Chapter 339: A Bespectacled Ikemen—Broken Enough to Need a Nerve?
March 15th. "Valentine's Slay" had finally turned the page.
However, the chocolates Hachiman had received would probably take him over a week to finish. Furthermore, his bed had collapsed; he'd have to find time to buy a new one immediately.
"Good morning, Hachiman-kun... Eh?!"
In front of the dormitory entrance, he happened to run into Sakura Airi, who was studying him with a look of pure astonishment.
"Airi, what's wrong?" Hachiman asked, somewhat bewildered.
"Did you not sleep well last night, Hachiman-kun?"
That was a certainty. An intense "battle" was exhausting enough on its own, but then his bed broke, leading to a very restless sleep during the latter half of the night. His hair was currently a mess, and he had heavy dark circles under his eyes.
Still, Hachiman had never cared much for his personal image. He had stepped out after a very simple wash-up.
"This won't do... Hachiman-kun, come with me for a moment."
Sakura Airi grabbed his hand and forcefully pulled him toward the dormitory manager's office on the first floor. At this hour, the manager was at the cafeteria for breakfast, so no one was there.
Seeing Airi pull a comb and a towel out of her school bag, Hachiman quickly spoke up: "Is this really necessary, Airi? Guys don't need—"
"You do!" Airi looked at him with a serious expression. "You are the Chairman of the Student Council's Public Morals Committee. Having a slovenly personal image will damage your dignity!"
"Dignity, huh..."
Hachiman wanted to say that his dignity relied on his reputation as a "Great Demon King" plus the fists he'd tempered in the Martial Arts Club. However, Airi had already started working on his hair, so he had no choice but to shut his mouth.
"..."
"How exactly did you sleep last night, Hachiman-kun?" Airi muttered with a frown. "Your hair is sticking up on one side and flattened on the other."
The bed had collapsed; how else could he sleep? He'd slide off if he wasn't careful. After rolling around all night, he ended up with this disastrous hair.
Airi dampened a towel with some hot water and carefully used it to soften his hair before smoothing it out with the comb. Finally, she applied a bit of hairspray to barely fix the style in place.
"Is that enough?" Hachiman asked indifferently.
"No, we haven't dealt with the dark circles yet...
Wait?!" Airi's gaze toward him became a few degrees more suspicious. "Hachiman-kun, just what did you do last night...?"
"Could someone have snuck in...? No, that shouldn't be... everyone in the group chat clearly made a promise."
Hachiman's heart skipped a beat. He quickly changed the subject. "I ate too much chocolate last night and it upset my stomach, so I didn't sleep well."
"Oh, so that was it...
But, Hachiman-kun, you deserve it!
Who told you to be so gluttonous!!" Airi emphasized the last word pointedly.
Hachiman couldn't argue. He continued to deflect: "Don't worry about the dark circles. My dead-fish eyes are scary enough as it is anyway."
"They are not! Your eyes are clearly very... very unique!" Airi tried to find a way to salvage his pride.
Actually, it wasn't necessary at all. Hachiman accepted his flaws; in fact, from a certain perspective, the dead-fish eyes had become a vital part of his character design.
"How about I apply a little eye makeup to cover it up?" Airi pulled out a makeup kit.
Since March began, Airi had gradually started showing her true face, displaying the lively charm of an energetic girl.
"Absolutely not!" Hachiman shook his head frantically. He hated "pretty boys" with faces full of foundation the most.
"..." Airi wanted to say more.
To escape her persistence, Hachiman reached into the inner compartment of his school bag and pulled out a pair of glasses he almost never used, putting them on.
"How about this? Is this okay?"
"These are the glasses you gave me."
The dark-colored, plain-framed glasses perfectly masked the dark circles. Even those sharp dead-fish eyes were "corrected" by the lenses.
Looking at the Hachiman before her, whose aura had completely changed, Airi's eyes sparkled. She nodded rapidly.
"Mhm, mhm, mhm~~ It's simply perfect!!"
Hachiman looked helpless. "It's not the first time you've seen me like this. Is it really that exaggerated?"
Airi was full of joy. "Anyway, you're just especially handsome!"
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On the way to school.
Hachiman noticed that the rate of people turning their heads to look at him was exceptionally high.
"Airi, I finally understand why you used to hide your looks."
"Back then, I was afraid of people's gazes... but right now, everyone is looking at you, Hachiman-kun, right?" Airi smiled.
"No, they're looking at the energetic beautiful girl."
"No, no, no. A bespectacled ikemen is much rarer."
"Alright, let's stop the mutual business flattery."
The two chatted as they walked into the Class D classroom together.
"Wait, is that... is that Hikigaya?"
"Damn! A bespectacled ikemen in his final form? Is he so broken he needs a nerf?"
"And Sakura-san next to him is so cute too. Why didn't I notice that before?"
The crowd discussed in a flurry of mixed emotions. Hachiman didn't care about others' evaluations and returned to his seat as usual.
His neighbor, Horikita Suzune, looked up from her book. Her gaze landed on him, and she couldn't help but look him up and down a few extra times. "Hachiman, what happened to you today?"
"Nothing much... yawn~"
Hachiman gave a perfunctory response while letting out a massive yawn. The sunlight from the window hit his face, adding a bit of a languid posture to his look.
"Ugh~" Horikita stared, momentarily dazed.
It wasn't just her; many girls in the class couldn't help but steal glances at him.
"So... so handsome..."
Wang Mei-yu stared fixedly, failing to notice the dangerous gaze coming from Kushida Kikyo beside her!
"Mii-chan, what's wrong?"
"Eh?! Eh..." Wang Meiyu was startled. Upon meeting Kushida's "kind" gaze, she waved her hands frantically in explanation. "I-I'm just a little curious, that's all."
The motto of the [Class D United Front Command] group chat: Prohibit adding new members!
"Ring-ring-ring!"
The school bell broke the strange atmosphere in the classroom. Chabashira-sensei arrived on time, the familiar click of her high heels echoing. However, as soon as she entered today, she felt the unusual vibe in the room.
"What is it?"
"Has the lingering excitement of Valentine's Day not faded yet?"
Chabashira scanned the room and quickly followed the strange gazes of the students to find the source of the problem.
"Hikigaya?
Tsk tsk, after receiving so many gifts last night, have you finally awakened?
Undergoing a makeover to become a beautiful boy~~"
Faced with Chabashira-sensei's teasing, Hachiman didn't want to say a single word to her. This old woman had tried to trap him yesterday and had indeed caused Honami Ichinose to become quite stressed.
"It's good to extol the virtues of youth.
However, you mustn't neglect your studies."
Chabashira-sensei changed her tone, introducing the main topic of today's homeroom. "Next, I will explain the final special exam of the first year's last semester—"
"[The Selection Event Exam]!"
"Eh!!"
"Another special exam?!"
"The [Class Poll] just ended not long ago!"
"The new Acting Chairman must be a devil!"
"Intentionally messing with us to force people to drop out!"
The students of Class D immediately broke out into a chorus of wails. One must remember that it was that additional exam that had led to an expulsion.
"Don't worry. This special exam is a test conducted according to the school's normal regulations."
Chabashira-sensei reiterated this point. The faculty of Advanced Nurturing High School were all quite resentful of Tsukishiro's reckless interference with the exams. Under their unanimous protest, Tsukishiro had to make a concession, stating he would not interfere with normal exams.
"..."
Ayanokouji Kiyotaka breathed a silent sigh of relief. He knew Tsukishiro was coming for him, but it seemed the man couldn't act completely lawlessly in this school for now.
"This [Selection Event Exam], as the year-end special exam for the first year, will fully evaluate the comprehensive strength of all classes. This includes students' academic ability, physical ability, teamwork..."
Chabashira-sensei explained seriously. Driven by a sense of crisis, everyone in Class D listened with extreme focus.
"This exam, like the previous Matching Exam, is a head-to-head confrontation between classes.
First, opponents will be decided by lottery, and then the PK will begin.
To ensure you fully understand the specific exam process, I will use these cards to explain."
Chabashira-sensei took out some pre-prepared cardstock. Compared to her slacking and sadistic attitude when they first enrolled, she was clearly being much more responsible now, guiding the students as a homeroom teacher.
As she spoke, she lined up ten blank cards on the blackboard.
"Regarding the above, you must consult with each other and write down the competition events on the cards according to the skills you excel at or your preferences.
In addition to that, you must decide the specific rules of the competitions yourselves."
'Deciding the events ourselves?
Deciding the rules ourselves?'
Hachiman's brows twitched as he pondered the school's true intention behind this. The rules of the previous [Matching Exam] also allowed students to create the questions, but that only required the high-achieving honor students to be responsible for the questions while everyone else focused on studying.
But this exam was clearly different. The school obviously wanted to mobilize all students to participate in the formulation of the exam.
"As long as the event has competitive significance, most can be adopted.
For example: written tests, board games, racing, basketball, martial arts, and so on...
If you want to set a niche competition or a game as an event, it must pass the school's audit."
In short, trying to be clever or take shortcuts wouldn't work. The final right of interpretation remained with the school.
"Sensei."
Horikita Suzune raised her hand to ask a question. "If a draw occurs, how is the winner decided?"
"Draws are not permitted in this exam. To avoid such an outcome, rules must be established in advance.
I'll use Chess as an example."
In the rules of Chess, a stalemate or draw is a very common tactic. When neither side can checkmate the other, it results in a draw. Hachiman understood Chess, though only at an amateur level. But as long as he didn't care about winning and aimed for a draw from the start of the match, he had a certain degree of confidence in forcing a professional player into a draw.
Incidentally, Sakayanagi Arisu was very good at Chess. Hachiman's win rate against her was near zero, but his draw rate was close to 50%.
"You have one week to properly prepare these ten events and their corresponding rules.
Submit them to the school for review by next Friday.
If they are not submitted within the specified time, the school will automatically allow the opponent class's submitted events to take their place."
In a class PK, one would definitely submit events that their own students are skilled in. If you have to compete in the opponent's events, it's obviously a very disadvantageous start.
"Only one week of preparation time?"
"Ten events plus rules... the time is very tight."
Horikita sat back down, her brow furrowed. Since Class D was a bunch of "underdogs," finding ten events they were actually good at was no easy task.
"Chabashira-sensei, I have a question."
Hirata Yousuke raised his hand. "With two classes facing off and twenty events total, won't that be too time-consuming and exhausting?"
"That is indeed the case. Therefore, on the day of the exam, you will select five out of the ten events to be submitted as the 'real' events."
The meaning was clear: out of the ten events, five were "smokescreens" to confuse the opponent. It could be understood as an intelligence war before the battle began.
"Each class submits five real events, making a total of ten events."
"The school will randomly draw seven of them to serve as the official competition events."
Seven events—meaning as long as you took four rounds, you would win the final class confrontation.
"Finally, the scores are tallied.
The winner of each event receives 30 Class Points.
Finally, the winner of the overall class confrontation receives an additional 100 points."
As Chabashira-sensei explained, she listed the current scores of the four first-year classes:
Class A: 1072 Class B: 972 Class C: 450 Class D: 248
"If you win seven events in a row, the final tally can yield a maximum of 310 Class Points."
"This is an excellent opportunity to rank up!"
One exam was enough to decide a shift in the class order. Class D surpassing Class C. Class B surpassing Class A. Conversely, this was also a crucial battle for the upper classes to pull away from the lower ones!
"Ohhh!"
"This looks pretty good!"
"We can surpass Class C in a single exam!"
"And we can get a lot of Private Points too."
The students of Class D were suddenly full of motivation. However, in Hachiman's view, these guys were thinking way too naively!
A seven-win streak sounded beautiful, but in practice, it was nearly impossible. Even with legendary luck where all five events drawn were the ones your own class submitted and you won all of them, there would still be two events that the enemy class was skilled in. Winning under rules set by others is incredibly difficult.
But regardless, this was indeed an excellent opportunity to achieve promotion. Of course, for Hachiman, he didn't have much interest in it.
"Sensei."
Ayanokouji Kiyotaka spoke up out of the blue, asking the one question that everyone else had overlooked.
"Regarding this exam, does a mechanism for expulsion exist?"
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