A boy's blush surpasses any confession.
Kakeru Ryuen, his face flushed bright red, had countless "sweet nothings" he wanted to whisper to Ren Katsuragi—especially while staring at that smug face across from him, wearing a perpetual smile!
Wrong. Wrong. Absolutely wrong.
Class A wasn't the moderate faction he'd imagined; they were wolves in sheep's clothing, stirring up trouble everywhere.
Ryuen felt like the sky was falling. Why had he ever thought that a class capable of knocking the original Class A down to Class B in the very first month was some kind of benevolent entity?
Truly, one wrong step meant every step after was wrong.
"Ryuen-kun, may I ask if you have any other objections over there?" Ren smiled, clearly trying to set off Ryuen, who was already like a powder keg.
Ren deliberately used honorifics in that sentence, and it instantly lit the fuse on Ryuen's impending explosion.
"Ren Katsuragi, I love you!"
"!#@!#￥"
Ryuen no longer cared that he was still in the conference room, or that the Student Council President and Secretary were seated right above him. He blasted a torrent of "confession" straight at Ren.
Fortunately, he still retained a shred of reason—he directed his "confession" at Ren only.
Ren, on the receiving end of Ryuen's frantic "confession," didn't show a hint of anger. He maintained the same smile he'd worn from the very beginning.
After Ryuen finally finished his outburst, Ren raised his right hand again toward Manabu Horikita and Akane Tachibana.
"President Horikita, Secretary Tachibana…"
"I'm reporting this!"
"I report Class 1-C's Kakeru Ryuen for disrespecting his superiors! He completely ignored you two and spoke recklessly in the conference room."
"I also report Ryuen for making personal attacks against me. I have reason to suspect that if we weren't in the conference room, he would've already rushed over to beat me."
"Moreover, there's a possibility that—like the other defendants from Class C—he's using the pretense of beating me as a cover to prepare to sexually harass me."
Ren landed that one-two combo, making Ryuen's face turn even redder, his urge to "confess" growing more and more urgent.
But the situation left Ryuen no choice but to endure it.
Up above, Manabu Horikita and Tachibana—along with everyone in Class A—were dumbfounded.
There was such a move?
Meanwhile, Chie Hoshinomiya, seated in the Class A audience section, covered her mouth and hid her whole face in the crook of her arm, her body trembling uncontrollably.
I can't take it. Little Ren is just too much fun.
"Ahem… Katsuragi-kun, this is…" Horikita coughed lightly. He genuinely didn't know what to say about Ren's string of maneuvers.
Call it entrapment? But Ryuen really had acted that way.
Say Ryuen was too impulsive?
It was just that Ren's methods were too dirty…
Ren kept his right hand raised and spoke righteously, "Senior Horikita, please judge clearly!"
As he spoke, he even flicked his raised hand at Ryuen, as if mocking him for lacking basic manners—unable even to raise his hand before speaking.
Ryuen's blood pressure spiked again.
After a brief discussion between Horikita and Tachibana, Ryuen went from being Class C's defender to being a defendant himself—while still having to defend Class C.
The charges were "disrespecting superiors" and "picking quarrels and provoking trouble."
Satisfied with the result, Ren lowered his right hand and flashed an even brighter smile at the stifled Ryuen.
Bang!!!
In a burst of rage, Ryuen slammed the table hard, startling Daichi Ishizaki behind him.
"Boss Ryuen, are you okay?" Ishizaki asked in a low voice, concern evident.
Ryuen forcibly suppressed the anger in his chest and barely forced out two words through clenched teeth: "I'm fine!"
Seeing Ryuen like this, Tachibana snapped out of her sympathy for Ichinose and asked again, "Does Class C still have any objections?"
"Class C has an objection. Class A's claims are baseless; there is no evidence." Ryuen had learned his lesson this time and raised his hand first.
He didn't want to get snared by Ren again.
The fact that the sexual-harassment claim was fabricated had already been dragged into the open by Ren, so the school wouldn't go back and pull surveillance footage now.
That was his sliver of hope.
As long as his side stubbornly refused to admit it, the other party would have no way to pin it down.
Seeing Ryuen regain his composure so quickly, a trace of surprise flickered in Ren's eyes. But as for evidence…
Honami, time to draw your sword.
Understanding that it was her turn to step forward, Ichinose spoke up. "President Horikita, Secretary Tachibana. Class A has evidence!"
As she spoke, she pulled the USB drive Ren had tossed her last night from her pocket and held it up for Horikita and Tachibana to see.
Tachibana and Horikita exchanged a glance. After Horikita nodded, Tachibana walked over to Ichinose and took the USB drive from the girl's hand.
Once the USB drive was connected to the conference room computer, its contents were projected onto the large screen behind Horikita.
There was only one file on the drive—and that single file filled it to the brim.
At Horikita's signal, Tachibana clicked the lone file.
A video popped up. It was a compilation—many small-window clips stitched together into one.
What played on-screen showed, in detail, how the male students of Class C had stalked and tailed the members of Class A.
The video quality was extremely high-definition; you could clearly identify which Class C student was doing the stalking.
Checkmate, Ren thought.
And that was exactly how it was. The moment the video appeared on the big screen, Ryuen's pupils in the Class C defendant section constricted violently.
How is this possible?
Why did Ren install so many cameras—and why were they placed exactly along the routes where Class C had been stalking and tailing them?
The video was long. Even with Tachibana speeding playback up to the maximum, it still ran for a full half hour.
At the very end, there was even an easter egg.
All the other small windows dimmed, leaving only two still glowing—two windows that Ryuen found blinding.
The two windows slowly expanded, each taking up one side of the large screen.
In the left video, the protagonist was a Class A student with a feminine appearance, who was blocked on the road and teased by a Class C student.
In the right video, the protagonist was Class A's Chihiro Shiranami—from being teased by Class C's Ishizaki, to finally fleeing in tears to the library and throwing herself into Ichinose's arms.
Watching the easter egg he'd made yet again, Ren felt another wave of amusement as he looked at that feminine-looking student.
The reason was simple: when Ren asked about their gender earlier, the student had actually replied that their gender was "Attack Helicopter."
"Do the defendants have any further objections?" Tachibana spoke coldly—having forced herself to sit through the entire video.
The appearance of this video meant that whether or not the sexual harassment Ren mentioned earlier was true, it was now effectively true.
A month-long compilation clearly established the fact that the Class C defendants had stalked and tailed Class A's members.
And that final easter egg served as corroborating evidence.
Class C had…
Nowhere to run.
Checkmate.
Honami, behead the King with one sword stroke!
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