One was a woman who clung desperately to the past, consumed by regret over the choices she had made as a student. She had become so fixated that she believed she might find peace if she could get her class—even if it wasn't her own—promoted to Class A.
And yet, she had no intention of doing anything about that fixation. Forget taking action: while shirking her responsibilities, she even had time to stab the class under her charge in the back and trip them up.
She was pure trash.
The other had maintained the appearance of being best friends for over a decade, but in private, she still held a grudge over things that had happened during their school days. She hadn't chosen to become a teacher because she liked teaching or thought it suited her.
She'd done it to keep an eye on her dear best friend, in case the class under her really did make it to Class A.
The first was Chabashira Sae. The second was, naturally, Asakusa Toru's homeroom teacher and her dear best friend.
...Still, to the other students, she was probably just a cheerful, understanding big sister with one flaw: she liked to drink.
In truth, if you set aside her relationship with her best friend, there wasn't much about Hoshinomiya that was unforgivable beyond her drinking.
If.
But when you were at Advanced Nurturing, it was really hard not to get mixed up with that deadbeat.
Anything she did could be twisted into some move in the class competition. As long as it had to do with the class competition—especially whether she could keep her best friend's class trampled underfoot—Hoshinomiya Chie would stop at nothing.
"Ahaha, Asakusa, honestly, don't play dumb." Hoshinomiya Chie waved a hand with a laugh. "Weren't you standing there all buddy-buddy with everyone in Class C yesterday?"
"Gee, I almost thought you were planning to transfer into Class C on the first day."
"But seeing you show up for class today is a relief, at least." Hoshinomiya Chie propped her cheek on one hand and held up the index finger of the other, waggling it casually. "So, can you tell your teacher why you were with Sakagami-sensei yesterday?"
"You're not actually planning to transfer into Class C, are you?"
A transfer cost Twenty Million Personal Points, and that couldn't be made public for free just yet. It wasn't directly related to the first month's Special Exam, but it was still a fairly obvious warning.
Hoshinomiya Chie didn't think Sakagami Kazuma would make a mistake like that.
But the student in front of her really had been hanging around with another class's homeroom teacher.
That was...very interesting to her.
"If I said I was, what would you do, sensei?" Asakusa Toru asked casually, glancing around the office.
He'd actually come here with Sakagami Kazuma yesterday.
The teachers' office before him didn't belong to Hoshinomiya Chie alone. Several other teachers who were also homeroom teachers shared it with her, but they didn't seem to be back yet, leaving the room rather empty.
The meeting room was right next door, but Hoshinomiya Chie showed no intention of taking him there. She simply sat in her chair and made him stand while they talked.
Asakusa Toru couldn't tell if she was trying to put pressure on him or had simply forgotten the meeting room existed.
Either way, it didn't matter. He had no intention of being a model student, nor of meekly accepting an interrogation.
He abandoned the idea of pulling a chair over from another teacher's desk and instead plopped himself down on Hoshinomiya Chie's desk.
If she wanted to look up at him, he'd let her do it from closer by.
"Eh?" Both his words and his actions were unexpected, which only made Hoshinomiya Chie more curious. She was a little bothered by him sitting on her desk, but the reason interested her more.
So she put on an expression like a curious child.
"Why, why?"
"..." After gazing at Hoshinomiya Chie for a while, Asakusa Toru changed his answer without hesitation. "I was kidding. I'm not planning to transfer."
He'd pushed it too far.
Was this woman actually getting curious?
He'd been thinking about what to put in the diary for the past few days, and without realizing it, he'd started testing out how to play with someone's emotions.
He had to stop.
The chance of this giving him away was small, but it wasn't zero.
...He should do his best not to blur the line between the persona in the diary and the person he was outside it.
After a brief moment of self-reflection, Asakusa Toru stopped keeping her in suspense and straightforwardly admitted defeat. Then he gave her the "excuse" he'd prepared in advance.
"Actually, I knew Ryuen from Class C before," he said. "It was a rare chance to see each other again at the same high school, so I couldn't help going over to catch up."
"Then, before I knew it, I'd followed him over to Class C's area. By the time I realized, it didn't feel right to head back to my class, so that's how I ended up there yesterday."
Ha. If Ryuen heard that, he'd probably laugh his head off.
What a "friend from way back." What a "catch-up."
Their little reunion had cost Ryuen two million Private Points.
"Ah, I see." Hoshinomiya Chie's interest cooled at once.
It was a perfectly reasonable explanation. A perfectly normal excuse. It wasn't at all strange for a high school student on the first day of school to do something like that.
But it was boring.
Chapter 19: Don't Dream of the Impossible
The thoroughly boring answer immediately made Hoshinomiya Chie lose interest in Asakusa Toru. His behavior did seem a little unusual, but she had no intention of looking into it any further.
After casually offering a few teacherly reminders that could have applied to anyone, she let Asakusa Toru go.
He pushed open the office door and headed toward his classroom. Just then, a figure appeared in the hallway ahead.
Chabashira Sae.
Her brown ponytail was held high, and her ample figure filled out her teacher's uniform. The striking curves of her mature body were nothing like those of a young girl.
Yet the face of this tall, poised beauty wore a look so cold it seemed at least ten of her mothers had died.
...What bad luck.
Asakusa Toru cursed under his breath and walked past Chabashira Sae as if nothing had happened.
"..." Chabashira Sae stopped outside the office. Before going in, she turned to glance at Asakusa Toru as he walked away, then gently opened the office door.
"Classes are over? Chabashira?" Hoshinomiya Chie sat alone in the office, casually propping her head up with one hand. "How do you feel about this year's Class D?"
"Ah, never mind. I can tell just from your expression."
"Mm-hm, the school's evaluation of the students wasn't too far off this year, either." Nodding to herself, Hoshinomiya Chie smiled. "Class D should just stay in Class D, don't you think, Chabashira?"
"...Instead of worrying about Class D, you'd be better off worrying about your own Class B." Chabashira Sae returned to her seat, her expression cold. "If a student has to be brought to the office for a talk right after school starts, he must be a real problem student."
Hoshinomiya was the only teacher in the office, so it wasn't hard to figure out that Asakusa Toru was in Class B.
What happened in Class B had nothing to do with her. Even if there was a problem student, that wasn't her concern. But Hoshinomiya had made the remark sound so unpleasant.
Ah, of course she understood what her dear friend meant.
Don't dream of the impossible.
But...what if?
A faint glimmer of hope still remained in Chabashira Sae's heart.
"Asakusa? Oh, you saw him just now." Hoshinomiya Chie realized. "I only called him in to talk about something trivial. He's a little lacking in manners, but as for whether he's a problem or not, he's really not much of one."
"Who knows."
Chabashira Sae made no comment.
Hoshinomiya Chie hadn't kept him long. By the time Asakusa Toru returned to the classroom, the second period had started right on time.
The roughly fifty minutes of class ticked by, and soon the break came around again.
The model students, who had switched into class mode when the bell rang, quickly switched back to break mode. Once the teacher left, the classroom grew noisy in no time.
"Hey, hey, Asakusa's back. Didn't you say you were going to be the first to talk to him?"
"I did, but there's something about him that makes him hard to approach. How should I start a conversation?"
"You're too indecisive. If you won't talk to him, I will!"
"W-wait, Ichinose's going over!"
Under the watchful eyes of her classmates, Ichinose Honami, who had been unanimously chosen as class representative the day before, clenched her fist and walked over to Asakusa Toru's desk.
"Um, Asakusa..." She took out her Personal Terminal. "W-would you like to exchange contact information?"
Her classmates, watching from the sidelines, couldn't help exclaiming in admiration.
"Whoa, Ichinose really is direct."
"She did so easily what we couldn't!"
"..." Asakusa Toru had just finished thinking when he saw Ichinose Honami coming over to speak to him. He raised an eyebrow and took out his terminal. "Good timing. I was just about to find you."
"Add yourself." He unlocked the terminal and tossed it to Ichinose Honami.
She caught it in a flurry of movement and answered,
"O-okay!"
A little flustered for some reason, Ichinose used Asakusa Toru's terminal to add her contact information.
Once she saw her name appear in his friends list, she finally let out a breath of relief.
But after adding herself, she didn't immediately return the terminal to Asakusa Toru. Instead, she quietly let her gaze linger on his friends list.
...She wasn't the first person on it.
Besides her, there was one other name, already occupying the only spot in Asakusa Toru's friends list.
"Ryuen Kakeru."
Ichinose Honami memorized the name.
Only then did she hand the terminal back to Asakusa Toru.
"And, um..." She had just begun to say something else when Asakusa Toru, after taking his terminal back, opened his clipboard and pulled up Ichinose's chat. He tapped the paste button, then looked up.
"Check your terminal," he said.
"Huh? Okay." Though he'd interrupted what she wanted to say, Ichinose wasn't upset at all. She obediently opened her terminal.
Then she saw a long string of messages.
They described the "truth" about this school.
"..." Ichinose Honami was stunned.
Only Class A could enjoy certain privileges, students were sorted into classes from the top down, transferring required Twenty Million Personal Points, and there was a Special Exam in the first month.
"Is this all true?" She found it hard to believe.
And yet, it also seemed possible.
After all, a hundred thousand points was an incredible amount for a high school student.
"Why not check with Hoshinomiya?" Asakusa Toru put away his terminal and propped his head up with one hand. "Whether she nods or says she can't tell you, the answer will be clear."
"As for how I know all this and where I got the information, don't ask." Asakusa Toru went on, anticipating the question Ichinose Honami might ask. "Personally, I'd rather not draw too much attention, so I'd appreciate it if you just acted like you'd figured it out yourself."
"It shouldn't be hard to work backward from the results and figure out the cause, right?"
"...It shouldn't be hard." Ichinose Honami gripped her terminal.
Checking the information with Hoshinomiya-sensei, asking where the information came from, or standing in his place in the spotlight—none of that mattered.
What she cared about had never been any of those things.
The question she wanted to ask, but couldn't quite bring herself to say, was...
"Do you still remember me, Asakusa?"
Chapter 20: Self-Satisfaction
This wasn't the first time Ichinose Honami and Asakusa Toru had met.
Before you continue