Chapter 4 Part II

Shortly after pouring out her feelings, Horikita stopped crying.

However, because she had not yet recovered her strength, she was still sitting on the ground. I stood by her, quietly waiting for time to pass.

It was extremely fortunate that there was no one nearby, so no one else witnessed this scene.

That's great."

"What's great about that. You seeing me like this, it's extremely humiliating to me…"

Originally, I planned on comforting her a little, but that wouldn't be so simple.

"Well, maybe so."

That's why she wanted to stay alone before. If I wasn't here, then nobody would see her crying.

"Since you've already seen it, I'll just face forward."

"Face forward?"

"…You seeing me like this is a great thing. That's what I've decided."

Horikita felt relieved from the bottom of her heart and let out a sigh. This was not an expression that looked like she wanted other students to see it unnecessarily.

"So I'm going to share this scene with Keisei and the others then."

I took out my phone and pointed my camera at her.

"Do you want me to kill you?"

After seeing the bright red eyes that were glaring at me, I immediately put my phone away.

"I'm just kidding."

"Seeing that you made such a boring joke, I seem to need to teach you what TPO is."

TL note: TPO states for "time, place, occasion."

Seeing how she can still talk this much, there shouldn't be a problem now.

"…This feels like, last year, a similar situation occurred."

"Maybe it did."

Although the location was different, I remembered a certain night when we had a conversation between the two of us. Horikita, who had just reunited with her brother, had sunk into a state of loss. Today's situation was clearly the opposite, but there was an unexplainable sense of Deja Vu.

"I wonder why I always make blunders when I'm with you. I even sit next to you."

She was saying that since the beginning of school, we had some sort of incredible predetermined relationship. It seems like no matter if that was the case, Horikita wasn't too happy with it.

"Why not let me see you when you make blunders?"

Horikita lamented the unfairness of her fate.

"A blunder. Didn't you see it already? I lost against Sakayanagi in our chess match."

"That's not a blunder, that's just simple defeat.".

It seemed like this wasn't acceptable to her.

"Well, you should look forward to it after we become 2nd-year students."

"It seems like that's the only choice. I'll carefully add it to my list of events I'm looking forward to in the future."

It seemed that no matter what, she wanted to get revenge on me for seeing her cry today. But even so, it was still extremely shocking, thinking about how Horikita cut her hair short.

"If they saw you, everyone would be surprised."

There would be students who wanted to slowly change their image, but they wouldn't go as far as doing this.

"They can be as surprised as they want, I'm fine with it."

Horikita said the opinions of other people didn't matter, and there was no need to pay attention to it. Sudo will probably immediately be the first to talk about this. There were only a few days of the spring break left, and rumours would probably spread during this time… No, if there were witnesses already, it may have already spread.

"Talking about this might be a bit eh, but do you still remember the battle we decided on yesterday?"

"Of course."

"About my request for you if I win, I've thought about it."

"Hey… I thought you would bring this up later. To try to attack me mentally."

"No, I didn't think about it too much, I simply just hadn't thought about it before."

Horikita urged me to quickly tell her what I wanted, even though she was a little suspicious about it.

"If I win, you will join the student council."

"… We've talked about this matter before."

Previously, I had already asked Horikita if she was interested in joining the student council. Even though I had called the elder Horikita during then, he allowed me to make my own decisions. But in the end, she ended up refusing.

"Mhm. Will you accept my request?"

"Although I'm not interested in joining the student council….Fine. As long as I win, there'll be no problem."

Horikita said that if she won there would be no problems, and agreed on it.

"But I won't guarantee that I'll be allowed to join the student council, okay?"

"Don't worry. Nagumo is the type to welcome anyone in."

He was very different from Horikita Manabu, who rejected the overwhelming majority of applicants. In addition, since Suzune was Manabu's sister, there is no way Nagumo would flat out refuse.

"Can you tell me why you want me to join the Student Council."

"That's a secret. I'll wait until you lose."

"This is making me uncomfortable, would it even matter if you told me now?"

"You're thinking about what will happen when you lose again?"

"…Of course not. Because I'll definitely win, I just wanted to ask in advance. And besides, you won't tell me because you know you'll lose."

Deciding on the outcome of the battle, I didn't tell the significance behind my reasoning.

"Your brother has been concerned about the matter of Nagumo. That's why I'm doing it."

"So you're saying you want me to monitor the student council president?"

"Exactly."

"So brother requested you to do this."

Horikita looked at me with a bit of discontent.

"Because his relationship with you back then wasn't so good, so he was forced to request it from me."

If their relationship was good, he would have told Horikita this from the beginning.

"Don't act modest. My brother paid the most attention to you out of anyone in this school. If it weren't for that, he wouldn't have called you here today when he set off on his new journey. Really… why is it always you?"

Horikita stood up slowly, complaining about this.

"I better not think about this. I'll try to think about something else."

If she didn't do that, her body would be overwhelmed, so Horikita cast it to the corners of her mind.

"Horikita, there's one last thing I wanted to confirm with you."

"What else do you want, don't tell me you're going to say something strange again?"

"It's about Kushida. Let me briefly explain my thoughts and the current situation."

Hearing this kind of statement she didn't know anything about, Horikita frowned, her face flabbergasted, eyebrows knit.

"Current situation?"

In order to prevent Kushida from going out of control, I signed a contract with her. The contents of the contract said that I had to give her half of the personal points I received each month to protect myself from her. That way, I'll be able to remove myself as one of her targets."

"Are…you stupid? Recklessly signing such a contract?"

"I did it to gain her trust."

"Even so, this is way too stupid, half of your points every month is way too much."

"Because I wouldn't be able to change Kushida's feelings if I hadn't done so. That being said, because you exposed her in public, the trust is gone."

Rather than say she was dissatisfied with me, she'd probably reentered a state of suspicion again.

"Really… I'm even starting to doubt whether you're actually powerful or not."

Although I understood she was in no mood to speak, this topic wasn't over yet.

"And so, why did you tell me this?"

"Because I believe that signing this contract will not affect me in the future."

"So repeatedly giving away half your points won't affect you?"

"Because if Kushida drops out of school, the risk would be reduced to 0."

Hearing what I just said, Horikita's hand froze. Then she looked at me, her eyes still slightly red.

"Just then, you just calmly said something extremely serious. Is that a joke?"

"I was planning to get Kushida expelled before. No, even now, I think it'd be best for her to be expelled."

"You're not…joking?"

"Yeah. This summer, I was thinking I would eliminate Kushida."

In reality, it wasn't like there were no opportunities to get rid of her.

"But——Since you told me about it, that means that the situation has changed, right?"

"Mhm, I wanted to leave the decision to you."

I hadn't decided yet, and instead left the decision to Horikita. That's why I told her about it now.

"Are you not clear with this. I don't plan to expel Kushida. Actually, I don't plan to expel any classmate that negligently."

It seems that this ideal of hers was getting increasingly set in stone.

"But I don't intend to have naive thoughts like Hirata-kun does. There are indeed classmates that stand on the dividing line of being sacrificed. Of course, future contributions might allow for these people to be replaced by someone else."

In other words, she would make the decision on who will get expelled if something like the Class Vote happened again.

"What if Kushida contributed the least?"

"Then, of course, she will be the candidate for being expelled."

It seems that she wasn't lying.

"But the possibility of her falling to the bottom of the class is very low."

"I know that. Because from what can be seen, Kushida is contributing a lot."

She was capable academically and physically, and she also stood in the position as a necessary figure in the class. Although she took a certain amount of damage after Yamauchi's dropout, the effect was not fatal on her.

"I believe that I can leave this to you, that's why I told you about this. However, as you grow and become the core of our class, Kushida will become a troublesome existence."

Knowing about the past Kushida, I couldn't just erase it from my memory.

"So you want to get rid of her in advance?"

"Yeah, that's what I want. After all, she won't be naive enough to cooperate just because by simply persuading her to.

"I can't deny that as well. I've already understood that half-heartedly trying to persuade and talk to her is meaningless.."

Knowing that, she still intended to accept Kushida? Before, I would think that she was being naive, but not anymore.

"In that case, then I have nothing more to say."

"You!… Were you planning to set Kushida up during the Class Vote?"

"That would only make a hash of things. Although she assisted Yamauchi, our classmates still trusted her a lot."

"That, that is true. There's no indication that you're going to move as well…but since you've told me, it's safe to say that I have total control over the matter of Kushida, right?"

"Mhm. I promise to not do anything."

I'll have to leave it to Horikita to decide what choices should be made in the future.

"The reason for you telling me this, is it because you've already overcome that obstacle?"

"Unfortunately, I'm not that optimistic. I'm still in the process of figuring out how to get rid of Kushida."

"Yes, but why?"

After being asked by Horikita, I had no choice but to consider the reasons.

"Haven't thought about it?"

"Yeah… What I'm doing now is not efficient."

If the future was taken into consideration, silently expelling Kushida would definitely be the correct decision. However, I didn't do it. Instead, I left the decision to Horikita. The reason for this was…

"I want to see how you're going to overcome that obstacle….I guess."

I wasn't confident with the answer I racked my brain to produce, but there was no other reason.

"Maybe."

"I thought so. Being sceptical of what you say seems to be better."

Horikita, who had fully recovered, took a step forward.

"I'm heading back, how about you?"

"I want to stay here for a while."

Horikita simply said goodbye and went in the direction of the dormitory. Perhaps she'll remember what happened today and cry during the middle of the night. But for the time being, this wouldn't be a problem.

I thought about yesterday's conversation with Ichinose, the existence of Sakayanagi, and the growth of Ryuen and Horikita.

I looked forward to it, a confrontation between the four classes.

After another year passed, how would it change?

There was a large number of things that could make them grow.

The words left to me by Horikita Manabu still remained in my heart.

Becoming a student remembered by other students.

"What a terrible parting gift…"

The things I could do to remain in the other students' memories. That would be to assist other students, and allow them to grow.

Then let these students who had grown compete against each other, and aim towards a higher position as the goal.

As I imagined myself in a scene standing in that position… that's right, you can say it would make my heart beat faster.

I've always felt that this was interesting.

Involuntarily analysing the strength of other classes and having it pop up in my mind.

The results that could be seen after 1 year. Regardless of which class, they were all seeking growth. The weakness of the strong. it created feelings of excitement within me. But on the other hand, I felt my heart rapidly cooling down.

"What I seek is to live peacefully day by day…that was originally the case."

Today was the first time I noticed there was a filter around/installed in my heart/mind. The existence known as my heart had indeed grown beyond expectations during the past year. No, it's still growing now.

I have to confirm it myself. I asked myself. But it doesn't work. As if my own convictions didn't connect with myself.

My own superficiality was being shredded to pieces and coming off, or was that all?

I can't help but sense a black substance, something similar to unease.

Will I——

Will I still be at this school the same time next year?——

The pitch black darkness I couldn't quite describe——Wrapped around me.