Chương 158: 59.No. 22, Platinum Bridge Street 3

The Meeting By the time we got back near the Academy, the sky had gone dark. Aida and I parted at the main gate. She said she'd reorganize the property materials and send them over; I said fine and watched her go. Honestly, sometimes I couldn't tell whether she was genuinely helping or quietly running some kind of observation study with Squad 144 as the subject. Then again, we weren't in a position to be picky. Some privileges were like painkillers. You knew they weren't good for you long-term.

When it hurt enough, you took them anyway. I opened my terminal without responding to the group chat and walked straight to the cafeteria. Before I even pushed the door open, I could hear Jess's laugh—deliberately not quiet, the kind with a specific signature that let you feel your dignity being publicly processed before you'd even entered the room. I walked in. Squad 144 had, predictably, claimed their positions.

Not just claimed them—someone had left an aggressively pointed empty space on the table, clearly reserved for me and the bubble tea, hot pot, bento, rice balls, and fried chicken I had theoretically been sent to retrieve. Jess spotted me first and raised her hand.

"Oh, the delivery person's back."

"Say 'fried chicken' one more time and I'm assigning you to the room next to the cargo lift."

"That works for me—great for late-night escapes."

"Why is your first instinct to use it as a crime corridor?"

"Because I have vision."

"That's not vision. That's a public safety hazard." Maki was sitting beside Jess. She looked up, and her gaze settled naturally on my empty hands for half a second.

"You didn't buy anything."

"I pretended to lose signal."

"And?"

"They messaged Aida instead." Maki paused. Then laughed—very quietly. Not sympathy. Just the pure amusement of watching a resistance effort fail before it started.

"Rough day, Shimo." She said it so naturally that I didn't even think to correct her. D pushed his data tablet to the center of the table and cut straight to it.

"Now that everyone's here—No. 22 is worth pursuing. We need to decide how to divide the second and third floors."

"Hold on," I said, pulling out a chair.

"What do you mean 'everyone's here'? Aida's not here."

"She's online." Roy adjusted his glasses and gestured toward the group chat.

"Evelyn's in too. Ash got added. Tonight's running hybrid." I looked down. The group name had been changed at some point to: 【Squad 144 Temporary Nest Division of Spoils & Prevention of Mutual Homicide Committee】 I stared at it for three seconds.

"Who changed this?"

"Me," Jess said, entirely unashamed.

"It's accurate," Akari said, leaning back with her usual dead-eyed composure.

"At least it's honest."

"Thank you." Jess raised her cup in a toast. I found myself briefly missing the retired couple next door, quietly going in for dinner. At least they didn't have to decide who slept where before they could eat. The Third Floor War The war started on the third floor. Simple reason: seven girls, seven rooms. On the surface, the easiest floor to divide. In reality, the exact opposite.

Because exactly one room per person made everyone feel they had the right to choose—and the moment people started choosing, human nature showed its ugly side. I propped the third-floor plan on the table.

"First, let's be clear: the seven rooms are not equal. Staircase-adjacent, bathroom-adjacent, good light, quietest—there's no perfectly even distribution."

"Right," Lan nodded.

"So establish principles first." Jess immediately raised her hand.

"I propose we lock in Shimo's room first." I knew it.

"Why?"

"Because you're the center of controversy."

"That doesn't sound like a compliment."

"It wasn't meant to be." Maki placed her hands on the table, tone flat.

"I agree with settling Shimo's room first." I turned to look at her.

"Why are you also—""Because if we don't anchor hers first, the whole traffic flow falls apart." …There it was. Traffic flow. Again. How many times had she deployed that word as cover recently? Jess burst out laughing.

"Traffic flow. Noted, everyone. We have a colleague whose life planning is precise enough to require securing the shortest path from her door to Shimo's door before anything else."

"If you keep misinterpreting, I'll put you in the room closest to the blow-dryer," Maki said.

"Oh? So you admit you care?"

"I care about efficiency."

"I care about drama."

"Then you can have the stairwell room. Daily performances included." Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. I pressed my hand to my forehead. This was round one. Round one. Evelyn's message dropped in then, clean as always. Evelyn: I need quiet, stable power, and distance from bathrooms. Blow-dryers and electromagnetic noise are both problems.

"See," I said.

"At least someone states requirements like a functioning human being." Jess looked at me.

"Is that a dig at Maki?"

"It's a dig at you." Maki studied the floor plan, her finger pausing on two rooms.

"If we go by functional needs, Akari should have the innermost room. She needs quiet, won't seek people out, and doesn't want foot traffic." Akari didn't look up.

"Fine. Just don't have anyone wander in at midnight wanting to talk."

"Who would come find you at midnight?"

"You." She looked at me.

"…When have I ever—""You just don't remember." This woman's conversational style occasionally resembled a horror film teaser. Lan flipped through her notes and intervened with professional focus.

"If Evelyn needs quiet and Akari needs quiet, they shouldn't be directly adjacent—one might be doing analysis while the other's sleeping and they'd interfere with each other. Also, rooms too close to the bathroom are wrong for noise-sensitive people."

"Perfect," Jess said, spreading her hands.

"Then the bathroom-adjacent room can go to me. I'm noise-resistant and my life is full of tolerance."

"Your life is full of generating noise," I said.

"Thank you, Shimo. I appreciate this acknowledgment of my presence." I ignored her and looked at the map. The problem emerged quickly. Seven rooms, one each—beautiful in theory. In practice: Maki clearly wanted to be near me, Jess was transparently positioning herself within convenient disruption range, Lan didn't want to be pressed against the bathroom, Akari only wanted quiet, Evelyn needed low noise and stable power, and the two other upperclassmen still hadn't formally weighed in.

Aida's message arrived right as I thought of it. Aida: I'm flexible. Aida: Just not too close to the most volatile zone on the third floor. Jess: Please define "most volatile zone." Aida: The two rooms adjacent to Shimo. The table went quiet for half a second. Then Jess slapped the table laughing.

"HA! I TOLD YOU. CENTER OF CONTROVERSY." I looked at the chat, expression flat.

"Should I be charging a location premium?" Maki, without smiling, said very quietly:"Depends who can afford it." One beat of silence. Very brief. Brief enough to make me aware there was something in that sentence I shouldn't examine too closely. Jess had clearly caught it too—she looked between Maki and me, smile reaching dangerous levels.

"Wow."

"What are you wow-ing about," I preempted.

"Nothing. I just suddenly feel like tonight's room assignment meeting is worth every second."

"You didn't pay to be here."

"Which means I'm profiting." Lan knocked on the table with professional ethics intact.

"Can we not turn the third floor into an emotional dispute before we've even moved in?"

"That's optimistic," Akari said.

"At least pretend it isn't," Lan said, expression unchanged. In the end, through a fog of mutual sniping and undercurrents, the women's floor reached a rough working consensus: Quietest inner room to Akari. Evelyn away from bathrooms and high-traffic areas. Lan not pressed against the bathroom. Me—unfortunately—placed at the third-floor hub, on grounds of coordination convenience, accessibility, and being findable when things went wrong. In plain language: I had become a communal facility.

As for Maki and Jess—they launched a civilized and entirely uncivilized tug-of-war over who got the room next to mine.

"I'm more suitable," Maki said.

"Reasoning?" Jess asked, smiling.

"Stable schedule. Studies. Organized. Won't lose my mind at midnight. Won't leave jackets in the corridor."

"Wow, that's a strong mating—""Jess." I said it faster than I expected, which surprised even me. She looked at me, smile climbing higher.

"Okay, okay. Your ears are practically red."

"The cafeteria is warm."

"This is a group meeting, not yesterday's library."

"Shut up." Maki laughed quietly beside me—didn't add anything, which was somehow worse than if she had. The Men's Floor The women's floor hadn't finished when the men's floor spontaneously combusted. Harvey had just discovered the second floor had only one bathroom.

"Hold on. One?" He stared at the floor plan like someone had announced a three-hundred-year civilizational regression.

"Four men. One bathroom?" D was calm.

"Problem?"

"Of course there's a problem." Harvey hit the table.

"Do you understand that some people shower fast and some people shower while also contemplating the meaning of existence?" Roy adjusted his glasses.

"Then don't contemplate existence in there."

"I don't! I mean certain other people—""You mean yourself," Akari said, not looking up.

"No."

"Yes," I said. D, expression unchanged, began dividing up function.

"I'll take the stairwell room. Fastest to get downstairs if something happens."

"Hey," Harvey turned to him.

"How did you already pick?"

"It's logical.""'Logical' is the most dangerous word in situations like this," Jess said.

"Everyone uses it to dress up personal interests."

"You have the least standing to say that," I told her. Ash's message finally appeared. Ash: I just need a desk and enough wall space to hang maps. I looked at that line and sighed.

"Men really are tragically simple." Roy weighed in: Roy: I need somewhere relatively quiet. And please don't put me next to Harvey. Harvey: Why??? Roy: Because you'll probably still be taking things apart at midnight. Harvey: That's maintenance. Roy: At 1 a. m., maintenance and criminal activity are separated by a very thin line. Jess nearly slapped the table laughing.

"Beautiful. The men's floor doesn't even need us to stoke it. It ignites itself."

"So second floor is actually simpler," I summarized, looking at the plan.

"D takes the stairwell. Ash takes the room with wall space. Roy takes the quiet one. Harvey automatically gets categorized under 'keep away from bathroom and shared power outlets.'""Why am I the one getting categorized?" Harvey protested.

"Because you're the person who brings a toolbox into their room," I said.

"That's basic preparedness!"

"That's a domestic hazard," Roy said instantly.

"Are you all biased against engineers?"

"Not bias," D said, finally looking at him.

"Experience." The men's floor and women's floor were fighting completely different battles. Women's floor: territorial. Men's floor: mutual disaster prevention. One side: high-court political maneuvering. Other side: controlled detonation exercises. And the worst part—midway through, the two sides started bleeding into each other.

"Wait," Jess knocked the table.

"If the men's floor only has one bathroom, should the common floor's bathroom be available for morning emergency overflow?"

"No," Maki said immediately.

"Why?"

"Because then the men will start treating the first floor as a backup base, and gradually migrate toothbrushes, towels, and face wash into the common area." D actually paused, like he was genuinely evaluating the probability. My head started to hurt.

"Don't evaluate it! The fact that it entered the evaluation phase at all is already bad!" Akari, chin in her hand, delivered the final stroke.

"Which is why the first floor is common space. Not a refugee camp." Harvey looked wounded.

"Your trust in men is really that low?" I looked at him. Then at D. Then imagined what the second floor would organically become if those four were left to develop freely. And concluded, with complete honesty:"Not low. Calibrated." The table went quiet for one second. Then erupted into laughter. Even Maki turned her head and laughed—shoulders moving slightly.

She didn't laugh visibly often, but when something actually got her, the brief, contained reaction that slipped through was more dangerous than if she'd laughed freely. Because it made you want to see it happen again. I glanced up once and immediately looked away. … Perfect. Now even a room assignment meeting had become a cardiovascular hazard.

In the end, the evening's chaotic group session barely managed to scrape together some provisional conclusions: Third Floor (Women's Level): Sort by functional needs first, negotiate adjacencies second. Second Floor (Men's Level): Assign by operational requirements first, then figure out who shouldn't be allowed to destroy whom. First Floor (Common Area): Strict prohibition on anyone using "convenience" as grounds for gradually colonizing shared space with personal belongings.

Basement: Temporarily not under discussion, though everyone silently accepted that something would inevitably happen down there. I sat at the long cafeteria table, watching the group chat finally slow its relentless scroll, feeling a dull pressure building behind my temples. We didn't even have the house yet. We'd practically drafted a constitution. I looked down at the chaotic mess of overlapping messages on my terminal and felt something strange settle over me. Trouble. This was going to be so much trouble.

But the moment I'd started seriously thinking about who should live where so they don't kill each other—that was when I'd quietly accepted they're actually all going to move in together as an inevitable reality. That realization made me go quiet for a moment. Maki seemed to notice the shift. She turned her head.

"What is it, Shimo?"

"Nothing." I set the terminal face-down on the table and leaned back in my chair.

"I just realized the real problem isn't whether the house is big enough anymore." Jess immediately pounced.

"Oh? Then what is it?" I looked at all of them. At this table full of people who had already managed to generate territorial disputes, functional disputes, bathroom disputes, and dignity disputes over room assignments—and we hadn't even signed anything yet. Then I said, very calmly:"It's figuring out how we're supposed to live together without anyone getting murdered in the first week." Jess collapsed onto the table laughing. D nodded once, matter-of-factly. Roy rubbed his temples.

Harvey looked like he wanted to argue but couldn't locate solid ground for objection. Akari said, in her usual flat tone:"That means you've finally started thinking about the core problem." Maki didn't laugh. She just watched me, her expression a little too still.

"Have you figured out the answer?" I met her gaze and held it for a beat. Then let out a slow breath.

"Not yet."

"Good timing, then," she said.

"Good timing for what?" The corner of Maki's mouth curved, just slightly.

"Because the next thing we need to discuss—" She paused, her gaze sweeping across the group chat screen.

"—is who gets to live next to you."