Chương 173: 65.More Than Just a Ride 3

I cleared my throat and turned to the next page with forced composure. What I found there made me immediately understand why Maki Kushima had survived this long without being quietly eliminated by anyone. The heading read: Operational Guidelines for Avoiding Student Council and Academic Affairs Attention I looked at that line and made a very quiet, very sincere sound of awe.

"... You actually wrote the objective in the title."

"Because this isn't the version being submitted anywhere. This is the internal version, for you." Completely calm.

"I'll prepare a sanitized external version afterward."

"This is too professional. Are you a student or some kind of organizational consultant?" She ignored that and began going through the points.

"First: the purchase must be registered under your personal name only—no club, school, Student Council, or practicum group affiliation. Second: pickup must occur off-campus, away from school gates. Third: parking is fixed at twenty-two, no campus parking application. Fourth: exterior color should be dark grey, black-blue, or matte iron—colors that generate no discussion. Fifth—""Wait, isn't black-blue also kind of striking?"

"Striking, but not to the level of a criminal announcement."

"Is your threshold between striking and criminal very finely calibrated?"

"Sixth: the stated reason must be boring and legitimate." She continued, ignoring me.

"Off-campus residential commuting, routine supply runs, necessary transit between campus and port district, familiarizing with a vehicle during the holiday period to prepare for upcoming practicum transportation needs. The key is—" She tapped the line with her pen.

"All of it is true." I looked at her, and suddenly felt like laughing.

"So the essence of your method isn't lying. It's arranging the truth into a shape that nobody can be bothered to question."

"Right." Entirely composed.

"The most effective version of low-profile isn't false. It's boring." This was genuinely terrifying. If the Student Council ever came after us, it wouldn't be because we'd done anything wrong. It would be because Maki had done everything right so cleanly that it started to look suspicious. I kept turning pages, and nearly laughed out loud at what I found at the end. An appendix.

Recommended First-Use Routes Post-Purchase Listed below: Low-speed familiarization around campus perimeter Platinum Bridge Street—local supply run route Port district outer perimeter observation line Legal visual confirmation point for berth area Elevated vantage point supplementary confirmation route I stared at the last line.

"Elevated vantage point supplementary confirmation route?"

"Mm."

"In plain language."

"Up the mountain."

"Oh." She picked up her coffee and drank, with the composure of someone who had not just packaged taking me on a mountain ride as part of a military perimeter visual assessment. I leaned back and stretched the words out deliberately.

"So Kushima's complete plan is: first get me to quietly buy a bike with a completely legitimate reason, then use a completely legitimate reason to accompany me to the port to see the Snowwind, and then use a completely legitimate reason to—""Confirm the nearby elevated vantage point and return road conditions," she said.

"... Is your sense of shame made of titanium-carbon composite armor?" She paused for exactly one second.

"I just arranged the itinerary logically."

"Logically enough to seem premeditated."

"If you don't want to go up the mountain, you can remove that line." She said it evenly. I could tell it wasn't a tactical retreat or bait. She was genuinely leaving the choice to me. Like last night. Like she always did. Which was the problem. Because I'd been ready to keep teasing her about her ulterior motives, and now she was sitting there looking completely reasonable, which meant continuing would just make me look like I was the one with something to hide. I cleared my throat.

"... I didn't say I wasn't going." Maki looked at me.

"So you're going."

"I'm saying that when you're testing a new vehicle, you'd naturally want to check the return road conditions." I worked hard to make my voice sound like I was discussing tire wear, not something considerably more dangerous.

"New rider, road familiarization. Very reasonable." She looked at me for two seconds, then said, softly: "Reasonable." Damn it. That reasonable somehow sounded more like an admission than an admission would have. I looked back down at the Narukami image. It was, undeniably, unreasonably striking. The cold blue rings, the forward-leaning stance, the sense of lightning and armor locked into the same frame—the product of adolescence and the military-industrial complex committing crimes together. But Maki was right.

I couldn't buy it. Not that version. What I needed was something that could get me legally on the road, park unobtrusively at twenty-two, carry a passenger without falling apart, and look to anyone from the Student Council like oh, she actually bought a commuter bike—not something that would make the disciplinary office director call security to seal the gates.

"So the vehicle direction," I said, tapping the table, "is Narukami design language, but civilian spec, older model, dark color, de-weaponized, de-synced, and ideally not immediately recognizable as Kushima-branded."

"Right," Maki said.

"One more thing."

"What?"

"The name shouldn't be conspicuous either." I looked at her. She looked at me.

"... You're not seriously planning to avoid even the name Narukami, are you?"

"Of course." Tone of someone stating the obvious.

"If you ride out and someone asks what you're on, you can't say oh, this is the Raijin Series Narukami, dual plasma cores, neural sync capable, original spec includes integrated autocannon."

"I'd be writing three incident reports before I got off the bike."

"So externally, it's just a used civilian bike." She said.

"Civilian model number only. No mention of military-spec lineage." I was suddenly curious.

"What's the civilian number?" Maki turned a page and pointed. I stared at the string of characters. KGI-MC 417B Two-Wheel Motorized Commuter Vehicle I burst out laughing.

"That's brutal. Would anyone actually follow up on that?"

"No," she said.

"Which is the point." Still laughing, I flipped back to the beginning of the full document. It was, I had to admit, extremely complete. Complete enough that I was fairly certain if someone walked in right now for an impromptu audit, Maki could hand this over without blinking and explain that we were simply doing the kind of ordinary, responsible vehicle planning a law-abiding student might do, with supplementary port district traffic familiarization and residential logistics optimization.

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. And the most alarming part was that every word would be true. I looked at her.

"So what's next?" Maki put her tablet away.

"Two options."

"Mm?"

"First: I condense this into an external version, and you follow the process to find a bike. Second—" She paused.

"We bring Harvey in as technical consultant." I could picture it immediately. Harvey would start by being visibly annoyed about being pulled away from something important. Then the moment he heard frame, suspension, magnetic rail drive, Kushima Technical Research, he'd light up like something had been switched on, begin muttering at length while insisting he was absolutely not endorsing anything Kushima-adjacent, and end up describing every component like a personal history. Very likely. I laughed.

"Get Harvey." Maki nodded, as though she'd already known I'd pick that.

"Then this afternoon I'll compile the candidate list. You have one job."

"What?" She looked at me, tone as mild as the most harmless spring breeze.

"From now until you actually have the bike—don't let Jess, D, Ash, or especially anyone connected to the Student Council see any expression on your face that says I've been thinking about buying a bike lately." I paused.

"Expression?"

"Yes."

"I have that expression?"

"You do," she said.

"Once you want something, your eyes give it away first." I opened my mouth to argue, then stopped. Because Maki Kushima was sitting across from me, watching me with complete calm, describing something she had apparently observed over a considerable period of time. Not a guess. Something she'd seen. My ears felt inexplicably warm. I looked down and started gathering the documents.

"... Understood."

"Good."

"Anything else?"

"Yes."

"Go ahead, Chief of Staff." She pulled out the page with the Narukami concept image and set it to one side.

"You can keep this." I looked at it.

"What for?"

"To remind yourself that striking doesn't mean suitable." She paused, then added: "And to remind yourself that not being able to get the original doesn't mean you can't find one that looks close enough without getting you arrested." That was very reasonable, and also a deeply irresponsible form of encouragement. I took the page and looked at it. Cold blue rings. Heavy grey-black body.

Compressed lines—a thunderbeast that had been placed inside the regulations of civilized society and learned, temporarily, to pretend it was just transportation. I folded it and stood up.

"Alright," I said.

"We start with something that won't give the Student Council a cardiac event." Maki stood and gathered the documents into a neat stack.

"That's the correct approach to low-profile." I looked at her completely serious face, and finally couldn't hold back.

"That said."

"Mm?"

"If I actually ride you out to see the Snowwind and then go up the mountain—" She looked up. I drew the words out deliberately.

"That elevated vantage point supplementary confirmation route—I'm going to hold that over you for the rest of your life." Maki closed the last document without expression.

"That's fine."

"You're very generous about it."

"Don't get smug before you've even bought the bike." Me: "..." Clean counter. Well played. That afternoon, Maki condensed the Feasibility Assessment for Personal Motorized Vehicle Acquisition and Use During Off-Campus Residential Period into an external version, kept an internal version, and then did something entirely reasonable and entirely dangerous. She summoned Harvey.

I'd imagined bring Harvey in as technical consultant would mean finding a time when everyone was around, politely asking him to look over the vehicle options and budget, maybe adding a few you know more about this than we do for good measure.

What actually happened was that at 1517, a very displeased voice came from the direction of the basement:"I'm busy right now—who dragged me away from the main unit—" Then Harvey himself appeared at the top of the stairs, hair in a state suggesting he'd recently been in a physical altercation with a circuit board, sleeve cuffs smudged with something that was either machine oil or thermal paste, wearing the expression of someone who was one more inconvenience away from losing patience.

He walked into the living room, saw the tablet and documents on the table, and then saw the Narukami concept page Maki had kept as a reference. His footsteps stopped. With considerable technical precision. The kind of stop that happens when a technical person encounters high-priority keywords from their domain—the rational mind goes offline half a beat before the stubborn exterior can catch up.

"..." I leaned back in my chair, arms crossed, and watched the progression of expressions across his face with genuine appreciation. First: irritation. Then: recognition. Then: attempt to appear uninterested. Then: failure of that attempt. Excellent performance. Harvey stared at the image, brow slowly drawing together.

"Who showed you this?" Before I could answer, Maki had already replied.

"Internal concept material, not important. What's important is that we're not buying this one." Harvey pulled his gaze from the image, looked at Maki, then at me, then at the document on the table.

"... What are you two doing?" I raised my hand.

"I want to quietly buy a bike." Harvey looked at me with the expression of someone watching a child who'd just learned to walk announce they wanted to pilot a warship.

"You?"

"That you is rude."

"Not rude. Reality check." He pulled out a chair and sat down.

"Your licensing progress isn't even fully stable at low-speed simulation yet, and you're already thinking about models?"

"This is called advance planning."

"This is called getting ahead of yourself." Maki calmly pushed the document toward him.

"Which is why you're here. To make her getting ahead of herself at least logical." Harvey looked down and skimmed through the first two pages with obvious indifference. By the time he hit the budget breakdown, insurance, service schedule, parking location, and Student Council avoidance columns, his expression had shifted. His brow even moved slightly.

"... You made this?" Maki nodded. Harvey was quiet for two seconds. Then, with visible reluctance: "It's not bad." I nearly laughed. Hearing not bad from Harvey was roughly equivalent to a volcano announcing it was having a pleasant day. Maki didn't look remotely surprised. She just turned to the candidate list.

"The process isn't the issue. The issue is the model. She saw this image and got interested in the design language." Harvey finally looked at me properly at that. His expression said it all clearly: you're done.

"You're interested in this?" He pointed at the Narukami concept page. I was honest.

"It's striking."

"Obviously—that's what it was designed to do." Harvey gave a short, cold laugh.

"Raijin Series, Narukami. Dual plasma cores, front-rear dual drive, magnetic rail traction, neural sync—this thing isn't a vehicle. It's what happens when the lunatics at Kushima Technical Research get a budget and start slapping physics in the face." I looked at him.

"That doesn't sound like criticism."

"I'm not criticizing the engineering. I'm criticizing the cognitive structure of anyone who thinks this is a low-profile commuter solution."

"I wasn't the one who brought up the original spec."

"But you looked very interested."

"..." Right. Second person today to tell me my eyes give me away. Maki added from the side: "Which is why I've already eliminated military-spec, sync functions, and armaments. What we're discussing now is the civilian derivative in an older model." Harvey pushed the image aside and shifted into actual technical mode. When Harvey went into technical mode, he became very annoying and very useful.

"Let me be clear upfront." He tapped the table.

"No commercial arrangement, no personal favor, not endorsing anything just because she has a Kushima sitting next to her. I'm giving you my assessment based on your situation." I nodded.

"Please, Professor Harvey." His face went dark.

"Don't call me that."

"Of course, Professor Harvey."

"..." Maki, apparently deciding not to manage us, pulled up the candidate list directly. Four bikes on screen. Two with fairly ordinary profiles—the kind you'd pass on the street, think oh, a motorcycle, and forget the brand within five seconds. One with sharper lines, front end pressed low, clearly trying to write I'm street-legal but I have opinions on its face. And the last one—obviously some kind of deliberately neutered relative of the Narukami.

I didn't need to check the model number to know where my gaze had stopped. Harvey looked at me and made a sound of cold confirmation.

"Predictable."

"What's predictable?"

"Riders with limited experience look at bikes the same way they look at people. They notice the face first."

"That's normal."

"What's not normal is that you zeroed in on the closest civilian relative of the most complicated one." Maki enlarged the model designation. KGI-MC 417B / Two-Wheel Motorized Commuter Vehicle Name as unremarkable as a photocopier manual. But the profile—undeniably had the quality. Not the production Narukami's if the law weren't holding me back right now I could dismantle your entire worldview energy.

But it had kept the forward-leaning frame, the substantial side panels, the low center of gravity—just with everything that would give school administrators a cardiac event sanded off. Like a thunderbeast that had been sent to law school, learned to wear a suit, pay taxes, and follow traffic regulations, but you could still tell it had bitten someone in its youth. I pointed at it honestly.

"I want this one." Harvey tilted his head back with an expression of comprehensive disdain.

"This is Kushima Technical Research Industries, not Kushima Heavy Industries proper. Know the difference." He pulled up the spec data.

"Kushima Heavy is the parent brand—heavy military-industrial work and the conglomerate's public face. Ground vehicles are actually handled by the Technical Research side. You're buying a bike, not a strategic deterrent."

"I know."

"Make sure you actually know." He kept scrolling.

"And even though this is civilian spec, the frame lineage is obvious. It runs on Kushima Technical Research's design philosophy of make the vehicle look like it can remove obstacles from your life. Advantage: stable, low center of gravity, high frame rigidity, suspension won't turn against a new rider. Disadvantage—" He stopped and looked at me.

"You'll think you're good at riding."

"... That's a disadvantage?"

"For a new rider, absolutely." Maki added, from the side: "Because the bike is so stable, it's easy to overestimate yourself." Harvey nodded.

"Exactly. Especially this older civilian version—if the maintenance is good, startup is clean, braking response is precise. You'll get the impression that you might have natural talent. In reality, the bike is just saving you." I felt slightly defensive.

"Do I look that prone to getting a big head?" Harvey and Maki both looked up at me simultaneously. Neither said anything. But that silence had written the answer out in full. Me: "... Next question." Maki turned to the corresponding section of the budget sheet.

"For something in the 417B range, the reasonable bracket for a used demo unit is around here." She named a figure. I did the mental arithmetic and frowned.

"That's tight."

"Which is why there's a breakdown," she said. Harvey pulled the data further down.

"Not just the purchase price—insurance, registration, initial service, tire condition, battery module health. If you're actually buying a used civilian bike in this category, the one thing you cannot cut is the upfront service check. Skip that, and it's you getting serviced later." I nodded. That I understood. Not being able to afford it was one thing. Buying something that would strand me and Maki on a mountain halfway through the return trip was something else entirely. That wasn't romantic—that was embarrassing.

At that thought, I coughed and kicked the phrase strand me and Maki on a mountain out of my head. Dangerous. Very dangerous. Harvey, apparently oblivious to my brief internal collision, continued: "Budget source—absolutely no loans." My fingers contracted slightly at that. But this time was different from yesterday. Because he wasn't raising it casually—he followed it immediately with: "Especially don't touch the student credit programs in the Kushima-Rengo Bank system." I looked up at him.

Harvey's brow was furrowed.

"Not saying there's anything wrong with it. Just that once you go through that channel, what you leave behind isn't a simple payment record. It's a complete financial trail. Who subsidized, who guaranteed, who reviewed, who saw your stated purpose—all of it, clean and documented. For most people that's called convenience. For someone who wants to stay low-profile, that's called voluntarily putting yourself on display." Maki nodded.

"Same conclusion I reached." Harvey made a sound.

"The Kushima bank isn't off-limits forever. Just not now. Not for this. You want a bike—not for the Student Council, the finance office, and whoever enjoys reading reports to all simultaneously learn what you're planning to buy and what routes you're planning to run."