#9 Competition

*sigh* Why do we have swimming classes? I sighed while thinking about useless things. It was already a few days since Chabashira-sensei dissed the entire class. She also explained a bit about S-system, of course, she couldn't reveal any useful information but she said that we will be able to get up to 100 Class-points in the upcoming midterms. She didn't forget to show us the results of our first small test and when I saw the results of most students my lips twitched a bit. I didn't know if I should laugh or cry... For now, our class-points were exactly 0, even Class C had 490 CP. I won't even mention Class A and B

In the upcoming midterms... if someone gets failing score they will be expelled. It would be good to eliminate the weakest cell of the class under normal circumstances, however, if someone will get expelled entire class will suffer. This is really good system that focuses a lot on teamwork but if someone is loner then even if he is genius there is almost nothing he can do alone.

I am trying to think of a good plan on how to survive in this school in the changing room that is connected to the swimming pool. Why I was thinking instead of changing? Because I was waiting for everyone to go out, my back doesn't look family-friendly. I have quite a few scars and I even had to ask the teacher if I could wear a t-shirt while swimming. She had confused look since most boys of my age like to show their built body but I made up some random excuse and she immediately lost interest so she agreed.

"Walker-kun, why are you not changing. Could it be that you are shy?" A boy asked me in a teasing voice. If I remember correctly he is Ike Kanji, his intelligence has a few problems but it seems that his communication skills are ok.

"Sorry, I was thinking about something. You can go first, I will be there soon." I said to him and started to take off my pants to make it clear that I was truly just thinking.

"Ok, but you should hurry up or you will miss your chance to feast your eyes on the girls." Ike said and exited the changing room.

He is also a pervert... I looked at him with pity in my eyes.

I was finally alone so I quickly changed into swimming trunks and a casual white T-shirt.

I also had a few scars on my legs but no one would be able to notice them without close inspection.

I exited the changing room and looked around the swimming pool...

They are splashing water at each other... My lips twitched when I saw that scene. We have 0 CP and they are playing around instead of thinking what to do... I guess I can't actually blame them since I am older than them, if it was me in the past I would play around too.

I noticed 2 girls not wearing a school swimsuit. It was Airi Sakura and Haruka Hasebe. I don't understand why I had to explain myself to the teacher just because of the t-shirt, they are not even wearing a swimsuit.

I saw Ayanokoji-kun sitting together with Horikita-san so I sat down some distance from them not wanting to ruin the atmosphere.

"Hey, Walker-kun! Do you want to join us?!" One who shouted at me was no other than Matsushita Chiaki...

She is overly friendly with me, I wonder why but now thanks to her shout everyone noticed me wearing a t-shirt. It definitely looked bad as an only male student wearing a t-shirt.

"I am fine out here, I feel a little bit tired today." I refused because I don't really want to play with them... more like I don't know HOW to play with them.

"But even if you aren't feeling very well you don't need to wear a t-shirt right?" This time person who spoke out was Koenji Rokusuke, a guy from the bus. I guess he noticed something was amiss and wanted to use it to get back at me for that incident.

"I don't need it but it doesn't mean that I can't have it on, does it?" I argued back since everyone's attention was on our conversation.

"Of course you can have it Walker-boy but I can see that you have quite refined muscles through your t-shirt." Koenji said

"And? What's your point?" I narrowed my eyes, it seems that he already knows.

"Why would a healthy male student try to hide his trained body? Are you perhaps shy?" Koenji teased me and some smarter students already started to notice that I was hiding something.

"Koenji-kun, if you don't like my t-shirt so much how about a little competition? I asked him.

"Hmm, what do you have in mind?" He asked me a bit intrigued by my proposal.

"There is no real reason why I would want to hide my body. But I quite hate being ordered by other people, that's why I don't want to take off my t-shirt, however, if you really want to see my body so badly we can have a race...if I lose I will take it off." I said with ease and students who thought I was hiding something were already having doubts about it.

For them, maybe it looked like I was hiding something, however, only a "fool" would still think like that after seeing how I wasn't aggressively defending it and even offered to take it off under the condition.

"Hmm, it's an interesting offer but I don't desire to see your body that much Walker-boy. Plus it would be too much of a bother, however, I am giving my position to anyone who wants to compete instead of me." Koenji said aloud to everyone present in the swimming pool.

But that wasn't part of the offer...

"No one? What about you Sudo-boy? Are you afraid of losing perhaps?" Koenji tried to provoke a delinquent-like looking boy named Ken Sudo.

Tch, of all people he has to provoke Sudo. I saw him how he almost got into a fight with upperclassmen when they said a few mean words to him a few days ago.

"Ha?! Who is afraid?!"

And here we go... He is really too easily provoked, this could be used by other classes against our class.

They were arguing for a while but Sudo gave up first because arguing with Koenji was really tiring.

"I will take his place just to make him shut up." Sudo said to me.

*sigh* I guess it can't be helped since I was the one who suggested it.

"How do you want to do it? The first one to complete 10 laps around the entire pool is the winner?" I asked Sudo while walking to the edge of the pool.

"Fine by me..." Sudo angrily answered.

"Can someone start it for us?" I asked.

"I will do it!" Chiaki offered to help.

"Thanks, Chiaki-san"

"Don't worry about it and good luck Walker-kun, I will be rooting for you!" Chiaki said and playfully winked at me but I didn't really comprehend that wink.

"3...2...1...GO!" We both jumped in and started to do laps around the pool. Sudo was swimming really fast but I was able to keep up. I could speed up a bit but there was no need, if Sudo kept swimming at this speed he would get tired after 7 laps. And as I thought he slowed down a bit after the start of 4th lap. We were evenly matched until the 9th lap where I overtook him. I won with a few seconds lead.

We both got out of the pool, Sudo was heavily breathing and I was trying my best to look tired too. My t-shirt got all wet and became see-through and my muscles were clearly visible but it wasn't transparent enough to see the scars which served its purpose.

I sighed and went back to sit down.

"Nice race Walker-kun, have you ever been in any sports club in the middle school?" Chiaki came to me and handed to me a bottle of water after she congratulated me on my win with a happy smile.

Aren't you really too friendly with me? Aren't you afraid of creating some rumors by being so friendly with me? And if I remember correctly I didn't do anything special to receive such treatment.

"Thank you Chiaki-san, I wasn't in any club like I already said in my introduction, I only run every morning." I responded to her friendliness with a light smile.

After a small talk, she went back to her friends.

"You are quite popular." Ayanokoji approached me and sat down next to me, maybe Horikita already abandoned him.

"...I would rather be invisible" I told him while watching Chiaki and her friends play around.

"That quite hurt" He probably misunderstood my words and thought that I think of him as invisible.

"You misunderstood my words. But if you really think of yourself as invisible then you will never become visible, not until you recognize your own existence. You are indeed bad at communicating with people but I personally think that you don't really want to communicate with them and get attached to someone." I told him and we spent the rest of the class with small talk or in silence.

"Everyone, could you please listen to me for a while? We got 0 points this month and I would like to discuss with everyone our next course of action..." Hirata was trying to talk some sense into our classmates, however, Sudo just shoved him away and left.

If I want this classroom to move forward I will have to do something about Sudo first. Violence is not an option since he is still my classmate and there are strict rules in this school for us to follow. I would have to find a loophole to actually force him to do something about his attitude. I can always try to find his weakness or attack his emotions and mind but that would probably break him.

*sigh* What a problematic class.