Chapter 11: Digital Stalking and the Mackerel Massacre
(Suzune POV)
The first thing I realized when I opened my eyes at 5:30 a.m. was that my pillow was breathing.
The second thing I realized was that I wasn't using a pillow. I was currently sprawled across Sunny's chest, my head tucked under his chin, and one of my legs draped over his waist like I was claiming territory in a colonial land grab.
The room was dim, the only light coming from the faint blue "standby" glow of the high-end laptop sitting on my desk. I stayed still for a moment, listening to the rhythmic thump of his heart. It was annoying how peaceful he looked. When Sunny is awake, he's a walking, talking migraine with a propeller hat. But in his sleep? Without that idiotic, "I-know-the-ending-of-the-movie" smirk plastered on his face? He actually looked... decent. Human, even.
My mind drifted back to the absolute dumpster fire that was last night.
I've witnessed many tragedies in my life—mostly involving people failing to live up to my standards—but nothing quite compared to Sunny trying to play Dark Souls on a dance pad while I fed him Mackerel ginger-fry.
The death count was forty-four.
Forty-four times I watched that "YOU DIED" text burn into the screen. At one point, he got so startled by a boss's second phase that he did a frantic backstep on the pad, sent a piece of ginger-pork flying into the cooling fan, and ended up face-planting into my miso soup. I haven't laughed that hard since I watched a video of a goat accidentally headbutting a fence. Seeing him gasp for air while wiped in soy sauce and shame was the highlight of my academic career so far.
But then, the laughter had died down, and we had actually talked.
Sunny had shared the intel he'd gathered. Hearing about my brother's reaction to the "Appendix C" file—the fact that Sunny had managed to bypass the school's military-grade security two years ago to leave a love-note—made me feel a mixture of pride and sheer, unadulterated terror. My brother, the Ice King, the "Perfect Student," had been compromised by a silver-haired dork with an AI named Aqua.
And then there was the CCTV situation.
"Five hundred thousand," I whispered to the ceiling.
That was the price of a "Buy" command for the classroom cameras. If you rent them for 100k, you're just a temporary visitor in the stream. Other people can rent them too. But if you buy them? You own the data. No one—not even the Student Council—can access those feeds without the owner's permission. Only the school administration maintains higher authority.
Sunny's goal was clear: he wanted to personally monitor... something. He claimed it was for "the plot," but I knew him better. He was planning to inject his AI, Aqua, into the school's central nervous system. He was playing a game of digital chess while everyone else was still trying to figure out how to open the board.
I looked down at his face again. My eyes narrowed.
He met Arisu yesterday.
He didn't just meet her; he petted her. He painted a massive, neon-red target on his back by treating the "King of Class A" like a Golden Retriever. And before that, he'd been hugged—"assaulted by chest-gravity," as he put it—by Hoshinomiya-sensei. I knew Hoshinomiya was a manipulator, a woman who used her "charms" to cloud the judgment of boys with too much testosterone and too little sense. But I also knew Sunny. He hadn't been tricked. He'd leaned into it.
"Womanizer," I muttered.
I considered dragging him into the shower and turning on the cold water to see if his propeller hat would spin underwater. But, since I'm a civilized human being, I opted for something more surgical.
I reached up and pinched his nose shut.
Thirty seconds passed. Sunny's face went from peaceful to confused, to a shade of pink that matched my brother's secret love-journal. Suddenly, his eyes snapped open—pure, wide-eyed panic. He gasped for air, his mouth opening like a fish out of water.
"S-Suzu!" he wheezed, sitting up so fast he nearly knocked me off the bed. "I'm dying! The air is gone! I've been assassinated by the O2 bandits!"
"Good morning, Sugar Baby," I said, sliding off him with the grace of a cat. "You weren't assassinated. You were being annoying in your sleep. You were snoring in a way that sounded like you were trying to beatbox in Morse code."
"I don't snore! I breathe with enthusiasm!" Sunny protested, rubbing his nose. He looked around the room, his eyes landing on the soup-stained dance pad. "Oh god. It wasn't a nightmare. I really did die forty-four times, didn't I?"
"Forty-five if you don't start cleaning this kitchen in the next ten minutes," I said, pointing toward the disaster zone on the desk.
The next hour was a whirlwind of domestic efficiency. We took turns in the shower—separately, despite Sunny's "logical" argument that we could save water if we shared—and then moved into the kitchen.
Watching Sunny clean is like watching a tornado that accidentally learned how to use Windex. He moves at a speed that shouldn't be physically possible, whistling that same Noir tune from yesterday while he scrubbed soup out of the keyboard.
"So, the plan for today?" Sunny asked, flipping a piece of tamagoyaki in the pan. He'd insisted on helping with breakfast, and I had to admit, his omelet-flipping skills were actually superior to mine.
"I'm visiting my brother," I said, setting the table. "I'm going to finalize the CCTV purchase for every first-year classroom. I've already moved the 3.2 million points from the E-sports trust to my primary account—half of it, anyway. I'm also going to secure a burner credit card and an encrypted chat account. If we're going to be the shadow brokers of Class D, we might as well have the proper equipment."
"And the class?" Sunny asked, sliding a plate of steaming breakfast in front of me. "What about our 'classmates' who think they've been handed a winning lottery ticket and can spend their points on hair-gel and magazines?"
"They're trash," I said simply, taking a bite of the omelet. It was delicious. I hated that it was delicious. "They need a lesson in reality. If they don't understand the value of their points by the end of the month, I'll make sure the realization hits them with the force of a freight train."
"Spoken like a true Empress," Sunny grinned. He didn't sit in his chair. Instead, before I could react, he hooked his arms under mine and pulled me backward.
"Sunny! What are you—"
In a blur of motion, I found myself sitting on his lap. He'd pulled his chair closer to the table and tucked me in like I was a literal child.
"Safety first, Suzu," he chirped, wrapping his arms around my waist to lock me in place. "The floor is lava. The chairs are unstable. The only safe place in this dorm is right here. Now, feed me. My arms are tired from all that cleaning."
"You are the most infuriating person I have ever met," I said, my face heating up. I tried to elbow him in the ribs, but he just leaned his chin on my shoulder, looking like a contented golden retriever.
I struggled for about five seconds before realizing that fighting Sunny was like trying to punch a cloud. I let out a long, defeated sigh and picked up a piece of fish with my chopsticks.
"Fine. But if you tell anyone about this, I will bury you in the school's basement."
"Deal," he said, opening his mouth.
We ate like that—in a ridiculous, embarrassing, and strangely comfortable tangle of limbs—until the clock on the wall told us we had fifteen minutes to get to class.
We stepped out of the room at the same time as our neighbor.
Kiyotaka Ayanokōji was standing in the hallway, looking like he'd spent the night trying to perform surgery on himself. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his hair was even messier than usual. He stared at Sunny with an expression of deep, existential dread.
"Good morning, Kiyotaka!" Sunny beamed, adjusting his propeller hat. "You look like you've been fighting ghosts. Did the ghosts win? Or are you just recalculating the meaning of life?"
Ayanokōji blinked slowly. "Sunny. I spent six hours last night trying to figure out how you knew my room number before I did. I also tried to map out the probability of you owning every beer in the mall. The math... it doesn't add up."
"That's because you're using math, Kiyo!" Sunny laughed, clapping him on the shoulder. "Life isn't an equation. It's a sandbox game, and I've got the developer console open. Don't think so hard. It makes your head leak."
Sunny leaned in and whispered something into Ayanokōji's ear. I couldn't catch the words, but I saw Kiyotaka's eyes widen for a fraction of a second—a massive reaction for him. He looked like he'd just been told the ending to a movie he hadn't even heard of yet.
"He's broken," I whispered as we started walking toward the elevator. "You've officially broken the masterpiece of the White Room."
"Nah," Sunny said, winking at me. "I just gave him a firmware update."
The walk to the classroom was filled with Sunny's usual chatter—mostly about how the school's vending machines should stock "Gamer Fuel" and why the school uniform needs more pockets for snacks.
We arrived at Class D exactly five minutes before the bell.
I expected the usual chaos—Ike yelling about something stupid, Yamauchi trying to look cool, and Sudō scowling at the wall. But the room was strangely quiet.
At the front of the class, leaning against the teacher's podium with a clipboard in her hand, was Sae Chabashira.
She was early. Much earlier than yesterday. Her eyes scanned the room, landing on us as we entered. She looked particularly tired, and I noticed a faint scent of hops lingering around her.
"Horikita. Sunny," she said, her voice like sandpaper. "And Ayanokōji. You're actually on time. Remarkable."
She looked at Sunny with a gaze that could have withered a cactus. "Sunny. I received your... 'gift' last night. Along with your note. I should have you disciplined for bribery and unauthorized distribution of controlled substances."
"Bribery?" Sunny asked, putting a hand to his chest in faux-offense. "Sensei, that was a tribute! A gesture of goodwill between a student and his favorite, most overworked educator. Besides, I bought them legally. Ownership rights are a beautiful thing, aren't they?"
Chabashira stared at him for a long beat, then let out a sigh that seemed to drain the last of her energy. "Sit down. All of you."
I took my seat at the front, noticing that the "Idiot Trio"—Ike, Yamauchi, and Sudō—were notably absent. They were likely still in the dorms, thinking they could roll in ten minutes late without consequence.
I looked at the back of the classroom. At the empty desks. At the students who were currently whispering about how many points they were going to spend on karaoke tonight.
Tomorrow, I thought, my eyes narrowing. Tomorrow, I'm going to show them exactly what happens when you treat this school like a playground.
I looked at Sunny, who was currently trying to see how fast he could make the propeller on his hat spin by blowing on it.
"Are you ready for the massacre, Sunny?" I whispered.
He stopped blowing and looked at me, his eyes sharp and full of that dangerous, chaotic light.
"Suzu," he grinned. "I've been ready since the moment I stepped off the bus. Let's burn the house down."