Chapter 2

"Wha...?"

Waking up, Oreki Houtarou was annoyed.

After he looked at his phone which read 5:47 AM, he was annoyed from waking up so early, even if he had already slept 12 hours prior.

After multiple attempts at falling asleep, he decided to just give up and get ready for the day.

Getting out of bed, he noted the over-the-top firmness of the bed, which he blamed for his current state of emotions.

'Buying a new bed is a priority...' Oreki thought, brushing his teeth and washing his hair, as his bedhead was unappealing to his eyes, regardless of his uninterest in what other people had thought about him.

After washing his hair, he looked at his wardrobe to see only the school-issued Uniforms, before making another mental note regarding more pajamas and home clothing.

Walking outside, he felt the refreshing breeze, shivering after a few seconds of breathing it in.

'Chilly.'

Continuing on his walk, trying to get his steps in, he decided for his temporary destination to be the Library, as he wasn't able to see the entire extent of the Library. He had heard that the Library looked very architecturally interesting to see, and he was looking forward to it.

Looking around, he saw small birds, flying across the trees placed on the sides of the paths, watching the horizon as the sun started to rise, bathing the island in warm gold.

'How aesthetically pleasing...'

Arriving at the Library, he saw that there was no one in sight, and he walked up to the Librarian's desk to ask a question.

"Do you have any newspapers I can borrow?"

"Not even sparing a glance, the Librarian pointed at the pile of large grey papers on the side of the desk."

'Bingo.'

After thanking the Librarian and walking to one of the empty desks, he read the news, which didn't include any significant information.

He mainly used the newspaper as a time to think about other things, while distracting his eyes with words.

'I should gather as much money as I can if I do want to live at my leisure,' He thought, brainstorming multiple ways he could make any points.

After reading for a few minutes, he decided to do the very long crossword puzzle on the back.

A few more minutes passed in complete silence before Oreki walked up to the desk and returned the newspaper to where it was.

'The crossword was pretty simple.' Oreki thought, having done the entire crossword in his head.

Looking at the large clock behind the Librarian's desk reading 6:47, Oreki decided to go to the convenience store to simultaneously get his steps in and get his breakfast before starting a habit of cooking, as there was still a little less than 2 hours before class started.

'It's probably going to be cheaper and healthier in the long run.'

Arriving at the convenience store, opening the door with a subtle jingle, he made his way to the end of the store, which had the products that had to be cool to last longer.

Having already decided on getting free drinking water along with some tuna mayo onigiri, he went ahead with no thoughts of contemplating his decision, arriving at the isle, until he saw a familiar face.

Arisu Sakayanagi.

She was looking at the snacks on the adjacent aisle with a hard look of contemplation.

Trying to not interact with the overbearing genius, he attempted to silently walk past Sakayanagi, as she was on the other side of the lane.

After passing her and breathing a slow sigh of relief, he made his way to his beloved breakfast.

There was an issue that Oreki had not predicted.

There was no tuna mayo onigiri.

'How does a convenience store not have any tuna mayo onigiri...' He thought in contempt at the school, before changing gears to trying to find a satisfactory alternative as fast as possible before Sakayanagi-

"Hello, Oreki-kun."

'Dammit.' He thought, closing his eyes in quick resignation before looking at Sakayanagi.

"Hello, Sakayanagi-san, how was your first night at ANHS?"

"It was fine, Oreki-kun, how was yours?"

"It was okay. What are you doing up so early?" He cursed in his head.

"I could say the same for you, but because of my condition, walking to the school takes a longer time than I would initially assume, so I wanted to measure the time it would take for me to get there,"

"Oh, that makes sense."

"What about you, Oreki-kun?"

"I just woke up early and couldn't go back to sleep," Oreki commented, moving his gaze from Sakayanagi to the selection of onigiri in front of him.

"If you were measuring the time, can you afford to be here, not walking?" Oreki offhandedly commented, ultimately deciding on the basic one with the picked plum on the inside.

"I could just note the time I veered off course and remove it from my stopwatch, Oreki-kun,"

"I see, unfortunately I will be heading out first as I have decided what I will buy, and I saw you contemplating between a few snacks."

"No, I was just window shopping. If you are also walking to the classroom would you like to accompany me again?" Sakayanagi innocently asked, following Oreki to the counter.

'Hell no.'

"Sorry Sakayanagi-san, but I was planning on walking around the school some more, maybe next time," Oreki dismissed her, having finished paying for his food, which cost a little under 300 points.

"I could just do it tomorrow, Oreki-san, no need to worry," Sakayanagi easily retorted, following Oreki.

'Are you joking me?'

"I see, then shall we?" Oreki smoothly transitioned, masking his discontent with Sakayanagi's insistence on being next to him.

'How amusing,' Sakayanagi thought, looking at his expression before getting into position next to him.

As they started walking, Oreki led the way, looking for places that interested him, which would be the area where most of the clubs would be.

'Is he going where the clubs are? What would be the point, there's a club interest meeting today regardless,' Sakayanagi thought, watching Oreki start unwrapping his onigiri.

"How disrespectful, Oreki-kun," Noting how Oreki was eating while walking.

"There's no one around anyways," Oreki said, throwing out the plastic wrapper at the nearest trash can.

"I assume they would be prepping for the Club Interest Meeting," Sakayanagi noted, glancing around to see no one in sight.

"I guess they are,"

"Then why come here, if you can see what clubs there are at the Club Interest Meeting?" She asked, entering the club building, which hosted rooms for over 50 clubs at the school, including a majority of the equipment for sports clubs.

"I don't know, I guess I wanted to have a look for myself."

"Hee~," Sakayanagi said, not believing Oreki.

"You know, Oreki-san, would you like to have a chess match with me sometime?" Sakayanagi asked.

"I believe there is a chess club at this school," Oreki responded, nodding over to one of the shut doors with the sign "Chess Club" on it.

"But I never said I wanted to play with them, Oreki-san," Playfully retorted Sakayanagi.

"I'm not very good at Chess, Sakayanagi-san, I'm sure if you played with me, you would win," Oreki thought, thinking back to when he was forced to play chess, and he lost because his time ran out after 60 minutes.

'While I would have liked to end it faster to follow my motto, thinking takes too much energy.' Oreki thought.

"We'll never know unless we play, Oreki-san. How about it?"

"I don't think either of us has a chessboard-"

"I can buy one."

"I would feel bad if I forced you to buy one-"

"No, I was going to buy one anyway."

After deflecting every one of Oreki's attempts at sidetracking the challenge, Oreki went silent, with Sakayanagi smiling, satisfied with the verbal battle.

'How am I supposed to win against this force of nature...' Oreki resignedly thought, before defaulting on the most common excuse.

"Sorry, Sakayanagi-san, but I have something-"

"No, you don't."

'What the hell? She won't even let me start?' Oreki thought, before deciding to give up, judging that arguing with Sakayanagi would eventually end up being more trouble than it was worth.

"I guess I don't."

"Yes, I guess you do not." Sakayanagi resolutely said, ending the tirade of excuses.

"I was planning on going to the Club Interest Meeting, so I honestly don't think I can do it today, Sakayanagi-san," Oreki said.

"Don't worry, I said "some time", so it doesn't necessarily have to be today, Oreki-san."

"I see, thank you for your understanding, I guess."

Walking around the different facilities, including the swimming pool, the track, and the second gymnasium, they made their way back to the classroom in comfortable silence.

Walking up the stairs to the first-grade classrooms, Sakayanagi turned to Oreki before pulling her phone out.

"Would you like to exchange phone numbers, Oreki-san?"

"All of a sudden?"

"I would have to contact you regarding our Chess match, and I believe that we are close enough to exchange phone numbers. Why, Oreki-kun, do you not consider us friends?"

'She'll probably find a way to get my phone number one way or another, and having a losing argument is quite pointless to me.'

"No, I guess you're right," Oreki said, taking out his phone and exchanging their IDs.

Entering the room, and looking at the clock, Oreki saw that the time was 7:56.

'So around 20 minutes before classes start,' Oreki thought, sitting in his seat, and getting into a prime napping position.

---Scene Break---

"Hmm, this student is pretty unique, what do you think, Tachibana?" Manabu said, showing Tachibana the student's file on the Student Database.

Name: Oreki Houtarou

Class: First Year, Class A

Student ID: S01T009132

Club Affiliation: None

Birthday: April 28th

Evaluation

Academic Ability: C

Intelligence: A+

Decision Making: A+

Physical Capability: B+

Cooperativeness: D-

Notes from the Interviewer: As a first-year student, he possesses multiple exceptional abilities, having brilliant deduction skills along with being surprisingly clever and smart. Despite this, he possesses average grades throughout his school records and has a lack of prospects. He also possesses below-average motivation and likes to stick to the status quo. By placing him in Class A, we hope to see him getting nurtured through interactions with his peers.

"He has a greater decision-making score and intelligence score than Sakayanagi despite his Academic Ability being much less? How?" Tachibana asked Manabu, who was looking through Oreki's entrance examinations.

"He ran out of time," Manabu said, passing his record to Tachibana.

From a glance, his scores were average, with scores ranging from as high as 78 to as low as 62. The interesting factor was that Oreki's scores stopped increasing after a specific question, where after that there were no answers.

The impressive factor was that taking out the unanswered questions, the number of questions that Oreki had gotten wrong was nonexistent.

"So this is what the Interviewer meant by motivation..."

"Yes, I would assume so."

"By showing me this, are you planning on inviting him to the student council?"

"I will have to see him for myself to decide."

--- Scene Break ---

Paying attention to the English Teacher, Oreki shivered.

'Why does it seem like I'm shivering a lot lately...'

Looking back to the English Teacher, teaching a grammar pattern on the board, he couldn't help but lament about his position.

'English is a topic that I already know enough about, thanks to my sister,' He thought, thinking back to the few times when she helped him learn English one day, before handing him a bunch of English classics.

Looking at his classmates in his periphery, he saw the focus and studious faces of the majority of the class, with a few students being less focused than others. Regardless, they were focused on the teacher.

'I'm glad that this class is naturally set in focusing during class, no need for us to lose points for no reason.' Oreki thought as the bell rang for lunch.

'This system is pretty average for a general High School,'

The school had a more generalized curriculum, with no semblance of the courses being centered around a particular career.

Each class lasted for 1.5 hours, with a 30-minute break in between, with 2 classes before Lunch break which lasted for 1 hour, from 11:00 to 12:00, before another 2 classes until 3:30. These subjects varied every day, with specific classes such as Physical Education and Health would get one slot a week.

This was fewer hours per week for a particular subject compared to an average school, which Oreki assumed would be counteracted by the quality of the curriculum and the teachers.

There were 20 class slots in a week, with 3 slots for more prioritized courses, such as Math, Science, Grammar, and English. The rest had 2 slots a week.

The main classes included Grammar, Math, Science, Civics, English, History, and Social Studies, all of which would be evaluated during tests in the middle of the term and one at the end of a term.

Oreki assumed that this would be the time that the school would give the Students the 'Monthly Points,' as he still didn't have a name for it. This was because of the multiple instances of Mashima-sensei noting that the school was merit-based, meaning that if students did well in instances of academic excellence, monthly points would be rewarded.

While there were miscellaneous classes, such as Physical Education and Health, there was a lack of other miscellaneous classes that were common in high schools, probably counteracted by a large number of general clubs in this school, catering to a student's interests.

Cram Schools didn't exist in this installation, and walking around earlier led Oreki to believe that a majority of the studying about different topics was done through class study groups, which would make sense due to the school's emphasis on class collaboration.

He assumed that in the future, there would be exams that included physical ability, or monthly points from Physical Education as during his assessment when Oreki had to enter the school, a physical test was done on him.

'Probably something similar to a Sports Festival, or with the school's funding by the Japanese Government, I wouldn't be surprised if the school had created some special exams, just for the students.'

Completely unaware of how close Oreki's hypothesis was, he started to get into position to get into a nap, setting a mental timer for around 55 minutes.

After getting into position, he quickly fell asleep, waking up only 30 minutes later.

'Why did I wake up so early?' Oreki thought, unsatisfied with his nap.

Lifting his head, he saw no one around, and the board still contained English information that Mashima-sensei had written during English.

'People are probably networking right now in the cafeteria. I'd assume that Sakayanagi-san would be a leader, judging by her personality and probably Katsuragi as well, though who would be the actual leader, I have no clue.' Oreki thought, before deciding to look outside the window for the remaining duration of Lunch Break.

'I'll have to handle starving today before I get some groceries to save some money on meals.' Oreki thought. Judging that while cooking meals would require Oreki to go to the grocery store to stock up once a week, the distance from the grocery store to his room once a week would result in less energy used walking to the cafeteria every day, which was surprisingly far...

'I wasted way too much brain power trying to find that distance.' Oreki lamented.

After a few minutes, a large number of people came back from the cafeteria, led by Katsuragi.

Oreki counted around 16 people before losing interest just as quickly, continuing his what he described as 'petal gazing'. After around 3 minutes another large group arrived, also around 16 people led by Sakayanagi.

After the two large groups came there was a 5-minute period where small groups of students came into class, which he assumed were the people who were neutral in their stance or didn't get approached.

'Two factions, huh...' Oreki thought.

'Katsuragi seems like the type of person who would back down if I came up with an excuse, and Sakayanagi needs a direct refusal, and I would have to ignore her attempts, which is super annoying in perspective.'

'Of course, the excuse of wanting to be neutral is an impossible excuse to counter, unless she had dirt or an incentive.'

'But the only incentives would be points, which would be the only thing that I would need, not that I would tell her that.'

'Neutral it is. Thanks for existing, Katsuragi.' Oreki silently thanked him.

'I'll probably go to the student council to ask some questions about the school, which they would probably be present at the Club Interest Meeting.'

Watching as a teacher walked in the class, introduced herself as Chabashira Sae and a Japanese History teacher, before starting her lesson.

As exams on subjects such as History required more memorization than thought process-based subjects such as math, Oreki paid adequate attention during class.

After History and Civics, another memorization-oriented class, he was tired of paying attention.

'Having incentives to pay attention during class makes paying attention feel like a chore...' Oreki thought, getting his bag from his locker and making his way out subtly, glancing at the two leaders talking with their members, preoccupied.

Walking toward the gym, as the Club Interest Meeting started right after school, he arrived to see multiple booths that were set up by the clubs that were handing out pamphlets, and he picked up one belonging to the Tea Ceremony Club.

Opening up the pamphlets, Oreki saw the club times, a description of what they did, and a club sign-up sheet inside.

'How professional-looking, doesn't seem like a high school type of pamphlet,' Oreki thought, noting the formatting and the visuals of the pamphlet.

'Feels more like a university than anything,'

Looking around, he saw something that interested him.

There was a sign that read: 500,000 Points for solving these Chess Puzzles!

'Free money?'

Walking over to the booth, which had read Chess Club, he saw multiple Chess Puzzles that were lined up in what he assumed was by difficulty.

Getting the attention of a senior, she walked up to him to explain the challenge.

"A junior coming here early, you want to try?"

"How does it work?"

"Well, the sign is mostly for attention, if you solve Level 1, you get 10,000 Points, if you solve Level 2 you get 50,000 Points, and if you solve Level 3 you get 100,000 Points, and if you solve Level 4 you get 400,000."

"How'd you get the money?" Oreki said, thinking out loud.

"Oh the members just pitched in, along with the club funds," She explained, before continuing with her explanation of the mini-game.

"You have to do all the puzzles in a row, but you can give up to keep your earnings, but if you start attempting the next Level and fail, you lose all of the Points you just earned," She finished.

'So the 500,000 points were around the total amount? So it was attention bait,' Oreki thought.

"Won't you lose too much money if a lot of people do Level 1 and just take the money?"

"Well, in actuality all of these Puzzles are hard, it's just that they get harder, so I doubt a lot of people could solve all the Puzzles."

"I see, do I have a time limit?"

"As long as you don't leave the booth, you can work at it until you give up!"

"Then can I try?"

"Sure!"

Taking out a Chessboard, the senior set up the Puzzle before giving it to Oreki.

"Here you go, for 10,000 Credits!"

'While following my philosophy is the priority, in terms of credits, I am saving 1 month of waiting for funds for extra brain power, so doing this as fast as possible is worth it,' Oreki thought, deciding to put in a decent amount of effort to solve the puzzles.

The first puzzle was more or less knight placement, so Oreki had finished it relatively easily, surprising the senior.

"Wow, you're surprisingly good, Junior, you want to continue?"

"Yes,"

After finishing the second puzzle for 50,000 Points, due to the dramatic increase in points Oreki presumed that it got exponentially harder, with the sudden increase to lure a student to attempt it before losing.

But Oreki had finished it faster than the previous puzzle, finishing it in around 3 minutes.

With a look of surprise from the senior, he ignored it before asking for the next one, as he wanted to get a lot of things done today, with an adequate amount of sleeping time at the end.

"Uh, sure Junior," The senior said, handing over the third one.

Having had his brain warm up, Oreki wanted to keep his brain warm for as long as possible. Sure enough, he had finished the 3rd puzzle at around the same time as the second puzzle.

"What the hell Junior?"

"Next, please." Oreki said, ignoring her reaction.

"Are you sure?" The senior nervously asked.

'I guess it should be pretty hard.'

She pulled out a chessboard that had the starting position.

'So the puzzle is just a chess game, but against whom?' Oreki thought, looking at the senior with a questioning look.

"Your opponent is me, Junior," another senior that was watching came up, with the girl that was in charge of the booth ushering him into the seat.

'This person's probably the Chess Club's President or something similar,' Oreki thought.

"Okay,"

"Wait, can we have a time limit? I don't have much time, because I wanted to see as many clubs as possible before leaving," Oreki reasoned, while the Chess President nodded in understanding.

"Do you want a Blitz match?" The Chess President proposed.

'This is going to take a whole lot of brain power,' Oreki thought, but reasoned that getting a total of over 500,000 was worth it, closing his eyes to focus, before opening them up again.

"Sure,"

After the senior who ran the booth came back with a chess timer for 3 minutes, they started.

Oreki had made every move extremely quickly, with beads of sweat starting to show on his face. He went in with the intent of winning with time.

As Oreki had gone on the offensive to an extreme extent, the Chess President had to set up multiple defenses that would be effective, taking much longer than Oreki, whose goal allowed him to aim for the King while leaving his own King vulnerable, mainly because it would take longer for the Chess President to aim for his own King.

As the gap of time between the two got further and further, Oreki eventually won after the Chess President missed the timer, ending the match.

"Wha-" The senior who ran the booth said, surprised that her President just lost.

Shaking hands, the President started the conversation back up again.

"Good Game, you are truly a prodigy."

"No, I was just lucky." Oreki deflected it, before taking out his phone to get the points.

"Lucky? You beat me with luck. Stop discussing the impossible." The President scoffed, before taking out his phone to hand over Oreki his earnings.

"How confident, but it was a good match, senpai," Oreki said, getting up.

"Would you like a match in the future?"

"I'm good."

"What if I bet Points?"

After a few seconds of contemplation, Oreki decided that games in exchange for points weren't that unreasonable.

"Depends on how much of course," Oreki responded.

"Come to the Club Room, we can bet as much as you want, I'm sure the Club Members will be thrilled to see someone so skilled at Chess."

"I see," Oreki said, making a note to go there the next day.

"I will be seeing you then, senpai," Oreki said leaving the booth, and getting a free cup of tea from one of the Seniors who were promoting the Tea Ceremony Club.

Downing it in one go, Oreki looked at the clock to see that only 20 minutes had passed.

Opening his phone to see his point count, it ended with his points being 653389, as he had to spend a decent amount of money the previous day. He smiled at the efficiency of getting 5 months' worth of points in 20 minutes.

'Maybe other clubs have something similar, he thought.'

Looking around, he saw similar challenges, such as a basketball point game, a game of badminton, and a game of Shogi.

Unlike the Chess Club, it seemed that he would have to put more effort into the games, and ultimately decided against it, as even the points rewarded weren't nearly as close to the money he had won from the Chess Club.

'I wonder why the Chess Club is so stacked in money...' Oreki offhandedly thought, before coming up with 2 hypotheses.

As club funds arose the more people were in that specific club, there is a possibility that the club had a large number of people and used the funds under the guise of 'Club Promotion Fees', which would make sense, as club equipment would just be a chessboard and a chess timer.

Another was that they hadn't expected someone to win the Points, so they did a challenge in exchange for a large number of Points as a publicity stunt.

'I still have some questions to ask the Student Council before I get my groceries,' Oreki thought, judging the Student Council President as someone who would know the most about the S-System other than the teachers, and the teachers were barred from giving too much information to the students.

Walking around, he looked for something that seemed like a general booth for club applications, as he had heard around that they had to submit the club applications to the Student Council.

'I guess the Student Council has a ton of authority,'

Oreki thought about how autonomous the school was, with its lack of homework, allocating a majority of school events to the Student Council, and even studying to the students, even if studying, in general, was meant to be self-done.

Noticing a table where it said: Club Applications, he walked over, before noticing that the person he had seen at the Assembly wasn't there rather it was the secretary, so instead he stopped.

'He's probably walking around the gym making sure that the students are in order,' Oreki reasoned.

Changing his destination, Oreki walked around the gym, before seeing Manabu in one of the corners of the gym, looking over the booths.

Walking up to Manabu, Oreki tried to start a conversation with Manabu.

"Excuse me, Student Council President, but I had a few questions regarding the school-"

"If you have any questions ask your teachers." He bluntly responded.

"But they don't tell us anything useful,"

"When why ask me?"

"I just guessed that other than the teachers, the President of the Student Council would know the most after them."

"Hmm, then what do you want to ask, I do hope you understand that I am also under some restrictions from the school," Manabu responded, probing Oreki to find out more about the Lazy Student.

"Just some questions that I was curious about. For one, could I technically buy a store in this school?" Oreki asked, raising Manabu's eyebrows at the absurdity of the question.

'So he's trying to see how extensive the S-System is by asking me a question about something outlandish, well played.' Manabu thought, knowing that his assessment regarding Oreki wasn't wrong.

"Yes."

"For how much?"

"On average 25 Million per Year, depending on the store."

'Wow. How inefficient.' Oreki thought, assuming that it was meant that way to discourage people from buying the stores while also supporting his theory that he could theoretically buy anything in this school, before continuing with his questions.

"How many 'Monthly Points' does Class A have as of right now?"

'He has even deduced the Class Points system on the second day of school?' Manabu thought.

"I can't give you any information regarding points, unfortunately," Manabu said, implying that there was something worthy of being hidden regarding Points.

'I see. Then I just have to change the phrasing of the question.'

"How many points do you get every month, President?"

'Smart. Changing the question so one can extrapolate the answer from how I would respond. Well played, Oreki Houtarou.'

"I get 212,300 points every month."

"That's a lot of points, President," Oreki commented, having his hypothesis confirmed.

"I cannot be the judge of that, Oreki Houtarou."

"Oh wow, you even know my name? Do you take the time to memorize every student in the school?" Oreki commented, having not introduced himself for the entirety of the conversation.

"No, but your file was interesting. You had only solved a decent amount of questions before having the rest of the questions blank. Now tell me, did you do it on purpose?"

'He can even check my files? I guess I was right in asking this guy about my questions.' Oreki thought, not expecting anyone to comment on his performance on the entrance exam.

"Why would I purposely get a lower score, President, I don't have a reason to. I just ran out of time, that's all." Oreki responded, not seeing anything wrong with explaining it.

"Is that so? Any more questions, Oreki?"

"Ah no, thank you for taking your time to satisfy my curiosity." Walking away, he got stopped.

"Wait."

"Hmm?" Turning around to look at Manabu.

"Would you like the join the Student Council? I believe that there is a free position for Secretary if you want it."

"Huh? Why me?" Oreki asked, his eyes opening at the suddenness of the request.

"No reason. Would you like to or not?" Manabu asked again.

Thinking about the positives and negatives, Oreki concluded that having the job would be too much for what it was worth.

"While I am honored at your high assessment of me, I will have to decline."

"Why?"

"It's too much work for what it's worth." Oreki simply responded.

'For someone of his personality, it does make sense.' Manabu chuckled.

"I see, farewell then, Oreki Houtarou, it was nice meeting you," Manabu said, nodding at him.

"Same for you." Oreki nodded back.

'Time to get some groceries.'

Walking out of the gymnasium, and looking at the nearest clock, he had spent around 50 minutes in the gym, as it was 4:24.

'Perfect time to get my groceries to last the week.'

Walking to the entrance of the school, and leaving the school premises to make his way over to the grocery store, he saw a familiar face.

Sighing, Oreki thought about taking a different path before deciding it was too much work.

'I just have to hope that the person she is waiting for isn't me.'

Trying to walk past her as subtly as possible, Oreki had thought he was successful before the two words he didn't want to hear came out of the girl's mouth.

"Hello, Oreki-kun,"

Turning to his left to see Sakayanagi walk toward him, he just resigned. Even if he had made an excuse that he would have to go get groceries, she would just say that she had to buy some as well and follow him regardless.

"Hello, Sakayanagi-san," Oreki greeted.

"How was the Club Interest Meeting?"

"It was okay,"

"Is that so?"

"Yep."

"Where are you planning on going?"

"The grocery store."

Sakayanagi smiled before speaking.

"What a coincidence, I was planning on buying some as well, do you cook, Oreki-san?"

"I can cook to an extent," Oreki responded, thinking of the limited range of food he was able to cook.

"I see, then shall we?" Sakayanagi said, lifting her left hand before moving it in an ushering manner.

Sighing, Oreki and Sakayanagi started their trek to the grocery store.

'I knew this was going to happen...'

A/N:

God damn does putting 5000 words into grammarly and putting it back here take a long ass time.

By the way if anyone wonders why Oreki wants money, its the reasoning that more money = more freedom which equals more rest.

Of course, in the future he'll see the issue with freedom.

Peace.