Light Novel Volume 7.5/Summary

Below is the long summary of Volume 7.5 of the You-Zitsu light novel series.

Prologue
On the morning of 25th December, it was snowing hard. Ayanokōji ponders of how people all over the world would be spending time with their loved ones, some fortunate students would even have the luxury of spending it with their significant other. He then returns to preparing and grooming himself for the date he had promised. For the past 8 months since he arrived at this school, he wonders if he has enjoyed being here, as minuscule as it might be. He wonders if he'll ever experience love, consider someone precious and sharing happiness with another person by merely being together. Nonetheless, he predicts something significant will happen on this day, as he gets ready to leave his room and begin his date with Satou Maya.

Chapter 1
On the twenty-third of December, Karuizawa notes on her change in that she is no longer bounded by her past. More specifically, she has gained the power and courage to overcome her forgone days. She thinks back to yesterday's events of how she was faced with the full brunt of 'his' cruelty and had hit rock bottom. She knew of how Kiyotaka goaded Manabe and her friends into bullying her. She then starts thinking more about Ayanokōji and how at first she felt despair and then anger. However, he did eventually rescue her at the very last minute. She knew that he asked Manabu and Chabashira to look after her once the ordeal was over. She was extremely conflicted with the paradoxical feelings in her heart.

She then thinks back of her impression of Ayanokōji. Initially to her, he was just a background character that she never knew nor care had existed. Some peers thought that he was cool but for her personally, she wasn’t interested in someone who lacked social skills. Those same people eventually forgot about him as no matter how good one is at sports or academics, at the end of the day, people skills are instrumental to garner influence. To the him she pictures right now, she views him as someone cruel and coldhearted...though he did save her at the end. After getting to know him, he was a relatively good talker, smart, mature and more athletic than she once thought. She adamantly told herself to reject any preconception of love associated with Kiyotaka as it was because of him that all those bad things happened to her. In fact, "Kiyotaka should've been grateful that i wasn’t holding any grudge." She couldn’t forgive his selfishness if he stole her heart on top of everything. She then wonders if a normal person would ever chose to forgive Kiyotaka and finds it impossible. Only a 'gracious' person like her could forgive him, though a small part of it was her apprehensiveness of whether he will continue to protect her if she didn’t do so. Regardless, she debates on whether to give him a hard time to show that her resentment have not been fully quelled.

She then gets a message from Satou asking to meet her at 11:00 and that she is 'counting' on her.

She heads to Keyaki Mall and greets Satou. Satou offers to buy her breakfast and announces that she would be going on a date with Ayanokōji on the 25th. After hearing this, Karuizawa tries to recommend some other guys to date as according to her, Ayanokōji was someone who was beneath the standards of Satou.

Satou then explains her intention with this consultation, which was to ask for advice on how to go about her date, since Karuizawa was the girlfriend of the most popular guy in their class Yōsuke Hirata, hoping that she would impart her wisdom to make her special date a success. This causes Karuizawa to go into a spiral, as she reflects on the benefits of ‘dating’ Hirata and whether she should continue to ‘date’ him, realising the fact that their relationship was restricting their ability to find their true loves.

After some silence from Karuizawa, Satou shows her the plan for the date:

Meet at 12 - Lunch - Movie - Shopping - Confession at Legendary Tree - Present

While Karuizawa wonders if confessing on the first date isn't too early, they talk about the Legendary Tree, which had a rumoured 99% success rate if confessed to, under, after 5:00 PM with no one around. Karuizawa then asks why Satou fell in love with Ayanokōji. She pretty much says because he's cool and mature and very quick on his feet.

On the way back Satou weirdly invites her and Hirata on a double date. She also adds the condition that they have to ‘randomly’ meet. Karuizawa accepts.

Back at the dorm, Karuizawa wants to call Ayanokōji, to ask if he would rather use Satou than her (she was getting fond of being used) but isn't able to call. Suddenly he calls her, though. After being questioned by Karuizawa, Ayanokōji asks her to investigate Satou's hobbies, etc. and mail it to him.

Chapter 2
On 23rd December, Ayanokōji goes to Keyaki mall and buys 2 small expensive things. His plan of going to watch a movie was changed as he by happenstance met Arisu Sakayanagi. Since the school area was quite compressed, it wasn’t surprising for Ayanokōji to come across someone familiar. Ayanokōji immediately notices that she wasn’t with the entourage with her reply being that Masumi hasn’t yet arrived. She then notices the bag he was carrying and asked if he was sick which he denies, She then asked if they could hang out but Ayanokōji turns down as she is too conspicuous and would draw unwanted attention to him, much to her dejection. Ayanokōji summaries that despite Arisu knowing of her heritage, she has not exposed him and most probably wants to take him down alone.

She then decides to asks him about the Class C incident, which Ayanokōji attempts to be oblivious to. Arisu was aware that he had some involvement with the downfall of 'Dragon Boy' but decides to play along after remarking that he doesn’t seem to be injured. Both of then agrees that there were other candidates like Kouenji who could had taken down Dragon boy. Ayanokōji then asked if they could change the subject. She then goes on to ‘challenge’ him to a duel, which he politely declines. She states that she'll just play with Ichinose to stave off boredom since Ayanokōji won't entertain her. Ayanokōji offers Horikita Suzune as an opponent which Arisu refused as she isn’t a suitable opponent for her. After which, he proffer her to fight Ryuuen or seniors students as he rather her ignore him. Arisu said that ignoring him was not an option but in the interim, she'll play with Class B whom Class D has a collaborative relationship with.

Ayanokōji began to find the conversation interesting and remarked that she had picked her pawns well. He then attempts to provoke her by questioning her abilities and informing her that he’s aware of her heritage as well. Her usual calm demeanour began to crumble as he denigrated her class and insulted her abilities of being subpar compared to someone like Ichinose whom effortlessly garnered the support of her class while she had to use her father's good name. Seemingly crossing the line, she declares that simple tricks won’t work on someone like him and that he is being quite arrogant for someone who was a genius since birth and further cultivated in the White Room. He inquired as to why she was so hostile to him, with her reply being that irrespective of all his privilege upbringing, innate and cultivated skills, if she could defeat him, that will undeniably prove that no mere individual could had defeated a natural-born genius. She would spare no expense to see her hypothesis through.

Kamuro then arrives and reprimands her for leaving their agreed spot. Arisu apologises and changed the subject as she had no intention of revealing Ayanokōji's true abilities and having her prey gunned and snatched away by others. She then asks her a sudden question as to what she thinks of Ichinose. Kamuro answers that she's a kind honours student who is a model to others. Both Arisu and Ayanokōji shares the same sentiment as they thought about the difficulty of conquering such a foe.

Arisu goes on to call out an Achilles' heel of Ichinose, saying she's probably hiding her true nature and secretly looks down on others. Kamuro understands the mentality but adamantly refutes that Ichinose is like that and is genuinely good natured. Arisu smiles and compares Ichinose to Masumi's secret. Arisu glances at Ayanokōji to see if he'd caught on which he genuinely was confused at. Arisu then makes it apparent that both Masumi and Ichinose secrets are the same, although the results were different. It was revealed that she successfully got the information directly from her through a strategy called 'cold reading'. Finally, Arisu returns her gaze to Ayanokōji, saying that those are the only hints she'll give at the moment, as she tries to fish a reaction out of him over Ichinose. Seemingly satisfied and making her desires evident, she turns and takes her leave. Ayanokōji then reflects on what he could do and that he should at least notify Horikita of the exchange.

Ayanokōji then decides to go the movie theatre. He goes into the theatre and wonders about his weird obsession with watching movie ads before the movie, before being interrupted by Mio Ibuki, who's seat is coincidentally next to his.

As Ayanokōji tries to focus on the movie, he occasionally feels Ibuki's gaze upon him but decides to endure it. At the ‘climax’ of the movie, the lights go out due to technical difficulties.

During the difficulties, they talk briefly about Ayanokōji's past actions and intentions, but Ibuki quickly ignores him again. Even after 20 minutes of black screen, the movie still didn't play, thus, Ibuki strikes up another conversation. She states that she won't leave the theatre until he does. Another announcement is made saying the screening is cancelled. On their way back, Ibuki drags him into hiding from an approaching Daichi Ishizaki.

After Ishizaki and the others pass, Ibuki brings up the point that he might "spill the tea" to everyone. She then proceeds to challenge him to a street fight inside the mall. Ayanokōji, of course, trying to avoid it. Ayanokōji deducts that Ibuki just can't accept her defeat against him.

He accepts the fight on the condition of a location change. She leads him into a storage room, only for it to be locked a few moments later. He agrees to the fight on the condition this will be their last ‘personal’ fight.

Ibuki's starts kicking him. Ayanokōji dodges and then slaps her on the forehead, causing her to collapse backwards. She doesn't give up and continues to kick him. He gets bored, grabs her throat with his left hand at which point she admits defeat.

Ayanokōji calls for the staff member who forgot to lock the door (since he'd get in trouble too if it got reported) and makes a lousy ‘I was fooling around with my partner’ excuse.

On his way back, he runs into Satou, Shinohara and Matsushita and decides to eavesdrop for the useful info. After he hears his name, he decides to go into hiding instead.

On his way back, Ayanokōji gets a call from Haruka Hasebe, inviting him to a party on Christmas. Ayanokōji declines as he has a date with Satou (though he refuses to call it so). Hasebe then wonders how to avoid Sakura exploding.

Chapter 3
Christmas Eve! Ayanokōji goes to meet Ryuuen in the morning. Ryuuen states that he'll regret making him stay at the school. As Ryuuen gets 'bored', Ayanokōji offers him cooperation between class C and D to beat class A. After evaluating the deal, the two talk about the problem of Kushida, who is still hunting Horikita. Ayanokōji states that he'll get Kushida expelled causing Ryuuen to laugh. The two then start discussing Ryuuen's strategy of saving up 800 mil points.

They come up with an agreement for Ryuuen to lay the foundations for a Class C-D ‘alliance’ against A. As the negotiations are done Manabu shows up. He reminds Ayanokōji of the promise of defeating Nagumo. After a short Ryuuen vs Manabu, Manabu reveals that the student council can even make an implement special exams. He also reveals that Nagumo has already played a part in 17 expulsions. Ryuuen gets bored and skedaddles.

The former student council president and Ayanokōji stay behind to talk about Nagumo. Manabu says, there are people against Nagumo in 2nd year and says he'll inform them about Ayanokōji. As they talk Ayanokōji tries to figure out Manabu but can't.

Ayanokōji goes back to his dorm and asks Suzune to meet him. She tells him to come to her cafe. On his way there he overhears, that Sudou was rejected by Suzune. He also overhears that Ike is going on a "date" with Shinohara that night, as a thank you for saving her earlier.

He arrives, and surprisingly sees Kushida with Suzune. He tries to avoid Kushida hearing unnecessary information, but Suzune forces him to talk. He asks if she has any interest in the student council and says her brother wants her there. She doubts him, but he gets her on a call with him to confirm. Manabu confirms, but Suzune declines the offer (after the call).

In the evening, Sakura gives Ayanokōji a pair of gloves. He wonders if he should get her something for valentines.

Chapter 4
Christmas Day! Ayanokōji thinks about the upcoming date and goes to the meeting place. He then sees Satou approach after arriving a litter earlier. As they greet each other, Ayanokōji briefly sees a wrapped up item protruding from her bag. Choosing not to dwell too much on it, Ayanokōji asks if they should proceed with the date. Soon after, Hirata and Karuizawa shows up. After talking for a while, Karuizawa suggests that they should have a double date, which bewilders both Hirata and Ayanokōji. Hirata and the two girls accept, and after pondering about it, Ayanokōji accepts too.

The two girls reveal the uncanny ‘coincidence’, that they're going to see the same movie at the same time, with their seats on opposite ends of one another.

As they walk to the movies, Karuizawa teases Satou, that she and Ayanokōji look like a couple and such, while Satou and Ayanokōji try to converse (with Hirata and Karuizawa chiming in sometimes). Ayanokōji figures out Karuizawa's goal is to make him and Satou a couple.

Karuizawa suddenly asks Ayanokōji, on his "type of girl". He says the 元気 (energetic) type but clarifies that someone who can tug him around a bit. As Karuizawa asks, what his relation to Suzune is, Ayanokōji realises it's for Satou, since she already knows. From this, he deduces that the double date was set up and proposed by Satou.

The four are interrupted by Nagumo and his followers, who calls out to Ayanokōji. He wishes for Ayanokōji to be his next opponent after Manabu graduates. He reasons that if Manabu saw something in him, there must be something worth investing his time in. The tension was palpable with Karuizawa trying to ease it but Nagumo soon leaves before anything else could happen.

They arrive at the theatre. Satou and Karuizawa goes to the toilet. Hirata and Ayanokōji talk about Karuizawa's improvements. They then talk about Nagumo. Hirata mentions that he played a role in the students leaving the football club and then leaving school. The girls come back and they watch the movie.

The movie ends. They ask each other questions at dinner. Karuizawa and Satou ask for Ayanokōji's preference for long or short hair, with his reply being that it doesn’t matter as long as it suits the person. Attempting to shift the attention, Ayanokōji asks if Hirata is aware that he's popular.

During the meal, Ayanokōji finds out Satou wants to be a designer. Ayanokōji and Karuizawa want to go to university.

After the meal, Karuizawa and Hirata leaves. Satou is concerned that Ayanokōji didn't have a good time since he didn't even laugh once during the date. Ayanokōji explains that he has trouble expressing himself and that it is rare that he shows any type of emotions. She then confesses to him, but he softly rejects her, explaining that he isn’t ready for such a commitment. He offers for them to hang out again as he truly had a great time together with her. With that, Satou demeans herself and excused herself first as she couldn’t control her tears. She then apologises and runs back to the dorms crying. Ayanokōji states, that he probably would have accepted her if she had confessed before the relay race and that he might have missed out on a great 'opportunity' to create many 'experiences'.

Ayanokōji had noticed a person lurking in the shadows and someone suddenly calls him. He answers the call. The person calling him asked to meet him behind the school building in 20 min.

He then goes to confront Karuizawa who had witnessed the entire scene of Satou's confession. They argue about why had Ayanokōji rejected Satou. Ayanokōji states that it would have made Karuizawa worried of her relationship with him, and he couldn't afford losing such a valuable tool. They then talk about his relationship with Manabu. He mentions that he would be meeting a senpai and invites her along.

Epilogue
It was 20 minutes after the promised meeting time, which resulted in Karuizawa commenting that it was rude of them to be tardy despite being the organizers. Ayanokōji eventually sees Vice-president Ikuto Kiriyama approaching and remarked how it was unexpected for the second-in-charge to go against the president. Kiriyama then asks for the identity of Karuizawa which Ayanokōji calls her his partner and vouched for her trustworthiness. Kiriyama accepted his words at face value since he was already willing to seek help from a first-year due to the dire circumstances.

Moving on, he explains that he only joined the council as he idolised Manabu and has never agreed with Nagumo's regime, so he naturally wants to take down Nagumo. He also mentioned that Nagumo had defeated him and risen to Class A while he dropped to Class B. Kiriyama confirms that Nagumo was able to bring most of the second-years under his control, with some just resigning themselves to his reign. To achieve this, Nagumo promised reform and those that proven themselves to him, would be promoted to Class A. Despite contemplating resignation from the council, Kiriyama stayed on so as to keep Nagumo's reign in check. He was visibly frustrated at the possibility that if he failed, the school would be doomed.

He also reveals that an exam in the third semester will include a battle or cooperation amongst the 3 school years. After discussing the situation for a bit, Kiriyama states that the only 2 ways to defeat Nagumo are to expel him or forcibly kick him out of office. At the moment, Nagumo is watching the third years closely, but inevitably after they graduated, he would switch his targets onto the first-years.

Ayanokōji questions how much he could trust Kiriyama as despite his hatred being justified, it was still heavily biased against Nagumo and possibly being used to manipulate himself. Kiriyama notices his apprehension and reveals that he doesn’t have to be the one to defeat Nagumo but he can’t stand his juniors being subjugated to the 'same hell' he endured. Ayanokōji states that he wants to do something without being either liked or disliked by Nagumo but he'll cooperate with him because of personal reasons. Kiriyama apologies in advance as Ayanokōji would soon find out who Nagumo really is and would be under his radar. However, he will help him by leaking information to him and letting him do as his please as long as it was within the confines of the school rules.

Kiriyama holds Ayanokōji in high regards and has high expectations of him since Manabu endorsed him, although there are boundaries he can’t easily crossed like breaking the school rules for them. For his final warning, he tells Ayanokōji that if he proves himself incapable of meeting the challenge up ahead, he'll stop contacting him which puts himself at further risks. Furthermore, if Nagumo finds out of their interaction due to any incompetence on either side, both of them would be taken down. They then agree to not have further direct contact and use safe measures like burner e-mails for contact. As Kiriyama leaves, Karuizawa remarks that the entire ordeal gives off a bad vibe with Ayanokōji concurring, stating that there is no room for error.

On the way back to their dormitories, Karuizawa and Ayanokōji began talking about the Nagumo situation. She inquires for the reason as to why he arbitrarily declared her his partner which he asked if he should take it back. Karuizawa then jokingly told him that he should show her appreciation through monetary values. Due to the outcome of the test on the cruise ship, she had more points than him at the moment. Ayanokōji then explains why Horikita was not chosen as his partner and that she was just an existence who sat next to him in class. Ayanokōji envisions her in a more leadership type of role with pillars supporting her, potentially making Class D formidable. Karuizawa was elated after being affirmed by Ayanokōji that she was capable and helpful to him. She then asked if he would be able to handle Nagumo which he confirms as long as it is pertaining to academics or physicality but if Nagumo was willing to do whatever it takes, they might be the ones to get expelled.

Karuizawa then asked Ayanokōji of what he was like in Junior High with him saying that he was just an ordinary student. She then immediately rejected such a notion since the world would have gone 'totally nuts' if he was normal. She then gave her impression of how he was smart, good at fighting yet taciturn. Sometimes he is naive of the world, and sometimes also do 'really messed-up things'. Unbeknownst to Karuizawa, she was able to accurately guess what Ayanokōji's past was like whereby he was like someone who was raised in an intense facility since childhood akin to a manga. He was surprised yet neither confirm nor deny her guess. Karuizawa vows to make him reveal his past to her someday.

It then began snowing. Karuizawa then gave him a Christmas present since things didn’t work out with Satou. Karuizawa then made some teasing comments and reveals that the gift was an insurance in case she had to give it to Yousuke in public. They then talk about Karuizawa breaking up with Hirata, which Ayanokōji agrees with since she was no longer the same Karuizawa as when they first joined. She was uneasy as to whether she would still be useful to him, with his reply being that if her only value was her relationship with Hirata, he would have told her to never break up. Being Hirata's girlfriend gave her power and much pressure, though she eventually decides to choose one of them rather than lose both due to carelessness.

Ayanokōji states that he'll call Karuizawa by her given name too so as to make it fair as she always subconsciously calls him by his first name despite reverting to calling Yousuke as Hirata.

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