#48 Stalker? Nah...

"There are enormous amounts of different rankings, some of them are even a bit rude but I voted for you in everything positive!" Mei said with a grin while winking and showing thumb up towards Yuichi.

"*sigh* Thanks I guess?" Yuichi said with a tired sigh but the smile never left his face.

"Look, look!" Mei turned on her phone display and gestured Yuichi to sit down on the bed next to her to have a better view.

He sat down next to her and she started showing him all kinds of ranking charts.

Chart of Gloominess, Hot guy chart, Rich guy chart, and many others.

"Do you want to know your position in those charts?" Mei asked with a teasing smile, expecting him to be curious but contrary to her expectations...

"No"

"Huh?" Mei looked at him with a surprised expression when she heard his blunt answer.

"Why not?" Mei asked with a confused expression.

"Because it won't give me anything, still, I am pretty surprised there isn't anything similar on the boys' side or maybe I just missed it" Yuichi answered with a thoughtful expression.

"Now that you mention it, who would you vote as the most beautiful girl among the 1st years?" Mei asked curiously.

"Hmm...To be honest, I am not sure. I usually can't judge just by the appearance if I know that person, their personality will also play a big role in my decision." Yuichi replied while rubbing his chin.

"Then Kikyo-chan?" Mei asked, mentioning Kushida since she was the most popular, she was busty and also beautiful.

"...Nah, by the way, can you hold any secrets or simply our past in secret? I mean, can we keep whatever happened before arriving into this school just between us?" Yuichi wanted to reply immediately but he waited for a while to look as if he was thinking about it.

Mei was naturally confused by this but she still agreed, it also made her feel as if those memories were more special if they stayed just between them.

"Anyway, if I had to vote for someone, I would perhaps vote for Ichinose Honami from Class B, not exactly sure about that so it would be more like throwing one vote at someone. But I know who I would vote for the cutest girl!" Yuichi said before widely grinning and giving a thumb up to Mei.

"Hmph!" Mei folded her arms and abruptly turned sideways, smacking Yuichi's face with her twintails.

"I guess girls of our age don't really like being called cute, huh?"

"Eh? That's not it...I mean, a compliment is still a compliment, I just hate it how you can say it so casually." Mei turned back at Yuichi with a slightly confused expression before replying with an uncertain expression.

"You said casually that you voted for me in everything positive...You know what, let me see it, I changed my mind" Yuichi said and snatched her phone out of her hand, looking at the Cute guy chart.

"Hey!" Mei tried to get her phone back but Yuichi didn't let her.

He quickly went into comment section and saw many anonymous comments and one of them was:

[Iwamura-kun is definitely the cutest of all]

After reading this certain comment he only had an image of one person in mind which cause him to have goosebumps. The only person who outrightly called him cute in the Staffroom.

'Let's hope that teachers can't participate in this...What am I even thinking, of course, they can but only someone like her would participate in this.' Yuichi thought before turning off the display and returning the phone to Mei.

"What? Have you seen some hateful comments about you? I couldn't find any." Mei asked with a confused expression when Yuichi so quickly returned her phone.

"No...Don't worry about it" Yuichi replied before finally showing her the test papers.

"Wha-?! Is this what I think it is?" Mei asked with a shocked expression while glancing at Yuichi before looking back at the test papers.

"Yeah, I wanted to give you one before Horikita hands out the rest of them but don't show it to anyone yet or you might gather negative attention on yourself." Yuichi said with a serious expression while handing out one of the papers to her. He already got rid of all names on the test papers or others might discover that they belonged to people attending the basketball club. Not to mention, he still wasn't aware if the school would be all right with this if discovered. Maybe he wouldn't be in trouble but others might be considering how reluctant they were to give it to him. Of course, he took a few photos before scribbling over the names on the test papers...just in case he would discover that school would severely punish them if discovered that they sold old information.

"Is this Horikita's idea?" Mei questioned with a bit suspicious look in her eyes as she observed Yuichi.

"Well...Does it matter?" Yuichi asked with a bright smile while scratching the back of his head. He didn't want to lie to Mei so he decided to avoid her question.

"Hmm...I guess it doesn't. Are you sure that the same questions will appear on our midterms?" Mei asked a bit worriedly.

"Well, about 90 percent sure but that's why we planned to give these out only a few days before midterms." Yuichi said with a faint smile.

Mei nodded with an understanding expression. They spent a few more minutes talking about things happening around them these days before Mei decided to leave. Naturally, Yuichi had to go out first and check if the hallway is clear before she could leave.

When Yuichi returned to his room, he went to lie down on the bed. He took out his phone and looked at the display, showing his points.

[Private Points: 106.000 points]

'Are there even things that can't be bought with these points? Now I think that I also wholely understand why they use points instead of money. Someone rich like Koenji could buy whatever he wants if money were useful here, he would be able to buy the cooperation of all people, however, here, we are all starting on the equivalent level. Still, he doesn't seem to be interested in climbing into Class A despite his narcissism. No...he definitely wants to graduate from Class A, I can't imagine someone proud as him graduating from some other class than the best Class. However, how does he want to advance if he doesn't put effort into doing anything? ...Can points buy a spot in Class A? I must ask Chabashira-sensei later however even if this is possible, it will be an astronomical sum of points'

'I doubt such an amount of points can be gathered even if all students from the same class gave all their points to one person...?!' Yuichi thought with a slightly bored expression and spread arms while lying on the bed and looking at the ceiling, however, an idea suddenly struck him as his eyes widened.

'...Sensei said that we will lose those points after graduation...Then what should 3rd years do with those spare points...buy some things here before leaving? OR...convert them into real money?'

"...hahaha" Yuichi suddenly started laughing with a crazy expression while looking at the ceiling.

'Is that one of the reasons why those upperclassmen girls hanged out around him a few times I saw him in the cafe? Well, we have to do what we can to fill our stomach' Yuichi thought after he recovered from his sudden laugh outburst. He completely understood why those girls did it despite him wanting to frown upon it.

'Well, let's try to fall asleep early today...' Yuichi thought and plugged earphones into his phone while playing the sound of rain to help him fall asleep faster.

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The next day, Ayanokoji and Yuichi lept into action. Ayanokoji distracted Horikita quite easily and that gave Yuichi enough time to hide test papers deep inside her bag so there was no way she would notice them without taking most of her textbooks out of her bag. Yuichi already knew that she liked to visit the library a lot during these days and he was also aware of her personality, she was definitely reviewing her notes every evening but just to make sure he texted her a few times already in the past. He always made up an excuse for contacting her before asking what she is doing out of curiosity just to prolong the conversation by a bit and every time her answer was "reviewing today's notes".

Although now that he thought about it, he felt slightly weird about it as it made him remember Ayanokoji's words of calling him a stalker.

'I mean, I just want to learn about those who will most likely be responsible for this class's success. Having more information makes it easier to make decisions.' Yuichi thought, trying to comfort himself while glancing at Horikita's leaving figure.

He was already aware that tonight, he will most likely receive a lot of messages from Horikita or maybe she will immediately call him which is more probable. Depending on how upset she will be.