Chapter 11: The Clean and Prosperous Designs of a Small Road

Sae stared intently at the back of the young man, who had outmanoeuvred her, making his way out of the guidance room.

'If I just let him go now, I feel as though my surefire route to class A will be out of my clutches.'

Yukio left the room, closing the doors behind, as Sae let out a massive breath of exhaustion.

'I guess I'll have to fall back on my original choice of Ayanokouji again. I'll watch him more closely and see if I can take hold of anything to use against him.'

Sae thought about Yukio's desire to live an easy life and wondered to what extent he'd go to achieve something of the sort. It had to be understood that ignorance was bliss, but Yukio was far from ignorant. And so to attain his bliss, there would need to be lots of schemes in the background.

'I can tell from his second favour that he has the capacity to be ruthless. I don't know what he's planning, but it's certainly not simple. And yet… why did he all but let me get away scot-free? What's this boy playing at? I guess I still have to be wary about that third favour of his.'

Reminiscing about his three favours, her thoughts couldn't help but drift back to his first request.

'Yukio is good… but the person behind him is scarily good too. To have guessed that Yukio would eventually have access to his own profile is astonishing. And clearly 'it' knows what would make him tick if his reaction to the comment about his mother was any clue. I think I'll avoid antagonising that boy… for now at least.'

In her self-reflection, Sae had missed the door slowly opening, and a head of light brown hair peering into the room.

"Sae-Chan~ What were you doing here alone with Kobayashi-Kun~?"

Sae Chabashira groaned.

'Not this woman again.'

— — —

Yukio was making his way up the elevator, to dorm room 401 which belonged to a certain 4th generation white room genius, as he thought of the favours he asked of Sae.

'Truthfully I only needed two favours. That third favour is a big brain move if I do say so myself. I have incriminating evidence on her, so having an available favour will make it so Sae doesn't worry about the audio being leaked or spread. And it also gives me an additional means to work with in the future. Genius!'

While tooting his own horn, he stepped off the metal box and into the corridor. This would be his first, proper, interaction with Ayanokouji after that attempt at one on the first day.

Knocking on the door, a voice from inside responded in affirmation, before the door opened to a slightly shorter brown-hair and brown-eyed boy with a fair complexion. The boy donned the neutral expression that anime fans had such a penchant for.

"Hi, Ayanokouji-Kun. Apologies for earlier. My conversation with Sensei went on longer than I expected."

"That's fine Kobayashi-San. Please come in. Would you like tea or juice?"

"Then I'll be intruding. And juice would be great, thank you."

While slightly bowing, Yukio entered the barren dorm room with nary a personal touch. Deciding to take a seat on the desk chair, he watched Ayanokouji working around the kitchen preparing the drinks, and then walking over and serving them, before taking a seat on the bed.

"So Kobayashi-Kun, what did you want to talk about?"

Yukio looked at the boy sitting in front of him and thought about how to deliver the words he had in mind. Asking to meet Ayanokouji had been an action that he did in the spur of the moment, but now it would be too awkward to revoke the request when he had already been given an audience.

"There are a few things I'd like to discuss with you, Ayanokouji-Kun. But before I start, I wanted to express that I don't mean to offend you in any way."

After delivering an odd disclaimer, Yukio went on to say-

"Ayanokouji-Kun, I want your help in preventing Horikita from being isolated and bullied by the class."

Ayanokouji raised an eyebrow at this and dropped a comment about Kushida's similar interaction with him in the past.

"Oh? That's an amusing coincidence. But my appeal comes from Hirata, as you can probably guess. He's worried that the taciturn girl will dig herself into a hole, and the class will turn against her, especially with emotions on a high after the news Sensei delivered this morning."

"I understand where he is coming from, but Horikita and I are not friends. We have a… sort of partnership due to being desk-mates but I can't convince her to change her ways."

"Well, I'm sure asking you to change her ways would be a bit of a stretch. But no, what we thought up was for Horikita to share any of her findings and information with the class to at least build a sense of unity."

'Especially with what I'm planning to do. The class will be plunged into a state like in the tenth volume where everyone was on their toes, worrying about how to handle themselves, and the flaws of others will be pounced on. I need Horikita to contribute to the class, or she'll be regarded as worthless.'

"I can at least try that I suppose. Is that why you antagonised her in the guidance room?"

"Hm… partially. A sense of competition should also help her integrate I believe. But mostly because it's fun to annoy a prideful girl like her, Ha Ha."

Yukio laughed, remembering the cute little comeback she threw at him before leaving the guidance room. If she heard his thoughts, she'd probably slaughter him, but that was the beauty of inner thoughts.

"Anyways, thank you, Ayanokouji-Kun. Also, the other thing I wanted to talk about with you…"

'Well, protecting Horikita is great, but I wouldn't want Ayanokouji to be caught in the crossfire either!'

While adjusting his seating position to make him more comfortable for the awkward request he would have to make, he continued-

"…I think you should consider some new friends. Ike and Yaumachi don't have the best reputation in class and I've heard some of my friends talking bad about even you for hanging around them. And I couldn't help but eavesdrop when I heard Yamauchi shamelessly ask you to buy his console. Honestly, those boys need to grow up."

Ayanokouji looked perturbed at the fact that the young adult was critiquing his group of friends, but Yukio could not be sure what exactly was going on in the genius's head.

"I know this is a presumptuous thing for me to say, but I want the best for my classmates too! I know Akito-San who sits in front of you doesn't interact with many of us in the class besides Hasebe-San, but I've seen him around and he's a pretty cool guy. If you could consider this advice I'd be glad as your classmate, though I don't want to impose on you."

'Man… telling someone his friends are stupid and to find new ones is too awkward. Well, it's now out of the way. Time to make my getaway!'

"Umm… I guess I can consider it, Kobayashi-San."

"That's all I'm asking for, Ayanokouji-Kun. Well, I'll leave you to stew over what I've said. See you tomorrow."

And with that, Yukio all but ran away back to his room before jumping in the bed and thinking about his hectic day.

'Who knew living the easy life would be so hard? Trying to portray an idiot with only friendship and unity in his mind to Ayanokouji was hard. Acting like a judgy and bratty teenager with something to say on everything he sees was even harder!'

Thinking back on the way the white-room student responded to him, Yukio felt assured that Ayanokouji saw him as a nosy individual- a typical popular teen with a say on everything, maybe. But that didn't matter because Yukio just wanted to plant an idea in the genius's mind.

'But he seems slightly apprehensive around me too. Was it because of the display of confidence in the guidance room? No. Even during our first ever conversation, he was acting reserved around me. Am I looking too deep into it?'

Thinking that he was reading too far into things, he put the stray thoughts to the back of his mind and thought of how to enjoy his next few days until Sae found an opportunity to show him his student profile.

'Should I invite Chiaki and Nene round for a study session after school tomorrow? We can even discuss the events from this morning since we didn't get much of a chance to at lunch with all the moaning of a certain clique. Yeah… let's do that.'

Pulling out his phone, he opened the 3 participant group chat and was about to type up a text when he suddenly began to feel skittish about inviting them round to his room.

'I'm just inviting them round for a study session. And it's not like I'm inviting only one girl. Plus I've spent quite a while around them and we're all pretty close to each other now. Inviting them to my room shouldn't be weird.'

Not letting the apprehension get to him, he typed up a text and sent it, before he could overthink it.

'What's the worst that happens? They say no, maybe. It's not like they're suddenly going to unfriend me and run away. I haven't grown so chummy with them this past month for

something stupid like that to happen.'

Yukio: [Hey, would you two like to come over for a study session for midterms tomorrow? We can discuss the things from this morning too.]

Chiaki: [That sounds great!]

Nene: [Yukio-Kun, since we're coming over could you make us some food too?!]

Yukio: [I don't know… I've been low on points recently :(]

Nene: [Low?! You have 40,000 more than me.]

Chiaki: [Dont be a miser, Yukio-Kun.]

Yukio: [Oh, alright. What would you like?]

Nene: [Why did you agree to her so easily?! Yukio-Kun, that's unfair treatment! But will you make me some of your grilled fish and Oyakodon.]

Yukio: [Who said I was feeding your bottomless stomach, Nene-Chan? ;)]

And while sifting through the slew of angry emoticons that Nene sent, Yukio laughed and tucked himself under the covers, trying to remember the last time he had had so much fun with friends.

'The easy life… it's not so bad.'