Before long, the waiter carried over the drinks they had ordered.
A latte was set down in front of Shikime Natsu, a strawberry milkshake in front of Sakura Airi, an iced americano in front of Horikita Suzune, and a caramel macchiato in front of Hasebe Haruka.
"Please enjoy."
The waiter smiled, then turned and left.
Hasebe Haruka picked up her caramel macchiato, took a small sip, and set the cup back down with a satisfied smile.
"Mm… that's good."
She looked over at Shikime Natsu, grinning. "Thanks for treating us, Natsu."
"Don't mention it." Shikime Natsu smiled, picked up his own latte, and took a sip.
"Thank you."
Horikita Suzune spoke up right after Hasebe Haruka had. Sakura Airi could get away with staying silent — she was his girlfriend, after all — but Horikita, like Hasebe Haruka, was still an outsider here.
Shikime Natsu noticed the slight stiffness in her manner and smiled, giving a small nod.
Just then, Hasebe Haruka set down her cup, curiosity glinting in those faintly upturned eyes.
She looked at Shikime Natsu and asked, "By the way, Natsu…"
"I heard something…" She paused, then went on. "From Airi, I mean."
"That on the very first day of school, you'd already seen through this school's hidden rules?"
"So… is that actually true?"
At the question, Shikime Natsu raised an eyebrow a fraction.
He glanced at Sakura Airi beside him. She was watching him with a bright little smile.
Shikime Natsu laughed softly, then turned his gaze back to Hasebe Haruka and nodded.
"More or less, I suppose."
"More or less?" Hasebe Haruka tilted her head.
"Mm."
Shikime Natsu didn't elaborate.
But that only fired Hasebe Haruka up.
She leaned forward slightly, folding her hands on the table, curiosity burning brighter in her eyes.
"So… how did you manage it, Natsu?"
"Right after the entrance ceremony, there couldn't have been much information to go on, could there?"
"How did you… work it out?"
Horikita Suzune stayed composed. She had known about this for a long time already.
Shikime Natsu laughed at the question and leaned back in his chair, a calm detachment in those pale golden eyes.
"It's simple."
"You just start from the assumption that pie doesn't fall out of the sky."
"Pie doesn't fall out of the sky?" Hasebe Haruka blinked.
"Mm." Shikime Natsu nodded, then continued.
"Why on earth would a school hand out that much free spending money to that many students for no reason at all?"
"Nearly a hundred thousand Private Points every month, to use however you like."
"And then it indulges every kind of behavior on top of that, with almost no restrictions."
"And finally, it can place its graduates in any career they want."
"Think about it for two seconds and you know it can't be that simple."
"There's no such thing as a free lunch."
"And if there seems to be… then somewhere, hidden away, there's a price you're expected to pay."
Hasebe Haruka fell quiet for a moment.
Then she nodded, understanding dawning across her face.
"I see…" she said softly.
"You're right, Natsu. How did none of us notice at the start?"
There was a note of wonder in her voice.
"I guess… those monthly Private Points went straight to our heads?"
"I mean, that's nearly a hundred thousand points."
"For a student who's just enrolled, that's an absolute fortune."
"Who'd have imagined there were that many twists hiding behind it?"
Horikita Suzune thought back to her own first days. She had noticed the strangeness of those hundred thousand Private Points too — she simply hadn't dwelt on it.
She had written it off as the school spoiling its students. Though if she was honest, she had known part of the truth even then, because on the afternoon of the entrance ceremony, that man, Shikime Natsu, had sought her out and swindled her Private Points away from her.
Even now, remembering it made her grind her teeth.
While Horikita Suzune was lost in her own thoughts, Hasebe Haruka spoke up again.
This time she changed the subject.
Her gaze went first to Sakura Airi, then to Shikime Natsu.
Then she lowered her voice a little and leaned in closer.
"So, um… Natsu." There was a distinctly gossipy edge to her voice. "There's one more thing I want to ask."
"What is it?" Shikime Natsu looked at her.
Hasebe Haruka twirled a strand of her blue hair around one finger, then said, "Earlier I asked whether you'd say yes to any cute girl who confessed to you…"
"And you told me no, that you only accept girls you already know well."
"Mm." Shikime Natsu nodded.
Hasebe Haruka paused, then went on.
"Lately, Airi's been talking my ear off about your good points…"
"And about all these little things from the time she's spent with you."
"Like how the two of you met, what happened the first time you saw each other, what you usually do when you're together…"
"Basically, a lot. A whole lot."
At that, Hasebe Haruka couldn't keep from laughing.
"Honestly, at this point, your good points and the whole story of how you and Airi met and got close…"
"I could recite all of it from memory."
"And after learning all that, I'm even more certain of one thing…"
She looked at Shikime Natsu, and there was something serious in those slightly upturned eyes.
"Which is that you, Natsu, really are a good person."
Shikime Natsu let out a quiet laugh. "Thanks for the consolation prize, Haruka," he said, teasing.
"You're welcome." Hasebe Haruka laughed too.
Horikita Suzune sat off to one side, saying nothing, quietly drinking her iced americano. Her eyes seemed fixed on the street outside, but her attention was entirely on the conversation.
What Hasebe Haruka had been through… she had been through it too.
Whenever Sakura Airi spent time alone with her, the topic was, almost without exception, Shikime Natsu.
At first, Horikita Suzune had found it unbearable.
Back then, she considered Shikime Natsu a thoroughly unpleasant individual.
Rotten personality, always wearing that infuriatingly unruffled expression — the kind of face that made you want to hit him.
And Sakura Airi would sit there praising him endlessly, this is wonderful about him, that is wonderful about him.
It felt like having someone chant the name of a person you despised directly into your ear, over and over.
It was genuinely torture.
So back then, every time Sakura Airi brought up Shikime Natsu, Horikita Suzune would find a way to steer the conversation elsewhere, or simply state that she didn't want to hear it.
But after they came back from the Deserted Island, things changed.
Shikime Natsu had helped her there. In any case, from that point on, Horikita Suzune's impression of him shifted in some subtle way.
At the very least, she no longer rejected him outright.
And Sakura Airi — whether or not she had picked up on that — began pouring even more Shikime Natsu news into her ears.
What Shikime Natsu did today, what Shikime Natsu said yesterday, what Shikime Natsu had said back in middle school.
Every last detail, all of it.
In the beginning, Horikita Suzune still found it tiresome.
But after listening long enough, she got used to it.
And she had to admit that some of it was actually rather interesting.
Only a little interesting, of course.
Really. Just a little.
While Horikita Suzune was sunk in her own thoughts, a figure caught the edge of her vision. She turned her head slightly and looked that way.
Sakayanagi Arisu was still seated not far off, and those violet eyes were fixed straight on their table, as though she cared a great deal about what was happening here.
Which was only natural, really. Even that malicious girl was one of Shikime Natsu's girlfriends.
Horikita Suzune sometimes genuinely wanted to say it out loud: so even someone with a personality as rotten as Sakayanagi Arisu's could fall in love.
And from the look of it, she was thoroughly, helplessly captivated.
None of which had anything to do with Horikita Suzune. What did irritate her was that Sakayanagi Arisu had gone out of her way to send messages just to needle her.
That was more than she could stand. As far as Horikita Suzune was concerned, romance was nothing but a waste of time, and she would never harbor such an inexplicable feeling herself.
And right then, an absurd thought surfaced in her mind.
Or… was this Shikime Natsu's doing?
Her gaze drifted to Shikime Natsu, sitting across from her.
He was holding his latte, saying something to Hasebe Haruka, a faint smile on his face.
He didn't look remotely like someone who knew anything about it.
Besides, given his personality, if he wanted something he would say it to her face rather than route the message through Sakayanagi Arisu.
So it probably wasn't his doing.
Which meant it was Sakayanagi Arisu's own idea?
What exactly was that girl scheming?
Horikita Suzune couldn't work it out, and she didn't want to.
Whatever Sakayanagi Arisu was plotting, it was guaranteed not to be anything good.
Just like the time she was tricked into becoming Shikime Natsu's maid.
Sakayanagi Arisu had never once been harmless.
She would have to stay on her guard.
Watching that leisurely, self-satisfied posture of hers, alarm bells rang loud in Horikita Suzune's head.
With that settled in her mind, she pulled her gaze back and lowered her head to her iced americano again.
Just then, Hasebe Haruka spoke up once more. She set down her cup and looked at Shikime Natsu with obvious curiosity.
"So then… Natsu." There was a serious note in her voice now.
"Since you've got so many girls you like…"
"I've got one more question for you."
"Go ahead." Shikime Natsu looked at her.
Hasebe Haruka tapped the tabletop lightly with a fingertip, then said, "Airi's analyzed it too — what type of girl you prefer."
"But…" She paused and smiled.
"Even after all her analysis, it's still not clear. There are so many girls around you, Natsu, and their personalities are wildly different."
"So…" She looked at him, laughter dancing in her eyes.
"Would you tell us yourself, Natsu?"
"What kind of girl do you actually like?"
The moment the question landed, the atmosphere around the table turned delicate again.
Horikita Suzune's fingers tightened slightly around her cup. She kept her cool, aloof expression, eyes on the street outside, as though the question held no interest for her whatsoever.
But her ears had already pricked up.
What kind of girl he liked…
She didn't care about that at all. Romance was idiotic, and she had no energy to spare on something so mind-numbingly dull.
It was simply that she was stuck here for the moment with no way to leave, so she had no choice but to sit and listen.
Sakura Airi, seated at Shikime Natsu's side, turned her head at the question and beamed up at him.
She was already his girlfriend, so surely his type had to include her.
Of course, Sakura Airi's goal wasn't merely to hear him say he liked her. She was recruiting allies.
With so many cute girls circling Shikime Natsu, banding together a little for warmth wasn't asking too much, was it?
And maybe, if Shikime Natsu was happy enough, he'd come looking for her more often.
As a girl — a girl deep in love — wanting more time with her boyfriend was perfectly reasonable.
Hasebe Haruka and Horikita Suzune were the two Sakura Airi had chosen to recruit, and she hadn't chosen at random. She had done her research.
Hasebe Haruka had a good personality, and Sakura Airi got along with her easily. On top of that, Hasebe Haruka was equipped with a formidable pair of weapons, just like her.
She'd heard that boys all liked them big, and when she and Shikime Natsu did that sort of thing, he did enjoy playing with hers — so Sakura Airi figured, what if there were double? Wouldn't he be even happier?
There was another well-endowed girl in Class D, Kushida Kikyou, except she was a bit too calculating. One scheming girl in the group was quite enough.
And then there was Horikita Suzune. She was the target Shikime Natsu had assigned her to approach in the first place, she had that cold personality, and Shikime Natsu had always enjoyed teasing her — so naturally Sakura Airi had taken note.
Hearing the question, Shikime Natsu paused for a beat.
Then he laughed.
"If you want specifics, that's a hard question to answer."
"Because every one of them is different."
"Everyone has her own strengths. Everyone has her own charm."
"Though what matters most is that she's willing to give me her heart, honestly," Shikime Natsu said with a soft laugh.
At that, Hasebe Haruka and Sakura Airi exchanged a glance, and Sakura Airi gave a small nod.
"If that's too hard to answer… then can we narrow it down a bit? Right now, in this school, which girls does Natsu think could become his girlfriend?"
____
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