Ryunosuke stared at Housen, who was blocking his path, with a mildly puzzled look.
(I don't recall ever provoking this guy, let alone having any dealings with him.)
(So why is he in my way?)
Ryuen, sitting back in Class 2-D, couldn't stop the corners of his mouth from creeping upward. He didn't laugh often, only when he truly couldn't help it. His shoulders were shaking visibly, the effort of holding it in written all over him. He had finally managed to set a trap for Ryunosuke, and the satisfaction was indescribable. Nobody could possibly understand just how good he felt right now.
He had suffered plenty at Ryunosuke's hands, so this was nothing more than a small down payment on the debt. The rest would be collected in full, with interest.
Hiyori looked worried and wanted to warn her boyfriend, but with Ryuen right there, she didn't dare send a message openly. Ryuen seemed to read what she was thinking and let out a quiet sigh.
Hiyori had helped him keep the class together for the better part of a year, and Ryuen was not the type to forget a favor. So he put her at ease.
"Relax. Nothing's going to happen to him. He's far too cunning. Have you already forgotten how thoroughly he played me?"
Hiyori covered her mouth as a soft laugh shook through her, looking lovely in that moment. "You're right~ I suppose I don't need to worry about him."
She hugged the book Ryunosuke had given her to her chest, her expression glowing with quiet happiness. Ryuen exhaled again. (His strategist... completely stolen away.)
◆━⊰✿✧✿⊱━◆
Elsewhere.
Housen stood before Ryunosuke, his face alight with a particular kind of hunger, the hunger for a worthy fight. He was not unlike Zaraki Kenpachi in that regard.
He was idly spinning a set of brass knuckles in his hand, the kind fighters used to put more force behind a punch. It was clear he meant business.
Ryunosuke kept his expression flat and let his gaze drift sideways toward the security camera mounted on the streetlamp. (Is this guy actually an idiot? He's seriously trying to start something right in front of me, in plain sight.)
Outwardly, he stayed composed. He already had a plan.
He tilted his thumb toward the narrow alley behind him, gesturing for them to take it somewhere more private. Housen followed without a moment's hesitation, practically beaming.
Once the surroundings were quiet and there were no witnesses in sight, Ryunosuke decided a cheap shot was entirely appropriate. He quietly slipped a telescopic baseball bat from behind his back, keeping it hidden from Housen's line of sight.
Then he suddenly pointed up at the sky and shouted, "A UFO!"
"Huh?" Housen blinked and looked up. "Where?"
The instant his opponent turned his head, Ryunosuke gripped the bat and swung it cleanly at the back of Housen's skull.
THUD.
With a solid crack of impact, Housen dropped straight to the ground, completely and utterly unconscious. Ryunosuke planted the bat against the pavement, resting one hand on it as he looked down at the crumpled figure with the expression of someone staring at the world's biggest fool.
"Where did this idiot crawl out from? He actually fell for the UFO line. Hopeless, truly hopeless."
Housen, unconscious: (\$@#% you— &%#@!)
Ryunosuke collapsed the telescopic bat down to about twenty centimeters, tucked it into his bag, dusted off his hands, and turned to leave. As for Housen lying there on the ground, he spared him not a single additional thought. Brawling with someone that dim would be an insult to his own intelligence.
◆━⊰✿✧✿⊱━◆
Housen ended up knocked out for a full day and night.
When he dragged himself to class the next morning, he had a magnificent lump sitting on the back of his head. Ichika laughed at him for quite a while, clutching her stomach and dabbing at the tears gathering in the corners of her eyes.
"Oh, you poor thing, Housen."
"Tsk!" He clicked his tongue in irritation.
"I'll get my revenge! This isn't over!!!" he ground out through clenched teeth.
Ichika stopped laughing and shifted gears. Her eyes turned sharp, taking on that signature little-devil edge. She looked at Housen and said, "Do you want revenge on Akasaka Ryunosuke? I can give you that opportunity. All you have to do is what I tell you."
◆━⊰✿✧✿⊱━◆
On another front, Yagami had also begun to move, though his target was not Ryunosuke but Ayanokouji. He trailed him like a shadow, watching his every move.
As the saying goes: know yourself, know your enemy, and in a hundred battles you will never be in danger. In other words, once you have studied your opponent thoroughly, no engagement carries real risk. The line comes from Sun Tzu's The Art of War, and it was precisely the kind of thinking the White Room instilled.
At its core, an institution like the White Room was a government instrument for engineering geniuses to serve societal development.
Yagami intended to understand everything about Ayanokouji before striking with precision. He even followed him to the bathroom. Truly insufferable.
Then again, nobody who came out of the White Room was entirely normal.
Before long, Yagami picked up something significant: Ayanokouji and Ryunosuke were on remarkably close terms. They were frequently found in the same room together, doing who knew what. The truth, of course, was that they gathered purely for food.
Suzune's cooking was simply too good. Ayanokouji's stomach had been thoroughly shaped by it, and his palate had grown demanding. Back in the White Room, meals had been nothing but nutritional intake. Raw eggs for protein. Steak cooked to ten or twenty percent, practically raw, to chase the hemoglobin in the blood for muscle recovery. In short, it was all rather grim.
What kind of life had Ayanokouji been living? Compared to Suzune's cooking, everything he had eaten before was little more than garbage.
Ayanokouji had truly fallen in love with Horikita Suzune. Or rather, with her cooking.
Suzune tapped his reaching chopsticks with her own as he tried to steal a slice of meat, and warned him flatly, "Ryunosuke isn't back yet. No eating until he is."
"Okay~" Ayanokouji answered like a scolded housewife, offering absolutely no resistance. It was genuinely hard to believe this was the White Room's greatest masterpiece.
Ryunosuke had just stepped out to grab some soda and came back through the door moments later. Ayanokouji's eyes immediately lit up as he looked at Suzune. "Can I eat now?"
Suzune said nothing. She simply set aside the best half of the meat for Ryunosuke, then slid the rest toward Ayanokouji as a silent signal to go ahead.
Ayanokouji settled at the table and muttered under his breath, "Blatant favoritism."
He ate at Ryunosuke's place often enough, and had declared he would pay his share of the food costs. Ryunosuke didn't mind. It was just one extra pair of chopsticks at the table.
All of this was being observed by Yagami, crouched outside with binoculars. He stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Their relationship is anything but ordinary."
That was his conclusion. He dropped down from the tree he had been perched in, satisfied that he had seen enough. "If the right moment comes, I could take them both out at once. That would prove I'm stronger than Ayanokouji-senpai."
"And it would complete the mission from the Boss at the same time. Two birds, one stone."
The "Boss" in question was none other than Ayanokouji Kiyotaka's father: Ayanokouji Atsuomi.