It was 8:30.
The 9 o'clock Rabbit Group discussion was still some time away.
Houtarou had initially returned to his cabin intending to shower before the discussion. However, suspecting something might happen tonight, he decided against it.
As a result, he arrived early.
To his surprise, he wasn't the only early arrival — Mio was already there.
She had brought books, as usual. That morning she had been reading Gone with the Wind — the same copy he had borrowed.
But Mio wasn't simply reading to pass time. She had switched books: now it was The Count of Monte Cristo, and beside it lay a book by Rio Futaba — no, it was Quantum Mechanics.
Something peculiar was happening at the stairway corner near room 204. Houtarou observed carefully.
A group of girls had gathered, all members of the Rabbit Group: three from Class C and one from Class D.
The Class D student — their group's only Class D member — was Kei.
He recalled the names of the Class C girls: Shiho Manabe, who had sent photos earlier that day, Nanami Yabu, and Saki Yamashita.
Both Nanami and Saki had appeared in Shiho's photos. As he moved closer, he heard a girl with short, fluffy hair speaking.
"I might be wrong, but didn't you have some conflict with Rika last week?"
"What? I don't know any Rika."
The voice was familiar — it was Kei.
She too had arrived early for the Rabbit Group, only to be confronted by the Class C girls.
"Rika is our classmate with glasses and a bun." Shiho explained.
Rika Morofuji — she had been in today's photos too, and indeed wore glasses with her hair in a bun.
Houtarou listened more carefully.
The term "bun" caught his attention. Using such a plain descriptor for her friend suggested Shiho was rather straightforward, perhaps lacking in emotional sensitivity.
"I don't know anyone like that." Kei responded.
"That's strange. We heard directly from her. She said a girl from Class D named Kei Karuizawa bullied her — cut in front of her at the café and knocked her down." Shiho persisted, "If this is true, you need to apologize. Bun tends to suffer in silence; we have to stand up for her."
She seemed well-intentioned. Despite her blunt way of referring to her friend as "bun", she showed genuine concern.
Kei fell silent. Or rather, she deliberately ignored them. Seeing this, Shiho grew agitated and raised her phone, appearing ready to take a photo.
"Don't take my picture!" Kei noticed her action, "The person you're looking for isn't me!"
"Let me confirm with Rika — that would be fine, right? If it wasn't you, there shouldn't be any problem." Shiho persisted.
To be honest, Class C's approach was reasonable. They had first attempted to verify with Kei, only resorting to this method after she ignored them.
Suddenly, Kei lifted her face and swatted the other's phone away.
Smack!
The force was stronger than expected — Shiho's phone flew from her hand, tumbled across the ground, and slid away.
"What are you doing!" Shiho cried, rushing to retrieve her phone.
"That's what I should be asking." Kei replied coldly, "Don't take photos of me without permission. I told you it wasn't me — it must have been someone else."
"What if the phone is broken!"
"What do you mean 'what if'? Just report it to the school and get another one."
Hmm. Houtarou observed the scene.
"There were important photos in there..." Shiho appeared pitiful.
Yet after retrieving her phone, she immediately fixed Kei with a hateful glare. The other two Class C girls, who had witnessed everything, began moving to flank the blonde girl in support of their classmate.
Houtarou reconsidered his sympathy for Shiho.
After all, someone truly pitiful wouldn't turn aggressive so quickly. Class C students were quite competitive — as expected of Kakeru's class.
Noticing she was being surrounded, Kei's cold demeanor finally wavered.
"That person bumped into me first — I'm the victim here." She said defiantly.
"This is infuriating! What happened to your dismissive attitude? Now you're admitting it!" Shiho exclaimed, "I was going to say we could forgive you if you sincerely apologized to Rika, but now? I don't want to forgive you at all."
"You weren't planning to forgive me from the start anyway." Kei scoffed.
Shiho's temper flared instantly.
At that moment, Kei gripped her phone.
"Oh my... Are you trying to contact someone? Go ahead and contact them — aren't you the cute one? I saw you, this morning you sat right next to Oreki. Moving the chair like that, who do you think you are… I've been annoyed with you for a while, but too bad, Oreki contacted me this afternoon—"
Kei: "..."
Or rather, she had tried her best to maintain a strong front, but it proved useless.
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After Kei knocked away Shiho's phone, Houtarou left from around the corner.
He returned to Room 204, where only Mio remained. He walked straight toward her.
"Ibuki, aren't you going to check on your classmates?"
Mio sat in a corner, reading a book called Quantum Mechanics — though whether she could understand it was unclear.
She was frowning, seemingly reading the text at a steady pace. Hearing his words, she looked up.
"You want me to go check on them?" Mio seemed surprised.
She didn't actually have much goodwill toward Houtarou. After all, on the island, she had attempted to infiltrate Class A through self-harm, but he had handed her directly to Ichinose from Class B.
"Isn't it obvious?" He said, "The girls from your class are causing trouble, surrounding Karuizawa from Class D. As a male student, it's not appropriate for me to intervene — but aren't you someone with a strong sense of justice?"
"Me, strong sense of justice?" Mio nearly stood up in surprise.
She had tried to infiltrate Class A and had even acted as a spy in Class B, betraying the class that had taken her in.
Yet here was Houtarou saying she had a strong sense of justice?
Mio felt like she was hearing a joke — or being mocked.
"Isn't it obvious?" Houtarou said sincerely, "You fought against Ryūen's violence before. That's why you got into a fight with him — isn't that having a strong sense of justice? And then you were driven out."
Mio: "..."
Mio felt she had truly met a genius.
Just how naive was this guy? When he handed her over to Honami from Class B, could it be that he hadn't seen through her being a spy, but genuinely thought she would be better suited there?
Indeed, she had later seen Class B's tent — which had belonged to Class C — that Honami and the others had picked up at their campsite.
Taking Class C's things made it seem reasonable to take in a Class C student. And when they returned to the ship, Daichi had approached her, asking about Houtarou.
That same guy who, when he first enrolled, had opposed Kakeru and wanted to make money by joining Houtarou's shop-opening plan.
This she knew. It had been mentioned on the forum. Apparently opening a shop required paying 5 million points to the second-year senior Miyabi for permission.
Because it was so expensive, the plan fell through. However, Kakeru said Houtarou was a fraud trying to scam their points, so he preemptively terminated Class C's contract with him.
Daichi thought Kakeru might have misjudged, since Houtarou was still maintaining agreements with the 15 students from Class B who had lent money for the shop. Next month, he would have to pay them 15% high interest.
Mio couldn't figure out what kind of person Houtarou really was.
She remembered his guidance before the island exam, when she was pretending to be on bad terms with Kakeru. He had said that people need to act, and if you act consistently, you'll eventually reap rewards from the image you portray.
Since Houtarou, whom Kakeru was wary of, thought she was someone with a strong sense of justice, she would maintain that image. Perhaps later she could use it to advance to Class A.
She put down her book and walked out of the room.
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"Hey, you all."
Seeing Shiho and the others surrounding Kei, Mio immediately understood what was happening and walked straight over.
"Ibuki?"
Shiho and her group noticed the newcomer, but they didn't like her. She was antisocial, strong at fighting, supposedly from a martial arts family, and a devoted follower of Kakeru who liked to squeeze their allowance money.
They were somewhat wary of her.
Slap!
Mio went straight up and delivered a slap, "Don't bring shame to Class C."
"???"
Shiho instinctively held her cheek, completely dumbfounded. Even her two companions were frozen in shock.
This girl hadn't come to support them, but to slap her?
"Have you lost your mind, Ibuki!" Shiho was nearly stunned from the slap. Her two friends also recovered from their shocked expressions.
"What are you doing, Ibuki? We didn't do anything to you!"
As she said this, one of Shiho's friends took a small step back, probably worried about getting hit too.
"Are you all stupid?" Mio said, "Ryūen didn't tell you to go bullying students from other classes."
"Huh? Bullying? She just knocked my phone out of my hand—" Shiho found it unbelievable.
"Shut up. No matter who sees this scene, it looks like you're the ones doing the bullying." Ibuki said, "And there's a security camera here!"
Ibuki pointed to a corner up in the hallway. There was indeed a camera installed there.
"Uh…" Shiho and the others glanced up, "But this Kei Karuizawa bullied Rika—"
"Rika…" Mio seemed to hesitate for a moment, "Do you have any evidence? We're in the middle of exams right now. If you affect the exam or lose more points because of this... I don't think Ryūen will let you off."
Apparently quite afraid of Kakeru, Manabe's group exchanged glances.
"You got lucky!"
Muttering like sore losers, they glared at Kei a few times. Then, intimidated by Mio, they decided not to continue to Room 204 of the Rabbit Group.
Instead, they went to kill time somewhere else first...
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