A café on the street corner.
Axel End took a sip of coffee, the faintly bitter taste sliding down his throat and into his esophagus—much like his mood at this very moment.
“End-kun, you don’t seem very happy to see me…
Could it be I’ve done something to annoy you?”
The brown-haired girl seated across from him looked pitifully delicate, as if she might burst into tears the very next second.
But it was all just an act.
Axel End cursed under his breath inwardly, while his face wore a smile that never reached his eyes.
“It’s because I’m the type who generally prefers being on my own.
I’m not too fond of overly lively atmospheres.”
“I’m quite curious how you, Kushida, and Horikita managed to bump into each other.”
Kikyō Kushida and Suzune Horikita, walking side by side…
What kind of dream was he having?
“We just happened to run into each other on the way, that’s all.” Suzune Horikita folded her arms across her chest, a perfectly natural expression on her face.
“That’s right~ Horikita even asked me where you were, End-kun.
Since the phones the school handed out come with a built-in GPS function, I brought her along to find you.”
Kikyō Kushida, as ever, put on her cutesy act, clasping her hands in a prayer-like pose in front of her chest.
After hearing all that, Axel End felt rather drained.
He’d spend the money to disable that location tracking the moment he got back!
“So—what did you want with me?”
“I obtained a piece of intel from an upperclassman, and I wanted to cross-check it against the intel you’re holding.”
Suzune Horikita also took a sip of coffee and, cutting out the meaningless small talk, got straight to the point.
“If the intel we each have matches, then perhaps we could cooperate.”
Just as he’d thought—but…
Intel provided by an upperclassman?
Wasn’t it far more likely exchanged out of the System Shop?
After all, this was the very bait he had personally, deliberately planted just to reel you, Suzune Horikita, in.
“There’s no need to cross-check it.”
“If I’m not mistaken, the intel in your hands is exactly the same as the intel in mine.”
Because Kikyō Kushida was present, Axel End didn’t want Suzune Horikita to foolishly blurt everything out right here.
This attitude naturally stirred up Kikyō Kushida’s displeasure, but all she could do was curse a few times inside her head, while outwardly keeping up the good-girl act.
“End-kun, Horikita, what are you two talking about?
Could you fill me in?”
Suzune Horikita shot Axel End a glance and understood exactly what he meant.
Although she had originally only wanted Kikyō Kushida to lead the way, as a classmate, Suzune Horikita felt the other girl did have a certain right to be kept in the loop.
But since Axel End had put it that way.
For the sake of letting the conversation proceed smoothly, she had no choice but to have Kikyō Kushida leave first.
“Kushida, you can go now.”
“What we’re about to discuss isn’t something it would be convenient for you to know.”
Axel End hadn’t expected Suzune Horikita to be quite so blunt, but that really was her style—she made for a fitting mouthpiece.
Then again, to be fair, weren’t Kushida and Suzune Horikita a pair of star-crossed lovebirds?
Leading the way really had been for nothing, just as expected.
“Ah…
fine then…”
Kikyō Kushida really had been caught off guard by Suzune Horikita’s blunt, no-nonsense way of speaking.
You have to understand, in Neon’s morbid atmosphere where everyone was obligated to read the air, an unconventional person like Suzune Horikita was practically a mudslide crashing through it all.
She was a natural, born-in collision course with a “social maven” like Kushida—the slick, all-charming type who drew wealth in from every direction.
“But, Horikita, could you exchange contact info with me?
And while we’re at it, let me add you to the class group chat?”
Suzune Horikita mulled it over for a moment, then nodded.
Seeing that her request hadn’t been turned down, Kikyō Kushida finally let out a sigh of relief.
No matter what, at least one of her objectives had been achieved.
“See you tomorrow, then~”
Axel End watched Kikyō Kushida leave the café, glancing back every few steps, then picked up his coffee and took another sip.
“I thought you’d refuse.”
“Normally I really would refuse this kind of meaningless social interaction, but after learning the true situation of this school…”
“You changed your mind?”
Suzune Horikita nodded, then shook her head.
“It’s merely an adaptive adjustment.
As for meaningless social interactions, I still reserve my personal opinion.”
“Adaptive adjustment” my ass.
Axel End choked back the urge to snark and instead steered the conversation onto the next topic—
“Alright, I can’t be bothered to comment on your personal views.
And as for this cooperation you mentioned, I’m not interested in that either.”
“Why?”
“Are you actually willing to just stay in Class D?
Even knowing full well what this school truly is?”
Axel End simply gave a little teddy-bear shrug.
“No, no, no—if I could help it, of course I wouldn’t want to stay in Class D.
But I have my own pace.”
“Although I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish, I can tell you for certain I’m not about to play the great saint and be somebody’s nanny.”
“…”
Suzune Horikita had already furrowed her brow.
Admittedly, she didn’t think much of the Class D students either, and after learning about this school’s situation she understood exactly what Class D signified—but she couldn’t shake the feeling that Axel End was being a bit extreme.
“So am I to understand that you mean to break away from the class and choose to climb to Class A entirely on your own?”
“But the personal points such a method requires aren’t something one person could ever scrape together, and the school has yet to see a single successful case of it.”
Axel End said nothing, merely offering a faint smile.
Suzune Horikita’s brow furrowed even deeper.
Her brother had sent her here to observe Axel End, to see how he operated—and this was the answer she got in return?
“Let me take a guess at what you’re thinking…
After learning the truth about being assigned to Class D, deep down you surely don’t accept the school’s assessment of you, so you want to prove yourself.”
“And climbing to Class A would be the single most powerful proof of all.”
Axel End took another sip of coffee, then settled into a boss-like posture.
“But there are two ways to reach Class A—bringing the whole class up with you, or going it entirely alone.”
“If I’m not mistaken, your idea should be the first one.
Am I right?”
Suzune Horikita nodded openly and without hesitation.
Although her conduct up to now would have made the second option the better fit for her, she felt the first option carried far more genuine worth.
Of course, part of that was also because the second option had yet to produce a single successful case.
“Is there some kind of problem with that?”
“First of all, this school has never once had a successful case of someone graduating from Class A using personal points—which shows that the administration fundamentally doesn’t support students taking that route to promotion.
So, while you hold the advantage of an information gap, why not use it to narrow the distance between Class D and Class A, laying the groundwork for the class to close the point deficit later on?”
Axel End smiled and shook his head.
He had assumed that Suzune Horikita, having learned the truth about this school a full month ahead of time, would behave differently from her portrayal in the original work—but as it turned out…
It seemed he had still overestimated the Suzune Horikita of these earliest enrollment days.
“You’re right, and I’ll admit your reasoning can’t really be called wrong.
But this is—”
“The mindset of a loser.”