Chương 138: 52. Focus 2

We stayed there much longer than I'd expected. Long enough for the sky outside to go fully dark. Long enough for the stack of empty plates to look like a small war trophy display. Long enough for a faintly ridiculous thought to settle in my head: We might actually end up doing this a second time. Before we broke up, D finished the last sip of his beer, set the glass down, and looked at me.

"If we meet again next time," he said, "will you sleep first?" My mouth twitched.

"How long are you people planning to milk that line?" Jess answered without missing a beat.

"At least a semester." Harvey added, "Extension possible if you produce more quotes."

"That's excessive." Kushima said, perfectly calm:"Depends whether you keep turning yourself into a walking medical case."

"You're setting the bar to be unachievable on purpose." Akari took the last sip of her iced oolong and said, softly:"Then take your time." I looked at her, then around the table, and suddenly wanted to laugh. They were all insufferable. D, steady enough to casually ask about barbecue when you're at your worst. Kushima, sharp enough to salt-wound wherever it hurt. Jess, loud enough to make you suspect she runs on trash talk as a secondary life support.

Akari, cold enough that the rare decent line she drops hits twice as hard. But because it was these people—this dinner didn't feel like some standard-issue debriefing. It felt like we'd really dragged each other out of that rainforest. I got to my feet and swung my jacket over my shoulder.

"Alright," I said.

"If you set something up next time, I'll consider being on time." Harvey's hand shot up.

"Recording that." Jess grinned, full gremlin.

"No, the keyword is on time. That's a well-rested commitment."

"I can still have you two recycled back to the rainforest."

"See?" Harvey said to D.

"Captain's back to normal." D nodded.

"Yeah. She is." I glared at him. He actually smiled.... Fine. Being laughed at by a sixteen-year-old who can legally drink isn't the worst humiliation I've had this month. By the time we left the barbecue place, the city night had fully settled. The neon signs washed the streets in warm light. A tram slid past on the elevated track, making that rhythmic, uniquely civilized sound that almost made you want to cry. No one was running. No one was hiding.

No one was going to pop out from high ground and shoot you with a stun round just because you took an extra step. Normal. So normal it felt slightly wrong. The eight of us stood outside the restaurant, and for a moment, no one moved first. In the rainforest we'd moved faster than anything—but back in the city, we looked like eight people who'd just fallen out of a malfunctioning portal, collectively unsure whether we were cleared to disperse. Harvey broke the silence first.

"Alright, my social quota for the day is maxed out." He patted his stomach, looking deeply at peace.

"If anyone suggests round two, I will literally lie down on the pavement and play dead."

"You don't have to play," Jess crossed her arms and snorted.

"You already look the part when you're sitting down."

"Thank you for your consistently warm blessings." Linde and Roy left first. D naturally added, "Report in when safe," sounding exactly like he was checking off a tactical extraction list rather than saying "text when you get home." Linde nodded. Roy actually pulled out his terminal, looking ready to format "arrived home" into a status report. Akari said she'd head back on her own, no escort needed.

Coming from her, it carried the distinct undertone of it's debatable who'd be escorting who, so naturally, no one argued. This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. Harvey was swept up by Jess and Kushima since they were heading the same way—strictly speaking, he was wedged between two women with entirely different styles but identical underlying lethality. It looked like a prisoner transfer. By the time I refocused, it was just me and D left at the door.... Great.

Suddenly the atmosphere took a sharp turn into something inconvenient. Not dangerous. Just awkward. The specific kind of awkward that's harder to manage than being tracked by a Jäger (Hunter), because in the rainforest all you had to do was survive. Out here there's no enemy, no firestorm, no rules being dropped on your head from above. Which means all the things you normally paper over with tactics and running your mouth suddenly stand up on their own. Like— Should I say don't bother seeing me back?

Was he just waiting to be polite? If I say it, does it look like I'm making something out of nothing? If I don't, does it look like I'm expecting something?... Why is a fourteen-year-old being asked to process this. D looked at me and spoke first.

"I'll walk you partway." Not a question. Delivered in that very D way—the same flat certainty as cut left in the rainforest. My throat snagged for half a second, then I answered with perfect composure:"Oh." Excellent. Hoshino Shimo. Truly a personality to be reckoned with. We walked into the night side by side. His stride was longer than mine, but he slowed it naturally without making a thing of it. Normally I'd probably find something to critique about that—it has the texture of being looked after.

Tonight I just accepted it. Even felt a little grateful. My right shoulder still ached, my calves weren't fully back, and the last thing I needed was to perform fine while pretending otherwise. We walked for a stretch without talking. Awkward? A little. But not the kind you want to escape. More like—both of us knowing there were things to say, both of us waiting for an entry point that didn't feel forced. I went first.

"You actually booked that place before the assessment?" D looked ahead and nodded.

"Yeah."

"That's a terrifying habit," I said.

"Normal people going into something like that should be thinking what do I do if I make it back, not where do I eat when I make it back."

"That's what I was thinking. What to do if I made it back."

"... Barbecue is your answer to that question?"

"Meat is direct." I held out for a moment, then laughed.

"That sounds exactly like something you'd say."

"Is that bad?"

"Not bad." I glanced at him.

"Just convincing." The corner of his mouth moved. Barely. But I caught it. I realized then that this person, without a shield, without a battlefield, without the constant possibility of needing to absorb someone or something in the next second—was actually much quieter than I'd expected. Not cold. Not closed off. Just the kind of person who doesn't say much ordinarily, but when you're actually alone with them, you realize they're not empty—they just don't see the point of filler. That kind of person is dangerous.

Because you start wanting to hear what they say next. I kicked a pebble along the curb and circled back to the thing that had actually been stuck in my head all day.

"That make-up announcement on the transport," I said.

"I'm still pissed about it." D made a low sound of agreement.

"Same." I looked sideways at him.

"You get pissed?"

"Yes."

"I thought you were pretty calm at the time."

"Being calm doesn't mean I wasn't pissed."... Fair point, actually. We walked another stretch. The light at the intersection ahead turned red. A group of students spilled across from the other side, loud, convenience store drinks in hand, completely ordinary. That image—so normal it was almost confrontational—put a strange tightness in my chest. Because it was too normal. Normal in a way that made the last two weeks feel like they'd been shoved into a parallel world.

"I genuinely thought for a second," I said quietly, "that if I'd known there was a written and simulation make-up, I would've folded week one."

"Yeah."

"But Kushima was right. It's not a fallback. It's a sorting gate."

"It is."

"What's most annoying," I said, looking at the signal ahead, "is that I know she's right, and I still can't stop thinking—if they'd just been upfront about it, would a lot of people have even gone in?" D was quiet for a few seconds. The light turned green. We crossed together. On the other side, he spoke.

"Yes."

"Yes what?"

"A lot of people wouldn't have gone in," he said.

"And a lot of people would've known they weren't sitting the same exam." I made a short sound.

"So of course the school never says it."

"No."

"Disgusting."

"Yes." He was infuriating in this specific way. Not the kind of person who talks you through things, piles on the reasoning, tries to make you feel better. He just said things accurately. And once he'd said them accurately, you couldn't even stay angry at him properly. I tucked my hands into my jacket pockets and walked along the edge of the pavement.

"Do you think it's fair?" He didn't answer immediately. I expected it's not fair. Or maybe that's just how systems work. Instead, after a beat:"I think fairness and whether something gets used this way are two separate questions." I turned to look at him.

"Meaning?"

"Meaning," he said, pace unhurried, like he was walking and finding the minimum necessary words at the same time, "people who can hold through live assessment and people who can't—there's a real difference between them. That part isn't fake." I frowned.

"So you agree with the sorting?"

"I didn't say I agreed with how it's done." He glanced at me.

"I said the difference exists." I stopped for a moment. Then understood.... He was infuriating. Because this framing was the most inconvenient kind. It didn't let you comfortably rail at the system, and it didn't let you take the easy moral high ground either. He just placed the part that was ugly but probably true directly in front of you. I pressed my lips together.

"But that doesn't make this the right method."

"No," he said.

"Which is why I don't like it either."

"That's a very slippery answer."

"Why?"

"Because you picked up the half that's hardest to argue with." He actually paused to consider that.

"Maybe because I don't want to lie to you."... That one wasn't fair. My step almost broke. Lucky for me we were passing through a darker stretch of pavement just then, because I'm fairly certain my face did something I wouldn't have wanted witnessed under full lighting.

"Why did you say that just now," I said, working to keep my voice at its usual register.

"Say what?"

"... Something that sounds like it could be misread." D paused, and looked sideways at me.

"Would you misread it?"

"I didn't say I would!"

"Then it's fine."

"... Hey—" The corner of his mouth lifted. Not a laugh. But unmistakably there. I had the immediate urge to reach over and disturb that face, which was normally so unreasonably composed.

"Was that deliberate?"

"A little."

"You have this side to you?"

"Now you know."

"A bit late for that! We survived two weeks together and you're only now revealing bonus personality content—that's a serious intelligence failure on your part!" He actually laughed at that. Low, brief, but real. I looked at him, and went quiet for a second. Because this was probably the first time I'd seen him laugh like that without battlefield pressure behind it. Not the kind that gets drawn out by a table full of people. Not the short, shoulder-releasing kind from the rainforest.

Actually laughing because of a conversation. That felt more dangerous than I'd anticipated.