Ever since the night of the limited-edition cookies, Kushida Kikyo had noticed a subtle change in her behavior in Dorm 129. She still vented her negative emotions, still cursed in vicious language at the people and things that irritated her, but afterward, she would always find herself revealing something else.
Sometimes she would curl up on the carpet like an exhausted little animal. Between her vicious complaints, she might slip in a few words of curiosity about a newly released movie, or mutter skeptically about her horoscope. These slightly childish thoughts, the sort that belonged to an ordinary high school girl, were utterly different from the pure darkness she had shown before. Without seeming to realize it, she was piecing together a more complete, more complicated self in front of Feng Qi—a contradiction who harbored deep malice yet still retained the heart of an ordinary girl.
Feng Qi continued to play the role of a calm observer. He silently noted her vicious remarks, and gave no special response to the ordinary side she occasionally revealed. This impartial "acceptance" gave Kushida a strange sense of security. In front of him, she seemed to have no need to maintain any single image, whether supremely kind or utterly wicked.
However, this "relaxation" in their private space inevitably began to affect her "performance" elsewhere.
It happened during an afternoon tea party organized by Hirata Yousuke to "strengthen class unity." Everyone sat in a circle, sharing snacks and drinks they had brought from home. Most were budget substitutes, after all, points were scarce. Thanks to Kushida and Hirata's efforts to keep things lively, the atmosphere was fairly pleasant.
That was, until the conversation casually turned to Ken Sudō's recent performance in the Basketball Club.
"Sudō's really been working hard. I heard even the coach praised him," one girl said with a smile.
Kushida's signature smile, full of encouragement and kindness, immediately appeared on her face. She was about to say something like, "That's right, Sudō's always been so earnest. We should all support him."
But just as the words were about to leave her mouth, she suddenly recalled the way she had mimicked Ken Sudō's clumsy dribbling in Dorm 129, her voice dripping with disdain and disgust—and Feng Qi's calm profile as he recorded it.
Two utterly different emotions and ways of speaking clashed violently in her mind.
Her smile froze for a fraction of a second. The curve of her lips remained perfect, but deep in her eyes, an almost imperceptible emptiness and struggle flickered past, unnoticed even by her. The pause was so brief that almost no one could have noticed it, quick as an illusion.
"Y-yeah..." she finally managed, her voice still sweet, but seemingly missing some of its usual "soul." It sounded a little flat. "I hope he... keeps working hard."
Across from her, Horikita Suzune had been listlessly prodding the fruit on her plate with a fork. Now she raised her eyes slightly, her cool gaze lingering on Kushida for a moment as her brow furrowed almost imperceptibly. She seemed to have caught that fleeting abnormality.
And Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, who had been sitting in the corner like part of the scenery, also seemed to glance casually in Kushida's direction.
Kushida herself never noticed the tiny crack in her performance. After the tea party ended, she even thought she had handled the exchange rather well. It wasn't until that evening, when she habitually knocked on the door of Dorm 129 once again, like a bird returning to its nest, that anything changed.
As usual, she first complained about how boring the tea party had been and how hypocritical Hirata's talk of "unity" was. She even mimicked the way a few classmates ate, just for fun. Feng Qi listened quietly without interrupting.
But when she told him how "perfectly" she had responded to the conversation about Sudō, Feng Qi suddenly spoke.
"You hesitated." His voice was flat, but it was like a precise scalpel, cutting into a detail even she hadn't noticed.
Kushida fell silent mid-sentence, her expression frozen.
"M-maybe you imagined it? I reacted really quickly..." she tried to argue, but her eyes were uneasy.
"About 0.4 seconds." Feng Qi gave her an exact number, his gaze sharp as he looked at her. "Before you were about to say something encouraging, your expression froze and went out of sync for 0.4 seconds. It was brief, but obvious enough to someone who's been watching your 'performance.'"
Kushida's face turned pale in an instant. She thought back to what had happened that afternoon. Maybe... perhaps... there really had been a moment when she'd faltered? A cold fear seized her. If even Feng Qi could notice from a distance, what about the people sitting right across from her? Horikita? Ayanokoji?
"I... I didn't mean to..." Her voice quavered, but this time it wasn't an act. She was genuinely panicking. "I don't know how that happened..."
"You've worn your mask for so long that it's started sticking to your face." Feng Qi's voice remained emotionless, as if stating an objective fact. "When you keep taking it off here to let yourself breathe, putting it back on perfectly takes more time and effort. Cracks are inevitable."
He stood and walked over to her, looking down at her. "That means you need to be more careful. Or, to put it another way... you need to understand more deeply which environment is the one where you can truly 'live.'"
Kushida looked up at him. Beneath his deep gaze, she felt she had nowhere to hide. He had easily pointed out her brief mistake from that afternoon, then raised it to the level of a crisis in her strategy for survival. Fear surged over her like a tide, but along with it came an even stronger sense of dependence on this man—the only one who knew her secret and could point out her flaws.
Only here, only in front of him, could she set down her burdens. And he alone could point out the dangers that might expose her in the outside world.
She reached out and instinctively clutched the corner of his trouser leg, like a drowning person grabbing a piece of driftwood.
"What... what should I do?" she asked through her sobs, giving up completely on pretense and resistance.
Feng Qi looked at the girl at his feet, so utterly vulnerable, and a calculating glint passed through his eyes. He didn't shake her off or comfort her. He merely said, "Keep observing. Keep reporting. At the same time, learn to control your 'switching' better. Remember, the outside world is the stage, and this is backstage. Don't take backstage emotions into the stage lights."
His words were cold and realistic, yet they somehow gave Kushida a sense of direction. She nodded hard, tightening her grip on his trouser leg.
She knew she could no longer leave this place, which was both a cage and a refuge. She could no longer leave this man, who was both her controller and the only one who "understood" her. Her mask had cracked, and the only person who could mend those cracks—or at least let her catch her breath behind them—was him.
Before you continue