"You're actually pretty good at cards, aren't you? If you'd agreed to the young lady's request earlier, none of this would have happened."
Watching Tangze casually lay down his cards across from him, Kazue Takashi, who had lost again, tossed his hand into the pile with a wry smile, looking utterly helpless.
Winning and losing were both common enough, but losing four or five straight rounds to a young man—and getting utterly crushed every single time—still felt awful.
"He probably counts cards." Takuya Mifune, who had been watching the fun from the side for quite a while, grinned and patted Tangze on the shoulder. "Don't forget, he's a genuine elite student. His academic credentials are even better than Gojo Osamu's, right?"
"I'm just not interested in games that resemble gambling." Tangze smiled modestly.
"I get it, I get it. Winning too easily makes it boring, right? It's perfectly normal not to be interested." Takuya Mifune continued teasing him.
"Then why didn't you just agree to the young lady earlier? Things wouldn't have gotten this awkward." Kazue Takashi gave up and pushed himself away from the table, making it clear that he did not want to be tortured any further. "You wouldn't lose anyway, so there'd be nothing to lose."
"Are you sure?" Takuya Mifune looked at Kazue Takashi strangely. "If he really played cards with Miss Reika and beat her five or six times in a row, are you sure that would improve her mood instead of making her even more furious? She might take her anger out on everyone here."
Besides, honestly, even if his background was better than Akechi Goro's, Akechi was still someone protected by a daughter of the Suzuki family.
Once Reika Shifui realized she could not do anything to Akechi Goro, who knew whether she