Classroom of the Elite, but It's a Diary Style

Everything from that day was about to repeat itself.

"So Kushida is that kind of person," "What a great act," "Disgusting"...

The whispers of her classmates echoed incessantly in her ears, a sense of powerlessness dragging her body down into an abyss.

Even when her classmates came to her door the next day, putting on a show of concern as if they hadn't the slightest clue about her true nature, she no longer had the strength to pull herself together and attend class.

Once the momentum she had built up was lost, it was incredibly difficult to regain.

The feeling that her dark history could be exposed at any moment clung to her, making it hard to breathe.

This time it was just a message left for the reader of the Diary, but what about next time?

She had no means of retaliation.

Even Horikita Suzune had dared to use her dark history to threaten her into opening the door; given the character of that person behind the Diary, it wasn't hard to imagine how many more times she would be mentioned.

However, these were not the deciding factors.

Kushida Kikyo understood perfectly well that if she were afraid of these things, she never would have chosen to enroll in the first place—not when she first saw the Diary, nor when she saw Horikita Suzune on the bus.

The root cause was that her stress had become unmanageable.

She no longer had any way to trust the methods she once used to relieve her pressure.

The anonymous message boards on the internet were untrustworthy, and the Diary, which she had once thought was absolutely safe, was equally unreliable.

She couldn't think of a single way to vent the pressure that had piled up inside her.

She was going to explode.

If this continued, she would completely fall apart.

That was why she was curled up in the dim dormitory, unable to take another step.

...Just lie there, empty your mind, close your eyes, and don't think about anything.

If she could just get through a few more days like this, the lively, cute, cheerful, and well-loved Kushida Kikyo that everyone saw would be reborn once again.

But the woman before her hadn't thought of any of that; she had just forced her way in.

And so, with utter disgust, Kushida Kikyo spat the words through gritted teeth: "You don't understand anything at all."

"That's why I really, truly hate you, Horikita Suzune."

"I don't understand."

Horikita Suzune said this very calmly.

Even as Kushida Kikyo spoke with such intense loathing, her expression remained perfectly serene.

The aggression was far from enough; these words weren't even as shocking as the "Are you an idiot?" she had heard from Asakusa Toru yesterday at noon.

"I don't understand why you are so obsessed with making friends, I don't understand how someone like you could cause such a massive incident, and I don't understand why, when you clearly don't want to go out or see your classmates, you just curl up in this room and refuse to leave."

Horikita Suzune's gaze was fixed squarely on Kushida Kikyo.

"If you're afraid of me, if you're afraid of the Diary exposing your past and your true nature, why not just choose to drop out? You could just drop out and start over somewhere else, couldn't you? It's only been a month, after all."

Interpersonal relationships hadn't fully solidified yet; it was still early enough to insert herself into a new environment.

She could still achieve her wish of "being friends with everyone."

"..." Kushida Kikyo was silent for a moment, then suddenly spoke: "And what about you?"

"Coming to this school to chase after your brother's shadow, pretending to act like him, thinking you've grown, only to end up stuck in the quagmire of Class D." Sneering, Kushida Kikyo repeated the summary the Diary had once given of the "Low-Spec Yukino."

Just as Horikita Suzune could easily identify the Two-Faced Person as her, she, being in the same class, could easily identify that the "Low-Spec Yukino" mentioned in the Diary was Horikita Suzune.

"I don't understand." With a scoff, Kushida Kikyo lifted her fair neck: "I don't understand what's so great about chasing someone else's shadow, I don't understand how you, with such an excellent brother as a role model, ended up in Class D, and I don't understand how, even after the Diary gave so many clues, you could still do something as stupid as announcing information to the class and even bowing to beg them."

"Ah, ah, of course I don't understand."

With biting sarcasm, Kushida Kikyo raised her hands, flashing a brilliant, radiant smile.

The sharpest words were never lies.

They were the truth.

As her words sliced through the skin, Kushida Kikyo gripped the hilt of the blade, gently and slowly pushing it into Horikita Suzune's body.

Just like the blade she had plunged into herself.

Come on, let's hurt each other.

Don't act like I'm the only one whose dark history has been exposed by the Diary.

If I'm going to suffer, we'll suffer together!

Watching Horikita Suzune's small hand instinctively clench the bedsheet, Kushida Kikyo's smile grew even brighter.

"..." Subconsciously, Horikita Suzune wanted to look away, wanted to escape.

But quickly, she forced herself to maintain control, continuing to meet Kushida Kikyo's eyes.

Escaping wouldn't change a single thing.

Isn't it precisely because she made up her mind to change that she came here?

She needs to admit her mistakes.

It was she who imitated her brother yet failed to gain recognition, she who fell into Class D to share a room with the dregs, and she who, despite bowing her head in utter humiliation to make a request, still let Class D fall to zero points.

She must acknowledge this to move forward.

And so, Horikita Suzune closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"I heard you got into Class D," "What a useless sister," "Stupid Horikita Suzune," "Are you an idiot?"

One after another, the words that once caused her pain seemed to echo in her ears.

But when she opened her eyes again, the noisy voices ceased.

"That is why I have come to find you." Horikita Suzune stood up from the bed, walked over to Kushida Kikyo, and reached out her hand: "Kushida-san, please be my friend."

This was the invitation Kushida Kikyo had once extended to her during that month when she was perfunctorily recording in her Diary.

But this time, the one taking the initiative to reach out was her.

"Slap—" Her outstretched hand was swatted away by Kushida Kikyo, and a voice filled with disbelief rang out:

"Huh?"

"Are you sick?"

"I begged you so many times before and you never agreed to my request, and now that you've found out my true nature, you come over here wanting to be friends with me?"

Kushida Kikyo was genuinely baffled, wondering if there was something truly wrong with Horikita Suzune's head.

Bowing to classmates to ask them to lend her money to buy information, brazenly taking out a Diary in class and claiming it was her source of intelligence—if she hadn't been busy observing the reactions of other students at the time, she might have been baited by that trick.

Not to mention these things, the threat to force her door open, and now, reaching out to say she wants to be friends.

Every one of Horikita Suzune's actions exceeded her expectations.

Seriously, this woman, is she sick?

"That's right, please, be my friend." Even though her hand had been swatted away in a reflexive reaction, Horikita Suzune had no intention of changing her mind. Instead, she nodded gently and once again extended her hand toward Kushida Kikyo:

"Please be my first friend."

The gaze, the eyes, the words.

Kushida Kikyo considered herself to have seen the surfaces of countless people, and their insides as well.

The personas others adopted in front of people, the false elements mixed into their words, the disguises worn in their expressions.

The true intentions of others when they conspired behind people's backs, the looks on their faces when they revealed their true selves to her, the way they let their guard down when confiding in her.

To her, lies were the most familiar things imaginable.

But at this moment, she could not see a shred of falsehood on Horikita Suzune's face.

This woman was serious.

She genuinely wanted to be friends with her.

What a joke.

It made her want to vomit.

Just looking at Horikita Suzune's face made her feel sick.

But what made her feel even sicker was that she actually had the urge to take that hand.

Clutching her right hand tightly to prevent it from taking Horikita Suzune's, Kushida Kikyo instinctively wanted to step back, but the chair she was sitting on was pressed against the desk, unable to move back even an inch.

'Take that hand.'

A voice was screaming in the depths of her heart.

The strength she used to hold down her right hand began to wane; she didn't seem to... loathe the woman before her as much as she had imagined.

"...A reason." Through the gap in her teeth, Kushida Kikyo spat out her final struggle: "I cannot understand, nor can I accept this."

"So, give me a reason that can convince myself."

"..." Looking at Kushida Kikyo in this moment, the corners of Horikita Suzune's mouth curled upward.

For the first time today, she smiled.

And so, she softly spoke the answer:

"Because you are a two-sided mirror."

Chapter 75 That Is Me

"You should find a mirror."

That is what he said.

So she came here.

Kushida Kikyo was the perfect mirror.

Known as a Two-Faced Person, possessing both a front and a back, understanding human nature, grasping the human heart, and having a wide circle of friends, she was the most suitable existence to serve as a mirror.

It was only through Kushida Kikyo that she could truly see her own essence clearly.

"...I completely, utterly don't understand." Kushida Kikyo's expression was incredibly strange.

'You are a mirror with two sides'?

What kind of crazy talk was this woman spouting again.

Horikita Suzune: "...Ah."

The moment the words left her lips, she remembered that Kushida Kikyo hadn't been there at the time.

She didn't know the advice someone had given her, nor did she know what she was trying to do.

"It's fine." Seeing that Kushida Kikyo had no intention of taking the hand she had extended, she retracted it as if nothing had happened and sat back down on the bed: "I will try my best to make you understand."

Horikita Suzune lowered her head, organized her thoughts for a moment, and then spoke softly: "I have an older brother."

"He is amazing; whether it's academics or sports, he is always number one."

"Everyone likes him, and everyone respects him."

"I am the same." Suddenly, she began to talk to herself, recounting the past: "I respect my brother, and even more... I yearn to be like him."

"I wanted so badly to become someone like my brother, instead of Horikita Suzune, who can't do anything."

She seemed to be reminiscing about something.

But the more she recalled, the stranger Kushida Kikyo's expression became.

"..."

...Am I supposed to be listening to you explain all this?