"Ha ha ha ha! God, you're so dumb. You're hilarious, man!" Ike chatted loudly with Yamauchi during second-period math.
"Why are we watching some Class D defect?" A student from Class A complained. Multiple agreements rang in the air.
"Remember what is stated on the letter? They will be showing us significant event that will impact our school year. It doesn't matter who's student from what class. The important is that we learn something." Hashimoto glanced at our class for a minute. He's analyzing us, trying to figure out if there's a threat in our class.
It'd been three weeks since the entrance ceremony. In that time, Ike and Yamauchi, along with Sudou, had collectively come to be known as "The Idiot Trio."
"What?! What do you mean, The Idiot Trio?!" Ike glared at me.
"Don't look at me. I merely stated a fact that everyone knows except the three of you."
"Hey, hey, do you want to go do karaoke?"
"Yeah, let's go!"
A group of girls nearby were making plans for after class.
"I was really worried for a while, but it looks like everyone's opened up to each other quickly."
"Ayanokouji-kun, haven't you made quite a few friends?" asked Horikita, copying what was written on the blackboard into her notebook.
"Somewhat, I suppose."
Although I was anxious at first, I'd gotten to know Sudou from our encounter at the convenience store, and I'd bonded with Ike and Yamauchi through the incident at the pool. Sometimes we ate lunch together. Even though I was far from having a best friend, before I knew it, I could say that I had some friends. Human relationships are rather mysterious, so I couldn't pinpoint the precise moment we became friends.
"What do you mean, 'Incident at the pool?" The girls glared at the trio. Ike was shivering, trying to hide behind Sudo's large frame. Yamauchi on the other hand, feigned ignorance.
"Sup?" Halfway through class, Sudou crashed through the door and barged into the classroom. He slumped in his seat with a yawn, clearly not caring how late he was.
"Oh, hey, Sudou. Wanna get lunch later?" Ike called out to Sudou from across the room.
The math teacher continued the lesson without even really paying attention. Normally, the teacher would have flicked a piece of chalk at him but perhaps out of some feeling of laissez faire, all of the teachers tolerated that kind of behavior. Even when it came to poor language, being late to class, or dozing off, no one cared. While at first our class had acted more reserved, now everyone was far too flippant. Of course, there were a few students like Horikita who studied diligently.
"I know that your class is called defect, but doesn't that seem too much?"
Class D student looked down embarrassed.
The other class made fun of us, and the teachers tried to calm everyone and diffuse the tension.
My cell phone vibrated in my pocket, indicating that I'd received a message. It was from the guys' group chat that I was a part of. It looked like they'd decided to eat lunch in the dining hall.
"Hey, Horikita. Do you want to have lunch with me?" I asked.
"Is he asking her in a date?" Sato whispered to Shinohara and Matsushita.
"They do talked a lot, and I alwasy see them together." Shinohara whispered back. Matsushita ponder over the things they said.
"I will have to decline. Your group is rather unrefined, anyway."
"I can't deny that."
When guys were alone, all they talked about were girls and dirty jokes.
Who's cute, who's going out with who, how far they've gone, etc. Adding a girl into the group would probably have been a bad idea.
"You're disgusting."
"Yeah, seriously the worst."
All the girls in the theater inch away from them. Ike looks like about to burst into tears, Sudo have the audacity to look ashamed of himself while Yamauchi looks proud.
"Whoa. Seriously, he has a girlfriend? Awesome."
Based on Ike's conversation, it sounded like Hirata was dating Karuizawa. Watching Karuizawa from afar, I saw that she was gazing lovingly at him from across the room. As for my own impression of Karuizawa, well, she was certainly cute. But she had this atmosphere around her that it made difficult for uncertain people to approach her. In other words, she seemed like one of those intensely "girly"-type girls.
In junior high, she'd probably pounced on pretty boys like Hirata. These were my own uncharitable assumptions, but I probably wasn't far off.
Karuizawa's face heats up. 'That's his first impression of me? Well, I did tried to look intimidating to avoid a repetition of 'that'.
Oops. I had pretty mean-spirited opinions about her, although, not really to the extent that it would be considered defamation. I apologized to Karuizawa in my head.
"I hate that look on your face."
Horikita glared icily at me. She must have read my sleazy inner thoughts. How fast did you need to move to become a couple right after starting school? I was agonizing over just making friends. If I'd gone up to Horikita and asked, "Would you go out with me?" she definitely would've smacked me. At any rate, if I were to get a girlfriend, I'd prefer a kinder, more ladylike girl.
Horikita glared at me, "What do you mean kinder and more ladylike?"
I shrugged at her. "Exactly as it implies."
"That's bad, Ayanokoji-kun." Ichinose giggled.
Sakayanagi repeatedly echoed Ayanokoji's type in her mind. 'kind and ladylike? Don't joke with me, Ayanokoji-kun. You don't do kind. But on the other hand,' She look down on her body. Hands gripping her skirt tightly. Her gaze darkened. 'ladylike, huh?'
Ayanokoji shivered.
For third period, we had history class with Chiyabashira-sensei. When the bell rang, Chiyabashira-sensei walked into the noisy classroom. Her entrance didn't alter the students' behavior.
"Quiet down a little, please. Today's lesson will be a bit serious."
"What do you mean, Sae-chan-sensei?"
"Aw, look at you. Being so chummy with your students, Sae-chan." Hoshinomiya teases her colleague.
"Shut it, Chie-chan." Chabashira hissed at her.
They already had a pet name for the teacher.
"It's the end of the month, so we're going to have a short test. Please pass these to the back."
"Oh, the quiz before the midterms?" A student whispered.
"How is that relevant?"
She handed out the papers to the students in the front row. Eventually, the single-sheet test reached my desk. It contained questions in the five main subjects. With only a few questions per subject, it really was short.
"Huh? I wasn't listening, though. This is so unfair!" a student cried.
"Kukuku, how is that unfair? It's not your sensei's fault that you didn't listened to the discussion." Ryuuen mocked us. The student that said that hang their head down.
"Looking back now, that is dumb even for us."
"Don't say that. This test is just for future reference. It won't be reflected in your report cards. There is no risk involved, so don't worry. Of course, cheating is prohibited."
'Future reference.' Ichinose thought. Remembering the midterm test and the questions, she had guess it right.
All the class leaders are thinking on the hint their teachers gave their class.
Yukimura merely looked away embarrassed. He didn't thought that the quiz was that important to pass their midterms.
Her phrasing struck me as odd. Normally, only general grades were reflected in your report card. But the way Chiyabashira-sensei said they wouldn't be reflected in our report cards made me think that the grade could be reflected in some other way. Well…perhaps I was worrying too much. If this had no effect on our report card, then there was no need to be so cautious.
'Amazing as always, Ayanokoji-kun.' Sakayanagi applauded him mentally.
Ryuuen glanced at me, 'So there's someone in the defect class that was suspicious about it?'
"If you suspected that, then why not inform us?!" Yamauchi complained.
I didn't bother answering him, but it seems Horikita had enough of him.
"Warned you or not, would you have listened?" Yamauchi become quiet.
As soon as the pop quiz began, I scanned the questions. There were four questions per subject, for a total of twenty. Each question was worth five
points, for a total of one hundred points. Most of the questions were extraordinarily easy, to the point where it was almost a letdown. In fact, the questions seemed to be about two levels less difficult than the ones on the entrance examination. It appeared far too easy. However, just as I thought that, I reached the end of the test. The final three questions were an order of magnitude higher in terms of difficulty. The final math problem couldn't be solved without complex formulae.
"That was a bit hard, even for me." Tachibana whispered to herself. Beside her, Manabu looked at her curiously. She shook her head saying nothing.
"No way. These questions are seriously way too hard…"
These questions couldn't be geared toward a first-year high school student. The final three questions were clearly of a different quality than the others, so it was possible they'd been put on the test by mistake. Even though the results wouldn't be reflected in our grades, what in the hell were they evaluating with this?
Well, I guess I'll just solve these problems the same way I did on the
entrance exam.
'The same way he did?' Ryuuen narrowed his eyes. 'You're surprisingly mysterious and smart.'
Horikita remembered the day Chabashira-sensei showed her Ayanokoji's entrance examination test papers.
"Eh? What did you do, Ayanokoji-kun?" Ichinose asked me. I just shrugged. She stopped asking me as the screen will probably answer her question in one way or another.
Chiyabashira-sensei monitored us. As she slowly patrolled the classroom, she kept a watchful eye to dissuade us from cheating. I quickly glanced at Horikita, who would never even think of cheating. Her pen danced across the paper as she filled in all of the answers. It looked like she was easily going to get a perfect score.
I continued staring intently at my test until the bell rang.
-x-
Previous Chapter: The Structure of Japanese Society.
Next Chapter: Classroom of the Elite.
Word Count: 1732