Exploitation

Seeing Toru Hasegawa open his phone again, Kamuro Masumi smiled.

"So, there are lots of people outside Class A who care about you?"

"Yeah. Jealous?"

That said, the message he'd received obviously wasn't something like "I care about you." It was an invitation.

From Honami Ichinose.

She'd invited him to meet her on the school building's rooftop during lunch that day.

"No. Do whatever you want. It's none of my business." As Kamuro Masumi said this, she turned her head slightly away, but soon turned back. "You told me before that there was a way to get away from Sakayanagi, right? Does that still stand?"

"Regretting it? But getting away from her is actually pretty simple."

"How?"

"Do you want me to tell you here? Maybe I shouldn't."

Toru Hasegawa glanced around. They were in the Class A classroom, and he didn't know whether Sakayanagi Arisu had managed to buy off any other classmates. Either way, it couldn't hurt to be careful.

The feeling of having to watch out even for his own classmates left Toru Hasegawa not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

But more than that, he was thinking of Kamuro Masumi.

It wasn't a good method.

Kamuro Masumi probably thought he'd offer her a perfect plan, right? Unfortunately, he wasn't going to do that, and there was no wonderful solution.

"I'll tell you at lunch."

Without waiting for Kamuro Masumi to react, Toru Hasegawa turned to his studies.

His mind was incredibly sharp now. He felt as though he'd finally experienced what it was like to be a true top student.

His middle school grades had been a gift from his past life. The material in elementary and middle school had been a breeze, and the humanities only required a little memorization.

High school was different. The difficulty was on an entirely different level from middle school. Even though he'd already built a foundation once before, the material still posed a challenge.

But now, even that little challenge had become an illusion before him.

Toru Hasegawa had never imagined that one day he'd actually come to enjoy studying.

As agreed, after morning classes ended, Toru Hasegawa and Kamuro Masumi went to the rooftop.

As far as the eye could see, there wasn't another student in sight. Only a lone security camera above the door watched them.

Perhaps they'd simply arrived too quickly. Either way, there was no one else around.

"What was that method you mentioned this morning? You can tell me now, right?" Kamuro Masumi pretended to be interested.

But Toru Hasegawa had known the truth all along.

If Kamuro Masumi had really wanted to break away from Sakayanagi, she would've accepted his offer after the quiz, rather than waiting until now.

So this was a case of having an ulterior motive?

Toru Hasegawa smiled. "You already know the answer, don't you?"

"What? How could I possibly know? Thanks to you, she caught me and got something to hold over me. Something to hold over me, okay?" Kamuro Masumi raised her voice for emphasis on "thanks to you."

"Then why not just get rid of what she's holding over you?"

"..." Kamuro Masumi's expression froze. "What do you mean?"

"I mean exactly what I said. Go to a teacher, admit that you stole something, and then face the consequences. It's that simple."

"Hey, hey, you're not joking, are you? Why would I voluntarily admit that to a teacher?" Kamuro Masumi clicked her tongue in open disbelief.

"And how long do you intend to hide it?" Toru Hasegawa countered. "Are you going to pretend nothing happened and just keep living like that? If you didn't care what other people thought, you could do that. But since Sakayanagi can threaten you with this, it means you do care. Isn't the answer already right in front of you?"

People like him and Sakayanagi Arisu were outliers. Most people would simply look down on someone for that kind of behavior.

"Aren't you worried I'll get expelled?" Kamuro Masumi still couldn't accept it.

Toru Hasegawa said flatly, "Who doesn't make mistakes when they're young? If you don't want the truth about your past to keep weighing on you, facing it honestly is the best thing you can do. As for expulsion, I don't think it'll come to that."

"So this is still just what you think will happen, isn't it?"

"That's true. I won't deny that." Toru Hasegawa nodded. "But aren't you curious how the other students will react when they find out what you did?"

Things might not necessarily turn out that way, but it was impossible to rule it out entirely.

At this, Kamuro Masumi's eyes widened. "So that was your real goal?"

Wanting to see how other people would react to this—what a nasty hobby.

"No, that's only one part of it. I wouldn't call it my real goal. Anyway, the choice is yours."

"...I expected as much, but I didn't think you'd really be like that." Kamuro Masumi sighed and gave Toru Hasegawa a conflicted look. "Does it make you happy to toy with other people's lives?"

Toru Hasegawa fell silent. He couldn't answer that question.

Was he happy?

He certainly felt something like happiness. After all, back in his old life, gaining the affection of beautiful girls... was something he'd never even dared to dream of. But what about everything else?

No, why was he taking her words as fact and thinking from there?

Because somewhere in his subconscious, he'd already admitted that he really was toying with other people's lives...

Toru Hasegawa opened his mouth, but in the end, said nothing.

"Okay, okay, I was just kidding." This was the first time Kamuro Masumi had seen Toru Hasegawa like this, and she started to panic. "Want to go eat together?"

"...Go downstairs and wait for me a bit. I'll be there soon."

"Oh... okay." Kamuro Masumi glanced back at him as she left, then finally headed for the stairs.

There, she ran into Honami Ichinose.

"If I remember right, you're Ichinose from Class B, right?"

The concern Kamuro Masumi had just begun to feel vanished in an instant, because she realized something unpleasant.

That guy had already arranged to meet someone else on the rooftop, yet he'd deliberately asked her to come up at lunchtime too.

In other words, he'd wanted her to consider the risk that Ichinose, who was in Class B, might overhear their conversation.

So much for "the choice is yours." Those had just been nice-sounding words after all.

In this situation, how could she possibly have any other choice?

"Yeah. I didn't expect you to be here too, Kamuro. Did Hasegawa invite you?"

Honami Ichinose's reaction seemed to say she hadn't heard anything, but after a month of being put through the wringer, Kamuro Masumi had grown a lot too.

Though most of that experience had come from dealing with Sakayanagi Arisu early on.

She and Toru Hasegawa had headed straight for the rooftop after class. Even if Honami Ichinose had spent a little time greeting her friends, there was no way she hadn't heard anything at all.

The only question was how much she'd heard.

Still, Kamuro Masumi couldn't point it out to her directly, because it was all just speculation without proof.

"Yeah. I didn't expect you to be here either, Ichinose." After saying that, Kamuro Masumi started down the stairs.

Honami Ichinose watched Kamuro Masumi disappear from view before turning and walking up to the rooftop.

"Hasegawa used me."