Horikita Suzune: He Likes Me!

Two million.

Horikita Suzune performed a quick mental calculation; at one hundred thousand points a month, it would take nearly two years to scrape together two million.

This number.

It pressed down on her like a mountain, making it hard to breathe.

This was simply not an amount an ordinary student could afford; once she signed this contract, it meant she would be working for this guy for a very long time to come.

"This is just too..."

She furrowed her brows, nearly blurting out "absurd," but swallowed the words before they left her lips.

She didn't want to let go of the intelligence in front of her...

"Suzune, you're actually very lucky."

At this moment, Xu Nuo spoke slowly.

"Aside from me, you should be the first person to know about this. Think about what that means."

It meant... an information gap.

The young girl froze for a moment, her eyes gradually brightening.

"Information is also a commodity, especially in this school." Xu Nuo sounded like a devil coaxing his prey, every word plucking at her heartstrings. "Everyone else is being kept in the dark; you could completely turn around and sell this news to other classes."

"As long as you handle it properly."

"You could even make a small profit from it."

In an instant, Horikita Suzune's breath hitched. She jerked her head up, her reddish-purple eyes flickering with struggle, but even more so with a kind of ignited ambition.

Selling intelligence...

That was indeed a viable method.

She glanced at the contract in her hand, then looked at the face with the faint smile before her.

There was nothing wrong with the contract.

Party A, Party B, the loan amount, the repayment date, the interest... all of it was written very clearly.

But...

"If that's the case, why don't you do it yourself?"

Horikita Suzune spoke coldly, her tone carrying a hint of wariness; this was her only remaining concern.

If there was such a good deal.

Why wouldn't you do it yourself instead of letting me?

Hearing this, Xu Nuo straightened his expression slightly, gazing deeply at the girl before him, his tone low. "Suzune, at this point, do you still not understand my feelings?"

"?!"

Horikita Suzune widened her eyes, her heart skipping a beat, and her face turned bright red in an instant, caught completely off guard.

"W-what do you mean?"

A confession?

The girl stammered.

It wasn't her fault.

Xu Nuo's face simply had too much lethality—a pair of bewitching peach-blossom eyes and skin so fair it was almost cold, like the protagonist of a shoujo manga.

A peerless, beautiful boy staring at her "affectionately."

Saying words that sounded like a confession.

Who could withstand that?

"Hahaha, I'm just teasing you!"

Xu Nuo couldn't help but laugh, not expecting this self-proclaimed aloof flower of the high peaks to fall for it so easily.

"Just consider me lazy. If you don't want to, forget it."

"You—"

Horikita Suzune's face turned black.

She felt as if the sudden palpitations she had just experienced had been fed to the dogs.

She took a deep breath, took the pen Xu Nuo handed her, and without saying another word, signed her name directly on the line for Party B at the end.

--Horikita Suzune.

The handwriting was neat, yet carried the force of a desperate gamble, as if she were wagering everything she had.

"Straightforward!"

Xu Nuo was in a good mood. He cleared his throat and continued with his spoilers, "This brings us to our S System. In fact, points are divided into personal and class categories, and it is the key to the conversion process."

"In other words..."

He finished explaining the mechanics of the S System in a long-winded fashion.

He then shifted the topic.

"Regarding the increase or decrease of class points, the school has a clear method: special exams. This is the most important part of class competition."

Horikita Suzune listened with rapt attention.

She was terrified of missing any information.

As he spoke.

Xu Nuo couldn't help but glance at her, feeling speechless; he found her way of thinking rather rigid.

What was the point of rote memorization?

She would have been better off taking out her phone to record him.

Of course.

Xu Nuo was happy with this arrangement.

After all, if he were recorded and others heard his voice, it would certainly lead to trouble.

Leaving this tedious task to Suzune was for that very reason.

Xu Nuo disliked trouble.

Finally.

The bombshell of key information arrived.

"The reason Chabashira-sensei and the homeroom teachers of the other classes haven't told us is because—"

"The special exam..."

"Has already begun."

Boom—

It was as if a bolt of lightning had struck her mind.

Horikita Suzune's pupils constricted, and she remained dazed for a long time, her voice sounding somewhat dry, "You're saying the special exam has already begun? But there isn't any..."

"No one has told us what to do, right?"

Xu Nuo wore a half-smile.

"Have you noticed the cameras in our classroom? In fact, this special exam is very simple: it is to observe our performance during class while the students are unaware of the rules."

"It lasts for one month, and the results will be released at the end of the month."

"What?!"

Horikita Suzune felt as if she had been struck by lightning.

Immediately.

She thought of Class D's usual classroom behavior, that chaotic scene akin to a Night Parade of One Hundred Demons.

Suddenly.

Horikita Suzune's face flushed red.

She didn't even need to think to know that with the mess that was Class D's classroom, they were surely at the bottom.

In other words.

Next month, she might not even have twenty or thirty thousand points.

"You scammed me!"

Horikita Suzune's composure shattered.

With a debt of two million, how on earth was she supposed to pay it back?

"Hey, don't talk nonsense." Xu Nuo shrugged, his expression innocent, "You might be out of class points, but you can still trade information for money!"

"How can you say I scammed you?"

Of course.

Whether you choose to trade it or not is another matter entirely.

It seemed...

That was the logic, wasn't it?

Hearing this, Horikita Suzune froze for a moment, finally regaining a shred of her composure before shooting Xu Nuo a fierce glare.

She had nothing left to say.

Although he hadn't made it clear from the start, he hadn't exactly set her up, either.

In fact, she had come out with a massive bargain; after all, this intelligence was aimed at all the first-year students.

And it was incredibly important!

Surely every class would be more than willing to spend two million points to acquire it.

This guy.

Could he actually like me?

My brother once said that some people express their true feelings in the form of jokes. Could he be doing the same?

World-Shocking Wisdom activated!

Horikita Suzune stared at Xu Nuo with a complex gaze.

After all, she truly couldn't fathom why he would choose such an awkward way to hand this over to her when he could have easily earned six million points himself through this method.

That's it...

It must be that!

Unaccountably, a sense of pride welled up within Horikita Suzune.

Meanwhile, watching the girl's cheeks flush as she inexplicably began to act tsundere, Xu Nuo blinked.

What is this girl thinking about?

Unfortunately, he wasn't a god; he couldn't hear the girl's inner thoughts.

Forget it.

"Job done."

Not dwelling on it, Xu Nuo brushed off his backside and stood up, stretching comfortably.

Then, he took the opportunity to pat the head of the dazed girl.

"Suzune."

"I'm heading off now."

Feeling the touch on her head, Horikita Suzune snapped out of her trance, but the space in front of her was already empty.

Yet, strangely, the girl didn't get angry this time, which was a rarity.

"So that's how it is..."

Seeming to have confirmed something, Horikita Suzune pursed her lips, recalling every scene since they had met.

The roses...

The teasing behavior...

Everything, every single thing, had been unilaterally reimagined by the girl as Xu Nuo's way of trying to get her attention.

She reached her final conclusion.

As expected, this guy definitely likes her!

Come to think of it...

Why does this head-pat feel so familiar?