Horikita Suzune swept her gaze across the cabin's interior once more. The distinctly feminine touches scattered throughout the room made her brow furrow without thinking.
She recalled something Sakura Airi had mentioned — that besides building several small cabins for the rest of Class A, Shikime Natsu had also constructed one for Sakura Airi and her group.
This place… could this actually be the cabin Sakura Airi and the others were living in?
The moment that possibility crossed her mind, Horikita Suzune's heart began hammering even faster.
If Sakura Airi happened to push open that door right now and walked in on this scene — how on earth would she explain herself? Running a high fever, her head swimming with dizziness, Horikita Suzune simply didn't have the mental capacity to think through something like that. In short, the rational part of her brain had more or less gone offline.
Not that she had any intention of stealing her friend's boyfriend, of course — that thought had never once entered her head. Then again, Shikime Natsu was the type to run a harem, so the concept of "stealing" him probably didn't even apply. Still, Horikita Suzune had absolutely no desire to become one of his.
For now, all she could hope was that Sakura Airi and the others were still back at Base Camp chatting, or out foraging nearby. Foraging was usually done around the Base Camp's perimeter anyway — they wouldn't come all the way out here.
Still, the most pressing matter right now was getting her hands on fever medication from Shikime Natsu as quickly as possible.
"Shiki-san…"
Horikita Suzune turned around. Her wine-red eyes met Shikime Natsu's directly, and her voice came out noticeably weaker than usual — though the sharpness in it never wavered. It never did, with her.
"Why did you bring me here? What exactly is it you want?"
She knew perfectly well that part of her reason for following him had been a faint, desperate hope of getting fever medicine out of him. But Shikime Natsu had sidestepped a straight answer the entire way here, simply gesturing for her to come along.
Surely he hadn't dragged her all this way just to invite her to sit in his "mansion" for a chat?
Even sick as she was, she didn't have time to wander around making idle conversation. She was pushing herself as hard as she could for the sake of earning enough class points in this deserted island exam.
The phrase "wandering around aimlessly" brought her gaze drifting back to Shikime Natsu, who stood there with his characteristic air of unhurried ease.
For some reason she couldn't quite put her finger on, it felt like ever since they'd set foot on this island, he'd been strolling around as though on a leisurely sightseeing trip the entire time.
As the nominal soul of Class A, had he really made no tactical preparations for his class whatsoever?
Of course, there was at least one thing Horikita Suzune could confirm at this point: Shikime Natsu was not the holder of Class A's keycard. After all, only the keycard holder could occupy a Base Camp — and while he'd certainly been wandering all over the place, he clearly had no intention of claiming one. If he did, he wouldn't have called out to her the moment they crossed paths and had her trail along behind him.
A leader with a mission to fulfill wouldn't have spare time to stand around chatting with someone completely irrelevant to his objectives — at least, Horikita Suzune simply couldn't believe that was possible. Base Camps refreshed periodically, and if you didn't reclaim one after a refresh, another class could swoop in and take it. Every second counted. Yet Shikime Natsu wasn't the least bit rushed — which made it clear enough that he wasn't the one holding that keycard.
Of course, most people wouldn't assign the keycard to the visible class leader in the first place. In Class D, for instance, Kushida Kikyou was the one giving commands, but the keycard was actually in Hirata Yousuke's hands.
She was fairly certain the other classes had done something similar.
As for who Class A's real leader was — Horikita Suzune had given up trying to guess. Shikime Natsu's mind was simply too difficult to read, and if she stumbled into one of his traps, the damage to Class D could be severe.
Besides, that comment he'd made earlier — offering to keep her secret without taking any points for it — had stirred something in her that she hadn't felt in a long time. Something almost… human. So for this particular exam, when it came to the final leader-guessing phase, Horikita Suzune had decided not to go after Class A.
Risk and debt lived side by side in this world, and she wasn't the kind of person who forgot a kindness. As long as Shikime Natsu gave her a way to stay on this island, that was more than enough. And if he could also do something about her fever on top of that — well, she'd be even more grateful.
Her gaze settled back on him now, meeting those pale golden eyes of his. She held onto the quiet hope that all this trouble he'd gone to bringing her here wasn't just for small talk to pass the time.
If that turned out to be the case, she was going to be genuinely furious. She was running a high fever and forcing herself to stay upright through sheer stubbornness — being dragged here purely to entertain him would be nothing short of criminal.
It hadn't occurred to Horikita Suzune that her condition would deteriorate this badly. Taking the medicine on the cruise ship, she'd felt it was manageable — but once she disembarked and started foraging for food and gathering branches and the like, all that exertion had likely made things considerably worse.
The one thing she was genuinely thankful for right now was that the island's temperature was far more forgiving than it had been when they first stepped off the ship. If it had been as harsh as then, she wasn't sure she'd even be standing.
Especially given how scorchingly hot her forehead was at this very moment.
Horikita Suzune swept the cabin interior one more time, still finding no trace of medicine. Normally, medication would be kept in a first-aid kit — but there wasn't one of those anywhere in sight, either.
A deeply unpleasant premonition began to surface from somewhere in the back of her mind.
Was she… being played, again, by this guy?
Shikime Natsu watched the girl who was clearly on the verge of collapse and yet still somehow managed to glare at him with eyes wide enough to demand answers. A quiet laugh escaped him, and he crossed his arms over his chest, utterly unruffled.
"Don't look at me like you're planning to eat me alive, Horikita-san. Didn't I say so already? I'm a genuinely good person. When I see a friend suffering through a persistent fever, of course I'm going to lend a hand."
At those words, some of the tension gripping Horikita Suzune finally loosened — just a fraction.
Good. Even if this guy was insufferable, at least he hadn't sunk to the level of using her illness as a means to mess with her. If he ever actually did something like that, she would cut ties with him completely — no matter that he was one of the three friends her brother had asked of her. She'd just find a replacement later. At this point in her life, holding a normal conversation without needlessly provoking people was something she was capable of. She could start over.
But all of that was for later. For now, Horikita Suzune kept her wine-red eyes fixed on Shikime Natsu, silently demanding to know just how, exactly, he planned to "lend a hand."
The cabin didn't look like it contained any medicine. Was he hiding it somewhere — tucked into the rafters, maybe, or under the floorboards, for safe keeping?
It sounded a little absurd when she thought about it that way, but then again… medicine was extraordinarily precious out here on the island. If it wasn't stored carefully and another class got hold of it, that would be a serious problem.
If Shikime Natsu could have heard what was running through Horikita Suzune's feverish little head at that moment, he would almost certainly have applauded. The absence of one visible bottle of fever medicine, and she'd already spun out an entire chain of elaborate theories.
She'd also briefly considered another possibility — that Shikime Natsu had somehow contacted Class A on the way here and had them bring medicine over. But she'd dismissed that one too. Phones had been confiscated by the teachers the moment they stepped off the ship, and while communicators were available for purchase, they weren't cheap. She couldn't imagine Class A burning exam-exclusive class points on something with so little practical value. More to the point, if Shikime Natsu had used a communicator along the way, she would have noticed — she'd been right behind him the entire time, and he hadn't made a single suspicious movement.
Shikime Natsu noticed that Horikita Suzune was still scanning the cabin, and the corner of his mouth curved upward. It was perfectly obvious she was looking for something.
"You don't need to keep searching, Horikita-san. What you see is what there is — there isn't much storage space in here to begin with. As you can tell, there is no fever medication, or any medication at all, in this cabin."
"You—!"
Those words hit like a spark to dry tinder. Horikita Suzune felt a surge of pure, white-hot fury, and her wine-red eyes ignited in an instant. Her hands balled into fists at her sides, and her body trembled slightly — not from the fever, this time, but from sheer anger.
Just as she'd feared. This bastard had been stringing her along the whole time.
The rage only made her feel worse. She could feel her condition worsening by the second — she couldn't stay here with Shikime Natsu any longer. The fact that she'd managed not to scream at him already was, frankly, a testament to her remarkable self-restraint. This guy was a complete and utter jerk!
She didn't say another word. She turned on her heel and headed straight for the door. That was it — she was done with him. Completely done.
Shikime Natsu was a thousand times worse than she'd ever thought. He'd seen with his own eyes that she was sick — and he'd still pulled this on her. Even at her worst, she would never have sunk to tormenting someone who was ill.
But before she'd taken two steps, that faintly magnetic voice sounded from behind her once more.
"Don't be so quick to leave, Horikita-san… Have you never heard of massage therapy before?"
Massage therapy?
The words made her pause mid-step, a flicker of bewilderment passing through her eyes.
But that confusion was swiftly swallowed up by something sharper and far more guarded.
She snapped her head around and stared at him like she was looking at a pervert.
Was this guy, on top of refusing to give her medicine, now trying to take advantage of her while she was vulnerable?
What kind of "massage therapy" was supposed to cure a high fever caused by a viral cold?
It was the most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard. You couldn't sell that line to a three-year-old.
"Hah…"
Horikita Suzune let out a cold laugh, her voice dripping with contempt.
"Shiki-san, your next line isn't going to be… that all it takes is a little work from those 'magical hands' of yours, and my fever will just disappear — is it?"
Shikime Natsu snapped his fingers, and an expression that said "well, aren't you sharp" spread across his face as he gave a perfectly matter-of-fact nod.
"Congratulations. That's exactly right."
For a moment, the world felt genuinely absurd to Horikita Suzune.
This guy… had completely lost his mind.
She had run completely out of any desire to keep arguing with him. All she wanted now was to leave, finish her tasks, gather enough edible fruit to keep herself going, and get back to Base Camp to rest. Coming here, getting worked up like this — it had drained what little energy she had left. Her already battered head was now sending out serious distress signals.
If she let Shikime Natsu keep winding her up like this, she was going to collapse on the spot within the next sixty seconds. She should have turned and run the instant she'd laid eyes on him — or at least slipped away somewhere along the walk here.
At least then she'd have had some shred of composure and stamina left, rather than being on the verge of fainting from sheer aggravation at the hands of this thoroughly terrible person.
She took it all back — Shikime Natsu was not a "genuinely good person" by any definition. He was, through and through, a complete scoundrel who found joy in other people's suffering.
And yet — she couldn't help thinking — the fact that she'd trusted him at all said something unflattering about her own intelligence. They were class rivals. She wasn't his girlfriend. What possible reason would he have to treat her well?
As for being "friends"… even if Shikime Natsu acknowledged it, Horikita Suzune had never quite gotten there herself. Honestly, their dynamic felt less like friendship and more like a master and a maid — one where she was perpetually being coerced into satisfying his outrageous whims.
Shikime Natsu noticed the look on her face — clearly furious, and specifically furious at him — and didn't seem particularly bothered by it. He simply continued.
"Won't you at least try trusting me, Horikita-san? Think back carefully — when have I ever actually lied to you?"
At those words, Horikita Suzune's foot — which had been on the verge of crossing the threshold — stopped as if something had seized it.
She stood with her back to him, biting lightly at her lower lip.
She didn't want to admit it. But when she actually went back over everything since the two of them had first met —
This man was ruthless in his methods, and deeply strange in his nature. But when it came to facts — to the things he'd actually said — he seemed, genuinely, never to have lied to her.
Even when there was information he didn't want to share, he'd deflect it away with that irritating little smile of his rather than fabricate some cheap story to throw her off.
Seeing that she'd stopped, Shikime Natsu knew the fish had taken the bait again.
"You remember Sakayanagi Arisu, don't you?"
At that name, Horikita Suzune's thoughts were dragged back several months.
The reason she'd ended up as Shikime Natsu's "maid" in the first place traced back directly to that silver-haired girl — elegant on the surface, but calculating underneath. Sakayanagi Arisu.
In the time since, Sakayanagi had certainly had her share of setbacks at Shikime Natsu's hands. But the woman's image in Horikita Suzune's mind remained that of a formidable opponent — and, much like Shikime Natsu himself, someone with a deeply unpleasant personality.
"Of course I remember her. What does she have to do with what you're saying right now?"
Shikime Natsu moved to stand behind her, his voice coming soft and measured.
"Then think about this: Sakayanagi-san has had a congenital illness since childhood — she can barely walk without a cane. Given a constitution that fragile… how is it that she's managing to participate in an exam on a deserted island with conditions this harsh, with such apparent ease?"
Something clicked in Horikita Suzune's fever-fogged brain — a piece snapping into place, like a door swinging open.
Though she still couldn't help but pause at it. Her previous understanding had been that Sakayanagi's condition wasn't quite as severe as the rumors suggested. She distinctly remembered a stretch of roughly one month where Sakayanagi had seemed to genuinely manage without her cane, moving around with the ease of someone perfectly healthy.
She had assumed at the time that it was some kind of cyclical remission.
But the way Shikime Natsu was talking now… that near-miraculous "recovery" of Sakayanagi's was somehow connected to him?
How was that even possible?
Something that defied modern medical understanding — could it actually exist? Was Shikime Natsu's so-called massage technique somehow superior to the finest medical equipment humanity had to offer?
And yet… Horikita Suzune knew Sakayanagi's situation well enough. In day-to-day life, she did genuinely rely on that cane — the periods where she didn't need it were the anomaly, not the norm.
She also understood clearly that if someone could offer even a periodic recovery to Sakayanagi, her father would have spared no effort or expense to make it happen. The fact that nothing had worked meant the current state of medicine simply wasn't adequate to solve the problem.
And yet… what Shikime Natsu was describing still sounded utterly outlandish. Was this truly something a single person could accomplish? Could massage technique alone exceed the limits of what modern medicine could achieve?
Then Horikita Suzune's gaze drifted back to the exquisitely crafted cabin around her.
Whatever else she thought of him, Shikime Natsu demonstrably possessed abilities far beyond what any ordinary person should be capable of. By any reasonable standard, constructing a cabin like this should take days, if not weeks — and even with help, without the right machinery, building this many in a single day was flatly impossible.
So… Shikime Natsu really did have abilities that went well beyond the realm of common sense. Horikita Suzune turned to face him, and the emotions flickering through her wine-red eyes were difficult to name.
Seeing her finally turn around, Shikime Natsu smiled.
"…Can you actually do it?"
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