A Preview for Next Time: A Glimpse into Kudou Mirei’s State of Mind

I sighed. School had ended, and I was alone in the student council room. The other members of the council and I didn’t have a meeting planned, but I had some work I needed to finish up, so I’d ended up staying here on my own.

There was something about the deserted room that made me feel a little lonely. Maybe that’s why my thoughts turned to the literary club? I found myself wondering if they were all together again today, raising a ruckus in the boisterous way they always did.

It had been about a month since my power had awakened. One day, a mysterious light engulfed me out of the blue, and the next thing I knew, I’d obtained the power to steal other people’s powers. The second it awakened in me, I had a vague understanding of its nature and effects.

No, actually, that’s not quite right. It wasn’t that I suddenly learned about it so much as that I suddenly realized I already understood it. I don’t really know how to put it into words. It was like the moment I obtained my power, I also discovered a really poorly written instruction manual for it sitting inside my mind. It was like it had always been there—like it belonged there.

Of course, considering the “poorly written” part, I didn’t understand everything there was to know about my power by a long shot. I didn’t exactly ask, but I had a feeling the same was true for all the members of the literary club as well. One thing I did know for sure, though, was that my power was different from theirs in one major way: it had absolutely no effect on its own. As such, the first time I actually ever used a supernatural power had been the day before.

I sighed again. Thinking back to that day was putting me in a glum mood. The arm that Takanashi had put into a lock still stung when I moved it. She hadn’t broken it or anything, but she also hadn’t used her power to heal it after she was finished interrogating me. I’d brought it upon myself, of course, so I couldn’t exactly complain.

I must’ve been out of my mind. I had lost all self-composure the moment that Andou Jurai saw through to my true identity. The worst part was that deep down, all I really wanted was to be a part of their group.

“How did it turn out like this...? I bet they’re asking themselves, ‘What on earth was that girl trying to accomplish?’ at this very moment...” I pressed my face against the table and wrapped my arms around my head.

Really, though, from a certain perspective, it might’ve been a good thing it had turned out that way. I’d been trying to use my position as the student council president to make contact with them in the most roundabout of ways ever since I got that mysterious text that revealed their identities, but thanks to Andou Jurai, the distance between me and them had shrunk massively in an instant.

That’s right... It was thanks to Andou Jurai. I’d taken him for just another idiot back when I was monitoring him at a distance, but when we faced each other as enemies in their clubroom, he completely betrayed that expectation. When I revealed my true identity, the first thing all his clubmates did was look to him. It was like they were waiting for him to tell them what to do—like he was their leader.

Most likely, none of them were even aware of that fact. I was sure their reliance on him was totally unconscious. That, above all else, was the proof that he stood at the center of their little circle. I understood very well just how much faith those girls had in him.

“Andou Jurai...” I muttered his name out loud. Then I tried writing it down in a notebook that was lying close at hand...though I erased it again a moment later out of sheer embarrassment. “I-In any case, I now know for a fact that he’s no ordinary person!”

Bringing the others together as a group wasn’t his only ability. He was also keenly observant enough to see through to the truth of my visit. He looked like an idiot at a glance, sure, but he’d proven himself to be a calculating mastermind at every opportunity. He’d even had the creativity to put an utterly worthless power to use, and to great effect, at that. It may have seemed that Kanzaki Tomoyo or Takanashi were the ones who won the day in the end, but I was positive that was only because he let them step in to take the credit.

“He’s incredible...” Struck all over again by how formidable a man he was, I found myself pressing a hand to my chest. Ever since that day, my heart had started pounding every time I thought about him. He set it aflutter. I’d blush and daydream, and I had the strangest twinge in my chest that just wouldn’t go away.

“Andou Jurai...” I couldn’t take my mind off him. He was probably still in the literary club’s room at that very moment.

I reached into my pocket and unfolded the sheet of paper I was carrying inside. It was the love letter that Andou Jurai had left for me. Then I grinned, chuckling to myself like a fool.

“Andou Jurai—I’ve fallen for you!”