Chapter 1

A/N: I got inspiration from a fanfic of a similar concept, but that was a translation and this one isn't, of course that does not determine quality.

By the way, It was just inspiration. If I did copy anything it was unintentional, after all it's in the same universe.

Only writing this because my other fanfic is making me feel like the OC is too Mary Sue for myself to enjoy, not that I will stop writing it, as rereading my past fanfics is a joy.

Enjoy.

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'Don't do it if you don't have to, and if you have to, do it as fast as possible.'

This was the philosophy of Oreki Houtarou, currently in front of a school that went against this very belief.

Tokyo Metropolitan Advanced Nurturing High School, shortened to ANHS by both students and staff, boasted a 99.9% Employment Rate after graduation, funded by the Japanese government, it was a highly competitive school that consisted of the best the country had to offer.

'No house and no good bed for the next 3 years…' Oreki thought, slowly walking to the entrance ceremony.

'Class A…' Oreki thought, walking over to his row, pulling down his bangs over his eyes.

Listening to the Principal's speech on 'competitiveness' and 'striving for perfection' Oreki couldn't help but let his mind wander, nodding off.

As he was about to fully asleep, the principal finished speaking, and someone closer to his age range walked up to the podium, with an air that demanded respect.

Even with that aura, Oreki couldn't help but continue nodding off even after his initial surprise at the now-revealed Student Council President's appearance.

After a few minutes of hazing in and out of consciousness, the man seemed to have finished, giving orders for the students to move in order from A to D, he started walking to his classroom, following his classmates.

'Either Class A is prioritized or I'm just overthinking this.' Oreki thought, just following the noticeable bald head of one of his classmates.

'But if I am in class A, and they are considered the best, how am I even in there?' Oreki thought, thinking back to his lackluster interview.

'I didn't even get to finish the test in time,' Arriving at Class A, he sat down on the second seat on the last row.

Waiting for his teacher, Oreki listlessly looked outside the window, his emerald orbs lazily following the falling sakura petals. The door slid open for a middle-aged man to walk in.

After introducing himself as "Mashima-sensei," he handed out a square box that looked to be a smartphone.

Explaining the point system, including its transfer rate to the yen and its monthly input, after hearing what he needed to hear, Oreki resumed looking outside.

'Who would have known how entertaining it would be to watch petals fall?'

Listening to the questions of the students and Mashima-sensei's lack of a clear response Oreki deduced multiple things from the interaction.

It was not definite that the monthly input to his point count would always be 100,000 Points, partly because of the large number of cameras in the school, he assumed that it was purely to monitor and prevent any fighting within school grounds.

It was a school after all, actions that would not befit a school and learning setting could reduce the number of points inputted next month.

With the seen distribution of students in the classes, it can be inferred that from an observational point of view, Class A had the most number of people who had the likeliness of an academically gifted or fluent person.

Few of these could be seen in the lilac-colored classmate, in the bald classmate Oreki saw earlier, and in the majority of his classmates.

So under the assumption that the students that are the least likely to cause trouble during class would be in Class A, Class A be the least affected in terms of what Oreki classified as 'Monthly Points' for now.

Thus, Oreki hypothesized that at the end of the month, the classes that made the least amount of mistakes, which would correspond with the type of students in each class, would be ranked.

'Of course, this is only speculation.' Oreki thought.

However since the amount of points directly affected his liveliness and supported his lazy nature, Oreki would have to pay more attention during class.

Of course, he was always paying attention, but if the cameras were anything to go by, if he didn't look like he was paying attention, he wasn't paying attention.

'Even if this is a competitive school, I doubt people would go as far as to do underhanded tactics.'

'Although I am curious about what Mashima-sensei said about "Points can buy everything in this school." does that mean I can buy test grades? An entire restaurant? If I bought one of the establishments, would I get its net profits in the form of Points?' Oreki thought, thinking of more absurd objects as time went on.

After the significant reduction of questions due to the realization that the majority of their answers would be open-ended, Mashima-sensei reminded the students of the opening ceremony that would happen in an hour and left the class to its own devices.

Deciding to just get to the gym early and take a breather (or a nap, he didn't care), Oreki slowly got up from his seat, ignoring the discussion happening in the middle of the classroom, and left.

Of course, tunnel-visioning on the prospect of a solid 50-minute nap, Oreki didn't notice the curious look from a lilac-haired student.

'How interesting.' Sakayanagi thought, looking at the eyes and posture of the uninterested student.

Looking at the slow blinking of the student, along with his half-hunched shoulders, she could easily deduce that this man was tired or sleep-deprived.

'Why would a person be tired already on the first day of school? Especially someone from the "renowned" Class A?'

Putting these thoughts in the back of her mind, if she wanted to make it in time for the ceremony along with spare time she would have to start walking early.

Grasping her cane and starting her journey, she saw the same man she was curious about coming out of the bathroom.

The only two students in the first-grade hallway, Oreki naturally glanced over to the only other person, before giving her a simple nod and walking towards the gymnasium.

Dumbfounded by his inherent uninterested expression, she could only nod back toward Oreki's back, watching as he walked down the staircase.

'How unusual, the normalized glance at my cane suddenly seems unfamiliar.' Sakayanagi thought, used to the sympathetic stares at her condition.

Oreki on the other hand, didn't think much of the interaction.

'It's the smart person. She was cute.' Oreki offhandedly remarked about Sakayanagi's appearance.

Arriving at the gymnasium, seeing a few upperclassmen, he looked for his class's section before choosing a spot where he would be the least visible from the stage.

Stretching his back, listening to the cacophony of his spine, cracking noises appearing in quick succession.

'Ah, that felt good.'

Sighing with satisfaction, Oreki sat down, positioning himself so that from the back, he would look like he was looking at his phone, and from the stage, it would look as if he was looking at them, with the assistance of the position of his bangs.

He had worked out a solid amount to be able to maintain this position during junior high, and he laughed inside as his work was paying off already.

After a few minutes, Sakayanagi arrived to see the sight of her sluggard classmate looking at his phone.

'Maybe he's trying to see if he can get more information through his phone,' Sakayanagi thought, walking up to see what he was doing on his phone, only to see a black screen.

'Huh?'

Confused, Sakayanagi looked at the screen again, to see nothing but black.

"Excuse me, but I was wondering what you were looking at," Sakayanagi asked, somewhat eager to start a conversation.

Silence.

Her polite smile turned forced, she looked a little harder at Oreki, before noticing his breathing pattern.

'He's already deep sleeping? In a chair of all places?'

Looking closer at his back rise and fall slowly with no discrepancies, it further affirmed her conclusion that Oreki was indeed more interesting than she had thought.

'Of course, I could be overestimating him to a foolish degree, but my intuition states otherwise,'

'If I didn't notice his breathing, I probably would not have noticed, his posture is surprisingly exquisite for someone who is considered unconscious,' Sakayanagi thought chuckling in her head, before taking a seat to the right of Oreki.

Wondering when he was going to wake up, Sakayanagi stared intently at Oreki, garnering whispers regarding their relationship, unbeknownst to the sleeping beauty.

'Looking at him from an objective standpoint, this person is quite attractive,' Sakayanagi offhandedly thought, noting his pale features, small nose and face, and long eyelashes.

Overall, Oreki's vibe radiated like a sleeping deer next to an emerald-clear lake.

Caught by his natural aura, Sakayanagi was getting drowsy just by looking at the peacefulness of his sleeping face, despite sleeping the recommended amount of 8 hours every day.

Just before Sakayanagi went past the point of no return, a majority of the first-grade class arrived at once.

She looked at the established faction, looking at her classmates flocking around one man, Kohei Katsuragi if she remembered correctly.

She could deal with him later, putting most of her attention to the person to her left.

'You better be as entertaining as I made you out to be, Deer-kun.'

Feeling like his ideals were crumbling in front of his eyes, Oreki shivered in his dream.

As if responding to his fears, as the ceremony was about to start, Oreki naturally woke up due to his internal clock.

His eyes fluttered open and looking around to make note of his surroundings, his eyes met with the girl he saw in the hallway earlier.

"Oh, hello," Oreki awkwardly said, unnerved by her focused gaze.

"Hello, Deer-kun," Sakayanagi responded.

'Deer-kun?' deciding not to ask any further, possibly for his own sake, Oreki looked at the stage to see the Student Council President from the opening ceremony, along with other students.

'Probably the rest of the student council,' Oreki thought, putting the interaction with the person he initially thought was smart away for now.

'Is it possible that she's a bit special? with a slight emphasis on special.'

He found that the opening ceremony was much easier to focus on, with brief introductions and short speeches.

After the surprisingly quick opening ceremony, in contrast to the dull entrance ceremony, Oreki looked at the nearest clock to see that it was around 1:55.

About to make his way out, a pale hand grabbed onto the hem of his sleeve, stopping him from moving.

"So Deer-kun, I was wondering if you would like to accompany me to the convenience store to buy items for the future," Sakayanagi asked, attempting to pull off a cute look.

'That feels like too much work, I refuse.' Oreki thought, formulating a valid excuse to get her off his tail.

"I'm sorry, but I don't think we're close enough-"

"My name is Sakayanagi Arisu, Class 1A, nice to meet you," Sakayanagi interrupted with an out-of-nothing introduction.

Going with the flow, Oreki instinctively responded with a tired undertone.

"My name is Oreki Houtarou, same class, nice to meet you as well,"

"Are we close enough now?"

'Are you joking me?' Oreki thought before resigning, as she seemed like the type of person who wouldn't stop until she got what she wanted.

So to preserve possible energy that would have been spent unsuccessfully getting away from Sakayanagi-san, he just gave up.

"Yeah, sure. Let's go then." Oreki said, helping Sakayanagi by lending a hand for her to put leverage on when it looked like she was having trouble stabilizing herself.

'Relatively observant,' Sakayanagi thought, before fully stabilizing herself. 'And polite.'

"Yes, Oreki-kun, let us," Sakayanagi said, walking slowly forward.

While to a normal person, getting annoyed at a pace as slow as Sakayanagi was walking was unsurprisingly common, but for a lethargic person such as Oreki, his default speed was Sakayanagi's pace.

'How convenient…' Sakayanagi thought, observing his untroubled expression, hands in his pockets to shield his already cold hands from the spring breeze while patiently matching her pace.

During the walk, Sakayanagi started an impromptu interview session.

"So~ Oreki-kun, what did you think about Mashima-sensei's explanation about the S-System?"

'Judging by the tone of her voice, she's probably trying to see my stance on the whole thing, but most of my thoughts are hypotheses generated through extrapolation of the given information, but as it isn't confirmed, I see no qualms regarding sharing theories.'

Oreki imagined Sakayanagi as one of the feline predators, lying in wait regardless of the scalding heat of the savanna, just for a chance to pounce on her prey.

"This is just a thought, but…"

After explaining what he thought about the S-System, Sakayanagi was silent, thinking about his theory before smiling inside.

'I knew my intuition wasn't wrong. Oreki-kun, you are truly one of the few entertaining people in this school~' Sakayanagi thought happily, causing Oreki to reflexively shiver.

'Is someone talking bad about me?'

"This is quite the theory, Oreki-kun, how did you get to that conclusion?"

Oreki responded, "I just thought about the surprising amount of cameras on school grounds, and what the vague statements that Mashima-sensei said just pointed to this conclusion, it isn't that special."

'Were you not looking outside of the window, admiring the cherry blossoms?' she thought.

"I see your reasoning, well, we have arrived at the convenience store, so let us start shopping, Oreki-kun."

"Yeah, Yeah, I'll hold both the baskets," Oreki making it seem like a question but made it in the form of a statement, leaving no room for negotiation.

"How polite, Oreki-kun, well, we don't need that much this early in the school year, we would need basic hygienic products. before deciding what to use our funds for,"

Nodding, Oreki went over to the shampoo section, before something caught his eye.

"Look over here, Sakayanagi-san," Oreki said, pointing at the free products section, further supporting his theory.

"Hmm, I guess it is best to acquire free products if one wants to conserve points," Sakayanagi noted, watching as Oreki looked over the large area and saw a relatively decent-quality shampoo brand.

"Oh look there's two left, would you like to have one as well, Sakayanagi-san?"

"Are you implying that we should use the same shampoo so we would smell similar? How perverted, Oreki-kun."

'What?' Oreki thought, hitting Sakayanagi with a solid deadpan, but due to his resting face set in a deadpan, it just looked like he looked at her, causing her to chuckle.

"Calm down, I won't deny free products, so please put it in my basket, thank you for your consideration, Oreki-kun,"

'She's kind of cute when she's not teasing me,' Oreki offhandedly thought, ears a little red from the sudden change in demeanor.

'A sort of Gap-Moe, if one was to describe it.'

After looking for different free products by asking Sakayanagi about her preference for hygienic products, before choosing a few, and then moving on to other amenities such as toothbrushes, the duo finished their shopping, leaving the store.

"Would you like to accompany me to the dormitories, Oreki-kun,"

"Wasn't that the plan," He asked, lifting the large bag filled with just Sakayanagi's products, before giving a pointed glance at his own smaller bag.

Covering her laugh, she and Oreki started their way to the dormitory.

"It was inevitable that a woman would have more products. No need for pointed looks," Sakayanagi said, ignoring Oreki's sarcastic reply "Yeah sure."

Arriving at the dorms, he handed over Sakayanagi's items before bidding her farewell in the elevator.

"See you tomorrow, Oreki-kun," Arisu waved, Oreki lazily waving back, getting off on the fifth floor.

"I guess we will, Sakayanagi-san," He finished, watching as the door closed.

Sighing, Oreki made his way to his room, number 512, opening the door to his room door to see a relatively decent-sized abode, already equipped with a bed, a desk, and its corresponding chair.

After cleaning himself up, he made his way toward his bed for the next 3 years, silently getting under the sheets before slowly closing his eyes.

'I hope no random person comes up to me tomorrow and talks to me,' He prayed, quickly losing consciousness at the early time of just 5:48, deciding to wake up early and buy a snack the next day to make up for it.

Oreki sincerely wished that his interaction with Sakayanagi would remain a coincidence, not a common occurrence.