important measure in breaking through her current situation.

Mii-chan slowly raised her head and looked at me. Her eyes were a little red, but she didn’t appear to be crying. She then lowered her knees, which she had been clutching tightly, back down.

“It wasn’t like I never thought about that,” she said. “I thought that Hirata-kun might have been suffering alongside me. But, even so, I put myself first and tried not to see it…”

It looked like I didn’t have to go over everything from the beginning with her. Just giving her that push seemed to be enough. When I looked at her, as a second-year student now, I felt it was fair to say that the student known as Mii-chan was almost a fully complete person.

“You’ve got a different look on your face now than you did a few moments ago,” I remarked.

“Thank you very much. I feel much better after talking about all of this stuff. It’s all thanks to you, Ayanokouji-kun.”

“I didn’t do anything major. I just happened to be here with you as you got back on your feet by yourself. That’s all.”

“That’s not true. It’s because I really thought I might be able to solve my problems if I met with you Ayanokouji-kun,” said Mii-chan. She was now speaking loud and clear. Then, she bowed deeply. “I… I will definitely go to class starting Monday.”

“I know. If you really do catch a cold or something, you should honestly stay in bed though.”

“Well, at least on Monday, I’ll definitely go to class, even if I have to crawl to get there.”

I felt like we were kind of going in circles with our discussion right now, but if she was that motivated, then that was good enough for me.

“However, I’m still concerned about whoever has been dropping food off for me,” Mii-chan added. “I made them do quite a bit of shopping over the past five days… I guess they must have spent close to 10,000 points total on me.”

If it was just one person doing all of that, then that certainly would have been a hefty price. While she made her way to the door, she started thanking me once again, so I basically had to chase her out of my room to finally get her to leave.

“I guess that’s probably a result of how her parents taught her to act. I feel like it’s a little excessive, though,” I muttered after she left.

She was overly polite, even to her classmates. I supposed that was one of Mii-chan’s virtues, though. At any rate, now that I solved one problem, I figured I needed to finish tidying up my room since I hadn’t been able to beforehand. More and more students had been coming to my room lately and I couldn’t afford to be inattentive. After all, Horikita, Yousuke, or someone else could arrive at any time.

Shortly after I started to clean up, my doorbell rang once again. I quickly glanced at my phone, but there weren’t any notifications indicating that Kei or any of my friends had sent me a message.

A visitor without an appointment, huh… What horrendous timing.

I thought about staying perfectly silent for a while. Depending on how the situation played out, I supposed I could just pretend to be out…but about thirty seconds later, my doorbell rang again. It was dusk now, and the lights were off in my room. I decided to slide the cover off the peephole on my door and look out into the hallway, while making sure to conceal my presence at the same time.

The very last person I wanted to see right now was standing outside my door—Amasawa Ichika, a first-year student. Come to think of it, something like this happened some time ago. I recalled what happened the day she came to visit me. That visit was also at a bad time, when I didn’t want her to show up.

She was wearing her uniform despite the fact it was Saturday, so I had to wonder if she went to the school building today. Could I view this visit as her merely making an appearance to stop by and say hello? Or did she have some other intent? When I thought about what happened last time, I couldn’t help but suspect that there was some contrivance this time too. She obviously came to visit me on the assumption that I was in.

While I was mulling over the situation, my doorbell rang a third time.

“Hello, senpaaaai! I came to hang out!” announced Amasawa sweetly, still waiting for some kind of response from me.

“Sorry, but I’m kind of in the middle of something right now. Can we do this tomorrow?” I asked.

“Absolutely not. I came here to investigate because people have been saying you brought girls to your room to do bad things, senpai. If you don’t open this door, we’re going to have a problem!” declared Amasawa, her voice echoing down the hallway.

She was trying to force me into opening the door for her. If I continued to let her spout off this selfish nonsense, then my neighbors were eventually going to start hearing the commotion. I decided that I had no other choice but to open the door and talk to her.

“And where exactly did you hear that I brought girls to my room?” I asked.

“I was the source of that information. Me!” she exclaimed.

“That’s a completely unreliable source.”

“That’s not true, I am reliable. Karuizawa-senpai and Wang-senpai came to your room today, isn’t that right?”

That wasn’t simple intuition on her part. She clearly said both names without hesitation. Even if she could’ve guessed that Kei was here, it was unlikely she would’ve guessed Mii-chan came to visit too. She clearly knew what I had been up to.

“Oh, and by the way, I’d just like to point out that I didn’t plant listening devices or anything else in your room, okay?” she added. “The school seems like they inspect for that sort of thing rather thoroughly.”

It made sense that we probably couldn’t purchase something so troubling, even online. But I knew there were still ways that Amasawa could get her hands on those types of things.

“Considering your connection to Tsukishiro, I wouldn’t be surprised if you still had one or two,” I pointed out.

Despite my saying that, she didn’t stop smiling as she looked at me. “Anyway, can I come in? Oh, thanks, sorry for the bother!”

Even before I gave her permission, she kicked off her shoes and walked into my room. Then, without showing any kind of restraint, she began to look around the place.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Huh? Oh, me? I’m just doing a little investigating to see if you were having sexy time.”

I would’ve liked her to provide me with an answer as to why she felt it was necessary to check my room, but oh well. Amasawa continued to scour my room without hesitation. Once her gaze fell on my bed, she approached it.

“You’re curious about how I was able to correctly guess that Wang-senpai came to your room, aren’t you?” she said. “You’re probably wondering if I just so happened to see her coming or going by coincidence, or if I found out through some other means. Right?”

“Did you really barge into a person’s room so you could brag about your information network?” I retorted.

Amasawa didn’t deny that. Instead, she quickly confirmed it, putting her hands on my bed. While she fixed the wrinkles in my sheets, it looked like she was searching for something. Her fingertips ran all over my bed from corner to corner. I sat down on the carpet and watched, figuring she would just continue conducting her search until she was satisfied.

“Your girlfriend has long hair, doesn’t she, senpai? That means you like girls with long hair like that, right? That’s why I’m starting to grow mine out now.”

I hadn’t even asked her about that. As she told me about her hair for some reason, her hands and eyes continued to move. I couldn’t do anything to make her stop, so all I could do was watch. But then, she suddenly froze. She picked something up off my bed from near my pillow and lifted it up between her index finger and thumb.

“What is this ?” she asked.

She held up a single strand of long, shiny golden hair triumphantly, like it was some major achievement.

“It’s probably Kei’s,” I replied. “She’s come by a lot lately.”

“I’m sure that’s true. But what does the fact I found this near your pillow mean?”

“I can think of a lot of possible reasons, but do you need me to list them all one by one?” I asked in return.

“Oh no, no,” she said. “There’s no need to do that.”

Then, she got down on all fours on the floor and looked around. It was like she was a forensics expert with the police, searching for something. I didn’t know what she was expecting to find, but I doubted that whatever she was after was there.

“Did they teach you ways to scour people’s rooms in the White Room too?” I asked.

When I mentioned the White Room, Amasawa stopped in her tracks.

“Don’t you ever wonder, senpai?” she said. “About us? We were sent to this school in order to get you expelled. But even now, after we’ve started our second semesters here, we’ve just slipped into normal daily routines without raising a hand against you.”

“Well, in your case, at least, it seems like you’ve been branded as unfit and unnecessary by the White Room,” I replied.

“I’m not going to deny that, but what about the others? Aside from me?”

“Not interested.”

“Well, I suppose you aren’t. And if you continue to remain vigilant, no one will do anything careless,” said Amasawa.

“I recommend that you just enjoy being here at school and not worry about me,” I answered.

“I agree. I think I should too, actually…”

After a slight pause, Amasawa went back to checking my room. She had her back to me, with her butt sticking in the air. Since the skirt of her school uniform was short, I could see a little bit of her underwear. I’m sure she must have known, but she continued to crawl around without giving me any indication that she cared that I could see. When she moved to look underneath my bed, she was even more exposed.

“Your eyes are glued to my underwear. You’re naughty, senpai.”

“Sorry, but it’s not like I’m trying to look at it. I’m more worried about what you’ll do to me if I stop watching you.”

As I kept my eyes locked on her, Amasawa pulled her head out from under my bed and turned around to face me. Exuding an air of maturity that I wouldn’t expect from someone a year my junior, she crawled straight toward me.

“I think a certain someone is going to start acting recklessly,” she began. “And I have a feeling that certain someone is confusing the ends and the means. And that certain someone is more concerned with getting you expelled than they are about getting back to the White Room.”

She was very close as she muttered those words—our lips were only a few centimeters apart. A whiff of something sweet reached my nostrils.

“That sure sounds like a bother,” I replied.

“For you, yes, I’m sure it does. You know, I’ve been thinking about something a lot recently. I’ve been thinking that maybe I should just tell you who that certain someone is and have you finish that person off.”

“Maybe I’d be the one who’d get finished off though,” I replied.

“Ah ha ha ha! That’s hilarious!”

It wasn’t hilarious at all.

She pressed further. “What do you think? Want me to give you a name…?”

Amasawa drew about another inch closer to me and stopped, waiting for my response.

“I appreciate the offer. But I’ll pass,” I told her.

“Is it because you’re not confident that you can win once you’ve heard their name?” she asked.

“If that person’s identity is discovered, the very first person they’ll suspect is you, Amasawa. What would you do then?”

“Yes, you’re right,” she agreed. “I’ll probably get a finger pointed at me right away.”

“I don’t need to jeopardize your school life just to find out who that person is.”

If she stood in my way as my enemy, then I wouldn’t show her any mercy. But right now, Amasawa wasn’t showing any sign of doing that.

“You’re kind, senpai,” said Amasawa.

Besides, carelessly trusting her too much would also be a problem. If she was taking action while keeping several strategies in her back pocket, then I couldn’t deny the possibility that her statements right now were meant as a trap.

“Well, I’ve been rejected, so I’ll be leaving now,” she declared.

“Did you come all the way here just to tell me that?” I asked. “Or was searching my room your main purpose for coming?”

“Hmm, who can say?”

With a devilish grin, Amasawa immediately headed toward the door, but on her way, she turned her attention to the bag of burnable garbage in the kitchen. There wasn’t very much in it.

“You know, I’ve visited your room several times now, but I can’t help but notice you never have very much trash,” she observed. “I thought you’d be the type of person who filled the bag to the brim before taking it out.”

“There was a lot of food waste, including vegetables and fish,” I said. “I just didn’t feel comfortable leaving it all until next week, that’s all.”

“In that case, how about I take out your trash for you on my way back to my dorm?” she offered.

“Sorry, but we’re not allowed to take out trash before eight o’clock at night.”

“You’re a stickler for the rules, I see.”

Amasawa’s visit was unexpected, but that was at least one mystery solved.

“I can more or less see why you came here today,” I said. “You came here to offer me that proposal just now. You examined every nook and cranny in my room because you were checking to make sure no one else was listening in.”

The pretense of ransacking my room and trying to find out my private business was all just her being cautious. Amasawa would have been wary that the White Room student might have already set some kind of trap.

“Senpai, knowing you, I’m sure that you’ll be fine. But if by some chance I’m expelled, just know that it’d mean that something unexpected will be coming for you.” With those parting words, she made her way out of my room.

After that, I decided to check my phone to see if there had been any changes. I saw that I had a new text from Akito.

“Haruka will be coming to school starting Monday.”

Some good news, at least for the time being. Apparently, Akito had successfully managed to persuade her as a mutual friend in their friend group. The problem, however, was that this message wasn’t posted in the group chat including the whole Ayanokouji Group. After I stared at my phone screen for a while, I saw that I got another message.

“Please watch over Haruka for a while. Quietly.”

The message was innocuous enough, but “quietly” was clearly emphasized. She was going to come to school, but she didn’t want to talk to me. If I carelessly tried to strike up a conversation with her, there was a risk she’d stop coming to school again. That’s what the message was getting at and why it was phrased that way, and the reasoning was easy to understand. As long as she was returning to school, then I had no complaints.

“Got it. I’ll be very careful,” I replied.

“Thanks. I hope things can go back to how they were before,” he answered.

For a little while afterward, I received a few more somewhat encouraging texts from Akito, but once the time was right, I brought the conversation to a close.

“Guess that’s one more problem solved,” I muttered to myself.

This wasn’t really a true solution. It was better to look at it as a tentative comeback on Haruka’s part and nothing more. After these past few dizzying hours, I was feeling far more drained than usual.

“Think I’ll go to bed early tonight,” I thought aloud.

However, I needed to make sure I didn’t forget to take out the garbage.

4.4

M ONDAY WAS HERE once again. Saturday had been quite a full day with Mii-chan coming to see me and Akito reaching out to let me know that Haruka would be returning. Even so, there wasn’t any guarantee that either of them would show up—it all came down to how strong their determination was. And as for Kushida, I hadn’t heard anything from Horikita all weekend. Even if Kushida did some to school, it was impossible to determine how she or our classmates would react.

I arrived at school at the same time as usual. I took my seat and waited for the three of them to arrive. Once about a quarter of the class’s students had arrived, I noticed that the girls were greeting someone with smiles on their faces.

Mii-chan, looking timid, had arrived.

“G-good morning…” she said.

Mii-chan had come to class, prepared to be made fun of, and looked up at everyone cautiously. In reality, there wasn’t anything for her to worry about. The girls welcomed her to class without bringing up that sensitive topic.

“Good morning, Mii-chan,” said Yousuke.

“G-good morning, Hirata-kun,” she replied.

And even the boy in question met Mii-chan’s return with a smile, just as always. At this point in time, there was no telling whether Mii-chan’s love life would blossom or not, but even if it hadn’t started, it at least hadn’t ended either. Moving forward, it was possible that this could be a major turning point in both of their lives at this school.

After various greetings, even though Mii-chan was still looking somewhat nervous, the girls didn’t leave her side. They all had fun chatting together, laughing about the things that happened at school last week.

Once almost the entire class arrived, Haruka showed up too. She was accompanied by Akito. It seemed like he wasn’t sure if she might run away at some point or not, so he followed her all the way to her seat, perhaps to stop her if she tried. Keisei was looking a bit hesitant too, but he worked up his courage, walked over to Haruka, and said hello. I had never imagined that there would come a day when I was glad that I wasn’t beside those three once we had switched seats.

Haruka glanced at me for just a moment, but she immediately averted her gaze and looked down at her phone. Seeing that, Akito exchanged a few words with Keisei, and then the two of them went back to their own seats.

So, Mii-chan and Haruka returned to school. Both of them had friends who would support them when they were hurting. In Mii-chan’s case, she had lots of female friends, and as for Haruka, she had Akito and Keisei. Even though they were few in number, they were certainly people she could call her best friends.

For the time being, it was safe to say that the prospect of our class suffering some major punishment from the school had been alleviated. However, one question remained: What about Kushida? Less than three minutes before morning homeroom was set to begin, Horikita arrived with a stiff expression on her face. After a quick glance at Kushida’s seat, she immediately went to her own seat and then stared ahead at the blackboard. I guessed that Kushida probably wasn’t in the lobby this morning. Horikita likely waited for her to come, but she didn’t show up. Shinohara and some other students were most likely guessing the same thing as they looked at Horikita’s back.

Eventually, the bell rang, and it was time for morning homeroom. Chabashira-sensei strode into the classroom and saw that all of the seats except Kushida’s had been filled.

“It would seem that the two of you are feeling better now,” she said. “You must have caught a nasty, extensive summer cold. Please make sure to keep a close eye on your health from now on, okay?”

Though she was reprimanding them gently, she was simply confirming that they were indeed present without condemning them.

“It looks like Kushida is still absent today. It appears that she’s—”

In that exact moment, I heard the classroom door opening behind me. Kushida was there in the doorway. She was slightly out of breath and needed a moment to fix her uniform.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she announced, once she had caught her breath.

“This is the first time you’ve ever been late, Kushida,” said Chabashira-sensei. “You’ve been absent for a long time. Are you feeling all right today?”

“Yes. I’ll be sure to be careful from now on,” she replied calmly without any panic in her voice before proceeding to go to her seat.

Kushida didn’t say anything to anyone and simply looked straight ahead. A tense air filled the classroom, but because we weren’t allowed to chat among ourselves now, everyone was silent.

“I know that a lot has happened, but this has been the first time in a week that you’ve all been back together.” Though Chabashira-sensei was still feeling anxious about the state of affairs in her class, she nodded in satisfaction. “It’s almost time for the Sports Festival. I’m hoping that you’ll all make great strides and give it your best.”

Later, once homeroom was over, the classroom immediately devolved into chaos. It went without saying that it was the result of Kushida coming back, of course. The students stared at her like she was a tumor.

Would Kushida remain silent, as this went on? Would she smile at them like she always did before? Or would she bare her fangs once more?

I decided to leave the classroom for the time being, quietly getting out of my seat and heading toward the hall. I gently opened the door to the hallway. I wasn’t going to carelessly expose the inner happenings of this class to the other classes.

Just as I was thinking about that, I received a message on my phone.

“I’m watching. Don’t worry.”

I hadn’t gotten to the hallway yet and was just peeking my face outside, but I noticed that Chabashira-sensei was there. She saw me and nodded. I supposed that meant Chabashira-sensei was following up on what she told me before, about how she was going to do everything she could as a teacher.

Right now in the classroom, anything could happen. No one could make a move. But just as Horikita was about to pull out her chair, Kushida stood up instead, as if she were trying to get a head start on her. She did it in one smooth action, without any wasted movements, as if to warn Horikita not to do anything unnecessary.

Once Kushida started to move, the first place she went was to Mii-chan’s seat, which was close to hers. Mii-chan, who had just finally returned to class, froze in terror like she was a frog being stared down by a snake.

“Horikita-san told me that you were absent because of me,” said Kushida.

“Oh, um, well, I…”

“Do you hate me?”

“N-no, I wouldn’t say—”

“You don’t have to like me, Wang-san. I can’t change the fact that I told everyone your secret. And I’m not planning on trying to be friends with anyone either. …Well, I guess that goes without saying.”

She wasn’t planning on being friends again. Although Kushida was speaking in a soft tone, her strongly worded message made Mii-chan tense up even more. The eyes of many of our classmates were filled with frustration, anxiety, and doubt as they looked at Kushida. Normally, that alone would have been painful for anyone to bear, but it appeared to have no effect on her.

“I’m not saying that I want you to understand how I felt at the time, but know that I did what I had to back then,” she went on. “I apologize for making you one of my targets, Wang-san.”

Her apology came off feeling more businesslike and impersonal than sincere, but at least I couldn’t sense any ill intent behind it.

“Shinohara-san, Matsushita-san, and you other girls, I’m sorry that I made trouble for you too. It at least looks like you’ve made up though.”

If you were to ask me, I’d have to say that Shinohara, Matsushita, and her group of friends looked like they were close with each other again. Yousuke and Sudou might have been working together during the time off to bring them back together.

“Do you think that apology solves everything?” asked Shinohara tersely and without pause, trying to forcefully rein Kushida in.

“It doesn’t. But how else am I supposed to start but with an apology?”

“Well, sure, but…but, what about your attitude?” said Shinohara. “The way you’re apologizing?”

“I dunno. This is just how I really am,” said Kushida.

That false face she had been wearing all this time had come off. The angelic Kushida no longer existed. The fact alone surely had been conveyed to everyone in class without a doubt, and there was a general feeling of nervousness.

“I intend to keep up some semblance of appearances moving forward, just like I did in the past,” she added. “That way, I’ll be able to collect information from the other classes, depending on the time and situation. However, if anyone in this class says they want to interfere with me doing that, that’s fine with me.”

No matter how much Kushida smoothed things over with people outside of this class and could put on appearances, if people in our class got in her way, she wouldn’t be able to build a relationship with them.

“I’ll leave it to you all to decide whether you want to use the weapon I’ve developed or not,” said Kushida.

If Kushida was someone who valued having friends and feared being alone, then isolating her would probably be a good way of getting revenge against her. However, Kushida wasn’t being passive here—she was on the attack.

“I won’t show any mercy to anyone who shows me hostility either. The fact of the matter is that I only revealed some secrets during the special exam. There are plenty of other people who have things they want to keep hidden too. Understand?” Kushida muttered that nonchalantly, speaking as though she were threatening the entire class and not anyone in particular. “But I’ll promise you one thing. I will not reveal any secrets unless it’s a real emergency. Also, I’m not doing this for the sake of the class either—I’m doing this for me so that I can graduate from Class A. This is my last line of defense. I’m not going to lose my worth as a person.”

As long as her classmates harbored feelings of resentment, dissatisfaction, or suspicion toward her, depending on the situation, Kushida could find herself in a position to be cut. In order to prevent that from happening, she said she wasn’t going to divulge people’s secrets further. However, if she did get stabbed in the back, she wouldn’t show any mercy. She was letting them know that she knew how to protect herself, while at the same time promising to contribute to the class.

Kushida Kikyou’s stats were high enough in every category to call her excellent overall. At the very least, she would not drag down the class when it came to matters of academic ability and physical ability.

“Hasebe-san, are you okay with that too?” asked Kushida.

Haruka didn’t move from her seat, and she didn’t even glance at Kushida.

Even after being directly addressed, Haruka didn’t answer and simply kept staring out the window.

4.5

M Y DAILY ROUTINE had started to change significantly since last week. The Ayanokouji Group hadn’t met, not even once. Even now that Haruka had come back to school, that didn’t change. Or rather, things hadn’t gone back to how they were. Our gatherings had been routine before, but now that those had disappeared, the way we spent our days at school was totally different. During the ten-minute break period between classes, I now spent my time alone or talking with Kei.

I sometimes talked casually with people like Sudou and Matsushita too, but my opportunities to talk with Akito and Keisei noticeably decreased. Even though something felt off about this change in routine at first, the way things were now gradually seeped into my body and I eventually got used to it.

Lunch changed in a similar fashion. Whenever Kei would go eat with her friends, I’d pop into the library instead. This was a moment of rest for me, something that remained unchanged from before. It was a little bit disappointing, however, that Hiyori didn’t seem to be going to the library much recently, so we weren’t able to talk about books.

At any rate, that typical sequence of events continued even after class. Kei had contacted me ahead of time today to let me know that she was going to head back to the dorms with some friends so they could hang out. As a result, I didn’t really have any plans after classes today.

I decided to head back to the dormitory as soon as possible that day, because I thought that if I stayed behind, it’d just place an emotional burden on Haruka right now. However, once she saw me go, something unexpected happened. I didn’t expect her to come talk to me, but as I got up to leave, Haruka did just that.

“Kiyopon, do you have a minute?” she asked.

There didn’t seem to be any real sense of impetus in her voice, but it was hard to tell. Perhaps the reason she had come to school for the first time in a week was so that she could make contact with me like this in a public setting.

I answered her right away, without turning back to see the look on her face. “If necessary, I can make time,” I replied, trying to give her the impression that I already had plans. I wanted to find out what she was after.

“Okay, then yeah, make time. Is that okay?” Even though there wasn’t a sense of forcefulness in her voice, there wasn’t any sign of hesitation either. “I already talked to Horikita-san too. I’ll be waiting for you at the café in Keyaki Mall.”

And with that, Haruka left the classroom. Immediately afterward, Akito came over, just like Haruka did earlier.

“Did she come back to school just to talk to me?” I asked.

“I’m not sure… This is the first time I’ve heard about her wanting to talk to you. I don’t know what she wants to talk about,” Akito said. “Considering the circumstances though, I don’t think I can take your side in this.”

He was apologizing to me sincerely, but honestly, I needed him to be on Haruka’s side here.

“That’s fine,” I answered.

After wrapping up that conversation that was brief enough not to arouse any suspicions, Akito and then Keisei left the classroom as well. From the looks of things, the Ayanokouji Group members were all gathering together, and they invited Horikita as well. It was a certainty, of course, that this conversation was going to be about the one who had been expelled—Airi. After seeing that Haruka, Akito, and Keisei were gone, Horikita came over to me.

“I tried to ask if it would be all right if only I was there, but she said that it was absolutely something you needed to hear too,” she told me.

Horikita had tried to be considerate of me and solve this problem on her own, but apparently that wasn’t going to be possible. Horikita and I left the classroom and headed in the direction of the café where we agreed to meet them.

I figured I should check with Horikita about something that I was curious about first though, before we got thrust into a serious conversation.

“Looks like you succeeded in getting Kushida to come to school,” I said. “I’m honestly impressed.”

“Well, she’s here at least,” Horikita said. “But there are still numerous uncertainties. Things won’t be the same as they used to be.”

“Still, you probably can’t ask for anything more right now.”

Although Kushida’s manner of speaking had changed dramatically, she was back, and her solution was the best thing possible under these circumstances for keeping a smooth relationship with the class moving forward. Horikita’s advice had no doubt been a factor in her reaching that conclusion. And, fortunately, information leakage to other classes had been kept to a minimum. Even if word eventually did get out, it was possible that, by that point, enough time would have passed, and the issue would fade.

“How did you convince her, anyway?” I asked. “I can’t imagine you were able to persuade her to come back with just a good suggestion or two.”

Even if we were just talking about Kushida finally being back today, I was sure that there must have been various twists and turns along the way before things had gotten to this point. If anything, I was more interested in that part of it. However, there was a complicated look on Horikita’s face, like she had mixed feelings.

“I did something childish and completely unbefitting of my age,” she said. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

The fact she was avoiding getting into specifics suggested that it really was something she didn’t want to discuss. Since it seemed unlikely that she’d give me an answer even if I pressed her on it deeply, I had no other choice but to give up.

“Still, considering who you were dealing with, you probably made the right choice,” I said.

Horikita lightly stroked her cheek with her left hand, as though she were recalling what happened. “Anyway, it took a week, but we’ve finally got everyone back together, somehow,” she said.

“That reminds me, it looks like the fighting amongst the girls has died down too,” I added.

I had asked Yousuke to rely on Horikita, so she must have been involved in what happened there too.

“Hirata-kun took initiative with the matter of Shinohara-san and her friends. We all gathered at Keyaki Mall on Sunday,” said Horikita.

“Meaning you were there too, Horikita?” I asked with a blank look on my face. I hadn’t imagined something like that happening at all.

“Yes. As far as the bad-mouthing was concerned, they agreed to put it all behind them. Shinohara-san protested quite strongly for a while, but Ike-kun helped calm her down. That was a significant help.”

Judging from the way Horikita phrased it, Ike had definitely played the part of Shinohara’s boyfriend in the discussion.

“So many students are maturing without even realizing it,” added Horikita.

“You don’t sound so happy about that,” I remarked.

“I am happy. It’s just that I feel like I must look somewhat pathetic by comparison. It’s precisely because they’re maturing. I’m not sure whether I’m really growing at all myself… It makes me anxious,” she said.

It was easy to evaluate others, but it was difficult to evaluate yourself. If you wanted to be lenient with yourself, you could be as soft as you wanted. Conversely, if you wanted to be strict, you could be as stern as you wanted too.

“I’m sure that a third party will eventually give you an answer, Horikita,” I said.

“…Yes, you’re right.”

First, she was going to pour her efforts into rebuilding the class. The matter of her reputation would come after that, on its own.

“I also heard that you helped Wang-san when she was unreachable. Thank you,” said Horikita.

“All I did was give her a little helpful advice. Even if I hadn’t done anything, someone else would’ve rescued her sooner or later.”

“Still, it was thanks to you that she got back on her feet so quickly. I was helped by so many people this time too. I feel like I’ve once again been reminded that I can’t do everything on my own.”

Horikita said that in a rather cheerful tone, when normally something like that would have made her feel depressed.

“Oh yeah, that reminds me,” I said. “I wanted you to pass on a message to Student Council President Nagumo for me.”

“Me? It feels like I’m always playing the part of the messenger. Well, all right, it’s no problem. What do you want me to tell him?”

“Just tell him that I’m on board.”

“‘On board’…?”

“That’s all you’ll have to say. He’ll understand.”

“Okay then. I’ll go to the student council office later and tell him exactly what you told me just now.”

I still hadn’t decided whether I was actually going to participate in this upcoming Sports Festival or not, but since the deadline was already a week away, I figured I’d just have to say that I’d accept his offer for the time being. I was sure Nagumo wouldn’t be satisfied unless he and I competed in some form or another.

“All that’s left now is the matter of Hasebe-san,” said Horikita. “To be honest, I can’t really predict what she’s going to talk to us about.”

“Judging from the way she’s been acting today, I wouldn’t be surprised no matter what words come out of her mouth,” I agreed.

“It’d probably be best for us not to be overly optimistic.”

Mii-chan and Kushida had overcome their challenges and came back to school, but things were different with Haruka. It was highly likely that she’d become an obstacle in the future and stand in the way.

“While I was waiting to meet with Kushida-san, I also had the opportunity to get a sense of how Miyake-kun and Yukimura-kun were doing,” Horikita added, “so I checked in with them a few times,”

I hadn’t realized that while she had been paying attention to Shinohara and her friends, she was watching the Ayanokouji Group as well.

“Hasebe-san is the one who suffered the most as a result of the special exam,” said Horikita. “I needed to follow up with her.”

I noticed that the look on Horikita’s face didn’t lighten up as she walked beside me. It was probably because she hadn’t achieved anything at all on that front.

“I met with her at the door, but she didn’t say anything,” she went on. “Miyake-kun told me to just leave her alone, so I decided to keep an eye on her for the week.”

And that brought us to today, I supposed. I was sure that Haruka’s arrival must have come as a surprise to Horikita.

“Still, in the end, Akito succeeded in persuading her to come to class,” I said. “All’s well that ends well.”

“That would be nice, but…I don’t think that’s what’s happening here,” said Horikita.

With the two of us being summoned like this, it was normal to think that there was something else going on. It was unlikely that they’d arrange a meeting like this just to say that they were going to try their hardest and get along with everyone from here on out.

“I was the one who nominated Airi to be expelled back then and the one who pushed for it,” I pointed out. “You can just say that you were going along with what I said.”

“I can’t do that. I’m equally responsible because I shared your opinion. No, actually, this is all because I went back on my promise. I have to accept responsibility for all of it.”

Horikita seemed to have more presence of mind than she did back then, but I worried that she was being overly eager.

“Haruka is important, sure, but you also need to pay attention to the Sports Festival,” I reminded her.

She had already spent an entire week working on fixing class problems. She couldn’t afford to fall behind the other classes in the meantime, especially since she was starting to work on bringing the class together on the idea of getting to Class A.

“I agree,” she said. “I have been thinking about how we’re going to compete in the Sports Festival, of course. I think that I’ve got things figured out, to a certain extent at least.”

Even though she had been dealing with the matter of Kushida and Shinohara and her friends, she apparently hadn’t let that issue slip.

I thought I’d try asking Horikita what she was after. “All right then, let’s hear it. What’s the goal for the Sports Festival?”

“Is there any need to ask? We’re shooting for first place. No, we definitely will take first place. We have to.”

We were walking side by side, and I could see the look on Horikita’s face from the side.

“Aiming high isn’t a bad thing,” I said. “We’re not lacking in terms of capable students. So, have you come up with a strategy yet? Even though the Sports Festival involves battles between all grade levels, this is essentially going to be a competition for overall points within our same grade level. And Sakayanagi and Ryuuen can come up with plans that you’d never think of.”

“The rules state that if a student doesn’t finish five events in the Sports Festival before it ends or they drop out, all of their points are forfeited,” said Horikita. “Knowing Ryuuen-kun, I wouldn’t be surprised if he purposefully injured one of our classmates while making it look like an accident, to try and force them out of the competition.”

It wouldn’t be a shock if Ryuuen made a cowardly move like that—exactly like what he did last year when he targeted Horikita. As for Sakayanagi, she would likely review all the participants for the competitions and guide her classmates toward the best possible placements.

“So, considering all of the possibilities, what are you planning to do?” I asked.

“Essentially, I’m planning a frontal assault. I’ll have Sudou-kun and Onodera-san rack up points in competitions, while students like Kushida-san and I will earn points steadily as well. We just need to do what we need to do in order to win.”

“If you could win just by doing that much, then there wouldn’t be any trouble. However, there are just thirty-eight students in our class, which is a disadvantage for us.”

Horikita nodded. From the looks of it, she had been expecting that response from me.

“Which is why I’ve decided to take just one risk,” she said. “I’m getting ready for that right now.”

“A risk?”

“I was wondering if you could accompany me for a bit after class tomorrow? I can get into the specifics then.”

“Meaning you want me to help you?” I asked.

“No, I don’t,” she said. “You can just stay with me then and listen to what I’m going to say. And, afterward, I just want you to give me an objective answer of whether you think that it’s worth the risk or not. That’s all.”

“That’s really it?”

“I can’t just keep taking advantage of you like last time,” said Horikita.

Since she already had some idea about what she was going to do, she wasn’t looking for counsel or advice from me. In that case, I decided I’d just wait and look forward to whatever strategy Horikita came up with for the Sports Festival.

“All right. I’ll listen to what you have to say tomorrow after class,” I replied.

Eventually we arrived at the café where we found the three other members of the Ayanokouji Group already seated and waiting for us. They didn’t seem to be chatting at all, and there were three untouched drinks on the table, just sitting there. As long as we were using the café as a place to meet up, we each needed to at least order one drink. After Horikita and I had each selected something to drink, not really caring about what we chose, we walked over to the table.

“Sit,” Haruka urged us to take the two empty seats as soon as we arrived.

She started the conversation in a detached, matter-of-fact tone, without looking at either Horikita or me. “It seems like you tried to come talk to me a few times while I was resting, so I thought I’d call you here so I could ask you what you wanted to say.”

It felt like she was addressing both of us, but Horikita was most definitely the main focus right now.

“What did you want to talk about?” asked Haruka.

“Well, that problem has already been solved, in a way,” Horikita replied. “The issue at that time was that you were out of school for several days.”

“I guess that means you were worried,” Haruka said. “You were thinking that your reputation in class might have suffered.”

“Well, sure, but that wasn’t all I was worried about, of course,” said Horikita. “I’m sure you had a good reason for taking a week off. Right?”

“I was sick. I told the school as much, so there shouldn’t have been any problem, right? Miyacchi told me that there might be some kinda penalty for missing over a week though, so I returned to school today.”

Haruka didn’t show any emotion in her answer. She didn’t say it out loud, but there was an implied, “So, what’s the problem?”

“Sure. But being sick wasn’t the reason you were absent,” said Horikita.

“How can you say that for sure? Maybe I genuinely fell ill.”

Horikita took a sip from her cup, not denying what Haruka had said. Whether Haruka’s absence was due to her being sick was nothing more than a preliminary part of the problem. No matter what answer Horikita gave, it was unlikely that Haruka would be satisfied.

“It might seem doubtful to you, but it’s true that I was sick,” Haruka went on. “But I wasn’t physically sick or injured. It was just…mentally, emotionally. I had a hard time getting up. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t go to school. So I just laid there.”

Akito and Keisei appeared to just be listening calmly, but they weren’t calm in the slightest. I could understand that they were suffering just like Haruka was, even though their pain wasn’t as great as hers. That was why all they could do was stay silent and listen.

“Can you stop playing these stupid word games already and just tell me what you want to say?” said Horikita.

Instead of taking things slowly and modestly waiting for an answer, Horikita was deciding to take a heavy-handed approach. That kind of attitude could backfire, but Haruka was unfazed. I had the impression that Haruka was pushing her emotions deep down, keeping them locked up inside. I wondered if Horikita beside me realized the same thing, and if that was why she said something so excessive.

“Are you satisfied, now that you’ve gotten more Class Points from that special exam?” asked Haruka.

“I’m not satisfied, no. There’s still a gap of over 500 points between us and Class A. And besides, the ideal situation would have been for us to reach Class A without losing anyone. That’s what I wanted, but… Well, there’s no point in talking about that anymore, not at this point.”

No one wanted others to be expelled. And yet we fought on, and we had nominated Airi for very compelling reasons. There wasn’t anything more to it. We had already reached that conclusion.

“My best friend was sacrificed as a result of your selfish decision, Horikita-san. Are you aware of that?”

For the first time today, Haruka came out and said what she really wanted to say.

“Yes, I am,” said Horikita.

Horikita had still been battling with her own feelings more than a week after the special exam had ended. You didn’t have to ask her about that; you could tell that just from looking at her face every day. But still, that had nothing to do with Haruka. She wasn’t going to forgive Horikita just because she was doing her best. And she wouldn’t simply forgive Horikita if she produced favorable results either.

“Wow, you’re such a great leader. You’ll do anything to make sure our class wins,” said Haruka.

“I’m still a ways off from being a great leader,” said Horikita.

“You know I was being sarcastic, right?”

“Of course I do.”

“Didn’t you promise that you’d only go after the traitor? The one student that kept voting in favor the whole time?” asked Haruka.

“On that point, I think that my perspective was overly naïve,” Horikita admitted. “But even so, I can’t just act like that special exam never happened. All I can do is make the most of what I’ve learned for next time.”

“Some mistakes cannot be forgiven,” Haruka told her.

“I won’t deny that. You’re right.”

“Do you really think that keeping Kyou-cha… I mean, that keeping Kushida-san in class was the correct decision?”

“It was because I decided that it was the correct decision that I moved to keep her in class. I was fully prepared for the students to antagonize me over it,” Horikita replied. “I feel like I’m going to be having this conversation over and over.”

“Yeah, I guess you will,” snapped Haruka, her tone intensifying slightly after she saw that Horikita wasn’t being apologetic or modest.

“I have no intention of making some half-hearted apology,” Horikita went on. “No matter how many carefully constructed speeches I give, the fact remains that I changed my opinion about having her expelled, and I decided that we should keep her. You have every right to hold a grudge, and I know that one day, I might suffer painful payback for this. But I decided that Kushida-san can still be an asset to our class. And I am gradually becoming more and more convinced of that.”

“But even if Kushida-san is so brilliant, there are other kids in the class who are worthless,” insisted Haruka. “It didn’t have to be Airi.”

Haruka was arguing that someone else should have been cut, but Horikita had not come to that conclusion herself. Haruka then continued speaking.

“I don’t accept you. No matter how many people can accept you in the future, I never, ever will, Horikita-san.”

Haruka was still keeping her emotions bottled up as much as she could but chose to show there was no sign of forgiving Horikita.

“Then I’ll just have to do my best so that you can accept me,” said Horikita.

“I literally just told you I never will,” said Haruka.

“I am responsible for Sakura-san’s expulsion. I won’t deny that. I cannot deny that. But even so, what am I supposed to do? Do you want me to say that I’ll drop out of school right now?”

That wouldn’t bring back Airi, of course. The 100 points that we gained thanks to Airi sacrificing herself for the class’s sake would be meaningless if Horikita did something like that.

“Or do you want me to get down on my knees and beg? Would that make you feel better?” asked Horikita.

It might have looked like Horikita was being aggressive and heavy-handed, but that wasn’t true. Horikita was suffering. But even though she was, she was trying her hardest to put on a tough front and face Haruka. As I sat beside her, I could see the true meaning in Horikita’s quivering gaze.

“Give me Airi back,” said Haruka.

“I can’t fulfill an impossible demand,” said Horikita after a pause.

“That’s all I want. I don’t care about the class. I don’t care about anything.” Haruka grabbed a few stands of her hair and tugged as hard as she could, yanking them out. “You made the wrong decision back then.”

“If you’re so upset about it, then maybe you should have fought,” said Horikita. Immediately after saying something that sounded close to a provocation, she kept talking without giving Haruka a chance to respond. “But that would’ve been pointless, right? Even if you had fought, there was no way that you could’ve pushed back on what was happening.”

“You’re right,” agreed Haruka. “I don’t think I could’ve done anything either. Kiyopon, you took advantage of Airi’s feelings and mercilessly pushed her into a corner. A normal person absolutely never would’ve been able to do something like that.”

Haruka addressed me for the first time since this conversation started and was looking at me with contempt. However, it seemed she had no intention of actually discussing it with me because she turned her attention back to Horikita right away.

“Do you really think that Kushida-san is going to work for the class from now on?” she asked her. “She’s probably just going to betray you.”

“If and when Kushida-san drags the class down, then yes, I’d regret my decision.”

There was truly no guarantee that Kushida would necessarily be useful to the class. And if Horikita made a mistake in the way she guided the class forward, there could come a day where she regretted the choice of having Airi expelled.

“But even so, if I were to go back in time to that moment with what I know now, I’m sure that I would essentially do the same thing,” Horikita went on, reiterating definitively that she would not change her conclusion. “I would still decide to save Kushida-san and expel Sakura-san. The only thing I’d do differently is that I wouldn’t have made that careless promise. That’s it.”

“Why? Why Airi…?” muttered Haruka.

I was sure that Horikita would have answered the question even if I stayed silent, but I decided to speak up and offer my own thoughts.

“It’s an issue of perspective,” I said. “That exam provided a strong stimulus for the students who were at the bottom of the rankings in OAA. If those students continue to hover near the bottom, then it’s possible they could be expelled next. I think that the fact that they’re now more acutely aware of the danger is a positive thing.”

That was why I had taken on the role of naming Airi.

“That sounds just like how Ryuuen’s class works,” snapped Haruka. “So what, if someone’s not good enough, they get cut?”

“That’s right,” I replied. “I don’t know what policy that Ryuuen has in place right now, but it’s a fact that it’s something like a reign of terror. So far, our class’s policies have been vague and far too lax.”

“That kind of reminds me of when we first started at this school,” Haruka said. “No one could come together on anything, and everyone was just selfishly doing their own thing.”

If someone asked if the situation in our class now and the situation back then were similar, then sure, you could say that. But even though the situations looked the same, they weren’t actually.

“But it’s different now,” I told her. “It’s inevitable that you’d want to prevent damage that doesn’t need to be done. In this case, we just minimized the damage that had to happen.”

“But—!”

That was the first time that Haruka raised her voice in this conversation.

“Horikita came to the conclusion she did because she sensed that Kushida would bring much, much more to the class than Airi would if Horikita made Kushida into an ally,” I continued. “And it was because I could see that possible future as well that I decided to respect Horikita’s opinion and offer her my help.”

Generally speaking, there were no certain futures. You could only imagine and then grasp a future that you could see. People aren’t all-powerful.

“Even though Airi’s gone, when I look around, it’s like the class has gone back to its usual routine,” said Haruka.

“I understand your frustration, but I wonder… Did you feel the same way when Yamauchi-kun was expelled?” asked Horikita.

“He brought that on himself. This was different,” said Haruka.

“It’s the same thing,” Horikita said. “You’re just angry that it’s someone you know who was lost this time.”

“And what’s wrong with that?” asked Haruka.

There was no clear goal to this discussion. Strictly speaking, there was no other solution to be found here other than getting Haruka to back down.

“I won’t accept a reality like that,” Haruka insisted. “I can’t.”

If Haruka didn’t back down, then that would mean there was a big problem ahead of us.

“It’s true that Kushida-san might have been a threat before,” Haruka continued. “Sure, she’s reformed now, at least on the surface. And she might be contributing to the class from here on out. But do you seriously think I’d accept that and cooperate with you?”

“I suppose you have a point. While you were out for the week, I had a feeling that your issue was going to be more long-term than anyone else’s,” said Horikita.

While Kushida needed to be dealt with immediately, Horikita knew that Haruka was prepared to fight a long, drawn-out battle. Since Haruka had lost her friend Airi in the exam, she had nothing to fear now.

“But even so, you came back to school,” Horikita added. “If you just wanted to talk to us, you could have done that while remaining absent. Right?”

Horikita was feeling hopeful. If, somehow, Haruka was holding onto that same hope herself and that was why she returned to school, it would have been a development to be thankful for.

However, reality was not so sweet.

“I only came because I haven’t found the answer yet,” said Haruka.

“What do you mean?” Horikita asked.

“I came to school to look for an answer that I couldn’t find while I was shut away in my room.”

When Akito heard those words, he cast his gaze downward.

“I’m looking for an answer as to how I can get revenge on you, Horikita-san. And you too, Kiyopon,” said Haruka.

Those were the coldest words that she had said to us during this conversation. The very nature of the words that left her somewhat dry lips were different from a simple threat or bluff.

“…You’re serious, aren’t you?” said Horikita. She had also realized the weight of what Haruka said.

“I just wanted to tell you that today,” Haruka said. “I will absolutely make you regret expelling Airi.”

Haruka then stood up and left, leaving her drink completely untouched. Akito followed Haruka, looking more like he was chasing after her.

Horikita wasn’t the only one who watched them go in exasperation—Keisei did too.

“Personally, I don’t think you or Haruka are wrong,” he told us. “I know that’s probably an overly diplomatic thing to say, but it’s how I really feel. After all, in the end, the idea that ‘as long as you save yourself, that’s all that matters,’ is at the root of all of this.”

Though Keisei seemed like he was ashamed of himself, he told us what he thought without trying to hide it.

“Everyone feels that way,” said Horikita. “It’s not strange to want to save yourself.”

“Which is exactly why I can’t understand how Haruka feels right now,” Keisei replied. “But I guess that’s why I don’t think I have any right to tell her to stop either. Even if it means causing trouble for the class.”

Keisei weakly pressed his fist against the table and then got up from his seat.

“Our friend group has already been broken in half, more or less. But even so, I’m going to be useful to the class in my own way. I can’t contribute to the Sports Festival, so I’m going to study even harder to compensate so I can contribute to the class that way. But if I don’t…the possibility I could get expelled won’t be zero.”

Even though Keisei excelled in academics, he lagged behind in athletics and in societal contributions. It was also clear that he had a particularly strong disadvantage when it came to the number of friends he kept.