New Year's celebration.
Ryunosuke had invited Ayanokoji over. His real motive was simple: to show off. Since Suzune was cooking for him at home, he wanted to make sure someone witnessed it.
The two of them sat cross-legged on the tatami, waiting for Suzune to finish.
Ryunosuke looked at Ayanokoji with an expression that said everything without saying anything. You see this, right? This is my wife.
Ayanokoji replied with a flat look. "Yes. I see it."
He felt deeply at a loss. Why did this person need to show off to him specifically? What was the point?
What Ayanokoji didn't know was that in the original course of things, he himself was probably the person most likely to end up with Suzune. Ryunosuke was not the petty type and did not concern himself with such things. He was not bothered by this at all. Not even a little. Absolutely not.
Once Suzune finished the New Year's dinner, she told Ayanokoji, who had been sitting around doing nothing, to bring the dishes out from the kitchen.
As a guest, he submitted to this instruction because the situation demanded it. If he wanted to taste the cooking, he had to earn it. As the highest product of the White Room, the food he had eaten there was nothing but nutritionally optimized meals with no particular appeal. The only thing capable of genuinely moving him was exceptional food, and Suzune's cooking happened to qualify.
The dishes were laid out in short order. Eight courses this time, coming to nearly 10,000 points. Fish, and meat as well. This was Ryunosuke's doing. It was New Year's, and he had insisted they not be as frugal as usual.
Suzune was ordinarily very careful in the kitchen. She weighed the meat precisely when stir-frying so nothing was wasted. For Ryunosuke, this had always been a minor source of suffering. His personal points now exceeded 200 million. Surely a man in that position didn't need to eat with such restraint. He had been poor and indebted once, and eating whatever he could get had made sense then. He was wealthy now. Shouldn't that translate to eating well? After several rounds of pleading, Suzune had reluctantly agreed.
After the meal, Suzune began clearing the table with the natural ease of someone who simply did this. Ayanokoji moved to help, but she stopped him immediately. He was a guest, which meant household tasks were not his responsibility. Her gaze then slid, with considerable precision, toward Ryunosuke, who had settled in to relax.
Ryunosuke paused mid-sip of his tea. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
Suzune's expression became very calm and very clear. "Get up and wash the dishes."
"R-right." He was on his feet immediately.
As had been said before, of all the women in his life, Suzune was the one who held the most complete authority over him. Whether because she was simply that dominant or because he had some specific vulnerability around her, the effect was the same. In everyday terms: he was afraid of her.
Watching him head obediently to the kitchen, Suzune looked satisfied. She told Ayanokoji to stay seated and finish his tea and not to get involved, then carried the remaining dishes to the kitchen herself.
Ayanokoji held his cup and agreed without complaint. He glanced toward the kitchen occasionally, watching the two of them. Looking at that scene, which had all the natural ease of a married couple in their own home, he couldn't stop a thought from forming.
(Having a girlfriend actually seems rather nice. It makes me want to find one myself.)
He kept this inside. Saying it aloud in front of Suzune, given her temperament, would not have ended well for him.
When the kitchen was sorted, Suzune thought to cut some fruit for digestion, then realized there was no fruit knife. Her gaze settled on Ayanokoji, who had been eating and drinking entirely at their expense for the duration of the evening.
Ayanokoji set down his teacup in silence, stood, and informed them he would go and buy one. Only then did Suzune's gaze release him.
He returned before long with a newly purchased fruit knife. Since it had been bought for Ryunosuke's home and Suzune cooked there regularly, the knife would naturally accumulate all three of their fingerprints over time.
(Note: This detail is a foreshadowing of a plot point to come. Don't forget it.)
Ayanokoji ate his fruit in peace. At least the 220-point trip outside had not been for nothing. After the New Year's dinner concluded, the time came for him to leave. It had genuinely been something different. In the White Room, there had been no such thing as New Year's Eve dinner.
Watching his figure recede into the distance, Suzune turned to her boyfriend with genuine puzzlement. "What was the point of all that?"
She meant: why invite Ayanokoji to spend New Year's Eve with them? She had wanted to spend the evening together just the two of them, and his presence had thrown that off.
Ryunosuke pulled her into his arms with confidence. Suzune attempted to object and found her resistance weakening faster than she would have preferred. Since things between them had already progressed considerably, she gave up and let herself be held.
He answered her question. "That person is very powerful. We'll need him in the future, so maintaining a good relationship with him matters."
Suzune's brow furrowed. "He's powerful?"
She hadn't seen it for herself. With Ryunosuke around, Ayanokoji had never shown his real ability in front of her, so she had no frame of reference. Ryunosuke, on the other hand, watched him carefully and worked to ensure Ayanokoji wouldn't turn against him.
That person was the least trustworthy person he knew, and he was fully aware of it. But too many things required his cooperation, and they also had common enemies. By removing Tsukishiro, Ryunosuke had made a serious enemy of Ayanokoji's father, which had, oddly enough, made them allies.
On top of that, Ryunosuke had accumulated no small number of enemies outside the school. The entire second year had been expelled, and he had been the mind behind it. He couldn't distance himself from the consequences. Those older students almost certainly came from families with resources that dwarfed his own.
Almost certainly was perhaps putting it generously. His own starting position had been debt of 87 million yen. Anyone with a positive net worth was already better positioned than he had been.
Given all of that, Ryunosuke didn't feel safe passing through the school gates. If he stepped outside, there were people out there who might not stop at a beating. Thinking about how many people he had managed to offend, he sometimes wondered at himself. Had his ability to create enemies always operated at this level?
He did have one solution available: the promise Kouenji had made to protect him. The same logic had applied in the Nagumo situation. A single word from Kouenji, whose family was among three of the four largest conglomerates in the country, would be enough for him to sleep soundly at night. But he was reluctant to spend it now.
He had two remaining uses of that promise and wasn't going to touch them unless he had to. He was keeping them for Ayanokoji specifically, because he was fairly certain that man could betray him at any moment, and Kouenji was the right piece to hold against him.
He decided not to think further about it and asked the girl beside him, "Stay over tonight?"
Suzune was well aware of what kind of thinking produced that question. The last time he had used that exact line, she had stayed the night. She was not going to fall into the same situation twice. At the very least, while she was at this school, she needed to finish her education properly and not embarrass her brother.
She extracted herself from his arms and said with complete steadiness, "Education comes first. Please conduct yourself appropriately. You're welcome to find other girls. I won't object."
Having said that, she left without a moment's hesitation, leaving Ryunosuke standing in the doorway in the cold, somewhat at a loss.
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