Since it was already quite late, Mashima Tomonari—the faculty advisor accompanying the drama club—decided the group would rest for one more night at the hotel and return to Tokyo Metropolitan Advanced Nurturing High School the following morning.
Typically, club advisors who accompanied students off-campus were strict and unapproachable.
Sudo, for instance, had often complained to Kitagawa Ryo about how even when the basketball team finally got the chance to leave campus for a practice match, it felt like being treated as prisoners—just shuttled from one locked room to another. Their luggage would be searched multiple times, and they were given almost no free time.
Aside from sleeping, they spent most of their time on the bus or being led directly into the venue by their advisor, only to be immediately sent back afterward.
But none of that applied to Kitagawa Ryo.
The school's sports clubs were among the top-ranked in the country, so their faculty advisors were often former professional athletes. The identity of "teacher" combined with "high-level expertise" made them easily respected and admired by students.
The drama club, however, was a different story.
Since the school had no real history of a drama department, there wasn't anyone particularly qualified to be a dedicated advisor. As a result, these teachers—clueless about the world of theater—were soon thrown into existential crises the moment they left campus, unsure of what they were doing or why they were even there.
It usually took Kitagawa Ryo only a short while to seize full control of the group.
In the end, the student council simply appointed the homeroom teacher of Class 1-D, Mashima Tomonari, to serve as the drama club's advisor, hoping his authority as a homeroom teacher would help him play some functional role.
Over the past few days, Mashima had been carefully observing Ryo's behavior and had finally made up his mind.
"Mashima-sensei?"
As Ryo entered the hotel lobby with Karuizawa Kei, he immediately spotted the middle-aged man seated on a sofa and took the initiative to greet him.
Of the four first-year homeroom teachers, Ryo had already gathered full background information on all of them, especially after uncovering the pasts of Chabashira Sae and Hoshinomiya Chie.
If he had to choose the teacher best suited to most students, Ryo would pick Mashima without hesitation.
Chabashira and Hoshinomiya weren't really invested in the teaching profession. Both were trapped in the past—like a grudge from ten years ago that neither could let go of. Their lives were practically a toxic rivalry. Rather than nurturing students, they were just competing with each other.
If Ryo borrowed the language of shippers from back when people rooted for him and Arisu as a pair, he'd say: "They should just be locked together for life, and throw away the key."
As for Class C's homeroom teacher, Sakagami Kazuma...
He was the kind of twisted educator that a school like this was destined to produce.
If Ryo were in Class C, he might've liked him.
But he wasn't.
"Kitagawa-kun. Karuizawa-san."
Mashima had a large frame. One would expect him to be intimidating when rising from his seat, but he wasn't.
"There's something I'd like to discuss with you alone, Kitagawa-kun. May I?"
He looked at Kei as he said it. All he knew about the Class 1-B leader came from Hoshinomiya's office gossip, and he was surprised by how close she was to Ryo.
"Sure."
Ryo nodded, then turned to Kei and said:
"Go ahead and rest. We'll be heading back early tomorrow."
"Okay."
Kei replied obediently. She cast a final glance at Mashima before heading to the elevator.
Had it been Chabashira or Hoshinomiya requesting a private chat with Ryo, Kei likely wouldn't have left no matter what.
Especially not with Hoshinomiya. As class leader, Kei had already figured out her personality over the past few months. The woman's tangled emotional life alone was enough to make Kei uncomfortable.
She had long resolved to never allow Ryo and Hoshinomiya to meet in private.
After all, knowing Hoshinomiya's obsession with dragging Chabashira down to Class D—and her tendency to entangle herself romantically—if a student like Ryo, who could sabotage Chabashira and matched her tastes, showed up...
Kei wasn't about to let that happen.
She felt reassured seeing Mashima's unshaven, middle-aged face.
Homeroom teachers should be uncles like this.
Mashima had no idea what was going on in Kei's head. Once she got into the elevator, he gestured to a nearby sofa and said to Ryo:
"Let's sit."
"Okay."
Ryo sat across from him as naturally as ever.
They had spoken once before during the midterm exams, when Ryo secretly obtained a list of failing students from Mashima and used private points to quietly save some of them.
But Mashima didn't mention any of that. He simply said:
"I used to believe that teachers should maintain some distance from students to best educate them."
"But I never expected that I would be the first to break that rule."
He paused, gazing into Ryo's dark eyes.
"Did you know? I used to be a student at this school too."
"Just like Chabashira and Hoshinomiya—I knew them both. I was two years above them."
His tone was nostalgic, as if he were just reminiscing.
"I graduated from Class A and had the privilege of choosing whether to work or continue school. Unlike everyone else, I chose to stay here."
"Started out as a teaching assistant, then became a full-fledged teacher. Ten years have passed since then."
"You could say, everything in my life after sixteen has been spent at this school."
Ryo listened quietly, never interrupting.
"Kitagawa-kun, what do you think of this school?"
Mashima's sudden question made Ryo recall the words Sakayanagi Arisu had spoken at the end of his last simulation—and what he had uncovered about the truth behind this institution.
A political showcase. A propaganda tool under the Kijima faction.
"Twisted."
Ryo's reply was brief.
"Exactly. Twisted."
Mashima looked satisfied, even smiling faintly.
"Only after becoming Class D's homeroom teacher did I realize it. The school's closed-off, hyper-competitive environment doesn't just trap students in blind thinking. It drags teachers in too."
"Many of them, unconsciously, start believing this tiny world is everything."
He sighed bitterly as he reflected on the other teachers' attitudes over the past months.
"This school gives students nearly unlimited agency, encourages them to gather information—but it also empowers homeroom teachers to an excessive degree."
"They can turn a blind eye to violence. Use students as pawns. Even abandon their role as educators entirely."
"For example, when Class D lost hope of promotion last year, Chabashira once deliberately misled students about test content before an exam—and blamed them afterward for not catching it. The school didn't punish her."
He shook his head.
"If teachers stop treating this place like a school, students won't treat it as a place to learn either."
In a way, his view echoed Sakayanagi's. Strip away the special exams, the S-System, the points—and Tokyo Advanced Nurturing High School is still a school. A prestigious one. One anyone could've entered.
"So I want to ask you to do something only you can do."
Mashima's tone grew serious.
"What is it?"
Ryo had already guessed. He saw the paper Mashima pulled from his coat: a chart showing the current point standings of each class.
[Class 1-A: 548 points]
[Class 1-B: 501 points]
[Class 1-C: 272 points]
[Class 1-D: 0 points]
This was the state of things after midterms—a sheet Mashima had once obsessed over monthly.
But now, he said:
"Kitagawa-kun, you're deliberately keeping Class D at zero, aren't you?"
"...So in your eyes, I'm the key player who could flip everything, huh?"
"Yes."
Mashima nodded plainly.
But instead of asking Ryo to aim for Class A...
He asked for something even more naive.
"I want you to turn Class D into something that doesn't feel like it belongs at this school. Even if the class stays at zero points. Even if you never rank up."
"If it comes to that, I'll cover your classmates' living expenses myself. I've saved up plenty of private points over the years. Class A teachers get good bonuses."
Ryo tapped the table lightly with his finger.
"A class that doesn't belong here? What does that mean?"
"Exactly what it sounds like."
Mashima stood, his shoulders relaxing.
He gazed into the night outside the hotel window.
"Once your year graduates, I'm planning to resign."
"It might sound sentimental, but I want to be the kind of teacher who appears in every class's graduation photos."
Every graduation season, only Class A celebrated with joy and excitement.
Only Class A homeroom teachers were ever dragged beneath the cherry blossoms, over and over, for group photos—badges of honor for beloved educators.
But that recognition should belong to every teacher who truly cares.
Ryo stood up.
He extended his hand sincerely.
"I accept."
-------------------------------------
After finishing his conversation with Mashima Tomonari, Kitagawa Ryo made an excuse about going to the restroom to avoid taking the elevator up at the same time. Once he confirmed Mashima had returned to his room, he finally entered the elevator.
All four of them were staying on the same floor in individual luxury suites. Since the trip was funded by the organizers of the Theater Grand Prize, the accommodations were naturally a bit more extravagant.
Ryo slowly approached his room. Just as he retrieved the key from his pocket and opened the door, he spotted a neatly placed pair of slippers in the entryway. Pure white, with a subtle cherry blossom motif.
Each of the suites had a unique theme, and Ryo had chosen the one based on cherry blossoms. While sakura usually come in shades of red, pink, and white, the room's decor exclusively featured a snowy white variation.
A girl stood silently behind the glass window etched with cherry blossom patterns, as if standing deep within a forest of blooming white sakura. Pure. Breathtaking.
The room was unlit. Only a sliver of moonlight filtered through the curtains, pale and fragile, falling softly on her figure. It blended with her white clothing, giving off a quiet radiance.
"I'm leaving tomorrow."
Ryo sounded completely unsurprised. He changed shoes, flipped on the light, and sprawled out on the wide, luxurious bed.
"When it snows, I'll come back to see it."
"But snow doesn't come until winter... that's so far away."
The girl's voice carried a note of childish poutiness, like a kid who didn't get the candy she wanted.
"Then the snow can come find me. Though there's not much time left this year."
"Okay then! It's a promise! Next spring, I'll apply for Tokyo Metropolitan Advanced Nurturing High School."
Her tone and response were so naive, Ryo almost felt like he was tricking a little girl.
The truth about Yuki was worse than Ryo had imagined. Ever since being eliminated from the White Room at age nine, she had suffered a severe psychological breakdown. Despite years of therapy, her mental state and emotional age had remained frozen at that moment.
Unlike with Amasawa Ichika, Ryo didn't let Yuki retain her memories from the simulation. Instead, he opted for partial memory replacement.
The childhood they shared in the simulation wasn't exactly blissful—but compared to what Yuki had actually gone through, it was far gentler. With no way to change her past, this was the best Ryo could offer.
The truth was, he had met her too late.
So late that everything had already happened before he ever knew her.
This entire trip to the Theater Grand Prize was a plan Ryo set in motion just to see her. In the past few days, he had sent someone to visit her father at a mental health clinic, offering—on behalf of the Kitagawa family—to provide the latest psychological treatment for Yuki.
Yuki's father found the offer from the Kitagawa household odd, but then he recalled vague rumors over the years involving the Kitagawa family and Ayanokoji Atsuomi. Coupling that with his daughter's past in the White Room, he imagined an entire drama in his mind and quickly agreed to send her.
Of course, this "latest psychological treatment" was none other than Ryo himself.
What surprised Ryo, however, was that perhaps due to how long she had been shut off from the world, Yuki still occasionally acted like a child around him—even after receiving the simulated memories. Her behavior clashed with the mature impression her appearance gave off.
But to Ryo, it felt just right.
Yuki never seemed to have grown up. When she slept curled up in his arms, she became so small.
Ryo was tired of false simulations. But when it came to her, he hoped it was all just illusion.
As long as there was one part of it that was real.
That would be everything between them.
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