Student Council.
"Knock, knock, knock."
"Come in."
"Excuse me."
Shinjo pushed open the door and entered. The Student Council office wasn't very large. Aside from a long conference table, there was a desk reserved exclusively for the Student Council President directly opposite the entrance.
Horikita Manabu was meticulously handling Student Council business.
Tachibana Akane stood quietly behind him, just like a secretary to the president of a publicly traded company.
"You? Are you here to pick up an application today?"
Tachibana had a strong impression of Shinjo, especially after hearing that he was a student from Class D.
"Yes. I'm counting on you, Tachibana-senpai."
Tachibana didn't move. Instead, Horikita Manabu stopped writing, a glint of sharp intelligence showing through his glasses.
"Shinjo Katsuya, right? I have a few questions about your club. Could I ask you to wait for me in the reception room?"
With that, he went back to work.
Tachibana led Shinjo to a private room next door and started brewing coffee. Before long, Horikita Manabu came in as well.
"Sorry, I have quite a bit of work on my hands."
"It's nothing. You are the Student Council President, after all."
Horikita Manabu adjusted his glasses, making himself look even more mature and composed despite already appearing clever and capable.
"Tachibana told me that the club you're planning to establish is called the Yorozuya, right?"
"That's right."
"May I ask why you want to establish a club like that?"
What was he supposed to say in a situation like this?
Shinjo Katsuya could come up with something on the spot.
He deliberately put on a pained expression.
"Honestly, the pressure on society in Sakurajima is increasing, and young people are shouldering more and more responsibility. On top of that, the competition at our school is fiercer than anyone would expect. In this kind of environment, people have clearly neglected the virtues of compassion, solidarity, and kindness."
"And while I don't have any grand dreams, I want to help people with my own hands and see them smile again. You understand that feeling, don't you?"
Horikita Manabu nodded, but the faint glint on his glasses made Shinjo, sitting across from him, feel uneasy.
"So you established the Yorozuya because you want to help people, is that right?"
"Uh, more or less."
"In that case... why don't you apply to join the Student Council?"
There's no way this guy with glasses can see right through me, is there?!
Stay calm... He's the Student Council President, after all. It's only natural he'd ask that.
"The Student Council is great, of course, but... the person in charge doesn't seem all that easy to get along with, so..."
Shinjo Katsuya tactfully came up with an excuse.
Sure enough, Tachibana Akane, who'd been listening from the side, angrily protested.
"You're so rude! Who's hard to get along with?!"
Shinjo shrugged and turned to Horikita Manabu with an innocent expression.
"You see what I mean..."
"You!"
"Tachibana."
Tachibana Akane was about to lash out again, but the moment she heard Horikita Manabu's voice, she immediately backed down. Even so, she glared at Shinjo resentfully.
"All right. Take the application form back with you. Fill in all the information and submit it to me for review. If it's approved, your Yorozuya will be officially established."
Horikita Manabu slid the application form across the desk to Shinjo.
"Then, thank you both, senpai."
After Shinjo left, Horikita Manabu leaned back in his chair, lost in thought.
[The Yorozuya... A loophole-finding expert who skirts the edges of the rules. He might be an even bigger headache, but it seems he's in the same class as Suzune...]
Class 1-D. May had brought them a hellish existence, so to improve the situation, students like Hirata and Kushida had taken the lead in proposing a reform plan.
"There are three problems that absolutely need to be addressed: tardiness, daydreaming in class, and making sure nobody fails the midterms!"
"The first two shouldn't be too hard to fix. The problem is the third one..."
According to Chabashira-sensei, the midterms would be about as difficult as this pop quiz. From Shinjo's perspective, most of the questions were very easy.
Even so, seven people in the class had failed.
And that was without even counting uncontrollable factors like Sudō. If he refused to cooperate or didn't want to study, there was nothing anyone could do about it.
But the two class leaders were both determined not to give up on a single classmate. So they mobilized everyone they could to hold study sessions and help the students who weren't doing well.
"So, Shinjo-kun, you're going to come to the study session!"
Kushida Kikyo caught Shinjo just as he was about to make a run for it when class ended, her big, adorable eyes fixed on him.
"Me? I don't need to, do I?"
"You do! Your grades aren't all that bad, but don't you want to get an even higher score?"
A higher score? Shinjo had never really thought about it.
In fact, if he wanted to, he could score higher.
But...
"Is that really a good idea, Kushida-san?"
"Hmm?"
Kushida clearly didn't understand what Shinjo meant.
"If you score less than half the class average, you're considered to have failed, right? That means if we keep the class average as low as possible, we can help the students with low scores as much as possible, can't we?"
"Huh?! Is... is that how it works?!"
Shinjo's theory had shocked more than just Kushida. It seemed most of them had never thought of doing things that way.
According to Chabashira, their midterm scores couldn't be lower than their pop quiz scores, or less than half the class average. So as long as they held back a little, passing the exam shouldn't be a problem.
"If that's the case, we should've handed in blank papers on the pop quiz!"
"Tell me about it. If that works, why not hand in blank papers on every exam? Then we'd get through every test safely!"
As they talked, the students in Class D began cheering excitedly. But while some were happy, others were worried.
Those who'd given the last exam their all and gotten unusually high scores couldn't help worrying that if they underperformed, they'd be expelled.
Horikita Suzune looked at Shinjo with a new glint in her eyes. She now firmly believed that, like Ayanokōji, he might be able to control his scores perfectly.
Unlike Ayanokōji, Shinjo Katsuya's disguise was clearly more effective. After all, unlike someone who scored 50 in every subject, his grades were much more ordinary.
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