Rules

In the brief dead silence, Sudo Ken violently pushed his chair back.

The metal legs scraped against the floor with a piercing shriek, like a knife slicing through solidified air.

He rushed out of the classroom without looking back. The hem of his school uniform knocked over a pencil case on the next desk, scattering its contents across the floor. No one bothered to pick them up.

The light in the hallway flickered erratically across his tensed jawline. His footsteps echoed in the empty corridor, growing faster and faster until they became a frantic sprint.

The basketball court. Only here could he contain his burning suffocation.

He snatched up a basketball that had rolled to the side of the court. The rough texture of the ball in his palm brought a fleeting sense of control.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!" The sound of dribbling grew heavier, as if he were smashing all the unwillingness churning in his chest into the plastic ground.

He suddenly accelerated, driving for a layup. As his body leaped into the air, the taut lines of his muscles drew a sharp arc. The basket shook violently as he slammed the ball down.

Upon landing, sweat from his hair splattered onto the reflective floor, forming dark circles.

"Expulsion... it's not the end of the world!" Sudo Ken panted, roaring at the empty stands, sounding more like he was trying to convince himself. "Transfer... there's still two and a half years! Practice, work part-time to earn tuition..." His fingertips unconsciously caressed the texture of the basketball, a texture imprinted with memories of countless game-winning shots.

His dream hung like the sun above the basket, dazzling yet seemingly within reach. But the path beneath his feet had suddenly become a steep slope.

"Sudo-kun--!" Hirata Yosuke's voice, laced with anxiety, came from the entrance.

He, followed closely by Kushida Kikyo and Horikita Suzune, stopped in the shadows, breathing slightly heavily.

Seeing Sudo mechanically repeating the motions of dribbling, jumping, and shooting, the three visibly relaxed their tense shoulders.

"Thank goodness... he's just playing ball," Kushida whispered to Hirata, clutching her chest, genuine worry in her eyes.

Horikita's gaze fell on Sudo's sweat-soaked back.

The arc of each of his shots carried a fierce intensity, yet was remarkably accurate. "He's different..." she murmured.

Sudo, who used to explode at the slightest provocation and solve everything with his fists, was now like iron repeatedly hammered and quenched, exuding an unfamiliar hardness in his silence.

Despite their brief time together and constant conflicts—Sudo had scoffed at Hirata's gentleness and glared at Horikita's coldness—those nights spent studying late in the library, arguing heatedly over a math problem, had become some of Class D's few shimmering fragments.

Hirata gently held back Kushida, who had started to step forward, and shook his head. "Let him... be alone for a while." The final farewell was his own battlefield.

They quietly retreated to the shade of the trees by the court, watching his solitary figure stretch long in the sunset. Each thud of the basketball against the ground sounded like a muffled drumbeat striking their hearts.

The next morning, sunlight slanted into the Class D classroom.

Sudo Ken's seat was gone.

His desk and chair had been removed, leaving behind a stark, square-shaped empty space.

That blank area was like an unhealed scar, stinging everyone's eyes.

Ike Kanji stared at the empty spot, unconsciously fiddling with an eraser. Yamauchi Haruki was unusually silent. Even the usually most boisterous girls lowered their voices.

A faint, indefinable sadness floated in the air. The hot-tempered, red-haired figure had, after all, departed in the most somber way.

Who... would be next? Fear, like icy vines, quietly wrapped around some people's ankles.

This suppressed silence was easily crushed when Chabashira Sae stepped into the classroom.

She slapped her lesson plan onto the podium with a "thwack," her gaze sweeping over the glaringly empty space, a slight curve forming on her lips.

"I'll announce the Class Points." Her voice was devoid of emotion. "For this midterm exam, Class D theoretically earned: 73 points."

A subtle gasp arose, and a few pairs of eyes instantly lit up with a glimmer.

However, the next second, Chabashira's words poured down like ice water:

"Due to Sudo Ken's expulsion, 100 Class Points will be deducted." She tapped her fingertips on the desk, like the mallet of a death sentence. "Therefore, this month's Class Points are zero. Next month, individual points will be distributed as usual, reset to zero."

Dead silence.

Then, a commotion erupted like a volcanic eruption.

"100 points?!" Ike Kanji shot to his feet, his chair legs scraping a piercing noise on the floor. "Why are they deducting points from all of us just because he got expelled!"

"Exactly! He failed his exams and got kicked out, and now we're all unlucky because of him!" a female student shrieked in agreement, kicking the chair in front of her angrily. "If I'd known this would happen, we shouldn't have wasted our time tutoring him!"

"Chabashira-sensei! That's too many points deducted! According to the rules—" Hirata tried to maintain order, but his voice was instantly drowned out.

"Rules?" Chabashira sneered, her sharp gaze fixing on Hirata. "The school's rules are just like this, I can't do anything about it. Sudo's expulsion proves that your class can't even keep one member. 100 points is the price, and also a warning." She no longer paid attention to the flushed faces and clenched fists below. Turning, she wrote a large "0" on the blackboard.

The empty space that symbolized Sudo's departure had now become the target of everyone's anger.

The earlier sentimentality vanished, replaced by naked resentment.

Sudo's name was repeatedly mentioned, mixed with accusations of "dragging us down" and "being a burden," like whips lashing an invisible corpse.

Hirata slumped back into his seat, looking at his agitated classmates and then at the empty basketball court outside the window, his tightly pressed lips revealing a hint of bitterness.

Horikita, expressionless, opened her book. However, the force with which her fingertips gripped the pages was so strong, she could have torn them apart.

The sunlight still shone brightly on the empty space. But now, only abandoned anger and cold calculation remained there.

The basket of dreams swayed alone in the distant realm.