Horikita Manabu and Horikita Suzune

By the time they left the library, the sky had just begun to darken, and the streetlights had not yet come on. Kiryu Yume stuffed the notebook Mashima Tomoya had given him into the side pocket of his backpack, with Kamuro Masumi following behind him.

"Cafeteria." After saying those two words, Kamuro Masumi took the lead.

There were not many people in the cafeteria. They each ordered a set meal and sat across from each other. Kamuro Masumi snapped apart her chopsticks and ate with her head lowered.

Halfway through his meal, Kiryu Yume slowed his chopsticks. His gaze unconsciously drifted beneath the table—calves wrapped in thin black stockings were crossed beneath it, and the cafeteria's warm yellow light gave that layer of black the semi-fluid sheen of freshly cut lava chocolate.

Kamuro Masumi tapped her chopsticks against her plate. "Eat your food." Kiryu Yume moved his gaze back to his bowl. His heartbeat skipped half a beat, though nothing showed on his face as he obediently shoveled a large mouthful of rice into his mouth.

After finishing, Kamuro Masumi stood with her tray and said, "Sakayanagi Arisu told you to wait for her downstairs at the dormitory building on time tomorrow morning."

Kiryu Yume rose with her. They walked side by side toward the tray return, with no one much around them. He leaned half an inch toward her and lowered his voice so only the two of them could hear. "Thanks for treating me, Mama Kamuro."

Kamuro Masumi's steps paused. The bowls and chopsticks on her tray gave a faint rattle, and an extremely thin blush surfaced beneath her long black hair at the roots of her ears, spreading to the side of her neck before stopping.

She did not turn around. She set down her tray at the return counter slightly harder than usual, making the bottom of the bowl knock against the counter with a dull sound. "I didn't treat you. We paid separately." With that, she walked away without looking back, the rhythm of her shoes against the floor several beats faster than usual.

Kiryu Yume stood there watching her back for two seconds. The corner of his mouth curled up, then he pressed it back down.

The area that turns red after I call her Mama is different every time. This time it spread to her neck.

He returned his tray, left the cafeteria, and turned toward the convenience store. He picked up a carton of milk, a bag of sliced bread, and two lollipops. When he paid by card, his balance flashed on the screen. The points he had received at the start of the month had already dropped considerably. He calculated the next two weeks' food expenses in his head—still manageable, but he could not keep casually grabbing snacks.

By the time he left the convenience store, it was fully dark. The streetlights divided the walkway into stretches of orange-yellow. Carrying the plastic bag, he entered the dormitory lobby. Just as he pressed the elevator button, he caught sight of two figures at the end of the corridor. His finger moved away from the button.

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka stood by the side entrance. His hands were in his pockets, his back against the wall, his gaze fixed on somewhere outside.

A figure flashed past outside the door—long black hair, a braid at the left temple, a white ribbon. Horikita Suzune was walking quickly, her shoulders tense. She did not look like she was out for a stroll.

A catlike curiosity lightly scratched at his heart. Before reason could catch up, his feet had already turned on their own. Kiryu Yume set the plastic bag in the corner of the stairwell and followed her out.

Beyond the side entrance was a narrow, elongated patch of open ground wedged between the outer wall of the academic building and the school's rear perimeter wall. There were metal racks piled with sports equipment and several discarded desks. The streetlights did not reach here. The only illumination was the cold white spill of light from the second-floor corridor of the academic building. Horikita Suzune stood in the middle of the clearing, facing someone.

Horikita Manabu. He was taller than Kiryu Yume remembered, broad-shouldered, his uniform immaculate. Behind his silver-rimmed glasses, his gaze was cold and steady.

He had positioned himself so that Horikita Suzune's back faced the only light source, while his own face was completely hidden in shadow. That stance alone made it clear this was no ordinary conversation between siblings.

"You still haven't withdrawn." Horikita Manabu's voice was flat.

Horikita Suzune's shoulders twitched. "I will not withdraw."

"Class D has zero points. Next month, you will not even have personal points. What meaning is there in staying here?"

"Being in Class D does not mean my ability is only at Class D's level."

"The class assignments were determined during the interview." Horikita Manabu did not wait for her to continue. "High written-test scores do not mean you enter Class A. The interview measures your ability to adapt to your environment and perceive other people's emotions. Which of those do you have?"

He did not sound as if he were asking a question. He sounded as if he were reading an evaluation form that had been filled out long ago.

Horikita Suzune said nothing. Her fingers clenched and loosened at the side of her skirt. The white ribbon swayed once in the evening breeze.

Kiryu Yume crouched behind the metal rack, his heartbeat slightly quickened—eavesdropping naturally came with a tension that reached the body before reason. He muted his phone, swiped open the camera, and pressed record. The red dot in the corner of the screen began to blink.

Before he pressed it, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka had glanced in his direction from the side entrance. His gaze dropped to the lower-left corner of the phone screen, where a video thumbnail lay. The image was blurry, but two figures could be made out. Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's expression did not change. He turned back and continued watching the middle of the clearing.

"What do you think will happen because you are in Class D?" Horikita Manabu took a step forward. "Class D's problem is not discipline. It is the people. Those who sleep in class, fool around in the corridors, score barely more than ten points on exams. You sit among that pile of people without even raising your head."

He paused. In the empty space, only the faint sound of the evening wind brushing past the metal rack could be heard. "But that is your class."

Horikita Suzune raised her head.

"If you do not look up at others, others will not look at you either. If you do not reach out, no one will take the initiative to pull you up. You think you can walk alone, then show me."

Horikita Manabu's voice remained flat, but he slowed down, as though every word had been deliberately weighed. "But you have not even taken the first step, and you already ran to Chabashira to discuss the class assignment system. You want to jump to another board before you have even planted your feet firmly on the ground beneath you. That is the stupidest way to jump."

Horikita Suzune's lips moved, then pressed tightly together. Something welled up in her purple eyes, forcibly held back by her lashes.

"Withdraw." Horikita Manabu said. "There is still time. Staying here will do no one any good. Not you, and not me—"

He abruptly stopped. Cold light spilling from the second floor reflected off the side of his silver-rimmed glasses. He turned completely around, his gaze pinning the metal rack.

"Come out."

Kiryu Yume's heart lurched. A chill slid from the back of his neck to his waist. He gripped his phone and stood up, his knees somewhat stiff from crouching too long.

Horikita Suzune turned and saw him. Her purple eyes instantly narrowed. "You followed me?"

Before Kiryu Yume could answer, Horikita Manabu was already walking toward him. His steps were not fast, but they landed heavily. When he was still two steps away from Kiryu Yume, he suddenly accelerated, his right hand reaching for the hand holding the phone. A wrist lock—his fingers precisely clamped toward the wrist bone and the web between thumb and forefinger, cleanly executed like a move practiced thousands of times.

Kiryu Yume had no time to think. His body moved on its own—he turned half a circle sideways, shifted his center of gravity from his left foot to his right, and pulled back his right hand. Horikita Manabu's fingers brushed the skin of his wrist and grasped nothing.

Horikita Manabu withdrew his hand and looked down at the hand that had missed, then raised his head. "You are good at dodging."

Kiryu Yume took two breaths. His heart was still pounding, but his hands were not shaking. He did not even know how he had managed that dodge just now. His body had been far faster than his mind. By the time he reacted, he had already avoided it. A faint, prickling chill lingered where his wrist had been grazed by a fingernail.

"Delete the recording." Horikita Manabu's tone was not negotiable.

Kiryu Yume suppressed his racing heartbeat and raised his phone before his chest. "Two conditions."

Horikita Manabu stood there and waited for him to speak without urging him.

"First, two hundred thousand personal points, transferred now. Second, you owe me one request. A legitimate one, within your capabilities, to be fulfilled when I need it."

Horikita Manabu looked at him for two seconds. In those two seconds, Kiryu Yume felt as though he had been measured from head to toe. "Interesting. Fine."

A transfer notification popped up on the phone screen: 200000 points received. When Kiryu Yume saw that number, his pupils could not help twitching—two hundred thousand. He transferred it just like that, without even blinking. Kiryu Yume had expected to bargain.

"I agree to the second condition." Horikita Manabu slipped his student ID into his uniform's inner pocket. "Now delete it."

Right in front of him, Kiryu Yume opened his gallery, selected the video he had just recorded, and deleted it. The file icon flashed once and disappeared. Only then did his heartbeat gradually settle.

Horikita Manabu nodded and turned toward Horikita Suzune. His tone returned to its original coldness, but something else was hidden in the deliberate half-beat pause at the end. "Digest every word I said tonight yourself. If you cannot digest it, withdraw. If you can, do not come looking for me. Only standing on your own counts as standing."

Horikita Manabu turned and left. Ayanokoji Kiyotaka was still leaning against the doorframe as he passed the side entrance. Their eyes met for less than a second, but Horikita Manabu did not stop. Ayanokoji Kiyotaka glanced toward Kiryu Yume without saying anything, then stepped back through the side entrance.

Only two people remained in the clearing.

Horikita Suzune walked toward Kiryu Yume. The cold white spill of light divided the expression on her face into one bright half and one dark half.

She did not ask anything first. She simply snatched the phone from Kiryu Yume's hand. She used considerable force, pulling his fingers crooked in the process.

She opened the gallery and scrolled down. The thumbnail for the recording was gone, but she continued scrolling to make sure nothing had been missed. She stopped at the third-to-last item—a video cover showing two boys in a restroom stall. One large-framed boy sat against the wall on the floor, while a trace of blood hung at the corner of the other's mouth. Horikita Suzune stared at the image for two seconds without opening it, then scrolled back up and exited the gallery.

Kiryu Yume secretly let out a breath. If she had opened it on the spot, he really would not have known how to explain it.

"Recently Deleted," she said.

Kiryu Yume took the phone back and opened Recently Deleted for her. It was empty. After Horikita Suzune confirmed it, she raised her head. Her voice was harder than it had been in front of Horikita Manabu just now. "You made my brother owe you a request."

"Two things. The two hundred thousand has already arrived. He still owes me one."

"I will repay the two hundred thousand for him." Her voice had regained its usual coldness, but her clenched fist had yet to relax. She did not mention the video cover from earlier, as if she had merely flipped past an irrelevant illustration in a book.

Kiryu Yume looked at her for a moment. The evening wind blew between them, making the braid at her temple sway gently.

Something was trembling beneath that cold hardness. It was different from the hardness she had shown when facing Chabashira Sae in the office last time. That had been a shield. This time, the shield had shattered, and she was picking up the pieces. "If you repay him for it, you are making him digest consequences that you think he should not bear. Tonight, he gave you an entire lesson on how to stand on your own."

Horikita Suzune's fingers twitched. "He should not have paid two hundred thousand because of me."

"Did you see his expression when he made the transfer? No hesitation, no bargaining, no added conditions. He is the student council president. Two hundred thousand is not a small amount, but he paid it as decisively as if he were approving a document." Kiryu Yume spoke nonsense. "He almost let something slip—staying here will do no good for me either—then swallowed it back. Did you hear that?"

Horikita Suzune froze. A crack appeared in the cold, hard shell in her purple eyes.

"A student council president comes to the back of the school buildings in the middle of the night to block his own little sister, says a bunch of harsh things, but when you listen closely, every sentence is teaching you how to survive in Class D. Even that line, 'that is your class,' came out."

Kiryu Yume took a step back and suddenly found it a little amusing. These siblings were practically made from the same mold, even their ways of being stubborn were the same. "Your brother is a tsundere. A pretty high-level one too."

Horikita Suzune's cheeks instantly flushed red, the helpless anger of someone having a blind spot exposed where it mattered most. She opened her mouth to refute him, but her purple eyes, usually as cold as shattered ice, were violently trembling at that moment. Her ability to form sentences had temporarily short-circuited. After moving her lips for a long while, she could only force out half a sentence. "You do not understand anything at all—"

"It is enough that your brother does."

Horikita Suzune stood there with her fists clenched, the roots of her ears flushing from beneath the white ribbon all the way to the edge of her collar. She could not say another word.

Looking at her thoroughly red face, Kiryu Yume suddenly felt that she and the person he had seen in the office before were almost like two different people. He did not say that aloud, instead turning toward the dormitory.

He pressed the elevator button. When the doors opened with a ding, he looked back once.

Horikita Suzune was still standing there. The evening wind lifted her black hair before letting it fall again, and her white ribbon drew a thin arc through the air. Her clenched fists had still not loosened, but the curve of her shoulders looked slightly softer than before.

She was not crying, nor did she catch up with him, nor did she turn and leave. She simply stood in that narrow, elongated clearing, like someone whose shell had just been shattered but who had not yet had time to grow a new one.

The elevator doors closed. Kiryu Yume leaned against the elevator wall and let out a long breath. Only now did his heartbeat completely calm down. He took out his phone and checked the gallery—he had deleted one recording, but there was another he had not deleted.

Two hundred thousand sat in his account. A favor owed by the student council president was on the books. On the wrist that had nearly been caught in a hold, the faint prickling sensation from a fingernail's graze still lingered.