"Uuuuughhhh....."
Sebastian lay under the bed listening to Iori's lament from outside and felt not a single flicker of sympathy — if anything, he found the noise mildly grating.
That said, after a certain amount of time, even a heart of iron begins to be worn down. Even Sebastian found himself, against his better judgment, somewhat affected by the genuine misery in that wail.
Even so, he had no intention of climbing out by himself.
Why haven't the seniors jumped out yet? Remarkable composure. But if I go out alone, I'll have to take Iori's full fury by myself.
Sebastian grumbled inwardly and prayed for one of the seniors to crack first.
At that moment, he felt his phone begin to vibrate in his pocket.
Buzz... buzz... buzz...
"You cannot be serious...."
Still face-down, Sebastian extracted the phone from his breast pocket with considerable difficulty.
Incoming call: Iori Kitahara.
The wailing from outside had stopped at some point. Sebastian stared blankly at the screen. Answering felt wrong. Declining felt equally wrong.
"You. Are. Right. Here."
A familiar voice materialized directly beside his ear.
Sebastian turned his head slowly to the left — and found himself eye to eye with Iori, who had apparently gotten down on the floor at some unknown point and was now level with him, a few centimeters away.
Iori's face was wet with tears. Behind the tears, his eyes were thoroughly bloodshot.
He was perhaps a little bit angry.
"Oh — Iori. What a coincidence."
Sebastian forced out a strained smile and raised a hand in greeting from his prone position under the bed.
"I am going to destroy you——!!"
Whatever nerve that struck, Iori let out a cry of grief and fury, reached under the bed, seized Sebastian's right leg, and dragged him out across the floor.
"Iori, wait — you had some part in this too, you know. And besides, I wasn't the one who planned it—"
Being hauled out from under the bed, Sebastian still wanted to get a few words in before he ended up looking entirely at fault.
It was no use. Iori, past the point of rational thought, threw himself on Sebastian with a howl, and the two were immediately tangled up in each other again.
"My, you two are still so full of energy."
At that moment, the wardrobe door swung open, and Kotobuki stepped out with the relaxed expression of a man who had been doing nothing unusual whatsoever.
"I have to say, Nanaka made a good point — you two really are a bit immature. Getting into a fight again over something this small."
Tokita, who had been hidden on top of the wardrobe, dropped down with a smooth motion and stood beside Kotobuki, folding his arms.
Iori, pinned under Sebastian, stared up blankly at the two large men who had just materialized from the furniture in his own room.
"You two were—"
"There — Iori, I told you the mastermind wasn't me!"
Sebastian said this, then twisted around to face Kotobuki and Tokita.
"Between me and the seniors who immediately abandoned me and hid without a second thought — which one of us is actually less mature here?"
"Alright — let's not dwell on the small stuff. The point is, we've more or less achieved what we set out to do, haven't we, Iori? Nanaka will be treating you as an adult from here on."
"Ha... haha... right."
A smile of hollow despair spread across Iori's face. "Whether she's treating me as a human being at all is now somewhat in question."
"Relax. It's just some DVDs. Who didn't go through that phase? Think of it as your first step onto the adult staircase — and get ready for the party tonight. I guarantee Nanaka won't try to stop you again."
Kotobuki laughed and threw an arm around Iori.
"Well... you're not wrong. Life has to go on. If this is the price of finding a girlfriend — being looked at funny by a relative for the next four years — I'll take it."
Sebastian had not expected Iori to actually rally from that speech.
Iori quietly wiped his face dry, and by the time his hand dropped, what remained on his expression was nothing but anticipation for the evening's party.
The sheer speed of that emotional turnaround was genuinely not something most people could manage.
"Good that you're able to move on. Would've been a shame if you'd done something drastic."
Tokita placed a hand on Iori's shoulder with a look of warm approval.
Then — as only Iori could — the moment he'd been consoled, he turned around and fixed Sebastian with a look of renewed venom.
"Wait. Why am I the only one who suffered? There are two of us, aren't there? Sebastian doesn't just get to walk away clean."
The sudden turnaround caught Sebastian off guard. He blinked — then felt his face go red in an instant.
"Iori, would you please shut your mouth?"
His objection was void. The seniors had evidently taken Iori's point to heart.
"Hm? Iori does have a point. We can't just let Sebastian off — that wouldn't be fair."
Kotobuki stroked his chin and nodded slowly.
"Looks like we'll have to make a trip to Sebastian's room after all."
"Hold on — I think we can discuss this. There is definitely another way to resolve this situation!"
Sebastian panicked, moved instantly to block the doorway, and planted himself in front of all three of them.
"Out of the way — I am not the only one humiliated in this house. We're best friends, aren't we? Best friends share each other's suffering equally!"
Iori, suddenly full of energy again, pushed hard against Sebastian's resistance.
"If we're best friends, you could stand to do me a decent turn once in a while. All I've ever gotten from this friendship is suffering!"
Sebastian dug his fingers into the door frame with everything he had, expression contorted.
"Sebastian — stop hiding. This one you can't avoid. It wouldn't really be fair to Iori otherwise."
"Exactly. It's just decorating a room. Nobody's asking for a pound of flesh. Stop acting like a child."
The seniors openly siding against him made Sebastian's chest ache with injustice. Still, he gritted his teeth and mounted his last resistance.
But even his enhanced physique could only hold three people for so long. His feet began sliding slowly backward.
This won't hold. I need — I need to think of something—
Sebastian, straining with everything he had, felt something click behind his eyes.
He stepped sharply backward.
The three of them, still pushing forward with full force, had no time to correct. All three went tumbling to the floor in a heap.
Sebastian looked down at the pile of people on the floor, drew a slow breath, and declared:
"You can renovate my room. But I get to choose who does it."
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