I fiddled with my phone as I waited until 5 PM before slipping into my uniform and heading on to school.
The hallway was so quiet and distant; it was quite peaceful—it seemed I was the first person to come.
On entering class, I saw Ito and Kagura already there—I could have acted like I was still angry about their betrayal, but there was no point in doing that.
"Hey guys," I grinned as I went to my new seat.
"Hey," they replied monotonously.
After exchanging pleasantries there was a deafening silence for about 2 minutes until Ito moved to a seat close to me, and so did Kagura.
"Firstly, I want to apologise again," Ito said.
"It's cool, really. I forgive everyone, and I'm sure you had your reasons."
At those words, Kagura's face lit up. It seemed she thought I was still angry at her, though she still remained quiet.
"Thanks again for understanding. Nakamura, about your expulsion, the school might call—"
"Don't worry about it; I doubt the school will call me. Also, please could you not bring up that subject?"
It would be annoying to continuously hear that subject; while I understood their curiosity, they would have to keep it to themselves.
"…If you're sure, then I won't talk about it anymore. Anyway, if you don't mind me asking, what's your Rp?" Ito asked.
"It's really low… I have 2,000 Rp left."
"…I see; that's kinda expected, especially after what happened in class," he said. "Let me send some to you; how much do you need?"
"Nah, I'm fine."
"Are you sure? I'm sure I could share some; it won't be much of an issue."
"Don't worry, I can survive for now, but if I'm ever in trouble, I'll be sure to call you."
Ito beamed at my words—his savior complex really was something else.
At any rate, since there were only three of us, we could interact without a weird atmosphere (Well, at least not anymore), and I could ask questions without getting it seeming annoying.
"So anyway, I have some questions for both of you."
The real school rules were more or less what Kagura and the chairman had said, so there wasn't any new information learnt.
Even the part about special tests was too elusive to really gain anything substantial, so therefore questions were needed to get anywhere.
"So, uh, why did Satou—or rather, the school president—tell you guys to not tell me about the school rules, and why was it that I didn't see the complete rules?"
"The first part is a bit complicated; I'll explain it after I answer the second question," Kagura said. "To be honest, I don't really know why you couldn't see the complete rules, but maybe Satou-kun can manipulate the information you see as the student council president."
"… I'm not too sure about that. I don't think it comes from his position," Ito said. "It's probably something he did underground or something like that."
"Yeah, you might be right. Anyway, back to your first question. The reason we followed his orders is because he is the leader of our faction."
"Faction?"
"To thrive in this school, you need partnerships and alliances, because of that reason partnerships with at least 5 people that are headed by one or two people—factions, if you will—were created."
I finally understood why they did what they did—well, except for Aiya—they were probably forced to follow his orders because if they didn't, they would leave his faction, and that could probably lead to some really bad consequences.
Consequences like everyone in the faction targeting them; also, factions probably held ceasefires against classes except for when special tests occurred.
All in all, these factions were probably the best course of action in this type of school.
However, there was something that didn't make sense to me, so it led me to ask a question.
"Quick question," I said. "Why were people in class Epsilon allowed into the school president's faction?"
If factions were created for everyone's benefit, those in the lower classes probably wouldn't be allowed in—especially in an upperclassman's, or rather the student president's, faction.
"I kinda expected you to ask that. Well, anyone is allowed into his faction regardless of status or class. While other factions have a long screening process, his is relatively easy and he mostly does it with an entire class rather than just a few students."
"Our entire class is in his faction?"
"No, only about 27 of us—he has to take more than half of a class."
It didn't add up to me. The person who supposedly valued merit more than anything, allowed just anyone to enter his faction—it sounded frankly ludicrous.
Though I didn't say anything about that fact because I doubted that Ito and Kagura knew why he did so.
"I see," I sighed, rubbing my temple. I also couldn't think of a reason for why he did so. "Anyway, about the special test coming up, what's it about?"
"It's—"
Before Ito could continue, our classmates came into the class, and I immediately kept shut, and so did Kagura and Ito.
They got the message and went to their respective seats; luckily, no one noticed we were talking to each other.
After 5 minutes or so, all our classmates arrived. With everyone inside, Ito went to the podium to speak.
"Since everyone is here, I will begin. Firstly, thanks for coming. Now with that being said, I will explain the special test again."
"Huh? Why?"
Some people were confused; I was sure they already got an explanation from Jackson-sensei during homeroom, yet Ito wanted to explain again.
I was sure most already knew why, though Ito still spelt it out for a few of them.
"Nakamura wasn't in class and didn't get the rundown."
"Well, he could just look at it on the school bulletin board."
Huh? We have a bulletin board?
"What about questions? Who would he ask? Jackson-sensei? You want him to ask her when we need to start strategizing."
While it was clear that my classmates didn't really want to waste time on me, especially after what happened in the morning, Ito wouldn't let that happen.
"Fine, do whatever you want."
With that done, we could finally begin.
"We have a special test on Monday, our first one of the term—the midterm exam."
Kagura mentioned that, didn't she?
"I'll try my best to explain the rules. The rules are that each class has to answer 100 questions made by the other classes; each class makes 25 questions each but doesn't answer their own—of course, the school will brief your questions and see if they're suitable. The questions need to be sent at the latest by the closure of school on Friday.
If you send them earlier, you can get them reviewed, and if we decide they're not suitable, then you can remake them.
However, if they aren't suitable and there's no more time, then the school will prepare questions themselves, but the questions are going to be very easy, and this will also happen if no questions are prepared at all," Ito said.
The test prepared before me was quite hard, to say the least.
We had to prepare questions sent by other students with minimal involvement of the school, as well as preparing a question that would challenge said questions.
Not to mention that my class wasn't exactly the best when it came to academics.
What a predicament.
"..."
"Confusing, huh?" Ito smiled kindly.
"A bit, I gue–"
"Don't be a dumbass and just get it; it's pretty easy," Inoue voiced, his tone effortessly showing his apparent exasperation that also happened to be on his face.
"Hey, don't be like that, Inoue. You also had trouble in class too," Ito said.
"Huh? No, I didn't."
I gave Inoue a look that practically screamed "Sure, dude," because I didn't believe his words in the slightest.
"I never did, dammit! Just get back to what you were saying, Ito."
"Uh… Anyway, back to the test. Now, you only get special conditions if you rank the lowest or highest. If you're the lowest, you get -500 Crp and if you're the highest, you get +500 Crp. I trust that I don't have to explain what Crp is, right?"
I nodded in affirmation and started rationalizing what I just heard.
This special test was to test our problem-solving skills, or at least that was the impression I got.
At any rate, what made it hard was solving questions you couldn't really prepare for—especially when we just received news about the test today.
The silver lining was that we also only had a week to prepare questions.
The problem was that we didn't know what the school considered suitable.
"Ito," I called. "What does the school mean by suitable?"
Everyone looked at me with disdain but didn't really say anything; it meant that they probably didn't know—which meant:
It wasn't said in class, huh?
"Well, we didn't really get an answer, though we did hear it can only be information a first-year student should know."
"I see."
That means we could use the process of trial and error, and there were also the special conditions, but that was mostly fine as long as we didn't get last.
Except, we were the lowest class academically so… Well, at least we were coming up with a strategy.
"Now, it's time to focus on preparing questions. I originally wanted us to pair up—two people make one question but…"
With me being here, no one would actually want to pair up with me, and if I weren't here, that wouldn't work either.
"So, how about we make a group—a committee that will prepare the questions? We don't have an upper limit, but we need at least 3 people, so if you want to join, then raise your hand up."
Many raised their hands up; I mean, who wouldn't? You had the chance to antagonize the other classes.
I mean, I wouldn't, but I wasn't here during the first term, so I wouldn't know the grudge they had. I could see Inoue with a mischievous grin as he raised up his hand.
Almost everyone wanted to join, well, until the moment I raised my hand up.
After I did so, more than half dropped their hands, and there were just 4 people left—me, Kagura, Ito, and Arakawa.
Quite the bunch.
"I'll create a group for us; people might eavesdrop if we talk in class."
That made me ask the question why we were even in class in the first place.
No, actually, what were we doing here—basically telling our entire plan to possible eavesdroppers?
"I'm sure you're probably wondering why we are in class. The reason for that is not related to the special test but to our class's internal affairs. It's related to the stolen class records."
Why would you discuss our class affairs in cla—Oh.
He was referring to the class's records. He wanted to see the faces of our classmates and try to convince them with his words—he couldn't do that behind a screen.
You might say, "What if someone was eavesdropping?"
However, that was too unlikely. People were preparing for the special test and wouldn't be in school at this time.
Rather, if they were outside the class, it was probably one of our classmates that tipped them off.
"In relation to that, I'm sure most of you believe it was Takagaki-san who did it, but there might not even be a thief. However, I know that won't be satisfactory for you guys, so let me change perspective. Let's say someone did steal it. If I were to give a guess without any bias, it might be one of our classmates who gave that info to him."
So, you're going to use that option, huh? Well, I suppose it's best to voice your true opinion, though it might not end well.
Everyone went quiet as those words left Ito's mouth.
As he said that, I looked over at my classmates, searching for who could do that—I looked at all the students I knew by name and their facial expressions.
Suzuki looked tense.
Arakawa grinned silently.
Matsumoto stared blankly.
Yoshida looked calm.
Miyamura looked disinterested.
Kato looked nervous.
Kagura looked anxious.
Yumemiya looked outside the window.
Inoue looked angry.
Ito looked calm.
All in all, no conclusions were made because everyone had a way to deal with stress.
Considering I had only known them for 3 weeks, there was no way I could instantly tell who the culprit was.
That was if the culprit was even in our class.
Of course, only if such a person even existed in the first place.
"Hey, why would you even blame us?! The culprit is obviously Takagaki; I know the eyes of a liar!" Inoue screamed at Ito.
Ignoring the obvious fallacy of being able to know the eyes of a liar, Inoue had a point.
Takagaki was the main suspect considering what he said, but we couldn't really know for sure until we questioned him.
I'm sure Ito knew that, yet he still wanted to avoid that for now.
Maybe he wanted to avoid another class debacle; personally, I wanted to avoid that too.
"We don't know yet if he's—"
"Like hell we don't know. Why the hell are you on his side? I'm sure you're the traitor, that's if there is one."
The words were tense but didn't really carry weight—no one seemed to even believe that Ito was the traitor; if anything, they would just wonder why he was on Takagaki's side, but they also knew Ito to be compassionate.
Meaning that Inoue's words wouldn't rattle Ito one bit.
"That's…"
"That's what, huh?"
Despite the fact that everyone believed in Ito, they didn't stop Inoue because even they were curious to hear Ito's answer, and so was I.
"…I will confront him today."
"Huh?"
"I told him to come to this class by 5:30 PM; it's 5 minutes to that time. So could everyone leave? We'll hold a study group tomorrow."
Everyone was still silent; even Inoue was taken aback. However, everyone left—including me, though I left something under my desk.
I walked all over campus—maybe I felt adventurous, I didn't know, but I went to the school rooftop and looked down.
If I jump now, I will be free, right?
… Nah, I would just be succumbing to their antics.
I sat down on a bench and reminisced about the time Suzuki confessed as I looked up at the sky.
"No clouds today, huh?"
***
Author's Note:
"NO! Don't do it, Eiya. Don't kill yourself"-–is what I would have said if not for the fact I can't up and kill my main character.
Yeah, anyway, I know, I know, I haven't posted in two days–yeah, that was some asshole behaviour, but it wasn't really my fault.
There was a blackout in my area, so nothing could be done. That being said, I can't just give excuses.
So, I apologise.
Anyway, remember to comment, share, and leave a review. Thanks for reading the chapter, and see you in the next one.