Speaking Frankly

Yuto had thought that after the study group incident, Horikita Suzune would not come looking for trouble again.

But he had been wrong.

During lunch break the next day, Horikita Suzune walked into the classroom with three people in tow. Her expression was calm, giving nothing away, but the faces of the three behind her looked worse than the last—Yamauchi kept his head lowered, pretending to look at his phone even though its screen was off; Ike looked around as if nothing had happened; and Sudo wore a stiff expression as though someone owed him several million points.

Kushida had been talking to Yuto beside his desk about a cake shop. She froze for a moment when she saw the group.

"Yuto." Horikita Suzune walked up to him, her tone as serious as if she were delivering a report. "On behalf of the study group, I formally invite you to join our study sessions."

Yuto looked at her, then at the three people behind her. Yamauchi avoided his gaze and continued staring at his phone. Ike started picking at his nails. Sudo folded his arms and looked out the window.

"I already told you. I'm not interested."

"I know you turned us down before." Horikita Suzune did not back down. "But things are different now. Midterms are next week, and you know better than anyone what our class's overall level is like. If you don't help us, Class D will really make a fool of itself this time."

She spoke with complete sincerity, and there was even a hint of humility in her tone. For someone whose pride ran that deep, saying something like this was already the same as lowering her head.

But Yuto still had no intention of agreeing.

Leaning back in his chair, he shifted his gaze from Horikita Suzune to the three people behind her.

"Suzune, you said you came to invite me on behalf of the study group. Then let me ask you something—do these three people you brought actually want to study?"

All three of them looked up at once.

"What do you mean by that?" Sudo was the first to speak, his tone already turning hostile.

"Nothing." Yuto looked at them, his voice as calm as if they were discussing the weather. "I'm just stating the facts. Ike, twenty minutes into the study group, you started complaining that your head hurt and said you needed a break. Then you lay on the desk and played on your phone for forty minutes. Am I wrong?"

Ike's fingers froze in midair. His mouth moved, but no words came out.

Yuto turned to Yamauchi. "Yamauchi, you brought something you claimed was a notebook, but the two pages you had open were covered in doodles from class. Naruto's face, Pokémon balls, and all kinds of random drawings. You hadn't written down a single note. You just stared at those two pages, pretending to be busy."

Yamauchi's face immediately turned red. "H-how did you know—"

"Because when you were at the study group, I passed the classroom door and glanced inside." Yuto spoke unhurriedly. "The page in your notebook was facing the door. I saw it perfectly clearly. You sat there for two hours without writing a single word."

Yamauchi's mouth opened and closed, then opened again. In the end, he could not force out even one word.

Finally, Yuto looked at Sudo. "Sudo, you did stick with it the longest out of the three. But every day, you just sat there staring blankly at the questions. When you couldn't solve them, you started shaking your leg. When you got tired of that, you slammed the desk. Horikita went over and asked whether you wanted help, and you yelled, 'No.' This isn't a problem with your attitude toward studying. This is a problem with your temper."

Sudo's fists clenched with a creak.

"You bastard—"

"Which part of what I said was false?" Yuto cut him off. "Tell me yourself. When you threw your pen and kicked the desk that day, were you studying or venting? You said you sat in the classroom for an hour without understanding anything. Did you ask anyone for help? Did you give yourself—or anyone else—a chance to fix it?"

Sudo stood there with his mouth open, his chest rising and falling like a bellows. He glared at Yuto with clenched fists, but he could not argue back, because every word was true.

The classroom fell so silent it seemed frozen.

Hirata opened his mouth, wanting to smooth things over, but after seeing Yuto's expression, he swallowed the words back down.

Yamauchi finally forced out a sentence. "W-what gives you the right to say that about us? Isn't it just because your grades are a little better? What's so great about you?"

"I never said I was great." Yuto looked at him. "I just don't want to waste time teaching three people who don't want to learn at all. If you really wanted to study, you shouldn't have acted like that from the start. Do you remember what the study group was like on the first day? Horikita handed out review materials, Kushida made copies for you, and Hirata helped arrange the schedule. And how did you repay them? Half the people were gone by the second day, and by the third, only you three were left. And even among you three, two of you were just killing time."

Yamauchi and Ike's faces turned as red as boiled shrimp.

"You—" Yamauchi pointed at him, his finger trembling, but he could not say a word.

Sudo took a deep breath, his chest heaving several times. Then he did something no one had expected.

He reached out and shoved the desk in front of him away.

The desk scraped across the floor with a piercing screech, and the books and stationery on top clattered to the ground. He turned and kicked over the chair beside him, which crashed down with a loud bang.

"Fuck!" Sudo roared. "Fine, I won't study! It's not like I give a damn anyway!"

He grabbed his bag and stormed out without looking back. The sound of him slamming the door made the windows on the entire floor rattle.

Yamauchi and Ike exchanged a glance, then quickly grabbed their bags and followed him. Yamauchi turned back to glare at Yuto when he reached the door, but Ike pulled him away before he could say anything.

After the three of them left, the classroom fell into an eerie silence.

Hirata stood there, not knowing what to say. The other students exchanged looks. Some lowered their heads and pretended to read, while others stared blankly at their desks.

Then Kushida spoke.

"Yuto is right."

Everyone looked at her.

Kushida Kikyo, Class D's angel, Kushida Kikyo, who never said anything bad about anyone, had said those words in front of everyone.

Her usual perfect smile was gone. Instead, she wore a serious expression with even a trace of coldness.

"Kushida..." Hirata was stunned.

Kushida turned to look at him, her tone calm but clear. "Hirata, you saw it too, didn't you? What kind of state Sudo and the others were in during those days at the study group. What Yuto said may not have sounded nice, but it was all true. We can't keep lying to ourselves and saying, 'Everyone is trying their best,' can we?"

Hirata opened his mouth, but he did not argue.

Kushida then looked at Horikita Suzune. "Horikita, I'm not saying your approach was wrong. Your intentions in organizing the study group were good, but some people just won't move no matter how much you call for them. That's not your fault."

Horikita Suzune stood where she was and looked at her. She said nothing, but there was a look in her eyes as though she were reassessing her. The Kushida Kikyo she knew would never say something so likely to offend people in public. But today, she had said it.

And she had said it openly and without reservation.

"You're right," Horikita Suzune said. "Thank you."

Kushida nodded, then smiled again. But it was different from her usual trademark smile—she had not carefully adjusted the curve of her lips to the perfect angle, nor had she narrowed her eyes to look innocent and cute. She simply smiled, naturally.

Yuto glanced at her but said nothing. Still, he knew what it meant—after taking off her mask in front of him, Kushida Kikyo was now slowly beginning to lower her guard in front of others too.

Horikita Suzune was silent for a while before looking at Yuto. There was no anger or resentment in her eyes, only calm scrutiny.

"I knew all of that."

"Then why did you still bring them to me?"

"Because I had no other choice," Horikita Suzune said. "I tried teaching them myself. I tried asking Hirata to help. I tried giving them materials to study at home. None of it worked. I thought it might be different if it were you."

"It wouldn't be different," Yuto said. "If someone doesn't want to study, pinning them to a seat won't help."

Horikita Suzune fell silent for several seconds. "Then what do you think I should do?"

Yuto thought for a moment, then stood and headed outside. "Come with me."

Horikita Suzune hesitated for a moment, but followed him anyway.

When the two reached the end of the hallway outside the classroom, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka was leaning against the wall and drinking milk. He wore a gray jacket and held a carton of milk in one hand. Seeing the two approach, he showed no reaction.

Yuto stopped in front of him.

"Ayanokoji, come listen too."

Ayanokoji glanced at him, slowly finished the last sip of milk, crushed the empty carton, and tossed it into the nearby trash can before following them.

The three stood by the window at the end of the hallway. Outside was the school courtyard, where several younger students were playing below, their laughter faintly drifting up.

Yuto spoke. "Do you know how the school's exam system works?"

Horikita Suzune frowned slightly. "What do you mean?"

"The teachers who make the midterm and final exam papers are the same group every year." Yuto spoke unhurriedly, as though explaining something ordinary. "And those teachers have one trait—they can't be bothered to write entirely new questions every year."

Horikita Suzune's expression changed. Her pupils contracted slightly before quickly returning to normal, but Yuto noticed that subtle shift.

"You mean..."

"Upperclassmen have past exam papers. The question types, difficulty, and distribution of key points are all similar. Some questions are even reused with nothing but a number changed." Yuto looked out the window. "If you can find some upperclassmen and buy a few past papers, then thoroughly work through the questions, this exam won't look too bad."

Horikita Suzune was silent for a long time.

"How did you find out about this?"

"I looked into it myself. The school storage room has archives of past exams, and people have mentioned it in the discussion forums on the library computers." Yuto said, "Why do you think I turned down your invitation to join the study group? Because I don't need it. I have my own methods."

Horikita Suzune stared at him as if reassessing the person in front of her. She had always thought Yuto was simply lazy and unwilling to meddle in other people's business. But now, she was beginning to realize that he was not ignoring it—he was handling it in another way.

After listening from the side, Ayanokoji finally spoke for the first time. "You could ask members of the student council about past exam papers. They should have archives there."

Yuto and Horikita Suzune looked at him at the same time.

Ayanokoji still wore the same indifferent expression, as though he had merely said, "The weather is nice today."

"I was just saying," he added.

The three of them were quiet for several seconds.

"...I understand," Horikita Suzune said.

She turned and took a step away, then stopped without looking back. "Thank you."

Then she left.

Yuto watched her back disappear around the corner before turning to Ayanokoji.

"You said that on purpose, didn't you?"

"Which part?"

"The student council archives."

Ayanokoji turned to look at him, his face revealing no flaw. "I really was just saying."

"Yeah." Yuto did not expose him. "Just saying, and yet you were that precise."

Ayanokoji did not answer. He looked out at the courtyard, stayed silent for a moment, then said something unrelated. "What you said in the classroom was pretty blunt."

"They brought it on themselves."

"Yeah." Ayanokoji nodded. "But sometimes, speaking bluntly is far more effective than beating around the bush."

After saying that, he turned and left as well, his hands in his pockets and his pace unhurried.

Yuto stood alone by the window at the end of the hallway. Sunlight streamed in from outside, casting a rectangular patch of light across the floor.

After a while, Kushida came out of the classroom and stopped beside him. She held a can of coffee she had just bought from the vending machine and handed it to Yuto.

"This is for you."

Yuto took it. "Thanks."

The two stood side by side by the window.

Kushida spoke. "What you said in the classroom just now... was really satisfying."

"Was it?"

"Yeah." Kushida smiled. "Seeing Sudo and the others unable to say anything made me feel so much better. You have no idea how exhausting it has been studying with them these past few days. Yamauchi asked me a math question, and even after I explained it five times, he still didn't understand. Then he said, 'Forget it, it's too hard. I'm not studying.' Ike was even worse. He never even brought his textbook. Every time he came, he would ask to borrow a pen and then just scribble randomly on paper."

"Then why did you keep going?"

Kushida was silent for a moment.

"Because I'm used to it," she said. "Used to agreeing to other people's requests. Used to pretending to be a good person. Used to keeping a smile on my face no matter how tired I am."

She paused, then changed her tone. "But today, I think it actually feels pretty good not to pretend once in a while."

Yuto took a sip of coffee and said nothing.

Kushida was quiet for a while too, then reached out and patted his shoulder. "Thanks. Not for speaking up for me, but for making me feel like it's okay not to pretend."

After saying that, she turned and returned to the classroom.