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“Are you joking?”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
“I don’t know, I can never tell with you”.
“Hypocrite”
It wasn’t long ago that 2B class leader, one of Ayanokoji’s classmates and someone he could call a friend, came to his room with a strange request. It wasn’t the situation per se. In fact things like exchanging favors or lending a hand became quite common in their relationship, but he thought that he had already completed the analysis of the person known as ‘Horikita Suzune’.
He has always been quite confident in his ability to understand someone’s personality and way of thinking, but this time it seems like he was wrong. Strangely he didn’t have any unpleasant feelings about it, if she had managed to surprise him it only means she has grown in some ways.
“So, are you going to kiss me or not?”
“I have just broken up with Kei, do you not have any regards for my feelings?”
“What feelings?”
“Ouch”. She wasn’t that distant from the truth, but it was still considered something extremely rude to say according to society's standards. The fact that Horikita now felt so comfortable with others to say something like that further emphasized how much she had changed compared to the beginning of last year."
"I'm waiting for an answer." Horikita pulled him out of his thoughts with a rather annoyed look.
"I'm waiting for a reason." She seemed even more irritated, but in Ayanokoji's defense, it seemed perfectly reasonable to question things after a girl had barged into his room uninvited, especially after the dormitory curfew.
"You're a man. Do you really need a reason?" Ayanokoji felt like he should be insulted, but then his thoughts wandered to his classmates Ike and Sudo, and he decided it was better to stay silent. He couldn’t really blame Horikita for thinking this way, given the examples she was surrounded by every day. In hindsight, the fact that he hadn’t kicked her out yet but was still listening to her, when he should have been mourning his just-ended relationship with Kei, didn’t make him look much better.
"Let me get this straight-"
"Take all the time you need."
"-you came all the way here because you want a kiss?"
"Your reading comprehension skills are always astonishing."
"Insulting someone you're trying to get a favor from seems counterproductive."
"Stop asking stupid questions if you don’t want me to call you stupid."
"This is starting to feel like bullying."
"Stop trying to change the subject." By now, Ayanokoji understood that continuing the conversation wouldn’t lead to anything, so he simply stared at her, making sure she caught on to the fact that, between the two of them, she was the one who kept changing the subject. Horikita seemed to catch the unspoken words and let out a sigh: "If you don’t want to, you don’t have to."
"I didn't say that." In fact, he wasn’t opposed to the idea, but he didn’t see any reason to do it either.
"Okay, I’ll kiss you." She seemed to relax and stiffen at the same time, as impossible as that sounded.
"Tha-"
"If you give me a good reason to do it." The glare Horikita shot at him made him think that, if they ever ended up kissing, she would wrap her arms around his neck not to pull him closer, but to strangle him.
"You’re being insufferable."
"You’re being unreasonable."
They were back at square one, with Horikita insulting him and Ayanokoji mentally noting that he should ask Shiina for a book on female psychology. It was becoming clearer that the White Room hadn't taught him everything.
The contrast between their calm, stoic expressions and the childishness of the conversation was almost amusing.
"Is it really that hard to accept something as insignificant as a kiss without a reason?" It was clear that she, too, realized the absurdity of the situation and was now clinging to anything she could.
"Call me crazy, but last time you offered me something without a reason, I ended up owing you a favor against my will. If that’s what happens for a bit of food, I’m afraid a kiss would make me your slave for life." Horikita opened her mouth, likely ready to retort, probably with more unflattering words, but he continued before she had the chance:
"Besides, it doesn’t seem so insignificant to you, judging by how you’re insisting."
That made her quiet and they entered into a new silent stare-down.
In the end, Horikita gave in and let out a defeated sigh. "This is embarrassing. Also, I don't want you going around telling people about it."
"Do I strike you as the type to be into gossip?" Honestly, it’s not like Ayanokoji had any friends to talk about such things in the first place. The person he had done something even remotely close to discussing others' personal matters was Karuizawa, but after recent events, that was no longer an option.
Horikita replied shortly after: "No, but that doesn’t change the fact that you could exploit the information in the future."
"I feel constantly hurt in this conversation."
"We both know that’s not true."
The image his classmate seemed to have of him only further confused him about the reason behind her strange request.
"Listen, I just have to check something."
"Am I a lab rat or something?" Horikita had the decency to feel guilty and looked away before responding, "Kind of." And here he was, trying to escape exactly that role. What a cruel fate.
Ayanokoji had had a long day, and tomorrow was another school day, so he decided it would be best to wrap things up as quickly as possible. "Does it have anything to do with the class’s score or well-being?"
"No." She almost seemed to be ashamed of herself for having even thought of something beyond academic performance.
"Then I promise that nothing you say or do will leave this room." Despite spending the last twenty minutes emphasizing how much she thought he was unreliable, his word still seemed to mean something to her. After a few seconds of silently debating with herself, she finally spoke: "Last year, you told me to look for allies and put more effort into personal relationships… which is very hypocritical of you, if I may say so." Ayanokoji hadn't given her permission to say it, but now that Horikita had started talking, he wasn’t going to stop her over an unnecessary comment. "So, lately, I’ve started listening to others’ experiences and collecting information on different types of relationships. I’ve been trying to catalog the types of bonds I already have, to understand which ones I’ve got and which others I still need to acquire, just in case I need them in a specific situation."
He wasn’t sure it was the right approach, but contrary to what Horikita said, he wasn’t a hypocrite, and at that moment, he didn’t exactly feel in the position to judge.
She hadn’t gotten to the point yet, but at least it was progress. Plus, learning about Horikita’s thoughts on some of their classmates could prove useful. He suddenly found himself interested: "And have you made any progress?" She nodded. "I started with the easier ones like Sudo, Hirata, and Ryuuen; then I moved on to more complicated people like Ibuki and Kushida…"
"And where would you place Kushida?" The two hadn’t exactly started on the right foot, and there was still a lot of resentment or even hatred between them, at least from Kushida's side. But he couldn’t help but notice how it seemed they were spending more time together since the class leader had saved her from expulsion.
"A person with many things in common with whom I could be friends if things had gone differently." She didn’t sound very sure of her answer, which made him think it was still a work in progress. Also, if each category was so specific, it would take quite a long time to fill in all the boxes. Ayanokoji doubted she would be social enough to make all those friends, but once again, he wasn’t exactly in a position to speak.
Horikita seemed to still be thinking about the Kushida issue when he asked his next question: "So, I guess your problem comes from not knowing what kind of relationship we have?"
She tried to remain calm, battling the growing embarrassment on her cheeks. "Exactly."
"I can help you. What are the options?"
"Why? What kind of relationship do you think we have?"
He thought about it for a moment, but teenage relationships were too much of a hassle to think about past ten in the evening.
“Dictator and abused assistant.”
“That’s not funny.”
“Neither is getting stabbed with a pencil.”
“Are you going to help me or not?” She had clearly passed her patience threshold.
“You’re not exactly giving me the tools to do it.” Her abstract explanation of how she ended up there had started to give him a better picture, but something was still missing, and he didn’t want to make assumptions, those tended to cloud judgment.
“I told you exactly what you need to do to help me, I don’t see the problem.”
“Did you also ask Kushida and Ibuki to kiss you?” He didn’t know what mental image crossed Horikita’s mind, but she turned red all the way to her roots.
“Is that a yes?”
“Of course not!” she snapped. “How can you even think of something like that?!”
Honestly, even if the answer had been yes, it wouldn’t have been a problem. He wasn’t the type to judge and it wasn’t like it affected anyone else’s life anyway. But from her reaction, he figured she wasn’t lying.
“They’re different situations, obviously.” The girl was now in full-on desperation mode, but so was Ayanokoji, considering his precious eight hours of sleep were slipping further and further away.
“It’s not so obvious if I’m missing key information.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be a genius?”
“No, I’m just a normal stud-” A pillow hit him in the face.
For her to do something so bold, Ayanokoji expected to see a furious Horikita when he looked up, but instead she wore her usual expression of indifference.
“Don’t give me that crap, I’m not one of our idiot classmates.”
Ayanokoji figured the others wouldn’t be too thrilled to hear how their leader referred to them, but given how irritated she was right now, he decided to let it slide.
“What do I have to do to make you take this seriously?”
“Stop dancing around the issue and tell me the truth. That might be a good start.”
She clearly started an internal debate, probably deciding what to kill between him and her own pride.
“Promise that none of this will leave this room?”
“Not much has changed in five minutes.”
She shot him a glare but eventually relented. “Fine.”
They both sat back down, and Ayanokoji finally saw the end of this tedious night in sight.
“So…”
“Shut up until I’m done.”
Ayanokoji closed his mouth.
Horikita seemed satisfied.
“Remember how I told you I was thinking about the kind of relationship we have, right?”
Considering she’d told him to shut up just a few seconds ago, he assumed it was a rhetorical question and simply nodded.
“Well… it’s a bit embarrassing to say, but I’ve always thought of you as my first friend. That’s why I never really paid attention when people joked or made assumptions about us. I never cared much about other people’s opinions.”
From what little Ayanokoji had learned through his relationship with Karuizawa, friends usually didn’t go around kissing each other, but he let her continue, assuming it would all make sense eventually.
“But since I started talking to others about these things, I realized maybe they know more than I do when it comes to certain feelings. And since I never saw the need to focus on that kind of emotion, I don’t really have the foundation to recognize it when it shows up.”
Horikita finished her explanation in a steady, composed voice. The only clue that she wasn’t as calm as she appeared was how she hadn’t looked him in the eye even once, and her very deliberate avoidance of certain specific words.
Now Ayanokoji finally had the full picture behind this bizarre situation. He could understand her logic; honestly, he probably would’ve done the same in her position. He’d read somewhere that being with someone you have romantic feelings for is supposed to make you happy and, in books, the kiss scene is always described as the emotional peak of the story. So, even if it was obviously dramatized for narrative effect, there had to be some truth to it.
Essentially, Horikita was asking to kiss him to see whether the gesture would spark something inside her or if it would just be a meaningless brush of lips. Framed that way, it wasn’t such a crazy request after all. But he could definitely understand why it would be so embarrassing to say it out loud. He gave it some thoughts:
“No”.
“What do you mean
no
?” Horikita was visibly taken aback. “You said you’d do it if I gave you a reason.”
“I said I’d help you if you gave me a good reason.”
“And after humiliating me, you’re saying that wasn’t good enough?”
“It was.”
“Then—”
“But I have an even better reason to say no.”
Horikita waited for him to continue. “Which is?”
“Do I really need to say it out loud? It wouldn’t change my answer anyway.”
The embarrassment seemed to have completely left her; Horikita had switched into full leader mode.
“If it’s because you’re uncomfortable, I’ll accept that without a problem. After all, you’re completely within your rights to refuse something like this. But if there are logical reasons behind it, I’d like to know them. I thought about this carefully before coming here and couldn’t identify any flaws in my reasoning. So if you did find some, it’s my duty as a leader to refine my thinking and judgment. So, Ayanokoji, if it’s not too much trouble, I’d like you to tell me where my reasoning was lacking.”
He sighed. He really couldn’t deny her an explanation, especially if it would help her grow as a leader and a person.
“Let’s try to break it down. Scenario one: we kiss and nothing happens. Are you 100% sure our relationship wouldn’t change? What happens if tomorrow you regret it and start avoiding me out of embarrassment? That kind of agitation would cloud your judgment, and I wouldn’t be there to support you.”
She bit her lip slightly, weighing her next words.
“And what if I realized that what I feel for you is of romantic nature?”
“Then what? Do you plan to have a relationship with me?” It was a cheap tactic to throw her off balance and get her to back down, but Horikita didn’t take the bait.
“To have that kind of relationship, it requires both people’s involvement. Even if I had feelings for you, it wouldn’t be possible unless you reciprocated them. Are you telling me that’s the case?”
Her attempt to fluster him was even more blatant than his.
“That’s irrelevant.”
“Why? If you’re set on analyzing all the possible ways this could go wrong, you can’t just leave out certain variables.”
“You’re just trying to embarrass me for revenge.”
“Please, I’m not that childish.”
Of course he knew that wasn’t the case, but he still couldn’t tell where exactly she was trying to go with this. He decided to play along.
“If you insist. If I did have romantic feelings for you, and you reciprocated, then you wouldn’t be able to make decisions objectively anymore; a part of you would always prioritize my well-being, even if it went against the class’s interests. And if my feelings were one-sided, then kissing you would only twist the knife and make me miserable, thinking about what I’ll never have.”
Horikita snorted. “Should I laugh?”
He’d heard that some people made jokes to ease the tension when things got too heavy. He wasn’t sure he’d entirely grasped the concept.
“Setting aside your pathetic attempt at humor…”
Apparently, that was a no.
“…All the reasons you gave me are based on the assumption that I can’t keep my emotions in check. After two years in the same class, I’d like to think I deserve more credit than that. Isn’t your goal to help me become a good leader?”
Ayanokoji raised an eyebrow. “And what makes you think that?”
“Like I said before, I’m not an idiot.”
Ayanokoji thought for a moment. “Fine.”
Horikita blinked, confused. “Fine?”
“I’ll kiss you.”
“W-what?” For someone who had spent the last forty minutes trying to convince him to do exactly that, she looked absurdly surprised.
“Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Yes, but… didn’t you say you wouldn’t do it?”
Ayanokoji still didn’t understand the human habit of hesitating right before getting exactly what one asked for.
“And you changed my mind after addressing every concern I had. You’re really an incredible class leader.”
Horikita turned even redder. “Don’t say it like that!”
He’d already noticed this when he saw her interact with her brother, but apparently praises flustered her even more than embarrassment.
Horikita licked her lips instinctively. “So… should we do it now?”
The question seemed more directed at herself than at Ayanokoji. It was stupid to hesitate after she’d pushed for this so hard, but he didn’t rush her.
She realized it on her own. She unclenched the fists she’d had resting tightly on her knees and forced her body to move, despite its lack of cooperation.
At that moment, Ayanokoji realized how clearly he could read her. He’d reached a point where he could tell what she was thinking from the slightest movement of her lips or her eyebrows. Right now, Horikita was probably wishing he’d take the lead, then internally scolding herself for being such a coward.
‘This is ridiculous. I can’t expect him to take the final step when I’m the one who came here with this absurd request. If I can’t even do something this fleeting, how can I hope to lead my class to victory?’
Reading people’s thoughts wasn’t new to him. He’d been trained to understand others deeply, to manipulate them, predict their strategies. But this was different.
It felt like he could see her thoughts unfold, like they were echoing in his mind, and lately he’d even started imagining them in her voice.
She’d probably call him a creep if he ever told her that, so he wisely kept that observation to himself.
They were now so close that only a few millimeters separated them. No trace of nervousness, though it surely must still have been there since she wasn’t doing anything except looking at him. Finally, she abandoned all unnecessary worries and closed the distance.
The kiss was brief, measured, exactly like the experiment it was meant to be.
They pulled apart. Neither of them spoke.
Ayanokoji registered the details: the temperature of her lips, the absence of hesitation in her breathing, the faint tension in the way she had held her shoulders. Data. Information. No immediate interpretation.
Horikita had only pulled back a few millimeters before her lips were on his again.
And in that moment, no longer than a heartbeat, Ayanokoji placed his hand on her back. It wasn’t an impulse. It was a decision. Calculated, restrained. Unnecessary, yet inevitable. When he touched her back, it was with the same lightness with which one might rest a hand on the spine of a book still undecided whether to read. No clear intent. Just a gesture to balance the moment.
Horikita didn’t pull away. She didn’t tense. Just a small shift in weight, as if she had stopped holding her breath without realizing it.
The kiss continued. It didn’t grow more intense, but neither did it fade. It was as though they were both testing the edge, the narrow boundary of something unexplored. There was no urgency. Just presence. That strange, precise attentiveness that exists between two people far too used to hiding everything.
He noticed the change in her breathing. A slight irregularity. Perhaps insignificant. But observable. Another detail to store away. Like all the others.
The imperceptible lean of her torso into his, and the gradual pressure of her lips against his own.
Ayanokoji recognized them all as physiological signals. He categorized them. But this time, something escaped the classification.
Because when Horikita didn’t pull away immediately, when she lingered there, eyes closed for just a moment longer than necessary, his body, against all expectations, didn’t remain passive.
A subtle tension traced his spine. His heartbeat, usually steady and silent, shifted minutely. Almost imperceptibly. But it happened.
And then, before he had time to stop himself, he deepened the kiss.
It wasn’t intentional. It was a reaction. A choice made before he could think to prevent it.
His fingers moved, slow but deliberate, until they brushed her side, just above the line of her jacket. She flinched, but didn’t pull away. On the contrary: she responded.
With more pressure. More closeness.
The borders of the moment, until then clear and defined, began to blur.
Distance, control, rationality, elements that usually governed every interaction between them, grew faint.
They didn’t vanish. But they wavered.
Ayanokoji felt, with uncomfortable clarity, the gap between what he was supposed to feel and what was actually happening. It wasn’t curiosity. It wasn’t an experiment.
It was desire. Subtle, contained, but undeniable. And Horikita… she wasn’t motionless anymore. Her hands had closed around the fabric of his uniform, just above his hips. A small gesture, but one that said much, like she, too, was losing her control for a moment, and choosing to accept it.
He was the one who ended the kiss, in the end.
Not out of rejection. But necessity. To stop the moment before they crossed a line.
A heavy silence fell between them, heavier than it should have been.
He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just watched her.
She seemed to be waiting, perhaps for a word, perhaps for a reaction. But he gave her neither. Even though he still felt in control, he could sense something shifting inside him, something he’d never felt, not even with Karuizawa.
He doubted it was something that could be called an emotion. After all, how could a simple touch of skin make him feel something when nothing else ever had?
Whatever it was, though, it couldn’t be ignored.
“That wasn’t unpleasant,” Horikita said at last, as if commenting on a well-executed training exercise.
“No,” he replied.
After another few moments of silence, she stood up. “I think I’ll go finish my research now. Thanks for your cooperation.”
The words sounded like something that could have come out during a business meeting, but the tone she used was unsteady.
She walked out without saying anything else, her footsteps echoing evenly in the quiet hallway.
Ayanokoji remained on the floor a while longer. He didn’t feel unsettled.
But he was aware that the interaction had left a mark somewhere deep inside, in a place where nothing usually left a trace.
It wasn’t interest. It wasn’t infatuation, not by any common definition.
It was just something that now existed.
And maybe, someday, it would be something he’d be willing to explore further.