Explosion

Matsushita Chiaki felt as if everything she knew had just been turned upside down.

In her limited experience, the most people ever did to fool around in class was pass notes or exchange glances.

But what had just happened... From writing on each other's backs to "interacting" with their feet, and then even... taking off socks? Rubbing the soles of their feet? Kiyona had nearly collapsed onto her desk... It was so much to take in that Chiaki's brain was short-circuiting. All of it was way beyond anything she could imagine!

Especially... Matsushita recalled Hoshino Kanade's last seemingly casual gesture. As he withdrew his hand, his fingertips seemed to brush past his nose with startling ease. And the fleeting expression on his face... Was it savoring the moment? Or some other indescribable pleasure? Matsushita was startled by her own thought.

"...Th-this isn't just ordinary fooling around, is it?" she murmured, staring blankly at her desk as her fingers unconsciously rubbed the smooth wooden pencil between them. Her thoughts were a mess. "How far have their relationship actually gone? This has to be..." She racked her brain for the right word. "...some kind of perverted interaction, right?!"

As a girl who had never known the stirrings of love and whose understanding of romance hadn't progressed beyond pure-love manga, every moment of that scene had hit her like a nuclear bomb.

She needed time to calm down and properly process this "shocking" glimpse into everyday life in Class D.

Matsushita took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down. The cicadas outside the window shrilled in her ears.

But once she had calmed down and thought it over, she realized both of them were strange.

Hoshino Kanade's reflexes were far beyond a high schooler's—the move to grab an ankle was so fast it became a blur, like some kind of trained fighting technique.

Kiyona's endurance was even more unbelievable. An ordinary person would've screamed at that level of stimulation... Were they really ordinary students?

Even Karuizawa's group had curbed their shopping habits after their Class Points hit zero, yet these two could play this kind of forbidden game during class?

The more Matsushita Chiaki thought about it, the colder her spine grew.

Was Class D a gathering place for "defective products"? But those two seemed like something else entirely.

She instinctively pretended to be taking notes, but peered through the gaps in her hanging hair, hoping to get another look—to check on Kiyona, or catch more of Hoshino Kanade's odd behavior.

But the moment she glanced over, her eyes met Hoshino Kanade's.

His gaze was perfectly calm, yet like a deep pool, it caught her spying on him with uncanny precision.

Matsushita Chiaki's breath caught. It felt as if an icy hand had seized her heart.

Sure enough, if she looked again, she'd explode.

"Are you interested in history, Matsushita?" Hoshino Kanade suddenly asked, breaking the silence around them. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried clearly to her. He casually tapped the history book on his desk, tucked beneath his physics textbook, its title just visible.

Matsushita snapped back to her senses. The pencil nearly slipped from her fingers.

She gripped it tightly and forced a harmless, slightly confused smile. "...I was just curious why you're always reading books outside the curriculum, Hoshino."

She tried to make her voice sound natural, but the cold sweat that had instantly formed on her back gave away her nerves. When had he noticed her watching him? From the very first time?

Hoshino looked at her, and the corners of his mouth seemed to lift ever so slightly, but there was no warmth in his smile.

His gaze swept, as if casually, over the pencil she was gripping so tightly that it had bent out of shape. "Because some knowledge—"

Matsushita blurted out, almost before she could stop herself, with a hint of curiosity: "—is outside the textbook?" She met his gaze, trying to make out what lay behind those unfathomable eyes.

The moment their gazes crossed, a despairing wail came from the back of the classroom. "I'm doomed! This topic's going to be on the final, and I didn't understand a word!"

The wail was like a drop of water in a pan of hot oil. It instantly set off the anxiety that had been simmering in Class D.

Whispers, pages turning, and sighs filled the classroom. Class D's anxiety spread like a rising tide, sweeping away every trace of their hidden exchange.

Hoshino turned his gaze away from Matsushita Chiaki, as if their brief confrontation had never happened.

He unhurriedly tore a corner from his notebook, quickly wrote a line, then handed her the slip of paper with his contact information.

"Perhaps we should talk," he said, his voice calm but carrying unmistakable weight, "about your real academic ability—the kind that's neither here nor there."

With that, he didn't look at Matsushita Chiaki again. He stood and left his seat.

Matsushita Chiaki sat frozen, staring at the little slip of paper on her desk, her fingers trembling slightly. The cicadas outside shrilled deafeningly. Now, their cries sounded especially grating, as if mocking her confusion.

Caught between the pressure to survive and the turmoil of youth, Matsushita Chiaki suddenly realized that what she'd just glimpsed might truly have been only the tip of the iceberg.

And now that she thought back on the way Hoshino Kanade had glanced at her pencil, a chill so cold it seemed to reach her bones ran through her.

He'd noticed her long ago! Had it been from the first time she spied through the gaps in her hair? Or even earlier? The slip of paper with his email address lay quietly on her desk, like a silent invitation—and a dangerous trap.

Matsushita Chiaki stared at the new contact on her terminal screen. The name "Hoshino Kanade" seemed to hold some kind of magic, making her fingertips burn slightly.

She unconsciously rubbed the cold casing of the terminal, trying to dispel the strange flutter in her chest.

What would he do to her? The image of Kiyona's pale bare foot, slightly curled in Hoshino's hand during class, surfaced uncontrollably. His touch had seemed possessive, yet strangely... gentle? No, what was she thinking? Would he directly tell her to take off her shoes and offer him her feet? The thought made her ears burn, and her heartbeat suddenly went haywire.

The thought of Hoshino's handsome yet inscrutable face so close to hers... Just imagining it made her breath catch.

Would he be even worse with her than he was with Kiyona? Kiyona didn't seem... to mind? But what about her? All she felt was confusion, panic at having her secret seen through, and... a hint of embarrassment she couldn't explain.

She absolutely wouldn't do anything like that! She bit her lower lip, trying to smother her racing thoughts with pain.

But the cold reality quickly doused that impractical fantasy.

He must have seen through her true nature.

Her fingers drifted across the terminal screen. The scores she'd deliberately kept low, her maneuvering within Karuizawa's group, her efforts to observe and test her classmates... Any one of those secrets in someone else's hands could be fatal. And Hoshino Kanade was the kind of person who saw through everything.

She couldn't accept having him expose her.

In Class D, where everyone was on edge after their Survival Points hit zero, a "pretender" whose mask had been torn away would plummet straight into the abyss.

Karuizawa's retaliation, Hirata's disappointment, Sato and the others distancing themselves... She'd be isolated, wouldn't she?

She'd instantly become one of the lowest-ranking students in the class—and Class D, of all classes.

That frightened her more than any "punishment."

Although her thoughts were a tangled mess, she had no choice.

The light from her terminal screen illuminated her faintly flushed cheeks and flickering blue eyes.

With her heart pounding as if it might leap out of her chest, and her fingertips trembling almost imperceptibly, she slowly and carefully typed the string of numbers Hoshino Kanade had given her into the contact search bar.

The moment she pressed "Send," she slumped back against her chair as if all her strength had left her. The cicadas outside seemed to turn into Hoshino Kanade's low chuckle, lingering in her ears.