My High School Nerd Rival - Chapter 54

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 54
Cyrus remained motionless behind Ivy, the warmth and distance between them unchanged from moments before.
That peculiar stillness felt terrifyingly like a signal that he’d heard every word she’d said.
If he questioned her about it, what on earth would she answer?
“She was worried.”
His voice emerged from the heavy silence utterly devoid of emotion.
“Your roommate.”
A perfectly ordinary remark.
Ivy summoned her courage and turned around, though her hands remained gripping the desk’s edge.
When she looked up slowly at his face, there was no curiosity there, no suspicion.
Only the same expression as always—nothing more.
The one Ivy had once called his “insufferably blank expression.”
That she could find such a face so welcome now surprised her.
“Did Joy come looking for me?”
Come to think of it, she still hadn’t told him she’d gotten her mobile phone back, and she’d been hiding here the whole time since then.
Since she’d said she was going to see a teacher and hadn’t returned, it was only natural that Joy would worry.
“Something like that.”
He answered vaguely, studying her face as if to read something in it.
Was he gauging her emotions? Or searching for an answer to that word—”royalty”—he’d heard through the microphone earlier?
A creeping fear made Ivy turn her head away from his gaze.
“I just wanted to be alone. This is somewhere no one can find.”
“Then you shouldn’t be using someone else’s refuge.”
His observation was far too accurate.
“And broadcasting solo is worse still.”
“I, it was a mistake.”
Her heartbeat quickened. If he’d heard that word through the broadcast, there had to be a question that logically followed.
“A mistake, presumably.”
“Uh, maybe.”
Did you hear what I said?
Ivy began to ask this, then faltered.
Cyrus, who had been watching quietly, answered in a low voice.
“If you’re going to broadcast, do it properly. It was crackling so badly I couldn’t make out a single word. My ears are killing me.”
“Really?”
Her face brightened as she asked, and he looked down at her with an expression of sheer exasperation.
“Are my aching ears really such good news?”
It was wonderful. Better than wonderful!
So that’s why he’d thrown a ball to make her shut it off quickly—to let her know his ears hurt.
…Though if it hurt that much, he could’ve just covered them.
In any case. If he didn’t hear it, then all’s well.
“No, never mind. Just, I’ll message Joy real quick.”
Ivy sent a message to Joy.
[Heard from Quinton. I got my phone back so don’t worry.]
Turning back, she found him still regarding her with his arms crossed.
Was he worried about her?
No, that couldn’t be.
In this situation, it was Cyrus who ought to be concerned—he was drawing scrutiny without having done anything wrong.
Ivy had warned Thomas, but rumors that had already spread couldn’t simply be hidden.
Besides, Cyrus hadn’t even offered a single defense…
‘…Hm?’
Something nagged at her—a sense of déjà vu.

The fact that Thomas had continued to believe in him suggested that at least his suspicions of Quinton weren’t “certain.”
And yet he’d chosen only silence.
‘Why does he never say anything?’
The Cyrus she knew was a fanatical nerd who worshipped truth and fact.
“…Quinton, is there something more important than truth?”
Ivy asked. The broadcasting room’s particular silence let her question’s echo linger longer than usual.
He waited until that sound had completely faded and perfect silence returned before answering.
“Yes.”
She sensed she shouldn’t ask what it was. Something in her simply knew.
So Ivy changed the subject.
“I talked to Thomas Harris.”
He couldn’t possibly miss what that meant.
For the first time, he looked away.
The corners of his eyes twisted slightly.
“You kept it quiet?”
“…”
“That more important thing.”
Still no answer came.
“Quinton, stop making a face like a criminal on trial.”
That was something he’d said at the last debate tournament.
“You said it yourself. We’re on the same side.”
And Ivy gently grasped his arm.
She didn’t want to repeat the blunder from that early morning in the Infirmary.
Back then, she’d been too hasty, and he’d raised his defenses and refused to talk further, claiming he’d stolen the test papers.
“That was about the debate tournament.”
“But we’re continuing that debate right now.”
Is a benevolent lie justified?
“…I wasn’t fond of that topic.”
There was an undercurrent of pain in his answer. The topic couldn’t have been pleasant for Cyrus either.
“What do you think now?”
“Nothing’s changed. A benevolent lie doesn’t exist. It’s all deception—just the arrogance of thinking only I can bear the truth.”
…Words that tore at himself.
Ivy tightened her grip on his arm. Cyrus’s gaze slowly shifted to her hand.
“…I thought after talking to Harris, you’d despise me.”
“I did despise you.”
His arm muscles went rigid under her grasp.
“What Harris did was cowardly. Hiding behind anonymity to attack you. And then packaging it as if it were for my sake—I thought it was pathetic.”
“That doesn’t make it entirely wrong, though.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Quinton.”
Ivy gave him a stern look.
“That kind of slander doesn’t help find the truth at all. And in this case, there’s nothing more important than the truth.”
“…Right.”
He answered with an oddly measured pause.
His answer sounded like it was whispering, “There is something more important than truth.”
And what he meant by “important”…
‘No, no! What am I thinking?’
Ivy reined in her runaway thoughts.
“Anyway, the important thing is the truth. We need to find it.”
She released his arm and tucked her hand behind her back, clenching it into a tight fist.
The inside of it felt strangely warm.
“A moment ago, I looked at the teacher’s file, and the suspected Hacking time was about 8:58 in the evening. That means someone secretly used my laptop at that time?”
“That could be the case. Or someone could have gotten your login credentials around then.”
“Is it that simple to do?”
“It’s more a psychological issue than a technical one.”
Cyrus tilted his head, arms still crossed.
“They have to make you click on something.”
A chill ran down her spine. Not technology but psychology. Still, she shook her head.
“I never click on strange spam messages.”
“Exactly why I said it’s psychological. It wouldn’t look obviously suspicious. Didn’t you say you were at the Library on Saturday around that time?”
Ivy stared at him with wide eyes, unable to respond for a moment.
How could he possibly know that?
“Why are you surprised?”
He adjusted her slipping glasses with his fingertip, looking bemused.
“You told me yourself. That you were at the Library.”
Ah, she remembered.
“When you forged your signature, I had to contact you, right? I’d completely forgotten about it…”
“That would make sense.”
“My mind was all over the place. What time was that?”
Ivy pulled out her mobile phone and checked the time of their conversation.
Her first message had been sent at 8:52.
It was remarkably close to the incident time.
A flicker of unease passed through her.
With the incident happening right around when she’d contacted Quinton, wouldn’t the teachers suspect him all the more?
“Let me see.”
Cyrus leaned in beside her, bracing himself against the desk as he bent toward the screen, and the laundry detergent scent from his shirt intensified.
“So around then. Do you remember what you did after sending me that message?”
With his head still inclined toward her, the distance between them had narrowed to the length of a breath.
But there was no room to point that out—she needed to focus on matching the timeline.
“Probably.”
With a reference point now established, memory came more readily.
“You didn’t reply right away back then.”
“I was reading a book.”
“So I set it aside and started looking at the next applicant’s file. It was Tiffany Vance, which startled me.”
“…That is rather startling.”
“When I clicked on Tiffany’s file, the session happened to end. So when I logged back in, your reply had come through.”
Ivy re-read his message.
[Still at the Library?]
The message had arrived at 8:59.
When Ivy looked up, Cyrus straightened as well, and the heavy scent of fabric faded with him.
“Finally, something worth recognizing.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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