With this alone, Bai Lan felt he could secure Karuizawa.
Because Bai Lan had heard very little, there was very little music for him to arrange.
It took only a little over ten minutes. Even though Bai Lan had been as meticulous as possible, he still finished the music in the end.
After finishing the music, Bai Lan took out his phone and found the contacts Kushida had given him.
He searched for Karuizawa's name and number.
Soon, Bai Lan sent Karuizawa a text message:
"Karuizawa, you don't want the things you told Hirata to be found out by anyone else either, do you?"
After meeting Hirata, Karuizawa returned to her room and began taking a bath.
After washing herself, she lay in the bathtub and played with her phone.
At that moment, she suddenly received a message.
She opened it.
"From: First-year Class D—Bai Lan
Karuizawa, you don't want the things you told Hirata to be found out by anyone else either, do you?"
After reading the message, Karuizawa's body immediately began to tremble in fright. Her hand suddenly went weak, and she failed to hold on to her phone.
The phone slipped from Karuizawa's hand and fell into the bathtub with a splash.
"Waaah!!!"
After panicking and fumbling around, Karuizawa fished the phone out of the bathtub and dried it with a bath towel.
On the surface, the phone had been wiped dry. But what about the inside?
What had happened to it...
Karuizawa nervously pressed the power button.
The screen lit up.
Karuizawa immediately breathed a sigh of relief.
The booklet handed out at enrollment had said that replacing a broken phone would cost money—an entire hundred thousand points!
Old Things Zero One Ling Jiu Ling Mu
It was said that its true market value was actually far more than a hundred thousand. That amount was merely an "internal discount price."
Still, fortunately—or rather, perhaps this was only natural for a phone worth far more than a hundred thousand—
Its waterproofing was genuinely impressive. It had not taken in any water despite being submerged for more than ten seconds.
Wait!
Karuizawa quickly realized that the biggest problem she faced now was not the hundred thousand points!
Karuizawa looked at the name displayed as the "sender" on the illuminated message screen.
"From: First-year Class D—Bai Lan"!
At the sight of the name "Bai Lan," Karuizawa felt as if someone had smashed her chest with a hammer. The heaviness and stabbing pain made it hard for her to breathe.
Karuizawa clutched her head with both hands and crouched on the floor.
"Why does Bai Lan know what I told Hirata?
Could Hirata have told Bai?
How long has it even been?
Does Hirata trust Bai Lan that much?
I clearly told him that I was terrified of Bai Lan. Why would he still have Bai Lan contact me?
Bai Lan has come looking for me. What should I do now?
This is so scary!"
Not long ago, Karuizawa had indeed arranged to meet Hirata.
Bai Lan had guessed correctly: Karuizawa had indeed asked Hirata to be her boyfriend.
Karuizawa had also used the claims that a "classmate" would be "bullied," "in danger," and "afraid" to "threaten" Hirata.
Hirata had indeed agreed to date Karuizawa in order to "prevent his classmate from being bullied."
Bai Lan had basically guessed correctly.
But only "basically."
There was a slight discrepancy between Bai Lan's guess and the actual situation.
The way Karuizawa asked Hirata to be her boyfriend was somewhat different from what Bai Lan had assumed.
It was only a tiny difference, but because of that tiny discrepancy, the final result differed by "a billion points."
In reality, the "victim" referred to by Karuizawa's words "being bullied," "in danger," and "afraid" was not someone else, but Karuizawa herself!
She herself!
In Karuizawa's eyes, if Hirata refused to be her boyfriend, it would not be long before she became the one who was bullied, endangered, and so frightened that she could never feel at ease!
Like Kushida, Karuizawa was someone who hid her true self.
In fact, Bai Lan had once accidentally guessed part of the truth.
Not long ago, Bai Lan had wondered, "Could Karuizawa actually be a strong, hot-tempered gyaru on the surface, but a weak and timid girl in secret? Ferocious by day, then hiding away alone and crying at night?"
Bai Lan's guess was not entirely accurate, but it was close enough.
Karuizawa's assertiveness had been an act, all to conceal her weakness.
The reason she could disguise herself so convincingly—so convincingly that she had endured Bai Lan's repeated probing without showing fear, leaving him unable to see even the slightest hint of weakness—
was that the image she pretended to be was actually that of the people she knew best, and also feared most.
To be precise, it was those people!
Their appearances, the terrible things they had done to her, the things that had nearly robbed her of her life...
All of it had been carved deeply into her mind, impossible to erase.
Every day, Karuizawa could not help remembering those people who had filled her with fear.
Under the filter of her fear, even those terrifying events became even more horrifying!
Again and again, she relived those events in her dreams, woke up screaming, and then hid beneath the covers, crying in fear.
Because of the trauma left by nearly losing her life while being bullied, she had been afraid to return to school.
Until she received an invitation to enroll at Advanced Nurturing High School.
She felt that she had been given a chance to leave the past behind and start over.
Karuizawa treasured this opportunity.
For that reason, the first thing she did was disguise herself as a gyaru who looked extremely difficult to bully.
Besides that, she had also painstakingly practiced the way the bullies who had tormented her in the past spoke, looked, and moved.
Examine fear, recognize fear, understand fear, and finally become fear!
Everything had been for the sake of protecting herself.
Author's Note on Going Premium
It was finally time to go premium.
My editor asked me to write a note, so here goes.
This book is mainly about a male high school student who is clearly full of emotion but pretends to be cold-hearted, bold and rebellious yet guided by his own principles. He causes all sorts of trouble in pursuit of dropping out, steps on all kinds of land mines and defuses them along the way, and inevitably develops feelings for people. It is a story about going from rejecting emotions to learning to enjoy them.
There is a system, but it does not have much of a presence. Aside from making the protagonist's behavioral patterns and powerful body seem reasonable, you can basically pretend it does not exist.
It is finally time to go premium.
To be honest, I feel pretty uneasy.
Because apparently you can only ask about follow-up readership during recommendation periods, and I did not get a recommendation this week.
So I do not really know how the follow-up readership has been recently.
I think my story is interesting, but I do not know whether other people will be willing to pay for it.
I hope I can keep writing it, see it through from beginning to end, and give my story a proper ending.
I have thought of so many things that I find interesting and want to write them down. Not writing them down and showing... sharing them feels like it would be very painful.
But writing them down only to discover that no one is reading feels as if I am wasting my effort and emotions, which would be even more painful.
I do not dare hope for too much.
I only hope that perfect-attendance bonuses will not become the main source of income.
The perfect-attendance bonus on Cat Station is so tiny. It is hardly worth eating.
I still want to earn at least a little money.
Normally, I should end with a reward goal.
But it feels like even setting one would be pointless.
Then again, what if?
Then:
50 blades or 5,000 in tips will add one extra chapter.
59. The Complete Conversation Between Hirata and Karuizawa
Karuizawa disguised herself with the determination that if anyone saw through her, she might die.
Before you continue