Part 4
That Golden Week ended in a flash, and we were back to our school lives.
The scenery remained the same, but everyday life began to change slowly.
“… Yo.”
In the morning just after the break, Sudou was the first person I ran into, near the shoe locker at the school.
It was just a run-in with a classmate, but it was also part of that changing everyday life.
“It hasn’t been easy for you for a while. Are you alright now?”
“No problem. It’s the same as before. I made it through Golden Week with no problems.”
“I see. You know, this vacation went by real quick.”
I walked side by side with Sudou, who had adjusted his walking pace to match mine, to the classroom.
Because he had to leave the classroom for his club activities, Sudou must have heard the details from Ike or Hondou afterwards.
I didn’t need to tell him what happened in that classroom, as he should have understood everything.
“So you were hiding the fact you’re good at studying because of Suzune’s strategy, right?”
I nodded my head a bit in agreement, and Sudou pouted a bit. He looked away from me and turned straight ahead.
“Well, you two have been close ever since school started. A bit late now, but I understand that.”
“We didn’t get along. If anything, at first it was more like we wanted to keep our distance from each other.”
“It was like that? Sorry, didn’t look like that to me.”
That was probably because Sudou was viewing Horikita as a person of the opposite sex.
There was no point in me pointing that out, so I skipped over his words.
“I heard about it from Yousuke afterwards. You put in a good word for me, didn’t you?”
“I can’t say I was covering for you; I was only stating the facts.”
“You call them facts, but you didn’t know the truth at that time either.”
“’Course I know that!”
Sudou got a bit angry and pouted again, as he spoke again.
“It was a secret that you’re a genius at math, but is the fact that you’re good at fighting also a secret?”
To Sudou, this aspect was apparently more important than the bit about math.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
I pretended not to understand what he was talking about.
However, Sudou was no longer the kind of person to back down on hearing that.
“Don’t play dumb with me. I fought with Housen, so I’m clear on it. His superhuman strength is the real deal. And he’s faster than anyone I’ve fought so far. Honestly, he’s a monster.”
Sudou said that it was precisely because he had confronted him that he was able to experience it first hand.
“That was the first time I’ve ever felt scared in a fight. Even now his smiling face is burnt into my brain.”
Stopping, he poked his temple with his left index finger two, three times.
“You were scared, huh. Even so, it looked like you fought bravely for Horikita.”
“Well, there was no other choice. That guy has more than a few screws loose.”
I couldn’t deny that. From what I’ve seen up close, Housen’s obsession with violence was truly extraordinary.
“But you had a chance to win, too, didn’t you?”
A few days before, Sudou was KO’d by Housen only because he got baited.
In a situation that required one to keep their opponent in their sights, Housen used Horikita as bait to make Sudou expose his defenseless side.
It turned out to be fatal for Sudou, and ended the fight with his defeat.
“Who knows… In a real, serious fight, I don’t think I can win against him.”
Sudou was definitely not weak. If Sudou, who had excellent physical ability and coordination, talked about Housen like this, he was not one to be trifled with.
Even carefully selected people such as Horikita’s older brother, Horikita Manabu, who had studied martial arts, or Albert, who was born with a remarkable body, could not beat Housen in a fight.
“Hey- that’s not what I wanted to talk about! My affairs don’t matter.”
At that moment, Sudou looked at my face.
“You… you surpassed that monster Housen’s strength and stopped him. I’m not wrong, am I?”
Something like “I reflexively used more power than I normally can” certainly wouldn’t work on Sudou anymore.
It’s natural for him to associate that with, “this guy also got a perfect score in math, so it’s not surprising.”
And there were things he could see only because of his fondness for Horikita.
“And you’re sure it wasn’t just a misunderstanding, Sudou?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
Sudou grabbed my biceps with his right hand.
To confirm how powerful my muscles were, Sudou lightly gripped them several times and said, “I’ve had this feeling since last year, when I saw you at the pool. You weren’t even participating in any club activities, but you had a super muscular body. It’s hard to tell with clothes on, but those firm muscles… you wouldn’t get those without considerable training.”
Sudou has focused on his body and trained regularly. There was no point in trying to fool him anymore.
Saying something like I work out on my own after getting out of bed has no chance of convincing him.
He wasn’t merely watching. When touched like this, my body itself would tell him the truth.
“Speaking of that, your grip strength when we measured it before the sports festival was around 60kg, right?”
Sudou gradually thought back about last year.
“That time, I already thought that was amazing… but you were holding back. How much can you grip exactly?”
“Who knows. I honestly don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t remember ever measuring my grip strength properly.”
“How is that even possible? We have physical evaluations so many times in primary and middle school!”
I honestly don’t remember.
Of course, there were periodical physical examinations in the white room. They collected vastly more data than what a normal school’s physical examinations would measure.
However, only the instructor would know those things.
The instructor wouldn’t bother telling individual students the details of their values.
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