All or Nothing

Volume 1: Chapter 5 Part 1

Part 1

Let's backtrack to just 2 days ago.

"See you girls later tonight! Kushida-san, see you tomorrow!"

Mei-Yu Weng, Inogashira Kokoro and a few others waved goodbye to everyone as they stood outside the second year student dorms. It was the former who said the farewell to everyone and especially so to Kushida, since Kushida was Mei-Yu Weng's best friend.

Waving goodbye to her friends, Kushida turned away and began walking in the opposite direction of the second year student dorms. Unlike her friends, Kushida's destination was not her home just yet. She had told Mei-Yu, Inogashira and the rest that she needed to meet up with someone before returning home, resulting in their parting ways just earlier.

After walking for a bit, she arrived at her destination - the first year student dorms. She buzzed on one of the room's doorbell, alerting the occupant of her presence, completely unaware that she was being watched by a couple that were just returning home from their date.

When she entered the dorms, Kushida took the elevator to the 5th floor and knocked on the door to a specific student's dorm room. After some sounds of fumbling from inside the room and footsteps approaching the entrance, the door opened and revealed a first year boy with messy brown hair and serene green eyes.

"Come in, Kushida-senpai."

Said boy, known none other as Yagami Takuya, one of the leaders of First Year Class B, moved out of the way and allowed Kushida to enter the dorm room.

When a certain incident where a gorilla tried to intimidate Kushida's class during the first special exam of the year, Takuya came to stop the incident from escalating and then approached Kushida, introducing himself as a kouhai from her middle school. However, this was a white lie.

He had managed to convince Kushida of this fact so that he could use her to fight Kiyotaka. During the uninhabited island exam, he exposed this lie in front of Kushida and threatened her to work with him if she wanted to continue studying at ANHS. Kushida had no other choice but to accept the situation, in other words, become Takuya's pawn.

She really didn't like the whole idea, but she didn't have a choice. He was helping her get rid of Kiyotaka since they both want him gone (or at least in her eyes), so she at least saw some benefit from it even if she hated being manipulated.

As she reflected on the past, Kushida noticed the sun shining faintly through the gaps in the closed curtains. It wasn't an important sight for her, but it did remind her that this was a secret meeting for a secret operation, like a spy and her boss meeting to discuss an infiltration mission.

Takuya served some freshly brewed tea to Kushida as she sat down at the table, but Kushida didn't reach for it, only glancing at it for a second before looking straight back at the now sitting first year boy.

"I didn't spike the drink, you know? There's nothing like poison or drugs in it. Perfectly safe to consume."

He responded to her gaze with his usual smile and tried to beckon her to take a sip of the tea he went and made for the two of them.

"I don't care about that, can you just get on with it?"

Kushida made no attempt to hide her frustration as she scowled at him and spoke with a slight hiss. Earlier on in the day, Kushida received a text message from Takuya saying that he wanted to discuss something with her privately in his dorm after school, resulting in the current situation. Kushida, who usually went out with friends and had fun on her own, was unsurprisingly annoyed at having to cancel her plans.

Takuya nodded with an "I see I see" expression, without so much as breaking his 'charming' smile.

"Excuse me, senpai. Then let's get straight to the discussion. Firstly, do you have the recording I asked you to make?"