Sakamoto, now in his wine-red uniform, settled into his seat with an air of natural authority. He took a deliberate sip of the coffee Ichinose had offered, his gaze sweeping the table with detached composure. The act of changing, leaving, and returning seemed as routine to him as adjusting his cuffs—a seamless transition between roles that left the others subtly off-balance.
The silence was first pierced by Kushida. Her eyes were wide, a mix of surprise and neglected frustration coloring her voice. "Sakamoto-kun? But… you were just working. How can you just sit down? Won't the manager mind?"
Her question was deceptively simple, layered with an innocence that thinly veiled her irritation at once again being sidelined by his presence.
Sakamoto set his cup down precisely. "My shift has concluded, Kushida-san."
"Concluded?" she pressed, unsatisfied. "But you were serving us just a moment ago. Was that… overtime?"
"A personal extension to meet today's target," he replied with a slight nod, his tone leaving no room for further inquiry. He took another sip, the gesture a quiet period to the conversation. His calm was a wall—polite, impenetrable.
At that moment, another waiter approached and gently placed a fresh, steaming cup before Ichinose.
"Ichinose-san," Sakamoto said, his attention shifting to her. "A gesture of reciprocity. Thank you for the coffee."
His voice was measured, his demeanor flawlessly courteous. A faint blush tinted Ichinose's cheeks, her smile softening. "You're too kind, Sakamoto-kun. Thank you."
But the warmth was short-lived. Ichinose's expression grew more intent, her gaze steady and direct. "If I may be so bold, Sakamoto-kun… I recall school rules explicitly forbid part-time work. How were you able to secure this position?"
The air at the table seemed to crystallize. Ayanokōji's cup halted halfway to his lips, his focus narrowing on Sakamoto's face. Horikita's cold stare sharpened. Kushida held her breath, her eyes darting between them like a spectator at a duel.
All attention converged on Sakamoto, who remained unmoved.
He met Ichinose's pointed gaze without flinching, his eyes behind the glasses as still as a frozen lake. "The rules prohibit employment," he acknowledged, his voice clear and unhesitant. "But they also state unequivocally: points can purchase anything."
The answer was startling in its bluntness. He had dragged the school's unspoken economy into the open without pretense or evasion. Ichinose's composure flickered—she hadn't expected such forthrightness.
Then, a colder, sharper voice cut through.
"Sakamoto-kun." It was Horikita, leaning forward almost imperceptibly. "Then you are, in essence, purchasing the opportunity to work. You are paying to labor. What is the purpose of such an exchange?"
Her question followed Ichinose's like a second strike. The directness of the exchange had breached her usual reserve, unleashing the curiosity she'd suppressed since hearing her brother's name. She needed to understand the logic behind this—why someone her brother acknowledged would engage in what appeared to be a pointless expenditure.
Sakamoto turned his placid gaze toward her. "The purpose," he said, pausing as if selecting each word with care, "is observation."
He let the word hang, his eyes seeming to look beyond the café's walls. "I am here to observe this school."
Observe? The answer was more cryptic than the last. Observe what? The students? The system? The silence that followed was thick with unspoken questions.
Just as the ambiguity settled over them, another voice entered the fray—calm, deep, and measured.
"Sakamoto-kun." Ayanokōji Kiyotaka set his cup down with a soft click. His eyes, dark and fathomless, locked onto Sakamoto's. "Then what have you observed so far?"
His voice was not loud, yet it seemed to slice through the café's ambient hum, landing with deliberate weight in the silence between them.
"And what truth have you observed about this school?"
The words, once spoken, seemed to hang in the air, altering its very composition. Ichinose's gentle curiosity sharpened into focus. Horikita's analytical coldness intensified. Kushida's confusion deepened into bewilderment. All eyes shifted to Ayanokōji's impassive face.
Truth? What truth?
Ayanokōji, as if belatedly recognizing the grenade he had casually rolled onto the table, allowed his tone to flatten back into its usual monotone. "Ah, it was nothing."
But the dismissal was itself incendiary. That understated nothing acted as a catalyst, plunging the atmosphere from tension into a deep freeze.
For the first time, Sakamoto's attention fully—truly—settled on Ayanokōji Kiyotaka. His gaze behind the thin lenses was no longer merely polite or observational; it was analytical, penetrating, as if attempting to calibrate the hidden dimensions of this Class D enigma.
Ayanokōji met that gaze without flinching, his own eyes a dark, still pool reflecting nothing. In the space between them, an invisible contest of perception seemed to unfold—a silent clash of depths, each measuring the other's bottom.
The air grew thick, sterile. Even the rich aroma of coffee seemed to lose its warmth, overtaken by a sudden intellectual chill.
Kushida stared, utterly lost. The social script she knew had been shredded. This silent, high-stakes standoff between two inscrutable boys had nothing to do with friendship or pleasantries. She was a spectator to a game whose rules she didn't understand, and the realization left her feeling hollow and excluded.
The silence stretched, taut and unbearable, for seconds that felt like minutes.
It was Sakamoto who finally severed it. He slowly retracted his gaze, the intensity receding like a tide, and lifted his coffee cup once more. His movement was fluid, a masterful return to composure. He glanced at the wall clock, his voice regaining its clear, measured cadence.
"Fellow students, time is progressing. There are fifteen minutes remaining until afternoon classes commence."
He set his cup down, rose smoothly, and offered a slight, formal bow to the table. "If there is no further pressing business, I shall take my leave. Any unfinished discourse may be resumed… should circumstances permit."
Without waiting for a response, he turned and walked away, his figure passing through the café door and vanishing into the stream of students beyond, leaving behind a vacuum of his presence.
The four remaining at the table were left adrift in a heavy, complicated silence.
Kushida looked down at her untouched, now-cold coffee, a profound sense of failure settling in her chest. Her meticulously orchestrated social maneuver had been completely hijacked—first by Sakamoto's gravity, then by Ayanokōji's cryptic probe. She had not bridged any gaps; she had only highlighted the chasms between them.
Ichinose and Horikita were each lost in their own calculations. Ichinose felt the tantalizing outline of the school's hidden machinery now more vividly than ever—a puzzle she was determined to solve. Horikita wrestled with frustration; the core secrets of the school felt simultaneously within reach and maddeningly obscured, with Sakamoto as both a clue and a cipher.
Ayanokōji Kiyotaka lifted his own long-cooled black coffee and took a slow, deliberate sip. The bitterness spread across his tongue, a fitting taste for the encounter. His eyes, impassive as ever, lingered on the empty space where Sakamoto had been.
Interesting, he thought, the word holding a weight far beyond its casual use. Sakamoto, the so-called legend of Class A, was proving to be a far more compelling variable than initial data had suggested.
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