Lunch needs little mention: ever since the minor food-poisoning incident hit the Personal Ability group, the canteen staff had doubled their vigilance and nothing else had gone wrong.
For every student except those in Yukio's class, the sole headache was that the midday break was far too short. The school gave them barely an hour to digest before the physical test.
Because the outdoor relay would take ages—and the "cohesion project" was expected to last at least two hours—the afternoon schedule was brutally tight.
Which meant… their outdoor shoes were still wet.
Girls fared slightly better. Anyone with a hair-dryer in her suitcase skipped lunch altogether, blasting hot air over soaked sneakers while nibbling crackers. Of course, once they finished the run they would be starving.
The boys had it worse: January's cold, damp air made shoes left outside grow colder the longer they dried.
Grievances against Class A soared. Any time classmates met in the corridors, they griped as if Yukio had committed some public outrage—yet Yukio himself chewed contentedly, unfazed, and because he was so relaxed, his own guys followed suit: big bites of rice, loud jokes, utterly at ease.
The sight made students from other classes lose their appetite altogether.
"Yukio! I'm reporting you to the school. Deliberately sabotaging the exam and damaging private property!"
"Yeah, just wait—this isn't over!"
"Don't get so excited." Seated securely, Yukio waited until he'd swallowed, then waved a lazy hand.
"I know it was wrong. I've already informed the school. Just take your shoes to the officials—our class will pay half the purchase price for every pair you own. Fifty percent reimbursement: pretty generous, right?"
"Tch!"
All the other students could do was curse. Yukio had come prepared; what else could they do? Ask the school to intervene? He had gone to the school—offering compensation for nothing more than waterlogged shoes. That attitude was positive enough that staff had no grounds to punish him.
Besides, disputes between students were handled by the council—and everyone knew who now ran the council. Even if the matter was nasty, the only penalty would be demerits slapped on whichever Class A students had actually poured the water, and that hardly seemed worth the fight.
Grumbling that things weren't settled yet, the other classes focused on the coming exam.
…
Outdoor Relay.
Outside, they picked up wrist transponders: each runner had to tag checkpoints along the route.
Class A set off in high spirits, splitting boys and girls, joking that even the rough terrain felt easy today. For the rest, it was misery.
A lucky few had escaped the soaking—Yukio's manpower was limited and some lockers had been missed. Those folks counted their blessings.
For everyone else the pain was real. By rule, each student had to pack indoor shoes in their luggage, which left no space for a spare outdoors pair. But indoor shoes had wafer-thin soles—fine for hallways, useless for rugged trails.
Running the track barefoot would have been an option on campus, uncomfortable but doable. Out here? One false step and you'd shred your feet on sticks and stones.
So they were forced to shove feet into clammy, squelching sneakers.
The foot has countless nerves; immersed in cold, sticky wetness, every stride felt wrong and your power output went weird. Even the always-cheerful Tachibana suffered. She'd taken Horikita Manabu's shoes—Manabu's were soaked too—and skipped lunch to blow-dry them in the dorm, leaving her own pair unattended.
Now, with each step her supporting foot sponged remaining water from the lining—
like squashing some insect corpse and feeling slimy guts burst underfoot. For a girl that was pure disgust, and she screamed inwardly: This is gross!
The worse she felt, the slower she ran. A leg she'd planned to clear in just over three minutes dragged past five.
Boys coped a bit better, gritting their teeth. Hirata of Class D, saintly as ever, sprinted as if nothing was wrong—but unconscious discomfort still threw off his usual stride.
His section of the trail was full of little rises and dips. Where, during training, his feet had twisted cleanly around obstacles, one sloppy landing nearly sprained his ankle.
Even Hirata frowned. "Yukio-kun, that was dirty."
If he felt that way, imagine everyone else. Casual chatter came salted with four-letter words; every second sentence featured asterisks.
Right beside Class A's course, the boys of Ichinose Class cursed just as hard.
"Come on, we're practically buddies—couldn't you leave our shoes alone?"
"Dude!"
At a checkpoint, one of them found Ishizaki waiting to tag. Ishizaki whipped out his phone, flashing point balance.
"Fine, fine. Back at school treat your class to lunch, okay?"
"Son of a—deal. But I want something good!"
"No problem!"
...
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