"Maya! Chiaki!" Kei Karuizawa suddenly raised her voice. "Sorry, but I probably can't go shopping with you guys after this!"
"Eh? Karuizawa? Did something happen?" the two girls asked, turning to her in surprise.
Karuizawa unconsciously glanced in Kiyomizu's direction before straightening up and announcing, "I've decided to join the boxing club, starting after school today!"
"The boxing club?!" Maya Sato's eyes widened. "Can girls even join a sports club like that?"
"Of course!" Karuizawa said, placing her hands on her hips and adding proudly, "But I'm going to be the manager!"
"A manager! Isn't that great!" Maya Sato's eyes lit up. "The boxing club is one of the most popular clubs in school. Speaking of which..." She suddenly lowered her voice and winked mischievously, "Isn't Kiyomizu-kun one of the members there?"
Kei Karuizawa coughed lightly. "Um... so from today on, I'll be going to club activities with him..."
"Ehh—?" Shinohara suddenly leaned in, nudging her with her elbow and a wicked grin. "Don't tell me... you two are dating?"
"N-no, we're not!" Karuizawa frantically waved her hands. "We just happen to be going to the same place!"
In a way, she thought to herself, I'm the one who got rejected.
...
Kiyomizu's phone suddenly vibrated. He looked down and saw that the message wasn't from Sae Chabashira, but a short text from Masumi Kamuro of Class A:
[Save your points from now on.]
The usually cold and aloof honor student from Class A was actually giving him a heads-up? He quickly replied:
[Has Arisu Sakayanagi already told you guys about the S-System?]
The reply was almost instantaneous:
[You catch on quick. Not the level I'd expect from Class D.]
Another message followed:
[Otherwise, how do you think Arisu Sakayanagi became one of the central figures in Class A?]
A flash of surprise crossed Kiyomizu's eyes as he tapped the screen:
[One of? Are there other core figures in Class A?]
Masumi Kamuro's reply was meaningful:
[Kohei Katsuragi. He's steady and meticulous. He also has a lot of prestige in the class.]
Kiyomizu fell into a brief silence. It was clear that Class A had already been thoroughly organized. Like him, Arisu Sakayanagi had already grasped the key information deliberately hidden by the school. His gaze fell back on the second piece of intel from his system:
[Intel 2: Class Point standings after the first month: Class A - 940 points | Class B - 650 points | Class C - 490 points | Class D - 0 points.]
If they hadn't known the inside story, it would have been nearly impossible for Class A to achieve such an astonishing score of 940 class points in the first month. This wasn't just a cold, hard number; it concealed a lot of crucial information. For instance, besides Class A, the other classes had clearly not yet discovered these hidden rules. Otherwise, Class B and C's scores wouldn't be stuck at 650 and 490.
Class B's performance was particularly interesting. When he had spent 10,000 points to buy the information, the senior had explicitly told him that in past competitions, Class B often had the most potential for an upset. Yet their current score showed a significant gap from that expectation.
(Strange... with Honami Ichinose's social skills, she shouldn't have come up empty-handed.)
Kiyomizu thoughtfully rubbed his chin. He clearly remembered that the pink-haired girl had been active among all the grades right from the start of school, gathering over a hundred contacts by the second day.
(Was she just making friends, Ichinose-san?)
He suddenly realized something, his eyes narrowing.
(Wait... could it be that she never came into contact with those desperate Class D students?)
The thought brought him a moment of clarity. After all, in this school, the only ones who would sell out their class's secrets for a few personal points were likely those few self-sabotaging students from Class D. As for the other classes, no one would do something as foolish as betraying their class for a mere 20,000 or 30,000 personal points.
(The cost-benefit analysis just doesn't add up...)
Kiyomizu quickly calculated the pros and cons in his head. 20,000 or 30,000 personal points might seem tempting, but that was only equivalent to 200 or 300 class points. If the school found out about the illicit transaction, they could easily be penalized 100 or 200 class points, which meant the entire class would lose hundreds of thousands in fixed monthly income. Only someone truly desperate would consider such a self-destructive move.
As for Class C—
(Speaking of which, I haven't had any contact with anyone from Class C yet...)
The organizational structure of that class was still a mystery to him. Whether Class C had a soul leader like Sakayanagi in Class A or Ichinose in Class B, who could unite the entire class, remained a question mark.
After a long moment of thought, Kiyomizu's fingers tapped the screen again:
[By the way, did Arisu Sakayanagi give you any trouble over that can of beer?]
Kamuro's reply was clearly annoyed:
[? Do you think I'm an idiot? You already took care of the evidence. Besides—] The message paused for two seconds. [I'm a Class A student. There's no way I'd get caught over a single can of beer.]
Kiyomizu's fingers danced across the keyboard:
[I wouldn't be so sure. Remember when we first met, you almost laid all your cards on the table. That's not very Class A of you. I feel like if I hadn't shown up, you would have become Arisu Sakayanagi's complete puppet. Like, you'd be holding her umbrella when it rains.]
The moment the message was sent, his phone vibrated violently.
[KIYOMIZU AKIRA! ARE YOU TRYING TO DIE!] He could almost feel her anger through the screen. [I JUST REALIZED, WHEN WE FIRST MET, YOU WERE CALLING ME STUPID IN A ROUNDABOUT WAY, WEREN'T YOU?! WHO WOULD HOLD AN UMBRELLA FOR ARISU SAKAYANAGI! SHE'S A GENIUS FROM CLASS A, BUT AM I NOT?!]
[FORGET IT! TALKING TO YOU IS A WASTE OF TIME.]
Kiyomizu looked at the screen, his fingers hesitating for a moment before he seriously typed:
[Sorry, I went too far this time. But... I'm glad you're not being used by Arisu Sakayanagi.]
After the message was marked as read, the "typing..." indicator remained at the top of the chat box. After a full half-minute, a reply finally came:
[Apologize with a dogeza and let me step on your head as you do it.]
[Heh~]
Kiyomizu thoughtfully put down his phone and turned to Suzune Horikita beside him. He carefully chose his words and asked with a serious expression, "Horikita-san, if a girl replies with 'Heh~', what does that usually mean?"
Without looking up from her textbook, Horikita let out a meaningful, cold laugh. "Hmph~"
Kiyomizu blinked. So the question now was... what did a girl's "Hmph~" mean?
-------
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