3.9
An hour later, I contacted Sudou as he returned from club activities. He was participating in a tournament the day after tomorrow, and Katsuragi and I needed his help.
“Huh? Don’t give me that bullshit. Seriously, who in their right mind would want to do something like that?” huffed Sudou. He rejected the proposal so strongly that he practically spit out the words. Of course, if someone discovered that he’d violated the rules, there was no telling what penalty he’d face.
“Besides, I ain’t obliged to listen to a request from baldy over here,” he added.
“What now?” Katsuragi didn’t seem to trust Sudou. He still appeared generally skeptical of the plan.
“Putting aside whether you’ll do it, I want to ask you something, Sudou. What kind of inspections does the school perform?”
“Dunno,” he replied flippantly. Sudou didn’t appear to grasp the situation yet.
“Depending how things go, Katsuragi might give you a reward,” I said.
“A reward?” echoed Sudou.
“That’s right. I knew that I would need to pay, of course,” replied Katsuragi.
Sudou began to give the matter serious thought.
“They check our bags in the morning, before we get on the bus to the tournament. After that, they confiscate our phones. When we get to the stadium, we get changed and head onto the court. As for meals, we eat there, when the tournament’s over. I don’t know more exact details, though,” Sudou explained.
“What about the changing area? And the bags?” I asked.
“Normally, we use the lockers n’ stuff. When we change, there ain’t any teachers around, but they do keep a strict watch on us. We even have separate bathrooms, so we can’t talk to students from another school,” Sudou continued.
Katsuragi listened intently.
“That all sounds quite strict. I doubt it’s a good idea to even bring bags with you in the first place,” he reasoned.
“Is it okay to bring food?” I asked.
“Yeah, if we want. Some people do,” Sudou replied.
“If that’s true, then it actually sounds reasonably simple to transport the gift.” I grabbed a lunchbox and water bottle from my shelf, then returned to my seat. “I’ll put it inside the lunchbox. It should just about fit. As for the bag, I’ll roll it up and put it in the water bottle. That way, no one should find out.”
The teachers wouldn’t go so far as to check the contents of someone’s lunch.
“Wait. Even if I bring the gift along, how am I gonna send it? I ain’t got any money or time,” Sudou pointed out.
“If you’re worried about money, don’t be. Just use this.” I handed him an invoice I’d picked up from the post office. “Watch for an opening, and then use that opportunity to mail it.”
“You say that like it’s easy. That’s the hardest part, right?” Sudou retorted.
“Well, the risks are potentially great,” said Katsuragi.
Not only would Katsuragi be violating school rules, he’d involved Sudou. Normally, Katsuragi would have backed out by now, but this must’ve been too important. That spoke to just how meaningful his sister was to him.
“Unfortunately, I can’t trust anyone in my class to handle something like this. Would you help?” Katsuragi asked Sudou.
“Sudou, I know you wouldn’t normally do this. But it has significant benefits, don’t you think?” I asked.
“Benefits? You mean the reward?”
Katsuragi nodded. “I’ll pay you 100,000 points if you succeed.”
That was quite an amazing offer. Sudou stiffened. For someone who struggled day to day on about 1,000 or 2,000 points, 100,000 was an incredible amount.
“Why do you want to go so far to deliver a package?” asked Sudou. The reward made him wary.
“I have a twin sister. Ayanokouji knows that much,” said Katsuragi.
I did. The rest of the reason, however, was far weightier than I expected.
“My sister is sickly. Because our parents and grandparents have passed, our relatives currently care for her. I’m something of a substitute parent. If I don’t celebrate her birthday, who will?” asked Katsuragi. “I understood the school rules when I enrolled, but I thought I’d be able to send a package. That was my mistake. However, I still want to give my sister a gift, no matter what.”
Well, I hadn’t seen anything specifically addressing that in the school regulations. It’d just mentioned that leaving school grounds without permission wasn’t allowed. No details on how communication with the outside world was forbidden.
“So, that’s why you came to me, huh?” Sudou grabbed my shoulder, whispering in a loud enough voice that Katsuragi could hear. “What am I gonna do if you decide to betray me? I don’t want something to happen, like with Class C, you know?”
That was right. Sudou had fallen into a trap, and as a result, was almost kicked out of the basketball club.
“There’s no need to worry. I’m sure he’s already thought about that,” I told Sudou.
Katsuragi nodded.
“I’ll offer you 20,000 points now, as advance payment. I will pay the remaining 80,000 points as a reward after you complete the task.”
The 20,000-point payment would prove that Katsuragi was complicit in the act. If either party betrayed the other, they’d both suffer the consequences.
“So, 20,000 as an advance? But…”
Even though that was a large sum, I understood why Sudou would hesitate. He was thinking about his future in basketball. If the school learned he’d violated the rules during basketball activities, he might even be struck from the team.
“I think it’s a perfect plan. Obviously, if you are discovered, I would also suffer greatly,” said Katsuragi. The school would probably punish him just as harshly as Sudou. This plan wouldn’t work unless Katsuragi had the resolve to see it through, but I believed he did.
“So, the issue is just whether I get found out, huh?” Sudou weighed his options, thinking about the high number of points involved. What would he do?
His eyes briefly flickered toward me. He appeared to have decided.
“All right. All I gotta do is take a package? I guess I’m someone who’ll take that risk,” he said.
“Are you sure?” asked Katsuragi. Sudou had become his unanticipated savior.
“I mean, since you told me about your sickly sister and all, it’s kinda hard for me to turn ya down.” Sudou scratched his head, looking sympathetic.
However, Katsuragi showed no sign of joy. He stood there in silence, crossing his arms and looking stern.
“The hell? I already told you I’d do it. Is there something else?” asked Sudou.
“Maybe he still has doubts. Maybe he’s wondering whether we’ll betray him,” I pointed out.
“Seriously? Katsuragi’s the one who came asking for help, and now he doubts me?” Sudou balked.
Katsuragi was the type to prioritize playing it safe. Maybe it was just his nature to grow more and more suspicious the longer things went well. Of course, I already knew that. Unfortunately, it was needless anxiety. Sudou wasn’t a duplicitous person. Really, the same went for me, too. I’d never once thought about laying a trap for Katsuragi during all this. I genuinely believed there was value in having Katsuragi owe us one.
Besides, even if Katsuragi betrayed us, we could take him down as well. I’d introduced Sudou as an intermediary after reaching that conclusion. I hadn’t known how many points Katsuragi was going to offer, but 100,000 points was quite tasty.
“Just to be safe, I won’t transfer the points directly to Sudou. Instead, they’ll go to Ayanokouji. I’m sorry, Ayanokouji, but I’d like you to transfer the points to Sudou after he succeeds,” explained Katsuragi.
“Why do we need to go through all this trouble?” asked Sudou.
“Insurance, I guess,” I answered.
If someone from the school saw Sudou taking out or mailing the gift, and the school then saw a large number of points deposited into his account, they’d naturally be suspicious. However, if the points went through another person, they wouldn’t be traced back to Katsuragi. Sudou looked a little irritated, but gave his consent.
“There’s one more thing. I want ironclad proof you aren’t lying to me,” said Katsuragi.
“Huh? The hell?” Sudou huffed.
“I can’t be certain whether you’ll deliver the gift.” Katsuragi was still worried that Sudou was playing him. Because he couldn’t contact his family on the outside, he’d have to wait until he graduated to find out if his sister had received the present.
I’d thought of several ways to provide “proof.” The simplest and most reliable method would be photographic evidence via cell phone. However, mentioning that gave me pause. I didn’t want to mess up and get Katsuragi’s attention for the wrong reasons.
“The hell, dude? Ain’t no way I’d lie ’bout it. You dumb or something?”
“Of course I want to believe you. But we haven’t established that kind of relationship yet,” explained Katsuragi. He crossed his arms. “How about you use your phone? I’d like you to record a video the moment you send the package.”
Apparently Katsuragi and I were of one mind.
“Dude, didn’t you listen to me? I already told you the team’s phones get confiscated,” Sudou snapped.
“Of course. That’s why I would like your cooperation in this matter as well, Ayanokouji.”
“Meaning?” I asked.
“There’s still space in the water bottle. Put your phone inside. If we do that, Sudou can take it with him without being discovered,” Katsuragi explained.
As a general rule, each student was assigned one phone. If Sudou handed his over during the bag search, there wouldn’t be any further suspicion.
“Of course, I intend to offer you a reward, too,” Katsuragi added.
He said he’d pay me 10,000 points. Not a bad deal.
“I understand. I’ll do it.”
“You sure, Ayanokouji?” Sudou asked.
“Yeah. I can help, so I’ll do it. Besides, the points’ll be useful to me, too.”
“Well, I leave everything to you, then,” said Katsuragi.
He bowed deeply and gratefully before leaving the room.
“Man, now I’m nervous,” Sudou sighed.
“You okay, Sudou?”
“This is my second time participating in a tournament. I think I got the hang of things, but…”
I understood why he’d be a little resistant to the idea of helping by breaking the rules. That said, Sudou’s delinquent history gave him a comparatively flexible attitude to this whole ordeal.
“So, when do ya want me to take your phone?”
“Oh. Well, it’ll be easy for the school to trace things back to me, since a lot of points will be deposited into my account. If at all possible, I’d like to use a third party’s phone,” I told him. The best option would be a phone belonging to someone completely unrelated, like Ike or Yamauchi.
“No way anyone’s gonna lend you their phone, though,” said Sudou.
“If I say I’ll pay them 5,000 points, they’ll lend me anything I want.”
“You know, you’re a surprisingly shady guy.”
Sudou and I prepared to deliver the package. To make a long story short, he successfully avoided the school’s detection, passed the bag check without incident, and mailed the gift. He also managed to take a video of the delivery, and to send the file to Katsuragi before deleting it. I don’t know whether Katsuragi’s sister received her present, but the parts we controlled went well. Sudou handled everything perfectly.
I wondered if Horikita’s older brother had a hand in that. He must have been aware that we were going to try something. Being the student council president, he should’ve been able to make the necessary arrangements. On the flip side, he also could have observed the exact moment Sudou violated the school rules.
Maybe I was imagining things, but I wanted to know the truth. If the president’s involvement was a possibility, a greater truth might emerge one day.
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