[Ding~]
[CG60: A Sleepless Night (Sakayanagi Arisu)]
[Can't sleep. Absolutely cannot sleep!]
[Congratulations, Host! You have obtained Skill Card: Line-of-Sight Block (Can be applied to a specific object or person. When applied to an object, it becos invisible to all observers. When applied to a person, it produces a blinding effect.)]
The pale light of early morning seeped through the gaps in the wooden walls. Even so, beneath the dense layering of broad leaves overhead, the interior of the cabin remained cloaked in a soft, hazy dimness.
Sakayanagi Arisu had actually been awake for so ti — or more precisely, after that nocturnal "symphony" had finally subsided in the dead of night, she had only managed to scrape together a few fitful minutes of sleep just before dawn.
Now, the sounds of rustling reached her ears — fabric brushing against skin, buttons slipping into buttonholes. Clearly, the others had already risen and were getting dressed.
Sakayanagi Arisu did not open her eyes. If anything, she squeezed them shut even tighter.
If not for the necessity of maintaining the pretense — I'm still fast asleep; I heard absolutely nothing last night — she would have desperately wanted to clap both hands over her ears.
Because every ti the sounds of dressing reached her, Sakayanagi Arisu's mind would inevitably conjure the corresponding sounds of undressing — and the mont those sounds surfaced, one thing led to another, and everything she had been straining so hard to forget ca flooding back, one mory after another.
And to make it worse — even in the gaps between getting dressed, those people were still being affectionate with each other. Here, within the confines of this tiny cabin, she could hear perfectly well the sounds that made one's face burn — the soft, moist press of kisses, and the girls' flustered, breathless responses.
This guy… Did he really insist on morning kisses after getting up too?
Why not just go ahead and run through everything that happened last night all over again?!
Sakayanagi Arisu had been lying on her side — a deliberate choice, so that Shiki Natsu and the others would not easily catch the expression on her face. It was mortifying enough as it was. She had co in here intending to play the unwanted third wheel — or at the very least, to exist as a guest — yet those people had proceeded entirely as though she were not there, doing exactly as they pleased. She was the one left squirming in discomfort. Sakayanagi Arisu found that deeply, profoundly unacceptable.
Especially because, sharing the sa space in the dark of night, listening to the sounds passing between Shiki Natsu and those girls, she had felt sothing small and fragile shatter sowhere inside her. She and Shiki Natsu were not together — not in any official sense. And yet she felt as though sothing precious had been taken from her, as though she had beco so hapless, powerless wife who had already lost the race before it had even begun. Even if she and Shiki Natsu were to beco a couple soday, she would always be a latecor — and that feeling, irrational as she knew it to be, was startlingly, stubbornly intense.
While Sakayanagi Arisu was still deliberating over when she could safely pretend to wake up, the others at last finished changing. The sound of footsteps drew closer.
Her heart lurched involuntarily. She could only hope that her complexion was passable right now. She needed to hold a perfectly normal expression in a mont — not a single crack, not a single tell. She had to sell the fiction that she had slept wonderfully last night, that she was entirely oblivious to whatever Shiki Natsu and Kamuro Masumi and the others had been up to.
Of course, Sakayanagi Arisu was under no illusion that this would be easy — even for her. Controlling one's facial expressions was no simple feat, least of all when confronted with sothing that had dealt such a seismic blow to one's worldview.
Sakura Airi padded over softly to where Sakayanagi Arisu lay, reached out a gentle hand, and gave her shoulder a light shake, keeping her voice low.
"Sakayanagi-san... Wake up. It's already morning."
There was a languid, sated quality to Sakura Airi's voice that dug straight into Sakayanagi Arisu like a needle.
"We need to head to the assembly point for roll call soon. If we're late, it'll cause trouble for the class."
Hearing that, Sakayanagi Arisu knew she could not keep up the act any longer. She put on her most convincing performance of soone only just surfacing from deep sleep — bleary, disoriented — and slowly rolled over. With the help of those small, soft hands steadying her, she pushed herself upright, silver hair tumbling in mild disarray around her shoulders.
"Good morning, Sakayanagi-san."
Sakura Airi smiled and offered the greeting warmly.
But when Sakura Airi's gaze settled on Sakayanagi Arisu's face — flawlessly refined as always, yet noticeably pallid, with the faint shadow of dark circles beneath her eyes — she could not help a small, surprised blink.
"Oh my… Sakayanagi-san, you don't look very well at all."
Sakura Airi leaned in closer, her expression laced with unmistakable concern.
"Don't tell you… didn't sleep well last night?"
At that question, Sakayanagi Arisu's violet eyes narrowed in an instant. She shot the seemingly innocent — and utterly insufferable — woman in front of her a sharp, venomous look.
This girl… was absolutely, positively playing dumb.
Surely the chief architect of last night's chaos had at least so awareness of the damage she had caused?
If not for those four people carrying on until the small hours of the morning, all manner of ear-reddening, face-burning sounds seeping right through the walls, why on earth would she, Sakayanagi Arisu, have ended up in such a spiritually decimated state?
Truly… a woman with absolutely no sha.
Naturally, on the surface, Sakayanagi Arisu strained to maintain every last shred of her imperious dignity.
She could hardly co right out and say she had spent the entire night eavesdropping on their little performance — however involuntary the eavesdropping had been. The very thought of it made her feel pathetically sorry for herself.
And what she found most bewildering — and most infuriating — was this: after that much activity last night, how were every single one of them glowing with health and brimming with energy right now? Shiki Natsu in particular, that insufferable wretch — he had been occupied with three girls simultaneously, yet at this mont he looked as though he had never been in better shape in his life.
Had last night's marathon of exertion truly left not a single mark on this despicable man? Could that sort of thing actually improve one's vitality sohow?
Sakayanagi Arisu drew a slow, asured breath. She forced the corners of her lips into her trademark arch of sardonic amusent and replied in her usual composed tone.
"How kind of you to worry, Sakura-san. It's simply that last night… I happened to have a rather 'noisy' nightmare, and that's why I didn't rest well. Nothing more."
The mont Sakura Airi heard the word noisy, sothing seed to register behind those eyes of hers. The smile at the corner of her mouth deepened, and she asked with perfectly calibrated considerateness:
"Are you perhaps not used to sleeping here? The environnt is a bit rough-and-ready, after all."
Sakayanagi Arisu kept her smile firmly in place and enunciated her reply with deliberate precision, one word at a ti.
"No. I believe last night was simply an anomalous dream, and nothing more. To have accommodations of this quality on a deserted island is already quite fortunate."
In the privacy of her own mind, she had cursed Sakura Airi approximately a thousand tis over.
This woman, just like Shiki Natsu himself, was rotten straight through — cut her open and there was nothing but black.
"That's good, then."
Sakura Airi smiled and nodded as though she had heard nothing between the lines whatsoever.
"In that case, Sakayanagi-san, you should get ready. We'll all be going our separate ways for a while after this."
Sakayanagi Arisu gave a small nod. As she took the mont of putting on her shoes to cover the gesture, that little button nose of hers gave the air an almost imperceptible, casual sniff.
To her surprise, the cramped little cabin carried none of the distinctive… peculiar odors she had fully expected to find.
Even the clothes belonging to Shiki Natsu and the girls looked suspiciously clean — not a single crease in sight, with none of the disheveled, wrung-out quality one might expect after high-intensity exertion.
Sakayanagi Arisu let her gaze drift with practiced casualness over the area where they had spent the night.
Spotless. Not a trace of perspiration, not a drop of anything unidentified.
Could it be… that the evidence had been cleaned away? Or had it simply gone… sowhere else entirely?
The mont that thoroughly shaless possibility crossed her mind, Sakayanagi Arisu felt her face flood with heat all over again. Shaless — truly, utterly shaless!
If one was going to do that, shouldn't one at least take the necessary precautions? What if sothing went wrong?
After all, while the school did not police such matters especially strictly, should sothing actually happen, those involved would have no choice but to leave the school entirely.
She genuinely could not fathom it — that Shiki Natsu and those girls would be bold enough to risk sothing like that. Were they truly prepared to throw away their place in this school for a fleeting mont of pleasure?
Absolutely unhinged.
While Sakayanagi Arisu was still caught in this whirlwind of thoughts, a voice arrived at her ear.
"Sakayanagi-san… are you looking for sothing? Did you leave sothing behind here, perhaps?"
Shiki Natsu's lips curved into that playful, knowing smile of his. Those pale golden eyes settled on Sakayanagi Arisu, and he read the girl's train of thought with effortless clarity. Had it been any other girl spending the night here, he would not have gone quite this far. But because it had been Sakayanagi Arisu — he had proceeded without a mont's guilt or hesitation.
As for whether he felt any embarrassnt about it… he did not, in the slightest. After all, this was only a matter of when, not if.
Caught red-handed by the very person in question, the color that swept across Sakayanagi Arisu's pale cheeks was sudden and total.
She lingered not a second longer. Her steps slightly hurried, she walked out of the cabin.
"I wasn't looking for anything! I had just woken up and my head was still a little foggy — I was simply spacing out."
She tossed that back over her shoulder from the doorway without turning around. A rosy flush had crept all the way up to the tips of her ears, giving her a rather beguilingly flustered look.
"Shiki-san, it's getting late. I think we ought to head back sooner rather than later — we don't want to miss roll call."
She left that final remark hanging in the air and set off ahead on her own, making her way toward the Class A Base Camp.
Shiki Natsu said his goodbyes to Sakura Airi and Shiina Hiyori, then headed to the Class A Base Camp together with Kamuro Masumi. By the ti they arrived, most of Class A had already risen. Mashima Tomoya stood before the assembled students, and when his gaze landed on the two of them — Shiki Natsu and Kamuro Masumi — he gave a brief, asured nod.
He did not make a habit of prying into students' personal affairs, and since neither of them had arrived late, there was nothing to address.
Of course, the roll call still had to be conducted. Mashima Tomoya went through each na one by one; all of Class A was present and accounted for. Once roll call concluded, it was free activity ti.
Katsuragi Kouhei had already gathered a few of the boys and was preparing to go reclaim a Base Camp whose reset tir had co due — looking every bit as busy and thodical as always. To many, that sort of repetitive effort would seem like a chore. But that was simply who Katsuragi was — steady, thorough, unflagging. As long as it could win the class even the smallest point advantage, he would never begrudge the expenditure of ti or energy.
Shiki Natsu idled beneath the shade of a tree, his gaze drifting over to Kamuro Masumi, who was chatting lightly with a few girls nearby.
He walked over and gave her a small smile, saying quietly:
"Masumi, I'm going to take a walk through the forest."
Kamuro Masumi gave a slight nod and showed no sign of clinging.
As one of Shiki Natsu's official girlfriends, she understood perfectly well the principle of too much is as bad as too little. Shiki Natsu still had other girls' feelings to cultivate, after all, and if she tagged along, those other girls would feel constrained.
Besides… the re thought of last night was enough to set her cheeks burning all over again.
There in that cabin, he had gone three rounds without showing the slightest sign of fatigue — while she and Sakura Airi and Shiina Hiyori had been the ones to run out of stamina first, surrendering one after another.
It really did feel as though no matter how many girls there were, Shiki Natsu could handle them all. That was… honestly a little outrageous.
Nearby, Shiraishi Asuka's eyes drifted to Sakayanagi Arisu. She was looking decidedly under the weather. Yesterday, the two of them had been helping Shiki Natsu and the others build the cabin, and they had shared a cabin together. Last night, Sakayanagi Arisu had slipped away — almost certainly to sleep in Shiki Natsu's cabin. But now her complexion was terrible, unmistakably the face of soone who had barely slept.
Yet Kamuro Masumi, who had also been in that sa cabin, was positively radiant. What on earth…?
The answer ca to Shiraishi Asuka almost imdiately. A spare wheel. Sakayanagi Arisu had gone over there, ended up as an unwanted third wheel, and had spent the whole night making herself miserable over it.
In a sense, Shiraishi Asuka had read the situation quite accurately — except that Sakayanagi Arisu, as a third wheel, had not even managed to maintain that role properly. She pushed open the door to her own small cabin and walked inside. Right now, all she wanted was to sleep — to recover every last fragnt of the ntal energy she had lost.
After leaving the Class A Base Camp, Shiki Natsu had no particular destination in mind. He simply wandered, unhurried, through the dense undergrowth of the forest.
Yesterday he had already visited the Class C Base Camp. He hadn't been to Class B's or Class D's yet — though with the terrain map he carried in his head, he could make a fairly confident guess as to where both classes would have set up.
Co to think of it, yesterday he had run into Sakura Airi picking fruit nearby — which ant Class D's Base Camp was almost certainly in the vicinity.
Just as Shiki Natsu was leisurely brushing aside a tangle of shrubbery, a familiar figure appeared in his line of sight without any warning.
A cascade of jet-black hair, and a pair of wine-red eyes that stood out sharply even in the shadows — eyes that, on closer inspection, carried a distinct trace of exhaustion.
Horikita Suzune.
She was walking toward him with arms folded across her chest, lips pressed together, expression cool and composed. When she noticed him, she gave only the briefest nod in acknowledgnt — a bare-minimum greeting — and showed no intention whatsoever of slowing down, as though even one additional word would be a waste of energy.
But Shiki Natsu needed only a single glance to see straight through the stubborn beauty's show of strength.
While he had earlier used an item to improve the deserted island's climate — purely for the sake of his own quality of life — a more pleasant climate could only slow the progression of an illness, not cure the underlying condition that had already taken root in Horikita Suzune's body.
Right now, her face was pale, her breathing faintly irregular. She was clearly pushing through a high fever and pronounced fatigue through sheer force of will.
For Horikita Suzune, withdrawing from the exam due to illness would an a direct, punishing point deduction for Class D.
Just yesterday afternoon, the free agent Kouenji Rokusuke had already done exactly that — citing vague "physical discomfort" as his excuse to sail back to the cruise ship on a whim, heaping further misery onto Class D's already precarious position.
If she fell too, then Class D's dream of closing the gap with the other classes would beco nothing more than the delusion of a fool.
Back when they had first landed on the island, Horikita Suzune had heard things about Shiki Natsu — that this individual had, using nothing more than a handful of tools, single-handedly constructed several small cabins, a feat that seed to transcend the limits of ordinary human capability.
Not that any of that had anything to do with her.
What Horikita Suzune was slightly concerned about right now was whether Shiki Natsu would notice just how poor her condition had beco.
If he did notice, then knowing his personality, he would almost certainly send her straight back to the cruise ship to rest — and if that happened, the point gap between Class D and Class A would only widen further.
"Just hold on for the remaining days… just hold on…"
Horikita Suzune repeated the words to herself like a mantra, over and over. She refused to seek help from anyone — not from her classmate Sakura Airi, not from i-Yu Wang, and certainly not from the most unreadable man standing before her right now. All three were her friends, in their own ways, but Horikita Suzune was not ready to expose her weakness to any of them.
She lowered her gaze and quickened her pace, hoping to slip past Shiki Natsu before he could open his mouth.
"Well now, Horikita-san — what's the rush?"
Speak of the devil. That perfectly agreeable voice of his sounded beside her ear, and deep in her heart, Horikita Suzune cursed her luck. The voice was pleasant enough — the personality behind it was another matter entirely.
As the saying went: when fate turns against you, even a sip of cold water will get stuck in your teeth.
She had gone out of her way to avoid him, and she had still been caught in the crosshairs of the most troubleso, most inadvisable person in the entire school.
Horikita Suzune stopped walking. She bore down against the waves of dizziness crashing through her head, drew herself upright, and worked to make her voice sound as cool and composed as it always did.
She turned slowly to face him, fixing those wine-red eyes on Shiki Natsu — eyes that the fever had made just slightly more liquid than usual — and asked in a asured, cold tone.
"Shiki-san. Is there sothing you need?"
____
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