The night was pitch-dark.
This was the sixth night of the Deserted Island special exam — and the last night any of them would spend on this desolate island.
Sea wind threaded through the dense forest canopy with a soft, rustling sigh — yet it did nothing to drown out the sounds drifting from inside the cabin. Sounds of the sort that, if one were to hear them, would set one's cheeks burning and one's heart racing.
In the shadows of the corner, Sakayanagi Arisu was turned away from the others, her small body curled tightly in on itself, a track jacket draped over her like a makeshift blanket.
She was biting down hard on her lower lip. Those violet eyes of hers — eyes that normally gleamed with an imperious, untouchable composure — were now clouded with undisguised mortification and the faintest sheen of unshed tears.
Over the course of these six nights on the island, Sakayanagi Arisu had spent virtually all of them inside this cabin — Shikime Natsu's personal cabin.
The first two nights, it had been only the three girls who had already established their relationships with him: Kamuro Masumi, Shiina Hiyori, and Sakura Airi.
Sakayanagi Arisu had assumed that in such a primitive, rustic environment, they would at least show some modicum of restraint — that her presence as an "outsider" would make them rein it in, at least a little.
She had, evidently, grossly underestimated Shikime Natsu's shamelessness. And she had equally underestimated the degree to which those girls dissolved into willing compliance the moment they were with him.
By the third night, rather than improving, things had only escalated — Morishita Ai had joined what could only be described as a thoroughly absurd battlefield.
And then… the torment stretched on. Night after night.
Those stifled, barely-contained breaths. The occasional faint creak of wooden boards. It all burrowed into Sakayanagi Arisu's ears like some demonic incantation, finding every crack and crevice with relentless precision.
Every single night, her face burned scarlet, and sleep remained utterly beyond her reach.
In the darkness, Sakayanagi Arisu clenched her delicate fists, and could not help but begin to seriously question it.
Just what manner of creature was Shikime Natsu's body, exactly?!
She had always assumed that for something so physically taxing, even the most vigorous of adolescent boys would, after one or two bouts of madness, naturally require a few days of rest and recovery — especially given that the days were filled with all the tiresome demands of wilderness survival.
But she had been completely wrong.
Shikime Natsu was like a perpetual-motion machine that simply did not know the meaning of exhaustion.
And those girls — all of them — seemed to have been possessed by something. They went right along with him in his recklessness, night after night. Were they not at all afraid of something going terribly wrong?
Sakayanagi Arisu had no way of knowing which class had deliberately spent their class exam points to procure certain… supplies.
Of course, what truly drove Sakayanagi Arisu to the edge of madness was this: every last one of them behaved as though she simply did not exist. As though doing such things right in front of her required not even a shred of consideration for her feelings.
It made her teeth itch with fury. And yet — even so — Sakayanagi Arisu had remained in this cabin for all six days. Even after that first night, she had continued to choose to sleep here, evening after evening.
She herself did not fully understand why she kept making that choice. Perhaps it was the last scraps of her pride — a pride that was already running low enough as it was. Or perhaps something else entirely. Whatever the reason, even with those unbearable sounds assaulting her ears each and every night, Sakayanagi Arisu had decided to stay.
Thanks to that decision, she had not managed a single proper night's rest throughout the entire exam. Meanwhile, Shikime Natsu and his girlfriends — who had been carrying on in that fashion all night — somehow appeared perfectly refreshed and full of energy every single morning. It defied all reason.
And now, once again, sounds drifted to her from behind — and Sakayanagi Arisu pressed the track jacket over her ears with both hands. Not that it did any good. A jacket was a jacket; it was never going to be enough to block anything out.
Even now, Sakayanagi Arisu could not sleep. These people truly possessed not a single gram of self-restraint.
She gave a cold, private snort of contempt, and attempted to deploy her prized rational mind to pass judgment on this behaviour.
This was nothing more than base instinct — the human animal being governed by its most primitive hormones.
A pastime of staggering vulgarity.
Someone like Shikime Natsu, who possessed a genuinely brilliant mind, yet chose to indulge in such crude, carnal diversions — it was a breathtaking waste of a talent.
She made a silent vow to herself.
At the very least — she, Sakayanagi Arisu, that eternal paragon of elegance and reason, would absolutely, absolutely never fall the way they had. She would never lose herself in this kind of mindless, degrading indulgence.
Never.
And yet… those sounds — soaked through with a helpless, drowning quality — reached her even as she was in the midst of that condemnation. How could anyone possibly feel happy doing something like that? It was completely beyond her comprehension!
The seconds ticked by, one after another…
"Mm… ——"
Sakayanagi Arisu's entire body gave a sudden, rigid jolt. That exquisite face of hers — fine and delicate as porcelain — flushed a vivid, uncontrollable scarlet once more.
How was this still going on? How long had it been now?
Could doing something like that… truly make a person that happy? Could it truly make someone forget shame and reason so completely?
The thought sent Sakayanagi Arisu shuffling further into her corner in a mild panic, desperate to put more distance between herself and the others.
She pressed her body flush against the wooden wall, face turned toward it, and squeezed her eyes shut.
Yet no matter how she tried to hide.
Those sounds — those sounds that set the imagination loose in directions one had no wish to go — continued to coil around her ears without mercy.
In what felt like an endless, inescapable auditory ordeal.
Sakayanagi Arisu's thoughts drifted, against her will, away from judging others — and settled, slowly, on her own body.
She raised one hand, slowly, and laid it against her left breast, where her heart was beating steadily and with surprising force.
Because of her physical condition, Sakayanagi Arisu had spent the greater part of her life in a state of enforced calm. She had never flushed and quarrelled heatedly with anyone. She had never engaged in any particularly strenuous exercise. And as for the sort of thing happening on the other side of this room — naturally, that had always been entirely out of the question. Her body was too fragile. To attempt something like that might quite literally shorten her life, and worsen her condition further.
But now… things were different. Before boarding the cruise ship, Shikime Natsu had given her a massage — and in doing so, had granted her two months of a normal person's body. Right now, she was normal. She could run. She could jump.
If…
A terrifying thought surfaced without warning from somewhere deep in her long-suppressed subconscious.
If she, as she was right now, were to do something like that…
With this healthy body she currently possessed, she would be perfectly capable of handling it, wouldn't she?
The moment that thought fully formed.
Sakayanagi Arisu jolted as though she had touched a live wire, a full-body shudder running through her.
She shook her head sharply, forcibly purging that absurd, toe-curlingly mortifying notion from her mind entirely.
Had she lost her mind?!
How had such a shameless thought suddenly surfaced in her of all people?
In all the years before this, she had never once felt any such physical yearning — not even while reading the most romantically charged of love novels.
This was absolutely not what she wanted!
It had to be Shikime Natsu's fault. Him, and Kamuro Masumi, and the rest of them.
It was because they had been making those shameless, indecent sounds every single night without restraint, polluting her pure and elevated inner world, that her mind had generated this erroneous, mistaken impulse!
Sakayanagi Arisu curled herself tighter, like an ostrich burying its head in the sand.
She lay there and listened as the sounds from the other side of the room drew gradually toward their conclusion.
Tomorrow — the special exam would officially end, and they would return to the cruise ship.
These six absurd nights would finally, mercifully, be over.
Yet even on this last night, the sounds showed no intention of stopping. The entire cabin was thick with the weight of something primal and overwhelming, and caught between reason and instinct, Sakayanagi Arisu felt her thoughts growing strangely, dangerously muddled.
Those pale, slender hands hidden beneath the track jacket — whether from curiosity, or from a restless heat she could find no other way to dispel — crept downward, slowly, beyond her conscious control.
Her fingertips trembled.
And so, within that cabin, beneath all the other sounds, there arose one more — very quiet, barely perceptible, yet unmistakably laced with suppressed shame — a soft, stifled sound that tried very hard not to be heard at all.
The following morning.
As the others began to stir and wake, reaching for their clothes, Shikime Natsu's gaze settled on Sakayanagi Arisu. His handsome face wore an expression that could not quite be called a smile — and could not quite be called anything else, either.
Under that gaze, a flicker of flustered indignation stirred in Sakayanagi Arisu's chest, and her flawless cheeks warmed, just slightly, against her will.
Even so — the composure she had cultivated over a lifetime held. Sakayanagi Arisu kept her expression perfectly schooled, not allowing so much as a tremor of unease to show. Instead, she tilted her chin upward in that characteristic, unhurried way of hers, and assumed the same air of serene, aristocratic hauteur she always wore.
She turned her head, met Shikime Natsu's gaze head-on, and spoke in a tone that carried just the right note of amusement and ease.
"Shiki-san."
"First thing in the morning, and you've been staring at me with that look. What exactly is it that you want?"
"Could it be… that my charms are simply that overwhelming?"
"Overwhelming enough to make Shiki-san willingly pull his gaze away from those adorable girlfriends of his, just to stare at me instead?"
It was, to put it plainly, an extraordinarily self-absorbed thing to say. Not that Sakayanagi Arisu didn't recognise that — but she also firmly believed that no matter how self-absorbed she might be, she could never hold a candle to the man standing before her.
Even so, in this particular moment, Sakayanagi Arisu had no choice but to brazen it out — to force out this slightly overblown, theatrical line and use it to deflect him, in hopes of redirecting his attention elsewhere.
Her heart was hammering. A faint, clammy sweat had broken out across her palms.
She was telling herself, desperately, over and over again.
It's impossible.
There was simply no way Shikime Natsu had actually heard the tiny, muffled sound she had made last night.
She had been so painstakingly careful.
She had all but bitten through her own lip to swallow every sound back down, and had done her utmost to ensure that her movements produced no noise of any consequence.
And besides — he had been preoccupied with Morishita Ai and the others at that very moment. How on earth could he have had the spare presence of mind to notice her in the corner?
Unless Shikime Natsu's ears were some kind of precision radar system — which was absurd!
Yet even as she told herself all of this.
Being watched by Shikime Natsu with that particular look — that steady, unhurried gaze that said, quietly and clearly, "I already know everything" — Sakayanagi Arisu felt her confidence leaking away, drop by drop. She became more and more convinced that he had, in fact, heard her.
To cover her tracks, she had woken before anyone else that morning — forcing herself up while it was still barely light, sheer willpower overriding her exhaustion.
Using what little light there was, she had carefully, quietly set herself to rights.
Once she was satisfied that no evidence remained, she had returned to her corner, closed her eyes, and feigned sleep — noting, as she did, that Shikime Natsu seemed not to have stirred.
She had continued to lie there, motionless, until Shikime Natsu and Kamuro Masumi and the others began waking and moving about — at which point she had put on a convincing performance of someone only just rousing themselves.
Logically speaking, the entire sequence should have been airtight.
Now, as Sakayanagi Arisu recalled the scandalous thing she had done the night before, her mind very nearly crashed entirely. She must have gone mad to have done something so thoroughly governed by desire — it was beneath contempt, absolutely disgraceful. If this ever came to light, Sakayanagi Arisu knew that no matter how hard she tried to maintain her composure, she would have to find a tall place and jump off it. If she hadn't done it, she could have weathered anything with a blank face. But she had done it — and that meant keeping a straight face was entirely out of the question, let alone meeting it with any kind of composed grace.
Of course, even as she burned with regret, Sakayanagi Arisu was forced to admit — her senses had, in that moment, truly surrendered. And the person her imagination had conjured during that act was none other than the man now watching her with that insufferable, ambiguous smile.
The admission made something squirm uncomfortably in Sakayanagi Arisu's chest — but she kept her face rigidly composed. Shikime Natsu, if he truly knew, could simply come out with it! Could simply make his move!
The moment that thought surfaced in her mind, Sakayanagi Arisu startled herself all over again. What on earth had gotten into her? Had she really been reduced to this, too — governed entirely by something so utterly base?
This would not do! This absolutely would not do!
Shikime Natsu looked at the silver-haired girl before him — the one working so hard to hold her expression together even as the tips of her ears burned a telltale red — and chose, with evident magnanimity, not to press the point further.
"Nothing at all," he said, his tone perfectly light and easy as he let the subject drop.
"I simply thought that Sakayanagi-san seemed to have slept considerably better last night than on the previous five. You're looking quite well this morning."
This manner of speaking was truly, thoroughly infuriating — and Sakayanagi Arisu now understood with absolute clarity that the detestable man before her knew. He knew exactly what she had done last night.
Of course, Shikime Natsu had not said it aloud — which meant there was still room to salvage the situation. She could not afford to lose her composure.
Sakayanagi Arisu drew a slow, measured breath, and forced her expression into one of complete and perfect serenity.
"Passable," she said.
The moment that single word left her lips, Sakayanagi Arisu changed the subject without a beat's hesitation.
"Today is the final day of the special exam. The closing settlement is about to begin."
"I do hope that Shiki-san, as Class A's leader, will set an example for everyone — and kindly refrain from being late to assembly."
With that, Sakayanagi Arisu turned and walked briskly out of the cabin, giving Shikime Natsu no opportunity whatsoever to say another word.
The moment she stepped outside and the clean morning air hit her, Sakayanagi Arisu let out a long, long breath.
She stopped walking. She raised one slightly unsteady hand and pressed it gently against her chest, where her heart was still hammering.
"Haah…"
That had been a thoroughly unpleasant experience.
Sakayanagi Arisu scolded herself privately, with no small measure of self-recrimination.
She set her jaw, and made a solemn, unshakeable resolution.
Never again. She would absolutely, absolutely never again allow herself to lose control like that — to be governed by her body's base instincts in such a manner.
At the very least… she would never do something like that while anywhere near Shikime Natsu.
With the morning's episode behind her.
Shikime Natsu bid farewell to the girls, then made his way to Class A's Base Camp accompanied by Kamuro Masumi and Morishita Ai — for this was the final roll call.
Their homeroom teacher, Mashima Tomoya, was already there, register in hand.
Mashima Tomoya's expression remained impassive as he conducted a thorough, methodical roll call — confirming that every student in Class A was present and accounted for, with no injuries, no absences, no missing persons.
Once the roll call was complete.
Mashima Tomoya closed his register and raised his head, sweeping his sharp, steady gaze across the assembled Class A students.
"Everyone."
His voice was measured and unhurried.
"The special exam has entered its final phase. Per the rules, this is the last opportunity available."
"I want to ask — does anyone in Class A intend to use this final moment to attempt to identify and accuse another class's leader?"
At the homeroom teacher's question.
The Class A students exchanged glances. No one's expression showed the slightest trace of anxiety.
Under Shikime Natsu's guidance, Class A had sailed through this Deserted Island exam with relative ease — it had felt more like a holiday than a trial. And with the Base Camp's occupation handed off to Katsuragi Kouhei, what remained for the rest of them was little more than gathering food and preparing meals — a fairly comfortable existence by any measure.
They had also confirmed that no other class had managed to identify who held Class A's key card. And since they themselves had done no reconnaissance on the other classes, making a speculative accusation at this late stage was clearly not worth the risk.
And so, to a person, they all gave the same answer: no.
Having received the same response from everyone, Mashima Tomoya's expression showed not a flicker of surprise. This was entirely within what he had anticipated.
"Understood."
He gave a single nod, his tone even and composed.
"Since that is everyone's decision — then so be it. Foregoing the accusation and protecting the points already secured is, in its own right, a sound and rational strategy."
Shortly after, all four classes on the island were gathered by their respective homeroom teachers and led back to the sandy beach at the shore. Out on the water, not far off, the great luxury cruise ship sat at anchor, waiting.
"My beautiful cruise ship! My warm bed! My delicious food! I'm finally coming back to you!"
"Ugh, these seven days were absolutely brutal — heaven knows how much I've suffered. The moment I get back on that ship, I am going to compensate myself very, very thoroughly!"
Mashima Tomoya stepped forward to meet the other three homeroom teachers, exchanged slips of paper with each of them, and then — after reviewing the results — picked up the school-issued loudspeaker and turned to face the gathered students.
"We will now announce the results for each class in this exam."
____
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