After making Ishizaki and Albert change what they were selling, Amasawa finally covered her mouth with a pained expression.
"Senpai, your class really is full of talented people, in a certain sense."
"?" Yukio had a strong feeling that wasn't actually a compliment.
Amasawa explained anyway. "Being able to combine two super basic fitness drinks into something lethal enough to kill a person—doesn't that count as talent?"
"Oh, stop." Yukio shook his head. Just thinking back on that taste made him shudder a little. "Keep going and Ishizaki's going to cry."
"Good thing we caught it early. If we'd found out later, a guest probably would've filed a complaint."
He was only halfway through the sentence when his gaze sharpened. Mixed in among the people walking around, he spotted Ayanokoji.
Ayanokoji seemed to be out strolling around the cultural festival too, looking left and right with clear interest in all the different stalls. In that way, he was exactly like Amasawa. Students who came out of the White Room really did seem to have a strong curiosity toward events like this—things they'd never experienced before.
Ordinarily Yukio wouldn't have paid much attention to someone just wandering around, but his eyes were too sharp for that. He noticed a broad, powerfully built man—clearly an outside guest—following Ayanokoji from close range.
The gap between them was so small that Ayanokoji had almost certainly noticed him too. The reason he hadn't just broken into a run to shake him off was probably because there were too many people around. The stalker wouldn't dare try anything in public.
"Senpai?"
When Amasawa noticed Yukio staring off at something, she followed his line of sight. The moment she made it out, she looked startled.
"Ayanokoji? And... an instructor?"
An instructor? A White Room instructor, then. Simple and to the point.
Still, Yukio had assumed the White Room side—Atsuomi Ayanokoji and his people—wouldn't show up until four in the afternoon. He hadn't expected one of their instructors to have already been brought in by Tsukishiro in the morning.
So what was this? A secret attempt to make contact with Ayanokoji? Or was he going to coordinate with Tsukishiro and Yagami to launch some kind of scheme and get Ayanokoji expelled?
Yukio kept watching, a faint smile on his lips. Eventually, the burly instructor moved in and passed close enough to brush shoulders with Ayanokoji.
After that, Ayanokoji opened the cultural festival guidebook in his hands, making it look like he was just reading over the booklet and deciding where to go next.
That confirmed it for Yukio. So this really was just a covert contact.
Which meant Atsuomi Ayanokoji didn't know Tsukishiro and Yagami were planning to make their move today.
That fit Yukio's plans perfectly.
So he headed straight over.
Amasawa hesitated where she stood for a moment, bit her lip, stamped her foot, then finally followed after him.
Luckily, by the time Yukio and Amasawa got close, the instructor had already disappeared into the crowd, which made Amasawa let out a quiet breath of relief.
Then, seeing the two boys facing each other, she silently stopped several meters behind Yukio and wisely chose not to interfere.
It was the perfect distance—not close enough to overhear what they were saying, but close enough to make it clear she stood completely on Yukio's side.
Ayanokoji, meanwhile, looked at Yukio with caution, though nothing showed on his face.
"President Yukio?"
Yukio immediately held out a hand. "Mind letting me see that guidebook?"
"Of course."
Ayanokoji didn't try to hide anything, but he didn't hand over the booklet itself. Instead, he quietly passed over the little note hidden inside it.
He'd originally considered just swallowing it. That way, no one would ever find it.
Too bad Yukio had noticed him before he got the chance to destroy it.
The contents of the note were simple enough:
If you want to leave this school and return to the White Room, I'll be waiting at the front gate at four this afternoon.
Yukio scanned it once and had the whole thing.
"Interesting. Ayanokoji, planning to skip out?"
"No." Ayanokoji didn't shake his head or make any outward gesture of denial. He simply answered. "Someone else gave me that note. I have no intention of leaving this school. At least not before graduation."
"So that means," Yukio said, helpfully extending the thought into the future, "once you graduate, you'll go back to the White Room?"
"I don't know."
There was a pause of about two seconds before Ayanokoji gave that ambiguous answer, as if the thought had lagged a moment behind.
The truth was, Ayanokoji himself was lost when it came to the future. He had no real idea what he wanted.
Once he graduated and left Advanced Nurturing High School, it wasn't like he had any true place to belong. The only place left for him would be the White Room—the facility that had raised him.
But if he simply went back there, then what meaning had there been in escaping it, in experiencing all the things the White Room had never taught him?
Once you experienced that kind of life, going back would just make you feel even more out of place.
Yukio seemed to catch a little of what Ayanokoji was thinking, because he abruptly changed direction.
"Ayanokoji. By your own standards, do you consider the White Room your home?"
Ayanokoji froze like a machine briefly stalling, as if he couldn't quite understand why Yukio was asking that. Still, he answered honestly.
"From an emotional standpoint, I suppose it would count."
There were three hidden words there: for a normal person.
From a normal person's emotional perspective, if you spent more than ten years living somewhere, if it was the place you grew up from the moment you became aware of the world, then naturally you'd call it home.
But Ayanokoji wasn't normal, and his values weren't either.
So he separated logic from emotion and gave a second angle.
"But from a factual standpoint, I don't think so."
He had been personally brought to the White Room by his father, Atsuomi Ayanokoji. Which meant before that, there must have been some other home—one that belonged to Atsuomi and to him.
Looking at it logically, the place he'd lived before the White Room was his real home.
The problem was that he'd been far too young back then. He remembered nothing—neither where that place had been, nor what it had looked like.
Yukio nodded in satisfaction, as if he'd just gotten hold of a useful piece of information.
"In that case, Ayanokoji... do you want to go home? Your real home. I just so happen to have a small lead I could give you."
"Hm?"
Ayanokoji turned toward him with that same listless—or maybe questioning—look, as if to say: There it is. So this was the catch. You want to use this to turn me into a tool.
Still, the idea of being a tool fit neatly enough with Ayanokoji's own worldview.
"I'm a little interested. Even though I know it probably wouldn't mean much by now, since so much time has passed."
"But... part of me still wants to go back and see it. If you don't mind, tell me first what you want me to do."
"Heh. Looks like you really have learned something at this school. At the very least, you've started to understand quite a few emotions."
Yukio praised him lightly before finally getting to the point.
"What I need from you is simple. I can give you this first small clue now. Once the time comes, you'll be able to get your hands on more."
...
For every 50 Power Stones → +1 extra chapter.