The lunch bell rang.
As the teacher left the classroom, the students of Class B all breathed a sigh of relief.
If they let their attention wander during class, their Class Points might go down.
A smaller allowance next month wouldn't be a big deal, but failing to graduate as Class A in the end would be a disaster.
Based on what they'd experienced in class today, Advanced Nurturing wasn't particularly strict. Its teaching style could even be described as humorous and engaging.
Even Chabashira-sensei, who taught history and seemed cold on the surface, told jokes during her lessons to help everyone remember the material.
If they didn't know the truth about the school, the students of Class B might have been fooled by their kind teachers into thinking this was a paradise of a school.
But after hearing about the hidden rules from Dokuho Kouya, the students of Class B didn't dare let their guard down. They stayed alert in every class, afraid that a careless mistake might affect their class.
When lunch break finally came, the students were free from lessons at last and instinctively relaxed.
The more outgoing students started chatting with those around them, discussing things like whether to go eat together.
Sayo Ando sat in her seat, her pretty face uneasy. Her brown eyes kept drifting toward the boy at the next desk, but the moment she caught a glimpse of his face, she quickly looked away.
"Sayo, it's not class time now. You can look all you want." Dokuho Kouya's voice reached her, tinged with a soft, gentle laugh.
"You noticed?!" Sayo Ando exclaimed in surprise. Her cheeks flushed, and she slowly turned to face the boy, rubbing her arm awkwardly. "Actually, I wanted to invite you to have lunch with me in the cafeteria, Kouya."
"But I was afraid it might bother you."
Dokuho Kouya's speech that morning had given the impression that he was separating himself from the class.
I've already done enough for Class B.
What you do from here on out doesn't have much to do with me.
As Sayo Ando listened from her seat, she'd gotten the impression that Kouya might not like being tied to the class. That made her think he preferred to act alone.
She'd known loners who preferred their own company in elementary and middle school.
But this was her first time meeting a loner like Kouya, who was handsome, clever, and good at socializing.
"If it's just lunch, I don't mind," Dokuho Kouya said, seeing the girl's concern. "I believe I said this morning that I'd still take part in the school's Special Exams as an ordinary member of the class."
Dokuho Kouya had indeed considered becoming Class B's loner.
But the main reason he'd chosen that path was to create a distinctive persona.
There was Koenji in Class 1-D and Kiryuin in Class 2-B.
If he simply distanced himself from his class, those two genuine loners would steal his spotlight.
So if he was going to be a loner, he had to be the most unique one.
He'd get along with his classmates in everyday life, then show his independent side during crucial moments, like Special Exams.
When that key moment in the story arrived, the audience would think something like, "Huh? So this guy's like that?"
Judging by his own tastes, if Dokuho Kouya were an audience member, he'd definitely prefer this sort of loner.
It didn't matter if the audience didn't like it that much. At least he'd stand apart from the two real loners, Koenji and Fuka Kiryuin.
"So, are you saying you'd be willing to go, Kouya?" Sayo Ando's brows lifted slightly, and her pretty face bloomed into a radiant smile.
She'd been worried that Kouya wouldn't want to go at all.
She'd been worrying for nothing.
"I never said I'd turn you down." Dokuho Kouya stood up from his seat. "Shall we go to the cafeteria now?"
"Sure. I'm starving." Sayo Ando rubbed her stomach, a little embarrassed.
She'd been in a sports club in middle school, and had needed to eat more than the average girl to make up for the energy she used in training.
As a result, she had a bigger appetite than most girls, too.
Her stomach had been growling even before the lunch bell rang.
"Are you heading to the cafeteria?" A boy with an androgynous face and black-rimmed glasses walked over with a smile. "Mind if I join you?"
"Sure, Tetsuya."
The one who wanted to join them was Tetsuya Hamaguchi, who lived in the same dormitory building as Dokuho Kouya.
They'd gone to the cafeteria for breakfast together that morning.
"Hamaguchi, you invited Kouya so naturally," Sayo Ando said, raising her brows in surprise. "I was so nervous when I asked him just now."
"I just got caught up in the atmosphere," Tetsuya Hamaguchi explained. "I was actually hesitating, too."
"But when I saw you two chatting and laughing, I felt like he probably wouldn't turn me down, so I worked up the courage to try."
The atmosphere.
In other words, reading the room.
It was an intangible thing, impossible to see or touch, yet it played an important role in people's relationships.
The atmosphere around Dokuho Kouya just now really did make him seem hard to approach.
If things stayed that way, there was a good chance that, over time, Dokuho Kouya would end up acting alone even in Class B.
But Dokuho Kouya had been at the center of that atmosphere, and he was the one who'd broken it. First, he'd joked with Sayo Ando, the girl at the next desk, then he'd agreed to go to the cafeteria with her.
Once Tetsuya Hamaguchi realized Dokuho Kouya wasn't that hard to get along with, he found the courage to strike up a conversation.
Then, after he'd succeeded, the other students nearby started thinking about joining in, too.
"Kouya, can I come along, too?"
"I'd like to join you as well."
Two students sitting near Dokuho Kouya came over.
When they arrived at a new school, unless they already knew someone in the class, the first people they would get to know were always their nearby classmates.
Whether they'd become friends later was another matter, but during the first few days of school, they'd inevitably spend plenty of time eating and chatting together.
The loner who should have been "isolated" by the class had become the leader of a clique in the blink of an eye.
It was a truly baffling turn of events.
"Of course. You're both welcome, Mako and Norihito."
Dokuho Kouya addressed Mako Amikura and Norihito Watanabe by their names in a friendly manner.
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