Late at night, the campus outside the window had sunk into a peaceful darkness. Streetlights cast circles of dim yellow light along the deserted paths.
The lights in the dormitory were still on, their warm glow filling the living room with a gentle ambiance.
Mazumi Mami sat on the sofa, leaning back in a relaxed posture. His gaze rested on the cup of tea on the coffee table, which had gradually gone cold, as if he were deep in thought.
Across from him and off to the side, the three girls each focused on the electronic devices in front of them. They looked serious, a far cry from how they had laughed and fooled around in the restaurant earlier that day.
"Young master—"
Walnut was the first to break the silence. Her eyes narrowed slightly in the blue glow of the screen as her fingers tapped rapidly at the keyboard.
"We've finished gathering information on Karuizawa Kei. After comparing and cross-checking everything... overall, there's not much difference between what we found and what she told us herself."
She paused, seemingly collecting her thoughts, then continued.
"In fact, she may have made things sound better than they are, because her current situation may be much worse than she realizes."
As she spoke, she pressed the Enter key.
A few crisp notification chimes rang out at once from the phones of Mazumi Mami, Chisato Nishikigi, and Runa Inoue.
When they opened the message, a detailed dossier appeared on their screens. At the top was a somewhat youthful ID photo. The girl in it had neatly styled blond hair and delicate features. She looked like a completely different person from the gal dressed like a gyaru now, but her violet eyes still made it clear that it was the same girl.
They scrolled down through the dossier: name, age, hometown, family members, academic history...
The information was laid out in orderly entries, like a ledger of a life spread open before them. Every line silently told of the good and bad luck this girl had experienced so far.
"The main reason her family fell apart is right here."
Walnut circled a passage with her cursor. Her tone was as calm as if she were giving a weather report, but what she said was anything but light.
"Her mother used her youth and beauty to hook up with a young nobleman after she was married, betraying her family. When her father found out, he didn't try to save the marriage. Instead, in an almost spiteful move, he kept a pretty young college girl on the side too."
She looked up and added, "Put simply, when it came to 'playing around,' the two of them were evenly matched."
"It wasn't just a matter of 'playing around'..."
Runa Inoue picked up where she left off. The same dossier was displayed on the tablet in her hands.
"More importantly, both sides independently came to see Karuizawa Kei as a 'burden.' According to the records of her interviews with a family counselor when she was in middle school, her mother once said outright, 'If it weren't for Kei, I could move freely in high society without a care. No one would even know I'd had a child.'"
Chisato Nishikigi furrowed her brows. "What kind of thing is that to say...? What does she mean, 'if it weren't for that child'? That's her own daughter."
"Her father's attitude was just as bad—"
Runa Inoue continued. Her tone remained calm, but a faint chill flickered deep in her eyes.
"According to the records we obtained, every time her father saw Kei's face, he felt annoyed. He thought she and her mother were 'two peas in a pod'—'pretty, but rotten to the core.' If the court hadn't ordered him to pay child support, he wouldn't have given them a single cent."
The living room fell silent for a few seconds.
Chisato Nishikigi lowered her head to look at the words on the screen. After a long while, she let out a quiet breath.
"...That really is the pain of a broken home. I used to think our own childhoods had been unlucky enough, but compared to Kei... her parents are on another level. I don't even know what to call them."
"Having parents like that really is unfortunate for Kei."
Runa Inoue set down her tablet and clasped her hands in her lap. A rare trace of sympathy showed in her eyes. "And—this is more than just a 'bad relationship at home.'"
She raised her head and looked at Mazumi Mami. "I looked into her financial records from before she enrolled. After she started at this school, her father secretly sold the family property and took all the proceeds for himself, leaving nothing for Kei. He's now unreachable, and the child support he was ordered to pay has stopped coming through. It's been months."
Chisato Nishikigi drew in a sharp breath.
"If this school didn't have its special education system, which waived basic tuition and fees and also gave students living expenses in the form of 'points' every month..."
Runa Inoue spoke slowly. "Kei probably wouldn't even be able to cover her basic living expenses. She'd have to scrape by on that meager child support, which was barely enough to put food on the table."
Her expression grew serious. "You could even say that if she hadn't met you at this school, young master, then given her current financial and psychological state, she might soon have been crushed by life and forced to apply for withdrawal. She would have returned to the shadow of that shattered family and disappeared into the crowd."
After she finished speaking, the living room fell briefly silent.
Chisato Nishikigi bit her lip without saying a word. Walnut stopped typing, and Runa Inoue quietly lowered her gaze.
All three girls wore the same heavy, sympathetic expressions.
Mazumi Mami let out a soft sigh and reached for the cup of tea on the table. It had gone lukewarm, but he didn't drink. He only watched the light reflected on its surface.
"...Looks like I went a little too easy on them back then."
His voice was calm, but his words made all three girls pause in surprise.
"At the time, I thought it would be enough to deal with the people bullying her and let her continue her studies and life in a relatively safe environment."
He set down the teacup, a complicated look in his eyes. "I didn't realize... the biggest problem wasn't the classmates who bullied her at all. It was inside her own family. The people who wanted to destroy her had been living in her home all along."
He raised his head and looked at each of the three girls. "When we have time, let's find a chance to ask her what she wants to do about all this. If she's determined enough, I don't mind helping her again."
"That's the right way to think, young master."
Chisato Nishikigi was the first to speak up. Her face had taken on a seriousness completely different from the way she'd been earlier that day. "If Kei wants revenge, or wants to get away from that family, I'll help too."
Mazumi Mami looked at her and raised an eyebrow, a curious smile lifting the corners of his mouth.
"Chisato, you changed your tune pretty quickly. Earlier, at the dorm entrance, you were wary and guarded around her, acting like, 'Don't even think about getting close to my young master.' Now you're already calling her 'Kei.'"
A slightly sheepish smile appeared on Chisato Nishikigi's face. She scratched the back of her head and let out a couple of awkward chuckles.
"Hehe... things are different now. If she had ulterior motives, I wouldn't have been nice to her. But Kei really is different."
Her smile faded a little, and her gaze grew serious.
"When I look at her, I feel... that she's been through something like what we went through. Our experiences aren't exactly the same, but I can recognize that feeling of treating the young master as her only place to turn."
"The way she looks at the young master, the dependence, the trust, the determination of someone who thinks she's grabbed the last lifeline— I can feel it. There's nothing fake about it."
She looked up, her gaze firm. "She's already taken you as her final place to turn, young master. That—makes her just like us."
"Exactly."
Runa Inoue nodded. "Maybe it's because we can relate that we can't just leave her alone. Besides, for you, young master, this isn't simply an act of kindness—"
A trace of an analyst's cool judgment flashed in her eyes.
"If Kei officially joined us, that would be a good thing for us too."
"It would mean there was one more person who could serve the young master. More importantly, she could take root in Class D as one of our people. We're far too conspicuous on campus right now, which makes it harder to gather information discreetly."
"With Kei's identity and position, she might be able to reach people and information that are out of our reach."
"Chisato and Takina are both right."
Walnut nodded, taking over.
"Given our current situation, the more hands we have, the better. We're too well-known around campus. That does bring us certain advantages and value, of course—for instance, it's easier to gain people's trust when we negotiate with them."
"But on the other hand, it makes it harder to gather information without attracting attention. If Kei could be our inside contact in Class D, she might open up a lot of channels that have been difficult for us to reach."
Walnut finished speaking.
Mazumi Mami listened quietly to the three girls, his gaze moving from one face to the next. Then he slowly gave them a sincere smile.
"Thank you."
The words were quiet, but they carried a certain weight.
Chisato Nishikigi paused for a moment, then grinned and waved a hand emphatically. "What are you thanking us for? We're all family! Family doesn't need to say thank you!"
Then she shifted gears and raised a finger, adding playfully,
"But—just so we're clear, we're agreeing to take Kei in because she's special and because her feelings are genuine. You can't take this as permission to think, 'I can bring any girl home and it'll be fine.' If you start bringing home random women every day and saying, 'She wants to be a maid too,' I'll go on strike in protest!"
Chisato Nishikigi declared.
"True."
Runa Inoue nodded expressionlessly, adding in a flat tone, "Although carrying on the family line and having more descendants are duties you must fulfill as the family heir, we wouldn't be able to manage things if there were too many of them. So, young master—please try to keep yourself in check and not fall for every girl you meet."
"Mm."
Walnut set down her laptop, folded her arms, and nodded solemnly. "A harmonious family atmosphere is very important. If there are too many people in the household, dealing with interpersonal relationships alone would drain all our energy. That wouldn't be good for maintaining the team's overall efficiency."
Mazumi Mami looked at the three girls trading remarks in perfect harmony and couldn't help but smile wryly.
"I'm not the kind of guy who loses the ability to walk whenever he sees a pretty girl, okay...? Don't make me out to be some spoiled rich kid with nothing but dirty thoughts on his mind."
Mazumi Mami said.
"Who knows? You are a boy, after all."
Chisato Nishikigi smiled and shrugged, teasing him playfully.
"Looks like we'll have to work harder to keep you away from temptation."
Runa Inoue delivered the baffling remark with a straight face. "Mm, we need to find a way to tire out the young master's excess energy. Then he won't have any left to go flirting with other girls."
"Exactly."
Walnut nodded solemnly in agreement.
"So—what kind of nonsense are you all talking about?"
Mazumi Mami rubbed his forehead with an exasperated smile, but the curve of his lips gave away how he really felt.
The night breeze stirred the curtains, and the dormitory lights glowed warmly.
The easy, natural atmosphere among the four of them seemed to sweep away the gloom left by their heavy conversation.
In another dormitory building not far away, a girl who had just finished bathing and wrapped herself in a bathrobe stood beneath the moonlight, gazing at the same night sky as she silently made her vow.
From this day on, their fates would once again become tightly intertwined.