Chapter 16

A/N: Bro I did the math wrong on the previous chapter for total class points. There is a max of 18 rounds that Hikigaya can do. If the first two added up to 46 points and the rest were 29 for the other 16 rounds, then it would be 510, not whatever I put down. I fixed it this chapter but I aint fixing it for the previous chapter cause i'm too lazy.

Also I'm mad craving japanese ramen. Just me? Like everything is closed cause of thanksgiving so when I went it was fucking closed. Fuck thanksgiving.

Hikigaya Hachiman POV

He arrived at roll call much earlier this time.

That was good.

But, he was drenched in sweat nonetheless.

'I have to shower every day?'

Hikigaya normally took a bath every evening before he went to bed, and he even considered himself extremely hygenic.

But even so, taking a shower everyday on a deserted island was annoying.

Taking a shower and eating took an hour, and he would perferably wake up 30 minutes before he had to start the evening rounds, and he would have less nap time before the night rounds.

It was still only the third day.

Having finished showering, Ichinose was once again by her lonesome, tending to the fire and waited for him to finish showering so they could eat together.

"Yo, fish again?"

Ichinose nodded with a smile.

Hikigaya tossed his drenched clothing at a basket.

"So where do I go for my dried laundry?"

"If I remember correctly, it should be in that direction,"

Ichinose pointed.

"Is the spy around?"

"No, he and the others went fishing again."

"By the way, is it fine if I nap when I'm not making my rounds?"

Ichinose looked at Hikigaya in confusion because it morphed into an unsettling realiztion.

"How long is the distance? Don't lie to me, Hikigaya-kun."

Her expression changed once more into a face of concern.

"…around… 14ish kilometers?"

Silence.

"…So what you're saying is that you're jogging 14 kilometers in 2 hours 3 times a day?"

"Yeah…?"

Ichinose sighed. Looking at Hikigaya like she was watching a family member who was hospitalized.

"That's a marathon every day you know? Aren't you sore?"

"It's not that bad,"

Hikigaya knew he was lying. Ichinose knew that Hikigaya knew that he was lying.

There was an unsettling silence between the two, before Ichinose eventually relented with a sigh.

"…Fine. But if the weather gets bad, I won't allow you to leave."

"Roger."

"You want a massage?"

Ichinose proposed.

"Nah, I sort of decided to just thug it out."

Hikigaya declined.

"Does it not hurt?"

Ichinose asked, concerned. Whenever Ichinose ran even 10 kilometers, her legs were so sore the next day that she couldn't even move properly.

Yet this man was going to do mutiples times that for another 4 days?

"It may not look like it but I have experience ignoring pain!"

Hikigaya offhandedly bragged, but it looked like it had the opposite effect, the atmosphere becoming colder.

"…I see."

Ichinose acknowledged.

It went silent once again.

"…Then I'm going to go take a nap. Can you wake me up 30 minutes before 2 P.M.?"

Ichinose nodded silently, still in thought.

"Thanks."

It was currently 10 A.M., so Hikigaya had 4 and a half hours before the next round.

he laid down on his hammock, before drifting off to sleep.

—+—

Was Ichinose a weather guru?

Soon after the evening roll call of the sixth day, it had started raining, so Hikigaya couldn't go on his nightly rounds and the morning rounds the day after either.

That meant that he only did 16 rounds, resulting in only 452 total points.

Which was still a lot, despite what Hikigaya had thought.

So here he was, under the cover of the rain.

Kaneda seemed to have left when the rain started.

It looked like when he wasn't paying attention, he was able to get a photo of his card.

That didn't really matter to Hikigaya, because he was planning on resigning when Kaneda left the camp.

"Hey, Ichinose, since Kaneda left, we should make our way back to the ship to switch leaders."

Hikigaya proposed, as Ichinose was right next to him.

"Do you think it should be me? Wouldn't it be too obvious when they don't see you at roll call tomorrow that you resigned?"

Ichinose asked.

"Not really, because Class C and Class B currently think it's me and don't expect a sudden change."

Hikigaya explained.

"So, even if I don't show up at roll call, you can make the excuse that I was running late from the rounds to the other classes. Even if they know you're lying they have no way to verify it unless they see me at the exam end."

Hikigaya continued.

"That makes sense."

Ichinose nodded.

"Also, since the Class Leader voting is submitted before 12:00 after roll call in the morning, and the point count is revealed at the end at 12:00 it wouldn't matter anyways if I was absent for the roll call."

"Since I resign, then we don't even lose the 5 points that we would also lose for missing a person on roll call."

"Ah, so it doesn't really matter who?"

"Exactly."

"Then… Let's go."

Ichinose relented, getting a tarp to use for both Hikigaya and Ichinose.

"Only one tarp?"

Hikigaya questioned.

"It's more convenient if I only need to bring back one tarp since you're resigning anyways, right?"

Ichinose reasoned, trying not to let Hikigaya know that she just wanted to share a tarp.

"That's true,"

Hikigaya responded.

The duo made their way to the ship, encountering an unexpected person on the way back.

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka.

Hikigaya immediately assumed that Ayanokoji used the same strategy that Hikigaya was planning on doing, and it seemed that Ayanokoji came to the same conclusion.

"We're having a truce this test, right?"

Hikigaya asked.

Ayanokoji nodded.

"Yeah. We don't guess your leader and you guys don't guess ours."

Hikigaya inwardly sighed in relief.

While Class D would barely benefit from such a deal, Class A would lose a lot of points if Ayanokoji betrayed them.

But if they had a truce, then it didn't matter.

If Ayanokoji did indeed betray them without the approval of D Class, not only would he earn the ire of Class A, he would also earn the disdain from Class D, which didn't put him in a good position.

After all, Chabashira had blackmailed Ayanokoji into aiming for A Class, and it would be significantly more difficult if he had both the "Best" class and his own class against him.

Hikigaya didn't know Ayanokoji's plight, but judging by observing his admittedly blank expression, the chances that Ayanokoji would unilaterally make the decision to betray Class A was unlikely.

So despite the unexpected encounter, Hikigaya and Ichinose made their way to the ship, meeting with Chabashira.

"What are you two doing here?"

Hikigaya didn't really interact with Chabashira at all, but he classified her under the file: Horikita Suzune Archetype.

"I feel sick. I'm retiring."

Hikigaya said.

"In what way?"

Chabashira asked, looking up and down at Hikigaya's condition. If she had to say anything, he looked perfectly fine.

"While I may not look like it, I am currently suffering from a horrible headache."

It was the perfect excuse, and a health issue that couldn't even be verified by the technology that the school had.

Chabashira sighed.

"Fine. Does this mean your new Class Leader is Ichinose over here?"

Ichinose nodded.

"Get into the ship, Hikigaya."

—+—

Ichinose POV

At the morning roll call, it was still drizzling.

Ichinose had already explained to the rest of her class that Hikigaya had already resigned and all they needed to do was to follow her lead.

When Mashima-sensei had come up to do a head count, Ichinose and Kanzaki walked up to him. Before talking in a volume that was noticible enough, but not loud enough to sound like they were doing it on purpose.

"Could you maybe wait a few more minutes for one of our classmates?"

Ichinose asked convincingly, already knowing that Hikigaya had resigned.

"No. If your classmate isn't here by the time, they will automatically be counted as absent."

Mashima-sensei explained.

Ichinose reluctantly nodded before going back to her class with a disappointed expression.

Kanzaki was more stoic, admiring Ichinose's acting skills.

But it looked like she had convinced the others.

"Oh, could we turn in our Class Leader selection sheet early?"

Ichinose walked up to Mashima-sensei once more.

"…Yes."

Ichinose pulled out a folded piece of paper.

In it was the name Totsuka Yahiko for Class B's Leader and Ryuen Kakeru for Class C's leader, with Class D's leader put blank.

After handing the piece of paper in, Ichinose and the rest of Class A made their way to their base camp to back their stuff and pick up possible trash, as littering would reduce their point count by 20.

—+—

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka POV

He was right to be weary of the man named Hikigaya.

While he had come up with an impromptu plan of switching out Horikita when he had noticed her sickness, from what the short interaction with Hikigaya had told him, was that Hikigaya had thought up of the same plan from the beginning.

That was a little frightening.

He has assumed that Hikigaya was the Class Leader when he had obviously checked in a spot and immediately jogged away when he was looking around the island.

Ayanokoji had initially thought of betraying Class A, but didn't see that big of a benefit if he did. If Hikigaya was sweating when he made his way down for morning roll call, Ayanokoji assumed that his stamina wasn't that good.

That meant that he didn't occupy many spots, so even if Ayanokoji betrayed Class A, he would only take a few more points from them.

When he had interacted with Ichinose, she seemed like the type to preferrably not resort to cheap tactics, which he had seen.

Yet from when he remembered that Ichinose had went to Hikigaya, who had no qualms about resorting to underhanded tactics, it had made Class A even scarier.

The only saving grace was that despite Hikigaya's visually appealing physique revealed by his sweat, there was no way that he would consistently arrive every morning drenched in sweat. Unless he didn't have good cardio.

It also fit his type. Ayanokoji pegged Hikigaya to be the type who worked less for more.

So when he arrived at the beach, he expected Class A to have a small advantage over Class D, who would get an extra 100 points for guessing right, and a few extra for occupying 2 spots.

Ichinose didn't seem like the type of person to try and guess other people's leaders, and the lesser known Hikigaya probably didn't actively try and look for leaders either.

When Ryuen had arrived at the beach when it was the end of the exam, he wasn't surprised. When Ayanokoji had seen Ryuen's radio paired with Ibuki's sudden appearance, he was immediately suspicious.

That was why he had damaged Mio's camera so that she would try and probably succeed in stealing the card away from Horikita, who had been sick for the majority of the Special Exam.

"I will now announce the total scores of the classes in this Special Exam."

"In 4th place, is Class C with 0 Points!"

That made sense. If Ryuen got Class A and Class D's leader wrong, then he would get 0 points.

His classmates Sudo, Ike, and Yamaguchi had laughed at the confused Ryuen, who had earlier been taunting the rest of the first year students.

"In 3rd place, is Class B with 70 Points!

That was a tad bit concerning. For Class B to lose that many points despite Ayanokoji seeing them be frugal with their points, implied that Class A had guessed Class B's leader.

That meant that he had underestimated Hikigaya.

This meant that the gap that Ayanokoji had initially expected to not be as much would drastically increase. This was because if Hikigaya had correctly deduced Class B's leader, what was to say that they hadn't guessed Class C's leader as well?

"In 2nd place, is Class D with 225 Points!"

That was expected. His classmates probably didn't expect such an outcome, because instead of celebrating they had confused expressions on their faces.

What was concerning was Class A. Ayanokoji knew that they had spent relatively little points on supplies, and they might have also guessed Ryuen as the Class Leader.

That meant 190 points plus 100 minus 30 from Hikigaya's resign to be 260, with the additional points from the occupied spots. Probably around the 90s?

So a tentative 350. It was a large number, but it was a gap that was still possible to reach with Class D.

"In 1st place, is Class A with… 730 Points!"

…What?

It seemed like all the other classes even including Class A were a bit surprised by the high number.

The only ones that were unfazed from his view was Ichinose, and even Kanzaki was a little surprised. Yet they weren't celebrating.

That meant that Hikigaya got a total of 470 points from occupying spots?

With a total of 18 possible times to occupy a spot, that meant that Hikigaya had on average, went around 26 spots a day.

Ayanokoji remembered the distance from their second occupied spot from their home base was around 400-500 meters away.

That meant that Hikigaya was running 13 kilometers on average every 8 hours. That wasn't even including the time it took for Hikigaya to do a single round!

The average male took around 2 hours to do a run, so that reduced Hikigaya's rest time by 6 hours.

Despite not knowing much common sense, even Ayanokoji understood that running 39 kilometers on average every day wasn't an easy feat at all!

This didn't even include him possibly not even making any rounds when it rained!

Ayanokoji had grossly underestimated Hikigaya. Running 39 kilometers on average for 7 days straight would induce extreme muscle pain, with peak pain 1-3 days after such rigorous exercise. Yet this man had not only endured it, but ran regardless!

Ayanokoji had miscalculated. It wasn't because Hikigaya had below average cardio when he came down for morning roll call, it was because he had just run over 10 kilometers.

Such determination was… frightening to say the least.

Even A Class wasn't cheering. They seemed to also have realized the implications of such rigorous exercise to the human body.

Not only did Hikigaya not allow his muscles to recover at all, running so much every day would naturally result in nutritional depletion, as he was losing much more calories than he was gaining.

From their expressions and Ayanokoji's own observations, Hikigaya had also done it all by himself, expotentially increasing the risk of injury.

For a classmate to show such determination and yet not have anyone except Ichinose know, it would probably dampen the mood, because if they hadn't realized Hikigaya's plight, then they probably had casually conversed with him, unknowing of the pain he was harboring.

Maybe some had even thought him lucky, seeing him do nothing but wander around every 6 hours.

Just that thought was enough to dampen Class A's mood significantly.

—+—

A/N: Yeah, my boy 8man on the money grind so hard he dying. Respect.

I know that him doing all that is unrealistic but I obviously implied some negatives. Running a marathon for even 2 days in a row isn't healthy.

My mans was doing it every day for 4-5 days.

Hope you enjpyed.

Thanks for reading.