Chapter 19

Usually, I would take the time to study to pass exams, but with Hyori's reading recommendations and the grueling student council work, I decided to save my time by just buying answers. I mean points can buy anything, right?

Entering the cafeteria, I looked around specifically for seniors who had poorer meals like salads. They would be most in need of points, so I could buy it from them for pretty cheap Once I spotted a senior sitting alone with a measly plate of salad in front of him, I walked up to his table and sat across him.

"Excuse me, you're a senior right? I'm from Class 1-A. That salad must be pretty bad huh?"

Saying I'm from Class A shows that I'm not stupid and that he can't rip me off. At the same time, there might be some hostility though as his being broke shows me that he's in Class D even if it's a different year.

"Yeah... what do you want"

"Do you have the questions from your final in the first year? If you do, I want you to sell them to me"

"... Why me?"

"If you're having a salad, it's clear you're broke, so you would be more willing to sell them"

"How much you will pay?"

His willingness and his being unsurprised at my buying the answers shows that this isn't the first time. Some first-years might have bought the answers to the midterm. That should mean that the test answers are similar or else why would they waste points on it?

"20,000 points is my max"

"This is risky for me too, if the teachers find out, I'll be punished. I-i need at least 40,000 points to make this worth it"

I can spare 40,000 points..., but that's not the point, I can't seem like a pushover, especially to this guy.

"I'll pay 40,000 if you can also tell me who bought the answers from you for the first midterm"

"w-what, h-how did you know that I sold it before?"

"just tell me what class bought it from you"

"... Class D"

"I'll also be needing the quiz answers from your first year as well"

"t-that b-be extra"

I pulled out my phone which had been recording the entire time.

"you just admitted to selling answers to Class D, are you in a position to negotiate?"

"..."

After exchanging points, and getting the quiz and midterm answers, I used my previous quizzes to check if they were the same. To my surprise, the quizzes were the same. The school isn't stupid, they must know about this selling of answers, so they're just letting it happen? I mean they did say points can buy anything, I guess. Since the quizzes are the same, the final should be at least similar, so I could use the paper to determine which topics would be most relevant.

It was also interesting that Class D, the "defects" were able to come up with the idea of buying answers from an upperclassman. I guess desperation paves the pathway for innovation? If only Class D had bought the midterm answers, maybe I could monopolize the answers against the other classes, but that would require me to force the other seniors to stop selling answers. Maybe another time.

I had decided against sharing the answers with my Class B as they were smart enough to pass the midterms without it, and some of them might rely on the past-year midterms to pass. That would be dangerous as the school could change the questions at any time. I didn't care that much about the class, but at the same time, the unity within it would fall apart if even a person got expelled. That would cause a lot of trouble for me.

Walking back towards the classroom, I was interrupted by a pat on my back. Turning around, I saw a girl with short blonde hair and red eyes. She was wearing a smile that would light up the dark room, but it seemed to have some malicious intent concealed within. She was like Ichinose, in terms of appearance, but Ichinose's smile was pure and genuine while this girl's smile seemed to be fake. Maybe, I was overthinking it, but this girl felt dangerous somehow. Also, yet again, another beautiful girl, this school must have some sort of conspiracy.

"I'm Kushida Kikyo from Class 1-D! Ever since you canceled your contract with us, I've wanted to meet you!"

Why was she so eager to meet the person who almost extorted their class for 20 million points? Also, she says that she's wanted to meet since the canceling of the contract, but it's been at least a week since that. My theory that she was dangerous seemed to grow with every word she said.

Attempting to get her off my back, I gave a brisk and cold response.

"What do you need"

She started twirling her hair at my words and nervously responded.

"W-well y-you see, my g-goal is to become friends with everyone in this school, so I was wondering if we could be friends!"

Friends with everyone? This girl was the opposite of me, my goal was to have no friends and be peaceful through my school journey. Also friends with everyone? Doesn't that mean that she would be friends with rivaling classes? Looking at his appearance and bright personality, I could tell that she would already have good progress with this goal.

Curious if this goal was true or not, I asked.

"Why? It doesn't make sense for you to befriend your opponents?"

"Opponents or not, we're all first-years at this school! Many of my junior high friends didn't come, so I wanted to make many more new friends!"

It makes sense for her to want to make friends, but being with everyone is a bit of a stretch. Anyway, this girl probably had quite the social network already, so denying her would bring more attention to me.

Reluctantly, I responded.

"uhhh, sure I'll go along with your plan"

"... What do you mean plan?"

"... Ah, I misspoke, I meant goal"

"Great! Is it alright for me to get your phone number then?"

I exchanged phone numbers with her and headed into the classroom.

Giving her my phone number wouldn't cause any harm, but at the same time, I would have to be on guard whenever I spoke to her. No matter how nice she seemed, there was some malicious intent hidden in that smile. 

Also given her social network, if she started to spread rumors about me, my reputation would probably fall lower than it already was. Right now, I was just seen as a loner, but it could definitely be worse.

I looked at my contacts list when I sat down. All 4 of my contacts were beautiful girls aside from the ones added due to payments. Was someone pranking me? In middle school, I had 0 girls in my contacts list, but now I have 4, and all of them are popular or beautiful. Maybe I was overthinking again, but something was wrong. How could a loner like me get 4 girls' numbers without even trying? Was I the main character is some romance manga?

I sat down at my desk and began looking out the window as usual. The cherry blossoms were beginning to fade as summer neared, and the rain was less frequent.

Though I hadn't spent many private points, I used almost 20,000 to buy some wireless earbuds. They helped drown out the noise within the classroom, and they gave me company whenever I was alone. Sure, I wanted to be in some friend group, but at that same time, I was put off by the work of being in one brought.

Having to constantly reply to messages, fake your personality to fit in, and having to care about what others think. The status of a loner was perfect for me, no one paid attention to me, yet no one hated me.

A couple of minutes before class started back up, I heard a screech as Kanzaki, the student in front of me, turned his chair around to face me.

Kanzaki, with his intelligence, had become the essential second in command within the class as everyone recognized his ability to plan and solve. He was probably the third most influential besides Ichinose and Shibata, the leaders of the boys' friend group in the class.

His starting a conversation with me was clearly not out of his own will as like me, he seems to be quiet, but he still wants to help out the class. This was probably Ichinose's idea.

"Hey Hikigaya, could you make some time after school to have dinner with Ichinose and me?"

Denying this would put me in a tough spot, and honestly, a dinner wouldn't be that bad.

"Yeah, I guess"

"Alright Ichinose will send you the details in a bit"

As I thought, Ichinose was the mastermind before this plan. She probably wanted to achieve her pipe dream of integrating me into the class. If this goes on, I might have to do something that negatively affects my reputation. 

After class, I headed to the restaurant mentioned in Ichinose's text. The first text message I got from her by the way. It wasn't close at all to being dinner time, so I guess they wanted to talk with me.

Did they think I was smart because I was on the student council and wanted me to help out? I could come up with some lie about how I went to middle school with Manabu or Nagumo, they would go along with it.

Thinking about the student council, there was some internal conflict going on as Nagumo and Manabu seemed to have conflicting ideals. Manabu liked the school the way it was, but Nagumo seemed to value individual strength more than the strength of the class. He thought it was stupid that without contributing anything, someone could advance to Class A. If I had to choose one, I would agree with Nagumo.

This probably had something to do with how Manabu denied every first year besides me, but honestly, I didn't care about the student council. I did owe Manabu for the private points, but I doubt he'd asked to me to do something outrageous like expelling Nagumo.

I entered the restaurant and saw Ichinose sitting next to Kanzaki in the corner of the place. They waved at me, so I walked towards them.

At this point, I had given up on maintaining my loner reputation, and I was even willing to fall into the "weird loner." I was sure that the two wanted me to help with Class B's affairs, so denying them would cause some animosity, but I was ready.

I sat down across from the two leaders in an awkward silence. Kanzaki and I were both the quiet type, so we were waiting for Ichinose to speak up. The server came up, and the two ordered some food while I just ordered a drink, which signaled I wasn't planning to stay long.

After ordering, Ichinose finally spoke up.

"So Hikigaya, I had a couple of questions for you."

"Yeah, what's up?"

"What do you think about what's been going on in the class group chat"

Ah fuck. The class group chat that had been put on silent immediately after I joined. If it was known that I had ignored it, Ichinose would probably be hurt as this would confirm that I wasn't a part of the class. Kanzaki probably wouldn't give a shit. He and I were alike.

"uh, sorry, I'm not really caught up on the chat..."

"..."

Ichinose stayed silent as she was probably a bit hurt while Kanzaki went straight to the point.

"We've discussed and most of the class has agreed to give Ichinose 70% of our private points, so we can manage our expenses."

Really?