‘Why’ is stronger than ‘How’

In the Hallway during the break.

The hallway during break was its usual mess, running feet, shouted club invites, doors sliding open and slamming shut.

Setsuna-san should have been on her way to the courts.

Instead, she froze just outside an empty classroom, hand still on the doorknob.

Arata-kun’s voice drifted through the thin panel, low and even.

“…You’re seriously hung up over that?”

She’d only meant to duck in, grab the spare shuttlecocks she kept by the window.

Then she recognized who it was.

‘This..voice?. It’s Arata-kun, isn't it?’ Setsuna thought instantly.

Now, she stood pressed against the wall beside the door, just out of sight, listening.

Inside, Hiro-kun’s voice shot back, flat and annoyed.

“I called you to come down. You ignored me until Yua-san dragged us both to the council President.”

Setsuna’s fingers tightened around the strap of her racket bag.

‘Right. That incident,’ she thought.

The whole school had been buzzing about it.

Arata climbed up a tree, spying on girls, dragged to the president like some delinquent with a peeping hobby.

She’d written him off instantly.

Creep, she’d thought. Just another guy who thinks rules don’t apply if he looks cool enough.

Hiro-kun clicked his tongue.

“Just tell me straight. Did you plan all of that?”

There was a pause.

Setsuna leaned closer, breath held, the thin wood cool against her ear.

Arata’s answer came slower, quieter.

“If I did plan it all… would I be this troubled? Of course not.”

‘Troubled?’  Setsuna’s fists clenched as she reached for the doorknob, but was interrupted by their talking again.

Arata-kun continued, voice low but steady.

“I hate myself for acting without fearing the consequences it might have on others.”

For a second, the hallway noise outside the classroom seemed to dull.

Setsuna’s eyes narrowed.

‘ Arata-kun hates himself…?’

She’d expected arrogance. Smugness. Some excuse that she had heard countless times. Yet another brat who thought he was entitled to everything just because he got into the academy.

Self-loathing wasn’t on the list.

Outside, Hiro-kun’s face softened in relief for a mere second.

“So you were watching someone,” Hiro-ku said, accusation fading into something closer to confirmation.

“Miyu-san,” Arata replied.

Setsuna blinked from the other side of the door.

“Miyu-san?”

Hiro sounded just as surprised.

“The bookworm? I mean, she stood up for herself when you confronted her bully. Why her specifically?”

Setsuna held her breath.

Arata-kun’s answer came after a small, weighted silence.

“I wanted to confirm what Ryoken-kun was really like beneath the bully act. I provoked him, knowing he liked Miyu-san. I thought it would help Miyu-san realize it’s all an act of his and stand up for herself.”

Something cold prickled at the back of Setsuna’s neck.

‘He provoked him… on purpose?’

For a second, her irritation flared back to life.

So he was playing games with people.’ Setsuna’s urge to barge out the door and beat some sense into Arata-kun increased exponentially.

Then Arata’s voice thinned, losing its earlier composure.

“I didn’t expect him to be a nice guy, peer-pressured into being a bully by his friends.”

Setsuna-san stared at the floor.

‘Eh?’

‘Nice guy?’

‘Ryoken-kun? That arrogant brat who had his lame arrogant friends cheer for him whenever he bullied someone?’

Her teeth clenched instinctively.

“How do you even know that he isn’t just any normal bully?” Hiro-kun asked, skeptical.

“The fact that all of his friends in the crowd were silent and only cheered once Ryoken-kun grabbed my collar in the act,” Arata-kun explained.

Setsuna replayed the image in her mind, the way crowds moved, who laughed first, who stayed quiet.

‘…So he’d been watching all of that.’

Setsuna-san took a step back from the door. Her vision blurred as she struggled to reconsider the amount of stuff she heard.

The hallway outside bustled on, but inside the classroom, the air sounded… still.

Hiro-kun spoke again, slower this time.

“So, you climbed a tree afterwards… to watch over her?”

“To make sure she was all right,” Arata-kun replied.

His tone was casual, as if he'd done nothing out of the ordinary.

“She stood up for herself. For the others, too. That was her decision.” Arata-kun added.

Setsuna’s chest tightened unexpectedly.

She remembered Miyu-san, pushing through fear to stand between someone and a crowd.

She would’ve scoffed at that normally. Brave moments were one thing. Consistency was another.

But the boys in the cafeteria…

She’d heard them earlier, snickering about that same incident. Mocking Miyu’s shaking hands. Her voice.

And Arata-kun was up in a tree at that time, silently watching.

“…Still,” he said softly,

“I pushed things in that direction. I made a girl like her face something she shouldn’t have had to, just because I wanted to be sure of him. I’m guilty of that much.” Arata-kun admitted.

Setsuna-san leaned back into the door, unsure if she misheard something.

‘Guilty?’

The word settled heavier than she expected.

So he wasn’t proud of what he’d done.

He wasn’t reveling in it.

He was… blaming himself.

“You know,” Hiro-kun sighed, the sound of him shifting his weight carrying through the door,

“For someone everyone is wary of, you’re really bad at being actually evil.”

Despite herself, the corner of Setsuna-san’s mouth twitched.

‘Bad at being evil.

That… sounded right,’ she thought.

Despite her very instincts telling her to hate Arata’s guts.

Her lips curved into a subtle smile.

Hiro-kun continued, a can making a small metallic clink as it changed hands.

“Here. From the vending machine by the stairs. Bitter blend, your favorite.”

‘Since when did a guy like Arata-kun have something as normal as a favorite canned coffee someone else knew about?’ Setsuna-san thought.

Arata-kun looked at the can.

A short, involuntary laugh escaped from him on the other side of the door.

“I’ll pass.”

Hiro-kun’s reaction was instant disbelief.

“You’re refusing free coffee now? The Arata-kun I know wouldn’t do that.”

Setsuna-san rolled her eyes on the other side of the door.

‘Who in their right mind refused free anything from the vending machine?’

“I’ve got more work to do,” Arata-kun said.

Setsuna-san heard Arata-kun’s footsteps as he walked away.

‘More work.’

Setsuna frowned.

‘Work… as in what? Is he really going to fix and apologize for provoking Ryoken? or..’

But the conversation she’d overheard wouldn’t leave her alone.

He’d misjudged Ryoken.

He’d let Miyu step into something ugly.

And instead of brushing it off, he was carrying around this quiet, ugly guilt about it.

Setsuna exhaled slowly, peeling herself away from the door.

She wanted to punch him in the gut and tell him to stop worrying and that he did a great job teaching those bullies a lesson.

But her hand refused to open the door as Arata’s words repeated in her head:

“I hate myself for acting without fearing the consequences it might have on others.”

‘What kind of guy says that and means it?’

‘What kind of guy climbs a tree just to make sure some bookworm girl doesn’t fall apart after doing something brave once?’

She didn’t like him.

That much, she clung to stubbornly.

He was reckless. He dragged trouble behind him like a storm cloud. And now, if he really was the council’s observer, he could barge into her badminton practices whenever he felt like it.

But as she stepped away from the door, heading toward the stairs instead of the courts, something in her had shifted.

The image of Arata as a simple creep, a bored delinquent playing at being dangerous no longer fit as neatly as it used to.

He was still a problem.

Just… not the kind she’d thought.

Setsuna clicked her tongue, annoyed at the realization.

“Seriously,” she muttered under her breath as she walked, racket bag bumping lightly against her leg,

“If you’re going to be a pain, at least be easy to hate.”

But the tension of that overheard conversation lingered in her chest.

And with every step, one unwelcome question kept rising to the surface:

Why is a guy like that going this far for other people?

She didn’t have an answer.

Yet.

And that bothered her more than anything.

Arata-kun walked away into the crowded part of the hallway with a subtle smile.

“I only drink that coffee because the cafeteria has to throw it out. No one buys it before it expires, and it tastes that bad.” Arata murmured to himself.