After school, during the final week of June—despite regular examinations looming on the horizon—the National Magic University First Affiliated High School’s student council room was abuzz with the clicking of keys, beeps, and occasional hushed voices going back and forth to ask questions, give replies, deliver reports, and discuss matters.

Their last afternoon class had ended about an hour ago. That meant the students hadn’t been there for very long, but at that point, Tatsuya stood up and walked over to Azusa.

“President, I’ve organized all the reports and proposals from the autonomous committee and disciplinary committee in the directory called Waiting for Decision, so please go over them before tomorrow.”

“I will… Um, I really wouldn’t mind if you handled them all the way through, you know.”

“That won’t do, President.”

Either Azusa trusted in his abilities or simply considered it a pain to handle. Tatsuya tersely shook his head, refusing her attempt to leave the work with him.

“Now if you’ll excuse me.”

“Thank you.”

Closing time was still some ways away. The other members all continued their work without getting up. Despite that, Azusa very naturally accepted Tatsuya declaring that he’d be escaping, thanking him before he left.

Tatsuya was actually leaving early because of Azusa’s instructions—or rather, her pleading.

Currently, the student council members numbered one president, two vice presidents, one accountant, and two secretaries, totaling six people. That was one more person than they had at this point last year. The amount of work each person was assigned had already decreased, but with Tatsuya involved, the situation had improved too much.

In short, Tatsuya had gone through his work too fast.

The student council was entrusted with multiple jobs necessary for the school’s operations. This wasn’t unique to magic high schools—it was considered standard for most schools at the end of the twenty-first century.

However, this didn’t mean important matters that would affect the school’s management were left up to students. Cases that ballooned out of proportion like the Blanche incident, which had happened the previous April, were rare. The student council’s jobs mostly involved making simple decisions, overseeing adjustments that took quite a long while to deal with, and miscellaneous office work that was even more time-consuming.

And if Tatsuya put his processing power to full use, he could single-handedly finish all the decision-making and the office work with time to spare. That would leave the other members without work to do, which meant they’d lose opportunities to build experience.

At most, student council members were only in office for two and a half years. If Tatsuya did every little thing himself, his juniors would never learn, his classmates would forget how to do the work, and even his seniors would lose track of their progress. If he was ever absent for an extended time, the student council wouldn’t get any work done; the school could even stop functioning.

That was a one-in-a-thousand risk, but the mere possibility was extremely bad. That was the conclusion the student president Azusa and the secretary Isori had made after the single month of April had gone by. Still, neither of them, especially not Azusa, had the nerve to directly ask him to take it easy. So, as a desperate last resort, they’d recommended that he leave early instead.

This was convenient for Tatsuya, too. From the beginning, all he’d wanted to do was browse the literature available only in Magic University–related facilities, which included the magic high schools, and use it to train. He hadn’t volunteered for his positions (and the work that came with them) in the disciplinary committee and the student council. If they told him it was okay to stop working early, well, he had plenty of other ways to use the leftover time.

“Miyuki?”

“Yes, I’ll be waiting for you.”

They’d repeated this exchange so many times he no longer needed to say, “I’ll come back to get you.”

As Tatsuya left the student council room, Honoka, one of the secretaries, watched him restlessly.

As Tatsuya left the student council room, Izumi, the other secretary, glared after him coldly, as if to berate him for his laziness—but she did so discreetly, so that Miyuki wouldn’t notice.

It was an awkward time of day to head to club activities. Thus, the changing room was empty; after changing into outdoors training gear, Tatsuya put the bag containing his uniform into his classroom locker before heading out to the practice woods behind the school.

The man-made forest was not only for magical training—it was created to meet the needs of students who aspired to be soldiers, police officers, rescue squad members, and the like. To facilitate their physical training, the planners had calculated the ideal tree density, as well as the rise and fall of the ground; they’d also placed ponds, sandy areas, waterways, and trails throughout the field; a variety of fixtures and devices had been installed in it, too. Because of its design, magic competition clubs weren’t the only ones who used it as their main practice location. Clubs involving purely physical outdoors activities had their own assigned usage days, too.

Tatsuya was about to visit one of those nonmagic competitive clubs.

“Yo, Tatsuya,” called his friend Leo before Tatsuya could offer his own greeting.

“Big Brother Tatsuya.” Minami, having realized he had shown up, turned to him and bowed, a large teakettle in her hands.

“Thanks for letting me join, Leo. Minami, it looks like you’re working hard, too.” Tatsuya raised a hand in response. “By the way, where’s Agata?” he asked, inquiring about their supervisor’s whereabouts.

“Right here.”

The answer to Tatsuya’s question came from the man himself. Someone appeared from the thick underbrush in the woods, rather than from a running trail that cut between the trees: Kenshirou Agata, president of the mountaineering club that Leo belonged to.

To reach Agata, Tatsuya had to slip past the male first- and second-year club members lying on the ground moaning. Tatsuya bowed. “Thank you for giving me permission to be here again today.”

“Sure thing. Take it easy. You can go ahead and put the freshmen through the wringer if you want.”

Half the living corpses flinched at the remark, but none of the club members could get up to run away.

“All right. Maybe after I take a run around the course.”

“After a run around the course? Is that all…?” Agata grinned. “And meanwhile, the rest of you…” Here he took a pitiful look around at the club members, who still couldn’t get to their feet. “It was only a ten-kilometer run through the woods, you lazy bums! Look at Saijou—he’s all ready to go.”

“…Please don’t compare us to with Leo,” one of the juniors squeaked out. He’d recovered enough to speak, but he didn’t seem able to get up yet.

“Enough complaining. The seniors are taking an extra lap around already. How long is this nap gonna take? I know none of you are dead yet.”

Tired laughs went up here and there, and the juniors rallied their strength one by one to get themselves up. They didn’t seem to appreciate him accusing them of playing dead.

However, the juniors were the only ones who got up. The freshmen didn’t even have the strength left to be stubborn.

“What am I gonna do with you…? Sakurai!”

Minami, who had been waiting patiently until then, answered Agata with a “yes,” picked up the teakettle she had left at her feet, then trotted up next to her nearest classmate.

“Do it.”

“All right.”

At Agata’s instruction, Minami tilted the teakettle in her hands.

“Ow, hot!”

The liquid poured from the teakettle into a freshman’s face. He rolled away from Minami’s feet, then rose and scrambled away on wobbling legs.

“Boiling water…?” muttered Tatsuya unintentionally.

Leo, who had come up next to him, laughed and shook his head. “Nope. It’s only one hundred thirteen, one hundred fourteen degrees at most. That’s not enough to burn you.”

The female members sitting in the shade only let out accidental smiles; they didn’t seem to be worried. It seemed to be nothing major, certainly, but Tatsuya still thought it was rather violent.

“They say a century ago, people would douse rugby players who fell during a game with water from a kettle to raise their spirits,” mentioned Agata upon overhearing their conversation, offering a bit of trivia.

“Was using hot water instead of cool water your idea, President?”

“Well, it is summer. The cold water felt so good for one guy that he fell asleep,” explained Agata, revealing some insider information. And as they watched, Minami went from one male classmate to the next, baptizing each in hot water.

Several ropes were drawn across a pond, with slender logs suspended from them. As Tatsuya grabbed the logs to propel himself forward through the air, Leo, his face equally cool, spoke up from beside him.

“Hey, Tatsuya, how come Sakurai joined our club?”

“You’re only asking now?”

“I mean, I was curious about it before, but…”

As Leo said, Minami was an official member of the mountaineering club. In contrast, Tatsuya was an outsider; he was just borrowing their space… Incidentally, he had gotten permission to participate in their activities on the condition that he tune the club members’ CADs. Some of the second-years called him things like “honorary member.”

All that aside…

“She’s got all that magic power,” said Leo. “Weren’t a bunch of clubs trying to get her to join them?”

The question was a natural one. After the stellar reactor experiment in April, the entire school knew about Minami’s magic power. But even further back during recruitment week, a lot of clubs had had their eyes on Minami for her high scores on the entrance exams. Most expected that she would have joined a magic competition club by now.

“She said she wanted to train her body,” replied Tatsuya half truthfully—with no strain in his voice, even after they made it to the opposite shore and began hopping across small footholds. He didn’t seem to find this any more difficult than running across flattened ground.

“I kinda feel like, if a freshman girl can move around the way she can, she doesn’t need to do more training,” pointed out Leo.

Leo had a point. For starters, Minami had been raised as a combat magician in the Yotsuba family; it was only natural for her to possess high physical abilities.

Maybe her physical abilities were more than sufficient for a high schooler—but so was her magic power. Honing that in a club was even more pointless.

“I’m sure Minami has her reasons.”

She wasn’t just part of the mountaineering club but the cooking club as well. Her number one motive for participating in club activities was to kill time so that she could go home with Tatsuya and Miyuki, who worked in the student council—more specifically, it was to wait for Miyuki, who was Minami’s master. Tatsuya refrained from revealing that other half of the truth, though.

For magic high schools that put great stock in practical skills, the Nine School Competition—the National Magic High School Goodwill Magic Competition Tournament—was an extremely important event. Not only for the schools themselves but for their students as well. After all, it wasn’t rare for their achievements in the competition to affect their career paths directly. Perhaps it was inevitable some students would devote more of their efforts to the competition than to their periodic exams.

Azusa Nakajou, the ever-judicious First High student president, had gotten started on preparing for the competition a month earlier than previous years, lest she waste the students’ passion. And her efforts had been rewarded: She was on track to finish the prep work with time to spare and without having to cram for her exams to boot.

At least, until today, Monday, July 2, 2096 AD, when an unexpected piece of news arrived.

Tatsuya and Miyuki headed for the student council room that day after school like they always did. Their testing period was next week, but their student council work wouldn’t pause for that. Still, for aforementioned reasons, the burden on the student council members was actually lighter compared to previous years… And even if that hadn’t been the case, the Shiba siblings hadn’t pulled an all-nighter a day in their lives, preventing the buildup of irritation or discontent.

Nevertheless, as soon as Tatsuya opened the student council room door like usual…

In spite of himself, he stopped walking. The mood in the room was heavy.

“Brother? What’s the ma—?”

It wasn’t only Tatsuya who thought that, either. After peeking into the room from behind him, Miyuki froze as well, unable to finish her question. Inside, they saw Azusa, head in her hands, emanating such despair that it wouldn’t have been strange if she suspected the world was ending.

“Oh. Thanks for coming, both of you,” said Isori, standing in front of the student president’s desk at a loss.

That gave Tatsuya the chance to finally commit himself to setting foot into the glum atmosphere. “Thanks for holding the fort, Isori. What on earth happened?” he asked, bypassing Azusa herself, whose face was still buried—Tatsuya always cut to the chase after making up his mind to get involved.

“Well, you see…”

“The Nines’ administrative committee just sent us this year’s overview of events,” answered Azusa, face still hidden, cutting off Isori’s vague half-reply.

“Ah, right. It’s that time of year already.”

“They said the details will go up on their official website tomorrow, too.”

“I see. What’s the problem, then?”

Tatsuya could tell there was an issue in the overview that had left Azusa at her wit’s end. But what could have possibly gotten her this upset? Tatsuya didn’t have the choice of not asking.

“Everything!”

Azusa could have been waiting for this very question; her head shot up, and she began to rattle off complaints that almost sounded like curses.

“The message said the events would be changing!”

“…What’s different this year?”

That was indeed bad news. First High’s student council had been preparing for the competition under the assumption that its basic rules and conditions would be the same as last year. Still, there was no rule that stated events couldn’t change just because they had remained the same in recent years. The committee always reported the chosen events to each school one month before the competition, so giving notice that the rules were changing was nothing more than a formality to uphold regulations.

“Three events are changing!” cried Azusa.

Still, Tatsuya couldn’t help but be surprised at that answer.

“They took out Speed Shooting, Cloudball, and Battle Board, then they added Rower and Gunner, Shields Down, and the Cross-Country Steeplechase!”

Six events in all—and half had been switched out. Moreover, the abilities and types of magic needed for the new events were very different from the old ones. Everyone would probably have to rethink their player selection.

But it was too early to draw that conclusion. Azusa wasn’t finished yet.

“And the only choice people have for a second event is the Steeplechase! On top of that, they’re splitting Pillar Break, Rower and Gunner, and Shields Down into solo and pair events!”

Azusa slapped her hands on the desk as she emphasized that. At this point, Tatsuya felt a strange sense of the pieces fitting together. These revisions would force each school to make dramatic changes to how they approached the competition. They’d have to go back and rethink everything, from which students they’d pick to their strategy and tactics.

In other words, all the early prep work they’d done had been for nothing. Their careful planning had backfired. He couldn’t blame Azusa for feeling depressed. In fact, he realized she was actually taking it quite well, considering how she hadn’t fallen into a hysterical panic.

“Brother?”

As Tatsuya wondered what words he should use to soothe the wheezing student president, Miyuki addressed him hesitantly from behind.

“Rower and Gunner? Shields Down? And Cross-Country Steeplechase…? What kind of events are those?”

Miyuki would probably end up entering Pillar Break; the chances of her taking part in Rower and Gunner or Shields Down were pretty much zero. But she would most likely enter the Steeplechase, since it was the only additional event competitors were allowed to enter, and she must have been interested about the other two as an athlete participating in the games. It was a natural curiosity.

“Well, they won’t necessarily use the rules I’m familiar with, but…” Tatsuya prefaced, deciding to answer his sister’s question for that reason. “Rower and Gunner is an event where a pair, one rowing and one shooting, pilot a small, powerless boat and shoot down targets, some of which are set up next to the waterway and others that will move around on the water’s surface. Teams get points based on how long it takes them to reach the finish line and how many targets they hit. If there’s a solo version, it’ll probably be a single person handling both rowing and shooting. The event originates from amphibious-assault support training the USNA’s Marines do.”

After making sure Miyuki didn’t have any questions, Tatsuya moved on to his explanation for the next event.

“Shields Down is a close combat event involving shields. It typically takes place on a raised surface above the ground or the floor. You win by destroying your opponent’s shield, stealing it, or causing them to fall outside the arena. They don’t allow physical attacks against your opponent, but you can target their shield. In other words, you either have to use magic or your own body to attack your opponent’s shield or use magic to knock them outside the arena.”

“That means you can ram your shield against your opponent’s and win by ring out, right?”

“Yes, of course.”

“This time, the rules say even if you don’t steal the opponent’s shield, if they aren’t in possession of it for over five seconds, you’ll win,” added Isori after Tatsuya responded to Miyuki’s question. Tatsuya paused for a moment, but no further info or corrections seemed to be forthcoming, so he moved on to the next thing.

“The Cross-Country Steeplechase is just what it sounds like. A steeplechase is like an obstacle course, and this event is combined with cross-country. Everyone competes to be the first to make it through a forest filled with obstacles. It’s a kind of military exercise that ground forces do for mountain and forest training. Aside from physical items, both natural and man-made, they use everything from automatic gun emplacements to magical obstructions.”

“That sounds quite severe…” said Miyuki quietly.

Tatsuya frowned and nodded. “Rower and Gunner and Shields Down are one thing, but the Cross-Country Steeplechase isn’t the kind of event they should be making high school students do. What could the administrative committee possibly be thinking?” he muttered darkly.

“And both sexes are allowed to enter Steeplechase as long as they’re a junior or senior,” Isori added. “Essentially, anyone but freshmen can compete in it.”

“…If we don’t draw up some very detailed plans for it, we’ll have a lot of dropouts.”

When Tatsuya said dropouts, he didn’t mean people dropping out of the event—he meant people becoming unable to live their lives as magicians entirely. The others must not have considered the possibility.

“But that’s…!”

With a despair-filled groan, Azusa’s head flopped back down to the desk.

The student council had more on their plate than preparing for the Nine School Competition. Not only magic high schools but also nearly all high schools these days delegated much of their operational business to the student council. If that work was left undone, it would hinder the school’s operation. That meant the members of a school’s student council always needed to do at least the bare minimum of work, even in situations like this, so by the time Honoka, who had been on an errand, and Izumi, whose practical skills class had run late, showed up in the student council room, both Tatsuya and Miyuki had already gotten started on their work.

…Azusa, though, still had her face buried on the desk.

…Isori, however, was fighting hard to get her head back above water.

“What’s done is done—we’ll just have to rethink who we pick for our players.”

“…”

“Fortunately, we still have time! And it’s not like all the preparations we did were for nothing!”

“…”

“And I’m sure we’ll figure something out for Steeplechase! So come on, Nakajou. For now—”

Isori circled behind Azusa, beginning to gently rub her shoulders in an attempt to at least coax her out of her own world, when…

“Kei?”

…a cold voice from behind froze him.

“…Kanon?”

With clunky motions, Isori turned to the staircase that led to the disciplinary committee HQ. As expected, his fiancée was standing there—smiling, veins visible on her temples.

“Keeeeiiii,” she said slowly, stretching out the word. “What might you be up to?”

“Eh? Wait, what do you mean by—?”

“I see you hovering over Nakajou. What were you planning on doing exactly, hmm?”

The completely fake smile that was stuck on her face like a sticker made Kanon’s state of mind incredibly obvious.

“You’re misunderstanding! You got it all wrong!”

As Isori shook his head desperately, Azusa retreated to a corner of the room. She’d evidently chosen to respond to the carnage about to unfold before her instead of the coming competition. As for the other members’ reactions—Izumi, for example, looked at Isori in annoyance as he desperately tried to make excuses, but then, as if tired and fed up with it all, she turned to her work display, or rather, to Miyuki, who was reading the report on the desk.

For Izumi, Miyuki was like an oasis of the mind. Whenever she was tired of the work or was faced with a difficult problem, or when her nerves were fraying from irritation, simply keeping Miyuki in her field of vision made her heart feel enriched. At the moment, her enthusiasm for this squabble that nobody wanted to touch with a ten-foot pole had hit rock bottom. Steal a glance at Miyuki was (by Izumi’s logic) a necessary, indispensable method for her to recharge her motivation.

However, by some coincidence—Izumi, who had turned around, and Miyuki, who had looked up, locked eyes perfectly. As Izumi panicked and began to think of an excuse, Miyuki offered a somewhat worried smile, then shifted her gaze to Kanon and Isori. And then she turned back around to examine Izumi.

Izumi, guessing how the “big sister” she adored was feeling, used her eyes to ask what they should do. Or at least, to show she was paying attention.

Miyuki gave one slight shake of her head as if to say there was nothing to be done, then flashed a troubled smile once again.

*   *   *

Once again, Tatsuya and the others stopped by their regular café, Einebrise, like they often did after school. The group consisted of Tatsuya and the usual other seven juniors, and Minami, the only freshman. Izumi, who had been with them part of the way, had seemed like she wanted to mingle, but her older twin sister Kasumi didn’t have the slightest intention of following suit, so she apparently had no choice but to go straight home. Minami seemed quite uncomfortable being surrounded by upperclassmen, but her loyalty to her duties left her no other option.

Mikihiko had been the one to suggest an after-school coffee break this time. Most would say it was rare for him to be proactive; it felt like he wanted to bring up something specific.

As expected, as soon as they put in their orders, Mikihiko asked Tatsuya a question.

“Tatsuya, is it true they changed up the events in the Nines?”

“You caught wind of that pretty quickly,” affirmed Tatsuya with a sharp wryness. “Who did you hear from?”

“The chairwoman and Isori were talking about it.”

This revelation came not from Mikihiko but from Shizuku. But that in and of itself gave Tatsuya an answer: They were both disciplinary committee members. In other words, they’d been eavesdropping from their HQ.

“We don’t know the details, though,” said Mikihiko, needlessly adding an excuse.

Erika perked up. “Wait, the events are changing? Which ones?”

“We got a notification addressed to the student council today. They’re taking out Speed Shooting, Cloudball, and Battle Board and adding Rower and Gunner, Shields Down, and the Cross-Country Steeplechase.”

“What kind of events are those?” Erika wondered.

After Tatsuya gave her the same explanation he’d given Miyuki, Erika grinned.

“Huh… That sounds fun. Especially Shields Down,” she said, a slight spring to her voice.

“Wait, really…? It seems kind of scary,” Mizuki countered quietly.

“Yeah… All the events they chose up until last year didn’t involve directly fighting opponents,” remarked Honoka.

“Even Monolith Code was like that, too,” Mizuki agreed immediately.

“But it sounds like the most dangerous one among them is the Steeplechase, despite what Shields Down sounds like on paper,” Shizuku added.

Miyuki nodded. “Yes. Brother said that as well.”

“If there aren’t any trails in the forest, even just moving around can be dangerous. If they’re adding physical obstacles and magical interference, too, it’ll be stranger if nobody gets hurt.”

“Yeah. Even if you were running where there were mountain trails, you’d need a really experienced person in the lead. Competing for speed in a forest you’ve never been in is far too reckless.”

Leo and Mikihiko’s respective opinions were also critical—or rather, completely negative—and they came from personal experience.

“Hey, Tatsuya, it kind of feels to me like the events they added are all awfully military.”

Leo’s comment was something everyone present sensed one way or another.

“They do.”

This hunch was undeniably correct. Tatsuya could only nod and agree. “Probably because of the Yokohama Incident last year. People related to the JDF realized again how beneficial magic military power is, so maybe they’re trying to bring our martial education up to scratch.”

“Just like the anti-magic media incited them to,” Erika ribbed with a mean-spirited grin.

Tatsuya couldn’t smile away her cynical interruption. “Yeah. Bad timing is all you can call it. Why would they make such a transparent change now…? I don’t think there’s any need to rush things, given the current international situation.”

Honoka and Mizuki’s expressions clouded with anxiety at the thought.

“…That aside, we’re about to get very busy,” he continued, almost as though he was deliberately acting annoyed in an attempt to change the mood.

But it wasn’t completely an act, either. What had happened today would, after all, force him to hang up his pleasant after-school experience for a while, at least until the competition was concluded.

First High students weren’t the only ones dissatisfied over the competition changing. At the estate of the Ichijou, one of the Ten Master Clans, a Third High student was complaining to his classmate.

“It’s just so sudden… I can’t believe it.”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe they are following proper procedure… But if they were going to make such sweeping changes, they could have told us earlier.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“We started practicing for the events they took out long ago and, at this point, were even fine-tuning the activation sequences we’d use… Now all the work we did was pointless.”

“Got that right.”

“We have to rethink everything, starting with what competitors to select… Hey, Masaki, are you listening?!”

Kichijouji, who had been whining about the administrative committee’s notice, clearly felt like Masaki, who was repeatedly giving him only short replies and nods, was blowing him off and flared up.

“Of course I am. I’m hurt you’d think I was ignoring you.”

But Masaki wasn’t in a very peaceable state of mind, either, and his remark came off fairly sharp.

“…Sorry, I was just venting.”

“No, that was my fault. No point in taking it out on you, George.”

Once they’d gotten their respective feelings off their chests, their heads cooled. The thorny mood quickly dissipated, and their wasted efforts seemed to fill the space between them.

“Anyway, complaining about something that’s already decided won’t get us anywhere.”

“I guess not.” Kichijouji sighed, resignation filtering into his voice. “We’ll have to revise our rep selection first, hrmm…”

“Yeah, but… It all depends on how you look at things, George.”

The next words that left Masaki’s mouth were filled with an energy that made it seem like it wasn’t just an empty consolation.

“What do you mean?” returned Kichijouji, his own expression growing serious, albeit dubious.

“All the events they swapped in are heavy on practical combat skills. We should have the upper hand against First High.”

“I see now… First High focuses improving its students’ ranking in international grading standards. Combat abilities aren’t directly linked to magical capacity, so they probably don’t concentrate as much on them.”

“There are exceptions, like Sawaki—the magic martial arts guy—and you-know-who. But if you take their school as a whole, we have better magic for actual combat than them. Even if we only compare competition entrants, the odds should still favor us.”

“Yeah… Right, but…” Kichijouji agreed, albeit conditionally. “Winning in the Nines isn’t about average ranking of the participants. It’s about total points, which are decided by ranks in each event. After all, the rules this year state we can only field one solo player and one pair for each event, aside from Mirage Bat. The key will be figuring out who to bring out as solo competitors and who to put into the pairs.”

“I get it. Now that you mention it, they limited multiple entries this year. You’re right—splitting the solo entrants from the pairs will probably end up deciding a lot. For example, if we wanted certain victory, the best thing to do would be pair up you and me. But—”

Masaki broke off suddenly and looked toward the door. Nobody had knocked. But his senses were undeniable.

“Hello, Shinkurou!”

A moment later, Masaki’s sister (and the oldest daughter of the Ichijou family), Akane, entered the room with a sprightly greeting.

“Come on… I keep telling you to knock first before coming in.”

Ignoring her older brother’s scolding—it was routine at this point—Akane took an iced tea and a packet of gum syrup off a tray and placed them in front of Kichijouji.

“Here you are, Shinkurou. You like one packet of gum syrup, right?”

“Uh, thanks, Akane.”

“You’re welcome. You don’t need any, right, Masaki? You wouldn’t want a drink from a boorish sister who comes in without knocking,” Akane shot off, her expression composed.

The target of her words answered with a sour face. “…Leave it here.”

Obviously, Akane had been joking. Smiling, she offered some iced coffee to her brother. The fact that she didn’t continue flinging unneeded sarcasm or insults at this point spoke to how good her personality and upbringing were.

This kind of exchange was a regular event for these siblings.

“Akane, did you just get back?”

Therefore, Kichijouji didn’t mind it anymore, either. He found Akane’s clothes more curious.

“Mm-hmm.”

After nodding casually, Akane’s face lit up, as though she’d just realized what he meant by it.

“Oh! This is the first time you’re seeing me in summer clothes.”

Still holding the empty tray, she did a little spin in place. Her pleated skirt and sailor collar, made of thin summery fabric, fluttered as she twirled.

“What do you think? Do I look good?”

Akane’s sweet smile was surprisingly girlish. Seeing his friend’s younger sister make a rapid transition from a little kid to a girl had been startling Kichijouji for some time now. Though he had thought he understood, Akane’s spur-of-the-moment act made his heart leap.

“Y-yeah. That looks good on you,” managed Kichijouji, an empty compliment.

“Really? Thanks! I’m so happy to hear it.” Akane smiled gently in sincere happiness. Not a half a year ago, she would have been so overjoyed she would’ve clapped. Even in this minor act, her charm showed through.

A short-sleeved, cool-looking sailor uniform of white and aqua. The elite private middle school’s uniform, in highly traditional colors, made her look even more dazzling, and Kichijouji unconsciously watched her intently… Then suddenly, he felt a gaze on him from the side, both criticizing and somewhat sympathetic.

“I thought so, George…” Masaki muttered.

“You’re wrong!”

Kichijouji reflexively denied the suspicion. Had they been alone, his reaction might not have caused an issue. But with all three involved parties present, it hadn’t been wise.

“Hmm…” Akane leered. “Masaki, are you jealous?”

Anyone would be hurt if someone they liked immediately claimed to not have any feelings for them. Age didn’t have anything to do with it. Especially with someone like Akane, who was aware of her own romantic feelings.

But directing her frustrations at Masaki instead of Kichijouji himself was a childlike way of venting—or perhaps it was out of a womanly sentiment of not wanting the man she liked to hate her.

“Don’t be dumb.”

Whichever it was, all Masaki could do was bluntly deny it. He didn’t feel like dealing with her seriously, but he knew treating her too much like a kid would only make her start pouting and invite even more trouble.

“Hmph. Always dodging the question.”

Until now, the banter was relatively common. Normally after reaching this point, Akane would spit out a “I’m not giving Shinkurou to you!” after which Kichijouji would start mediating between them.

“I hear things, you know.”

But today, the winds blew in a slightly different direction.

“Like what?” retorted Masaki.

Akane wore a smug smile. “About how you asked for Shinkurou to be your dance partner!”

“What?!”

“Huh?!”

Not only Masaki but Kichijouji as well couldn’t help but be shocked. Especially because neither of them had any recollection of this.

“You were just saying how you and Kichijouji pairing up would be the best, weren’t you?”

“Hey, were you eavesdrop—”

“That’s so indecent.”

Akane cut off Masaki’s words and leveled a look of scorn on him.

“Men pairing up would be unproductive.”

“Hey, wait a second, Akane! You’re misunderstanding—that’s not what he meant!”

Burned by a middle school girl’s vitriol, Kichijouji began to mount a defense like his life depended on it. In his mind, it did actually depend on it—his social life anyway.

While Masaki, owner of this room in the Ichijou residence, turned to ice for two literal hours, Kichijouji’s impassioned excuses continued to ring out.