"Come in, Kushida-senpai."
A few hours ago. After school, Kushida visited the first-year dormitory, and Takuya Yagami's room.
The sun was shining faintly through the gaps in the closed curtains. The tea was freshly brewed on the table, but Kushida didn't reach for it.
"There's nothing like poison or drugs in it, you know?"
"I don't care about that, can you just get on with it?"
With a scowl on her face and no attempt to hide her frustration, Kushida pulled out her mobile phone.
"Excuse me, senpai. Then let me ask you without hesitation."
Yagami pressed the play button and heard Chabashira's voice in the middle of the explanation, giving an overview of the special unanimous voting exam announced for the second-year students.
After listening in silence to the entire lecture, including the examples, Yagami returned the phone to Kushida.
"Kushida-senpai wants to crush Horikita Suzune and Ayanokōji Kiyotaka. That's what it was about, wasn't it?"
Kushida kept silent, as if she didn't need to answer now.
"I was briefed by our senpai beforehand, but it is still a very simple special exam. From a number of options, you have to repeatedly vote and adjust your votes to reach unanimity. There are five questions in total, and you have five hours to complete them. What did you think when you heard this?"
"Easy, right?"
"Yes, it is. It is considered to be very easy for an exam that is billed as a special exam. But only the punishment for running out of time is severe.
This must be because the school assumes every class will clear. The closer the time is to expiry, the closer to unanimity everyone will inevitably be.
Because whether you like the choice or not, everyone wants to avoid heavy penalties."
Yagami reached for the cup of tea that continues to steam in front of Kushida and took it in his hands.
"Well, here's the main thing. We are already in the middle of our second year. But while I'd like to expel those two, I haven't had the best opportunity to do it so far."
"As far as I'm concerned, you're a little bit responsible for that, but that doesn't matter right now." Yagami responded with a smirk.
She knew that there was nothing to be gained by lashing out at Yagami here, so she held back.
"Have you been able to tell your senpais about Horikita?"
"Oh, you mean the one about her being a... leader? In a manner of speaking. Well, I'm sure she'd have done it on her own without me telling her."
"It is not good to leave things vague and ambiguous. It's important for you to know that Horikita-senpai has been entrusted with this role."
"So what? You think you can get Horikita expelled at the next special exam?"
When she asked him about it, he laughed and sipped from his cup.
"That's right. I've listened to the recording just to make sure I didn't miss anything or misinterpret anything, but this is clear. There is a good chance that the next special exam... there is a good possibility."
"How could you possibly know that? The only condition for expulsion is to let the accumulated penalty time accumulate in the individual's voting time. Do you think Horikita would make such a mistake? It's not just Horikita, no one else would make that mistake."
"Of course, it is unlikely that any fool would be expelled for a cumulative penalty. But my interpretation is that there are other ways to get expelled."
"Huh?"
"Expel Horikita-senpai or, depending on the situation, Ayanokōji-senpai. It is possible that you can crush the one you want to crush. In that case, you should not hesitate to guide the conversation so that you can target both."
Yagami mentioned an example of a question that he expected to be given in this special examination.
"Are you sure?"
"Of course, I don't think it will be the same word for word. But. I think there is a good chance that there will be a question with the same content as what I have just mentioned."
Yagami hadn't been told about this special exam by Tsukishiro, but after listening to the teacher's explanation, he had an idea of what the questions would be.
"There is only one path Kushida-senpai would take when presented with a question like the one I just mentioned."
He then explains how she can corner Horikita and Ayanokōji in that question.
"What do you think? Doesn't this make you see the letter of expulsion?
Of course, the whole class will have to cry, but that's a trifle to you, isn't it?"
"You think I can do it...?"
"I see that Kushida-senpai has the ability to do that, am I wrong?"
"You're doing a lot of shopping already."
"I had to test my senpais when I first met them to see if they were people I could use, you know?"
"What does that mean?"
"Don't you understand? Do you remember what I said when we first met?"
"I was in a hurry at the time. So what?"
"So what? Normally, you would wonder. We're strangers, we've never even met each other before. And yet you were able to get through the situation by improvising. That's how I knew you were capable enough."
"But what if I'd said who you were right there? Maybe I simply forgot."
"I don't think so. As long as we don't know where we met, maybe we were in the same secondary school. If that's the case, there's a possibility that you know about my past. If I were to say, "I knew you because of that incident," it would be a disaster."
In order to rule out such a possibility, Kushida immediately went to work on the story.
"If it's not the same secondary school, for example, but a cram school.
Or if you found out later that it was a younger student who lived in your neighbourhood, then the risk of being someone who knows your past is greatly reduced. You can just laugh it off as a misunderstanding. The first priority is to make sure that we are from the same secondary school, isn't it?
And it's easier to divert the conversation if the subject of the past is brought up at all."
After drinking about a quarter of the tea, he put the cup on the table.
"Who the hell are you? How do you know about my past when we didn't even go to the same secondary school...?"
"I know you're wary, but think of me as a guest in a special position.
However, my goal is to play with Ayanokōji-senpai."
"What? To play with him?"
"Yeah, well, I don't think he knows anything about me. Right now, it's my hobby to try different things without Ayanokōji-senpai noticing."
"What if I got upset when we first met and didn't give you the answer you thought I should've?"
At that time, Kushida was wondering how Yagami would answer.
"That's what I thought was so interesting. I'm sure Ayanokōji-senpai noticed the discomfort and looked at me with suspicion. I probably would have been able to greet him at an earlier stage."
"Are you telling me you went to the same secondary school as Ayanokōji, by any chance?"
"Well, what do you think? It's a trivial matter for Kushida-senpai. Shall we turn our attention to the special examination for now?"
"I know. If we get the question you're after... then I'll try and set it up."
"You're going try to set up...? That's pathetic."
"Pathetic? What do you mean weak?"
Yagami stood up, stepped closer and grabbed Kushida by the shoulders, who reflexively tried to flee.
"Hey, what are you doing?!"
She tried to get away from him, but the power of Yagami was stronger than she had imagined, and she could not move.
"Please, listen carefully. You are in a much tighter spot than you think.
Not only do you have Ayanokōji-senpai and Horikita-senpai surrounding you, but you also have people who you consider to be a cause for concern, such as myself and Amasawa-san, who continue to threaten your daily safety and livelihood. Isn't that right?"
"That's ...yes, but..."
As Yagami stared her straight in the eye, Kushida glared back at him without fear.
"As a matter of course, it is not easy to kick out your fellow classmates in this school. It takes a lot of effort to expel a student in his or her personal life. If there is an opportunity to expel a classmate through a special exam like this, it is unmistakably the chance of a lifetime."
"I know that. But if you go too far, you'll put me in danger."
"So you have to be prepared for that. Expel or be expelled."
Kushida felt as if she was under a strong pressure, even though she was the one who wanted the expulsions done.
"Of course, it's up to you to decide. If I were to say here, "If you don't want your past of class disruptions to be exposed, you must expel either Horikita-senpai or Ayanokōji-senpai," that wouldn't be very charming would it?"
"That's what I call a threat."
"I'm sorry, senpai. I really don't mean to scare you. It's just that I think it's true that Kushida-senpai isn't prepared enough. No matter what sacrifices you have to make, you have to get rid of them. If you don't do something like that, you won't be able to drive them out of school. Forever."
Removing his hands from her shoulders, Yagami returns to his seat and sat down.
"Let me ask you again. Senpai wants those two to be expelled. Isn't that right?"
When Yagami looked her in the eye again, Kushida felt a mixture of anger and frustration.
That is something that does not need to be reaffirmed.
It's what she'd been wishing for every day for the last year and a half.
"I want to expel Horikita, I want to expel Ayanokōji. I'm definitely going to get them expelled...!"
"I can feel it, and finally I can confirm that your conviction is genuine."
Kushida is determined. She must expel Horikita and Ayanokōji as soon as possible. Then there's also Yagami who talks about whatever he pleases.
Sometime in the future, he'll have to be expelled too.