They walked to the entrance of the gymnasium.
The noise of the crowd rushed toward them.
Hundreds of new students gathered there, buzzing around like headless flies searching for their class seating.
They found two adjacent empty seats in the Class A section and sat down.
Soon, the entrance ceremony officially began.
Horikita Manabu, the Student Council President, walked onto the stage and began his long and formulaic welcoming speech.
The content was nothing more than the school’s glorious history, expectations for the new students, and various disciplinary requirements.
These words were tedious for most new students, and for Kaedehara Tōru, who held the script, they were nothing short of a lullaby.
His attention was not on the stage at all.
His gaze scanned the crowd, and he saw that dazzling figure in the Class B formation—Ichinose Honami.
She was listening intently to the speech, but perhaps sensing the gaze, she casually glanced toward the Class A direction, though of course, she couldn’t see him.
Next, his gaze turned to the Class C section.
There, a man with long hair and an untamed aura was yawning impatiently.
Ryūen Kakeru, a dictator who believed in violence.
Finally, his sight fell upon the back row of Class D.
In an inconspicuous corner, a black-haired girl was standing quietly, continuously staring at her older brother.
Horikita Suzune.
But he was more interested in the person next to her.
An ordinary boy who looked unmotivated, had vacant eyes, and seemed ready to fall asleep at any moment was listening to Horikita Manabu’s speech.
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka.
“The ultimate masterpiece…
huh?”
A smile that no one could understand curved the corner of Kaedehara Tōru’s mouth.
“What are you looking at?”
Sakayanagi Arisu’s voice suddenly came from beside him.
She had also lost interest in the boring speech at some point and had turned to observe Kaedehara Tōru instead.
“I’m looking at…
some ‘hidden protagonists’ who look like background characters but might bring surprises.”
Kaedehara Tōru replied, his gaze still fixed in Ayanokoji’s direction.
Sakayanagi Arisu followed his line of sight, carefully distinguishing between the figures, and finally focused her gaze on the expressionless Horikita Suzune.
“That female student?” she made her judgment.
“No, not her.”
Kaedehara Tōru shook his head.
“It’s the one next to her.
The man who looks completely unremarkable and utterly mediocre.”
Sakayanagi Arisu looked again.
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka?
For the first time, genuine, undisguised astonishment appeared in Sakayanagi Arisu’s beautiful violet eyes.
“Him?”
The word escaped her lips, which were usually curved in an elegant smile, with an extremely subtle distortion in her tone.
For Sakayanagi Arisu, there were very few things in this world that could cause such an emotional fluctuation.
And the name “Ayanokoji Kiyotaka” happened to be one of them.
That was not just a name but a codename—a codename for the ultimate masterpiece of artificial genius, originating from the White Room, the place her father spoke of, isolated from the world.
A large part of why she entered this school was to personally “bury” this “ultimate masterpiece” her father spoke of, thereby proving that innate genius would always surpass products of nurture.
This was her deepest, most hidden obsession.
Yet now, on the first day of school, on campus, Kaedehara Tōru, a man who had only just piqued her interest, had pointed out the target she was searching for with such certainty and precision from the vast crowd.
How was this possible?
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka’s existence was a secret in itself.
He should have been perfectly hidden in the crowd, like a drop of water merging into the ocean.
How had the man before her managed to glimpse his true nature?
Possibility one: Coincidence.
Kaedehara Tōru was just talking nonsense, coincidentally picking a seemingly ordinary person, and his statement was baseless.
But that possibility was extremely low.
Judging by their previous exchange in the classroom, this man’s actions were never aimless; every word he spoke had a clear purpose.
Possibility two: He knew Ayanokoji Kiyotaka.
Did they come from the same place?
The possibility was close to zero.
The existence of the White Room was top secret, and its graduates were strictly monitored, making it impossible for them to easily interact with external personnel.
Possibility three: He possessed the insight to see through Ayanokoji Kiyotaka’s disguise merely by observation.
This possibility sent a thrilling shiver of excitement through Sakayanagi Arisu, unlike anything she had felt before.
“Heh heh…
Kaedehara-san’s taste is truly unique and hard to understand.
What exactly is it about that utterly unremarkable man that warrants such praise from you?”
“Sakayanagi-san, have you ever played a game called ‘Spot the Difference’?”
“It’s about finding the one point that is different in a picture.
Everyone here is trying their best to emit their own ‘color,’ proclaiming their existence.”
“But that man is absolute ‘nothingness.’ A ‘gray’ that absorbs all the emotions projected onto him without leaving a trace.
Don’t you think that such an existence, one that can swallow everything, is the most dangerous and the most interesting kind of “special”?
“…You have a very high opinion of him.”
After a long pause, Sakayanagi Arisu slowly spoke.
“Perhaps he is just an unmotivated mediocrity, exactly as his appearance suggests?
It’s not impossible for the school’s admissions system to occasionally let one or two slip through the net.”
“Sakayanagi-san, are you deceiving yourself?”
His voice was soft, yet it struck Sakayanagi Arisu’s heart like a heavy hammer.
“The fact that you are discussing him with me here and showing interest in my seemingly absurd statement—isn’t that because…
deep down, you also sense his ‘abnormality’?”
Kaedehara Tōru offered no further evidence or explanation.
Sakayanagi Arisu fell completely silent.
In the gymnasium, Horikita Manabu’s speech continued, and the surrounding students were either drowsy or distracted.
But around these two individuals, the air seemed to solidify, and time slowed down.
For a long, long time.
A smile suddenly bloomed on Sakayanagi Arisu’s face.
It was a smile unlike any she had shown before.
It was no longer feigned elegance.
“Kaedehara Tōru…”
She softly spoke his name, as if intending to engrave it deep into her memory.
“You are a person…
worthy of my serious attention.”
Just then, the lengthy entrance ceremony finally concluded, and students began to stand up and leave.
“My body doesn’t handle crowded environments well, so I shall take my leave now.”
Sakayanagi Arisu gave a slight nod, offering her farewell.
She did not press for more information about Ayanokoji.
For her, today’s gain was sufficient.
Watching Sakayanagi Arisu’s retreating figure, Kaedehara Tōru let out a sigh of relief.
For him, having been a corporate slave for a long time, clashing with Sakayanagi Arisu, even if only through verbal probing, had consumed a massive amount of his mental energy.
He had to choose his words carefully, both to throw out bait sufficient to pique her interest and to avoid exposing his trump card as a plot prophet.