Forced Labor

"Did they say anything?" Suzune Horikita asked, looking puzzled. "I was thinking about whether I should apologize to Sudo, so I wasn't paying attention."

"I see..."

Toru Hasegawa's guess was confirmed. So he was the real culprit.

It was understandable that Sudo hadn't noticed, but Suzune Horikita seemed smart, to say the least. How could she not have realized?

So he repeated the conversation between the second-year student and Sudo word for word, then asked again:

"What do you think?"

"...The fact that the other person could guess which class Sudo was in is certainly worth thinking about. As for the later comments about a 'defective product' and 'seeing hell,' I think they suit Sudo's fate quite well."

Suzune Horikita chuckled. Toru Hasegawa could see the number above her head shoot up from 40 to 70.

Well... that hadn't been his main goal, but getting along with someone else was pretty nice, too.

"Never mind. We'll probably find out the answer to something like this sooner or later."

Though Toru Hasegawa said that, he was on high alert inside. Meanwhile, he'd finished cleaning.

"Sorry to have kept you waiting."

Sakayanagi Arisu emerged from the convenience store with Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, wearing an apologetic expression. Then she naturally noticed the ground.

"I did a little cleaning just now. It was really messy."

Seeing Sakayanagi Arisu's gaze, Toru Hasegawa gave a brief explanation.

He had no intention of telling her what had happened earlier.

Sakayanagi Arisu merely nodded, then said to Ayanokoji Kiyotaka beside her:

"I see... We won't intrude on your time together any longer, then. Ayanokoji, Classmate Horikita is waiting for you over there~"

"I'd like to correct one thing," Suzune Horikita immediately said, correcting Sakayanagi Arisu. "He and I have no relationship whatsoever. If anything, we just happen to be classmates who sit next to each other. That's all."

She spoke crisply, clearly unhappy that Sakayanagi Arisu had presumed to define her relationship with Ayanokoji Kiyotaka.

Yet Ayanokoji Kiyotaka didn't react as she'd expected.

He merely glanced at her with a deep, unreadable look, then turned his attention back to Toru Hasegawa.

Suzune Horikita sighed helplessly. She didn't dwell on his unusual behavior; instead, she felt foolish for waiting there.

"I'm leaving."

With that, she headed straight for the dormitory.

"So this school has co-ed dormitories?"

Although Suzune Horikita had gone ahead, the other three were also heading for the dormitory and had taken the same route as her.

Toru Hasegawa, who for some reason felt the atmosphere had changed, hurriedly broke the silence.

"Yes. The boys live on the lower floors, and the girls live on the upper floors."

Sakayanagi Arisu flipped through the handbook of dormitory rules as the three of them entered the elevator.

Toru Hasegawa pressed the button for the third floor, while Ayanokoji Kiyotaka pressed the one for the fourth. The other two simply stood still without doing anything.

Toru Hasegawa knew many girls had this habit, so he didn't waste his time asking questions like, "Why aren't you pressing a floor button?"

"Where's your dorm?"

Toru Hasegawa hadn't expected Ayanokoji Kiyotaka to speak to him. He was taken aback, then answered:

"301. Why?"

He could tell that something about Ayanokoji Kiyotaka had changed after his private conversation with Sakayanagi Arisu in the convenience store.

"I'm in 401. Looks like we're neighbors, one floor apart."

"Try not to make too much noise at night. I wouldn't want you disturbing me."

The moment he said it, Toru Hasegawa regretted it. There were two girls here, after all.

But words were like water poured from a cup; there was no taking them back.

He waited anxiously for the teasing that might follow. Then the elevator doors opened.

They'd reached the third floor.

"Mm. I'm always quiet."

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka waved at Toru Hasegawa, then pressed the button to close the doors. The elevator doors hid the faces of the other three.

"Phew—what was I even thinking?"

Feeling as if he'd just been on a roller coaster, Toru Hasegawa patted his cheeks and used his key card to open his dorm room.

"Single rooms are the best!"

After cheering, Toru Hasegawa set down the plastic bags and started putting away his belongings.

"Toothbrush cup here... body wash here... shampoo here..."

Toru Hasegawa muttered to himself as he tidied up. Once he'd finished, he threw himself onto the neatly made bed and rolled around excitedly.

Even if this school was hiding secrets, at least for now, he was free!

But he'd barely had a few minutes to enjoy himself when the phone issued by the school began to vibrate.

"Oh no. It can only be that Sakayanagi girl looking for me."

At the moment, there was only one person on his friends list: Sakayanagi Arisu. (As for Sudo, he still hadn't found a suitable opportunity to ask to add her as a friend.) So unless it was a school notification, it could only be her.

Feeling uneasy, Toru Hasegawa tried to fool himself by covering his phone and peeking at the message through the gap between his fingers.

"Just as I thought, it's Sakayanagi. I'll pretend I didn't see it."

Opening the phone would mark the message as read, so he simply wouldn't open it.

With that reassuring thought, Toru Hasegawa turned off the screen.

Then, less than a minute later, someone knocked at his door.

"It's not nice to leave a girl waiting outside, Hasegawa~"

Hearing the familiar voice, Toru Hasegawa opened the door, feeling like he could cry.

"Did you need something, Classmate Sakayanagi?"

"Oh, you haven't checked your phone? I wanted to ask you to have lunch with me. When I saw the message still hadn't been marked as read, I guessed that would be the case."

"That figures."

Toru Hasegawa theatrically opened his phone, then exclaimed in surprise.

Whether Sakayanagi Arisu had seen through his act or not, she was already here. He had no excuse to back out, so he could only go with her to the Student Cafeteria.

"Doesn't it seem strange to you to have lunch with a boy you've only met once?"

On the way, Toru Hasegawa couldn't help asking.

Now that he'd confirmed the numbers above people's heads showed their affection levels, there was something worth questioning about the purpose of this girl beside him. Her affection level was 30, and she wasn't even as close as a familiar acquaintance, yet she'd invited him to lunch.

He couldn't help suspecting she had an ulterior motive.

"Not at all. That's actually what I was just about to say," Sakayanagi Arisu said with a soft laugh. Then she added, "I have something to do this afternoon, so I thought I'd treat you to a meal and ask for your help."

Toru Hasegawa glanced at the gray cane in her right hand and resigned himself to being roped into helping her.

"All right. So an entire afternoon of my time is only worth one meal."

The two of them arrived at the Student Cafeteria. Toru Hasegawa looked over the menu, hoping to pick a moderately expensive meal and make her pay through the nose.

But the Mountain Vegetable Set Meal soon caught his eye.

"They even have free meals in the cafeteria?"

Toru Hasegawa rubbed his eyes and, after confirming he hadn't misread it, turned to Sakayanagi Arisu to hear what she thought.

"So it really is like that... the truth about this school."

Instead, she smiled meaningfully, showing no intention of answering his question.

"...I'll have the Mountain Vegetable Set Meal, then."

"I'll have the same."

"Are you doing that on purpose?"

"No. I'm just as interested in the Mountain Vegetable Set Meal as you are. Is that so strange?"

Sakayanagi Arisu answered unhurriedly.

Toru Hasegawa couldn't argue. He took both meals from the cafeteria worker. Since the silver-haired girl beside him had one hand on her cane and a useless other hand, he was the only one who could do it.

"..."

A dozen seconds later, Toru Hasegawa was already regretting his decision.

It wasn't that the Mountain Vegetable Set Meal tasted bad. How should he put it... it was the kind of... well, you know, the kind of taste that was hard to describe.

No wonder it was a free meal. Aside from having barely a scrap of meat in it, its three biggest features were green, green, and freaking green!

Toru Hasegawa stood up and said to Sakayanagi Arisu:

"I still want to grow a little more, so... I think I'll go buy something else."

He was about to leave.

"Wait." Sakayanagi Arisu stopped him and took her student ID card from beneath her skirt. "I said I'd treat you, so I will. Here."

Toru Hasegawa didn't awkwardly refuse. He'd be doing the grunt work all afternoon, so this was payment he'd earned.

He took Sakayanagi Arisu's student ID card and ordered a meal worth 600 personal points. Paired with the Mountain Vegetable Set Meal, it made for a very satisfying lunch.

Sakayanagi Arisu had no intention of ordering anything extra. She ate only the Mountain Vegetable Set Meal she'd gotten at first.

Toru Hasegawa glanced at her flat chest, then remembered she was only as tall as his chest. He had no intention of offering her any advice.

"So this is what you had to do this afternoon?"

"That's right~"

At the entrance to the Chess Club, Toru Hasegawa saw Sakayanagi Arisu wear an aggressive smile for the first time.