Probing and Reasoning, and a Secret Nighttime Meeting

The Dragon Group's fourth meeting came to an end, and the tense, stifling atmosphere in the seminar room gradually dissipated. The students from each group got up and left one after another. Some chatted in pairs or small groups about the exam, while others hurried off alone. Only Kikyo Kushida remained amid the thinning crowd, wearing her usual gentle, harmless smile as she discreetly observed her surroundings.

Deep in her eyes lay a tension that others would have struggled to notice, but she showed not the slightest hint of panic. After a full day of psychological torment, and having confirmed that Suzune Horikita held the devastating leverage of her middle school breakdown, she had long since cast off her initial helplessness. Now, she was calm and clearheaded.

She quickly spotted her target. Yoshikage Kira was packing up his belongings alone, without exchanging greetings or conversation with anyone. Kikyo straightened her clothes, brushed away every trace of negativity, and approached with calm, measured steps. Her voice was light and natural, giving no hint of the worries weighing on her. "Kira, do you have a moment? There's something I'd like to talk to you about privately."

Yoshikage Kira paused, then looked up at the girl smiling brightly in front of him. Kikyo Kushida was popular across all the groups and skilled at navigating relationships, yet she rarely sought him out for a private conversation. A trace of wary curiosity flickered in his eyes, but his expression remained composed and cool. He gave a faint nod. "Sure. Where?"

"How about the café on the cruise ship's second floor? The meeting just ended, so it should be pretty quiet there." Kikyo smiled as she suggested it.

They left the seminar room one after the other, keeping a polite distance between them. Kikyo remained relaxed throughout, while Kira kept silent as they walked. Kikyo said little, either, though her quick little steps went patter, patter, patter.

She sped up slightly, then matched her pace and fell just behind Kira. His meticulous mind had already sensed that Kikyo's invitation was not simply for casual conversation. She clearly had a specific purpose.

When they reached the café on the second floor, it was indeed spacious and quiet. The few customers were scattered in distant corners, so there was no need to worry about anyone overhearing their conversation. They chose a secluded window-side booth and sat down. The sea breeze drifted gently through a gap in the floor-to-ceiling windows, dulling the bitter aroma of coffee indoors, but it could not dispel the faint tension quietly taking shape.

Without any unnecessary small talk, Kikyo Kushida picked up the glass of water on the table and took a sip. But instead of revealing her secret or asking for help, she deliberately probed indirectly. "Kira, you and Suzune Horikita have had a fair amount of contact during the exam, right? I'm curious—has Horikita ever mentioned me to you? Especially... anything about my past?"

Since the start of the school year, Kikyo Kushida had wanted to be friends with everyone. With Suzune Horikita, however, she had hit a wall. At first, Kikyo had thought it was simply Horikita's prickly personality. At the beginning of the school year, Horikita had been dismissive toward everyone, as though studying was the only thing she cared about.

Then Kikyo had started digging into Horikita's former school, a past she could not forget. In a whirlwind of speculation, Kikyo pieced together every possibility. Perhaps Horikita treated her that way because she had discovered something about Kikyo's past, and had therefore rejected her. Kikyo could tell that Kiyotaka Ayanokoji, a person with seemingly no social skills, had gradually developed a sense of camaraderie with Horikita while sitting beside her.

Suzune Horikita was not someone who rejected socializing.

This was the best option Kikyo had settled on after weighing everything carefully. Before she came completely clean about her dark past and put the VIP card on the table, she needed to confirm the most crucial information: had Horikita already told anyone about her past? Had she been secretly spreading rumors about Kikyo?

It was common knowledge that sharing information was one way to open up to someone you considered a true friend. Revealing an unknown side of yourself could effectively increase "intimacy." But if all you revealed was information the other person already knew, it would not have the desired effect.

At her question, Yoshikage Kira rested his fingertips lightly against the table and looked calmly into Kikyo's gentle eyes. After a two-second pause, he slowly shook his head. "No. Suzune Horikita probably wouldn't gossip about students from another class, especially about irrelevant personal matters. So far, she hasn't said a word about you in front of me."

The moment she heard his answer, the taut string in Kikyo Kushida's heart relaxed considerably, and the boulder pressing down on her eased a little. Horikita had not revealed her past to anyone else. Her carefully maintained perfect persona remained intact, and she still had a chance to maneuver, make amends, and negotiate.

But before she could fully relax, Kira's next words sent a shock through her.

Noticing the fleeting relief and hidden panic in Kikyo's eyes, Yoshikage Kira's curiosity sharpened. His tone was even as he calmly laid out his reasoning, each word precise and aimed straight at the heart of the matter. "However, the fact that you went out of your way to ask tells me this is serious. Taken together, all the clues suggest that your behavior is highly unusual."

"You're good at maintaining relationships and pleasing everyone around you, but you wouldn't keep showing people warmth indefinitely. That's obvious to everyone. Yet from the very beginning, you've gone out of your way to ingratiate yourself with Suzune Horikita and get close to her. Even after she repeatedly rejected you coldly and ignored you, you kept trying. That simply doesn't fit your usual way of doing things."

Kira leaned forward slightly. His steady voice carried an intense force of logic. "When ordinary people are repeatedly turned away, they take the hint and back off. Your unusual persistence can only mean one thing: you have something to worry about. Horikita has leverage over you—or, at the very least, she knows about something in your past that could affect your ability to get by at school."

"Then there's your class placement. With your social skills and popularity, you should have ended up in a higher class, yet you landed in Class D, the lowest-ranked one. That can't be a coincidence. Putting all the details together, it's not hard to conclude that something seriously negative probably happened to you in middle school, and that Suzune Horikita is one of the few people who knows about it."

In just a few words, he had built his case step by step, without any unnecessary speculation. Every sentence struck at Kikyo Kushida's deepest, most closely guarded secret.

For the first time, the smile on Kikyo Kushida's face truly cracked. Her pupils contracted slightly as a storm surged through her heart. She had never imagined that Yoshikage Kira could unravel the past she had hidden for so long and the carefully managed behavior she had tried so hard to conceal, all from scattered details and in just a few minutes.

She had always believed her disguise was flawless: everyone saw Kikyo Kushida as sunny, cheerful, and charming, and no one would dig into her past or see the fear behind her deliberate attempts to please. But now, faced with Kira's extreme composure and powers of deduction, all her disguises seemed transparent. She had nowhere to hide.

Shock, panic, and wariness roiled within her, and she nearly lost control. She instinctively wanted to explain and cover things up, but when the words reached her lips, every excuse seemed feeble and incapable of refuting his airtight logic.

Just as Kikyo Kushida had suppressed her turbulent emotions and was preparing to drop her disguise, confess her dark history of a middle school class falling apart, and use her VIP status to ask for help, an extremely faint footstep reached Kira's ears.

The sound was very light, its source deliberately keeping quiet. An ordinary person would never have noticed it. Kikyo Kushida, whose mind was currently in turmoil, was in no state to pay attention. Kira was "focused on explaining," so no one should have reacted. But Yoshikage Kira had an almost instinctive sensitivity to changes in his surroundings. He abruptly looked up and quickly scanned the corridor around the corner outside the café.

The corner was empty. There was no sign of anything amiss. Yet Kira's expression darkened.

Someone was eavesdropping. Following them.

The other person had done an excellent job of hiding, suppressing their presence completely and staying out of sight without leaving the slightest trace. But that fleeting sense of incongruity and faint sound could not fool his instincts. Yoshikage Kira instinctively looked toward the café's glass wall. Through the decorative decals, he caught someone in his peripheral vision—Kiyotaka Ayanokoji.

He did not know how long Ayanokoji had been listening, or how much he had heard. Had he caught only their irrelevant small talk, or had he already heard Kira's deductions and realized the truth about Kikyo Kushida's secret?

Kikyo Kushida had just worked up a little courage to prepare for "sharing information." Kira lowered the handle of his coffee cup, cutting her off in time.

"Too many eyes and ears around," he said, discreetly signaling that someone was watching.

Fear of the unknown instantly overwhelmed the turmoil in Kikyo Kushida's mind, and she abandoned the idea of confessing right then and there.

With the risk so uncertain, exposing her secret in public could lead to disastrous consequences. She absolutely could not reveal her entire past or her VIP status while an outsider was watching.

In a flash, Kikyo Kushida suppressed her panic, forced herself to regain her composure, and put on a gentle smile again, though a trace of concern remained in her eyes. She took the initiative to end the current subject.

"Looks like nothing gets past you, Kira. Maybe you could be a private detective someday." She gave a light laugh, pretending to be at ease. Deliberately avoiding anything sensitive, she glossed over his deductions. "This is a lot more complicated than I imagined, and it involves some very important personal matters. I don't feel comfortable discussing them in detail here."

Yoshikage Kira was observant and immediately picked up on the change in her expression. He also noticed the subtle shift in the atmosphere around them.

Kikyo Kushida took a deep breath and made a new decision. Looking at Kira earnestly, she spoke in a serious, sincere tone. "There are too many people around during the day, and something unexpected could happen. I can't say much here. If you're willing to give me a chance, meet me tonight at eight on the cruise ship's third-floor Open-air Observation Deck."

"Most students will be resting in their dorms at that hour, so the deck should be nearly deserted. I'll wait for you there."

It sounded like a girl gathering her courage to ask someone to a secret meeting.

Yoshikage Kira gazed at Kikyo in silence for a moment. After a pause, he agreed. "All right. Eight tonight, on the third-floor deck. I'll be there on time."

"Thank you, Kira." Kikyo dipped her head slightly, feeling a little more at ease. Now that they had arranged a secret meeting for that night, she needed to focus on preparing for it.

They did not continue discussing sensitive matters. After a few brief pleasantries, they got up and parted ways. Kira left the café first. As he passed the corner of the corridor, his steps never faltered, and his expression remained as mild as ever, as though nothing had happened.

In the shadow around the corner, Kiyotaka Ayanokoji suppressed every trace of his presence and watched Kira and Kikyo leave in silence. He had not heard their entire conversation, but he had accurately picked up on their tense mood and the secret meeting they had arranged at short notice. A faint trace of amusement and understanding flickered in his eyes.

Kikyo's secret, Kira's deductions, their private meeting that night... The Dragon Group's situation had quietly shifted in an unnoticed corner. A nighttime battle of wits over secrets, deals, and survival had already begun to take shape.