Even Today, the Genius High School Programmer Cashes In on Day Trades, Completely Flustered by Beautiful Girls' Growing Affection. - Chapter 51: An Unexpected Epilogue.

An Unexpected Epilogue.

The harassment toward Yukina had finally stopped.

Peaceful daily life returned to the school, and so did the gentle smile on Yukina’s face.

Even when she occasionally ran into Nanase and the others in the hallways, they would simply avert their eyes and pass by without a word. Yukina had mentioned that it felt strangely awkward.

“So you helped me again, Kousuke,” Yukina said softly one day, looking up at me.

“I didn’t really do anything special. And even if I did, it was for my own sake. I told you that before, didn’t I?”

I had asked Hina to keep the full details a secret from Yukina. I had also given Shingo a complete report on everything that happened and asked him to stay quiet about it as well.

“Hina told me anyway,” Yukina continued with a small smile. “‘I can’t give you the details, but Kousuke helped you again.’ That’s what she said.”

That girl… she really can’t keep her mouth shut.

Well, I suppose it was never going to stay completely hidden.

“Thank you, Kousuke. You’re always saving me.”

Yukina gazed up at me with calm, warm eyes.

“I keep receiving help from you, but I… I haven’t been able to give anything back…”

She lowered her head, her expression tinged with sadness.

“If it’s repayment you’re worried about, I’ve already received plenty.”

“Eh?”

“You changed my everyday life, Yukina. Because you found me at school and reached out to me. Eating lunch together with everyone every day—that kind of thing was unthinkable for the old me. And besides…”

I looked straight into Yukina’s face and continued.

“Your smile has always given me strength. So keep smiling for me, okay?”

“…There you go again… saying things like that.”

Yukina looked down, her cheeks faintly flushed.

“Really… thank you so much, Kousuke. I’m truly grateful.”

When she lifted her face again, her smile was gentler and more radiant than ever before.

I thought things would simply continue like this—quietly and without incident.

However, this whole affair had one small, completely unexpected epilogue waiting for us.

***

December 2nd.

From the moment morning arrived, the school’s staff room was in an uproar.

In the early hours of December 1st, Mizuno Takayuki had been arrested on suspicion of violating the Narcotics Control Law.

Apparently, Takayuki had long been under police surveillance as a key figure involved in habitual drug use and dealing. Late that night, more than ten investigators raided the club he frequented.

Inside the VIP room, Takayuki was found in possession of several types of stimulants, MDMA, and other party pills in addition to what he was using. A search of his home followed shortly after.

By the evening of the 1st, the news of Takayuki’s arrest had already hit the media. I learned about it through online news sites.

The school was thrown into chaos dealing with media inquiries. After all, Takayuki was a St. Clark Academy alumnus. As one of the most academically prestigious private high schools in the area, the attention from the public was intense. There were numerous questions about his behavior during his high school years. In fact, several reporters could be seen lingering near the school’s main gate.

During the police raid, Okazaki Nanase had been in the VIP room together with Takayuki. Naturally, she was taken in for questioning as well. Fortunately, her drug test came back negative.

After being thoroughly interrogated at the station, her parents were called. It so happened that her father, Okazaki Genichi, had returned home late that night and went to the police station to pick her up. The level of his fury was apparently far from ordinary.

Nanase, who had been taken into protective custody by the police, received a one-week suspension from school. If any drugs had shown up in her system, expulsion would almost certainly have been unavoidable.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

What came next from Nanase’s father, Okazaki Genichi, went far beyond anything any of us could have imagined.

Okazaki Genichi immediately forced Nanase to transfer schools. And not just any school—he sent her to a strict, all-girls boarding school deep in the mountains, a place famous for its heavy snowfall in winter.

With only three months left until graduation, everyone wondered why. It turned out he had made her repeat a year. In other words, she would now be in the same grade as us.

Originally, Genichi had already been concerned about Nanase’s usual behavior. She had planned to join his company right after graduation and had shown zero interest in further education, which showed in both her study habits and her grades. He had also vaguely known that she was out partying at night.

He had long worried that letting her join the company as she was would be bad for both the people around her and for Nanase herself. Then this incident happened.

His patience finally snapped.

“Start over as a second-year student! Focus only on your studies, fix your attitude, and then you can come back. If you don’t change, I will disown you!”

With those words, he threw Nanase out of the house.

He really was the strict, upright father that rumors claimed him to be. This was a perfect example of how children never truly understand their parents’ hearts.

Nanase’s new all-girls boarding school was located in a remote area with virtually nothing around it. People said there were more tanuki than humans nearby. The only store was a single convenience store right in front of the school. The nearest large shopping mall was a forty-five-minute drive away. The supervision was extremely strict, and escaping was supposedly almost impossible. It was basically a prison.

In such an environment, rumors claimed that the rate of yuri (girl-girl) relationships among the students was quite high.

If a sexy beauty like Nanase were sent there, she would undoubtedly be extremely popular.

Come to think of it, she did once mention having experience with three people at once. Did that mean she was open to that side of things too?

I wondered if, by the time she graduated, Nanase would have changed. Would she become the person her father hoped for?

Well… I wasn’t particularly interested either way.

“So in the end, did everything we did have no meaning?”

On the way to school after getting off the train one morning, I voiced a simple doubt.

“Of course it had meaning,” replied the handsome guy with light brown hair walking beside me.

“But even if we hadn’t done anything, Takayuki might still have gotten arrested and Nanase might still have been forced to transfer.”

“That’s only the result,” Shingo said, turning to look at me.

“Or are you the type who thinks the result is everything? That the process doesn’t matter as long as the outcome is good?”

I mulled over Shingo’s words.

Back then, I had genuinely wanted to protect Yukina with all my heart. Shingo and Ryuusenji had cooperated with me. I had accepted Hina’s feelings. I had barely slept while making all those props. And finally, I had confronted Nanase.

Was all of that meaningless?

No… that wasn’t right.

“You actually say some good things once in a while, Shingo.”

“‘Once in a while’ is a bit harsh, don’t you think?”

We looked at each other and laughed.

Even this laughter might be part of the long chain of seemingly meaningless moments that had led us here.