AN: This is the utter pits of frustration! Why? I had written the next three chapters, wrapping up the ideas and planning for future chapters and getting to the finale. Then I realized that over the course of 8 chapters, only two physical days had passed.

More than 10 thousand words of carefully crafted story, wasted. I feel dead X_X

Summary: The result of Kusuo's poor attempt to deal with his headache back in Chapter 2! Yay.

Chapter 9 - Midterm Results

"Hey. Any of you guys know where Saiki is?" asked Kuboyasu.

The close guy friend group of Nendo, Kaido, and Kuboyasu gathered around the Saiki's empty desk chair during the break between the first and second period.

It had been about three school days since mid-terms. Saiki was absent for all three. This was day four.

In everyone's recollection, that had never happened. One day absence was common enough since people get do get sick. Three days, though. That was unusual.

Of course, there were those who would miss a week before anyone noticed. People like Toritsuka who mysteriously missed a week of school sometime back in Year 2 came to mind. Still, that was not unexpected. He came from a temple family and talked about how he can see spirits. The religious types were a little funny when it came to education.

"I heard from Yumehara that his grandparents are having health trouble," said Kaido. Out of the group of four close guy friends, Kaido seemed to know most of the rumors around the school. It had something to do with his semi-not-so girlfriend of his who was always hanging around him. "I've heard that they live far out in the boonies, so he's out for a while."

"That's too bad," said Kuboyasu, already thinking about the one activity that three of the four friends usually did with the fourth; copying homework. "I guess we'll have to do that next assignment on our own."

"What, partner is sick?" noted Nendo, who had just begun to catch up on the conversation.

"No, you idiot. His grandparents are sick," explained Kaido. Seriously. Does Nendo ever keep up?

"What does that have to do with partner? Don't his mom and dad handle stuff like that?" Nendo followed up.

Kuboyasu and Kaido looked at each other. In the education obsessed society that they lived in, it was usual for people to miss out on school due to something that their parents would've taken care of. People like Mera who had to work and provide for younger siblings aside, it did seem that Saiki came from a normal, average family.

The class idiot did see things really clearly.

"You're right," said Kaido, his imagination now running wild. "Why did Saiki had to go with his parents though? When normally he would've still come to school while his mom and dad handle the details? Maybe the situation is worse then we imagined? I mean, it's possible that his grandparents are on their death beds. Do we really know?"

"Now you're just making up stuff," said Nendo. "Partner would tell us if something is going on."

Kaido and Kuboyasu looked at each other. Would Saiki tell them if something was going on?

If there was ever anything going on, that is.

Saiki's life was boringly normal, so normal that no one noticed that he was there. He almost never initiated conversation. He did not have any hobbies outside of reading, manga being his choice of literature. He didn't play popular video games. He was part of the occult club but he rarely went. He liked sweets and coffee but who doesn't like those things? He came to school daily, did his homework, participated in the activities as required. He was average at sports.

The only thing that was out of the norm was that Saiki's parents were very nice, actually seemed to still love each other, and had no words of criticism for their son's educational attainment.

Simply put, there was never anything going on in Saiki's life. He lived in peaceful, dull life of a normal high school student being average in everything. Since he was so uninteresting that he became somewhat of an outcast at school.

Nendo, Kaido, and Kuboyasu were outcasts too. Generally thought of poorly by their peers for being an idiot, a chunni kid, and a feared delinquent, the three guy friends were drawn to Saiki who seemed like their anchor to honest goodness. Oh, they were others in their close friend group, namely Hairo and Teruhashi. Yumehara, Mera, and occasionally Saiko, were also part of the friend group, though to a much lesser extent. Those others aside, the four boys hung out the most.

So as Saiki's friends, they felt the need to make his boring life a little more exciting. It was one of the many reasons that they automatically included him in ramen trips, arcade visits, beach day, homework copying sessions, building secret hideouts in the woods, and even the movies. By now, Saiki was part of their crew, an undisputed brother-at-arms, and they would stick together through thick and thin. They were going to be there for him, no matter what.

"Anyone called his house recently?" asked Kuboyasu.

"Yeah. But no one picked up," said Kaido. "And when the hell is he going to get a cell phone? He's got to be the only one in school without one."

In the middle of their conversation, the sliding door to the classroom was yanked open. One of the kids in their class announced. "Hey! They just posted the midterm scores!"

Nearly half of the class rushed out of the room, anxious and excited. They were seniors, a time where the academic scores determine the number of opportunities that would be open to them at the next stage of life. The public display of scores on large plaques was a method to spur competition among the students and segregate out the promising from the dross.

Kaido and Kuboyasu moved to see the midterm scores along with everyone else. Nendo followed his friends.

The location of Third Year Class 1 meant that the lowest score, and the person who did the worst, the 180th place was the first to be seen.

Nendo stopped first as he spotted his name. He looked at his ranking with clear puzzlement on his face. "I got 162th place...but this means good, right?" said Nendo to himself. "The higher the score, the better!"

At that, Kuboyasu shook his head and said, "No no. You're in the last 18th place."

"But isn't the higher test score the better?" Nendo continued to reason.

"That's your ranking, dumbass!" said Kaido, continuing the explanation for their poor friend. "You scored 18th lowest out of 3rd year."

"So you're saying that this is like golf? The lower score the better?"

For the next couple of minutes, both Kuboyasu and Kaido tried, without success, to explain to Nendo the difference between score and placement ranking.

"Oh no, moment of truth," said Yumehara as she approached the display plaques with fear.

Sure enough, Yumehara felt her legs soften as she nearly fell. "145th place!" she wailed. "My mother is going to disown me!"

Teruhashi, who was with her, was there to prevent her fall. "That's okay, Chiyo-chan, you did better than 35 other people! You'll make it back up in no time. I know! And now you have an excuse to spend more time with your crush to study"

All around Teruhashi, men caught the utmost kind gesture from the PK Academy goddess to a female friend and many were moved to tears.

"Wow, busty got 130th place," remarked one of the classmates about Mera. "I bet she never had a chance to study."

Kuboyasu continued down the hall, having given up on trying to explain the ranking details to Nendo, went looking for his name. He found it, evenly at 116th place. It wasn't the absolute middle of the pack of the 180 students in the third year, but it was still pretty decent. As a student who had avoided studying most of his life and still somehow advanced through school, Kuboyasu had no doubt that the score would be pleasing to his honest working parents who valued hard work and the straight and narrow life.

"Feast your eyes on your superiors, peasants!" declared Saiko, looking mighty proud of himself. He scored a solid 55th place, within the upper range of the second quartile. Not bad for someone who barely came to school and missed enough days to be expelled. Life was hard for a rich boy who had to oversee so many adult money matters that these peasant knowledge was simply beneath him to study for.

Kaido clenched his fist and did a couple of fist pumps in victory when he saw his ranking.

"Wow! Great job Kaido!" declared Kuboyasu. "25th place. Impressive!"

"Oh, it's nothing," said Kaido with barely disguised false modesty. Inwardly, he was excited for the bump in ranking and the promised increased allowance. Even more ramen trips and card games were in his future. "I barely studied, you know. If only I had not prevented Dark Reunion's evil take over last week, I would've made first place!"

Kaido's declaration was completely overshadowed by the crowd that had formed around the top 14 places.

"Offu! Our goddess made 14th place!" gasped a crowd of at least a dozen students. A cloud of sparkles, and red and pink hearts fell over Teruhashi's very public score.

"She's still just perfect."

"14th place is the new 1st place!"

"I'm in love with the number 14. It's like getting her Valentine chocolate all over again."

Teruhashi blushed prettily, looking embarrassed at her adoring crowd. "Oh. You all stop it. I just want to do well, that's all."

Another "offu" bomb went off as the crow of boys' heart nearly exploded from witnessing such a perfect girl.

The trio of guy friends, minus their 4th, observed this and made deliberate move away from the adoring crowd least they get sucked into it. Teruhashi was simply out of reach. And since Teruhashi was in their inner circle of friends, they knew that Teruhashi already liked someone and was, therefore, even more unattainable.

"Hey, anyone see how Saiki did?" asked Kaido. Competition was still a thing among the four brothers-at-arms. "I thought he would be next to you, Aren."

Kuboyasu picked up on that. He looked thoughtful. "Yeah. I thought he would do right about 90th place but I don't see his name."

The three walked back through the ranking board, looking for their friend's name. They started around the middle. Some kid, Satou Hiroshi, was smack dead in 90th place. So they look to the slightly lower and higher rankings around 90th place. No luck.

So they started back at the 180th place, trying to look for Saiki's name.

"What's with this?" commented Kuboyasu as he carefully reviewed the names. He had not seen Saiki's name yet. "Did the school lose Saiki's test papers?"

"I'm not seeing his name either," muttered Kaido. He started from the higher scores and met Kuboyaus in the middle.

Nendo followed Kuboyasu, but reading was not his strong suit.

"You got to be kidding me!" someone yelled from the front of the ranking board.

Nendo, Kaido, and Kuboyasu shuffled toward the voice. They went to the ranking list in the first 10 places of class.

"What's going on here?" remarked Kaido.

The commotion came from Tanihara Kenji, the class representative for 3rd year, Class 2. For the past couple of years, he had always aced the exams and made first place. He looked like he was about to faint, seeing that he managed 3rd place.

"This...this had to be a mistake!" cried Tanihara. "They must've cheated! That transfer student and that four eyes must've cheated! Iguchi-sensei! What's the meaning of this?!"

Iguchi-sensei, who was checking out the ranking board for accuracy responded to Tanihara. "I doubt it, Tanihara-kun. This result is in line with Akechi-kun's historical academic scores. As for Saiki-kun, we thought so in the first place so we had his answers vetted by professors at University of Tokyo. They were so impressed that they wondered why he isn't in a doctorate program."

Curious, Kadio, Kuboyasu, and Nendo took a look at front of the test ranking board. The first ten places were rarely of interest because they were often the people who had no life and studied all the time. Hairo was probably the only exception.

Once the trio saw the name, two out of three jaws nearly dropped to the ground.

The person who ranked first place in midterm exam was Saiki Kusuo.

Below Saiki Kusuo's name was the actual numerical score. Full 900 points. The next guy was 185 points below and it was that annoying transfer student, Akechi Touma.

In third place was Tanihara Kenji, who still looked like he was about to have a meltdown. He was only five points away from Akechi.

Saiki completely blew everyone out of the water. It was not even a contest.

"First place?" muttered Kaido, looking like a shadow passed over him. It made no sense. He had never seen Saiki do anything that remotely resembled studying, outside of doing his homework on time.

"Oh. Aibou did better than me. Oh well, I'll get him next time," said Nendo.

A bunch of people sweatdropped. That's right. Nendo had actually ranked higher than Saiki before. Plus, Nendo had no concept of the difficulty to rank No. 1.

"Oh wow," said Hairo who happened to walk by. "Look at that. I never thought Saiki-kun would score number one. I'm surprised but that's great!"

Akechi, who was standing around in front of his name plaque, looking puzzled. He seemed neither pleased nor upset at the score at his score. He did look at Saiki's score with approving nod.

"Hey Akechi-kun," started Kuboyasu, "Look at you. You're number two. But I didn't think Saiki could make number one. That's so unexpected."

Akechi gave one of his soul-sucking looks. "Why is that unexpected? Doesn't Kusuo-kun always make number one? He's actually really smart. Why, when he was in elementary school, he was good at sports and always made first place in our grade. None of us noticed and I think it's because we're in elementary school and the school doesn't publically display the grades. Now that I think about it, no one asked him about his grades because he barely talked. I was so surprised when I saw his scores for the finals last year since there was no way he's just average. This result here is more like him. And I talked to him about it. In fact, this is the most I've ever seen him talk is now. How many words do you think he says in a day? Do you think he says more than 100 words a day? 500 words-"

Kuboyasu was on non-sequitur information overload, "Akechi. You got to shut up. I can't even follow what you're saying."

Kaido, one of the smarter ones, actually followed. "Wait. What do you mean by number one? And Akechi, if you say more than one sentence at a time, you'll feel the wrath of the Jet Black Wings!"

"And in short sentences!" added Kuboyasu, grabbing Akechi by the collar in a classic bully threatening posture.

Akechi looked like he had a plastic bag over his head and was about to suffocate from the rule. "Kusuo is academically very smart."

The two young men who were listening, and one who was just along for the ride, looked at Akechi like he was a sudden treasure trove of pay dirt.

"Please elaborate. What was he like, academically in elementary school? You're allowed two sentences this time," said Kaido.

Akechi looked pained, as if trying to cram his thoughts into two succinct sentences was going to break him. "Kusuo had always finished the exams first. He had always made first place."

"Okay. Now. Three sentences. What else can you tell us?"

"He likes to read. He likes watching TV. He's a routine fiend."

"Academically!" this time, it was Kuboyasu who tried to steer the conversation.

Akechi was about to open his mouth when the bell rang, signaling the start of the next class.

Forced by the school schedule, the mini interrogation of the annoying genius was over. There would be plenty of time to get Akechi to talk during lunch.