Chapter 15

"Makeup or something?" I tried to change the subject again. I couldn't let her lead me around by the nose the whole time. If I stayed with her much longer, she'd probably get my bank PIN out of me.

"I just wanted to try it... And wouldn't it be pretty funny if someone saw you ask me out, only to treat me to a hamburger?"

Sakayanagi said it as casually as if she hadn't just said something terrifying.

"So that's what you were waiting for! Is someone around here secretly taking pictures?"

I warily looked around. This girl was willing to ruin her own reputation just to ruin mine. What a piece of work.

"Do you think anyone's taking pictures? Probably not..." Even Sakayanagi didn't seem sure. Maybe she really had run into me by chance today.

"Hard to say. Those guys over there seem to have been watching you..." I glanced around the restaurant. Sure enough, three boys were whispering among themselves. Needless to say, they were probably gossiping about me and Sakayanagi.

"Hehe, looks like we've got tomorrow's top campus headline."

"Those guys are from Class D next door, aren't they? Would it be too late to silence them now?"

I spotted Sudo, along with two boys I didn't recognize. They seemed to get along well, so I guessed they'd gone to check out the club booths together and come here for dinner afterward. Ayanokoji wasn't with them.

"Class D? How boring..." Sakayanagi listlessly twirled a lock of hair, then set aside the hamburger she'd barely touched.

"Speaking of which, you're not the leader of Class A? What's Katsuragi's deal? Is anyone really more ruthless than you? Does being bald actually boost your critical hit rate?"

"He's just a boring man. Let him have his moment. If you're jealous, Kitazawa, you can go put him in his place, too!"

Sakayanagi said it without a care.

"Heh, I'll think about it." Think about what? He was obviously your personal plaything. I wouldn't dare steal your stuff. I'm young, and I don't want to die yet.

"Boring. Your flaw is that you only pick on people weaker than you. That's not manly at all."

"Knowing when to yield makes a man wise. A real man knows when to bend and when to stand firm. How is that not manly?"

I took Sakayanagi's criticism as a compliment rather than an insult.

"You're petty and small-minded!" Sakayanagi added.

"I call it thinking things through before I act. And there's nothing wrong with being careful with money. At least I can save some."

"So, being frugal and managing a household is supposed to describe women, isn't it? Well, here you go..." Sakayanagi had a sudden inspiration. With a playful arch of her brows, she held out her fair arm and offered me the hamburger she'd left unfinished.

"Cough... I'm not that frugal, am I?" I glanced at the tiny bite marks and had to admit defeat. Sakayanagi really knew how to mock people.

"If you can't bear to eat it, you can keep it as a souvenir. I don't mind. You have good taste, after all."

"If Lady Sakayanagi commands it, then I'll eat it!" I took the hamburger and bit off a big chunk as if I were a soldier making a final stand, wiping away the little Sakayanagi marks on it. I knew that if I kept giving in without satisfying her mischievous streak, Sakayanagi would only push further and take more. As long as the green hills remained, there'd be no shortage of firewood. Cut my losses in time, wait for the tide to turn, then start over and take back what was mine. That was the most important lesson I'd learned from the stock market.

"Wow! Kitazawa, you finally admit you're a pervert! You're disgusting. You actually dared to eat it!" Sakayanagi clapped excitedly, as if she'd won the lottery, thrilled by her latest victory.

"Hmph! A man can be killed, but not humiliated. It's just a little hamburger. Did you really think I wouldn't dare?"

"Fine, I admit it. When it counts, Kitazawa can be quite the man."

"Glad you know it. I'm usually not impulsive, but when I am, I'm something else."

For some reason, Sakayanagi's leftovers made the food taste even better. I finished them in just a few bites.

"Just like you did a moment ago, right? Boys are so handsome when their blood rushes to their heads!"

"Being handsome doesn't put food on the table..." Of course, I didn't agree.

"I'll let you off easy today... Oh! Go buy me another sundae."

"You couldn't even finish your hamburger..."

"Have you never heard that girls have two stomachs?"

"Right, and that's why you grew and shrank in the rabbit hole back then, isn't it?"

"Hahahaha! You caught me!"

After finally making sure that the little demon Sakayanagi was satisfied, I escorted her back to her dorm and at last returned to my beloved bed. Dozens of unread messages... Those guys sure had been having fun gossiping. Well, whatever.

Running into Sakayanagi here really was unlucky... At least she didn't know about my relationship with Koenji. Otherwise, she might've used that to tease me. No, not tease—harass! I must've been blind when I went up to that delinquent. I never imagined that behind her sweet, obedient exterior was the heart of a demon! It's enough to make me cry. But if I couldn't afford to provoke her, I could at least stay out of her way. I'd better stop appearing in front of her from now on.

Still, Sakayanagi's information was worth taking seriously. I didn't believe for a second that she knew nothing about the system at the school her father ran. So the class assignments had some kind of meaning? Why would they do that? If I were the chairman, I wouldn't make extra work for myself by adding unnecessary steps. Were they sorting us into classes to make things easier to manage? There weren't any international or arts classes, so that left one possibility: they wanted to encourage competition. If the points were distributed as an average for each class, it all made sense. A class was a large enough unit to make it easy to assess the students' abilities in various areas. For instance, they could just deduct points from the class total whenever someone broke the rules. That also partly explained why there were so few couples on campus. The classes were in competition with each other, and the pressure of possible expulsion made fewer people want to date.

So it wasn't a coincidence that Classes A and B had chosen leaders so quickly. Were Classes A, B, C, and D starting from different positions? Then how were we supposed to climb up? What a headache! Koenji probably wouldn't care if people judged him a D or whatever, but I was planning to study hard. For some reason, not getting an excellent evaluation really bothered me... There was nothing I could do but take things one step at a time. If the school was setting up a competition, there had to be opportunities for us to turn things around, right? Until then, I'd gather information. Sigh... Wouldn't it be better if everyone just got along? Competition was exhausting! Still, scheming was something I was good at. Was that fate?

Volume 1: A Glimpse of Brilliance — 7

"Capital consists of that part of wealth which is devoted to obtaining further wealth." —Alfred Marshall

In the blink of an eye, the end of the month arrived, and Class C still hadn't chosen its so-called leader. Of course, there were plenty of people like Ibuki and the half-Japanese Yamada Albert, who didn't care at all whether they had a leader. As for Koenji, nothing unusual had happened there.