Room Confrontation

At 8:59,

Kushida, having put away her dirtied clothes, showered again, and changed into another uniform, appeared at Sakamoto's door.

As she placed her hand on the doorknob, she hesitated...

Knock, knock. Two taps sounded.

The door opened, and the person who emerged was someone Kushida knew well—Ayanokoji Kiyotaka.

Why is he here?

In the instant Kushida froze,

Ayanokoji brushed past her, ignoring her as she stood outside.

"Come in."

Sakamoto's voice from inside pulled Kushida back to her senses.

Kushida swept her gaze around warily before entering the room, not forgetting to slam the door shut behind her.

She stepped into the unfamiliar room.

The room was no different in size from an ordinary dorm, yet it was filled with various daily necessities.

There was a separate kitchen nook in the corner, and the bookshelf was packed with all kinds of books.

Most conspicuous of all was a terrarium on the desk. A white tarantula lurked beneath a dense web,

ready at any moment to ambush a careless prey from its burrow.

Sakamoto leaned back in his chair, smiling at her without saying a word.

If there had been a mirror, Kushida would have noticed how pale her face had become.

She forced herself to remain composed. Though Kushida was sociable, popular, and strong-willed enough to stand against the whole class alone without falling behind,

she was still, at the end of the day, a high school girl. She could be afraid too.

But Kushida was Kushida, after all.

To avoid showing weakness, she spoke first.

"Sakamoto, tell me. What will it take for you to destroy the recording?"

"Don't make such an ugly face, Kushida-chan. Have a seat."

But Kushida was having none of it.

"How could I possibly smile when I'm being threatened by someone like you?"

"No, no, no. I haven't threatened you, Kushida."

"When all's said and done, you're just after my body, aren't you?"

Kushida turned the tables. She loosened her outer garment slightly and looked at Sakamoto with a cold smile.

It had to be said that Kushida's figure was extremely alluring. Her partially undone clothes slipped below her shoulders,

adding a few more traces of charm as she subtly swayed her waist, her innocent yet seductive air enough to make any pure-hearted boy's blood race.

"You and that Ayanokoji are both perverts trying to take advantage of me."

Sakamoto, the owner of the room, was briefly stunned by the sight before him.

Was she really trying this on him? Did she think he couldn't withstand this kind of test?

He immediately played along, rising to his feet and forcing Kushida into the corner.

The sudden turn of events made Kushida's heart tremble, but she still stared at Sakamoto defiantly.

Sakamoto's hand slowly approached Kushida's waist, then gradually slid downward.

Kushida's brow never relaxed. She simply shut her eyes.

This should be enough... I just need to endure it for a little while...

With a ripping sound, a recording pen hidden behind her back was forcibly pulled out along with the torn fabric.

Only then did Kushida realize what had happened. She snapped her eyes open and glared at Sakamoto resentfully.

I was so close...

"How cautious, Kushida. Hiding it behind your back. But your plan was far too simple. Was this your last resort?"

Sakamoto casually placed the recording pen on the table, then sat back down with a faint smile, his fingers steepled.

"Now that you've lost this recording pen, couldn't it also count as evidence that you intended to frame me?"

Looking at the man with the faint smile on his face, she felt nothing but naked contempt and arrogance.

Don't underestimate me!

Kushida turned around and put her hands behind her back. The next moment,

a flower-like smile bloomed across her face as she looked at Sakamoto.

"Hey, Sakamoto-kun, you wouldn't hurt me like that, would you?"

She quickly sat on the edge of the bed and moved closer to Sakamoto with feigned shyness.

"We can be friends too, okay?"

Kushida wore an expectant expression, like a younger schoolgirl.

Since this man saw her as weak, then this would be the weak person's counterattack.

She would use his arrogance and overconfidence to lower his guard, then seize back the recording pen and use it to threaten him. That way, both sides would possess each other's secrets as leverage.

"Hahahahahaha!" Sakamoto's sudden laughter interrupted Kushida's thoughts, but she only paused for a moment before immediately snatching the recording pen from the table.

At the sight of this, the smile on Sakamoto's face became even more pronounced.

"What are you laughing at?! Now you and I are back at the same starting line."

Kushida emphasized the evidence in her hand.

Yet the laughter showed no sign of stopping. About a minute later,

its owner gradually quieted down.

"Kushida, your facial expression management really is outstanding. This is too amusing. Hahahahaha..." Then his lips moved, and he uttered a few words.

"You haven't forgotten what happened in middle school, have you?"

Clack. The recording pen fell to the floor from her limp hand, but Kushida did not seem to notice. Her mind had been completely captured by those few words.

Seeing how remarkably effective they were,

Sakamoto pressed his advantage and intensified his verbal assault.

"Kushida, this is the secret you considered absolutely impossible to let anyone discover. Everyone who knew about it was regarded as your enemy. Am I right?"

Kushida Kikyo was an extremely vain and self-centered person who could not survive unless she was the center of the class. She loved receiving praise from others, and this mentality had gradually become pathological.

She craved others' praise more and more. As long as she acted gentle and considerate, boys would surely look at her favorably, and girls would surely praise her. She enjoyed all of it.

But she discovered that pretending was simply too painful. The pressure every day left her unable to breathe. It was too much pressure; no one person could bear so much of it. She could not stand everything around her.

It was all too disgusting. So she anonymously posted everything she saw and heard on a blog.

She used that method to vent her stress, but paper could not cover fire forever. Though it was anonymous, someone in the class still discovered it, and before long, the entire class turned against her.

Since she had been exposed, then no one else deserved to have it easy either. She spread everyone's secrets throughout the class.

In the end, those true and false words caused the entire class to collapse...

But all of it was her own doing, born from her twisted, pathological personality.

Her distortion lay, on one hand, in constantly caring about others' opinions and crafting a perfect image, even if it made her life exhausting.

On the other hand, she pursued perfection too excessively. She had to become friends with everyone, and she had to eliminate people like Horikita who knew about her middle school past. This warped mentality doomed her to a miserable end.

She was a doll. Though exquisite on the outside, she would shatter at the slightest blow...

"So what? I have something on you. If I get expelled, the Student Council will receive the recording in this pen. Then you'll be expelled too."

"Are you sure you have something on me?"

Sakamoto spoke calmly, looking utterly relaxed. That instead shook Kushida's confidence.

Refusing to believe it, she turned on the recording pen, only to find—

there was no recording from earlier. There was no recording at all, as though the pen had never been used.

"How could this be..."

Kushida collapsed weakly and slid down beside the bed, her head hanging in dejection.

Somewhere beyond Kushida's notice,

a line of small text appeared before Sakamoto's eyes.

[Castling Lv.1, activation successful (cooldown in progress)]

He had deliberately placed Kushida's recording pen far away from himself because he wanted to test the ability the system had granted when it activated.

Castling could swap the positions of two objects. At first, it could only swap objects no larger than a book, but as its level rose, the volume of objects it could exchange would grow larger as well.

Her only evidence was gone, and he had even uncovered her secret.

Kushida's eyes were vacant as she muttered to herself.

"My... high school life... how could I be expelled like this..."

"No, I still have... one last resort."

The uniform on her body slowly slipped down...