Chapter 10

It was the end of our second day at the Tokyo Metropolitan Advanced Nurturing High School. In my class, Class D, the atmosphere was extremely relaxed. The teachers were very lenient, neglecting to even say anything if a student was sleeping or using their phone during the class.

Social cliques had already began to form; I was not a part of any of them, of course. I was alone, just like I had always been. I liked it better that way.

We had just been dismissed and groups of students were chatting away about where they wanted to go on campus, what shops they were going to visit and so on. Everyone seemed carefree, probably already used to the luxurious allowance given to us by the school as they formed various social circles within our class. Good for them, I suppose.

I was just going to leave quietly and return to the dormitories. There was a club fair at five PM today and it seemed like everyone was idly chatting away about what clubs they wanted to join and various things like that. I had no interest in even attending the club fair. Joining a club meant becoming part of that circle, and I had no need for pointless things like friends.

Just as everyone got up with the intention of leaving, the door to our classroom opened from outside. Why would anyone be entering the 1-D classroom at this time? Chabashira-sensei had already left for the day and since she was our homeroom teacher that meant there wouldn't be any teachers coming into our classroom for the rest of the day. That meant that it was a student.

The door swung open and two students nonchalantly strutted into our classroom, shutting the door behind them. One was a tall and slim boy with spiky, maroon-colored hair and crimson eyes - his face was irritably smug for no obvious reason. In his hand, he held the hand of a short girl, with long white hair tinted with other various colours and inquisitive golden eyes.

The pair stopped a few steps into the room and took the opportunity to gaze around the room. By now, all the Class D students had gone quiet and were staring at the pair. Neither of them appeared particularly bothered even though they were in a foreign classroom being stared at by forty strangers.

After a few awkward moments of silence, Hirata-kun took the initiative like the class golden-boy that he is.

"Uh, can we help you?" he asked, somewhat hesitantly.

"So this is the fabled 'defective class,' huh?" the boy said in an arrogant, condescending tone.

"Again with that 'defective,' crap! What the hell are you on about?" Sudō-kun appeared to lose his temper at the mention of the word 'defective'.

"Do you know him, Ken?" Ike-kun asked.

"No, I've never seen him before. But yesterday I had an argument with some second-years and they called me defective as well. The hell is up with that, huh?!"

The boy's grin only widened as he watched the interaction between my classmates, whereas the girl simply stood with a flat expression, still gripping the boy's hand.

"Don't you know? This school sorts students into classes A through D using a system of merit, with A standing at the top. In other words, you were all judged as trash."

"Oh, yeah? Are you picking a fight, you scrawny bastard? I'll beat the shit outta you right here!" Sudō-kun exploded.

I just sighed to myself. Sudō-kun is probably giving the boy the exact reaction he wants.

"Sudō-kun, violence won't solve anything. Also, theres a surveillance camera in here. You'll end up in big trouble if you hit him." Hirata-kun quelled Sudō-kun's anger.

"So, can I assume you're the king of the sandpit?" the boy mockingly addressed Hirata-kun.

Hirata-kun however, being the person he wasn't, replied in a calm and non-confrontational manner. He was doing his best to steer the class away from trouble. All the girls who had been flocking around Hirata-kun like moths were now glaring at the boy after he mocked Hirata-kun, but he paid them no heed.

"I'm simply doing my best to be a figure everyone in my class can trust and rely on. I'll ask again, can we help you? You clearly didn't come here for a friendly conversation."

"I was simply curious about the 'class of defectives,' and wanted to come and see for myself." the boy replied with a shrug.

I was starting to get very annoyed with this boy. The way he walked in like he owned the place and starting talking down to us as if he was some kind of superior human. I didn't realise it at the time but I probably had an expression of visible irritation. I couldn't help but interject into the conversation.

"And, who are you to walk in here and look down on us? If anything, aren't you the defective one here?" I said.

"Ah, that's right, my apologies. I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Sora and this is my little sister, Shiro." he didn't show any reaction to the icy glare I shot him, "As for your second question, no, I'm not. Don't tell me you consider yourself to be the best student here?"

"That's right. I'll admit that some students in this class are idiots, but you aren't any better. I have no doubt that I'm superior to everyone else in this room."

I insulted both the boy, Sora, and my own classmates which earned me a few scowls. Sora, though, just laughed in my face.

"If you're that 'superior' to everyone else, why are you in Class D?"

"There's no reason for me to believe what you said about students being sorted into classes by merit. That's just a baseless assumption. What class are you in, then? If you genuinely believe that and you're calling me trash then you must be in the 'mighty' Class A, right?"

I acted like what he was saying was ridiculous, but he had in fact planted a seed of doubt in my mind. When I applied to this school I thought everyone would be upstanding students with great talents like myself, but my class turned out to be just an average high-school class. No, perhaps the level of my class is even below an average high-school class.

"That's a secret." Sora merely smirked.

"How preposterous. You come in here insulting Class D but you won't even say your own class?"

"If you had any brains, you would've quickly realised that since Class D is the lowest of all the classes and I'm not in your class then I'm obviously in a class superior to yours. The fact that you couldn't even infer this much is proof of why you're considered defective by the school."

He said that as if he was lecturing a child. This boy, Sora, somehow had managed to get under my skin like no one ever had before. I was actually getting worked up by his words. Why? Why is that? There's no reason why I should listen to, much less believe, anything he's saying. So why is the doubt in the back of my mind getting bigger? Why am I so frustrated?

"Prove it then." I snapped.

"Prove what?" he said with a grin.

"Prove that you're superior to me."

I challenged him. I was confident that I wouldn't lose to many both physically and mentally, much less this irritating boy who talks too much. In fact, talking is probably the only thing he's good at.

Sora cracked a bigger smile after hearing my challenge, and reached his hand into his pocket. Even the girl he was with, that hadn't said anything or reacted to anything said so far, showed an expression of amusement. They're still looking down on me, then; looks like i'll have to correct them - my evaluation was definitely higher than Sora's. If it isn't, then it's wrong.

"We'll use these," Sora said, producing a pack of playing cards.

"Cards? What are we going to do, play poker?" I shot.

What was he going to do with playing cards? All eyes in the room were trained on Sora now as they awaited his explanation. Even Kōenji-kun, who normally showed no interest in anything but himself, was looking with an amused face.

Sora sat the cards on Hirata-kun's desk, and motioned for me to come over.

"What is your name?" Sora asked Hirata-kun as I walked over.

"Hirata Yōsuke. Why are you doing this at my desk?" Hirata-kun asked, somewhat bewildered.

Admittedly, I was also confused at Sora's antics. Maybe this is all some stupid joke or dare that he's been made to do. By the way the situation has developed, though, it seemed unlikely.

"Hirata, you're probably trusted the most in this class, so you're going to be the fair judge of our little game." Sora said as he looked at the face down deck of cards set on the table.

"And what's the name of my brave challenger?" he turned to me as I arrived at the desk.

"Horikita Suzune."

There was no point hiding my name from him at this point. I was too far in to act like I wanted nothing to do with him at this point, and Sora would probably find out my name anyway even if I didn't tell him.

"Here's how it's going to work. Both Horikita and I will take a chalk and write one card on the blackboard," Sora handed me a chalk he had picked up from the teachers podium and motioned toward the blackboard. "We'll both write down one card on the blackboard, which will act as our guesses. Once we've both written our guesses, we'll step back and reveal them to the rest of the students here."

So we were going to be guessing cards? I failed to see how this would be an apt contest to determine who is superior, but I knew better than to interrupt his explanation. I decided to wait until he finished before making any conclusions.

"Once you reveal your guess, you can't change it. Once both of us have settled on a card, Hirata is going to take the card from the bottom of the deck and show it to everyone. The winner is the one who wrote down the correct, corresponding card. If either both of us guessed correctly or neither of us guessed correctly, that card will be moved to a seperate discard pile, and we will write new guesses and continue the cycle. If we go through the whole deck and neither of us have won, the deck will be shuffled by Hirata and we will continue in that way."