"No way. This is valuable leverage I can use to make you do what I want."
Aoyama's smile didn't waver as he flatly rejected Kushida's demand.
He also explained his intentions, hoping to make Kushida give up on her unrealistic idea.
He'd gone to all that trouble to get leverage over her. There was no way he'd just delete it.
"Forget it. If you don't delete it right now, I'll report your threats to the Student Council President. You don't want to lose your position as Student Council Vice President, do you?"
"Privately coercing a girl—is that really something a Student Council Vice President should be doing?"
Kushida clenched her fists in anger. She looked ready to throw caution to the wind, as if she didn't care whether Aoyama exposed her ugly side.
Unlike Karuizawa, who'd caved as soon as he threatened her, Kushida had a tougher personality and was much harder to deal with.
"Then you'd better have proof." Facing Kushida's outrageous reversal and the way she moved closer, Aoyama didn't retreat a single step.
"You just said it yourself: I'm the Student Council Vice President. Who do you think Horikita President will believe—you or me, Kushida Kikyo from Class 1-D?"
The light from the faint crescent moon wasn't even half as bright as the white streetlamps.
The chilly sea breeze stirred Kushida's brown hair. For a moment, she didn't move at all.
Even her outrageous reversal couldn't sway Aoyama.
No matter how hard she wracked her brain, she couldn't think of a good way to counter his threat.
"Help me first. If I'm in a good mood, I'll delete the video." When Kushida couldn't come up with an answer, Aoyama delivered the kind of villainous line you only heard in movies.
"What do you mean, 'if you're in a good mood'? That means you'll never delete it!"
"I never said that." Aoyama leaned against the railing, facing Kushida. "I'll delete it when I no longer need you. As long as you don't pretend to cooperate and you do the work I give you."
"The first thing I need you to do is help Horikita Suzune become Class D's leader."
At the mention of Horikita Suzune, Kushida's expression was so aggrieved it was hard to describe.
"Are you serious?! Help that stuck-up bitch Horikita? Absolutely not!"
"And I can't do it anyway. Most of the class hates her. How could that possibly work?"
"Even with Hirata's help, no one will accept that arrogant woman."
After rejecting him outright, Kushida tried to excuse herself with a cold expression.
"If they won't accept her, then force them to." Aoyama stared at Kushida impassively. "I've already made a plan. Your most important job will be to persuade the Three Idiots to accept Horikita's threats."
"If you can't do it, I'll send the video I just recorded to the three of them."
"Your reputation will be ruined, and everyone will look down on you even more than they do on Horikita. Listen to me and help put her in charge."
"You have only two choices."
Chapter Thirty-One: More Threats
"What are you to Horikita?"
After a long silence, Kushida forced herself to ask, holding back her resentment.
If she had a choice, she really didn't want to help Horikita. It was even more unbearable than having to praise Yamauchi as a smart guy.
"We both get something out of it. She's still useful to me for now, so don't try anything." Knowing about the conflict between the two of them, Aoyama warned Kushida in advance.
Horikita Suzune and Kushida Kikyo had attended the same middle school, though they'd been in different classes.
Back in middle school, Kushida's two-faced nature had accidentally been discovered by a classmate. As expected, the whole class had ostracized her.
When that isolation gradually turned into bullying, Kushida hadn't just sat back and taken it.
One by one, she exposed the dirt she'd learned about her classmates while pretending to be someone else.
She revealed who had badmouthed whom, which girl had engaged in compensated dating outside school, and who had stolen a friend's boyfriend.
In just one day, the class erupted into a brawl. In the end, the class was broken apart: some students transferred to other classes, while others changed schools.
Kushida had effectively cost that year's graduating class one whole student.
"I'm useful too. We can both get something out of it." Kushida still hadn't given up on the possibility of refusing to help Horikita Suzune.
She and Horikita Suzune hadn't interacted in middle school, but the fact that Horikita knew what she was really like was enough to make her hostile.
Besides, Horikita's aloof manner put her in a bad mood just to look at.
"Class D needs a strong, iron-fisted leader right now. You can't do it."
Aoyama gave Kushida the answer she didn't want to hear, without softening a single word.
With the Three Idiots and all sorts of other oddballs in Class D, a leader who wasn't tough would be useless.
Kushida only cared about pretending to be a good person so she could earn people's trust and pry out their secrets. There was no way she could be a strong leader.
"Karuizawa's on my side. She'll keep an eye on you for me."
"As for the first thing I'm asking you to do, I doubt you want to know what'll happen if you mess it up."
Aoyama glanced at the time on his phone, its screen lighting up, then left Kushida standing there with a complicated expression and headed for the dormitory.
The place Kushida had chosen was so secluded that by the time he got back to the dormitory, it was almost curfew.
"Who was the girl who was there just now?"
"Horikita Suzune."
Aoyama waved over his shoulder, his voice completely even.
As if what he'd said were true.
The day after Kushida agreed to support Horikita, Aoyama called out Hirata Yosuke, the boy everyone had accepted as Class D's leader.
Naturally, Horikita Suzune—the "rebel"—was with Aoyama.
"I think I'm more suited to be Class D's leader than you are."
In a café booth popular with students, Horikita Suzune stated her purpose bluntly, showing no sign of unease.
"Class D has only 250 Class Points left because you've been indulging Yamauchi and his friends. The girls on Karuizawa's side have started doing the same. It's all because you've failed to act."
"If it were me, I'd stop Sudo and the others from breaking the rules, even if I had to use force."
Horikita hit Hirata's sore spot with pinpoint accuracy right from the start.
And just as Aoyama had expected, Hirata's warm smile vanished, and his brow furrowed.
"Horikita, your thinking is a little too extreme. I can't support you."
"Besides, Yamauchi and the others have already calmed down, haven't they?"
"That's because they're scared," Aoyama interjected.
There hadn't been much to say when the Class Points hadn't changed in April.
But in May, when they discovered their points had fallen by seventy-five percent, the loss to their benefits was laid bare. The students in Class D could no longer stand it.
Faced with everyone's resentment, even Sudo, the most hot-tempered of them all, had stopped acting tough and kept his head down.
"This has nothing to do with Aoyama. This is an internal class matter. What's so wrong with keeping things as they are?"
"I think it's wrong. Besides, I'm not asking for your help or approval. I'm giving you an ultimatum." Horikita Suzune firmly rebutted Hirata.
After Hirata had stopped her from clashing with Sudo twice, she'd realized that he was unusually fixated on keeping the class harmonious.
Even when Sudo had punched him hard, Hirata hadn't shown the slightest anger.
And when someone helped him up, he'd immediately gone to comfort the girl who'd spoken up for him.
"Tomorrow after school, I'll use the 250 Class Points we have left to force everyone else to accept me as their leader."
"Kushida and Karuizawa have already agreed to support me. You will too."
"Have you lost your mind, Horikita?" Hirata couldn't even be bothered to be polite anymore. "This won't save you. It'll destroy any chance you have of making friends in Class D."
What Horikita was about to do was like a member of a band of robbers telling their leader, "Give me your position or I'll report all of us to the police and take you down with me."
No one would befriend someone like that.
"Did you put her up to this, Aoyama?" Realizing he had no chance of convincing Horikita, Hirata turned his attention to Aoyama, who was leisurely sipping his tea.
"I gave her the idea. I've done something similar in Class A."
Aoyama smiled faintly, shutting down Hirata's accusation.
He'd done something like this himself, so it couldn't be said that he was deliberately setting Horikita Suzune up.
"You could be more popular. You could have more friends." Hirata gave a bitter smile. He had friends in Class A too, and had heard what the students there said about Aoyama.
Things like, "He's such a handsome guy, but it's a shame he's so socially awkward," and, "He'd be great if he weren't so calculating."
Aoyama raised his right hand and mimed counting money. "Me? As long as I have this, I'm fine."
One of the main reasons he'd gone to so much trouble to help Horikita Suzune take charge was that Hirata was too useless to collect class funds.
"I can make sure everyone in Class D passes the Midterm Exam. Remember to cooperate with Suzune tomorrow."
"And don't worry that I'll do anything bad to Class D. If your Class Points go up, you'll have spare points for me to take."
"Kushida still owes me 50,000 Personal Points for this month. And you won't be able to pay 50,000 next month either, right? If you default, I'll appeal to the Student Council, and both of you will be expelled."
Aoyama showed Hirata both the carrot and the stick.
Hirata might not want to support Horikita Suzune, but he had no choice.
With the three most influential people in Class D working together, it wouldn't be too difficult for Horikita to take charge.
"Do you think my brother would approve of what I'm doing?"
After Hirata left, looking dissatisfied, Horikita Suzune suddenly spoke as she stirred the coffee in front of her.
Taking the leader's position through threats was clearly a crooked path.
"From what I know of Horikita President, he'd approve. Not of how you're doing it, but of the fact that you had the guts to try." Aoyama brought the warm tea to his lips.
"He's the kind of brother who'd rather you make a mistake than do nothing at all."
"As long as you learn from the experience and grow, he'll be happy."
Chapter Thirty-Two: Rumors Everywhere
"Have you heard? Horikita Suzune from Class D and Aoyama Shiki from Class A are dating."
"Weren't they already dating? I've seen Aoyama-kun come out of Horikita's room. More than once, too."
"Do you think they've already done it?"
"Done what?"
"You're so naughty."
Horikita, huh?
The two girls chatting about the latest gossip gradually walked away. Sitting alone in a corner of the cafeteria, Shiina slowly sipped her warm soup, Horikita Suzune's cool, beautiful face appearing in her mind.
The most talked-about figure among the first-years had shifted from Student Council Vice President Aoyama Shiki to Class D's leader, Horikita Suzune.
She was another student who had become class leader by threatening her classmates.
And compared to Ryuen Kakeru's violent threats, Horikita Suzune's methods were even more shameless and contemptible.
Yet despite how underhanded her tactics were, the three central figures in Class D—Hirata Yosuke, Kushida Kikyo, and Karuizawa Kei—had each supported her, spoken up for her, and promised to help.
Aoyama, was this your doing behind the scenes?
After finishing her lunch, Shiina picked up her empty tray.
Class C's leader, Ryuen Kakeru, was a capable man with a strong drive to act.
Once he realized that the four classes were rivals, he'd started looking for students in the other classes he could make use of, beginning in mid-April.
By now, he'd bought off students in both Class A and Class D. Their inside information had also reached Shiina.
Aoyama's strong push to put Katsuragi in charge had something in common with Horikita Suzune's actions.
"What a coincidence, Shiina. You just finished eating too?"
As Shiina thought about what role Aoyama was playing in all this and headed toward the tray return, a warm male voice sounded beside her.
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