The Person Who Only Wants to Drop Out of Real School - Section 22

Kushida subconsciously shook her head.

Bai Lan: "You don't know anything!"

"Let me tell you how hard Horikita works!"

"Horikita works too hard! She exercises for three hours a day, studies for fifteen hours, and still ensures eight hours of high-quality sleep..."

"Wait!" Kushida sensed something off and interrupted, "Three plus fifteen is eighteen, eighteen plus eight is twenty-six... shouldn't a day only have twenty-four hours?"

"And besides, does Horikita only study, exercise, and sleep? Even if she doesn't need entertainment, doesn't she still have to eat, bathe, use the bathroom, and commute?"

"See! This is the gap between you and Horikita!" Bai Lan looked like a teacher disappointed in a failing student. "Can't you eat, bathe, and commute while studying or exercising?"

The moment Bai Lan said this, Kushida was stunned.

Seizing her frozen state, Bai Lan launched a combo attack:

"Does eating affect your ability to silently recite texts?"

"Does bathing delay your stretching?"

"Can't you practice running and high knees while commuting..."

"Um, girls' school uniforms are skirts—high knees would expose me, wouldn't they?" Kushida finally found a chance to interrupt the combo.

"Oh, in our country, both boys' and girls' school uniforms have sweatpants for bottoms—I'm used to it... forget the high knees then."

"But you still have twenty-six hours... oh, I get it, you study or exercise while sleeping, right?"

"You've got it! See, under my guidance, you're understanding Horikita better now!"

"But how does her working so hard relate to you teaching me that 'talk back' skill?"

"Tsk~ I just praised you! It's because she works so hard that she's under immense mental pressure!

She relieves that pressure entirely by talking back to people and hitting them!

If you don't want to learn to talk back, fine—then learn to fight.

An old master once said: before you hit someone, learn to take a hit..."

"Then I'll learn to talk back."

Kushida made her choice.

As she finished speaking, Kushida lowered her head, putting on an expression as if she had to yield in order to befriend Horikita.

This caught Bai Lan somewhat off guard.

He had thought Kushida might be a girl with some cunning, someone who would take a bit of effort to persuade.

But before he'd even warmed up his mouth, she'd surrendered?

Wait, was this girl really that easy to fool?

Maybe he'd misjudged her—perhaps she had a little cleverness, but not much?

After all, she was in Class D, with a low overall rating.

Kushida was very pretty, good at socializing, and based on her classroom performance, her grades seemed decent.

By the principle of "balance," she should have some flaws, or else she wouldn't have been placed in Class D.

In that case, the little angel of Class D being a fool who blindly trusts others and is easily persuaded wasn't so hard to understand.

Someone like her, once she entered society, wouldn't she be tricked into having eight kids in ten years?

Thinking this, Bai Lan shook his head and couldn't help but feel a flicker of pity.

But Bai Lan wouldn't let her off just because she was a fool.

On the contrary, he planned to double down!

He intended to use this opportunity to make her realize her own problem and teach her a lesson!

He believed that once she'd been fooled by him once, she'd be more cautious in the future and wouldn't blindly trust others' words.

However, what Bai Lan didn't know was that the moment Kushida lowered her head, her expression changed instantly.

Her originally sunny, angelic little face could no longer hold up, turning dark, twisted, contorted, with gritted teeth and glaring eyes.

"He wants me to learn to talk back? Does he know something? Has Horikita already told him something? Is he hinting that he knows about my situation?" Kushida thought to herself.

At the thought that he might know something she didn't want anyone to know, Kushida was panicked.

"Calm down! I'm not sure if he really knows—maybe he genuinely intends to teach me to talk back, not hint at anything.

If I confront him directly, it might make him connect the dots, and I'd end up exposing myself!

And if he does know, how much does he know?"

"Let's test the waters."

To probe Bai Lan, Kushida decided to swallow her pride and learn how to throw verbal jabs from him.

She planned to use her natural charm during the learning process, drawing closer to him, earning his trust, lowering his guard, and then carefully extracting the information she wanted.

This was Kushida's specialty. With this trick, she had made many friends close enough to share their secrets with her.

Through this, she had also gained hold of others' secrets—many of them the kind that couldn't see the light of day.

Though, most of the time, she didn't willingly want to know these things. Rather, the other party, out of trust in Kushida and a need to vent, would actively pull her aside and tell her, leaving her no choice but to listen.

To maintain the "Kushida Empire," Kushida had no choice but to patiently accept their confessions.

The so-called "Kushida Empire" wasn't anything evil.

In truth, it was just a circle of friends "centered on Kushida Kikyo, where everyone was Kushida Kikyo's good friend."

Kushida Kikyo simply wanted to be a campus idol loved by everyone. To that end, she had put in a lot of effort, spending vast amounts of time and energy helping others and meeting their expectations to earn their goodwill.

Most of the time, the confessions Kushida heard were negative, pessimistic things.

This made Kushida feel like she had become nothing more than an "emotional trash can."

What's more, this "emotional trash can" wasn't just dirty and messy—it was filled with all sorts of unspeakable things, making it a very dangerous existence.

Once any leak appeared in this "emotional trash heap," the evil of this world inside would gush out, and the world she had worked so hard to build around her—the world called the "Kushida Empire"—would be destroyed in an instant!

In fact, her world had already been destroyed once!

Kushida had always hated this "side effect" brought by her ability to connect with others.

After all, this side effect had once brought her such disaster, nearly ruining everything she had.

Kushida had accepted the invitation to Advanced Nurturing High School. She had come all the way here, far from home, largely to escape that world which had already been destroyed, where she could no longer survive.

If the "Kushida Empire" still existed, she would never have abandoned the fruits of her hard work to come study here.

She arrived at Advanced Nurturing High School full of hope.

She thought that since this place was so far from home, no one would know her, and she could start a new life and rebuild her "Kushida Empire."

But then she realized she was wrong.

On the first day of school...

"Why is Horikita Suzune here!"

Horikita had been a classmate of Kushida's in the same middle school. With her outstanding beauty, academic ability, and striking personality, Horikita had been famous there too.

Kushida easily recognized Horikita Suzune.

That meant Horikita might know about her dark past!

If Horikita exposed her dark history, it wouldn't just mean she couldn't build a new "Kushida Empire"—she might not even be able to stay at this school...

Though Horikita usually seemed like someone who "kept her nose out of others' business and buried herself in her books."

When she saw Kushida, she acted as if she didn't even recognize her. But what if?

To protect her world.

For this reason, Kushida planned to actively use that "side effect" to probe Horikita, to find out whether Horikita actually knew about her past.

If necessary, she intended to get some kind of leverage from Horikita to keep her quiet...

Ironically, she now had to rely on this "side effect" that had destroyed her world to protect the "new world" she had just built.

She didn't want to go through that pain a second time!

To protect this "new world," she would find a way to eliminate all threats, even if it meant paying a heavy price.

But in the end, Horikita completely ignored her.

Kushida couldn't tell whether Horikita was ignoring her because she didn't want to talk to anyone at all, or because she knew about Kushida's dark past and looked down on her.

Kushida wanted to keep trying to probe.

Since Horikita wouldn't respond to her, she decided to take a roundabout approach.

Apparently, Bai Lan could get along with Horikita. They had even been seen flirting in public and interacting during breaks.

So Kushida approached Bai Lan, hoping to enter Horikita's circle of friends through him.

But then, not long after making contact, Kushida was horrified to discover—Bai Lan might know about her dark past too!

Now she had one more person to probe.

Still, it seemed that Bai was a good person.

Good people should be easy to fool, right?

At least he talked a lot, and seemed much easier to draw information out of than Horikita, who couldn't squeeze out a single word no matter how hard you tried.

"You want to teach me how to throw verbal jabs?

Throwing verbal jabs? You think I need you to teach me that?

You have no idea what I've been through."