𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐑𝐈𝐕𝐀𝐋𝐑𝐘

FIFTEEN.

comment for major motivation

EXAMS WERE IN A FEW DAYS TIME, and in the midst of all the excitement—you had forgotten.

And now it led to the inevitable: cramming. You could practically hear Jun's voice in your head, sneering and laughing at you. But you didn't exactly care, since you would probably still score higher than him. Plus, you hadn't seen him since the day of your kidnapping, though you had seen Inei, Kaen, and Saito. Strangely, there was no word from Daichi.

What was his full name...again?

Whatever. Irrelevant.

Now all that mattered was the fact you had books to read and quotes to memorize—loads, actually. And equations to solve, biology to recall. The situation was looking hopeless.

"Should you be studying so hard? You got kidnapped, remember?" Kaen pointed out. There was a small crunch sound as he dug his fingers into a chip bag and took a small bite of it. "Have you called the police?"

"I assumed this academy didn't really like police looking over their matters," you raised an eyebrow. "And anyways, Arata helped me."

There was a pause.

"...Arata?"

Weird. His voice was strange.

"Is there a problem? And why do you keep coming into my room? Don't you have practice to attend?" You rolled your eyes. "I'm still doing my biology and it's hard to imagine them as actual human bodies with you here."

You remembered the last time you crammed for a biology examination—you had so little time that you had simply looked at yaoi anatomy proportions and you had learned a lot more than you had intended to. Mostly things saved for the bedroom, but that wasn't relevant to the story.

"Actual human bodies...?" Kaen echoed, before he gave a smile. "Nevermind. I don't want to know."

Wait. Was it just you or were his reactions becoming a lot more tame than last time? He had barely raised an eyebrow unlike the previous instances where his mouth had gone so wide that—

You were not going down that train of thought. Instead, you closed your textbook, crossing your hands.

"Aren't you supposed to be studying too?"

"Studied already. No one crams that late. Plus, Jun is just going to take the first position."

"Is he now?"

"He always does." Kaen popped another chip in his mouth. Some kind of Shoyuemi snack that looked like little wiggly branches. Well, it smelt good—so you weren't going to complain. And besides, well—of course Jun was good at studying. He wouldn't have proposed that bet if he wasn't good at it.

If you lose, you do anything I want.

Anything he wanted, huh? You thought it over. What would he ask you to do if you lost? He struck you as a sadist. Someone had hated you deeply. Even when you had been kidnapped, he had made no attempts to reach out towards you. You could have been dead, and he probably wouldn't have cared.

"We made a bet." You finally looked at Kaen, sighing. "Must have been a stupid decision for him, actually. I never lose. Nah, I'd win."

"Confidence. Well, you did get in through a scholarship."

"Well, if I lose...then I guess something will beat the pain of getting tricked into a cute fluffy slice of life manga, only to find belatedly from a single panel that it was in fact, an angsty painful one." You rattled off, before you saw Karen's face contort with confusion. "Ignore what I just said. I think the exam stress is finally getting to me."