The evening breeze carried a hint of coolness, sweeping through the quiet small park beside the dormitory building.
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka and Horikita Suzune sat side by side on a bench,
waiting for the participants of the upcoming "celebration party."
The atmosphere was subtly stagnant.
"The class points have been updated."
Ayanokoji broke the silence,
his gaze on his phone screen, and read out the data in a flat tone.
"Class A, 1082 points. Class B, 956 points. Class C, 902 points. Our Class D... 87 points."
He paused, then added,
"To be honest, aiming for Class A is a bit unrealistic. No, it should be said that aiming for any other class currently seems almost like a fantasy."
Horikita Suzune's gaze was cast towards the gradually setting sun in the distance,
her profile looking resolute in the twilight.
"I will not give up."
Her voice was clear, without the slightest waver,
"The goal is still Class A; that has never changed."
"Is that so?"
Ayanokoji asked softly, his gaze not leaving his phone.
"What?"
"Nothing."
Ayanokoji closed his phone,
"I just thought, it's a good thing you're here."
He paused, seemingly thinking how to express himself.
"Thank you for helping those three idiots."
Horikita was silent for a moment before replying:
"I was just thinking for the class."
"Then you really put in a lot of effort. The change... is quite significant."
Ayanokoji said.
He could tell how much Horikita had conceded and changed her attitude and methods to make the study session go smoothly,
and to make those three problematic students listen at least a little.
Compared to her cold, stubborn, and distant demeanor at the beginning of the school year,
she was practically a different person.
"Change... is it really that significant?"
Horikita asked, seemingly a little concerned.
"It really is."
Ayanokoji replied affirmatively,
"It's a good change. If it were still like the beginning of the school year, you'd probably be stabbing me with a compass right now."
As soon as he finished speaking, Horikita's face instantly darkened.
The next second, she actually pulled out a shiny compass from somewhere and stabbed it into Ayanokoji's arm without hesitation!
It hurt.
By the way, why did she actually stab me...? He expressionlessly looked at the tiny red dot on his arm,
and then at Horikita's icy expression that seemed to say, "Try spouting nonsense again," and decided to remain silent.
Soon after, the celebration party began in Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's somewhat plain dormitory room.
A picnic mat was spread on the floor,
piled with various snacks and drink cans.
The idiot trio sat on the floor without any regard for their image, making noise;
Ayanokoji himself sat on the only chair in the room, looking unconcerned;
Horikita Suzune and Kushida Kikyo sat side by side on the edge of the bed, with a strangely clear division of areas.
"Hey, Ayanokoji! Don't look so glum! You should be happy at a time like this!"
Ike Kanji shouted, his mouth full of potato chips, his words muffled.
Ayanokoji expressionlessly retorted:
"Why does the celebration party have to be in my room?"
His question was quickly drowned out by even louder noise.
"This time was really close!"
Ike Kanji swallowed his food and exclaimed with lingering fear, immediately sparking a conversation.
They talked about the recently concluded exam,
and naturally mentioned Yamauchi Haruki's unexpected improvement in scores.
"Yo, Yamauchi, you did pretty well this time! Could it be to chase after someone? I heard that person got perfect scores in all subjects again?"
Ike Kanji teased, winking.
"Wh-what nonsense are you talking about!"
Yamauchi Haruki's face instantly turned red,
he hastily denied it, but his gaze was a little evasive.
The topic then shifted to Sudo Ken's incredibly close 41 points.
"Sudo, 41 points in English! Awesome! One point less and you would have been finished!"
Ike Kanji patted Sudo's shoulder.
Sudo snorted, seeming a little scared in hindsight, and subconsciously said:
"Yeah, I almost... But speaking of which, the 'past exam papers' Kushida gave us before were completely useless! The question types all changed! Luckily, Horikita made us learn some real stuff..."
As soon as the words left his mouth,
Sudo himself froze, seemingly realizing he had said the wrong thing.
In an instant,
the air in the room seemed to freeze.
Ayanokoji and Horikita quickly exchanged glances,
both seeing surprise in each other's eyes.
Kushida Kikyo's perfectly sweet smile also stiffened for a moment,
although it quickly recovered,
that momentary unnaturalness did not escape everyone's notice.
"Ah! No! I mean... thanks to Horikita's study session! Really! Thank you so much!"
Sudo hastily tried to salvage the situation,
awkwardly changing the subject and thanking Horikita again.
Yamauchi and Ike also immediately reacted,
and quickly followed suit, loudly thanking Horikita again, trying to cover up the slip of the tongue.
Kushida Kikyo's smile remained bright,
but upon closer inspection,
a hint of gloom flickered deep in her eyes.
Ayanokoji and Horikita tacitly did not pursue the matter on the spot.
The celebration party continued in a somewhat strange atmosphere,
and eventually ended hastily.
After everyone left,
only Kushida Kikyo remained, actively helping to clean up the messy room.
As she collected the empty cans, she casually asked Ayanokoji in a low voice:
"Ayanokoji-kun, you and Horikita-san... your relationship seems to have become quite good?"
"Do you... like Horikita-san?"
Ayanokoji expressionlessly denied:
"Nothing of the sort."
Kushida blinked, did not press further, and just smiled:
"I see."
After cleaning up, Kushida politely said goodbye and left.
The moment the door closed,
Ayanokoji's indifference on his face slightly faded,
he took out his phone, preparing to communicate with Horikita.
The two decided to discuss the unexpected discovery that "Kushida also possessed and distributed the exam papers."
However,
Kushida Kikyo did not return to the dormitory as she had said.
She came alone to the edge of the dormitory area,
at the railing facing the vast sea.
The night sea breeze grew stronger, disheveling her hair and scattering the meticulously maintained, flawless sweet mask from her face.
Her chest rose and fell slightly, as if she was trying hard to suppress something.
Finally, she suddenly lifted her head, her hands tightly gripping the cold metal railing.
Facing the direction of the waves crashing against the shore in the darkness, she could no longer restrain herself and hissed in a low voice, full of venom and anger, completely contrary to her usual image:
"Horikita Suzune... that damned Horikita Suzune!"
"What's with the pretense of being noble! What's with the airs! She's just an unpopular, reclusive girl!"
"Why! Why does she get all the attention! It should be me! It's me who's been maintaining the class! It's me who's been helping everyone! Those idiots should be thanking me!"
"And that Sakamoto from Class 1-A! What kind of fake test papers did he give! They were completely false! Useless! Is he playing games with people?!"
"Every single one of them... every single one of them is going against me! They're all hindering me!"
"Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!!!"
She furiously kicked the railing, venting the dark emotions that had accumulated in her heart for a long time; her usually clear and friendly eyes now only held distorted jealousy and hatred.
This was Kushida Kikyo's true appearance, stripped of all pretense.
Just as she was immersed in her frantic outburst, exposing her most unsightly side to the lonely sea breeze—
In the dark sea in the distance, an unusual moving object was cutting through the waves at an astonishing speed, heading straight towards her!
Kushida's angry curses abruptly stopped.
She suddenly froze, looking at the sea with a mixture of surprise and uncertainty.
What was that?
Using the streetlights and the faint starlight, she could barely make out—it was a human figure!
The person was standing on the surface of the sea in an incredible way, gliding steadily towards her.
Under his feet were not surfboards or any common nautical tools, but... two extremely thin, strangely shaped wing-like boards.
No, more precisely, they looked more like a pair of modified twin-tip skis!
But the seawater was not a ski resort.
The person leaned slightly forward, maintaining an extreme balance, his legs trembling at a high frequency imperceptible to the naked eye.
Each subtle tremor precisely acted upon the pair beneath his feet, generating a peculiar high-frequency vibration.
This vibration cleverly and instantly pushed away the seawater in the small area beneath his feet, creating a temporary cavity and immense surface tension, while simultaneously using the water's recoil to gain forward gliding momentum!
The principle was almost like performing ultra-high-speed, ultra-small-scale "water treading" on the water's surface, but the demands on strength, balance, and frequency control reached a superhuman level.
He moved like this, as if riding an invisible snow mountain, drawing two clear white wakes on the dark sea, approaching the shore with grace and speed.
Even more unbelievably, despite such high-speed movement through the water, his trouser cuffs and even the tops of his shoes showed no signs of being wet by the waves.
It was as if all the splashes were repelled by the high-frequency vibration and his aura.
Kushida Kikyo was completely stunned, staring dumbfounded at this surreal scene.
As the distance closed, the person's outline gradually became clear.
A tall figure, familiar black hairstyle, and those black-rimmed glasses that seemed to reflect faint light even in the night... The identity of the approaching person was self-evident—
It was one of the people she had just cursed, Sakamoto from Class 1-A!
He seemed to be practicing some kind of nocturnal "secret technique" and just happened to pass by.
Sakamoto's gaze calmly swept across the shore and naturally saw Kushida Kikyo, who was clutching the railing with both hands, her expression frozen in extreme shock, and who hadn't even had time to put her mask of pretense back on.
PS: Corrected the BUG in the average score of Class D in the previous volume.
We're also entering the next volume soon, so I'd like to ask for your opinions, dear readers.
Regarding the events related to Sakura Airi, do you want me to write them in more detail or more concisely?
If in more detail, I will make Ryuuen's plan more complex and add more dramatic content.
If concisely, I will try to skim over it, then insert a bit of Sakamoto's interaction with other characters, and then officially enter the Deserted Island Arc.
I hope all you esteemed readers will give your opinions, thank you for your support.