Have You Heard My Story?

Since Kamuro Masumi and she got along pretty well, he could let things continue for now. After all, Kamuro Masumi was so unconventional that she barely had any friends in Class A.

Of course, that was assuming she really saw Kamuro Masumi as a friend and not as entertainment.

"Buddy," Mikage Touji said, his eyes filled with pity. "There's something I need to tell you first..."

Three minutes later, Kamuro Masumi stared at him in disbelief. "You're saying she told me all that information on purpose?"

"Almost certainly." Mikage Touji nodded firmly.

"She's been treating me like a joke this whole time?"

"Very likely."

"Couldn't it just be your imagination?"

"Absolutely not."

With her face burning, Kamuro Masumi pulled out her phone, her teeth grinding as she prepared to settle the score with Sakayanagi Arisu.

"Hey, hey, wait!" Mikage Touji hurriedly reached out and stopped her finger just before she could make the call. "You can't confront her."

"Why not?"

"If you confront her, she'll immediately figure out that you've got someone backing you. You could blame Katsuragi or Hashimoto, but I have a feeling she'd see through it."

"So you're telling me to keep it all bottled up and say nothing?"

Mikage Touji's eyes widened. "Don't you like thrills? Isn't this exciting enough?"

This was the kind of plot you often saw in adult comics, with a useless husband and all that.

"..."

"Now that you mention it..." Kamuro Masumi murmured, realizing it only belatedly.

"So, buddy, you can either pretend you don't know and keep being friends with her, or delete her and be done with it. Which will it be?"

"..."

Kamuro Masumi stared at Sakayanagi Arisu's profile picture on her phone. Her finger drifted over the delete button, then hovered there for a long time without coming down. At last, she pulled her hand back and turned her head away. "I'll leave things like this for now. I'll settle the score with her later."

Mikage Touji was stunned. After all that, she still wasn't going to delete her?

"Um... buddy," he whispered, leaning close to Kamuro Masumi's ear. "You're not an M, are you?"

"You're the M!" She kicked Mikage Touji in the thigh again.

Kamuro Masumi looked at Sakayanagi Arisu's profile picture, her expression complicated. "I just think she doesn't seem to have many friends in Class D. I can't just leave her alone like that."

"You're way too kind. She's a real prankster. And besides..." Mikage Touji shook his head, his voice full of anguish. "I don't have many friends in Class A, either. I'm the one and only Class A Weirdo, so why don't you worry about me?"

"..."

Kamuro Masumi narrowed her eyes. "Do you think I'm blind? Save that line for people in other classes."

"Ahem." Mikage Touji couldn't keep up the act. "Fine. If that's what you want..."

He didn't expect much from Kamuro Masumi. He just wanted to give her something to do so she'd stop showing off her legendary pickpocketing skills. As for the rest...

"Then do whatever you like. Just don't let her figure it out. And if she does, don't say someone else put you up to it. If she finds out someone did, don't rat me out."

"You think I'm that unreliable?" Kamuro Masumi snapped, embarrassed and annoyed.

"Of course not. I have complete faith in your abilities, buddy." Mikage Touji denied it without hesitation.

Sakayanagi Arisu was probably pretending to be a girl who'd let information slip by accident, too. In that case, they could keep things as they were and continue getting free information. Mikage Touji had nothing to lose.

Still, Mikage Touji didn't think things would stay this way for long. Given Kamuro Masumi's habit of saying one thing while meaning another, Sakayanagi Arisu would probably only have to play the poor thing once to figure out most of what was going on in Kamuro Masumi's heart.

After the study session, Kamuro Masumi picked up her shoulder bag and left. Judging by the look of it, she was going to try out the new kind of play they'd just discussed.

"Shiraishi-san, aren't you coming with me?"

"What do you think?" Shiraishi Asuka asked, the corners of her mouth curled in a slight smile as she gazed at him.

"Then let's go get something to eat later. It's my treat. I came into a little money recently." Mikage Touji made the invitation with a pleased smile.

"Sure." Shiraishi Asuka's eyes crinkled.

"Wait here a moment. I'm going to borrow a book."

"Okay."

He'd almost finished the book he'd borrowed last time, The Maltese Falcon. His thoughts on it were hard to describe. He felt like he understood it, and yet he didn't. As expected, it was difficult to read a story that reflected its era without knowing enough about the local culture, so this time he planned to pick something simpler.

The Snowman...

The Maltese Falcon...

A Wild Sheep Chase...

His gaze wandered along the shelves as he walked.

On the shelves behind Mikage Touji, the evening sunlight slanted through the high windows. The rows of book spines broke it into shafts of light. Through a gap between the shelves, a quiet girl with long silver hair watched Mikage Touji curiously.

Several times, she tried to call out to him, but the words she'd prepared kept turning over in her throat, and she swallowed them before they could leave her mouth.

Standing there, she clutched the hem of her skirt and hesitated again and again. At last, the girl took a deep breath. The scent of ink that was unique to the library surrounded her as she leaned forward, her voice as light as a feather touching the ground.

"Hello—"

But Mikage Touji seemed completely absorbed in choosing a book. His fingers ran along a row of spines before finally stopping at The 13th Step. Satisfied, he pulled it from the shelf, turned, and disappeared into the endless sea of books.

The girl watched the corner where Mikage Touji had vanished, feeling a little lost. Then she thought of the book he'd picked and couldn't help smiling.

What kind of person liked Takano Kazuaki's mystery novels?

Have You Heard My Story?

Early in the morning, before classes had even started, Mikage Touji was called to the teachers' office by Mashima Tomoya. The crisp chill of morning hung in the air, mingling with the smell of old paper, ink, and a hint of disinfectant.

"You really didn't cheat?"

"No."

"You really didn't ask an upperclassman to buy you past exam questions, memorize the answers, and then write a perfect paper to shock the whole class?"

Mashima Tomoya, dressed in a suit, checked the handwriting on the test paper again. It was still as crooked as a dog's scrawl as ever, and he couldn't help voicing his doubts.

Mikage Touji wiped away the tear that had welled up on his face from yawning, then slapped the desk indignantly with both hands. "Hey! I may be a student in Class A, where academic ability comes first, but would I really do something as disgraceful as cheating?"

"..."

Who knew who'd secretly come to ask him for the answers last month?

It wasn't that Mashima Tomoya didn't trust him. It was just that the student had a long list of past offenses. For instance, at the start of the school year, Mashima had happily handed the class over to him at a ramen shop—only to hear that the class had discussed quickly pooling a million points to buy information about the school rules.

When Mashima Tomoya found out, he'd nearly fallen apart on the spot. As the Class A homeroom teacher, how could he not know whether his students had asked the school for the answers?

And yet the information Mikage Touji had given them was correct, leaving Mashima with no way to complain.

"You really did this on your own?" Mashima Tomoya hesitated, then asked Mikage Touji once again.

"Can't you believe your student is a genius?"

Mikage Touji flew into a rage and immediately turned the accusation back on him. "Your student gets a good score, and instead of feeling proud, you immediately question him? I'm shaking with indignation! Can things ever get better in this world? So much for being a modern, progressive teacher with virtue. In the end, you're just a sulky, sadistic robot who can't accept anything new."

Mashima Tomoya's face twitched. He pulled out a test paper and slapped it down on the desk, looking as if to say, "It's not that I don't believe you. I just want to see what you can do."

"Hoh~ You came prepared, huh~"

Twenty minutes later, Mashima Tomoya capped his pen. His gaze had turned approving.

"I always knew you could do it."

"Heh..."

"You can't blame me. When a student suddenly gets 100 points, it's only right for a teacher to be a little suspicious."

"Tch! You were just— Wait, how many points did you say I got?"

When Mikage Touji left the teachers' office with his test paper back in hand, his face was glowing and his spirits were high.

"Morning, Torishige-san. How did you know I got 100 in Japanese Literature?"

"Huh?!"

"Yo, Momofuku-san, judging by your face, have you heard the story of how I got 100 in Japanese Literature three weeks in a row?"

"Huh? I-is that so..."

Behind them, Mashima Tomoya had also left the teachers' office. His stern expression looked like it was about to crack.

The bell for first period on Monday hadn't rung yet, but every student in Class A was already in the classroom.

"Ahahahaha!"

In the Class A classroom, Mashima Tomoya pinned a poster listing the students' names and scores to the blackboard. A brash, smug laugh rang out through the room.

The entire class, including their homeroom teacher, Mashima Tomoya, watched helplessly as Mikage Touji stood at his desk with his hands on his hips, laughing outrageously.

Who could tell them why this guy had to be the one who came in first?

Quite a few students clutched their foreheads and sighed as if questioning their lives, staring blankly at the white poster on the blackboard.

This exam had been quite easy, and everyone had passed without a doubt. Even the lowest score was over sixty, and several students had gotten full marks. But the problem was...

They turned to look at Mikage Touji, who was waving his test paper at Morishita Ran and provoking her with wild abandon.

Losing to this guy made them look like idiots, didn't it?

Kamuro Masumi's face darkened as she clenched her workbook. The pages crackled, creases spreading from the edge of her thumb like lightning.

She'd scored 80 in Japanese Literature this time.

Compared with her previous score of 9, which worked out to 45 on a hundred-point scale, that was an incredible improvement.

So why didn't she feel happy?

Kamuro Masumi gazed wistfully at the man who'd once scored 9 in Japanese Literature alongside her, called her buddy, studied with her, and sent her funny videos at random times of the night.

A painfully thick wall had risen between them.

"Oh, dear. Tsk, tsk, tsk."

Mikage Touji rubbed his chin with one hand and clasped the other behind his back as he circled Morishita Ran. He couldn't stop shaking his head at her cold little face.

"Isn't this Morishita, who got 20? What happened to you? You've really fallen off in just a few days. Let's see... Japanese Literature... 98..."

"Uh... that's only eight points more than I got last time." Mikage Touji held the test paper between two fingers and waved it in front of Morishita Ran.

"Mikage Touji, don't you think you've been a little too obnoxious lately?"

"Silence! In Class A, where grades reign supreme, someone like Morishita Ran, who only got 98, has no right to talk back to Mikage Touji, who got 100. I order you to go buy me a drink after class. I want it cold!"

"..."

Faced with Mikage Touji, who'd grown so arrogant he no longer knew what respect meant, Morishita Ran lowered her head. A chill began to radiate from her, and she looked ready to snap and deliver a righteous punishment to Mikage Touji. Mashima Tomoya spoke up.

"All right. Go back to your seats. Before class starts, I want to go over what happened during this Midterm Exam."

"Ahahaha—ghk?"

Mikage Touji's voice cut off as if someone had grabbed him by the throat. He was in a position where he could attack easily but had little room to defend himself.

"Mikage Touji~"

Morishita Ran stretched out his name in a tone completely unlike her usual flat voice, then gave him a brilliant smile he'd never seen before.

"What kind of drink do you want? What would you like to eat tonight? You can pick the restaurant, and I'll pay. After we're done, how about we go mountain climbing together?"

She quickly spotted a flaw in her flawless plan and muttered to herself, "Wait, I don't think there are any mountains here."

But that was hardly enough to stump clever-as-heck Morishita Ran. She quickly rallied.

"No problem. After dinner, how about we go see the sea together? There's a deserted cliff in the northwest. We can take a trip to hell together."

"..."

"I was only teasing you. Can we make up?" Mikage Touji gave her a smile more painful than a grimace.

"What do you think...?"

Morishita Ran's expression instantly turned cold. In a perfectly flat voice, she cruelly rejected Mikage Touji's request to make peace, then pulled out her long-prepared signature weapons—eraser crumbs and the Pen Gun!

"First, I'm very glad that every student in our class made it through this exam safely. Our class also got the highest score out of all four classes."