The living room after dinner was quiet. Following their usual division of labor, Minami was left to handle the dishes while Miyuki brought a cup of coffee to Tatsuya. As she set her own cup on the side table and took a seat beside him, Tatsuya spoke in a soothing, level voice.
"Given his position as the eldest son of the Shippou family, I suppose it's only natural for him to be ambitious."
"Onii-sama, whatever made you bring up the Shippou boy so suddenly?"
Miyuki tilted her head slightly, her hands folded neatly over her lap. Her posture wasn't strictly formal, but she wore a mask of innocence. Tatsuya, however, wasn't about to be fooled by her "public face."
"Even so, that doesn't mean we have to bend over backward for him. As long as you don't pick a fight, there's no need to be any friendlier than necessary."
"I would never dream of picking a fight."
Prompted by Tatsuya's roundabout warning, Miyuki turned her head away with a slight pout. Her reaction was proof enough that she possessed at least a shred of self-awareness. To put it mildly, the first meeting between Miyuki and the Shippou heir had been anything but friendly.
Of course, Miyuki hadn't been the one to start it. She had initially intended to graciously welcome the freshman representative who was to become their junior—but then things had taken a turn.
"Allow me to introduce him. This is Takuma Shippou-kun, who will be serving as this year's freshman representative."
In the Student Council room after school, Azusa introduced Takuma to the assembled officers. The boy offered a crisp, respectable bow. For a freshman, his attitude seemed perfectly ordinary—until it came time for Tatsuya to introduce himself following Isori.
"I'm Tatsuya Shiba, the Vice President. Good to meet you, Shippou-kun."
"Takuma... Shippou. It's an honor."
"...Shippou-kun?"
Azusa spoke up softly, noticing that Takuma wasn't looking at Tatsuya's face, but rather staring intently at the left side of his chest. Realizing he had been caught, Takuma's expression shifted into a momentary look of awkwardness before he forced a polite, if somewhat thin, smile.
"My apologies. I simply didn't recognize the gear emblem Shiba-senpai is wearing."
"Ah, I see. This is the emblem for the newly established Magic Engineering Course," Azusa explained.
"Is that so?"
Takuma's response was brief—a dismissive, disinterested grunt that bordered on rude, whether he intended it or not. Tatsuya didn't find it particularly offensive. He knew from engineering circles that the Shippou family's trump card, Million Edge, was a rare type of modern magic that didn't rely on CADs. Consequently, the family tended to look down on magic engineering. Tatsuya believed everyone was entitled to their own values; just because something was important to him didn't mean he could force others to share that sentiment.
For Miyuki, however, this was an unforgivable slight.
The arrogant tilt of his head, the insolent look in his eyes—this boy believed he was superior based on nothing but his lineage, looking down on others for no reason at all. To Miyuki, this freshman carried the exact same "scent" as the Course 1 students who had spent the previous year deriding her brother as a "weed." Beside her, Honoka was also glaring at Takuma with a similarly frosty intensity.
Unaware of the storm brewing, Takuma turned to the next person to continue his greetings. He hadn't come there to cause a scene; in fact, he wasn't even aware he had been rude. It wasn't that he was socially dense; rather, most would say that finding his behavior "rude" required a hypersensitive level of perception. Thus, he turned toward the next council member—Miyuki—without any particular mental preparation.
The fact that he visibly flinched the moment their eyes met must have been a deep humiliation for him. But he could hardly be blamed. Before him stood the descent of the Ice Queen. This wasn't the gentle presence of a "Blizzard Princess"; it was something far more absolute. To describe her expression as "coldly beautiful" would be a cliché, yet it was that very cliché that had once made former Student Council members feel as though they were entering a life-or-death struggle. She wasn't quite at that level of lethal intent yet, but the pressure she radiated was enough that Takuma's loss of composure was no mark of shame.
Takuma, however, didn't see it that way. A flash of resentment crossed his face, which he couldn't quite suppress. He quickly manufactured a ritualistic smile, but objectively speaking, it was a failure.
"I am also a Vice President, Miyuki Shiba."
"—Takuma Shippou. I look forward to working with you."
Matching her icy expression, Miyuki kept her introduction as brief as humanly possible. Takuma's voice trembled slightly—not from fear, but from a burgeoning rage. He was furious at himself for being intimidated by her. He possessed enough self-control not to vent that anger on others, but he was a boy of naturally volatile temperament. To keep himself in check, he ground his teeth together so hard it was impossible to hide.
The atmosphere between Miyuki and Takuma was anything but peaceful. As the air in the room grew increasingly heavy, Azusa began to look flustered. Had this been last year, Suzune would have stepped in to smooth things over, but Isori—who occupied a similar position this year—simply looked on, unsure of how to intervene.
Miyuki's behavior was admittedly a bit childish for an upperclassman, but Takuma's conduct was hardly becoming of a polite freshman. Furthermore, both Azusa and Isori were technically minded. Lacking the context that the Shippou family looked down on engineers, they were beginning to feel that Miyuki's anger was perhaps justified.
Tatsuya, the only one in the room capable of de-escalating the situation by rebuking Miyuki, simply observed Takuma's expression in silence. Honoka followed with her own introduction, and while she wasn't quite as terrifying as Miyuki, she too radiated a prickly aura of displeasure at the slight against Tatsuya. The heavy air in the room shifted into a jagged, awkward tension that persisted throughout the entire meeting.
Azusa and Isori did their best to manage the proceedings, but an irreparable rift had already formed between Takuma and the duo of Miyuki and Honoka. Secretly, Azusa found herself wishing there was some way to break the unwritten rule of inviting the freshman representative to join the Student Council.
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