The news of the Special Exam hung over every Class D student like the Sword of Damocles. Amid the oppressive atmosphere, Fūki Ran noticed that Kushida Kikyo was having an especially hard time maintaining her "Angel" mask. Her smile remained perfect, but the exhaustion and agitation in her eyes were almost impossible to conceal.
The opportunity came one evening. Fūki was delayed by some last-minute Student Council business—he had used points and connections to open a few doors, giving him access to some nonessential information—and was on his way back to the dorms when he happened to pass the nearly abandoned Small Garden behind the Old School Building. It was overgrown with weeds and dimly lit, one of the few Surveillance Blind Spots on campus.
Just as he was about to hurry through, a stifled, beastlike sobbing made him stop. The sound came from behind a dense Rose Wall. Fūki quietly approached, and through a gap in the leaves, he saw a familiar figure.
Kushida Kikyo had her back to him, her shoulders trembling violently. She was no longer the eternally cheerful, adorable girl. Instead, she was like a trapped beast, brimming with resentment.
"...I've had enough... I really have! Why should I have to smile at those losers? Why should I have to remember all their disgusting little preferences?" Her voice was hoarse, filled with deep-seated hatred, utterly unlike her usual sweet tone. She viciously tore at the Rose Vine beside her. Its thorns cut her palm, drawing blood, but she seemed not to feel any pain. "Hirata... Horikita... and that conceited Fūki... You're all going to die! Just wait... When I reach the top, I'll trample every last one of you underfoot!"
She spun around, her face twisted into a particularly hideous expression in the dim light. At that very moment, her gaze met Fūki's, calm and unreadable, beyond the Rose Wall.
Time seemed to freeze.
The resentment and madness on Kushida Kikyo's face instantly stiffened, then shattered like fragile glass, replaced by boundless terror and disbelief. Her pupils dilated to their limit, her face turned as white as paper, and her lips trembled, but no sound came out.
Fūki said nothing. He simply watched her, his gaze as though he were examining an interesting specimen.
"N-no... That's not... Fūki... let me explain..." Kushida stammered in panic, trying to cover up what had happened and put her Angel mask back on. But her terror had left her face rigid, and the smile she managed to force looked worse than a sob.
Fūki slowly emerged from behind the Rose Wall and advanced toward her, step by step. His stride was steady, carrying an invisible pressure. Kushida instinctively backed away until her back hit the cold, rough wall. There was nowhere else to go.
"Explain?" Fūki finally spoke, his voice low, revealing no emotion. "Explain how you've carefully maintained that fake mask? Or explain how you've been plotting to trample everyone underfoot?"
"I... I haven't..." Kushida denied it in vain. Tears welled in her eyes from fear, mingling with the blood seeping from her palm.
Fūki stopped in front of her. He glanced at her bleeding hand, then lifted his eyes to meet hers, wide with terror. "Kushida Kikyo, you've done a good job hiding who you are. But the devil can never resist showing its tail."
He raised his right hand and studied his palm at leisure, as if admiring a work of art. "You know, if I tell people what I saw and heard today, everything you've worked so hard to build will collapse in an instant. You'll become a monster everyone avoids—more isolated and helpless than Horikita Suzune."
Kushida began to tremble violently. She seemed to already see the terrible scene before her, a future she feared more than death. "Please... Fūki... don't... I can't..." She suddenly reached out, not to wipe her tears, but to clutch the wrist of his raised right hand as if it were her last lifeline.
Her grip was astonishingly strong. Her nails nearly dug into Fūki's skin. Then, under his somewhat probing gaze, she did something incredibly bold—some might even call it insane—
She grabbed Fūki's hand and pressed it hard against the left side of her chest!
Through the thin fabric of her summer uniform, he could clearly feel her heart pounding wildly and rapidly, as well as the soft, vibrant warmth beneath.
"Can you feel it?!" Kushida tipped her head back, tears mixed with a kind of almost frenzied resolve spilling from her eyes. "My weakness... my vital point... it's right here! Now it's in your hands! All you have to do is press down, or tell someone, and it'll shatter! It'll be gone for good!"
She wasn't trying to seduce him. This was an extreme, twisted threat and surrender. In this way, she laid her "heart"—her most deadly secret—bare in Fūki's hands, while warning him: if he told anyone, he would destroy her completely. And no one knew what a madwoman driven to desperation might do.
Fūki could clearly feel her wildly beating heart beneath his palm, as though he held all her masks, all her darkness, all her vulnerability in his hand. He looked down at Kushida's face, streaked with tears and blood and twisted by despair. A faint, abyssal glimmer flashed in his eyes.
He didn't pull his hand away. Instead, he slightly curled his fingers, feeling her heartbeat more clearly.
"What an interesting... pledge." His voice was low and magnetic, carrying a devilish allure. "It seems you're more valuable than I thought—and... more dangerous, Kushida Kikyo."
He bent down and leaned close to her ear, whispering so only the two of them could hear: "I'll keep your secret for you. But from now on, when you can't bear to wear that revolting mask, when you need to unleash the beast inside you, come find me at Dorm 129. Let your darkness bloom for me alone. This is our... contract."
With that, he slowly withdrew his hand, as if the breathtaking contact had never happened. He glanced at Kushida, still slumped against the base of the wall, her eyes vacant, as though all her strength had been drained away, then turned and left the dim garden.
On his way back to the dorms, Fūki raised the hand he had pressed against Kushida's chest. His fingertips still seemed to feel her frantic heartbeat, along with a trace of blood. A cold smile curved his lips.
Control didn't always require violence. Sometimes all it took was holding the other person's most vulnerable nerve. Kushida Kikyo, the social center of Class D and even the entire year, would from this moment on have both her light and her darkness at his disposal.
And Dorm 129 would become the one and only prison where all her shameful truths could be kept.
Before you continue