Just as the boy was deep in thought, the phone in his pocket vibrated again.
Hashiba Hikaru opened the screen. Sure enough, it was from Kushida Kikyo.
Kushida: Wait for me in your dorm room after school. I have something to say.
A few seconds later, another message followed.
Kushida: Don't stand me up, got it?
Seeing the messages, Hashiba Hikaru couldn't help laughing. She really was furious.
Hashiba Hikaru: I'll be waiting for you, Kushida. Please don't worry.
After putting his phone down, the boy smiled and shook his head.
I'm looking forward to it, Kushida.
Kushida Wants to Lay Her Cards on the Table?
Now that the midterm exams were over, the group study sessions that had been going on for some time could finally take a break. Everyone had worked hard lately, and Ichinose Honami thought they deserved some time to relax and enjoy school life.
After school, Hashiba Hikaru received a message from Kushida Kikyo, so he turned down Shibata and the others' invitation to hang out and left the classroom right away.
In any case, now that he'd successfully brought Kushida's stock price back down to its starting point, he needed to think carefully about what to do next. She'd already proven to be a pretty good test subject. He'd finished testing both how to raise and lower her stock price, and in a certain sense, she was easy to handle.
On top of that, Kushida had even revealed information about the class to Hashiba Hikaru for Horikita Suzune's sake. That alone showed she was someone willing to do whatever it took to benefit herself.
With that kind of personality and her exceptional social skills, she was an ideal tool by any measure.
Hashiba Hikaru was confident he could keep her in check, so staying