After exiting the building, Horikita turned around to look at me. Ah— no... She turned around to glare at me. Well, I guess my day wouldn't be complete without seeing this expression of hers.
"I'm sorry, Ayanokouji-kun, but I refuse to wait until Kinoshita-san and Manabe-san's withdrawal. I want you to explain everything to me today," she demanded.
"Sigh... The look on your face already told me everything," I shrugged. "I don't really have a choice, do I? Let's go to my room."
Horikita was surprised by my agreement, but she immediately nodded. After we got to my room, I prepared some tea for her before finally giving Hirata a call. I put it in speaker mode so Horikita can participate when necessary.
"Hello, Ayanokouji-kun?"
"Ah, Hirata? We're done talking with Ryuuen. Ike and Yamauchi were indeed telling the truth. After some negotiation, they agreed to withdraw from the case."
"Oh, are you serious? That's great news!"
"Yeah, Horikita and I are hanging out in my room right now. You don't have to worry about us. Everything turned out fine."
"Our class will be overjoyed with this!"
"Yeah... It was all-"
"Hirata-kun," Horikita butted in.
"Ah, Horikita-san. I heard it went well."
"Yes, please relay the news to everyone and tell them that everything was successful because of Ayanokouji-kun's strategy."
It seems like Horikita's pride won't allow her to take the credit. Well, I don't really mind taking the credit this time.
"Strategy?"
"Well, is it alright if we keep the details of the negotiation? It's fine as long as our classmates know that we won, right?"
"Alright... But, Horikita-san, can I at least know how you two did it?"
Hirata's concern was understandable. I suppose I could tease Horikita a little bit while responding to this.
"That's...-"
"I had Horikita admit defeat to Ryuuen," I interrupted.
"What-?" Horikita glared at me.
"Admit defeat?" Meanwhile, Hirata was also quite confused.
"Yeah, I guess it's just his personality. Ryuuen was quite delighted after Horikita told him that we lost, saying that he'd let us off this time. Well, we won't tell you the details of how pathetic it was for the two of us... You know... Begging and all..."
"That's... I'm sorry, Horikita-san. I shouldn't have asked..."
"It's... fine... Hirata-kun..." Horikita replied while punching my arm repeatedly.
I'm quite amused by her current embarrassment. It would've been better if she had a cute, pouting face on, kinda like how Kikyou would do it.
"Alright, I'll deliver the news to everyone. Thank you, Horikita-san, Ayanokouji-kun..."
"Yeah."
After hanging up, I looked at Horikita's eyes and thought that they were more moist than usual.
"How dare you..."
She continued killing me with her eyes.
"Let's just consider that as me saying 'That's what you get for being stubborn.' and get on with it," I shrugged my shoulders.
"You better tell me everything..." she glowered.
I sighed before reaching out to my drawer.
"I'll start from the beginning then." I grabbed four items inside and showed them to Horikita.
"SD cards?" she asked.
"Yeah, two of these contain the recordings of the incident," I replied.
"But what about the other two? And whose phone did you use to record the other one? Miyamoto-kun and Hondou-kun were using their phones, too, right?"
"I didn't use two phones." I reached in for a couple more items. "I used these."
"Audio bugs... and a cassette recorder?"
"Remember when I borrowed 25,000 points from you? I used 20,000 of those to buy this small cassette recorded and the last 5,000 to buy these two bugs." Of course, the bugs only came with one SD card each so I had to buy a pair of new ones for this incident. I could've utilized the same SD cards, but I'd rather keep their uses exclusive. I have more than enough points to buy them anyway.
I grabbed my phone and transferred the 25,000 points back to Horikita.
"So you'll finally tell me about how you got Kushida-san over to your side?" she asked after glancing at the point transfer notification.
"Yeah. To put everything briefly, I deleted the recording I got from the rooftop on the 12th of May after having her listen to it. Consequently, I revealed to her that our entire conversation has been recorded by the cassette recorder... before I tore the tape apart myself."
Horikita was visibly shaken by my words. However, she was smart enough to get what I wanted to do.
"I can't believe it... So you revealed and destroyed two cards to make her trust you... But unbeknownst to her, you actually had one more..." Horikita said as her lips trembled slightly.
"Yeah," I nodded. "You don't know the details of her past, right? She opened up and shared them all with me. Everything was saved in these two SD cards. Of course, I'll keep them to myself."
"Don't worry. I'm not interested," she replied instantly.
"I know," I responded with the same urgency.
After that short banter, Horikita decided to change the topic.
"Kushida-san aside, you used those bugs again for this incident, right?" asked Horikita.
"Yeah. On the day of the confession, I planted these two under Ike and Yamauchi's collars when I put my arms around their necks to wish them good luck." I pointed towards the left and right sides of my neck. "I retrieved the bugs after we arrived at the scene. They were unconscious so it was easy."
"I see... But why did you have to wait until today?"
"You were surprised that I predicted it right? Ryuuen's last demand, I mean."
"When he demanded the recordings...? Then you-" Horikita gasped as if she figured something out.
"The sound quality of these bugs' microphones is fundamentally different from our phones'. I asked Professor— eherm— Sotomura for help. His laptop had the best software for audio engineering so I had him teach me some things about it. Of course, I kept him in the dark about my real purpose." I only knew some basic ideas about audio engineering concepts like equalization and dynamics processing, and I had to borrow his laptop overnight to do everything.
"So that's also why you had his laptop and returned it this morning..." pondered Horikita.
"If you're also wondering why I didn't ask for Kikyou's help this time, it's because of the involvement of these bugs. I don't want her to get suspicious of me anytime soon. In conjunction with that, I didn't want anyone else to know about the existence of bugs in this school."
I diligently searched around the campus to see if listening devices were available for purchase. I thought I'd end up with nothing, but I somehow managed to find some in stock in a very inconspicuous part of a very unpopular hardware store. Finding this rare type of cassette recorder was way easier in comparison. It only makes sense, though. The school wouldn't openly advertise the fact that tools for espionage can be bought at very affordable prices. If it weren't for my initial plan with Kikyou, the thought of scouring around for audio bugs wouldn't have crossed my mind.
"Are you sure that Ryuuen-kun won't suspect anything?"
"He'll probably think out some things in the future, but with the help of the slight sound tinkering, I managed to send Ryuuen on a wild-goose chase to figure out how you set up the phones, which never really happened," I continued. "And of course, Miyamoto and Hondou were the key pieces for my plan to succeed. With their actions, not only did Ryuuen think that everything was going according to his plan, but my 'failed' attempt to record everything using Miyamoto and Hondou also embedded the idea that we were solely relying on phones."
It's just like that one movie called Inception. I implanted an idea inside his mind which resulted in tunnel vision. I'm sure Ryuuen will unscramble the mystery with time, but it won't really matter by then.
"This is... just..." Horikita put a hand on her head like it was aching. "I have no words. How do you even think of this stuff?"
"Well, let's just say that my mind works better in an emergency," I joked.
"Emergency? You had everything solved from the start. I can only assume that you have more backup plans if this scheme of yours ever fails, right?"
"I had five or six backup plans on standby."
"You're kidding."
"I am."
Horikita slapped my arm in irritation.
It would've been funny if I really was kidding.
"Well, jokes aside, it's nice that this didn't go public. Class A and C wouldn't have a clue of what just happened unless Ryuuen tells them anything," I said.
"They decided to hide the incident to reinforce the idea that Kinoshita-san and Manabe-san were 'scarred' by the incident and wanted to hide it for their protection against unwanted public attention. In the end, that worked in our favor, too," added Horikita.
After taking the last sip of her tea, Horikita heaved a long sigh.
"I'm no match for you in terms of creating schemes," Horikita said with a side glance.
"Don't worry. I won't scheme against my allies."
She seemed displeased that I guessed what she was thinking.
"Well, as long as you can bring us to Class A, I'm willing to cooperate," she declared while eyeing me with suspicion.
"We're on the same side, so it would be better for us to trust each other."
"I can't bring myself to trust you fully simply because you're too cunning and unpredictable. The only upside is that you're not as obnoxious as Ryuuen-kun when it comes to attitude. But still, reaching Class A is our priority. You're the person that I will rely on the most in that regard."
"Yeah, I'll definitely get you guys there as long as I feel like it."
"As long as you feel like it, huh?" Horikita narrowed her eyes.
She didn't say anything careless. Feeling like I was about to reveal some of my inner motivations, Horikita chose to listen vigilantly.
Alright, I can give her a heads up as soon as now, then.
"You see, I don't really care about reaching Class A. I'm only helping you guys because I feel like it. I'm just testing myself against this school to see how far I can go. Of course, it would be great if we graduate as Class A. I might make it as a successful civil servant or something."
"So depending on your mood... you might leave us be?"
"Hey, I don't want to be hated by my friends so I won't do anything detrimental to the class, unlike Kouenji. But, I'll probably chill back and do the bare minimum. I don't like to stand out and I hate trouble, remember? I just want to live a fun high school life."
"Well... I guess that's fair. But we can count on you to help us for now, right?" she asked with resolve.
"Of course. That was my plan, anyway."
"Us", huh? It's great that she's using that word in that context now. I'm sure Horikita will be in denial if I ever point it out, but at least, she's slowly developing into someone that the class can rely on.
I've known Horikita for three and a half months already. Based on my impression of her brother, Horikita might've been misunderstanding something very crucial. However, I'm not in any place to tell her that. Horikita must figure it out by herself.
Horikita and I used the remaining time to discuss the specifics of our contract with Ryuuen and Class D. When the time reached seven o'clock, Horikita insisted that she's overstayed for too long and decided to bid me farewell.
"Well then, thank you for today, Ayanokouji-kun. I benefitted a lot from this incident and learned how shrewd and sly you really are." Horikita patronized me with a cool tone.
"At least compliment me properly on the way out."
After she left, I checked the Ayanokouji Group chat. Airi wants to tell us something tomorrow.