7.5
“YOU’RE LATE, Kikyou. What, couldn’t slip past your classmates?” asked Ryuuen.
“What are you plotting, Ryuuen-kun?” Kushida demanded. She drew closer to Ryuuen on the isolated rooftop.
“Huh?” said Ryuuen.
“The questions and answers you gave me were completely different than the ones on the exam.”
“Oh, yeah. I switched ’em out before the deadline. What about it?” Ryuuen snorted derisively, then took a sip of bottled water.
“I told you, didn’t I? I will get Horikita expelled, no matter what. I betrayed my classmates and switched out our questions on the condition that you gave me the math test answers. If you kept your promise, Horikita
would’ve dropped out of school. But you betrayed me,” said Kushida.
“What? You mad about something so trivial?”
“Trivial? You want to win against Class D and give us nothing in return?”
“You’re mistaken, Kikyou. Your questions weren’t used on the exam,” replied Ryuuen.
“Huh? What are you even talking about? I turned them in right away, just as you instructed me to. I even confirmed everything with Chabashira-sensei.”
“You really haven’t noticed? Suzune acted ahead of time to stop the school from formally accepting your questions. Thanks to that, not only did we lose, we just barely avoided catastrophe. Everyone in my class depended on that strategy,” said Ryuuen.
“Wait. Ahead of time? That’s… No way.”
“Go ahead and wait for the results if you doubt me. In all likelihood, Class C lost to Class D. That rendered our agreement invalid. I’m not giving you the correct test questions if I get nothing in return,” said Ryuuen.
“Grrr!”
“Listen, Kikyou. There’s no room for grudges here. How about showing me some gratitude instead?”
“Gratitude? I just lost to Horikita! What should I be grateful for?!” Kushida recalled the humiliation she’d felt at admitting defeat in front of Horikita. She was so enraged that she felt her blood boiling.
“So trusting, to get snared without even knowing it,” taunted Ryuuen. Grabbing Kushida’s uniform, he forcefully unfastened a button on her blazer and reached inside.
“Hey, what are you doing?!” shouted Kushida, backing away to put some distance between herself and Ryuuen. Ryuuen smiled.
“Come on. I’m not doing anything. Go ahead, look in your pocket,” he said.
“In my pocket?” Still on her guard, Kushida slowly reached into her blazer. She felt paper, which she didn’t expect. “What is this?”
Ryuuen couldn’t have had enough time to put something in her pocket just then. That meant he’d placed the paper there beforehand. When Kushida unfolded it, she found a list of questions and answers for the math test.
However, they weren’t the questions that were actually on the exam in the end. They were the ones Ryuuen had supposedly given her.
“Why were these in my uniform?”
“That’s probably not all there is. I assume that several pieces of evidence of cheating are scattered throughout your belongings. I’m sure you’ll see them if you go digging later,” said Ryuuen.
“I don’t understand,” said Kushida.
“Someone in Class D was prepared to go for the kill. What if I had still given you the right questions? Come on. Say you scored really high on the exam and then someone accused you of cheating, and they found those papers? What do you think would happen then?”
“Wait, you mean I’d be expelled?! Even though I didn’t cheat? That’s stupid!” Kushida balked.
“If you were innocent, it would be stupid. But you got your hands on the questions beforehand by working with me. There’d be nothing you could do about it,” said Ryuuen.
Of course, Kushida could have claimed she was framed. Even if she pulled through, however, it would’ve tainted her reputation. She had received the questions and answers from Ryuuen, after all. It wasn’t against the rules for someone to offer their class’s questions to another class, but it was considered disgraceful. That probably would’ve invalidated Kushida’s test results and threatened her position in Class D, even if she avoided expulsion. Class C would have been in grave danger, too.
“When did this cheat sheet get in my—?”
“You really don’t have any clue? Have you noticed any strange people around?”
“No way, it can’t… No, wait. I went to our final test meeting at a karaoke room last week with Horikita and the others. I suppose something weird did happen back then. A girl got angry and poured her juice on me for some reason. Afterward, she asked if she could take my blazer to the cleaners. It was understandable, given that situation, but…for some reason, it keeps nagging at me,” said Kushida.
“Let me guess who that girl was. Karuizawa Kei,” said Ryuuen.
“H-how did you know? Don’t tell me you saw?”
“How could I have seen? It’s simple deduction,” said Ryuuen. He tapped his finger against the side of his head for emphasis. “Explain what happened from the beginning.”
Though Kushida felt disoriented, she told Ryuuen everything that had transpired in the karaoke room. She explained that Horikita and Hirata had invited everyone, and that Ayanokouji, Sudou, and Karuizawa all sat together. In the middle of their meeting, Karuizawa started a fight and poured juice on her.
After quietly listening, Ryuuen took his deduction a step further. “No doubt in my mind. Someone set a trap for you.”
“That’s not possible. It’s true that my blazer went to the cleaners, but I checked my pockets when I got it back. Besides, the clerk would’ve told me if there was something inside it!” she said. “So even if she did try to trick me back then, it would’ve been futile.”
“Sure, it would’ve been almost unfeasible. But that’s not what Karuizawa was going for. Did someone want to know whether you had a spare uniform?”
“A spare? That’s impossible,” said Kushida.
“What makes you say that with such certainty?”
“Are you trying to say that everyone there set a trap for me, and I couldn’t see right through it? I’m not an idiot. I observe everyone’s behavior. If they were lying to me, I definitely would’ve noticed.”
“Well, you’re probably right about that. However, only one or two people at most lied to you,” said Ryuuen.
“Huh? How would—”
“If someone there read the situation perfectly, then it’s likely that person deceived you. Someone who could figure out everyone’s thought processes, behavioral tics, and habits. Someone who guessed what kind of remarks they’d make. Someone who could read all those things perfectly. Someone who wrote the script, so that you’d act your part in their play,” said Ryuuen.
Kushida denied it, but then thought back on what had happened. Hirata was consistently a pacifist. He would worry about Kushida’s blazer being stained, and would want to placate Karuizawa’s unreasonable anger. And, because the meeting took place right before the test, he would definitely ask how many blazers Kushida had.
“Once they learned that you had one blazer, the only thing left to do was plant the cheat sheet on you during gym class. Besides, it would be pretty normal if you didn’t touch your pockets until a day or two after you got your blazer back from the cleaners. There were probably lots of other times they could have done their handiwork. The real question is, who came up with the idea? It wasn’t Suzune or Karuizawa. They aren’t the kind of girls who could do something like that,” said Ryuuen.
“So, you’re saying I was tricked? By who?”
“Shortly before the test, a letter accusing Ichinose of doing something illegal went out, right?”
“Yeah, the letter you tried to trap her with, Ryuuen. Why did you do that? She didn’t even do anything.”
“It was part of the mastermind’s strategy,” said Ryuuen.
“Huh?”
“I wasn’t the one who sent that letter. The person from Class D who set you up did it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Do you really think I’d put a letter accusing Ichinose of fraud in every single first-year student’s mailbox and deliberately add my own name to it? Well, putting my own personality aside, it was only natural that everyone thought that I did it,” said Ryuuen.
“If it wasn’t you, then you should’ve just denied it.”
“Do you really think I would do that?”
“No.” Kushida understood immediately. Ryuuen tended to pursue things that excited him. If someone sent out letters and put Ryuuen’s name on them, Ryuuen would find it tantalizing. Furthermore, because he hadn’t heard any rumors of Ichinose’s supposed fraudulent activities before, he’d be tempted to learn more.
Then why had someone deliberately put down Ryuuen’s name as the sender? Because an anonymous message had less credibility. The allegations might’ve been disregarded entirely.
“But what was the letter’s point? To put you on your guard?” said Kushida.
“Who knows? I’ve thought about it at length, but it’s still unclear. Did the culprit simply want to know whether Ichinose had a lot of points? Or maybe… No, that’s impossible. Couldn’t be something that stupid,” said Ryuuen. Whatever he’d considered was just far too removed from reality.
Either way, the strategy had been well prepared and flawlessly executed. Ryuuen’s interest in the person he called “X” had only increased.
“Hey, Kikyou. I don’t know anything about your past, and I’m not interested. However, if you keep trying to get Horikita kicked out of school, you’re going to disappear. Get it?”
“You’re in a dangerous position yourself, aren’t you? If Class C loses collective points for this exam, isn’t that bad?”
“Yep. With this stroke of luck, your class probably has a chance of being promoted to C,” said Ryuuen.
“How does it feel to be knocked down a peg by the ‘defectives’ in Class D?”
Ryuuen seemed completely indifferent, even after being hit with Kushida’s tenacious instigation. He’d never cared about that from the beginning.
“I feel like I don’t have a care in the world right now. Whether it’s Class A or D, they’re all just letters in the end. We’re only scratching the surface of our battle,” said Ryuuen.
“What do you mean?”
Of course, Ryuuen couldn’t answer her. However, his objective hadn’t changed one bit since he’d started at the school. While there had been moments when he stumbled, his preparations to reach Class A were still progressing smoothly.
“Do your absolute best, and reach for the upper classes,” said Ryuuen, turning and starting to walk away.
“Wait—the cheat sheet! Something’s not right here!”
“Heh.”
“What’s this all about? Tell me, Ryuuen!”
“You noticed?”
The contradiction that dawned on her had her reeling with doubt. A new problem was growing.
“Why did someone in Class D have these test questions? Only you and I should have them. I just can’t figure it out.”
“Because I gave them to X, I suppose,” said Ryuuen.
“So, you betrayed me?”
“No. It was a necessary deal.”
Ryuuen’s eyes lowered to his cell phone. On it were pictures of the questions and answers before he’d changed them. He had sent those pictures to an unidentified email address.
“However, X understands me very well,” he added.
He’d received a message from X with the word “Transaction” in the subject line. The message read as follows: Provide me with the questions and answers that Class C devised for our final exam, or make significant changes to the questions you gave Kushida Kikyou.
Normally, Ryuuen wouldn’t dignify that with a response. However, moments earlier, X had freely given him information beneficial to Class C with no strings attached, by warning him that Horikita Suzune had seen through Ryuuen’s plans and taken preemptive action to get her questions approved instead of Kushida’s. That had come as quite the shock to Ryuuen, whose whole strategy depended on the questions he thought Kushida had submitted. Without X’s warning, the Class C students who didn’t study enough might’ve failed.
Knowing that, Ryuuen had had three options.
The first was to defy X and give Kushida the correct questions for the math test, letting her win her bet against Horikita. However, Ryuuen wanted to avoid Horikita being expelled at all costs.
The second was to leave the test questions as they were and let Kushida’s cheating be exposed, so she’d get kicked out of school. However, Ryuuen didn’t want to give X exactly what he wanted. Playing into X’s ideal scenario was no fun.
The final option, and the one Ryuuen eventually chose, was to give Kushida the wrong questions and let Horikita win.
“So, X protected Suzune while managing to keep you in check, Kikyou,” said Ryuuen. Suzune was fighting on the front lines, but this person was doing some adept work behind the scenes. When Ryuuen had realized that X turned his strategy to use Kushida against him, he’d barely held back his laughter. “But I’m about to drive him into a corner. If he doesn’t reveal his identity—”
Ryuuen pulled up an image on his phone—the same image he’d sent the mysterious mastermind. The person in the photograph would be instrumental to discovering X’s identity.
“Then I’m going to destroy her.”
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