Chapter 58: Three Liars

  After Hachiman left, only Sakayanagi and Kamuro were left in the activity room. Sakayanagi remained seated at the chessboard, silent, while Kamuro plopped down into the chair where Hachiman had been sitting.

  "Sakayanagi, did you have fun today?" Kamuro asked.

  Kamuro opened a lollipop and bit into it. Mmm, the sweet and sour strawberry fvor was really good.

  Sakayanagi didn’t respond immediately. She silently stared at the chessboard, seemingly lost in thought. Suddenly, she smiled.

  “Uh…”

  Kamuro was taken aback by the sudden smile on Sakayanagi’s face, feeling a strange sensation. This smile didn’t contain the irritation Kamuro had expected. Instead, it was more like… the joy of finding a new toy.

  Kamuro recognized that smile all too well, because Sakayanagi had smiled at her in the same way back then, and then… she became Sakayanagi's "pet"!

  Goodbye, dead fish eyes!

  Kamuro silently prayed for someone in her mind.

  "This D-Css Hachiman really taught me a lesson!"

  Sakayanagi picked up a chess piece and began repying the game from earlier. With just her memory, she was able to perfectly replicate every move made by the two pyers.

  "At first, I just wanted to try a little appetizer before the main course."

  While fiddling with the chess pieces, Sakayanagi muttered, "Was it from this move? No…"

  Kamuro watched her mutter to herself, her expression rather strange. "Sakayanagi, are you okay?"

  Kamuro felt that Sakayanagi was acting a bit… off?

  "Hehe, don't worry, Masumi. I'm fine," Sakayanagi stopped moving the pieces, gazing at the chessboard with satisfaction before looking up at Kamuro and giving her a faint smile.

  "I-I'm not worried about you! No, what I mean is you look… very..." Kamuro struggled to find the right words before finally coming up with one: "Satisfied?"

  "Looks like Masumi understands me well."

  Sakayanagi smiled, but to Kamuro, that smile seemed cold. "It seems he was deliberately hiding his skills."

  "But he still lost to you," Kamuro said with some annoyance.

  "Hehe, do you know? The correct result requires the correct process. The result right now is what I wanted, but the process was what he wanted."

  As she said this, Sakayanagi couldn’t help but think back to when she had "guided" Hachiman into accepting the bet. It was almost identical to the current situation—though the result was right, the process was not what Sakayanagi had hoped for.

  As expected, anyone who gets involved with that woman is not simple.

  "That's so complicated. Anyway, in the end, you won, and isn't that all that matters?" Kamuro felt like Sakayanagi was showing off on purpose. She had won, yet she acted like "I won, but I didn’t win." It was really irritating.

  "If we're just talking about this particur game, then yes, that’s true."

  Sakayanagi didn't refute Kamuro’s words, but gave her a deep look. "But knowing the result without understanding the process is very dangerous."

  "Huh? Are you saying I'm shallow?!" Kamuro raised her brows and shot Sakayanagi a rather rude gre.

  "You saw the chess game, but what he and I saw were things outside the game," Sakayanagi sighed. "From the moment he accepted the game, I should’ve realized I had been tricked."

  "First time I’ve seen you admit defeat," Kamuro said in disbelief.

  Sakayanagi seemed unusually sensitive to the word "lose." She gred at Kamuro with an unfriendly expression, then said word by word, "I... did... not... lose!"

  Ignoring Kamuro's displeasure, Sakayanagi continued her analysis. "He deliberately chose to py a fast game to make me think, ‘he knows he's not as good and is using an unexpected tactic,’ showing weakness to the enemy.

  Then, he purposely acted as if he was in a dilemma and took a long time to think, making me think victory was in my hands, but in reality, he was using deceit. Looking back, his expression didn’t seem fake at all.

  In the end, he exhausted all his options and went all in, risking everything. Such deep scheming and… such ruthlessness."

  "Is it really that exaggerated?" Kamuro mumbled, feeling like Sakayanagi might have over-thought things. Was this what so-called "geniuses" were like?

  "He's a liar!"

  Sakayanagi gave her verdict.

  "Sure enough, only liars can be friends with liars."

  Sakayanagi sneered.

  Is that so? I think you're a liar too!

  Kamuro could only mutter this in her mind. She didn’t dare to say it out loud to Sakayanagi, of course, not because she was afraid of her, but out of respect to save face for Sakayanagi!

  That's right, for her face!

  …

  By mid-May, the first week had mostly passed with the holiday. Everyone had spent it during the small Golden Week, and when school returned to normal, they realized that half of May had already passed.

  During this time, Hachiman had been going to the library more frequently, of course, for the midterm exams. He kept telling himself that this was why.

  With less than two weeks until the midterms, there were noticeably more students in the library, mostly first-year students. After all, the pressure of possibly failing out was very real for every student.

  As for the D-Css situation, thanks to Hirata's efforts, the css had successfully organized a study group. Many students who were worried about their grades joined, and everything seemed to be going in a positive direction.

  One thing that surprised Hachiman was that the idiot duo, Sudo, had actually joined the study group? And what shocked him even more was that Horikita was there too?

  Hachiman really couldn't imagine Horikita and Sudo, two people as incompatible as volcanoes colliding with Earth, would "make peace."

  Had Horikita learned some "monkey training techniques" from somewhere? How could she get these three guys to obediently follow orders? But when he saw Kushida in the study group, Hachiman began to understand what was going on.

  "Excuse me, is this seat taken?"

  Suddenly, a soft, gentle voice like flowing water rang out behind Hachiman. Before he could respond, the girl had already sat down in the empty seat across from him.

  Noticing the dead-fish-eyed boy's gaze, the girl couldn't help but smile, her lips curving up slightly. "Hachiman-kun, hello."

  "Hello, Shiina-san."

  Even though it wasn’t the first time they had 'run into' each other in the library, every time, Hachiman couldn’t shake the feeling of a peaceful, serene moment.

  After a few encounters in the library over this period, their retionship had gradually become more familiar. Though Hiyori often cimed to be introverted and not good at communicating with others, Hachiman realized that she was simply cking in social experience, not that she was inherently shy.

  Moreover, once you got to know her, you'd find that at her core, Hiyori was quite a lively girl. It was just that her "literary girl" bel often led people to mistakenly think she was a quiet, reclusive type.

  Bckghosts