Meeting Again

Miyama Saku glanced at Ayanokoji.

"Considering I took so many points from her brother, throwing in a little gift is only fair, right?"

"Fair enough to make me uneasy," Ayanokoji said.

"Think whatever you want." Miyama Saku waved a hand and turned to leave the alley.

After taking a few steps, he suddenly stopped and looked back.

"Suzune—ah, sorry, Horikita."

"The exam papers are real. Believe it or not, whether you keep them for yourself or sell them to someone else, the choice is yours."

"And if someone catches you doing something again next time, you might not be so lucky. I'm actually pretty easygoing. I only took some points, that's all."

Then Miyama Saku's figure slowly vanished into the darkness, and his footsteps gradually faded away.

Suzune Horikita stood where she was, her terminal screen still lit.

She stared at the exam papers with a complicated expression. After a long while, she finally murmured, "What exactly is he trying to do?"

"No idea." Ayanokoji walked over to her, his dead-fish eyes sweeping across the screen. "But the papers look real."

"How can you tell they're real?"

"If they were fake, we could ask an upperclassman to verify them. He should know that."

"Besides, I think what he said before leaving was more of a reminder that the papers could be traded."

Suzune Horikita fell silent for a moment, then slipped her terminal into her pocket.

Her expression returned to its usual icy state as she put her mask back on.

"I won't thank him, but I'll verify the papers before using them."

"Yeah."

"Ayanokoji."

"What?"

"Do you think my brother really has some kind of deal with him?"

Ayanokoji thought for a moment.

"Hard to say. He never admitted it from beginning to end."

After leaving, Miyama Saku did not return to the dormitory right away.

He slowly followed the school road, eventually turning toward the school's artificial lake.

Someone stood silently by the lake, his figure already blending into the night. It was Manabu Horikita, who had left earlier.

"Meeting again, Student Council President. Gotta say, you really know how to pick a place." Miyama Saku sauntered closer and casually kicked away a small stone. "Choosing the artificial lake... Don't tell me you're planning to sink me in it later."

Manabu Horikita did not turn around, his gaze still fixed on the dark lake surface. "I'm not that bored."

"If it weren't for the points, I couldn't be bothered coming here either." Miyama Saku stopped beside him.

"Honestly, you and your sister have a really awkward relationship."

"On one hand, you wanted me to teach your sister a lesson. On the other, you wanted me to help her. I really don't know what you're thinking."

Manabu Horikita did not respond. The long silence made the quiet night feel especially eerie.

Looking at Manabu Horikita's utterly motionless body, Miyama Saku thought, Is this guy planning to stand here until dawn?

Manabu Horikita stayed silent for so long that Miyama Saku thought he really did not intend to speak again.

"You say that as if you have a sister."

"I don't, but I have someone who's pretty much like one."

Manabu Horikita shifted his gaze from the lake and looked seriously at his face. "Oh? Then how do you usually get along?"

"I'm under no obligation to tell you."

Manabu Horikita looked at him for a moment without pressing further. He merely looked away again and let out a quiet sigh.

"Fine."

"Suzune wasn't like this before. But at some point, she began imitating me and catering to my preferences."

"She liked short hair, yet because I once said I liked long hair as a test, she grew hers out."

"A brother complex?" Miyama Saku cut in, sounding somewhat entertained.

Manabu Horikita merely glanced at him before continuing on his own.

"I once had high hopes for her. I believed she had the talent to surpass me. Back then, I thought she became like that only because I had spent too much time by her side, causing her to become dependent on me."

"So I chose to come to this closed-off school, hoping to create some distance between us."

"But I never expected her to follow me here. Even less did I expect that she still hadn't improved at all and was still stuck in the same place."

Manabu Horikita's voice lowered, tinged with disappointment. "It makes me feel like a failure. I failed to educate her properly."

"Don't put all the blame on yourself."

Miyama Saku cut him off. "What about your parents? Do they have no responsibility at all?"

He shifted into a more comfortable position against the railing and looked at Manabu Horikita. "Go have a proper talk with your sister, Suzune. Those impossible knots between you two boil down to one thing: neither of you has made your true feelings clear. Be honest. It'll save you a lot of trouble."

"Education isn't your responsibility alone. I think your parents are even more important in that regard."

"Maybe you two need to have a real conversation. Most misunderstandings and mistakes in a family come from failing to communicate properly. Honest communication can solve a lot."

"Our parents were busy with work and didn't have much time to look after us, so I became fairly independent from a young age."

"Perhaps Suzune and I really do need to communicate properly, but I have no plans to do that for now. I don't even know how to start."

"I want to observe her for a while longer. I want to see whether she can find her own way out."

Miyama Saku rolled his eyes. "Fine, do whatever you want."

"Communication isn't as complicated as you think. Just lay everything out and talk it through, isn't that enough?"

"When I took the entrance exam, I handed in a blank paper because someone told me they didn't want me to come to this school. They were afraid we wouldn't see each other for another three years. Before that, we had already gone nearly two and a half years without contact because of some things."

"I even skipped the interview over it, but the school still sent me an acceptance notice."

"I didn't expect you to skip even the interview." A rare hint of surprise entered Manabu Horikita's voice.

"I told you long ago, this school's so-called benefits are nothing special to me."

Miyama Saku tilted his head slightly upward, looking at the pitch-black sky as he continued. "If someone hadn't worn me down until I had no resistance left, I would've treated that acceptance notice like scrap paper and thrown it away. Me coming to this school now is purely because I owed someone a favor. There was no helping it."

Then he looked at Manabu Horikita again.

"Come to think of it, why are you telling me all this?"

"Your sister and I aren't in the same class. You should know perfectly well that classes are competing against each other at this school."

"Aren't you afraid I might do something to your sister?"

Manabu Horikita calmly met his gaze. "You wouldn't. I don't think you're that kind of person."

Miyama Saku raised an eyebrow, somewhat surprised by his answer. "You're that sure?"

"Call it the Student Council President's intuition?"

"Then your intuition might not be very accurate. Plenty of people hide who they are. The side you see now may not be the real me."

"Some people can even deceive brothers they've lived with for decades. The human heart is hard to understand. Intuition alone is useless, because intuition can deceive you too."